Photography Tips and Tutorials

CAMERA EXPOSURE

2012-01-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

A photograph’s exposure determines how light or dark an image will appear when it’s been captured by your camera. Believe it or not, this is determined by just three camera settings: aperture, ISO and shutter speed (the "exposure triangle"). Mastering their use is an essential part of developing an intuition for photography.

UNDERSTANDING EXPOSURE

Achieving the correct exposure is a lot like collecting rain in a bucket. While the rate of rainfall is uncontrollable, three factors remain under your control: the bucket’s width, the duration you leave it in the rain, and the quantity of rain you want to collect. You just need to ensure you don’t collect too little ("underexposed"), but that you also don’t collect too much ("overexposed"). The key is that there are many different combinations of width, time and quantity that will achieve this. For example, for the same quantity of water, you can get away with less time in the rain if you pick a bucket that’s really wide. Alternatively, for the same duration left in the rain, a really narrow bucket can be used as long as you plan on getting by with less water.

In photography, the exposure settings of aperture, shutter speed and ISO speed are analogous to the width, time and quantity discussed above. Furthermore, just as the rate of rainfall was beyond your control above, so too is natural light for a photographer.

EXPOSURE TRIANGLE: APERTURE, ISO, & SHUTTER SPEED

Imagine a triangle with equal sides and angles. The top angle would be aperture (depth of field), the lower right angle would be ISO speed (image noise), and the left angle would be shutter speed (motion blur)

Each setting controls exposure differently:

Aperture: controls the area over which light can enter your camera

Shutter speed: controls the duration of the exposure

ISO speed: controls the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor to a given amount of light

One can therefore use many combinations of the above three settings to achieve the same exposure. The key, however, is knowing which trade-offs to make, since each setting also influences other image properties. For example, aperture affects depth of field, shutter speed affects motion blur and ISO speed affects image noise.

The next few sections will describe how each setting is specified, what it looks like, and how a given camera exposure mode affects their combination.

SHUTTER SPEED

A camera’s shutter determines when the camera sensor will be open or closed to incoming light from the camera lens. The shutter speed specifically refers to how long this light is permitted to enter the camera. "Shutter speed" and "exposure time" refer to the same concept, where a faster shutter speed means a shorter exposure time.

By the Numbers. Shutter speed’s influence on exposure is perhaps the simplest of the three camera settings: it correlates exactly 1:1 with the amount of light entering the camera. For example, when the exposure time doubles the amount of light entering the camera doubles. It’s also the setting that has the widest range of possibilities:

Shutter Speed	Typical Examples
1 – 30+ seconds	Specialty night and low-light photos on a tripod
2 – 1/2 second	To add a silky look to flowing water Landscape photos on a tripod for enhanced depth of field
1/2 to 1/30 second	To add motion blur to the background of a moving subject Carefully taken hand-held photos with stabilization
1/50 – 1/100 second	Typical hand-held photos without substantial zoom
1/250 – 1/500 second	To freeze everyday sports/action subject movement Hand-held photos with substantial zoom (telephoto lens)
1/1000 – 1/4000 second	To freeze extremely fast, up-close subject motion

How it Appears. Shutter speed is a powerful tool for freezing or exaggerating the appearance of motion:


With waterfalls and other creative shots, motion blur is sometimes desirable, but for most other shots this is avoided. Therefore all one usually cares about with shutter speed is whether it results in a sharp photo — either by freezing movement or because the shot can be taken hand-held without camera shake.

How do you know which shutter speed will provide a sharp hand-held shot? With digital cameras, the best way to find out is to just experiment and look at the results on your camera’s rear LCD screen (at full zoom). If a properly focused photo comes out blurred, then you’ll usually need to either increase the shutter speed, keep your hands steadier or use a camera tripod.

APERTURE SETTING

A camera’s aperture setting controls the area over which light can pass through your camera lens. It is specified in terms an f-stop value, which can at times be counterintuitive, because the area of the opening increases as the f-stop decreases. In photographer slang, the when someone says they are "stopping down" or "opening up" their lens, they are referring to increasing and decreasing the f-stop value, respectively.

By the Numbers. Every time the f-stop value halves, the light-collecting area quadruples. There’s a formula for this, but most photographers just memorize the f-stop numbers that correspond to each doubling/halving of light:

Aperture Setting	Relative Light	Example Shutter Speed
f/22	1X	16 seconds
f/16	2X	8 seconds
f/11	4X	4 seconds
f/8.0	8X	2 seconds
f/5.6	16X	1 second
f/4.0	32X	1/2 second
f/2.8	64X	1/4 second
f/2.0	128X	1/8 second
f/1.4	256X	1/15 second

The above aperture and shutter speed combinations all result in the same exposure.

Note: Shutter speed values are not always possible in increments of exactly double or half another shutter speed, but they’re always close enough that the difference is negligible.

The above f-stop numbers are all standard options in any camera, although most also allow finer adjustments, such as f/3.2 and f/6.3. The range of values may also vary from camera to camera (or lens to lens). For example, a compact camera might have an available range of f/2.8 to f/8.0, whereas a digital SLR camera might have a range of f/1.4 to f/32 with a portrait lens. A narrow aperture range usually isn’t a big problem, but a greater range does provide for more creative flexibility.

Technical Note: With many lenses, their light-gathering ability is also affected by their transmission efficiency, although this is almost always much less of a factor than aperture. It’s also beyond the photographer’s control. Differences in transmision efficiency are typically more pronounced with extreme zoom ranges. For example, Canon’s 24-105 mm f/4L IS lens gathers perhaps ~10-40% less light at f/4 than Canon’s similar 24-70 mm f/2.8L lens at f/4 (depending on the focal length).

How it Appears. A camera’s aperture setting is what determines a photo’s depth of field (the range of distance over which objects appear in sharp focus). Lower f-stop values correlate with a shallower depth of field:

ISO SPEED

The ISO speed determines how sensitive the camera is to incoming light. Similar to shutter speed, it also correlates 1:1 with how much the exposure increases or decreases. However, unlike aperture and shutter speed, a lower ISO speed is almost always desirable, since higher ISO speeds dramatically increase image noise. As a result, ISO speed is usually only increased from its minimum value if the desired aperture and shutter speed aren’t otherwise obtainable.

note: image noise is also known as "film grain" in traditional film photography

Common ISO speeds include 100, 200, 400 and 800, although many cameras also permit lower or higher values. With compact cameras, an ISO speed in the range of 50-200 generally produces acceptably low image noise, whereas with digital SLR cameras, a range of 50-800 (or higher) is often acceptable.

CAMERA EXPOSURE MODES

Most digital cameras have one of the following standardized exposure modes: Auto (), Program (P), Aperture Priority (Av), Shutter Priority (Tv), Manual (M) and Bulb (B) mode. Av, Tv, and M are often called "creative modes" or "auto exposure (AE) modes."

Each of these modes influences how aperture, ISO and shutter speed are chosen for a given exposure. Some modes attempt to pick all three values for you, whereas others let you specify one setting and the camera picks the other two (if possible). The following charts describe how each mode pertains to exposure:

Exposure Mode	How It Works
Auto ()	Camera automatically selects all exposure settings.
Program (P)	Camera automatically selects aperture & shutter speed; you can choose a corresponding ISO speed & exposure compensation. With some cameras, P can also act as a hybrid of the Av & Tv modes.
Aperture Priority (Av or A)	You specify the aperture & ISO; the camera’s metering determines the corresponding shutter speed.
Shutter Priority (Tv or S)	You specify the shutter speed & ISO; the camera’s metering determines the corresponding aperture.
Manual (M)	You specify the aperture, ISO and shutter speed — regardless of whether these values lead to a correct exposure.
Bulb (B)	Useful for exposures longer than 30 seconds. You specify the aperture and ISO; the shutter speed is determined by a remote release switch, or by the duration until you press the shutter button a second time.

In addition, the camera may also have several pre-set modes; the most common include landscape, portrait, sports and night mode. The symbols used for each mode vary slightly from camera to camera, but will likely appear similar to those below:

Exposure Mode	How It Works
Portrait	Camera tries to pick the lowest f-stop value possible for a given exposure. This ensures the shallowest possible depth of field.
Landscape	Camera tries to pick a high f-stop to ensure a large depth of field. Compact cameras also often set their focus distance to distant objects or infinity.
Sports/Action	Camera tries to achieve as fast a shutter speed as possible for a given exposure — ideally 1/250 seconds or faster. In addition to using a low f-stop, the fast shutter speed is usually achieved by increasing the ISO speed more than would otherwise be acceptable in portrait mode.
Night/Low-light	Camera permits shutter speeds which are longer than ordinarily allowed for hand-held shots, and increases the ISO speed to near its maximum available value. However, for some cameras this setting means that a flash is used for the foreground, and a long shutter speed and high ISO are used expose the background. Check your camera’s instruction manual for any unique characteristics.

However, keep in mind that most of the above settings rely on the camera’s metering system in order to know what’s a proper exposure. For tricky subject matter, metering can often be fooled, so it’s a good idea to also be aware of when it might go awry, and what you can do to compensate for such exposure errors.

Finally, some of the above modes may also control camera settings which are unrelated to exposure, although this varies from camera to camera. Such additional settings might include the autofocus points, metering mode and autofocus modes, amongst others.

Crop Sensor (APS-C) Cameras and Lens Confusion

2011-07-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that so called "crop sensor" digital SLRs have been with us for over 5 years, there's still a huge amount of confusion out there about exactly what a crop sensor camera is and what effect is of using a lens with a crop sensor camera rather than a full frame camera. The photography forums are full of confused newcomers asking about focal length, field of view etc.
First, what is a crop sensor camera? Well, it's simple. A full frame 35mm camera ( whether it uses film or a digital sensor) records an image that is approximately 36mm x 24mm in size. In the early days of digital sensors it was not possible to make digital sensors that big in any sort of quantity, and the ones you could make were so expensive that hardly anyone would have been able to buy a camera which used one. So camera makers decided to use a smaller sensor, around 15mm x 22.5mm. This just happens to be close to the image size which was used with the short-lived APS film format, specifically the APS-C image size of 25.1 × 16.7 mm (there was also APS-H and APS-Panoramic format).

The "crop" name comes from the fact that if you take a full frame image (24x36mm) and crop the center 15x22.5mm out of it, you get an image the size of "crop" sensor cameras.

So why does the format size matter and what effect does it have on focal length? Well the answer to the second part of the question is "none". The focal length of a lens is the focal length of the lens. Whether you mount that lens on a 35mm camera, a medium format camera of a large format camera doesn't change its focal length. All 35mm lenses and lenses designed for use on APS-C DSLRs are marked with their true, actual, focal length.

The problem is that most of us have been trained to think in terms of focal length rather than field of view when comparing lenses. We've been trained to think that a 50mm lens is "normal", a 35mm lens is "wide normal", a 28mm lens is "wide", a 24mm lens is "very wide", a 20mm lens is "super wide", a 16mm lens is "ultrawide" and so on. In fact this is true ONLY if that lens is making a 36mm x 24mm image. The field of view (which is what "wide" is all about) is actually determined just as much by format size as by focal length. The diagram below shows why.

As you can easily see from the diagram, the larger the format, the wider the angle of view for a lens of a given focal length (shown by the red lines for the larger format and the blue lines for the smaller format). That's why a 28mm lens on a full frame 36x24mm gives a wide view (red lines), but on a smaller format camera such as one using and APS-C crop sensor, it's not so wide (blue lines). In fact if you put that same 28mm lens on a Canon EOS crop sensor camera, the angle of view decreases as you can see from the figure above. The angle of view decreases to the extent that it's now the same as that of a 44.8mm lens mounted on a full frame camera. It means that if you look through the viewfinder of an APS-C crop sensor camera with a 28mm lens mounted on it, you'll see exactly the same angle of view as if you looked through the viewfinder of a full frame camera with a 44.8mm lens mounted on it.

To get the same field of view as a 28mm lens on the full frame camera, you'd need a shorter focal length lens when used with the APS-C crop sensor. That's illustrated by the green lines in the image above. In the case of EOS DSLRs, the focal length would need to be 17.5mm. The relationship of these numbers will be explained next.

Wideangle Lenses

	Angle of View (degrees, Hoizontal)	35mm "full frame"	APS-C "crop"
Normal lens	39.6	50mm	31.3mm
Normal-wide	54.4	35mm	21.8mm
Wide	65.5	28mm	17.5 mm
Very wide	73.7	24mm	15mm
Super wide	84	20mm	12.5 mm
Ultra wide	96.7	16mm	10mm

The factor relating the 50mm focal length of the normal full frame lens and the 31.3mm of the equivalent normal APS-C lens is often called the "crop factor", sometimes the "digital multiplier". It's 1.6x for Canon EOS DSLRs and 1.5x for Nikon, Pentax and Sony (who have very slighly larger APS-C sensors). It doesn't actually multiply the focal length. It's just a factor which you can use to judge the field of view a lens will give you. That's what you want to know of course. You don't care if the lens is 10mm, 20mm, 30mm or 40mm. You want to know if it gives you a wide, normal or telephoto view. "normal" lenses have a horizontal field of view of around 40 degrees, wideangle a field of view of 65 degrees or more (these are somewhat arbitrary numbers, but they are representative of commonly accepted values).

So when you want a wideangle lens for your APS-C crop sensor camera, you really want a lens with a field of view of 65 degrees or more. In this case that would correspond to a lens with a focal length of about 17.5mm (for EOS APS-C bodies). Now you may be used to thinking in full frame terms, where you'd need a 28mm focal length lens, but you have to forget that! For example the 28-135 lens was a "wide to telephoto" zoom on a fill frame film SLR, but on an APS-C DSLR it's more like a "normal to longer telephoto" zoom.

Telephoto Lenses

We can apply the same reasoning to telephoto lenses. When we think of a telephoto lens we normally think of a long focal length, but again, focal length doesn't define a telephoto lens, angle of view does. So, for example, while a 300mm lens is considered to be a telephoto lens for 35mm cameras, for 8x10 cameras a 300mm lens is a "normal" lens, i.e. it gives you about the same view as a 50mm lens would on a 35mm camera. What we want when we want a telephoto lens is a small angle of view, so that a small and distant subject fills the frame. The focal length that gives us that desired angle of view depends on the format we are using, as shown on the table below:

	Angle of View (degrees, Hoizontal)	35mm "full frame"	APS-C "crop"
Telephoto	9.5	135 mm	84.3 mm
Long telephoto	4.3	300 mm	187.5 mm
Super Telephoto	2.1	600 mm	375 mm
Extreme Telephoto	1.5	840 mm	600mm

As you can see, for the same angle of view (which we could call "telephoto power"), we need a shorter focal length lens for the APS-C format than we do for the full frame 35mm format. This is actually often good, because shorter focal length lenses are cheaper! Alternatively if you have a lens of a given focal length, such as 600mm, it gives you a 2.1 degree of view when mounted on a full frame camera, but a narrower 1.5 degree angle of view when mounted on an APS-C camera. So on an APS-C crop camera, the lens has more "reach", i.e. you can fill the frame with a smaller or more distant subject. Again the "crop factor" or "digital multiplier" can be used to calculate what lens on a 35mm full frame camera would be needed to give the same field of view as a 600mm lens on an APS-C crop sensor camera 35mm camera. For Canon EOS APS-C cameras the "crop factor" is 1.6x, so a you'd need an 840mm (600 x 1.6) on the full frame camera.

Of course we could get EXACTLY the same result by simply cropping the full frame image as by using the "crop" sensor (again, that's why they are sometimes called "crop" sensors), but you'd usually end up with a picture comprised of fewer pixels that way, so the quality would not be so high. If we took a full frame sensor with 16MP and we cropped it to Canon EOS APS-C size, we'd have an image containing 6.25MP, and that is a fairly low number by today's standards for APS-C cameras. If we used an EOS 40D we'd have 10MP and if we used an EOS 50D we'd have 15MP.

Conversion Factors - Digital Multipliers

If you want to know what focal length you need to give you the same field of view (FOV) on a crop sensor camera as a lens of "X" mm does on a full frame camera, you DIVIDE the focal length by the "digital multiplier", which is 1.6x for Canon EOS cameras and 1.5x for Nikon, Sony and Pentax. So, for example, to find what lens on an EOS 40D (crop sensor) gives you the same view as a 100mm lens on and EOS 5D (full frame sensor), you divide 100 by 1.6 and the answer is that you'd need a 62.5mm lens. So the EF-S 60/2.8 macro will give you approximately the same field of view on an EOS 40D as a 100mm macro does on an EOS 5D.

The go the other way, to find what focal length lens you'd need on a full frame camera to give you the same field of view (FOV) as a "Y" mm lens on a crop camera, you MULTIPLY the focal length by the "digital multiplier". So if you have a 300mm lens on your 40D, you'd need a (300 x 1.6) = 480mm lens on your EOS 5D to give you the same field of view.

So to summarize for Canon EOS cameras and lenses:

• APS-C crop sensor focal length to EQUIVALENT FOV full frame focal length - MULTIPLY by 1.6
• Full Frame focal length to EQUIVALENT FOV for APS-C crop sensor - DIVIDE by 1.6

Note that the aperture stays constant. An f2.8 lens always acts like an f2.8 lens. There is no "digital multiplier" for lens speed.

Image Circle - Canon "EF" and "EF-S" lenses

There's one more thing to understand about lenses for full frame and APS-C sensors and that's the concept of the image circle. Basically all lenses produce a circular image field and the diameter of that circle has to be larger than the diagonal of the frame, otherwise the corners of the image will be dark. For full frame 35mm a lens must have an image circle larger than 43.27mm, and for a 15 x 22.5 mm APS-C frame, an image circle of at least 27.04mm. This is shown schematically below:

As you can see, if you use a lens intended only for APS-C sensors on a full frame camera, the image circle would not cover the sides and corners of the frame. However if you use a lens with an image circle designed for 35mm use, it will be just fine on an APS-C camera. In the Canon lens line, "EF" series lenses have full coverage of the 35mm frame, but "EF-S" lenses have a smaller image circle and are only intended for use on APS-C crop sensor cameras. Nikon designate their APS-C image circle lenses as "DX", Tamron designate theirs "DiII" and so on. While some systems allow the smaller image circle lenses to by physically mounted on full frame bodies, Canon do not. EF-S series lenses will not physically mount on any full frame EOS camera body.

Note that image circle has nothing to do with focal length. It's part of the lens design. For a larger image circle you usually need a larger lens barrel and larger lens elements. This often leads to higher cost and higher weight as well as a larger diameter lens.

