As I’m sure you are aware, we encourage our listeners to send us photography questions that we can try to answer on the show.

At the moment we have a few that need attention and we are going to dedicate the most part of one episode just taking care of them. We will record this Saturday at 9pm GMT (check the time at your location). You can also follow the recording live.

That said, if you have any questions that you want us to address, this is the time to send them in – use our contact form, through any of the social networks (Twitter, Google+, Facebook) or use our email address photonetcast (_at_) photonetcast.com

Also, if you haven’t done so, we still have open our latest poll “What would you like to hear on PhotoNetCast”, and your input is appreciated.

See you Saturday…

Aperture Choice

Having a stable camera and choosing a safe shutter speed are the cause of most focus problems from my perspective. Choice of aperture can also, however, play a significant role in the overall sharpness of the image especially when you are shooting with consumer lenses. Each lens has a “sweet spot” which offers the best sharpness that that piece of glass can provide. This is generally found about 2 stops down from the widest aperture the lens supports so, on an f/4 lens this would be about f/8 and on an f/5.6 telephoto, about f/11.

Lens test results published by DPReview offer a great resource when trying to find the optimal aperture for your particular lens (assuming it has been reviewed). For example, the results for the popular Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G can be found here. The interactive graphic allows you to see the sharpness characteristics at different apertures and focal lengths across different areas of the frame. If this is too much information, the test conclusions also list the best overall apertures for the lens under test.

If your particular lens is not listed on DPReview’s site, take a look at the data provided by the manufacturer since they will usually publish the same or similar information.

Autofocus

Next we have to consider how you use the camera’s focus system. In the old days, focus was entirely up to the photographer but manual focus is hardly ever used these days and instead we rely heavily upon the camera’s autofocus system. Knowing how to use it effectively is important.

Continuous vs. single vs. manual

DSLRs typically have three main autofocus modes. In manual focus mode, autofocus is completely disabled and you are responsible for setting the focus point in your images. Given how good autofocus systems are these days, it may seem odd to turn the system off but there are some occasions when this is helpful or even vital.

Shooting macros

When shooting macro, especially when using extension tubes, autofocus frequently doesn’t work at all or, if it does, it tends to hunt around trying to acquire focus. Normally, I switch to manual focus in these situations to prevent this problem. Shooting a burst of frames as you move very slowly towards or away from the target will normally result in at least one image which is sharp where you want it to be. Manual focus is also vital if you are using software to improve the depth of field of macro images by focus stacking – taking several shots of the same subject with the focus set at different depths in each one then having software such as Photoshop use the information in these frames to generate a single image with a deeper depth of field.

Action

If you are fortunate to have fast, expensive professional lenses, you will almost certainly be able to rely upon your autofocus system when shooting sports or other action. From my experience, for example, a Nikon D700 and 70-200mm f/2.8 combined will track focus faster than my own eyes can! With cheaper lenses, however, the autofocus system often can’t keep up with the pace of the action even when using continuous autofocus mode (more of which later). In these cases, switching to manual focus can be a help. In situations where you are setting up for a shot at a particular place, for example waiting for an athlete to jump a particular hurdle or a high jumper to cross the bar, using manual focus and pre-focusing on the point that you know the shot will be at will very much increase your chance of getting the image you are looking for.

Panorama and HDR shooting

When shooting panoramas, HDRs or any other special form of photography that requires multiple images to be captured of a single scene, it is usually important to prevent changes in the focus between exposures. In these cases, set the camera focus for the first shot, either manually or using autofocus, then turn the focus system to manual to ensure that no changes occur as you take the sequence of shots.

Artistic Effects

Many cameras refuse to shoot images if focus has not been acquired. While this is useful most of the time, there are occasions when you want to take an out of focus shot for artistic effect. In these cases, turn the camera to manual focus and use the focus ring to generate the level of blur you want in your scene. In manual mode, the camera shutter will fire regardless of whether or not it thinks focus has been acquired so you are free to be as creative as you want with the focus ring.

