The recording of my webinar presentation on “Solving Resolution Confusion” is now available on my “Tim Grey TV” channel on YouTube. This presentation as part of the “GreyLearning Live!” webinar series was aimed at helping you truly understand the various aspects of resolution in photography so you can avoid “Resolution Confusion”.
You’ll learn about the different (and often confusing) ways that resolution is described, get a better sense of what resolution really means and how it impacts your photography, and learn about some of the ways resolution should never be measured. I also addressed questions from attendees along the way.
You can view the recording of the full presentation on “Solving Resolution Confusion” here:
When I import new photos into my Lightroom Classic catalog, I assign a red color label to every single image. This key step in my workflow takes no effort at all, because I use a metadata preset to add the color label to all photos being imported. But this simple step greatly improves the effectiveness of my workflow for managing photos.
The reason for assigning a red color label to every photo I import into my Lightroom Classic catalog is very simple. I use that red color label to identify images I have not yet reviewed yet.
Every photo I import needs to be reviewed, so they all get a red color label. Once I have reviewed a batch of photos, I remove the red color label, leaving behind star ratings to define my favorite photos.
With this workflow, I always know which photos I haven’t yet had a chance to review. This happens quite often when I’m traveling, with long days and lots of photography, so the red color labels help make sure I don’t miss out on reviewing photos from one of my trips.
You can learn more about the workflow I use to manage my photos in Adobe Lightroom Classic, including the use of red color labels as a key part of my workflow, in my “Real-World Organizational Workflow” course that you can find on the GreyLearning website here:
It is often said that a long lens will “compress” a scene, making near and far objects appear to be closer to each other. In actual fact, it is not the longer lens focal length that is compressing the scene. What actually causes this compression is moving the camera further away from the subjects you are photographing. I can demonstrate this with a few images.
This photo was captured at a lens focal length of 100mm:
The Brooklyn Bridge photographed at a lens focal length of 100mm.
Standing in the exact same position, I then zoomed in to a focal length of 400mm to capture this photo:
The Brooklyn Bridge photographed at a lens focal length of 400mm.
If you examine both of the above images, you can see that the relative sizes of the two key objects (the lamp and a tower of the Brooklyn Bridge) remain the same in both photos. That is because I stood at the exact same position for both photos, only changing the focal length to zoom in. In other words, changing focal length only cropped the scene, not compress the scene.
To help make this concept a little easier to understand, I have created a composite with the 400mm image resized to match the applicable area of the 100mm image, highlighting the area that the 400mm image represents. Here is that image:
The inset image captured at a longer lens focal length from the exact same position simply reflects a cropping of the image captured at a shorter lens focal length, with the inset image aligning with the area identified by the red box.
Next, I walked closer to my subjects. As I walked, the apparent size of the lamp increased relative to the tower of the bridge in the background. I was reducing the apparent compression of the scene by moving closer to my subjects. Of course, because I didn’t have a ladder and couldn’t hover, the lamp appeared in a higher position relative to the tower of the bridge. But that is an issue of parallax, not compression. You can see the change in relative size for the two objects in this photo, which happened to be captured at a lens focal length of 118mm:
Walking closer to the subjects, the lamp now has a larger relative size compared to the tower of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. The lamp appears at a higher position because of parallax.
To be sure, when you change your distance to the subjects you are photographing, you may need to change your lens focal length in order to maintain the same framing for the scene. But it is your relative distance to the scene that causes a change in apparent compression of the scene. The lens focal length is merely cropping that scene to achieve the desired framing.
This issue has been the subject of several questions recently in my Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, and so I hope this blog post helps to provide something of a “final answer” on the subject.
The recording of my webinar presentation on “Solving Resolution Confusion” is now available on my “Tim Grey TV” channel on YouTube. This presentation as part of the “GreyLearning Live!” webinar series was aimed at helping you truly understand the various aspects of resolution in photography so you can avoid “Resolution Confusion”.
