Ask A Pro: Scott Kelby Answers Your Photography Questions

 

Got Questions About Photography? Professional Photographer and Photoshop Expert Scott Kelby Has Got Answers.

Q. I started my hobby in 1966 in the days of 35mm film. I finally progressed to my Nikon F3 and enjoyed making double exposures with it. Now I have graduated to my Canon 7D. Is it possible to make double exposures with a DSLR? I haven’t figured out how to do it.

A. Good news—it’s built right into the camera, and you don’t even have to rewind any frames like you did on your F3. On the back of your camera, click the button that looks like a rectangle with a paintbrush on it. In the menu that appears, use the dial to scroll over to “Multiple Exposure” and click the Set button on that. By default it’s set to “Disable” so you want to turn it On: Func/Ctrl, which works best if you want to take your first shot, see the result, then take a second. Now use the dial to scroll to the menu item called “Multi-expos ctrl” and set it to Average (for your first try—later you might want to mess with Additive, but that requires jumping through a few hoops in the menus). Now choose how many exposures you want in your single frame. I’m guessing two (the default) since you mentioned a “double exposure,” but you can choose more if you like. Then you get to choose if you want to save each individual frame plus the final double-exposure frame, or just the double exposure. You do this in the Save Source Imgs menu. Lastly, go to the bottom of the menu we’ve been in; under Continue Mult-exp set it to Continuously so it stays on until you turn it off again. Whew! Now take your first shot. You can press the Play button on the back of the camera to see how it looks. Then take your second shot, and this second shot is exposed onto the first frame, creating a double exposure. Now you can press the Play button again to see the final double-exposure image. While the camera is all set up now, I’ve found it takes a lot of experimenting with backgrounds, poses, and positioning in the frame to make a successful double-exposure composition, but you knew that from your film days. At least now you can see if it worked right away and then adjust and tweak as you go, instead of waiting for the film to come back from the lab. Plus, now the experimenting is free.

 

Q. While vacationing I take pictures and upload them into my laptop where I develop, organize, and make slide shows. Once home I want to transfer all of these photos along with their catalog into my desktop computer using my memory stick. Please explain the procedure to transfer from my laptop to my desktop.

A. I’m assuming you’re using Lightroom, since this sounds like a very Lightroomy thing to be doing, so here goes: In Lightroom, put your vacation photos into a Collection (sounds like they already are, but I had to mention it). Next, click on the vacation collection you want to move from your laptop to the desktop, while keeping all your edits and stuff still in place. Go under the File menu and choose “Export as Catalog.” This brings up the Export window—make sure you select “Export Negative Files” so it copies the actual files, not just the Lightroom previews. Now plug your memory stick into your laptop and choose to Export your catalog to that memory stick (the Export window is a standard “Save” window, so you’ll recognize it). Now eject that stick from your laptop and insert it into your desktop computer. Launch Lightroom on your desktop and go under the File menu and choose “Import from Another Catalog,” then choose the catalog file on your memory stick. Now you’ll see an import window where you can check to have all the images and previews brought right into Lightroom on your desktop as if you created them there in the first place. Voilà! Now, there is one more little thing: your slide show. Go to the Slideshow module on your laptop and save your slide show (the button is called “Create Saved Slideshow” and it’s at the top right corner of your slide show). Now, do the same export catalog routine with this slide show. Of course, you could do this part first and save that slide show in a Collection set with all of your other vacation photos, and then just export the set and it will keep everything in tact. I’d do it that way.

 

Q. I often see people photographing using their computers/tablets. The sight of the large view screen resurrects my longtime admiration of old view camera photos with their great detail and accurate perspective. Would it be possible to make a modestly priced digital view camera setup using off-the-shelf components such as a view camera lens, a lens holder that would provide rises, tilts, etc., a sensor, and a portable computer/tablet as a viewing screen and recording device?

A. I hear ya—once you get used to shooting to a large screen, it’s hard to go back to viewing your images on the smallest screen you probably own (your camera’s LCD screen is probably smaller than your cell phone’s screen by a bunch). You can actually buy a kit to assemble a 4x5 View Camera for around $329 (jaybender.com/BPH/4x5.htm), but instead of going super old school, you might first try simply shooting “tethered” into your computer. Shooting tethered is faster, easier, and you probably already have the two things you need to do it: Lightroom and the little USB cable that came with your camera. Connect the small end into your camera’s mini-USB port and the regular USB into your computer. Launch Lightroom and then go under Lightroom’s File menu; under Tethered Capture choose Start Tethered Capture. Now when you take a shot it goes directly into your computer and you can see your images come in at whatever the full size of your screen is (I take my computer on location for just this reason and it makes a huge difference).

 

Scott Kelby is a photographer, Photoshop Guy, award-winning author of more than 50 books, and CEO of KelbyOne, an online education community dedicated to helping photographers take the kinds of images they’ve always dreamed of. You can learn more about Scott at his daily blog (scottkelby.com), or follow him on Twitter: @scottkelby.

(Editor’s Note: Ask a Pro is a new Q&A column from professional photographer, writer, and educator Scott Kelby. Scott is here to answer all your photography-related questions, so if you have something you’d like to know, e-mail him at editorial@shutterbug.com -- with “For Scott Kelby” as the subject line -- and your query could be featured in the next edition of Ask a Pro.)

COMMENTS
BKingFOTO's picture

I think you missed the point of the question regarding the desire for a DIY view camera. The question specifically was looking for a way to achieve "photos with their great detail and accurate perspective". Shooting tethered will do nothing to provide either.

Options for the reader could include using a tilt-shift lens for their DSLR to provide the perspective control, and either a larger format digital sensor camera or multi-image "panorama" technique to capture images with higher detail.

With regard to shooting tethered, I'd also add that with either built-in Wi-Fi, or a Wi-Fi accessory, you can shoot "tethered" to an iPad to take advantage of the larger screen without the physical cable connection. I like shooting this way. It allows me to set up an architectural shot and walk around the space with my iPad and move furniture, furnishing, lighting etc. while seeing the changes without constantly going back to a tethered computer (or hiring an assistant).

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