Single vs. Continuous Autofocus

In the majority of cases, you will be shooting with autofocus enabled and you will have two more modes to choose from, single or continuous autofocus. The difference here is in how often the camera checks for focus and adjusts the lens elements for you. In single mode, a camera will autofocus once when you press the shutter halfway down or when you press a dedicated “AF” button (many DSLRs allow you to choose how autofocus is activated via a menu option). Until you release the shutter or AF button and press it again, the focus will remain locked after this one check. This is fine in most cases where you are not dealing with fast movement towards the camera and has the nice side benefit of not using a lot of battery power to tweak the lens position continuously. On the other hand, if you are shooting action where your subject is moving towards or away from the lens, this poses a problem since there will be movement between the time when the autofocus locks and the point at which you push the shutter button fully to activate the shutter release. During this time, a fast moving target will likely have moved out of the plane of focus and you will end up with a blurred image.

To combat this problem, continuous autofocus can be used. In this mode, your camera will constantly check and adjust the focus as long as you have the shutter half pressed or the AF button pressed. This is the mode of choice when shooting moving targets whether they be athletes or kids running around. The downside to continuous autofocus is that it is more battery-hungry. On Nikon cameras at least, it also turns off the autofocus illuminators so it will not likely work too well in low light or when you want to use a flash.

Choice of AF point

In addition to choosing the appropriate autofocus mode, it is also important to know exactly where in the frame your camera will focus. With compact cameras, it is common to have the camera focus in the center of the field meaning that you have to focus then recompose your shot if the subject you want to be sharp is elsewhere in the frame. On DSLRs, however, most offer various choices to help you control what the camera focuses on. In addition to the “center of frame” option, you will also generally find several other modes, most of which require your input to select the initial focus point. The Nikon DSLRs I use (D90 and D700) offer the following options:

Single Point

You select the exact focus point you want by using the multiselector on the back of the camera to move a rectangle around the viewfinder. The number of possible positions varies by camera with later and higher function models offering more choices (51 for the D700 vs. 11 for the D90, for example)

Dynamic Area

This is a bit more clever than the single point option when you are using continuous autofocus mode. You still select the focus point using the multiselector and the moving rectangle but the camera will check surrounding focus points and adjust focus as needed if the subject moves away from the initial position.

Auto-area

This is a fully automatic focus mode where the camera analyses the scene and focuses on the object that it assumes is the main subject. In this case you don’t provide any input and, as a result, have a lot less control over what is to be focused.

3D-tracking

This is the most advanced autofocus mode offered by the camera. When the shutter is pressed half way, the camera analyses the scene around the chosen autofocus point and tracks the object as it moves around the frame, keeping the same subject in focus regardless of where it moves. Once again, this mode only helps when using continuous autofocus.

Each of these modes has pros and cons but, generally speaking, the advanced modes are only really useful when shooting moving subjects. For static subjects, any mode other than fully automatic should offer similar performance. In continuous autofocus, however, different people prefer different modes so experiment and see which option you prefer for the kind of shooting you do. Personally, I use either Dynamic Area or 3D-tracking for sport shooting.

Very wide apertures

If you are used to using single point autofocus, focusing on the center of the image then turning slightly to recompose your image before making the exposure, you may fall into another trap when using very wide apertures and wide or standard lenses (50mm or below). The act of rotating the camera to recompose after focusing can actually change the camera/subject distance enough that the area you had previously focused on is now no longer pin sharp. Rather than moving the camera to refocus in these cases, it is important to keep the camera static and select focus using one of the autofocus modes that allows you to position the focus using the camera’s multiselector and the focus marker in the viewfinder.

It’s taken two posts spread over exactly a year (sorry about that!) to outline some of the issues related to getting a sharp image and this may all sound rather daunting. Overall, however, the best advice I can offer is to shoot a lot, practice your camera holding technique to keep as steady as possible and try out your camera’s various autofocus modes so that you are familiar with the ones that offer the best performance for the kind of shooting you do.

On episode 57 I’ve mentioned a new project I’m working on – Aksgar Magazine.

As I mentioned on the show, Aksgar is a new venue for the publication of narrative and documentary photography from around the world, in the form of photo essays.

We are interested in publishing works that, besides their documentary value, tell stories beyond the photos and would not, normally, have a place in traditional media.

Besides the publication of essays on aksgar.com, the magazine will be distributed electronically (pdf and app) and, probably, in print. We also have a periodic newsletter highlighting the best essays and news published on the site, besides some exclusive content. If you’re interested in getting the newsletter directly on your email inbox, all you have to do is subscribe. Subscribers to the newsletter will get the first issue of Aksgar in pdf format absolutely free.

