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Photography News Issue 36 absolutephoto.com
Ensure perfect capture every time with these tips and accessories Got the camera... Got the lens... What else?
So we all like to have the latest and greatest camera and the best lenses but we can’t replace our cameras every time there’s a new, slightly improvedmodel released. Likewise once you have a few lenses relevant toyour styleof photography, having more can just mean backache due
to a bulging, heavier camera bag. Plus, constantly changing lenses means your sensor is much more likely to need frequent cleaning. Here we look at four Datacolor accessories that will improve your photographs and workflow without having to upgrade your Tip 2 Get balanced Shooting in unusual lighting or under man-made light sources like strip or halogen lighting will affect your image’s colour no matter how good your camera’s white-balance system. If you want to correct for the lighting you are in and to remove any colour casts, having a neutral grey target to shoot is essential. Compared with using old-style grey cards that are prone to easy marking, creasing and even blowing away, Datacolor’s SpyderCUBE provides a robust, portable and pocketable target that you can easily drop into a test shot allowing you to use your image-processing software’s white-balance tools to correct your photo’s colour temperature. By copying these adjustments you can then batch correct all the photos that were taken in the same conditions. The SpyderCUBE also has a metallic ball and black strap to help you also set the exposure and contrast (black point) accurately to avoid losing either any highlight or shadow detail across your shoot.
camera. Furthermore, they will work for future camera and lens upgrades too. Better still, these four accessories feature in Swiss manufacturer Datacolor’s new SpyderCAPTURE PRO Bundle, so you can improve your image capture workflow in one go.
Tip 4What you see is what you get Getting white-balance correct at capture is paramount but even if you’ve correctly captured your image colours and hues you can undo all your hard work if you start retouching your image on an uncalibrated monitor and hence adjust for imperfections of your display rather than your subject. Hence the fourth tip is: monitor calibration. The new Spyder5 has been redesigned to handle the calibration of all modern screens from 4K through to curved OLEDs. Every time that you change the lighting conditions that you are in, you will see colours differently. Hence the Spyder5’s rugged physical design with encapsulated optics, lens cap and sensor grill make it ideal for ensuring that you are viewing the true colours of the scene in your images wherever you may be.
Save €100 (£86) Spyder5CAPTURE PRO retails for €389 (£333) and is now available for only €289 (£247) if purchased online from the Datacolor webstore or from your local participating retailer by 30 September 2016. Purchases via the Datacolor Webstore from the UK must be paid for in Euros.
Tip 1 Get focused Many of us rely on autofocus, but in a survey of over 1000 photographers conducted at Photokina expo around 60% of camera and lens combinations measured were found to be autofocusing incorrectly. Datacolor’s SpyderLENSCAL gives you a quick and easy means of checking and correcting autofocus. Simply pop the guide up, shoot it and check the focus point on the image of the LENSCAL. If it isn’t spot on to the ‘0’ of the angled scale then you can use the SpyderLENSCAL to correct the autofocus point using your camera’s micro-adjustment. Hey presto, no matter the age or condition of your camera or lens, you’re now in focus.
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Tip 3 Get the colours right If it’s important to correct for more than just colour temperature, exposure and contrast to get your subject’s colours spot on, especially if you are shooting wildlife, sport, fashion and weddings. For this, Datacolor’s colour chart, the SpyderCHECKR, is the ideal solution. This double colour card device (one for general colours and one for skin tones) sits in a protective, tripod mountable case that folds flat for easy storage and is light enough to leave in the camera bag. Also, the target’s cards are printed hence replaceable should the built-in fade checker ever let you know that you need to change them. The SpyderCHECKR enables you to correct white-balance, exposure and contrast just like the SpyderCUBE, but an additional plug-in or Adobe Lightroom and other softwares creates a colour correction solution for the entire colour curve of your shots with the touch of a button. This enables you to get all the colours in your photograph a perfect match to the original subject’s.
Below Datacolor Spyder5 for Screen Calibration
Tip4.1 Andonemore thing... One common feature of all the SpyderCAPTURE PRO tools is that you can fix them to a tripod. Whether you are checking autofocus or your white-balance, being able to tripod mount your target saves the need for an assistant. Similarly the addition of the tripod mount to the Spyder5 screen calibrator really helps when calibrating larger wall-mounted screens or projectors. As a result we’ve also been looking for a versatile range of tripods and stands and are very impressed by 3 Legged Thing’s range. So if you’re also looking for a stable and affordable mount to add to your kit bag these may well be worth a look.
Below Datacolor SpyderCUBE for correct white-balance
Top Datacolor SpyderLENSCAL for focus checking Above Autofocus is spot on when the ‘0’ is in focus
Above Datacolor SpyderCHECKR for accurate colour capture
Above All the SpyderCapture PRO tools can be fixed to a tripod
Learnmore about controlling colour and contrast
Datacolor products are available frommost major camera retailers and online at the Datacolor web store.
For more detailed information on how to go about any of the elements discussed in this article you can sign up for one of Datacolor’s free, live, one hour web-based seminars. Alternatively you can check out some of the pre-recorded review videos on this and many other photographic areas at the Nexttek Channel on YouTube.
datacolor.com/s5cpuk-webinar datacolor.com/s5cpuk
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