Depth of Field

The subject of differences in depth of field between full frame and crop sensor images is somewhat complex since it depends on if you use the same lens or diffferent lenses on the two cameras and if you shoot from the same position with both cameras. However you can basically state that for images with the same angle of view (i.e. the same magnification), crop sensor images have a larger depth of field. This may be good for landscapes, but not so good for portraits where you often want a shallow depth of field to blus out distracting background details. For a full discussion of all the factors involved, please take a look at this article:

• Depth of Field and Digital Sensors

Aperture

If Gertrude Stein had been a photographer she might have said "f2 is f2 is f2". The maximum aperture of a lens is constant. The f-stop is given by the focal length divided by the aperture size. If you have a lens with a focal length of 100mm and a physical aperture of 50mm, it's an f2 lens and will produce an image with a brightness determined by the fact that it's an f2 lens. Since neither the actual physical focal length nor the actual physical aperture change the when the lens is mounted on a camera, it's always an f2 lens. It doesn't matter if you use it on a full frame camera, an APS-C camera or and 8x10 camera. If it's f2, it's f2. Of course the angle of view that is recorded will be different for different formats and unless the lens was designed for 8x10, if you use it with an 8x10 camera you'll get a tiny image in the middle of a field of black, but the actual image brightness won't change because the lens will always be f2.

For an equivalent field of view, the physical aperture of an EF-S lens designed for an APS-C camera will be smaller than that for a full frame lens, but that's because the focal lengths will be different. It's not actually related to the format of the camera attached to the lens. Thus a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera gives the same field of view as an 80mm lens on a full frame camera and so you can consider them to be "equivalent", though obviously they are in fact different since they have different focal lengths. If they were both f2, then the physical aperture of the 50mm lens would be 25mmm and that of the 80mm lens would be 40mm, so the crop sensor lens would be smaller and have a physically smaller aperture even though they were both f2. This is a point which causes some confusion, but the bottom line is that if you mount a lens marked "50mm f2" on an APS-C crop camera or a full frame camera, it's f2 on both of them and it's 50mm on both of them. The so called "1.6x digital multiplier" is really a factor which affects the field of view which is recorded and which does depend on format size. It does not affect the aperture and it does not affect the true focal length of the lens.

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Sling Your Camera With A DIY C-Loop For Under $5

2011-07-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

The C-loop, R-Strap and Sun Sniper are three systems designed to change the way you carry your camera around.

They all share a similar idea - the strap goes inside the tripod screw. Of course, this probably makes the camera designers pull their hairs as they invested so much time in making those little two 'ears' that the normal strap goes on.

Anyhow, using a system like the C-Loop really changes the way you carry your camera around - something we have discussed before - it is way more comfortable that any "regular" strap.

In this tutorial Cameron Texter will show you how to make a DIY C-Loop for your camera. (warning, this is for a point and shoot, not sure I would trust this DIY with my Nikon D300 + the 24-70 2.8)

Parts

1 x ¼-20 bolt (You might want a 1.25 inch bolt, because with the part on the U Bolt (below) that sticks out takes space away from the screw so you won't have enough to get the screw to be stable in the tripod slot. I got the 1 inch bolt and had to sand off the part on the U bolt that sticks out to give it more room. Make your calculations before you purchase the items.)

1/4-20 Extruded U Nut and another Extruded U Nut with a bigger thread size than the bolt, so it will glide right through it, but not have moving room.

Optional, but is really good to have: Washer that fits the size of the 1/4-20 bolt

The Build

The build is actually quite simple. All you have to do it take the two U Nuts and slide one onto the other one, with the hole that sticks out on the outside, on both sides. Make sure the holes are aligned.

Next, put your screw through the 1/4-20 screw hole and it should come out the other end since the thread size is larger than the screw.

[I made the mistake of buying the same size (1/4-20) U nut, and I didn't realize my mistake that it wouldn't go through the other end because the threads were backwards on the other end, so I had to remove the threads by drilling through the hole.]

Once you get the two U bolts aligned together with the bolt going through one end and out the other end, it's finished, all you have to do is have a washer and then put your camera strap through the slots.

If you want that extra bit of safety, dub a bit of silicon on the screw so it won't scratch anything.

The last step is to thread your "regular" strap ends into the places on the U nut.

Now you have your DIY C-Loop for under $5!

* C-Loop is a DIYP sponsor and we really love their stuff.

http://www.diyphotography.net/sling-your-camera-with-a-diy-c-loop-for-under-5

check the site for the photos

How to Photograph a Rainbow

2011-06-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

A Rainbow is something that has the power to stop you in your tracks when it unexpectedly appears when you’re least expecting to see one. They’re beautiful – but how do you photograph a rainbow?

Following are a few Rainbow Photography Tips that come to mind – feel free to add your own to comments below:

Find a Rainbow

This is the most obvious but also perhaps the hardest part of the process. Their appearance will depend upon the conditions and they are something that will often happen completely out of the blue. Having said this – you should especially be on the look out for rainbows when you have two elements present – falling/spraying water droplets and bright sunlight. As a result they’re common when a storm is approaching and around waterfalls/sprinklers/fountains.

Backgrounds

As rainbows are not solid objects one of the keys to photographing them is to capture them in front of a background that allows them to stand out as much as possible. Ideally you’ll want to get a background that is uncluttered and if possible one that has darker colors (think dark clouds, mountains etc). While it’s not always possible to change the background – you might find that you’re able to change the angle that you’re shooting from or to focus just upon part of the rainbow that is in front of a good background.

Composition

While rainbows are a beautiful thing – it’s the surrounds that they appear in that make one rainbow photograph really stand out from others. As a result it’s important to carefully think about how you compose your shot when photographing them. Particularly pay attention to the following:

Positioning – how you position the rainbow (and the rest of the landscape) in your shot is important. Rules like the rule of thirds could be useful when thinking about focal points and leading the eye into your shot.
End Points of the Rainbow – the point where a rainbow hits the ground/horizon is an important point in any rainbow photograph. This is a natural point of interest so think about where you’ll put it in the frame. You might want to zoom in on this spot or even quickly change your own position so that it lines up with some other object in the scene.
Zoom/Wide Angle Perspectives - quickly experiment with different focal lengths (if you have different lenses or a zoom). A wide angle lens that captures a full rainbow can give you some wonderful wide vista shots – but don’t forget that zooming right in on a part of the rainbow can also lead to spectacular results. Particularly focus in on any point where the rainbow intersects with any object – or where it begins and ends.

Foregrounds

Consider not only the background of your rainbow shots – but the foregrounds. These can add interest to the shot but also lead the eye towards focal points. Also scan the foreground for distractions that you could remove.

Multiple Rainbows

Keep in mind that where there is one rainbow there can often be a second one – or at least another layer of one that arches over the first. Including both can lead to an extra layer of interest in the shot

Polarizing Filter

If you have a polarizing filter experiment with rotating it to see what different effects it will have. You’ll find that in doing so you’ll get different saturations of colors, reflections and levels of contrast in your shot which can drastically impact the shot and help the rainbow to stand out more.

Aperture

Choosing different apertures will have less impact upon the rainbow itself and more effect upon the overall shot. Choose a small aperture and you’ll get as much of the scene in focus as possible (ie it’ll have a large depth of field).

Tripods

Keeping your camera as still as possible is important in all landscape shots – but it’s particularly important for rainbow shots as they often appear in darker conditions (like before a storm) and if you use a polarizing filter and a small aperture you’ll probably need to use a longer shutter speed. Of course rainbow shots are not something that you can always plan for – so you might need to find some alternative ways to secure your camera.

How To Take Pictures Of A Lightning Storm

2011-04-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

One of the questions that most people ask me is how to capture lightning strikes. It seems impossible, doesn’t it? How do photographers get lightning; which strikes so fast, onto their cameras? I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s a lot easier than you think. You only need a bit of knowledge, and you’ll be good to go.

One key to taking pictures of lightning is to have a camera that allows you to take bulb exposures. A bulb exposure is a photograph where you get to decide how long you want to keep your shutter open. Usually you (or your camera) decide this beforehand with the shutter speed setting, but in bulb mode, you decide when you want to close the shutter by pressing the shutter button a second time.

Not every digital camera has a bulb mode. If you have a point-and-shoot, you might be out of luck. Those of you with point-and-shoot cameras can still take lightning pictures without using bulb mode, but you will have a little less control. I’ll show you how it is possible later on in this tutorial.

How To Setup Your Camera To Capture A Lightning Strike

It helps to think of your camera like it’s a catcher’s mitt. You’re just trying to keep your shutter open long enough to “catch” the lightning. Once the lightning strike has occurred, you can close the shutter and keep your picture.

The savvy ones may have guessed that you will be taking most of your lightning photos at night. That’s because there is no other light source to crowd out the lightning strikes you will be capturing. You will need to hold the shutter open for at least 5 seconds in most cases. If you were to do this in the middle of the day, the entire photo would be white.

Lightning photography can also work during the twilight and early morning hours. There is always a small chance you’ll get the shot, but your window of time for capturing it is much much smaller. Instead of having 15 seconds to get your photo, you’ll have 1/15 of a second to capture it. Otherwise your camera’s sensors are overwhelmed with the amount of light and your resulting image is full of white.

Take a Tripod And Camera Cover

It isn’t even a choice, really. You need the tripod in order to keep everything else in the image from blurring. If it looks like it’s going to rain, you’ll also need a plastic bag to cover everything except your camera’s lens.

Most lightning photographers prefer to wait until a storm has passed before attempting to photograph lightning. It doesn’t matter if you are covering your camera with a raincoat, you’re going to do some damage if you’re in the middle of a downpour. Besides, it’s very dangerous to be outside holding an electricity conducting tripod with lightning overhead.

Camera Settings Needed

The idea is to leave the shutter open for long enough to capture a lightning strike, but not long enough that too much light creeps into your camera and the whole image looks white. When you are setup, take a few test shots first (even without capturing a lightning bolt) and work out how long you can leave the shutter open without ruining the photo. This is usually between 5 and 30 seconds depending on the amount of ambient light around.

Let’s say you have worked out your shutter speed is 30 seconds. The idea is to point your camera towards the lightning and keep the shutter open until you see a strike, or the 30 seconds shutter time has elapsed. Then close the shutter. I immediately start a new photo by opening the shutter once more and starting the 30 second count again.

There are certain while balance settings that tend to work better for photographing lightning. It doesn’t matter if you are using a digital SLR or a point-and-shoot, fluorescent white balance is your mode of choice. It gives the sky a purplish short of tinge that makes your lightning photography much more colorful and interesting.

I always follow every shot that ‘captures’ a strike with a quick review on my LCD screen. If the framing isn’t quite right, I adjust my camera. A lot of professionals prefer to look through the viewfinder while doing this. If they see a strike to the left, they move the camera a little closer the left. With enough subtle adjustments, you’ll get it right.

Camera Settings for your Point and Shoot Camera

Some point and shoot cameras allow you to access manual mode. From manual mode, choose an aperture of F8. If your camera supports bulb mode, use that. Otherwise, use a shutter speed between 5 seconds and 30 seconds. You won’t be able to hold the shutter open as long as you want (like bulb mode), but it should enough time to allow you to capture the next lightning strike.

Camera Settings for your Digital SLR

Once you are setup, you will want to set your aperture to F8 and use manual focus to get the shot. Twist your focus ring to infinity, point your camera where you believe the lightning will strike, and then press the shutter.
If you are in bulb mode (as suggested earlier), the shutter will open and stay open. Some digital SLR cameras have a time limit for this. Some Nikons, for example, only allows the photographer to keep the shutter open for 30 seconds. After that, it forces the shutter closed.

Once lightning strikes, close the shutter to complete the photo.

A Simple Exercise to Train your Photographic Eye

2011-04-02T04:58:00.000-07:00

Park Bench

Here is a simple exercise you can do anywhere that will help develop your photographic eye. Take your camera with just one lens and go for a walk (of course any point and shoot camera will do the trick too). While walking down the street, at the park or even in the wilderness, make a point to stop randomly and find something to photograph within 10 or 15 feet (3 to 5 m) from where you are standing.

Better yet, if you are walking with a non photographer, ask him or her to tell you when to stop. Look up and down, look all around you and take your time to find something interesting to photograph. It can be a scene in the street happening just in front of you, an architectural detail, and the manhole cover on which you are standing or an insect on a flower.

If you are using a DSLR limit yourself to one lens but experiment with a different lens each time to make the exercise more interesting. The point is to learn to make the ordinary look extraordinary. Try different angles, a shallow depth of field, etc. Or try some magic in the digital darkroom later!

Another idea is to get children involved in this exercise; a perfect way to get them to walk and introduce them to photography at the same time, and their discoveries might surprise you! This exercise can also be helpful if you are planning to start a 365 day project.

Here are a few examples of pictures taken during this simple exercise. I like details, in architecture or in nature and I also like to shoot with a very shallow depth of field. The goal of this exercise is not to produce fine art photographs. Consider it as a photo assignment with no pressure and see what happens.

The possibilities are endless, just remember to have fun. Please post some of your results in the comments!

Rusty wall

Back alley

Peeling paint on old park bench

Detail of dead tree stump

Moss on tree stump

Quick Tip - Photo Competitions

2011-04-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

World Environment Day, World Wetland Day, Earth Hour - there are so many events on the environmental calendar, and many of them are celebrated with photo competitions.

Entering competitions is a great way to improve your photography - to round out your skills beyond just the purely technical ones. Those who are interested in editorial photography, which includes photojournalism and nature photojournalism, will benefit a lot.

Although wildlife competitions like the Veolia Environnement BBC Wildlife Magazine competition get promoted as fine art, most of the submissions are really editorial photography. Most photos are recording an event - a newsworthy event in nature. The winning photos just happen to be those most artful in telling the story, particularly in a single frame.

Step 1 Research

Before entering such a competition, you should start the ball rolling by doing research. What are the newsworthy natural events happening in your neighborhood? Is there a mass event like a congregation of flying foxes? What is the most picturesque time of day? Would dusk or twilight be best? What special equipment will you need - a hide - a plane?

Step 2 Extend yourself

Really stretch your imagination. Even if your mind comes up with some really crazy scenarios, let it run wild and just jot down your notes. Even if the execution seems impossible for now, don’t worry about that. Just keep researching and planning. Events have a mysterious way of coming to fruition once you’ve imagined them clearly. You might just stumble across a friend of a friend with a spare seat on a training flight.

Step 3 Learn

The important part of entering a contest is not to win but to improve your photographic skills. That way you never lose! Don’t neglect the skill of planning the great shot through meticulous research and do let the deadline of photo competitions spur you on your way.

The Importance of Color in Photography: An Interview with Mitchell Kanashkevich

2011-03-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Since launching the Captivating Color eBook last week I’ve had a few questions from readers on the topic of color, its importance and why we created a whole eBook on a topic like this. I thought there was no better person to ask than the e-book’s author – Mitchell Kanashkevich.

Mitchell, why did you decide to write a whole eBook to color?
The main reason is that there’s a real lack of understanding when it comes to color. Generally people just don’t realize how important it is. I find this to be the case with even with some of the more experienced photographers. If they have a great grasp of everything, except for color, their images ultimately still fall apart, they don’t quite have the intended impact or the maximum impact. It can be extremely frustrating when you feel you did everything right, but the image still doesn’t grab you, doesn’t captivate or engage you emotionally.

I wrote the eBook in large part to help those who already understand some of the photography basics to get to the next level, but also to make those who are just starting out aware, right from the beginning of how important color is.

So why exactly is color important?
There are two main reasons. Color can help tell us stories (visually) and it can be used to communicate on an emotional level. The emotion part is what I find really, really important. I would go so far as to say that color is the primary factor responsible for making a photo feel exciting, lively, mysterious or perhaps melancholic or a little somber. Looking at the image at the top of the page, you can see that something as simple as clothes on a line against a wall can look dramatic and feel exciting, just because of color.

It’s true, emotions can be a vital part of photography, please expand a little on this topic.
Emotions are vital. Most people would agree that when looking at photographs they’re not particularly concerned if a photo has been composed in a clever way, but everyone responds when the image makes them feel something.

That color plays part in evoking emotions is not a new idea, if you look into other fields – interior decorators for example put great emphasis on color, if you watch most high production movies carefully, you’ll notice that a lot of them have stylized scenes, the color in those scenes is of a certain tint that’s very evocative of emotions and moods. If you search the internet, people are even talking about healing with color. So it is ultimately very significant, but as I say, a lot of folks do not understand it and are not aware of it.

Could it be because we don’t think that we can control color in any way? For example, we can’t change the colors in a landscape when we are making the shot; can we?

We can actually do a number of things to control color. With the landscape example you mention we can control color indirectly, if we understand how it works. You see, the colors in that landscape won’t stay the same, they will change depending on time of day, on the lighting conditions. Light is one factor that changes color tremendously, if we understand how it does that, we essentially gain some control over how the color in our landscape photo will look. Obviously it’s not the same amount of control as we’d have if we were to paint that landscape, but it can still have a huge impact. The strong presence of golden yellow in the image above for example, is only there because I shot this scene at a particular time of day, during the magic/golden hour, when light tends to give colors this magical, golden tint. You could say that I indirectly controlled color by deciding when to shoot, under what light.

You mention that there are a number of things we can do to control color. What are some of the others?
Composition – we can obviously frame certain colors in and others out, we can find angles from where colors look like patterns. If we have any control over the shoot, we can have models/subjects change costumes or we can re-arrange still life objects. Then of course there’s the post processing stage, where we can really do a lot of color manipulation, down to the most minute detail, depending on what we are trying to achieve.

Ok, we can control color, but other than the emotional side of things; why would we want to control it?
Well, as I mentioned, emotions do play a huge part in determining whether an image is basically good or not, but it’s also about using color to tell stories.

Visual story-telling (which is what we do with photography) is all about drawing attention to what’s important to the story and keeping our gaze there, color helps with that a lot. As you can see in the image above, the bright colored part of the frame is where our gaze goes immediately, it’s like I’m saying “Look, the lamp and the man are where the story is!” The rest of the colors in the image are fairly subdued and much darker, so we don’t really notice those until later and that’s fine, because the main part of the story is not there. On the other hand, if there was a bright color which didn’t have purpose within the story, it would confuse the viewer. There are ultimately quite a few things to keep in mind about color and visual story-telling, there’s a lot that we can do to make our stories more powerful and clear and that’s what I discuss at length in the eBook.

What would you say is the number one mistake that people make, when it comes to color?
Thinking that more is better or not realizing that too many colors, especially colors that don’t follow any order (e.g. not in a pattern) make for pretty disengaging, confusing, even visually unpleasant imagery.

When we see something in real life, we are able to process, subtract and to filter out everything outside of what we are focusing on, including color, this way we can make sense of the world around us. With an image, the photographer is essentially the “filter” that gets rid of everything that isn’t important to the story or the emotions that the photo aims to convey. If that “filter” isn’t working effectively, if there’s a whole bunch of colors in the image, which don’t play a specific role, we end up with chaos and whatever message the photographer intended to convey is lost.

Do you have anything else to say about the eBook? Who is it for? What is its ultimate aim?
This eBook is a down to earth, practical, understandable look at color, without confusing technical jargon or excessive philosophy, it’s easily accessible. It covers the essentials, from the time of the shoot to adjusting color in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. There are exercises that encourage you to learn and see results by doing and there are resources to explore the topic in more depth.

The eBook is for absolutely anyone and everyone who shoots color photographs and the ultimate aim of it is to help people understand why color is important and how they can use it to better convey the stories they want to tell and the feelings they had at the time of taking the photo to those who view the image. After all, isn’t that the purpose of almost any photograph, to share a story, a moment and to tell others how exciting, interesting or magical something was?