If you think that your work is suitable for Aksgar Magazine, we are accepting submissions.

Do take a look at what we have around there, and tell us what you think. Here’s a few examples of what you can find in Aksgar.

Hunger in their Bellies by Baya Agarwal	Mughli the Lonely Mother by Altaf Qadri	Land of a Thousand Struggles by Sohrab Hura

Quick note just to let you know that the next PhotoNetCast is lined-up. We will be talking about Wildlife Photography. To help us on this one we’ll have as guest Will Burrard-Lucas. While it’s not the first time Will is on the show, it’s the first time that we’ll be dedicating one episode to the topic and share a bunch of tips on the subject.

As we have been doing for the past two episodes, the recording of PhotoNetCast 54 will be broadcasted live and you are more than welcome to join us. A chat box will be available for any questions you may have.

So, add it to your calendars:

Monday, December 6, 10pm Pacific

Tuesday, December 7, 1am Eastern, 6am GMT.

If you prefer to send your comments or questions in advance, just drop them on the bottom of this post, use our contact form, or call our voicemail line at +1 (415) 343-5030.

Photo copyright: Burrard-Lucas

David Nightingale joins us on PNC 52

Yeap, that’s it. David Nightingale (@chromasia) will joins us for a conversation about his work, photographic career and most recent book on the next PhotoNetCast.

It’s always inspiring to hear what creative and successful people have to say, and I’m sure that with Dave it won’t be any different.

So, if you have any questions or comments for Dave, please make sure you send them our way either through the contact form or the voicemail line +1 (415) 343-5030 (a comment below will also do).

And this brings me to the second topic…

PhotoNetCast 52 live

PNC 52 will also mark our more serious first attempt at broadcasting the recording live (if the interwebs allow, of course). Some time ago we toyed with the idea of broadcasting the show live to allow our listeners to interact with our guests and participate in the discussion. As I mentioned this will be a complement to the audio version of the show and never meant to replace it.

Since we do not have a very fixed schedule for the recordings, and with all the different people participating I doubt that we’ll have one anytime soon, the recording schedule will be announced over twitter (@PhotoNetCast) a couple of days before. You’ll be able to watch and chat with us at our LIVE page.

PhotoNetCast is on Facebook

Finally, no? New page for the podcast on facebook. Some show news, some other photography-related news, and the recordings schedule on the events tab. “Like it”?

Photo credit: Audience by Stijn Bokhove

• Basic photography concepts – camera controls, exposure, focusing, white balance.
• Advanced exposure control – when to ignore the meter and using histograms to best effect.
• Rules of composition – using them and breaking them.
• Photo correction and post-processing techniques.
• Camera raw adjustments.
• Lightroom workflow.
• Night and low light photography.
• Photography book reviews.
• Software package reviews.

Let us know your thoughts and suggestions!

First of all I’d like to thank all our listeners and friends for all the support you’ve been sending our way. It has been a great ride and, hopefully, it will continue to get always better.

Although we haven’t received much criticism from listeners for this, it is a topic that recurrently comes up in our pre or post-show discussions: the amount of content we should have on the site. And at the moment we feel that is probably our weakest front and it would be beneficial for the community around PhotoNetCast if some more quality information was published on the site.

And so, we are going to look into the community for this – we need some guest writers, people that want an established platform with an audience to write a few articles for once in a while.

Writing about industry news, gear, tutorials, opinions or commentary… You know what we are talking about. And you don’t have to be some big name either. As long as you have something interesting to say and have knowledge of what you want to write about, you’re good.

Interested? Get in touch. Use the contact form or email directly at photonetcat (at) photonetcast.com and we’ll discuss it further in detail.

Lately, we have been getting a higher number of questions and comments on the show, mainly via email or contact form. We truly appreciate the time you guys take in letting us know what you think of the show, and welcome you to continue doing so. However, when you get in touch via email, the most that we can do is read those questions or comments on the show, and since PhotoNetCast is an audio show, why not let your voice be heard?

Voice comments are back online

A new system is in place for you to be able to do just that: ask us your photography-related questions, give general comments on the show, mention things that you’d like us to discuss, prank call us if you feel like it, praise us on what a great photography podcast we produce

Basically anything that you’d want to give some feedback on – The listener voicemail is back online.

