The following photos show just one of the many reasons why you would want to hire a professional photographer with the proper equipment to do photos you might otherwise try yourself. Along with giving you great portraits, a professional can free your images from digital prison and product quality prints to enjoy for ever. As you look at these images, pay attention to the differences in detail and quality. You will be looking at 3 sets of images as 5x7 format. Each set contains the full image and the cropped image so you can see the effect when the image is enlarged. The same lighting and setup was used. The first set is iPhone hand held. Second set is iPhone on a tripod and the final image is a professional quality Canon 5D Mark II Digital SLR. While it's obvious the iPhone is no match for a pro quality camera for many reasons, many people believe they are getting great images on their camera because they look good on the screen. However, once you try to zoom in or print an enlargement from the iPhone or other point and shoot camera, the results can be less than acceptable.


Notice how all of the full images look sharp and nice but pay close attention to the detail of each cropped image. Also notice the color of the iPhone Photos compared to the Canon 5D Mark II DSLR.

Notice how this image is blurry because it was hand held. This is a common problem with camera phone problems because it's very difficult to hold the camera still. Also notice that the image is starting to pixelate with rough edges.

To give the iPhone a fair chance at competing, it was put on a tripod with a special iPhone Tripod Mount. Again, the full image looks sharp.

On this cropped in image, it is sharper due to the tripod, but you can still see pixelation creeping in and the color still is not that great.

Now with a professional high quality camera, the color is what it should be, the image is very sharp.

Even when cropped in heavily as was done in the iPhone Photos, you can see that the image is still very sharp, the colors look good and there is no apparent pixelation going on.

A final note. While equipment is important, how that equipment is used is also very important as well. Proper use of equipment by a trained photographer is going to yield the best possible images and prints. And to answer a very common questions, "No, you can't always fix problems with an image in Photoshop". In fact, you can actually make and image look worse when enlarged or printed if you don't start with a good image and over do processing in photoshop.

The best images and prints are produced by using the proper equipment and get as much right on the camera as possible! Have fun with your camera or camera phone, but if you aren't trained as a photographer, hire someone that is for the important photo events!

Photography in the Digital Age

In this day in age of digital cameras that seem to be everywhere, many people feel that they don't need professional photography. They will pull out their phone, take some photos with it and then figure it's good enough. While new smart phone and other small digital camera do an amazing job over the point and shoot cameras of just a few years ago. There are however, a number of things to consider when you decide whether or not to hire a professional.  

• Most point and shoot cameras and smart phone cameras do not allow for much creative control which can limit the ability to get the proper exposure and desired effect in the camera.
• The lens on these cameras and all of the smart phone and compact cameras are very small and can't match the quality of a dedicated lens of an DSLR camera. Even if the megapixel rating is the same, the quality of the images from the small lens built into these phones and point shoot cameras will not hold up compared to a DSLR or other professional camera. They may look good in the preview or even on the computer, but as you start to look closer, the difference is apparent.
• It's very difficult to hold a camera steady when holding away from your body which is what you must do with most Point and Shoot Cameras and all camera phones I've ever seen. If there is even the slightest movement of the camera, an image will look blurry or fuzzy if you zoom in enough. This can make final prints look less than desirable especially on larger images.
• The sensors that capture the images in these cameras are very small and do not have the ability to capture the detail of the larger cameras.

It's very easy to look at the preview of an image on the display and think it's good. Sometimes the problems do not become noticeable until the image is previewed in larger sizes or zoomed in on.

Prints or Digital

Prints will always have that special look to them that can't be duplicated on a computer screen not to mention the many ways you can display them. And prints can be viewed with no power, no electronics and last at least 75 to 100 years, possibly longer when properly cared for.

So the question is, what images should be printed? The simple answer is, which ever images you want in print. However most people shoot far more pictues with digital than with film, so the number of images sitting on the memory cards and hard drives can easily grow into the tens of thousands for an avid shooter. It has become impractical for most digital camera owners to print all of their photos.

So does one decide which photos to print and which to leave in storage? Here's some tips that may make the decision easier.

Before deciding what to print, it's a good idea to organize the photos in some way. There's a number of software solutions for this that work very well, if you take the time to setup everything and put in the information needed to properly use them. I like to keep things simple and usable down the road on pretty much any computer or operating system I might be using. So I chose the very simple approach. I create a folder called "Images" or "Photos" and then I create subfolders for each photo event that includes the name and date in the folder name. Then I put all the photos from an event into the appropriate folder. An event might be a few hours or a two week vacation I took over the summer. The idea is, I can very easily look through my folders and find the event or point in time I'm looking for. This method is free, it works in Windows, Mac OS, Linux or any operating system that lets you create folders. Backup is easy and there's no need to enter a bunch of data for you images. I do recommend backing up events to CD or DVD and label them by the event and date just like the folders.

Now with the storage and backup figured out, I look through my images and determine which ones to print. I usually create a temporary folder to copy the images I want to print to so it's easy to send them to the lab or put them on a CD to take to the lab.

To determine which images I want to print, I usually consider a few things. Is this a special moment, memorable or important? Something that I would want for a keepsake regardless of how good or technically correct the photo may be. If so, I will want a print.

Is this image a must have as a print for any other reason? Doesn't really matter what the reason is, just that I really want a print.

Finally, I will consider images based on how good they might be to display in an album or frame. For this I will usually look for the best images because I will have likely shot a number of similar images and I want to choose the best one. I may spend some time cropping and working on the selected images to prepare for printing so I got the best print I can. When selecting images like this I will also consider other things as well:

- Why did I take this photo?
- Is the subject of the image obvious?
- Does the image tell a story?
- Is the image sharp and in focus (or at least the subject)
- Does the image have a good exposure or it or parts of it too bright or too dark?
- Is the overall quality of the the image good?
- Is the image something I'd like to see in an album or framed and hung on the wall or sitting on a desk?

These are just some things I like to use when choosing my images for prints. Nothing is cast in stone, but like most, I can't afford to print tens of thousands of images, and I wouldn't have taken that many with a film camera. I do think it's very important to have some of my images in prints and I recommend that everyone do the same. Hopefully, these tips will encourage you and others to make prints too! And finally, keep in mind that just because you don't make a print of an image now, doesn't mean you can't come back at a later time and print it.

Now Located In West Sacramento California

We have moved to West Sacramento, CA. We are now providing photography services to West Sacramento, Sacramento and Placer Counties and surrounding areas.

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Batson Photography

Spring is a Great Time for Outdoor Portraits!

It's been some time since the blog has been updated. Just as spring starts a new season and new life, Batson Photography is going through some changes as well, for the Good!

The Main Changes are these:

Slight change in Focus of services offered. Weddings are now only offered on a very limited and exclusive basis.

Portrait Offerings continue to be available in outdoor settings, Indoor locations, and traditional studio style at your location. Free mounting on mat board for all prints over 8x10 is not automatically included unless you specify otherwise.

Options for obtaining image files on CD are now available with some packages or with a specified minimum purchase.

Commercial, Stock and Photo Art Services and Product offerings are now available.

For more information or schedule a session, Contact Us Today!

The Holiday Season is Officially Here!

Well have you started your holiday shopping? Or, are you the type that waits until the last minute? Well, here's your chance to make this year different. Get your holiday portraits done early this year! The weather is still nice too, so there's opportunity to get some nice outdoor portraits with fall colors, but don't wait too long for that! And just think, if you get your holiday portraits done now, you will actually have time to order up some of those nice holiday cards to send to friends and family and have them arrive on time.

For more information, Click Here.