See more of Mitchell’s work on his website (http://www.mitchellkphotos.com/) and facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/mitchellkphotos).

words of inspiration

2011-03-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you something about YOU and photography.
YOU can do anything you want. YOU are in control.
YOU can achieve as much success as you want to.
YOU can and will pick yourself up when life knocks you down.
Let me tell you ... I've been knocked on my rear end more times than I can count. It
was those words that gave me the encouragement to get back up and press on.
We all need someone in our corner. I'll be in yours to the best of my ability.
I believe in you. Go for it.
We're inundated with so much negative trash these days ...we ALL need someone to encourage us.

Look ...if you're struggling, I've been there ...and I can tell you first hand that it'll get better
if you keep on trying.
I BELIEVE IN YOU.
That's all I want to say,

Recover Images from a Damaged SD card

2011-03-25T03:52:00.000-07:00

A friend showed up today with an odd question. She’d been using a SD card in her point and shoot camera for some time (without backing up her photos) and now the card had stopped functioning. If she put it in her computer she was told to format the disk to use it – sensibly she didn’t do this. However, she was sure she’d lost the shots she’d taken on her recent vacation.

She took the card to a camera store and was quoted $25 to look at the card and then $15 for every 25 pictures recovered from it. Even though she only wanted the most recent images – some 30 or so – she’d have to pay for all the images they recovered. As she had over 1,000 images on the card – the math wasn’t pretty – over $600 to get her images. The shop owner explained the process was time consuming and complex – hence the cost.

For my friend, the thirty or so photos just didn’t justify the expense. Luckily she stopped by to ask if she should she simply put the disk in the trash or was there an alternative? I grabbed the disk and sent her to get coffee – before she got back I had her images off the damage disk and burned to a DVD.

Here’s what I did:
The program I used is called Zero Assumption Recovery or ZAR. You can find it at www.z-a-recovery.com. I opted for this program because it allows you to recover digital pictures from digital camera memory free of charge – for other uses it is a for fee program.

Start out by downloading an installing the ZAR Recovery software. Insert the damaged disk in the card reader and launch the software. When prompted that antivirus software may impact performance, click to accept the warning and go and disable your antivirus software.

When prompted, click the Image Recovery (Free) option.

The program looks for devices that are installed. This is probably the most confusing portion of the exercise because you’ll need to identify which of the devices in the list is your camera card. It’s not really that difficult and, in my case, Disk I shows as an SD card with 1,876 MB of data on it – pretty clearly it is the SD card. Select the disk and click Next.

Wait as the program analyzes the disk. You’ll see a list of the recovered files. In my case I wanted all of them because not only did I not know which images she wanted but this dialog really isn’t the place to start getting fussy about which images you want and which you don’t – it’s simplest to take them all. So click the Root checkbox to select all the images.

Click Next and you can then select the folder into which the recovered files will be placed. Because I selected the Root folder on the SD card these images will all go automatically into a subfolder called Root. Make sure you always recover files onto a disk other than the one they came from – it sounds self-evident but the busted SD card is not the place to put the recovered images.

I left all the options set to their defaults and simply clicked Start Copying the Selected Files. The software copied 1099 files to my hard drive in a few minutes.

Open the folder in Windows Explorer and set it to view thumbnails to see what you have. I found a handful of images were unreadable and a few images were only half full of data with half the image missing but well over 1000 of the files were there and most of those my friend remembers taking on her vacation.

The moral of this post is to never throw out a camera card until you’ve tried to recover the data from it (also backing up your camera card frequently and formatting it once in awhile (in camera) is a good idea as well). There is good and free software out there that can do the recovery for you and it isn’t difficult or time-consuming to attempt it yourself. Oh! and don’t format a card if it has images on it that you want to download – even if your computer prompts you to do so – it’s not being helpful and the results might reduce your chance of recovering your images.

Happy Shooting!

I hope this saves you some lost images and a bit of money if your card fails.

JPH

Why You Should Wait To Delete "Undesirable" Shots

2011-03-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

This photo is an example of why you should wait until you are at the computer editing before deleting photos. When I saw this photo on my camera viewer I almost deleted it since it seemed to be a blown shot ... but I didn't

Once I got it on the computer I saw its potential!

With just a few postprocessing tweaks on sharpness, contract and clarify, this turned out to be one of my favorite shots of the day!

My advice, do not be so quick to delete those "undesirable" shots from your camera.

How To Get Someone To Take Your Photo

2011-03-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to smile!

This post isn’t for everyone. I’ll admit there are a fair number of outgoing, gregarious extroverts out there who have no problem walking up to anyone in any country and asking for help. For those of you who fit that mold, you might want to consider skipping this post and forwarding it to a friend who is a bit more shy. I know this may seem painfully obvious to some readers, but I have been asked this very question enough times to let me know others out there will benefit from a quick read.

For everyone else, this post will outline some simple tips to help you overcome the hesitation to hand your camera to someone to take your picture. Arm-length self portraits are fine up until a point. Even when traveling with someone else (otherwise known as your personal paparazzi) there comes a time when you both may want to be in a photo together. If there is nothing around to set your camera on for a self portrait, it’s time to ask for help.

Set Your Camera On Auto

Step one: make things easy for the photographer. All cameras have some type of auto feature, usually highlighted by a big green rectangle. This mode will be the easiest on an unsuspecting photographer because there is nothing they have to set. Further, if your camera has some type of face detection feature, turn it on as well to help insure your smiling face is not over or under exposed.

Scan The Crowd

Next, look around for your likely target. Some good candidates include:
• Families (that aren’t over burdened)
• Anyone not in a hurry
• Someone who has just taken a photo themselves

Personally I get asked to take many photographs because I am lugging around professional gear. I look like I know how to take a photo and that is who you ideally want. The mere act of holding a camera in your hand and scanning a crowd will help point you to someone willing to help.

Make Eye Contact And Smile

Do you know how much easier life in general is when you follow this rule? Be open and friendly and make eye contact, good eye contact. The type of eye contact where you actually remember the person’s eye color. Why is this important? It helps weed out those who really don’t care to engage you or want to avoid you. It also makes you more likable.

Ask

All there is left to do is ask. “Excuse me. Would you mind taking my photo, please?” I know, horribly easy. If you don’t speak the language, consider learning the phrase (and others) before you leave. Google Translate is a good place to start although I can’t vouch for how accurate it is for each language listed. Or, if you really don’t know the language, sign language is your best bet. Raising your eyebrows with a point to your camera is all it usually takes. Oh yeah, keep smiling. If your camera has a plethora of buttons, be sure to point out the shutter release when you get a taker.

Trust Your Instincts

Some people fear everyone while traveling. They hear the horror stories and that is their impression of any given location, even though they take the time to visit. While I’m not a fan of paranoia, it is important to trust your instincts while selecting a photographer. Not every stereotype out there is true, so I can’t even begin to list who to avoid. If you have even the least bit of hair standing up on the back of your neck, move on to someone else. Trust yourself.

Always Say Thank You

Sure there are a number of societies out there where thanking someone is not custom, but for the most part, a kind “Thank You” is always appreciated. Again, learn the phrase before you go. Here’s a fabulous list with 465 listed ways to thank someone.

For you introverts out there who despise asking for anything or disturbing others, I hope this post gives you a little push to get yourself in the photo the next time you travel. It really is this easy, just go do it!

Workouts to Improve your Photographyby

2011-03-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

By Photography Tips & Tutorials (Tri-County Photography / JPH photographer)

Athletes would never consider showing up to a game without having practiced, so why is it that most photographers shoot for the “wall-hanger” photo every time they go out without ever practicing new techniques? Consider applying these new workouts in your photography routine and you will improve your skills and creativity.

The EXIF Drilldown

In my photography workshops, (when I held them) I often showed my portfolio to introduce myself before the class began. After showing a few pictures, someone would inevitably raise their hand and ask, “How did you shoot that one?” I would tell them the answer, but then I showed them how to practice guessing camera settings so they will know what to use in any situation.

The very best way to shoot like a pro is to analyze the work of the pros, and Flickr is just the place to look. Most photographers probably know that cameras save information about what camera settings were used to take a photo, and the information is saved in the jpeg image file. Some websites, such as Flickr, make this information easily viewable so photographers can see how other photographers created a photo.

To view this information on Flickr, find a photo and click the small text link on the top right of the screen that reads the name of the camera that shot the picture. Clicking this link will bring up a new page showing all of the camera settings the photographer used.

This photography workout simply requires going to Flickr or any other photo sharing website, finding good photos, and then carefully reviewing the EXIF data from the pictures. Ask intrinsically why the photographer chose those settings and what camera settings could change in order to improve the photograph.

When this photography exercise is implemented, the question, “How did he take that picture?” is asked much less often. With practice, knowing the correct camera settings is easy.

One Shot

Most photographers take tens of thousands of pictures over the course of a year, but only a handful of those photos really stand out enough to make their way to your portfolio of best images. Many good images may be captured during each time shooting, but rarely is an image captured that is truly stunning.

While all photographers understand this fact, their photography techniques rarely reflect it. Most photographers shoot hundreds of images and hope that some of them reach the level of quality necessary to make it into the portfolio.

Though this method of never missing the moment has some merit, it also teaches photographers that if the first or second photo of a scene does not turn out, it is acceptable to simply forgive and forget the mistakes and move on to something else. Therefore, this straight-forward exercise is designed to work that bad habit out of photographers: Go out and shoot, but do not return home with more than one photo. Click the shutter more times, yes, but delete each photo if it is not perfect.

Implementing this photography workout will teach photographers not to give up on a shot until it is perfect.

Ten Shots, One Subject

This workout works almost the opposite of the second exercise, but it has a similar purpose—keep shooting to capture the perfect shot.

To practice this technique, find one subject and work to capture ten photos of that same subject before leaving. I recognized the need for this exercise while teaching my photography students landscape photography. We went to shoot the famous Union Covered Bridge, but, not to my surprise, all of the students set up their tripods at the exact same spot immediately upon arriving at the bridge. Their photos included all of the bridge and the sunset behind it. This was a perfectly reasonable composition, but the students had a difficult time thinking of new ways to photograph the bridge in an interesting way.

I asked the students to all take 10 different shots of the bridge. They struggled at first, but eventually ended up with beautiful photos. They photographed tiny details on the bridge, captured photos of the trusses, and shot the bridge as a silhouette against the sunset. Soon the students discovered their initial photo of the subject was not quite as strong as the photos they took as they forced themselves to try new things.

When something captures your eye, don’t leave until you have shot that same subject in ten different ways.

As you practice your photography skills rather than simply shooting and hoping to improve, you will feel more confident in your ability to come out of any shoot with creative and technically-correct photos.

I do hope some of you will try this… it really does work!

Happy Shooting

JPH

The Quick and Dirty - Basic Photography Course

2011-03-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

The first and most important thing to understand for modern SLR photography is that to record an image you must have all of the following 6 things.

Light - You cannot have a picture without light in some form or another

Medium - What that light (or image) is recorded onto

Aperture - The hole that that light MUST pass through

Shutter Speed - The amount of time the light is allowed to pass through the hole

Composition - What is in your picture and how it is composed

Optics* - These are lenses that attach to our SLR camera and focus the light as an image *It is possible to record an image without optics by letting light pass through a very small aperture, this then effectively focuses the light enough that it can form an image. However optics make it much easier to achieve and also allow us to magnify or reduce the scale of the image.

Here is more detailed breakdown of the six essential requirements to recording an image:

LIGHT – To make a picture you require light, that light may be natural (sunlight/moonlight) or artificial such as a light bulb or flash. Light that our own eyes are sensitive to is called visible light but other creatures and materials are sensitive to non-visible forms of light such as ultraviolet light, infrared or x-ray. We can’t see those forms of light but some animal’s can, although we do have certain materials or mediums that can record them as a photograph.

MEDIUM - Film, digital sensor or special recording material. These materials or mediums are available in different sensitivities which are generally called ISO (film speed) and are what we record or “capture” the light onto.

APERTURE (Av = Aperture Value) – The size of the hole that the light has to pass through to form an image. An example would be a pinhole camera, this hole focuses the rays of light to form an image on the medium. However, to effectively form a high quality image we uses lenses to focus the light and the adjustable aperture inside the lens controls how much light gets through and how much of this light/image is in focus.

SHUTTER SPEED (Tv = Time Value) – The amount of time the light is allowed to pass through the hole. This provides the ability to freeze action of fast moving subjects by using a fast shutter speed or let objects or motion become blurred by using a slow shutter speed. The time the light is allowed to pass through is usually controlled by a door that opens and closes called a shutter. We can control the time we leave the shutter open for from hours to fractions of a second.

COMPOSITION – What is in your picture and how it is composed. This can also include angle of view, perspective, color, contrast and your subject.

OPTICS – A lens which focuses the light to a given point on the medium. Depending on the type of lens and its shape and the amount of elements and their space apart will determine if the image is magnified or give a wider view than your eye.

If you can understand these fundamental principles then everything else in photography no matter what, will relate back to one of or a combination of these 6 subjects

YES IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE!

From the six essential requirements two of them are important to learn first and fully understand; The aperture (size of the hole adjustable in the lens) and the shutter speed (Controls the amount of time that we record the light). These are the main mechanical control functions of your SLR camera, if you learn to control these manually then all other areas of photography becomes easier to understand. If you only use your Digital SLR camera in automatic modes then you will never fully benefit from the creative possibilities of your Digital SLR camera. My Photography Course covers this topic in full and also demonstrates the creative aspects of using the Shutter Speed and Aperture manually.

As a brief overview a smaller aperture will let less light through and a large aperture will allow more light through. A slow or long shutter speed will let more light through and a fast or brief shutter speed will let less light through. In photography when we adjust one we need to adjust the other to compensate for the decrease or increase in light to ensure that our recorded image is not overexposed (too bright) or underexposed (too dark). In the course materials (that I mentioned previously) you will learn how different shutter speeds affect your image, you will also see how large aperture sizes also give shallow depth of field. This means that only a shallow or small area of our picture appears to be sharp, usually this is the subject, which your lens has focused on. A small aperture would reduce the amount of light that can be recorded but it also increases the range of sharpness either side of the focus point.
This topic is fully covered in my Photography Course.

Two types of light are hard light and soft light.

SOURCES OF HARD LIGHT ARE: Light that comes from a source which has an apparent small surface area. e.g. Direct sunlight, flash, bare light bulb or a spot light.

SOURCES OF SOFT LIGHT ARE: Any light that comes from an apparent large surface area in relation to the subject that you are taking a picture of. e.g. Light through clouds on an overcast day, a big window with net curtains, a large studio soft box. Soft light can also be produced from a hard light source that has then been reflected off of a large plain surface back onto the subject therefore creating the effect of a large light.

There are also a whole slew of light mixtures and combinations in between these two extremes!

Other descriptions of light are:

TRANSMITTED LIGHT: Light visible in your image from its source.

REFLECTED LIGHT: Exactly that - light that is reflected off an object or reflected light onto our subject (most of the light that we view around us.)

Generally speaking our photos usually only include reflected light, but they can often look more exciting when we include transmitted light as part of the picture, such as featuring the sun or street
lights within our picture!

Note: Although this was written with SLR cameras in mind, it can easily be adapted to any film or digital camera. The key is to know your camera and what it is capable of doing!

What Gear Do You Really Need for Wedding Photography?

2011-03-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

Wedding photography is one of the largest and most varied areas of photography around. Different photographers have different styles, and no wedding album will be exactly the same. Many wedding photographers have kit worth tens of thousands which can be quite off-putting for somebody just breaking into this industry. So what kind of kit do you really need in order to take stunning wedding photos?

The answer might surprise you. You may think you need ten different lenses, four different cameras and every accessory under the sun, but it isn’t necessary. Yes, wedding photography is an unpredictable beast. After all, you’re capturing an event as it unfolds which means it’s largely out of your control. However, changing lenses all the time really isn’t something you’re going to want to do.

You’ll want to be able to move around quickly while keeping an eye on the celebrations as they happen. In the time it takes you to select a lens, remove the old one, attach the new one, turn the camera on, frame, focus and then finally take the photo, the opportunity has probably passed you by. What you really need is a lens that suits many different situations, but is there really such a thing?

What Lenses Do You Need?

Zoom
Many photographers (and indeed, couples) these days prefer a reportage style of photography – candid shots beautifully captured while everybody goes about their business, seemingly unaware of the camera being pointed at them. It’s natural and it’s flattering. For this style (and many others besides) a longer lens is often preferred; a mid range zoom, maybe longer. Depending on lighting conditions, it’ll have to be fairly fast to make life easier (using a flash is one of these variables, something I’ll get to later). The ability to zoom means you’ll be less of an intrusion and more likely to get far more natural shots, as you won’t be sitting in people’s laps as you take their photo.

Prime
Another route is prime lenses – a 50mm is great, and many photographers stick to this and only this. A 1.8 is good for the purpose, but if you have the cash you might want to consider splashing out on a 1.4 or even a 1.2. Yet another great lens (and famous for it’s ideal portrait focal length) is the 85mm. Again, f1.8, 1.4 or 1.2, the option is yours.

Bonus
As a bonus addition to your kit, you might want to consider a wide angle lens for those scenes in the church and any large group shots you end up taking, but that’s fairly style specific and only you’ll know whether you’d benefit from this type of lens. To summarise, any one or even two of these lenses mentioned will let you take 100% of the shots you want to take. Something fast with a long(ish) focal length is the idea, and this will suit nearly every style as they’re all incredibly versatile.

Don’t Forget About Renting!
But what if you can’t afford the lenses you want yet? No problem – rent them and include it in your price as you normally would. There are many companies who’ll rent lenses for affordable prices and it’s an ideal solution for many photographers.

What Camera Bodies Do You Need?

So that’s lenses, what about a body? Surely you need a camera that costs more than your car? Well, no, not really. I shot my last wedding party on a E500 with a E420 as backup. By many standards, it’s considered an entry level camera. However, I had a 14-45mm f2.8 stuck on the end of it (and sometimes a 50mm f1.8).

If you haven’t heard it yet, I’ll say it now – the glass is where it’s at. Think of it this way – you wouldn’t put a dirt cheap plastic lens on the end of a top of the range camera and expect it to give you stellar results, no matter how amazing the camera is.

As you progress you’ll probably upgrade as your needs change, but for now your current camera will probably do. The chances are the bride and groom aren’t going to be printing life size (and bigger) photos of themselves so resolution is pretty much a null point.

Take a Backup!
Also worth noting is making sure you have a backup camera of some sort, as there is nothing worse than arriving at a job only to find out your camera has decided it doesn’t want to work that day. You won’t be happy, and I can guarantee you that the happy couple won’t be quite so happy anymore either. As the wise old saying goes, prevention is better than cure.

Rent It!
Still not happy with your camera? Good news again! You can rent camera bodies for a decent price too. The only downside to this however (or upside, depending on your mindset) is that you might want to familiarise yourself with the camera first, which means renting it for a day or two beforehand. You don’t want to be figuring out how to stop the aperture down when the bride is walking down the aisle.