How to use the voicemail line?

Easy. If you are US-based, click on the "Call Me" button on the sidebar and Google will connect you to our voicemail for free. If you’re not in the US (or if you are but prefer to call direct) dial +1 (415) 343 5030. Get this number on your contacts list…

We and all the audience are looking forward to listen to what you have to say.

When we started the show back in 2008, our aim was to bring to the photographic community relevant discussions and sharing some of our knowledge and opinions.

Our aim has definitely not changed, but our lives have to be given also some priority, and if you have been following us, you’ve probably noticed that it has been increasingly difficult to manage to get all the four of us in one recording session. And that is where the true value of PhotoNetCast stands – there are good "one-man-shows" out there – but the roundtable format was/is/will be always our approach for an engaging discussion.

What we need

We believe in maximizing diversity of opinions while giving enough room for people to share them, and for us (and hopefully for you too) this lies with having 3 or 4 co-hosts per show.

At the moment, if two of us are unable to join in on a scheduled recording, we fall behind our "sweet spot" and usually tend to re-schedule, which usually means delays in publishing the shows, and that is something we’d certainly like to avoid.

So, after a brief discussion, we plan to expand the PhotoNetCast team and find two additional co-hosts. This will hopefully allow us to keep to a periodic recording and publishing schedule, and everyone involved to be able to better define their own schedules without having to juggle too many time blocks around.

Want to join the PhotoNetCast team?

What we require

Not much. You don’t need to be a professional photographer (although you’re welcome if you are), but you need to have an active and opinionated interest in photography and willingness to share those opinions.

Besides that, other requirements are (some more negotiable than others):

– Headphones / microphone / headset (you don’t need a pro mike, but something that does not terribly distort your voice is appreciated)

- Good internet connection (since we use VoIP technology to record, a connection that allows you to be heard without many cut-offs – this can be tested)

- Willingness to spend around 2 hours every 2 weeks talking about photography (depending on the number of additional co-hosts, your presence in every recording might not be required although you’re always welcome to join)

- Compatible time zone (if you live in the US this would probably be evenings, or very early mornings if you’re based in Europe, afternoon in Australia, … , you get the point and it’s open for discussion)

- Did we mention willingness to talk about photography?

How to apply

Just send us an email to photonetcast (a) photonetcast.com (or use the contact form) stating your interest, why you’d like to join us and what you bring to the show, and what is your experience with photography. Address also the points above so that we know what we can count on. That’s it. No visit to an assessment center required.

We hope that you consider the offer to join the team and help us make PhotoNetCast always better.

And don’t worry, it was also intimidating for us in the beginning, but we are a friendly bunch and we’ll make you feel welcome in no time.

Probably due to the regularity that we have been releasing episodes in the past, many of you have noticed that PhotoNetCast has been MIA.

First of all I want to thank everyone who took the time to send us emails asking about the show, and even some showing concern about our personal well-being (not to mention the shower of twitter messages). Having someone like you guys listening to our rambles on photography and having included PhotoNetCast in your playlists on a regular basis is one of the main reasons why we produce the show, and keeps us going for more.

And the lack of shows can be almost all blamed on me. In the middle of August I had some unexpected travelling to do which ruined my plans to gather the group and record, then came the holidays, and in the beginning of September our schedules simply did not allow for us to get together. I guess we can call it life…

But no worries, PhotoNetCast #36 is recorded (since this morning) and planned for release in the beginning of next week.

Once again, thanks for your patience, and I guess we’ll meet on your side of the speakers.

After one year of PhotoNetCast, and probably too much neglect, we finally decided to open the drawer where we store all the makeup kit and work on a new visual for the show’s blog.

Although a podcast is more about the audio than the site itself, we feel it’s important to project a good front image for anyone looking for new photography podcasts on the web, and for all our listeners that visit us looking for the show notes or wanting to look at the photos we select for the photo critique segments.

So, if you’re reading this on a feed reader, please head on to Photonetcast.com and take a look at the new layout. As with everything on the show, we’d be grateful if you can take a few minutes and tell us what you think about the new layout.

Still regarding this, an idea that as been mentioned behind the scenes a few times is a change in the album cover art for the show, so if sometime in the future you see a new PhotoNetCast logo, don’t be surprised. Meanwhile, if you have some ideas on what makes a good cover art for a photography podcast, let us know.

It has happened to me several times that someone asks for a critique on a certain photo or portfolio, and I’m sure this has happened to everyone else here at PhotoNetCast. Getting other people’s opinions on your work is a great way to improve photographically: you get to know what others feel about your images without the emotional attachment that you have towards your own work. While I usually gladly share my thoughts, I feel that it would be good if more than one person could benefit from the photo critiques.

If you’ve listened to our episode 26 you know what I’m hinting at here. Basically, we are opening a new segment on PhotoNetCast in which we will critique a certain photo (or more, depending on time) submitted  by one of our listeners.

How will it work?

Basically, what we have planned is to release these segments as individual episodes intercalated with our regular episodes. Hopefully, these episodes will be shorter than usual, and if we have a good volume of contributions from the PhotoNetCast community, you’ll have something to listen from us every week (something that our listeners have been asking for some time).

We will provide honest critiques, looking at the good and the bad of your photos, and we’ll try to give suggestions on how they could be improved. Together with the release of the episodes, the photos in question will be published here on the blog so that all our listeners can follow the conversation. During these conversations, we’ll probably approach different topics regarding composition rules, exposure, depths of field, etc. so we believe this will provide value for everyone.

For now the theme is open, but it is possible that we will release certain topics for you to submit to in the future.

How to submit your photos?

If you have a photo (or more than one) that you’d like us to critique on the show, here is how you can send it to us:

Flickr – If you want your submissions to be seen by everyone (whether they end up in critique or not), the best way is just to add your work to our just-created PhotoNetCast group on Flickr.

Email – Alternatively you can send us an email at photonetcast _at_ photonetcast.com (or use our contact form) with a link to wherever your photo is located on the web. If the photo is not published anywhere on the web, feel free to attach it in the email.

And that’s it.

Please note: By submitting your photos you accept that, if your photo is chosen to be critiqued, you give us permission to post it here on the blog in a low resolution format. The photo will be linked to its page on Flickr or wherever you have it on the web.

Anything else?

Nope. This is it. Besides any value you might take from it, we hope you’ll enjoy this new segment of PhotoNetCast, your photography podcast.

As always, any comments and ideas are very much appreciated.

Since the first episodes of PhotoNetCast, once in a while, I get email from listeners asking me how do we produce the show and what equipment do we use (hopefully because the show sounds good). I always try to answer as best as I can, but I feel like I’m repeating myself. So, while I understand that this is not directly photography-related and might not interest all of you, it will be a point that I can direct listeners to whenever these questions come up. And after all, it’s no big secret… Also, it seems that there is not much information on how to setup the equipment that I’m now using for the purpose of podcasting. I hope this will help there as well.

Of course that our system may not be the best one (I’m sure it is not) but it has been a learning process since the beginning and so far it’s working well for us. So, here we go…

The conference call

As you are aware, we are four photographers located at four different geographical locations. While “one-man-shows” do not have to deal with this, we do. All our conversations are done with what is probably one of the most used applications for VoIP and conference calls: Skype.

To record the conversations from Skype, we use Pamela. This little piece of software is able to record incoming and outgoing sound on two different channels of a wav file which makes it ideal for editing. Up to episode #20, this was our only way to record the show. This has recently changed and we now have a different way to record the conversations (more bellow), but this system is still used as a backup recording, just in case…

The podcasting equipment

As I mentioned above, I’ve upgraded some of my equipment and I believe the difference was quite noticeable after episode #21. Until then, the four of us were using headsets with microphones and we never got any big complains about the quality. In fact, both Brian and Martin are still using them and they sound great (Brian is using the Cyber Acoustics AC-840 and Martin uses the Hama HS-400). It’s proof that a podcast can indeed be produced with an extremely low budget.

And this is what my setup looks like after the upgrade.

I know that Jim has also upgraded his gear in order to improve his sound both for PhotoNetCast and EXIF and Beyond and he is now using a Blue Bluebird microphone attached to an Icicle USB preamp.

As for my side, this is what you see in the image above (besides the laptop, the colorimeter, the hard drives, etc.):

• Behringer Xenyx 1002FX mixer
• Behringer B-2 Pro microphone
• Roland Edirol UA-1EX USB audio interface
• Audio-Technica ATH-M20 headphones

And what do I do with all this mess to record the show?