What Flash Will You Need?

Speedlights: More often than not, one will do. If you’re moving around you’re going to want to have something that’ll move around with you, so a speedlight is ideal.

Anything that’ll work with your camera will do – you don’t need anything fancy. Preferably, you’ll be able to move it around a little and point it towards the ceiling, behind you, to a wall…basically anything that means you won’t be firing it straight at your subjects. Something to diffuse it also wouldn’t go amiss. This could mean a fancy diffusing dome, but it could be as simple as some tape and a bit of tracing paper. Need a catchlight card but don’t have one built in? Use a white post it note or a bit of white card and tape it to the speedlight.

You might want to take some gels with you too to balance the lighting conditions – flash has a different colour temperature to artificial indoor lighting. Doing this will save you hours later when you’re busy editing your shots.

Bonus

An added bonus is using a flash that’ll work with triggers, which also means you might want to get some triggers too. This allows you even more creative freedom and lets you place the flash somewhere else in the scene other than on top of your camera. You might want to bring a stand for it though, just incase there’s nowhere to put it. You’ll probably have heard many photographers singing the praises of pocket wizards and many other expensive triggers, but you may find that something cheap and cheerful does the job just as well. The general rule of thumb is never to buy something and use it for the first time during a job. Test it out first. If it doesn’t work, you don’t want to find out when it’s too late.

Of course, you don’t have to use flash at all – natural light can be very beautiful on its own, but depending on yours and the couple’s preferences you might want to give it a little fill-in light to soften shadows. Additionally, if the light really isn’t doing anything nice that day you’ll be glad you have one.

What About a Tripod?
So that’s the camera, the lenses and the flash sorted. Is there anything else? What about a tripod? Do you really need one? That’s entirely up to you. I meant to take one with me once but in my haste forgot it (d’oh). Funnily enough, I didn’t realise I’d forgotten it until the end of the job. I didn’t find myself wanting it at all as I was moving around far too much to be bothered with one.

A monopod could be of use, and maybe during the evening do you could set yourself up in a corner with your tripod/monopod while you capture people dancing. For the most part though, you’re going to want to be as mobile as possible. Try it and see what suits you best!

Don’t Forget About Spares!
Have I left anything out? Ah yes, spares. Take spare memory cards (make sure they’re all formatted before the job and working) and spare batteries for the flash, the camera and anything else that requires them. Charge everything up the night before, and get it packed so you’re ready to head out the door the next day.

Most of all, enjoy yourself! If you're having fun and it shows, the people you photograph will be more relaxed!

Using Focal Points in Photography

2011-02-26T17:17:00.000-08:00

Next time you take your digital camera out and line it up for a shot pause before you press the shutter button and ask yourself:

“What is the Focal Point in this Picture?”

Some other ways to ask the same question might include – What is the central point of interest? What will draw the eye of the viewers of this picture? What in this image will make it stand out from others? What is my subject?

The reason a focal point is important is that when you look at an image your eye will generally need a ‘resting place’ or something of interest to really hold it. Without it you’ll find people will simply glance at your shots and then move on to the next one.

Once you’ve identified a point of interest or focal point you then should ask yourself how you can enhance it.

6 Techniques to Enhance the Focal Point in an Image

A focal point can be virtually anything ranging from a person, to a building, to a mountain, to a flower etc. Obviously the more interesting the focal point the better – but there are other things you can do to enhance its power including:

• Position – Place it in a prominent position – you might want to start with the rule of thirds for some ideas.
• Focus – Learn to use Depth of Field to blur out other aspects in front or behind your focal point.
• Blur – If you really want to get tricky you might want to play with slower shutter speeds if your main subject is still and things around it are moving.
• Size – making your focal point large is not the only way to make it prominent – but it definitely can help.
• Color – using contrasting colors can also be a way of setting your point of interest apart from it’s surroundings.
• Shape – similarly contrasting shapes and textures can make a subject stand out – especially patterns that are repeated around a subject.

Keep in mind that a combination of above elements can work well together.
Lastly – don’t confuse the viewer with too many competing focal points which might overwhelm the main focal point. Secondary points of interest can be helpful to lead the eye but too many strong ones will just clutter and confuse

2011-02-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

How To Tap Into Your Creative Mojo
A Guest post by by Annie Tao

Whether you’re a newbie or you’ve been a pro for years, there may be a point when you need a little help tapping into your creative mojo! Hey, even us right-brainers need to refresh our creativity from time to time!

Here are a few ideas to help boost your creativity:

Your camera is your friend
So take him (or her) everywhere with you!I know you’ve heard this before, but here’s the thing:it is easy to remember to bring your camera to scenic places or special events.Try taking it to places that aren’t obviously photogenic.This will train your eye to look out for beautiful things – light, patterns, mood, expressions, compositions – no matter where you are. Finding the best way to photograph different kinds of scenes, light and people is a great experience.

A 365 Project (one photo a day) or weekly photo project may be a great way to do this. Here are some tips if you want to get started. There are also many dedicated websites, such as http://365project.org, where you can share your photos, find inspiration and get encouragement from others.

Blog stalk
It’s an awful term, but it gets the point across! Research photographers from around the World and check out their recent work on their blogs. Photographers seldomly update their websites, but most update their blogs regularly. Bookmark the blogs you like or sign up for the RSS feed, so you can go back to them from time-to-time.

Don’t blog stalk to copy someone else’s creative eye; blog stalk to gain inspiration and develop your own creative vision.

And remember, you don’t have to limit yourself to photography blogs.You can look at design blogs, food blogs or just about any site that has photos.

Photo Walk
A Photo Walk is just as it sounds:you walk around and shoot whatever you see.You can either join a Photo Walk group, start a group, or just do this with a friend.Challenge yourself by going to different types of locations and going at different times of the day to get different types light.I prefer locations that make me have to search for art, like an abandoned construction site or a subway.

When you’re on a Photo Walk, you can see how someone else shoots – such as, what catches their eye, what angles are they shooting from, how are they composing the shot, what settings do they use, and what are they shooting?

After the Photo Walk, share your best shots with each other to see how you interpreted the same location or subjects.

I like doing photo walks with friends, but there are organized photo walks just about anywhere.You can start with http://worldwidephotowalk.com/ or do an online search for one close to you.

Photography Clubs
Mingling with fellow photographers and “talking shop” helps you learn.Don’t think of them as competition.We all share the same interest, the same passion.

Some clubs offer discounted courses, monthly meetings, guest speakers, or publications.They are definitely worth the small membership fee!

If you’re anything like me – where your love of photography runs through your veins – you will enjoy these activities and learn a-plenty!So bring on the creative mojo, baby!

Annie Tao is a lifestyle, commercial and event photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

You can view her work at www.annietaophotography.com and see what she’s been up to at www.annietaoblog.com. Connect with Annie at http://www.facebook.com/annietaophotography

5 ways to stop being a luck photographer {and start taking pictures on purpose}

2011-02-02T00:49:00.000-08:00

by Tri-County Photography

We’ve all been guilty of taking pictures with our eyes closed. Just go crazy, go on a shooting spree and see what happens. See what happy mistakes you can pawn off as well-thought out, purposefully captured portraits. Here are 6 ways you can identify yourself as a luck photographer:

1.You take way too many pictures. A one hour session results in 500 shots to sort in your computer

2.Your sessions take hours longer than they need to

3.You feel panicky, nervous and out of control while you’re shooting

4.You can’t explain to someone later on how you made a portrait or the settings you chose

5.You either shy away from manual all together or you ‘wing it’ and take the same shot over and over with different settings ‘just in case’

6.Your clients are confused as to why they spent hours with you, witnessed you taking a bajillion photos but they only ended up seeing 20 of them (note: clients will ask this anyway, but the less you rely on luck, the less they will ask)

I have been guilty of all of the above, and not even that long ago. Believe it or not, I’ve been a very good fake at times (some says I think I may STILL be faking it). In the beginning, I posted images that had rave reviews from readers inspite of the fact that they were just lucky shots that I couldn’t recreate if I wanted to. There are a few reasons why this can be dangerous to a photographer who is charging for their sessions:

1.Your clients have gone to your website for a product but when they come to you for their session, you won’t be able to produce the same product for them.

2.Following on from the above, some of you might know of the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. He was enticed by the leaves of the tree, but when he approached it, there was no fruit. He cursed it and it died. Being a haphazard photographer is like a tree of leaves enticing clients who later find that there isn’t actually any fruit. A business built on these principles can’t last.

3.You will smash your own confidence if you rely on luck. You will feel out of control and deep down inside, you’ll know that it wasn’t really YOU creating the images.

When I look back, I can see that I have learned many things from my lucky shooting days. I learned about composition. I learned about self restraint and, most importantly, I learned how to stop shooting for luck and how to start taking pictures on purpose. Here are the things I wish I knew back then to get started sooner:

1.Learn Light – I can’t just call myself an ‘available light photographer’ and claim to only shoot in natural light to get around learning about lighting. When I wanted to stop being at the mercy of the sun, the location, the time of day, I buckled down and learned the (surprisingly basic) things you need to know to take control of the light. Someone once said, “I’m an available light photographer. My Speedlite is available.”

2.Learn Your Camera - This is an obvious one, but needs to be said: learn how your camera sets exposure and why. Aperture, ISO, shutter speed and white balance. Force yourself to shoot in manual (or one of the in-between modes like aperture or shutter priority modes.) and see what the different dials actually do.

3.Learn Posing – I had to stop taking pride in being the anti-posed photographer and start actually learning about the art of posing subjects (particularly children) so that I could stop shooting like a maniac, chasing them for a square mile and just waiting for them to stop and look at me, all the while filling up a 16gb memory card and giving myself a lot of sorting to do later on. I bought and utilized posing guides from Skye Hardwick to take control and make portraits rather than just take pictures.

4.Try Bracketing – When you’re just starting out and you want to make sure to nail your exposure, bracketing can be a super useful tool. Before discovering it, I would take three different photos all while quickly moving the dials with my thumb to alter the shutter speed or aperture to get three exposures for one image. With bracketing, you can take three photos at once, all of different exposures and then choose later on which one is right for your image. Thank You Jesus for allowing the invention of the digital camera! (Up until the digital age, if you hadnt mastered exposure and how to adjust your camera, it was trial and error or fiddling with the dials and take more shots).

5.Have Restraint – When I shoot now, I probably trash only 10-15% of my images (in contrast to 80% in the beginning) and only for reasons like blinking or a cat running in the way. I don’t click click click the shutter. I set up the shot, take control of the light, capture the image and when I’ve got it, I move on to another. I think there must be such a thing as shutter addiction. It’s so satisfying to hear the shutter clamp down and know that you have actually captured something: that you have harnessed the light and made it yours.

No photographer just woke up being great. It’s been a long haul to get where I am and I recognize that I’ve got a LONG way to go. You never get to a point where you know 100% of everything there is to know about photography (or anything else for that matter) and that’s what makes it such an exciting hobby or career!

Happy Shooting!
JPH

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The Basics of RAW files {and what to do with the darn things}

2011-01-29T17:43:00.000-08:00

by Tri-County Photography

I was shooting a wedding once and the father-of-the-bride ‘knew a lot about photography’. I was literally laughing out loud (trying so terribly hard to hold it in) when I would adjust the dials and hear him say over my shoulder “mmmm oh yes you’re probably changing the white balance hmmm?” And best of all, “if you’re really professional you shoot in raw.”

RAW. It’s the ultimate test of someone’s acceptance of your status as a professional because it’s one of the first things that a mildly keen just-starting-out-er will pick up on in their search for photography knowledge. But even though it’s one of the first things you’ll likely learn, it’s also one of the most confusing elements for a beginner.

I’m a control freak. I don’t want to work my butt off to pull every element of an image together and then lose control of my color temp in post processing. I want to control everything about the final product. If it were possible, I would even come to every single one of your houses and calibrate the world’s computer screens to see things exactly the same. Before you can love raw, you have to understand it.

{Basically…}

■If you’re shooting in jpeg and you hit the shutter to let all the beautiful light flood your sensor and record the image onto your memory card, the camera collects the information and quickly compresses it down into a reasonably sized file. It judges things like the color of the sky and the temperature of the light. Even when you’ve taken the image in manual mode and set everything yourself, the jpeg still needs to make some decisions as it smooshes all that information into one little file.

■But if you shoot in raw, the sensor stays hands-off and says “ok, hot shot. YOU deal with it!”

■…this means that you have total, blissful control of your entire image.

■…but not without some work of your own.

■RAW files need to be imported into a computer program like Adobe LightRoom or Adobe Camera Raw (those seem to be the popular ones, personally I use Olympus Master and Corel PaintShop Pro Photo 12) and then either instantly exported as jpegs (yikes!)

■…or perfected according to your vision for the image with editing and then exported as a jpg or other printer-friendly format.

■So just to make sure you get it I’ll say it this way: a raw file isn’t an image. Its information gathered by the sensor and delivered to you on a memory card. It’s totally your job to then do what you want with that information before compressing it into an ‘image’.

■Also, a raw file won’t usually have included the in-camera sharpening that jpeg compression provides. So don’t fret when you think your image isn’t as sharp as it should be – this also needs to be done by you in the post production editing process.

I will add some helpful links to software and tutorials, to supliment this article, in the near future.

Happy Shooting!!

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Adding Emotion and Feeling To Photographs

2011-01-27T17:08:00.001-08:00

One thing that makes a great photo is its ability to convey emotion. Emotion in a photograph, or any work of art, is what helps a viewer connect with a piece if that emotion is prevalent in the viewer. Happiness and joy, sorrow and despair, these are some of the easier emotions as they are universally felt, at one time or another, by all on this planet.

Emotion, or a feeling, is what can bring a snapshot out of obscurity and make it shine. Think of a normal sunset picture from the shores of Hawaii with just the horizon and a bright orange sun dipping low. It’s beautiful for sure and even better when viewed in person. Now pull the zoom back to a wider angle and show a couple in silhouette, sitting on lounge chairs facing the waves and reaching to each other to hold hands. Different people will connect with each photo in different ways, or maybe not at all. Those in a romanic mood will enjoy the photo of the couple and those looking for calm without distraction may enjoy the singular sunset.

My point here is you can’t guess which mood people will be in when they view your work. Which is actually a good thing, because the photo should be your expression of what you see and feel through the viewfinder (unless you are attempting a neutrally biased photojournalistic stance). Here then are some tips to help convey emotion and feeling in photographs to help make a stronger connection with viewers.

Realize What Type Of Mood You’re In While Shooting

Your emotional state has the largest impact on the emotional quality of your photos. When I look back through travel photos I will often noticed a dip here and there in the number of photos taken on a particular day. The quality is also off and I can remember just what I was feeling that day. In most cases, I had that, “Just not feeling it today” blah that comes and goes for us all. And it shows in my work.

Other days I feel like the world is my oyster and I’m uncovering hidden gems left and right.

It’s important to understand where you are and realize that will likely come through in your photography (while realizing just like anything in life, some people are really good at faking it). Give yourself a break on the down days and be sure to pick up your camera on the upswings. Just remember that neither lasts forever.

Tighten The Shot

Often a singular emotion gets lost in a busy scene. This goes for photos as well. Simplify the main subject of the image before hitting the shutter release. A wide angle view of a festival in the streets might show the size, which can be impressive in its own right, but the feel of that party is best conveyed on the faces of those dancing or performing in the crowd. Zero in on the action. It may tell the difference between a large crowd who is standing around, bored or a large crowd having the time of their lives.

Focus On Faces

This is a fairly straight forward bit of advice that may seem obvious, but many of us avoid people photographs when in a new situations with strangers. When possible, always ask permission before taking a picture of stranger, especially head on. Again, remember your mood will possibly influence theirs and if you are trying to capture them as naturally as can be (without being a sniper hiding in the shadows), keep your demeanor as neutral as can be. Simple raised eyebrows while pointing to your camera does work and it doesn’t require a huge smile on your part, as if you are asking your subject to smile back.

Chances are they will convey what they wish. If life is hard, they likely won’t smile and their face will often tell the tale of their hardships. If they are joyous, or just young, you may get a beaming smile. And with any good portrait, remember to get sharp focus on the eyes. And share the results with your subject if you can.

Set Your Camera Down And Observe

I tend to get lambasted when I tell people to stop shooting and set the camera away, so this time I’ll simply tell you to put the camera down for a minute. Forget about shooting and just sit and observe. Your mood has a big part in what and how you shoot, but also realize that being a shooter in a situation often means you travel in a bubble.

To break out of that bubble and absorb more from the world in which you are immersed, sit. And observe for 15 minutes. The mood of those around you will often become more apparent with this relaxed stance.

Return If You Can

If you are shooting a subject which you can return to, do it. The same street or beach or room will have a different feel on different days, especially if the weather changes often. And your mood can shift as well from day to day. Return to a location with an open mind for a second look and you may be surprised to find not only are the characters involved different, the feel of the place is different too.

Conveying emotion in photography is a surefire way to help your work connect with those viewing it. It will help lift the quality of your work and give it more punch. Before you hit the shutter release next time, think to yourself, “What emotion am I trying to convey?”

What To Do When You Break Your Camera

2011-01-21T13:22:00.000-08:00

I hope you’re not reading this post because you just broke your camera. If so, read swiftly.

If not, chances are you or someone you know has broken their camera at one point in life. I started early by leaving my camera on the top of my car at the age of 23 and turned a sharp corner out of a parking lot. “Thump, Thump, Thump,” went my Pentax SLR as it bounced across the roof and made a leap for the pavement, rolling through two lanes. Amazingly, even though the lens was broken and the camera house cracked, it still worked... mostly; of course this was LONG before the digital age!

The pit of the stomach feeling when I first realized what that was that I saw out of the the corner of my eye has come up a few times since, unfortunately. I’m not a klutz by nature, I’ve just handled cameras a lot and been around others who have. It happens.

But what to do when it happens?

Don’t Panic

As with any unfortunate event, the key is to not panic. Falling to pieces and getting overly emotional about the event will not help keep your mind clear and make the most of the situation. Panicking leads to other mistakes, which can be costly in their own right. Keep your cool! A bit of profanity is permissible.

Grab The Pieces, All Of Them

Once you are finished with your (minor) freak out, because you didn’t listen to my first bit of advice, start picking up the pieces. Unless you are in a calm setting, such as at home in the kitchen, you are probably out in public and need to make sure all the bits are grabbed before they get scattered. Enlist help if need be. You never know which little piece will be helpful in getting things back together. Even if it looks unimportant, grab it.

Take Out The Battery

If your battery hasn’t flown free from your camera and skittered half a mile away (I swear most camera batteries are built with self preservation instincts and fly free from a breaking camera at the first sign of trouble) now is a good time to take it out. If your camera is partially functioning, more damage can be done from parts trying to move when they don’t quite line up. I’ll admit I haven’t always followed this advice. Which is why I now suggest this advice. Accept your fate and deal with it. Power off your camera completely to avoid additional damage.

Grab Your Flash Card

I have actually sent back a camera for repair with the card still in it. This, again, comes from the first point. I got all freaked out about the damage and didn’t grab my card, even a few days later. The irony is I often hear people tell me, “If I dropped my camera in the lake, that’s that!” When in reality it often is not “that”. Your card is a solid state device and, barring electric jolt, will retain the images recorded to it. Corrosives will cause damage, but a quick dunk in a pool of water, while a bad thing for your camera and the electricity it carries, is not necessarily fatal to your images. Grab that card out and dry it off, completely. Heck, you may even have one interesting last image as your camera met its fate.

Do No Harm

Guilty, yet again. I have tried to fix my semi-broken cameras before. That typically made them completely broken cameras. And made the repair bill higher. Unless you are a pro at this type of fixing, your expensive DSLR is not a good item on which to start learning about camera repair. Leave it to the pros.

Check Your Warranty

Before you send in your camera for repair, they’ll want to know about your warranty. This starts with recording the information some place logical and easy to retrieve. Maybe in online email. Maybe on your cell phone (if you are on a trip). Maybe a tattoo. Whatever works for you, when you buy a camera, record this information for easy retrieval. I once failed to send in a computer for repair because I thought it was past the warranty and the reciept was burried in years of boxed paper. So I put it off for a month. When I found the receipt I learned I was now out of the warranty period, but I wasn’t when the incident occurred. Having an easy way to find this information will make life easier when it is already stressful.

Also check to see what your warranty covers. Most won’t cover negligence (accidents) and other incidents. Know before you have something go wrong.

Check Your Insurance

If the warranty won’t cover an accident, it is possible a homeowners or renters insurance policy will. Again, make sure the information is easy to find and understand the limits before using it.

Know Your Repair Options

Not everything needs to head back to the manufacturer’s factory. Local camera shops often offer repair and the service and price varies greatly. Most large brands will offer a free estimate before proceeding with a repair, much like a car mechanic should. In one incident I found the repair to be more than a replacement. In another (yes, I have dropped more than one camera) the repair cost was much less than I anticipated and I was pleasantly surprised. Ask around and get as many free estimates as you can if you have the luxury of time.

Know You Can Rent While Repairs Happen

Often it is calming to know a rental option is available, either online or around the street corner. Being without a prized lens or body when a shoot is planned for the near future will cause a spike in blood pressure. Relax. While it will cost additional funds, there are options to make sure you can keep shooting until your gear comes back to you.

Check eBay For Replacements

While you are waiting for your free estimate for repair (notice how I keep holding on to hope that your camera was not completely obliterated?) check eBay and other secondhand resources for replacements. Sometimes we fall in love with our gear and keep it for years beyond its production date. If it’s not available new, it may be available on the secondary market.

Sell It, Don’t Trash It

If the camera or lens is a total loss, don’t just throw it in the trash to clog another landfill. Look again to eBay and other sites where broken equipment can be listed (with proper notation). One man’s trash is another’s treasure. Repair shops can scavenge usable parts off of the body and get them on other cameras which met a similar fate. Plus it is a chance to turn a complete loss into enough money to buy a beer to cry into.

Move On

Sometimes broken stuff doesn’t come back to life. Sometimes it stays broken. The positive spin on this? It’s time to start shopping for a newer, better, faster, cooler camera!

The new snow

2011-01-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to get out today and get some great winter shots, but ...

Anyways, maybe tomorrow we can have a session on winter shooting.

4 Reasons Not to Write off Shooting in Automatic

2011-01-20T06:17:00.000-08:00

by Natalie Norton

In this post Natalie Norton from natalienortonphoto.com explores why shooting in automatic can sometimes be worth doing.

Sometimes photographers have a complex about shooting in automatic. I shoot primarily in Aperture Priority (and am not here to knock manual settings AT ALL), but I have a tender place in my heart for ol’ Auto. Here are 4 reasons not to write her off too quickly.

1. If you’re relatively new to photography.
If you’re relatively new to photography, Auto can give you a great opportunity for exploration, frankly because it’s less to think about. You have the freedom to “go out on a limb” artistically speaking that you wouldn’t be able to were you going mad metering light, selecting shutter speeds and fiddling with apertures. I really believe that photography takes a certain amount of training of the eye to fall into your personal artistic niche- you’ve got to be free to do that, no strings attached. You can’t surpass the limits of shooting Auto until you become familiar enough with your camera (and photography in general I must add) to know what they are. I shot in Auto for over a year before making the transition over. Shamelessly! The images were superb and it is very rare (like it’s NEVER happened to me once) for anyone to look at a great image and say, “Wow, but did you shoot that in Auto?” No one cares. A good image is a good image is a good image. Period.

ANY friend of mine who comes to me early on in their photography “career” asking for lessons is forbidden from shooting in any mode other than AUTO for at LEAST 3-6 months. In my mind that’s enough time to get your framing style down to the point where it’s just, for lack of a better word, automatic. . . second nature. When that happens, THEN you’re ready to explore other settings. I’ve known too many photographers who are technically off the chart but can’t frame an image worth poo. Don’t fall into that trap by plugging up the artist in you by focusing too much on the technical aspect. It will come. It will. I PROMISE.

2. It can save you when you’re just not QUITE sure.
I have a little “trick” that I use every so often.
If I’m busy shooting away in manual or AP and I’m just not 100% sure I’m nailing the shot, I’ll fire off a few frames in Auto just to be safe. That way if I’ve muffed my shot, there’s still hope. It’s been amazing for me, as it’s saved me a few times over. It’s also been great because it’s given me confidence. There’s nothing like the insecurity of not knowing if you’re really capturing what you hope you are. Yes, I know, LCD screens are helpful. But let’s just face it, they could be a whole heck of a lot bigger. Plus, if you’re shooting anything other than a 100 year old woman who couldn’t move if she wanted to, you don’t have time to check to be sure you got the shot after each frame. You’re rippin’ shots off just about as fast as you can and don’t have time to check to be certain you’re nailing each and every one. There’s nothing as depressing as coming home, uploading and finding that an entire batch is totally underexposed.

Over time you’ll come to where you’re generally happier with the images where you were the boss of your camera rather than the other way around. Mmm. That feels good.

3. The terms: Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual mean nothing to you.Awesome! Less pressure! Just don’t mess where you aren’t yet comfortable. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was Ansel Adams. Just keep pressing forward. You’ll feel inclined to learn when you’re ready. No rush. Just don’t pick your son’s first birthday party as your day of camera setting exploration. . . set a time and run a test shoot. Play it safe!!

4. Your subject won’t sit still.Sometimes I run into issues shooting in manual when I’m doing candid shots of kiddos. They’re constantly running in and out of the light, and up and down and around and through and over and under and. . .you get the picture. I can’t switch my settings fast enough to catch them before they’re on to the next adventure. When that’s the case I click over to automatic and thank my lucky stars! She’s so good to me!! Sure if I had time and patience I could fiddle and faddle around to get the precise setting, but generally I’m working against the light, against the clock (a 1 hour sitting) and against the patience of a two year old! I’ve gotta be quick so that I have a broad selection post shoot.

Example: I shot the most darling little boy the other day at a beach that also has forest, caves and cliffs. He’s just the coolest little kid ever AND he’s got enough energy to put my 3 year old to shame (and if you know Cardon you understand that that’s REALLY saying something. . .REALLY). He was EVERYWHERE. I couldn’t fire off a shot before he was on the move again. I was going haywire trying to focus. The changing light as he would run in and out of thick forest (remember I live in Hawaii, the canopy is dense) and climbing up onto bright cliffs, was really throwing me for a loop, so I hopped on over to Automatic and yippee! She saved the day.
I just want to reiterate that shooting in Auto doesn’t make you any “less” of a photographer by any stretch of the imagination. Ignore anyone who tells you otherwise. We’re all at different stops along the path, but every one’s destination is the same. Images that speak to us, that make our hearts sing and our spirit’s soar. . . images that make us feel and cause us to wipe a tear from our eye. Whatever you have to do to get to that point, it just doesn’t matter. So, give yourselves, and good ol’ Automatic, a break!

Natalie lives and shoots on the North Shore of Oahu, HI with her wonderful husband and 3 crazy sons. See more of her work and writing at natalienortonphoto.com.

Note: this post was originally posted in 2008 but has continued to get regular responses from readers – so I decided to republish it for those who may not have seen it.

Happy Shooting!
~ JPH

How to Take Sharp Digital Images

2011-01-19T11:27:00.000-08:00

Getting your digital images perfectly sharp is something that most photographers want – however clean, crisp, sharp images can be difficult to achieve.
Perhaps before we start exploring how to improve sharpness it would be good to talk about the main causes for lack of sharpness:

• Poor Focus – the most obvious way to get images that are ‘un-sharp’ is through having them out of focus. This might be a result of focusing upon the wrong part of the image, being too close to your subject for the camera to focus, selecting an aperture that generates a very narrow depth of field or taking an image too quickly without checking it is in focus.

• Subject Movement - another type of ‘blur’ in shots is the result of your subject moving – this is generally related to shutter speed being too slow.

• Camera Shake – similarly you can get blur if you as the photographer generate movement while taking the image – this often relates to either shutter speed and/or the stillness of your camera.

• Noise – ‘noisy’ shots are ones that are pixilated and look like they have lots of little dots over them (get up close to your TV and you’ll get the same impact).

Here’s a list of 10 basic things to think about when shooting to get sharp images (note – there’s also a lot you can do in photo-shop or Paint-Shop Photo Pro (my choice software) after taking you images):

1. Hold Your Camera Well
A lot of blur in the photos that I see is a direct result of camera shake (the movement of your camera for that split second when your shutter is open). While the best way to tackle camera shake is to use a Tripod (see below) there are many times when using one is impractical and you’ll need to shoot while holding your camera. I’ve written a tutorial previously on how to hold a digital camera but in brief – use both hands, keep the camera close to your body, support yourself with a wall, tree or some other solid object etc.

2. Tripods
Regular readers of this site will have seen my recent series on tripods and know that I’m a big fan of them as a way to reduce (and even eliminate) camera shake. While not always practical, the result you’ll get when you do go to the effort of hauling one around can be well worth it. A brief word on tripods, they are NOT all created equal. A good solid mount that will support your gear is a MUST!

3. Shutter Speed
Perhaps one of the first things to think about in your quest for sharp images is the shutter speed that you select. Obviously – the faster your shutter speed the less impact camera shakes will have and the more you’ll freeze any movement in your shots. As a result you reduce the likelihood of two of the main types of blur in one go (subject movement and camera movement).

Remember the ‘rule’ for handheld shutter speeds:

So:

• if you have a lens that is 50mm in length don’t shoot any slower than 1/60th of a second

• if you have a lens with a 100mm focal length shoot at 1/125th of a second or faster

• if you are shooting with a lens of 200mm shoot at 1/250th of a second or faster

Keep in mind that the faster your shutter speed is the larger you’ll need to make your Aperture to compensate – this will mean you have a smaller depth of field which makes focusing more of a challenge.

4. Aperture
Aperture impacts the depth of field (the zone that is in focus) in your images. Decreasing your aperture (increasing the number – say up to f/20) will increase the depth of field meaning that the zone that is in focus will include both close and distant objects. Do the opposite (for example moving to f/4) and the foreground and background of your images will be more out of focus and you’ll need to be more exact with what you focus your camera upon. Keep in mind that the smaller your aperture the longer your shutter speeds will need to be – which of course makes moving subjects more difficult to keep sharp.

5. ISO
The third element of the exposure triangle is ISO which has a direct impact upon the noisiness of your shots. Choose a larger ISO and you’ll be able to use faster shutter speed and smaller aperture (which as we’ve seen help with sharpness) but you’ll suffer by increasing the noise of your shots. Depending upon your camera (and how large you want to enlarge your images) you can probably get away with using ISO of up to 400 (or even 800 on some cameras) without too much noise but for pin sharp images keep it as low as possible).

6. Image Stabilization
Many cameras and lenses are now being released with different forms of image stabilization (IS) which won’t eliminate camera shake – but can definitely help reduce its impact. I find that using IS lenses that it will give me an extra two or three stops (i.e. I can use slower shutter speeds but 2-3 stops) when hand holding my camera. Keep in mind that IS helps with camera movement but not subject movement as it allows you to use slower shutter speeds (not good for moving subjects).

7. Focus
Perhaps the most obvious technique to work on when aiming for sharp lenses is focusing. Most of us use ‘Auto Focusing’ with our cameras but don’t assume that the camera will always get it right. Always visually check what part of the image is in focus before hitting the shutter and if it’s not right try again or switch to manual focus mode. This is particularly important if you’re shooting with a large aperture (small depth of field) where even being slightly out can result in your subject being noticeably out of focus.

8. Good lenses
This one is for DSLR owners – if you have the budget for it invest in good quality lenses as they can have a major impact upon the sharpness of your images. For example shortly after buying my DSLR I was in the market for an everyday zoom lens that would give me the ability to have both wide and telephoto zoom capabilities. I bought an Olympus 45 – 150 mm kit lens. It was a good lens (and reasonably priced) but it wasn’t as sharp as some of my other lenses. A few months later I borrowed an Olympus 70 – 300 mm lens(the professional series of lenses from Olympus) from a friend and was amazed by the difference in sharpness between the lenses. While the first lens was good for what I paid for it, I am saving for an upgrade and the new lens will be almost permanently attached to my camera.

9. Get your Eyes Checked
Since I was young I’ve worn glasses for reading, but in recent years I’ve been a little slack in getting my eyes checked since they change week by week anyway. After the last eye exam, and getting new glasses a number of areas of my life improved, one of which was my photography. Also connected with this is checking the ‘diopter’ on your camera (if it has one. The diopter is a little adjustment that you can make to how your viewfinder works – it’s particularly useful for people with poor eye sight – it’s usually a little wheel next to your viewfinder). See my post on FB about diopter use.

10. Clean equipment
Recently my wife went on a window cleaning frenzy at our place. Over the previous months the grime on our windows had gradually built up without us really noticing it. When we did clean them though, we were amazed at how much more light got through and how much better the view outside was. The same can be true for your camera’s lens. Keep it clean and you’ll eliminate the smudges, dust and grime that can impact your shots. Similarly – a clean image sensor is a wonderful thing if you have a DSLR as getting dust on it can produce noticeable blotches in your end images.

Update

11. Lens Sweet Spot
Lenses have spots in their aperture ranges that are sharper than others. In many cases this ’sweet spot’ is one or two stops from the maximum aperture. So instead of shooting with your lens wide open (i.e. where the numbers are smallest) pull it back a stop or two and you might find you get a little more clarity in your shots.

Beyond the Sunset – The Different Phases of Twilight

2011-01-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

Sunsets are one of the most common and widely photographed events in nature. They are stunning and inspiring to watch and never seem to last quite long enough before everything is over. I’ve been on quite a few photo walks with groups of photographers during sunset, and I always notice the same thing: Once the sun dips below the horizon, the majority of people pack up their gear and head home. They see a setting sun as the end of a wonderful night of shooting, but they are missing so much!

I see the same thing with portrait photographers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out shooting a lifestyle or engagement session at a popular location during sunset and watched all the photographers scramble to get their shots in. Sure enough, as soon as the sun sets the place clears out, which is fine by me!
What most photographers don’t understand is that once the sun has disappeared, a new window of opportunity begins; there is still plenty of useable light left! Twilight is the period of time in between day and night, and is caused by refraction and the sun’s rays scattering from the atmosphere. What most people don’t know is that there are three different phases of twilight, each with very distinct and unique features that open up different worlds of opportunities for your images. My goal for this article is to shed some light (pun definitely intended) on what happens after the sun goes down, and to let photographers know that the setting sun is just the beginning!

Sunset and Sunrise

The period of time leading up to sunset or directly after sunset are the most popular times for photographers. The light is beautiful and perfect for portraits and landscapes. The sunlight is diffused and less harsh, and beautiful warm tones are cast across the horizon. Sunsets and sunrises are also popular photographic opportunities because the sun acts as another interesting element in a photograph because of its low relative position to the horizon, which can’t be done during the day time in most cases. I think there is also something very spiritual about these times of day, they have a way of making people stop and take everything in. It’s both calming and invigorating. But all across the world, at all the sunset watching parties and photo walks, as soon as the sun hits the horizon people begin to pack up and head home. Little do they know that twilight is upon them and the many photo ops of the evening have just begun.

Civil Twilight

Civil twilight is the brightest phase of twilight and occurs from the moment the sun dips below the horizon and lasts until the center of the sun is geometrically 6 degrees below the horizon (or from the time the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon until it hits the horizon in the morning). This period of time lasts about 30 minutes on average but can be longer or shorter depending on the time of year and your position on the globe. During civil twilight, you may also be able to see the brightest stars in the sky, as well as some planets like venus. The horizon is clearly visible and taking handheld pictures is relatively easy to do. Objects are clearly defined and no additional light is needed in most cases. The light cast during this phase can be anywhere from warm golden tones to cool pink tones.
During civil twilight, the colors of the sky are going to be changing quickly. The sunset colors are going to go away and an entire new set of colors are going to splay out across the sky. These colors are going to become cooler in temperature as time goes on and it’s important to be able to adapt to the quickly changing conditions. As the next phase of twilight approaches, the gradation from the sunset point to the other end of the sky is going to become very smooth and pleasant, and the dynamic range of light in your images is going to decrease drastically.

Nautical Twilight

Nautical twilight occurs right after civil twilight in the evening, and right before civil twilight in the morning. This phase occurs when the center of the sun is between 6 and 12 degrees below the horizon in the evening. This period also usually lasts around 30 minutes and the primary color cast across the atmosphere is usually a deep blue tone with still noticeable orange and yellow hues left over from the fading sun. The horizon is still visible during this time but hand held shots are going to be somewhat difficult by now. The light has started to dissipate quickly and silhouettes are going to be more prevelent in your shots. Details will be harder to make out during this time but there is still some remaining light on the horizon from the sun.

This is a great time to start looking for artificial light for your images. During nautical twilight, the artificial lights in buildings and structures will really begin to take over the scene, and there are endless opportunities for compelling images. Be sure to use a tripod during this time as hand held images will be extremely difficult. Pay attention to the way the remaining light and manmade light in your scene interacts with the subjects in your image. Use the directional light from the horizon to add hints of definition to objects and be ready to take multiple images as the light conditions will change rapidly.

Astronomical Twilight

The last phase of twilight is known as astronomical twilight, or “astro” for short. This period of twilight occurs when the center of the sun is between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon and slowly degrades over a period of 30 minutes before night time officially begins. Getting hand held images during this time is pretty much impossible, and a tripod is strongly suggested. During this phase of twilight, there is still some useable light to make for very interesting pictures but night will be approaching quickly.

Cityscapes really comes to life during this time and the smallest light becomes a powerful tool of illumination. There is still a faint cast of dark blue across the horizon at first, and this slowly turns to black as night time begins. Away from the city, stars will be very visible and can be incorporated into some shots. Details will be somewhat difficult to make out without the help of some sort of artificial help. This phase of twilight is certainly the most difficult for creating images, but it can still be very rewarding.