Recording PhotoNetCast

So many knobs, so many cables…

One of the big “fights” that podcasters have while using a mixer and Skype to record shows is that the incoming sound from Skype needs to go into the mixer and the outgoing sound from the microphone connected to the mixer needs to go into Skype. One problem with this is that usually creates a very ugly feedback loop with co-hosts listening to themselves (usually with some delay) and makes the recording impossible.

I’ve figured out a way to bypass this problem and at the same time allowing me to use a third-party application (such as Adobe Audition or Audacity) to record directly the output from the mixer to two separate channels and still keeping Pamela recording as backup.

The setup is hard to explain, but I’ll try.

Let’s start with the mixer. The left column is what controls my microphone. I won’t go into levels and gain (if you want a good explanation of how this works, listen to Podcasters Emporium 11) nor into equalization settings. Two things you should note is that the microphone is completely panned to the left and the aux knob (the red one) is not completely off but outputting just slightly.

The next column is the sound coming in from Skype (yellow line connects the headset output from the laptop into this mixer input). This one is completely panned to the right and aux knob is off.

On the top of the third column (and unrelated to it) is the aux-bus out, which is outputting the sound from my microphone (remember the red knob turned up just slightly on the microphone? This is where that sound goes). This is connected to the mic-in on the laptop (gold line) and allows my co-hosts to listen to me (and not themselves avoiding that feedback loop I mentioned before). It is not used for the main recording.

On top of the fourth column is the headphones output which allows me to listen to myself and the sound coming from Skype.

Over on the right is the main mixer output. My sound and the sound from Skype are separated into left and right channels (remember the panning to the left on my microphone and  to the right on the Skype sound?). These are connected to the USB interface (red and blue lines) which then connects to the laptop. The advantage of having such a USB interface is that the computer recognizes it almost as a separate sound card. This way I can have Skype using the laptop sound card (with incoming and outgoing sounds flowing through the normal mic and headset plugs) and the recording third-party software using the USB interface and recording what comes out of the mixer (both my voice and my co-hosts’), equalized and ready to go. I pan my sound to the left and Skype sound to the right so that I can record into the same track my voice in one channel and my co-hosts’ in the other which, again, is perfect for editing.

I told you it was hard to explain…

Editing and Publishing the Show

If everything went well, I now have two WAV files: one from the main recording and a second one from the backup recording. Hopefully I have to use only the first.

The editing consists of cutting out the things that you shouldn’t really be listening to(some are ending up as outtakes at the end of the show) like some middle show conversation, me loosing the train of thought, silent patches, Martin one of us dropping off the call, too many ahhh hmmm and the like, etc. The intro and outro clips and bumpers are also added at this stage, usually everything into different tracks.

The next step is mixing all the tracks and channels into a single mono track (second track on the image above). To give consistency to the sound levels, the track goes into a compression algorithm which amplifies the lowest volumes and decreases the loudest ones. A normalization step goes next to amplify as much as possible without clipping the sound. The final version of the WAV file is now ready.

Next, the WAV is converted to mp3 (64kbs mono), the file is tagged, uploaded to the server and the corresponding blog post is written. It all ends around 4+ hours later by hitting the Publish button.

And that is it. Listening to the show is your part of the job (and writing some iTunes reviews also).

I know that I went into probably too much detail on this one, but one of my aims was really to get out some more technical details to anyone wanting to use the same setup. And at least, now you know almost everything that is going on (at least on my side) to produce PhotoNetCast.

As always, if you have any questions or are curious about any further details, just ask. I’ll do my best to explain.

Following an idea that the podcast market on Digital Photography is currently too focused on content created by single individuals, and that there is a need for a space in which Photography is discussed between people in the industry, in a dynamic and relaxed way, PhotoNetCast was created.

Antonio Marques (Words: irrational), Martin Gommel (Kwerfeldein), Jim Goldstein (JMG-Galleries) and Brian Auer (Epic Edits) came together and share their knowledge and opinions on topics that concern beginners and advanced photographers alike.

We hope that our efforts are well accepted by the photography community (you), and that besides the entertainment factor, we can bring you topics that prove to be also educational.

Every two weeks we are here, and hope to find you on that side of the headphones.