Conclusion

I hope this article will inspire you to stick it out after the sun dips beneath the horizon. Whenever I schedule a client shoot 30 minutes before sunset, they often have a freak out moment because they are afraid 30 minutes won’t be near enough time for a photo shoot. I then explain to them what I’ve explained in this article; that sunset is just the beginning and there is still plenty of time afterwards for amazing light and amazing images. Getting shots during twilight completely depends on your commitment to getting the shot. Are you prepared to stick around when everyone else has left? Are you willing to go out and take pictures while everyone else is eating dinner or still in bed? Are you ready to carry that tripod with you even though it’s bulky and inconvenient? If the answer is yes, I guarantee you will walk away from your experience with dramatically different images than anyone else.
If you have an iPhone, I strongly recommend purchasing an app called SoLuna. It finds your location and tells you the exact time of day for sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, as well as exact times for each phase of twilight. It’s great for planning when to go out and when to have your tripod and camera set up by.
Follow Me!

Be sure to follow me on Blogger if you aren’t already. I’m always available to answer questions here or on my FaceBook or in the comments below. I also do my best to share plenty of links to inspirational articles and other photographers work and what not. Good luck and happy shooting!

Challenges of Flower Photography

2009-04-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

Flower Photography - Challenges of Flower Photography

Flower photography is a favorite type of photography for many people. Flowers come in a huge variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. Combine this with the bees and butterflies that flowers attract and photographers fairly swarm around flowers in bloom.
see photo

Flower photography has some unique challenges when compared with other photography subjects.

* Dealing With Minimum Focusing Distances
* Lighting Challenges From Multiple Surface Angles
* Dealing With Random Motion

Flower Photography - Dealing with Minimum Focusing Distances

In flower photography, the small size of many flowers often cause photographers to struggle when trying to fill the frame with the flower. Each lens has a minimum focusing distance that restricts how close we can get to the flower and still keep it in focus. For zoom lenses without macro capability, this distance can sometimes be 3 or more feet from the subject.

With larger subjects, minimum focusing distance isn't usually an issue. But when dealing with flowers the instinct of the photographer is to move as close as possible in order to fill the frame with the flower. In doing this, the photographer will move closer until the flower cannot be focused on and then will move back slightly. The problem is that when the lens is on the borderline between being able to focus and being too close, a slight wiggle of the photographer will put the flower out of focus.

see photo

There are several ways to deal with the minimum focusing distance issue.

* Use a tripod
By using a tripod, your camera will be fixed at one point and not subject to accidental bumps into the "too close" zone.

* Move your body
When you are on the borderline of too close to your subject, use your body to focus the image. Set the camera to the minimum distance focus and lean forward or back until the image is in focus. This is actually more precise than trying to focus with the lens and compensating for slight body movement at the same time.

* Change the minimum focus distance
By using extension tubes (compare prices), you will increase the distance between the rear element of your lens and the film or digital sensor. The effect of this is to allow much smaller minimum focusing distances in front of the lens.

Flower Photography - Lighting Challenges From Multiple Surface Angles

Flower photography lighting is a challenge because of multiple surface angles. Most flowers have multiple petals. Between petals, stems, and leaves a photographer is faced with light being reflected from multiple surfaces and often blocked by a few. Every petal can act like a mini-reflector.

see photo

This often results in a few petals being very dark and a few being extremely bright. There are a few ways to combat this issue.

* Make the most of it
Lighting differences on flower surfaces are not necessarily a bad thing. Take the time to study the flower and see if there is an angle you can shoot from that uses the lighting situation as a plus for your image. Silhouttes, backlit images, and highlighted images are often very striking.

* Add more light
If the lighting differences are just too great you can add more light to even out the exposure. You can do this with flash (use a diffuser) or reflectors.

* Come back later
Another way to deal with the lighting differences is to come back at a different time of day when the sun is at a different angle to the flower. Morning, midday, and afternoon light all have different properties of color as well as light intensity and angle so it is worth visiting your chosen flower subject throughout the day to find the perfect lighting.

Flower Photography - Challenges From Random Motion

Flowers are often thought of as motionless subjects. They don't run when you approach, they stay in the same place all day, and they don't try to bite you when get too close. However, flowers do move and create flower photography challenges from random motion. Wind, even gentle breezes, can cause enough motion in flowers to create blurry images. Insects on flowers can also cause sudden motion when the insect arrives or leaves. Even dew dropping off of a flower can cause a rebounding effect. Like most problems, there are solutions for this movement.

see photo

* Hold it still
There are clamp arms made specifically for flower photography that do not damage the flower. These clamps are attached to a tripod and then adjusted to hold the flower where the photographer needs it to be for the image. You can also try holding the flower still with your fingers but this is prone to movement caused by shaky hands.

* Photograph in the morning
The air is generally at its most still first thing in the morning. Frost is often still on flowers and insects move slowly as well. Combined with the excellent light quality found first thing in the morning, this time of day is excellent for flower photography.

* Use a high shutter speed
Using a high shutter speed (1/500 of a second or faster) will minimize the chances of an image turning out blurry due to unexpected motion of a flower.

Action Photography

2009-03-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hey Reader ,

How's it doing? How has it been taking photos? Have you seen any
improvements since you first started? Have you tried to take any
photos of objects that move fast?

Taking shots of moving objects is different than other types of
photography. Don't worry...it's easy!

The key to taking action shots is knowing how to use your camera
right. The settings on your camera are responsible for a fast
action shot coming out nice or blurry and messed up.

Improper setting of your camera is the reason many people end up
with somewhat blurry shots. Most likely, it's because of the
shutter speed.

The shutter speed controls how long light is let in. If light is
let in while an object is moving the result will be blur. This is
the reason many people use tripods.

The way to capture fast moving objects without blur is to use very
fast shutter speeds such as 1/500. This works great with events
like sports and such.

Now, this is great for fast moving sports where you want everything
in focus. But what if you only want the runner to be in focus and
the background to be blurred in steaks? This is called a pan shot
and is relatively easy to do.

What to do

-Get a tripod
-Set the shutter speed to a slow shutter speed such as 1/30 or slower
-Define your subject that is moving

What you are going to do is find the subject that is going to move
and follow them horizontally from the tripod. You are going to
"pan" follow them. When you follow the subject you are going to try
as hard as possible to keep the subject in the same exact spot on
the frame. If the subject is running and is on the right side, keep
the subject at that same spot even though the subjects moving.

What this does is make the camera think the subject isn't moving
(it's in the same spot). The background, however, is moving and the
shutter speed is slow so the result...a blurred background with a
crisp, sharp subject moving.

There are many more tips on action photography available out there.
This is only a small touch to what the possibilities are with the
shutter speed.

Get out and shoot ... and have fun!

common mistakes that ruin photos

2009-03-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Well...today I've decided that I'll be covering the common mistakes that ruin photos.

I used to make these mistakes all the time. And the bad part is, I didn't even know it!

When you know you're making mistakes then you're learning. If you don't realize your making mistakes how are you going to learn?

Today I'll be covering a few very common mistakes...

--------------------------------------------
Common Mistake 1: Living in Automatic Mode
--------------------------------------------

Automatic mode is a great mode to work in when you don't have time
to mess with manual settings. For example, when you don't expect
something to happen automatic mode is great.

However, do not limit yourself to this. Experiment with manual
and other settings.

--------------------------------------------
Common Mistake 2:Focusing on Too Many Things
--------------------------------------------

A lot of times when beginners take pictures they'll focus on way
too many subjects. There'll be an owl on the top, a fish on
the bottom, and an old man in the middle!

Focus on just ONE subject! When you get good at this THEN you can
try doing more complex shots.

--------------------------------------------
Common Mistake 3: Photos that Are Too Dark/Bright
--------------------------------------------

When you take a photo, you need to be positive you have the right
settings. Improper settings can make your photo too dark or bright.

Here are some very rough guidelines when photographing with an SLR.

In Full Sunlight
-aperture of 16
-shutter of 1/125

In Shade
-aperture of 5.6
-shutter of 1/125

If you are using an automatic camera and are in auto mode then to
ensure your photo is bright you really should start learning how
to use the meter modes in your camera. You can choose to let the
camera adjust the lightness based on the center, an average of
points throughout the photo, or other methods as well.

--------------------------------------------
Common Mistake 4: Failing to Have a Concept
--------------------------------------------

A lot of photographers take photos just to look nice. This is great
when you are taking photos with friends, family, etc...however
when you go out and take pictures for the specific picture of just
looking nice you're really in the wrong mindset.

When you take a photo be sure you have a main concept in mind.
If you're photographing birds and flowers, your concept is
probably happiness or peace.

Stick with this concept and eliminate all other things that DO NOT
fit with it.

If your concept is peace and happiness and you have a homeless man
ranting about in the background, you have a problem...

Well, that's all for today! Have fun shooting!

Shutter Speed Basics Tips

2009-03-05T08:23:00.001-08:00

Shutter Speed for Beginners

I’m sure you know that one of the most important key elements to getting beautifully clear photos is not only shutter speed but also knowing and having a sense of the artistic. But the artistic imagination of the photographer is different from other arts; since you have to think in split-second increments. You can’t study a photo you haven’t taken yet like a painting, working on it gradually.

Shutter speed is one of the first things in digital photography that you must understand if you want to advance your skills. It can make you or break you as a digital photographer.

First, the shutter speed number refers to the speed of the rotation of the shutter inside the lens, measured in rotations per second (RPS). With photography, shutter speed is the time during which the shutter is open during the photo event to allow light to hit the film or image sensor in a digital camera. So, in combination with adjustments of the lens aperture (which is just controlling how wide the lens is), the shutter speed controls how much light the camera will record.

The basic rule is that a fast shutter speed demands a larger aperture to avoid under-exposure, while a slow shutter speed is offset by a very small aperture to avoid over-exposure. Slow shutter speeds are often used in low light conditions. Fast shutter speeds also give clarity to a moving image, and the fastest can freeze motion in mid-second.

Say you’re snapping a moving car. This example I’m talking about here involves a car on a regular street, going at a reasonable speed. To freeze the motion of the car as it passes you, you will need a shutter speed of about 1/2000. That means that the shutter has opened and closed so fast that you can’t imagine - one two-thousandth of a second. This is done a lot in sports photography, but even a simple subject like kids playing or your pet (who isn’t too good at staying perfectly still, unless they’re asleep).

But sometimes you want blur. You might want to capture the motion of a Ferris wheel, the flow of traffic in an intersection, or a subject with a surreal, dreamy, or action-oriented look. In that case, a shutter speed of less than 1/500 would be what you want. An old trick which many novice photographers use is to use ultra-slow shutter speeds to capture lightning. Go to a high space during a lightning storm at night, far away from city lights, and set up a camera with the shutter open and wait for a flash. Now close the shutter - the job is done for you by nature instead of your camera!

If possible, getting a single-lens reflex digital camera is the ideal. This will allow you to control the shutter speed alone without affecting the adjustment of the aperture.

Shutter speeds are a built-in invitation to experiment. It helps if you take several shots of your subject with different settings, noting each one on a notepad, then using your notes to compare the relative effects that each setting had.

Manipulating White Balance for Artistic Effect

2009-03-02T08:03:00.000-08:00

The ability to control white balance, even changing it from one shot to the next, is one of the greatest advantages of digital over film. Sure, with film you could shoot negatives and let some machine or lab technician do color corrections for you. If using slide film however, once you loaded a roll, you were stuck with that film’s color balance until you finished it and loaded the next roll.

It’s not hard to find advice online for understanding the various white balance settings found on most digital cameras. For the most part, these settings are pretty self-explanatory and most moderately experienced photographers (that would include practically all DPS readers) can figure them out simply by playing with them.

Most people approach white balance with the mindset of getting true color representation. That makes sense. You want your whites to be white and all your other colors to be true representations of the original scene as you shot it.

There is a case to be made for deliberately setting the “wrong” white balance to achieve artistic effects.

For example, when at the beach on a perfectly sunny day, you might set your white balance for cloudy or even shade. This tells the camera that the ambient light has a slightly blue cast to it. The camera will compensate by adding a bit of a bronze (red/orange) tone to offset this supposed cast. The result is that your subjects get an instant suntan!

Be warned that this may not work for scenes in which the sky is visible as the color manipulation may be quite obvious in your final images.

Conversely, when photographing an icy scene, perhaps you should try setting your white balance to Tungsten. This tells the camera that the light is slightly orange so it will introduce more blue to offset that. The result is an image that simply looks “cold”.

For even finer control, it pays to develop a bit of understanding of the Kelvin scale. Many cameras will allow you to directly set a Kelvin temperature for the ambient light. Tricking the camera by claiming that the light is warmer or cooler than it actually is can allow you to very finely tune the adjustment, thus giving you the ability to make the effect more subtle. (Or more garish, if that’s what you’re after.)

Aperture

2009-03-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

During one of my worhshops awhile back one of the first things we talk about is aperture.

Aperture, or f-stop, is the part of our exposure, that lets in varying amounts of light through our lens. The aperture is the opening in our lens that can be made larger or smaller.

The larger the aperture the more light we allow into the camera to make our exposure. Conversely, the smaller the aperture the less light gets in.

Here’s the counter intuitive part; the larger the f-stop number the smaller the lens opening and the smaller the f-stop number the larger the lens opening.

An aperture of f-4 lets in more light than an aperture of f-8.

Beyond adding more or less light, aperture is an important element in our compositions because it allows us to control something called depth of field.

Depth of field is the distance that remains in focus in the front of and in back of the actual distance that we are focused on.

For example if we are focused on ten feet the actual distance that is in focus may start at 7 feet and end at sixteen feet. In this case our depth of field starts at seven feet and ends at sixteen feet even though I am focused on ten feet.

So how can we use aperture to control depth of field? In brief, given the same lens/focal length and distance focused on, the larger the opening in the lens the less depth of field we will have; the smaller the opening of the lens the more depth of field we will have.

The two photographs below, taken during an aperture workshop to demonstrate depth of field during the meeting, should help illustrate this more clearly.

The compositions are nearly identical. The focal length of the lens remains the same as well as the distance focused on; I was focused on the Canon EOS camera for both photographs.

The top photograph was created with an aperture of f-4 while the bottom photograph was created with an aperture of f-8.

Notice the green bottle in the foreground and the clock in the background.

f/4

f/8

Portrait Shots

2009-03-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

How to take Portrait photos Tips and Tricks:

Taking photos of people is NOT as hard as it seems. Below are six simple tips to use to take better shots of people.

The key to taking great shots of people is to understand their personality and convey it through your photo. For example, if your taking a photo of a person that is shy, take that into account. Set backgrounds that celebrate her personality.

Don't use very "look at me" backgrounds or colors. Select more calm and cool colors such as blues and greens.

Also, the facial expressions also go according to that. It will be difficult to get a shy person to pose very "crazy". The result also will be a model that looks fake and unbelievable.

1. Make the person very relaxed

2. Be patient

3. Use the imaginary lines of the model to pose them right

4. Get good at taking silhouettes of people (you will get better at posing from this)

5. Don't over pose people

6. Use simple backgrounds - Either make the background very simple or use it to convey the persons personality. EX: happy person and rainbow in background. Sad person and rain in background.

Framing Photos

2009-02-25T07:01:00.000-08:00

When it comes to framing your photos, there is one thing you must learn...

Composition!

Composition is the KEY to not only great looking shots, but also great paintings, video shots, drawings, etc. If you can master the art of composition, you can easily transfer it to many different mediums. It's like learning the notes in music. It is transferable to any other instrument.

There are many compositional techniques. The first thing to remember is that not all techniques work for certain situations. In some situations one technique will work great. In others it may not.

Rule of Thirds

Most people take shots dead center. It's a habit we have. Look around your area. Everything you look at is centered by your eyes. Either that or you move your head to center it. It's the way we operate. Taking pictures that way isn't the same.

If you took all your shots dead center you'd have a lot of boring shots.

To add spice, try moving your subject of interest off center. Move it to the left, right, top or bottom.

Leading Lines

Lines are everywhere. Knowing how to use them properly can make for much better shots. One such way is to have them lead to your subject of interest.

The photo above uses the leading lines to lead to the eggs in the front. The lines are made from the rows of eggs. Not all lines will be obvious lines. Sometimes you may need to be more creative.

Balance

Creating a balanced shot can be great for photography. There are two types of balance you can make:

Symmetrical and Asymmetrical.

Symmetrical balance is like this, when you cut the shot down the middle it looks identical on both sides. This doesn't have to be exactly identical. Interesting pictures that use this are shots with two people doing the exact stance. They have different features and faces but they are symmetrical.

Asymmetrical balance is more complex. It's a balance of the photo overall. For example, look at the shot below. The Eiffel Tower is balanced with the orange colored sky on its left.

Balance in Photography

2009-02-21T11:39:00.000-08:00

Visual Balance - Means Taking Another Look

What is balance? Does it mean all things have to be equal? Well, yes and no. There are basically two types of balance. Formal balance is the balancing on opposite sides of a given point, either by one or more elements that are identical or very similar. Think of a nice formal portrait of someone staring straight ahead. If you were to fold this picture in half, it would look the same on both sides. Both sides would have one eye. Both sides would have one ear. Both sides would show half a nose, and both sides would show half a mouth. This is Formal balance; and it is most often recognized by subjects that are uniform in shape, thus creating a rather harmonious effect.

Informal Balance is the balancing on opposite sides of a given point, by one or more elements that are dissimilar or contrasting elements. Say we had a picture of a baby playing with some blocks. If you folded that image in half; on one side you would focus on just the baby, but on the other side you would focus on just the blocks. Here you have two entirely different things that do not even remotely look the same, but that's OK. Informal balance is less obvious, because its subjects are often not uniform, in fact they vary greatly. There is nothing wrong with this, because it gives the viewer more to appreciate.

Is one type of balance better than another? That depends on what you're shooting. Buildings, monuments and cars are often taken as a formal balance shots, after all . . . that's how they were built. On the other hand; mountains, plants and people often come in different sizes, shapes, and colors. Obviously, since I also used people in the first example, you can always choose to shoot any given subject in a variety of ways. This is where both personal style and taste come into play.

At one time or another, I’m sure all of us have seen or taken a shot of a mountain reflected off a perfectly still pond or lake. If you get in close enough (leaving out the things on the edge of the lake) the shot almost becomes an abstract work of art. Very interesting, very intriguing, very much a formal balance shot. But what happens if in the lower left hand corner we add a man in a fishing boat trying to net the big bass that’s on the end of his fishing pole? Is it any less of an interesting shot now? No. In fact, many would argue that it is now much more interesting. This is Informal balance at its best.

Both shots have emotional appeal, but one makes you feel peace and one makes you feel active. This is one of those areas that people who only take snap shots, just don't get. If every thing you shoot is always dead center and always the same on both sides (formal balance) your work can get boring really quick. Don't take that wrong, you can take really great formal balance shots, but you have to plan it that way. When you decide which balance looks best for any given situation; you are the master creator . . . you are in control.

Have you ever noticed two people arguing and suddenly a third person shows up and magically makes them feel like friends again? That third person has an eye for balance. He or she can see both points of view and has the gift to make others see a different point of view as well. That's what learning balance is all about. As a great photographer; you should work at seeing things in more than one way. More importantly, you should be able to help others see things differently than they have before too.

One of my all time favorite photo lessons was to shoot a mailbox. The rules were simple. It had to be the same mailbox and each shot had to be uniquely different. Oh, and by the way, you had 36 shots. Think that sounds easy? Well let's see . . . Up, down, left, right, close-up, far away, that's great now all you need are 30 more shots. The point of that lesson was to force you to look at things differently. Most people liked their last three or four shots the best. Why? Those shots forced them to look at things differently. If you always shoot formal or informal, take a step back and look again. I promise it will bring more balance to your work and your life.
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Balance (a simpler version of the above article)

In photography there is usually a balance between items in the photo. There are two basic types of balance that are seen in pictures:

Symmetrical

Asymmetrical

Having overall balance in a photo can make it very interesting. Usually most photos have balance in one way or another, whether intentional or not.

Symmetrical Balance

Symmetrical balance is the type of balance where one side is very similar or exactly the same as the other. Taking a picture of a person standing in the middle would be symmetrical because if the person were cut in half both sides would be the same. This is also true of taking pictures of many other things that aren't exactly equal.

Asymmetrical Balance

Asymmetrical balance is the type of balance where the picture, although not symmetrical, is balanced. This can be achieved through balancing of objects in the foreground, middle ground, and background. For example, if there is a man standing taking a picture in the foreground on the left then in the background on the right is the subject he is shooting.

This type of balance is also seen in nature photos as there is the extending wilderness to one side and at the foreground could be a rabbit or some other object looking out at it.

Waterfall Digital Photography

2009-02-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

One of the most common questions that I hear is ‘how do I photograph waterfalls?’

Waterfalls do present themselves as a wonderful and challenging subject matter to photographers. Firstly they’re beautiful places, secondly they are often in tricky lighting situation and thirdly they’re a dynamic subject as they’re moving (and of course movement means a challenge but also a real opportunity for a more dynamic shot).

A lot has been written about the finer points of photographing waterfalls but the basics are fairly simple.

Working with Movement

Anytime you’re presented with a moving subject a photographer really has two options. Firstly they can freeze the motion by using a fast shutter speed and secondly they can capture and enhance the motion by using a longer shutter speed that blurs the moving element in the shot (in this case - water).

Most photographers take the second option and allow the water to blur. Here’s how to do it. You’ll need your digital camera and a tripod. It will also be helpful to have a polarizing filter if you have one.

How to Photograph Waterfalls

Photo by hkvam

Take a Control Shot - Before you start experimenting - switch your camera to auto mode, make sure your flash is turned off and take a shot of the waterfall. As you do - take notice of the exposure that the camera sets. Your camera will almost certainly choose an exposure that freezes the water somewhat. This photo will be a bit of a reference point to compare your shots to later and to use as a basis for your exposures.

Shutter Priority Mode - Switch to shutter priority mode on your camera (we’ve talked about shutter and aperture priority modes previously). Generally you’ll want to try to get a shutter speed of 1 to 2 seconds to get a nicely blurred water.

Tripod - Of course to take a shot at a shutter speed of this length you’ll definitely need a tripod or some other way to ensure that your camera is completely still for the full time that the shutter is open.

Sounds easy doesn’t it - attach your camera to a tripod, switch to shutter priority mode, set your shutter speed to 1-2 seconds and take the shot. Unfortunately in most cases it’s not that simple.

The problem with increasing the shutter speed is that it increases the amount of light that gets into your camera and unless it’s quite a dark and gloomy day you’ll find your image is going to be over exposed (even though in shutter priority mode the camera will choose a very small aperture to try to compensate for it).

Photo by champy1013

Other Tips to Try to Get Exposure Right

There are a couple of things that you can do to decrease the amount of light coming into your camera and get your exposure levels better:

Timing - pick the right time of the day to do your waterfall photography and you can definitely give yourself more options to use longer shutter speeds. Around sunrise and sunset are obvious times as light is less bright. Also overcast days are better than bright ones.

Filters - using a filter that cuts down the amount of light entering your camera can help also. There are a variety of filters available that do this but I generally use a polarizing filter as it not only cuts down the light getting in but also can help you improve your shots (they cut down on reflections in shots - and waterfalls can have quite a few of these). Another type of filter you might like to use is a neutral density filter which is a filter that cuts down the light entering your camera - almost like putting sunglasses on.

Aperture Priority Mode - if you are still having trouble with exposure even at darker times of the day and with the use of a polarizing filter another approach that you can take is switch into Aperture Priority Mode and choose the smallest aperture possible. On most cameras this will be f/22 or f/36. The result of choosing this is that your camera will automatically choose the longest shutter speed available for that aperture. It may not be 2 seconds - but it will almost always be longer than the shutter speed in that first control shot that you took and as a result the water will blur more than in the first shot. The other impact of having a smaller aperture is that you’ll have a larger depth of field and more of the waterfall will be in focus.

Low ISO - Choosing a lower ISO will mean that your camera’s sensor is less sensitive to light and will need the shutter to be open longer. It will also mean less ‘noisy’ or grainy shots which will give your shots lots of nice detail.

Photo by Ed Karjala

More Waterfall Photography Tips

Of course getting the exposure right is just part of the equation when it comes to photographing waterfalls with you digital camera. here are a few extra tips.

Bracket your Shots
The first time I ever did some waterfall photography was over a decade ago when I was using a film SLR. I spent a week away by myself purely for photography in an area where there are many waterfalls.

What I learned in that week was the importance of bracketing my shots - taking a series of shots at different shutter speeds and apertures. I found that in doing this that I could capture a variety of very different images of exactly the same scene with changes in the extent that the water blurred, changes in the depth of field and changes in the way the camera captured color.

Also use your cameras built in exposure bracketing (check your manual) and bracket your shots in this way also.

Composition
Also on my week of photographing waterfalls I learned that a waterfall could be photographed from many angles and in many different ways ranging from the wide angle shot that puts the waterfall into it’s wider context right down to tightly cropped shots that focus upon just one small part of the waterfall. Also look for the different ways the water flows. In some places it’ll be multiple streams, in others it will gush explosively everywhere and in others it will flow gently in a single stream. Try a variety of positions on the waterfall (you’ll find that it’ll flow at different speeds in different sections also) and experiment with how the different parts look at slow shutter speeds.

Photo by mr punto

Tidy Up
While I’m a big believer in being an environmentally friendly photographer (and always leaving a location the way you found it) a little tidying up of your scene can have a big impact upon a waterfall scene). Before taking shots scan your eye over your frame and look to see if there are any distracting elements that might be able to be moved. Particularly look for litter but also consider leaves on rocks etc. Simply tidying up the image in a way that doesn’t do any physical damage to the location can take your images to the next level.

Don’t Become Obsessed with Blurred Water
The effect of silky smooth moving water in your shots is difficult to resist but don’t let it become the only type of waterfall image that you capture. Try taking some shots with ultra fast shutter speeds also. This can especially be a powerful technique on raging waterfalls where there is lots of spray and explosive splashes. The other impact of faster shutter speeds is that you’ll need to use larger apertures which means narrow depth of field which will bring a whole new impact to your shots.

Get out and Experiment
That’s enough theory - now it’s time to get out and do it because the more you do the better you’ll get. Have fun!

Taking Manual Control Over Your Digital Camera

2009-02-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

I was typing away the other day, putting the finishing touches on a short article, and not being the most careful typist, I accidentally wrote “dital” instead of “digital.” Of course, I was immediately notified of my mistake via a little red underline. A simple right-click of my error provided me with a number of spelling alternatives: detail, dial, tidal, vital, and so forth.

Essentially, my computer software was using the information available to it to make an educated guess as to what the right word should be. In some odd way, I was a bit disappointed that even with all the state-of-the-art technology and software innovations available, computers can still do little more than make an educated guess when performing tasks that have a variety of possible outcomes.

So I got thinking, how do these same limitations affect photography. Now that photography has become completely digital, every camera is installed with a small computer and processor. The computer is in charge of a number of key operations, but for today, we’ll just talk about one; how it controls your camera when in automatic mode.

When a camera is fully automated the computer is asked to control a number of extremely important tasks. It uses a combination of pre-installed data and real-time tests to generate an educated guess as how your photograph ought to be shot. For people who don’t care about learning how to use their camera, they accept these educated guesses as the best the camera can do, and if they want a better quality picture, they have to buy a better quality camera. This belief is, for the most part, untrue.

While I do believe that a higher quality camera can produce higher quality results, I believe that any camera is capable of shooting a good picture as long as you can take control over how the photo is taken.

So, I’m going to make a statement that sounds simple, but really is something you need to believe if you want to improve your photographic skills:

You are smarter than your camera!

That’s it. That’s all you need to believe. Unfortunately, you’re going to need to prove it.

So what decisions should you make that your camera’s computer never should? The answer is actually quite simple. You need to control the most fundamental features that are the same now as they were fifty years ago: ISO, white balance (WB), aperture (Av), shutter speed (Tv), and focus. So I’m going to talk a bit about my thought process when setting these features manually. I don’t intend to teach you how to make the adjustments or what they are as there exists countless guides that do that already.

ISO & White Balance

These features derive from the properties of film emulsion. Every roll available has both a inherent white balance and ISO. Just be aware of how lucky you are that you can change these settings on the fly with a digital camera, and not have to buy a variety of film to accommodate every shooting scenario that may arise.

ISO : I love pure, bold color so I always aim for the lowest ISO possible. ISO is the first thing I set when entering into a shoot. I base my ISO on the shadows and dark areas of the scene, rather then the the ones that are heavily lit. All ISOs can expose well-lit subjects, but only high ISOs can expose dark areas. The second thing I look at is the speed of my lens. If I have a fast lens (i.e. f2.8) then I know I can push my ISO down a touch. I will also consider my subject. If my subject is static and I can shoot long exposures without risking motion blur then I’ll push my ISO lower, whereas fast-moving subjects require fast shutter speeds and often high ISOs.

WB : I ask myself: how many types of light are present? Which color of light is best to balance to? For instance, if I’m shooting outside then I’ll set my white balance to daylight (6000 degrees kelvin). If I’m shooting a home interior lit with daylight through open windows, and tungsten light from the interior fixtures, then I opt daylight and often use my flash to counteract the tungsten light. Sometimes I try to adjust all lighting so it’s the same color by using gels, swapping bulbs, etc. Other times it works nicely just to let all the different colors of light bee seen - like at crazy rock shows.

Aperture and Shutter Speed

Like a fine balance, each must compliment the other. You cannot change one without affecting the other. These are the yin and the yang of photography. The symbols Av and Tv are often used which stand for Aperture Value and Time Value.

Av : I start by looking at my available light and get an idea of what aperture range I’m looking at. Lots of light means a broader range of choice. Second, I’ll think about the shot itself and what depth of field I want. If I want lots of detail at all depths, then I’ll drop it down as low as f22. If I want a soft background, with a refined range of focus, then I’ll open it up to f2.8 or larger. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of choice, so the wider (lower number) the better. That’s why lenses with apertures like a fixed f2.8 are so expensive - because they’ll benefit you in low light. It’s also important to consider your subject - fast moving subjects will require lower apertures, so you can achieve faster shutter speeds.

Tv : The length of the exposure has huge bearing on the outcome of a shot. I start by looking at my subject and whether or not I want them sharp or blurred. Some subjects like city traffic benefit from long exposures, while others suffer. I try to stay at 1/60 of a second or faster when I’m shooting handheld, and use a tripod for slower exposures. Stillness varies from person to person, and image stabilizers will help. Fast subjects require fast shutter speeds.

Manual Focus

Auto focus is very fast and often quite reliable. That being said, sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. Be prepared to make adjustments at a moment notice.

MF : If my lens is struggling to find contrast in a shot, or focuses on the wrong thing, then it goes straight to manual. Most digital SLRs will even give you a audible or visual cue when you’re manually focused correctly. I try to avoid focusing on my subject center frame, and often try to manually keep my focus while reframing in accordance with the rule of thirds. Trusting my auto focus has ruined more shots than I can count. If you eyesight is a tad out, then make sure to set your diopter accordingly. Learn to trust your eyes.

Photography is a subjective medium. Your personal tastes should influence your shots, and there’s no better way to achieve this than by taking control of your camera. Learn how to use your camera quickly and effectively, but also learn how to study the world around you using a photographer’s eye. Soon, you’ll be able to walk into a room and say “if I were shooting in here, I’d be shooting at 400 ISO, tungsten white balance, f4, at 1/60 of a second.” When that day comes, you might also notice that people start finding you strange. Don’t worry, there will always be another photography-loving soul nearby who will understand.

The 3 C's of Photo Sharing

2009-02-12T04:55:00.000-08:00

Here are a few tips for creative photo sharing!

Every photo tells a story. Chances are you share a few photos to get that story out. But, do you follow any rules when you share your photos? Creative photo sharing requires that you take a few simple tips to heart. These three C's help your photos stand out. Try them the next time you start a photo sharing project.

1. Captions

Consider this -- you receive an email from a friend and it contains nearly one hundred unnamed pictures. Many of them feature the same individuals and you're not quite sure, but it looks like the backdrop is a park. How interested are you?

Photo sharing has a purpose. If you didn't want the recipients to have details about the photos, why bother sending them in the first place? Take the time to go through each picture. Put some names in, add some details of the event, or add a fun fact or observation that you like about the photo.

2. Capacity

Let's look at another scenario. The family trip ends and you send all four hundred photos in a photo sharing email to every friend in the address book. Grandma opens her email and finds the same shot nearly five times. Instead of getting through the repeats, she stops looking.

Trust us. No one wants to see all four hundred of your photos. We know that they're just adorable; however, you appreciate them more than anyone else will. Pick out the best shots (the ones that tell the story) and share those. Your recipients will smile when they know they can see the great shots without clicking through half of the slideshow.

3. Creativity

And finally, picture this. An email invites you to view photos from a friend and the link takes to you a photo community that holds hundreds of photos. The page is white, the photos blend in and frankly, you're bored.

Most photo sharing sites let you add borders and captions to the photos. Sometimes you can add background colors and effects to the collection's web page as well. Your photos will have more visual appeal when you share them. The beach vacation photos actually look like a family vacation and every viewer loves the creativity.

Photo sharing is simple. But it should require that you have some patience and get through that pile of snapshots. The result: interesting, captivating photos that chronicle every detail of your special occasions. So don't forget the 3 C's for captions, capacity and creativity, and your photo sharing experience will be an exciting and interactive occasion for you and your friends!

Stop wishing for that Amazing Camera and Appreciate The One You’ve Got!

2009-02-10T09:45:00.001-08:00

This photo was taken with a 2 megapixel Canon Powershot A60 at Cannon Beach, Oregon. I don't care what most people think of this photo. I like it. The photographer waited, concentrated and opened the shutter at just the right moment for this.

I know a lot of you are dreaming of and saving for that "perfect digital camera" - today I have a post for you with a good reminder.

All cameras have are essentially the same thing, a shutter that exposes light on a light-sensitive surface. Sure, there are differences in engineering tolerances and technical ranges and the latest technology. But Ansel Adams didn’t have today’s latest gadget. He had know-how, and practice.

The real difference between an average photo and an amazing photo, is the photographer, not the camera.

Here’s how you can make your camera amazing. It just takes a little bit of work.

1 Read your camera manual. If you don’t have it anymore, you can probably find it online. Learn every feature and aspect of the camera you have. It will take amazing pictures if you know how to use it properly.

2 Take your camera with you everywhere you go, and take lots of photos. Take photos of everything. Find something uninteresting and find a way to make it interesting. That is the essence of art.

3 Practice in manual mode. Most cameras have a manual mode take a photo and change a single setting. Then change that one setting and take another photo. In my opinion this is the best way to understand the manipulation of light.

4 Make each photo count. One of the biggest downfalls of digital photography is the ability to take so many photos so easily for so little monetary investment. So we buy a cheap camera and snap away, hardly taking a thought to what is in the view finder. STOP! Think about your next photo, then take the time to make it amazing. You’ll start thinking like a photographer and your photos will improve ten fold.

5 Keep your best photos in a special place, discard the rest. Professional photographers take thousands of and show only their best to the client. Take photos for you, you are your own client. One day you’ll look back and be amazed at your work.

Now get to work!

How to Photograph a Sunrise or Sunset

2009-02-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

The alarm clock buzzes. You crack an eye open and see the light blinking at you. 4:45am. After a few moments, your groggy mind remembers why you set your alarm in the first place. You groan, and after another minute, roll out of bed.

You take a quick peek out the window. Still dark out. But it won’t be for long. You quickly dress in multiple layers, pulling out a pair of fingerless gloves and beanie cap. You pack a breakfast bar and thermos full of coffee. Then you double-check your equipment list:

Camera [no brainer]. Check. 24-70 lens [favorite for this activity]. Check. Tripod and quick release [a necessity]. Check. Shutter release [makes for clear pictures]. Check. Cleared cards [to take as many as you can]. Check.

By 5:00am, you are on your way out the door and headed out your driveway.

You know exactly where you are headed; peak about 20 minutes from your home. After unpacking your equipment, you face the Eastern horizon. Already the golden glow of the sun is beginning to appear. The fog is swirling around the base of the rolling green hills. You smile. It’s going to be a beautiful sunrise.

You place your camera on the tripod. Pause to confirm your settings:

Shutter Speed (TV) = 20 seconds

The early morning light is soft and diffused, so you need a longer shutter speed to let in more light, otherwise your picture will be underexposed.

ISO = 100

With a long shutter speed, you don’t need your sensor to be more sensitive to the light. And with a low ISO, you have a higher dynamic range for stronger intensity of color.

White balance = Shade

Morning light is cooler in color tones. You know that you can correct this with your white balance, so you shoot on shade so the sunrise feels golden and warm.

File type = RAW

You want to go home and post-process your image to produce something really sweet. Shooting in RAW extends your editing capabilities. And since your file size is larger, you now have the ability to order a 20×24 print for your grandparents’ 50th anniversary present.

You start shooting into the sunrise, pressing the shutter every 30 seconds or so after evaluating your image. The colors begin to intensify. You like what you are getting, but soon, the sun has crested the hill on the horizon, and you stop. There\ has got to be something cooler to shoot.

You turn and look to the left, your breath catching in your throat. The sun is lighting the surrounding hills perfectly, and the fog is illuminated by the intense highlights. Quickly, you adjust your shutter speed and fire off a few shots. In just a few moments, you stare at your LCD screen. A smile spreads across your face. Got it.

Satisfied with the results of your sunrise shoot, you head back home. After a mid morning nap, you take the time to upload your pictures. Just as you hoped, that last shot fulfills all your expectations.

One week later, a package arrives at your door. Carefully, you open the wrapping. In your hands, you hold the product of your previous early morning adventure.

Loss of sleep. An early morning in the cold. A 40-minute drive.

Worth it?

Totally. Your grandparents are gonna love it!!
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‘No good travel photo album is complete without the token sunrise or sunset picture!’

Many travelers seem to live by this mantra - however most sunset and sunrise photographs that I see are quite disappointing.

They need not be - sunsets and sunrises are not that difficult to photograph!

Tips for Photographing Stunning Sunrises and Sunsets

Think Ahead - While sometimes wonderful sunrise and sunset shots can be taken spontaneously without any forethought it’s often the case that the best ones come out of planning. Scope out places that might be good for sunsets in the day or two before your shoot. Look for interesting places where you might not only be able to see the sun track all the way down but where there will be opportunities for shots that include foreground elements and silhouettes. Sunsets only take half an hour or so so you want to think about these elements before they start or you might miss the shots you’re after.

Find out when the sun will set or rise and get there at least half an hour before hand as it’s often in the lead up to and the time after the sun appears or disappears that the real magic happens.

Keep an eye on the weather also. There are a variety of different types of sunsets that produce a range of different types of lights and patterns in the sky. Don’t just go for clear days for these shots - while they can produce some wonderful colors it’s usually the times where there is cloud around that the real action happens! Also be aware of days when there is dust or smoke in the air as they can produce amazing results also.

Consider ahead of time what equipment you might need.
Include a tripod, lenses that will give you a range of focal lengths, extra batteries etc.

Composition Techniques

Shoot at a variety of focal lengths - wide angle can create sweeping landscape shots but if you want the sun itself to be a feature of the shot you’ll want to be able to zoom right in.

Keep in mind that the sun is just half a degree across so when you shoot with a wide lens it will only be taking up a reasonably small part of the photo. If you want it to be a feature of your shot you’ll need to zoom in on it using anything from a 200mm lens upwards. This will increase your need for a tripod!

Also be aware that when you look at the sun at the best of times it can be dangerous but when you look through a magnifying lens it can be quite dangerous is the sun is still too high in the sky.

Silhouettes as focal points - As with all photos, sunsets need a point of interest and one of the best ways to add one to a picture is to try to incorporate some sort of Silhouette into the shot. This could be something large like a mountain range, something that is part of the environment like a palm tree or a pier or could even be a person.

The great things about Silhouettes is that they add mood and context to a sunset or sunrise shot. I’ll write more on silhouettes in a future article.

Rule of thirds - Remember the rule of thirds in your photographing of sunrises and sunsets. While you can always break the rule it’s often a good idea to place elements like the horizon, sun, silhouettes etc off centre.

Exposure Techniques

Shoot at a variety of exposures - if you let your camera decide what shutter length to shoot at you’re likely to get a shot that doesn’t really capture the beauty of the light. Quite often the shot will be under exposed because the sky is still reasonably light.

Instead of relying upon the camera’s auto mode a sunset is an ideal time to switch your camera into aperture or shutter priority mode and to take a variety of shots at different exposures.

The great thing about sunsets and sunrises is that there is no one ‘right’ exposure and that you can get stunning results using a variety of them. Also keep in mind that different exposures (aperture and shutter speeds) will produce a variety of different results so it’s worth taking more than just a few shots - the key is to experiment.

I tend to switch into shutter priority mode and start with a relatively quick shutter speed and then slowly work down to slower ones.

Bracketing - Another technique to try to get the right exposure is ‘bracketing’ where you look at what the camera suggests you take the picture at and then take a few shots at both under and over that mark. ie if your camera says to shoot at 1/60th of a second at f/8 you would shoot off a shot at 1/60 at f/5.6 and then at f/11. In doing so you end up with a series of shots at different exposures which will all give you slightly different results and colors. Most DSLR’s and some point and shoot digital cameras have a built in bracketing feature so you don’t need to do this manually - learn how to use it!

Auto Exposure Lock - Another exposure trick, if you don’t have a bracketing mode or don’t feel confident in using it is if your camera has ‘auto exposure lock’ which allows you to point your camera at a darker place and lock in exposure for that spot (ie you could point it at the ground in front of you and lock in that exposure) and then reframe the picture looking at the sunset. This will mean you get a more over exposed shot.

Take camera out of Auto White balance mode - when you set your camera to ‘Auto’ in it’s white balance mode you run the risk of losing some of the warm golden tones of a sunrise or sunset. Instead try shooting in ‘cloudy’ or ’shade’ which are usually used in cooler lights and tell your camera to warm things up a little. Alternatively - if you’re shooting a sunrise and DO want a cooler moody shot you can experiment with other white balance settings.

Other Sunset and Sunrise Tips

Tripod - If you’re shooting at longer shutters speeds and with longer focal lengths then a tripod or some other way of ensuring your camera is completely still is essential.

Manual Focus - sometimes when shooting in extreme lighting conditions some cameras can have trouble focussing. If this is the case for your camera consider switching to manual focus to ensure you get nice crisp shots.

Look around you - The wonderful thing about sunsets is that they not only create wonderful colors in the sky in front of you but they also can cast a beautiful golden light that is wonderful for other types of photography. As the sunset progresses keep an eye on other opportunities for shots around you (not just in front of you). You might find a great opportunity for a portrait, landscape shot, macro shot etc behind you in the colden light.

Keep Shooting - A sunset or sunrise constantly changes over time and can produce great colors well after the sun goes down or appears so keep shooting at different exposures and focal lengths as I’ve mentioned above until you’re sure it’s all over.

Memorable Dog Photos -- To Your Specs, Not Your Pup's

2009-02-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

With these tips from expert photographer Jenni Bidner, taking dog photos is a snap -- even if your dog's normally a bundle of energy

We all love our furry best friends -- but given canine nature, it can be hard to take good dog photos. Recently, we sat down for an interview with noted photographer Jenni Bidner, who makes her living photographing dogs. Here are a few of the tips she shared for keeping them still.

Nose to the lens

One of the most difficult things to deal with when trying to capture canine portraits is doggie curiosity. The first thing the average dog does when you whip out your camera is come up and stick her nose in the lens. This is especially true when your own dog is the subject; she loves you, so it's natural for her to come to see you.

Even those who take dog photos for a living have to deal with this. "I have plenty of nose prints on my filters to prove that I have that problem too," Jenni laughs. "I even have little teeth-marks from a very curious wolf puppy on my lens hood.

"The first answer is long-term, and that's to put some obedience in your dog... but even a highly trained search dog can still be a little devil that way. The problem is, any time you pull out your camera or get down low, you're just shining the spotlight on your dog. He thinks it's an invitation to come over for some love, come over for play."

Your options

Fortunately, some dogs have a distance threshold. "If I get a certain distance away from my German Shorthaired Pointer," Jenni says, "he decides he's no longer in my realm of responsibility and ignores me. That helps." You can also remain standing when taking dog photos, rather than getting down low as you normally would.

"Or," she notes, "you can have an assistant who's of out of camera but right next to the dog, controlling them verbally or with a loose leash. Exercise your dog, too. You hear that all the time in dog training. If you just try and bring your dog out, throw them on the X and try and take a portrait, you're probably not going to have success.

"You'll probably have more success after you go out and play some ball and have some fun, and the dog is content with play. He's got enough of it. Then you're going to have a better chance of getting a good shot without the nose print." In other words, if you want to take decent dog photos, you'll need to get a good workout first!

Make 'em comfortable

There are ways to get good canine portraits without wearing your dogs out, or tricking them into staying in one spot. "I like to shoot somewhere they're comfortable, like peeking out of a car window," Jenni says. "Putting them on a rock or a picnic table, something that they're less likely to jump off, is another good method."

This kind of thinking lets you get creative with your dog photos. For example: "One of my students had six or eight dogs she wanted a group shot of, so she threw them in the back of the pick-up truck," Jenni recalls. "They all had their heads over the edge looking at her, but they didn't jump out.

"Here she had them contained, she gets a beautiful portrait that's very fun and entertaining, and they can't run to her!"

Jenni Bidner is one of America's top canine photographers. To learn more about how she handles this challenging field, and to review her tips for taking better dog photos, take a look at this in-depth interview.

more here

Using Focal Points in Photography

2009-02-02T04:52:00.000-08:00

Next time you take your camera out and line it up for a shot pause before you press the shutter button and ask yourself:

“What is the Focal Point in this Picture?”

Some other ways to ask the same question might include - What is the central point of interest? What will draw the eye of the viewers of this picture? What in this image will make it stand out from others? What is my subject?

The reason a focal point is important is that when you look at an image your eye will generally need a ‘resting place’ or something of interest to really hold it. Without it you’ll find people will simply glance at your shots and then move on to the next one.

Once you’ve identified a point of interest or focal point you then should ask yourself how you can enhance it.

6 Techniques to Enhance the Focal Point in an Image

A focal point can be virtually anything ranging from a person, to a building, to a mountain, to a flower etc. Obviously the more interesting the focal point the better - but there are other things you can do to enhance it’s power including:

Position - Place it in a prominent position - you might want to start with the rule of thirds for some ideas.

Focus - Learn to use Depth of Field to blur out other aspects in front or behind your focal point.

Blur - If you really want to get tricky you might want to play with slower shutter speeds if your main subject is still and things around it are moving.

Size - making your focal point large is not the only way to make it prominent - but it definitely can help.

Color - using contrasting colors can also be a way of setting your point of interest apart from it’s surroundings.

Shape - similarly contrasting shapes and textures can make a subject stand out - especially patterns that are repeated around a subject.

Keep in mind that a combination of above elements can work well together.

Lastly - don’t confuse the viewer with too many competing focal points which might overwhelm the main focal point. Secondary points of interest can be helpful to lead the eye but too many strong ones will just clutter and confuse.

SLR -vs- Point & Shoot

2009-01-30T20:13:00.000-08:00

It seems everyone who knows I’m a photographer asks me for a
recommendation about what kind of camera to buy.

Now, there are two main kinds of digital camera you can consider: A
small point-and-shoot, or a larger Single Lens Reflex, or “SLR.”

Here’s a quick run-down of the pros and cons for each:

SLR - PROS

** You can sell your photos for more uses. SLR cameras have bigger
light sensors than point-and-shoots, which leads to bigger file sizes
and better-quality images. (Bigger images sell for more in stock
photography, make bigger enlargements in fine art and prints, and make
better full-page spreads in magazines.)

** You can take better pictures in poor conditions. If you want to
shoot in low-light situations, an SLR camera will give you a cleaner
result with less "noise" at high ISOs (we’ll go over what that means
in New Orleans).

** You have more flexibility inside with an SLR. If you want to do
portrait work and studio work, an SLR can trigger (or “talk to”) the
studio lights.

** An SLR is more versatile, since you can change lenses. You can use
macro lenses that will let you take a full-size image of a fly’s
eyeball from a quarter of an inch away... or you can use long
telephoto lenses that will let you take a picture of a fly on an
elephant from a quarter of a mile away.

** You can capture movement more easily. An SLR camera is good for
action photography, sports, birding, etc. That’s because it has a
quick response time with auto focus and exposure control.

SLR - CONS

** They’re heavy. With sturdy construction and large lenses, SLRs tend
to weigh a lot and can be a pain, literally and figuratively, to carry
around all day.

** They’re noticeable. It’s tough to be inconspicuous with a big SLR
camera around your neck. Don’t try to shoot the local motorcycle gang
without asking permission from all concerned.

** They require more “stuff.” SLRs are bulky and demand higher
maintenance than point-and-shoots. You’ll need a large, padded camera
bag; lens cover; and a number of accessories, like lens cloths, large
batteries, and more.

** SLRs can be expensive. Depending on what you want to do with your
photos, you may or may not need an SLR at this point. Though it’s
often money well spent, an SLR camera can cost 10 times more than a
point-and-shoot. In almost all cases, particularly in SLRs, the more
you spend, the more rugged and weather resistant the camera. The more
expensive ones will also focus faster and take more frames in a burst.

POINT-AND-SHOOT - PROS

** The price is right... if you don’t need large file sizes. If you’ll
only ever look at your photos on a computer and email them to Aunt
Martha, a decent point-and-shoot will get you images comparable to
that which the most expensive SLR provides. And if the largest print
you’ll ever want to make is 8x10 or smaller, there will be little, if
any, discernable difference in quality between a point-and-shoot and
an SLR.

** Point-and-shoots are discreet. You can go “street shooting” and
take a lot of photos of people without anyone yelling at you.

** They’re light. You can just slip a point-and-shoot in your pocket
and carry it with you at all times... so you’ll always get the shot.

POINT-AND-SHOOT - CONS

** Limited use of your photos. Typically, point-and-shoots have much
smaller light sensors than SLR cameras, so you can’t enlarge your
photos as much, and sometimes you’ll get digital “artifacting”
(another thing we’ll go over at our March workshop). Images shot with
a point-and-shoot sell for less in stock photography (some agencies
won’t even accept them), and magazines can’t print as large an image
from a point-and-shoot photo, so an editor may not be able to use your
shots.

** Poor quality in low light. While point-and-shoot image quality can
be very good with plenty of light, at low ISOs (again, we’ll be
learning more about ISO and camera settings in New Orleans), low light
situations may not give you as fine a shot as you can get with an SLR.

So now that you have the quick run-down on the differences between
point-and-shoot cameras and SLRs, here’s something they both have in
common: You can learn how to take great photos with either one.

It’s like asking: Smart car or VW Eurovan? There’s a good case to be
made for owning both. But only you can decide which one is right for
you.

But most importantly... no matter what you choose, pick up your camera
and start taking pictures.

It will get you more involved in the world around you and give you a
different outlook on life. Instead of hurrying from one place to the
next, you’ll be interested in the journey.

And isn’t that what life is all about?

Happy shooting!

What Should We Pay to Improve Our Photography?

2009-01-27T14:30:00.000-08:00

“Having a camera makes you no more a photographer than having a hammer and some nails makes you a carpenter.” - Claude Adams

Many of us, when looking to improve our photography, spend money on equipment. We think that the better/newer the equipment the better our photography. We pay plenty of money because we believe that the equipment will enable us to create better photographs. Most of the time our photography remains the same…just the equipment, and our bank accounts, have changed.

What do we need to create a photograph? We need a camera, a lens and light sensitive material to record light. If you are using a pinhole camera you can dispense with the lens.

What do we need to create a GOOD photograph? An understanding of the craft of photography can help. The more we understand about the craft of photography the more depth we can bring to our pictures. If we can’t teach ourselves about the craft, a class/workshop with a good teacher will help us enormously and is well worth the cost. But there’s something else that won’t cost us anything.

What do we need to pay to create GOOD photographs and yet cost us nothing out of our pockets? ATTENTION!!!

Our cameras record EVERYTHING that we place into our framing and, assuming that there is enough light being reflected or transmitted by the objects in the frame, whether we see it or not it’s there!

We see with discrimination. We see what’s interesting to us and pay attention to that, usually at the expense of everything else in the frame. On the other hand our cameras see indiscriminately and are interested in nothing.

We have to learn to see like our cameras record our photographs, without discrimination. Although we need to concentrate on what’s interesting and important to us, we also need to pay attention to everything else in the frame. If we don’t pay attention to everything else, we get things in the photograph that we don’t want in the photograph..like poles growing out of peoples heads!

Pay attention to EVERYTHING in the frame. If we look at our photograph after the exposure was made and see something that wasn’t there, we weren’t paying attention. Things that weren’t in our viewfinder prior to our exposure don’t magically appear in the photograph after the exposure was made. There’s nothing wrong with a pole growing out of someone’s head if that’s what we saw in our viewfinder before our exposure was made and decided to keep it there.

We need to look at ALL of the picture in our viewfinder and organize it. We should be filling the frame with the elements of the composition that are important to us and paying attention to how those elements relate to each other then, when everything feels right to us, we make the exposure. By doing this at the very least we’ll have a well composed picture. At the most, if we are true to OUR feelings about whatever we are photographing, we’ll not only have a well composed picture we’ll have a picture filled with feeling. We can’t force feeling into a picture. A picture filled with feeling is usually an automatic result of examining what’s important to us as individuals and including those important compositional elements, and their relationships, in our photographs.

In closing if you want to improve your photography, before plunking down a pile of cash to pay for that new state of the art super mega-expensive piece of equipment that you think will improve your pictures, try paying attention. It’ll cost you nothing and I believe that our thoughtful attention is the best investment we can make when it comes to our photographs.

2009-01-25T13:02:00.000-08:00

Motion Blur: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

You already know what motion blur is: the subject’s in focus, but it’s moving so fast that the background streaks into a mere blur.

And you already know what kind of photos look great with motion blur:
High-speed sports
Busy streets
Small children wrestling an alligator atop a speeding train

But we’ll bet you hadn’t thought of using it for slow-moving subjects. Wind, water and clouds look surreal and dream-like when photographed slowly enough to capture their movement.

The next time you wake up to a dark and windy day, don’t snuggle back under the covers with a cup of hot cocoa. Those are the best days to catch clouds and wind on the move.

So bundle up, grab the tripod and stop down to your tiniest aperture: it’s time to go out and explore the other side of motion photography.

(Then you can go back to bed.)

Photographs, by definition, capture and immortalize a small slice of life. There is little for the viewer to infer what happens before or after that moment. However, there are images that need to communicate motion. For example, you may want to capture a dog running, a train barreling down the tracks, or trees that are blowing in the wind. Each of these scenes can come alive within your photographs if you learn how to convey motion properly.

Today, I’ll describe how you can use different shutter speeds and panning to capture motion in your photography. I’ll also explain a potential issue you might experience along with tips to resolve it.

Reasons To Capture Motion

Beginning photographers have likely seen captivating photographs that capture motion which they’d like to duplicate. There are several ways to accomplish this and each has a slightly different goal. Sometimes, there is a need to blur certain elements in the image while focusing sharply on a few subjects in the foreground. Other times, you may want to freeze or blur everything. The direction you take depends upon your objective for your photograph.

A lot of photographers capture motion simply to convey that an object is moving. But, there are other reasons to so. Movement can communicate mood. Trees rustling in the wind suggest serenity while throngs of people on a busy city block imply harried activity.

You can also use motion to eliminate elements in a scene that may serve as distractions to the viewer. For example, you may want to photograph a person standing on a sidewalk corner as cars move behind him. By blurring everything but your primary subject (i.e. the man on the corner), you can eliminate potential distractions and focus the viewer’s attention.

Two Primary Techniques For Capturing Motion

The shutter speed that you use while photographing a scene plays a key role in capturing motion in your image. The faster the shutter speed, the sharper the focus on your subject. On the other hand, a slower shutter speed will blur a moving object. There are two main approaches (we’ll discuss a couple of alternatives in a moment).

1. Blurred Subject With Background In Focus

Let’s assume you’re photographing a speeding train against a wall of trees in the background. You can blur the train while leaving the trees in focus. Doing so would instantly communicate to the viewer that the train is moving quickly. To accomplish this, you would use a slow shutter speed. (It’s also important to use a tripod. That way, your camera remains steady.) You’ll often see this technique used in nighttime photographs with car headlights cutting through the image.

2. Blurred Background With Subject In Focus

This second technique keeps your photograph’s subject in sharp focus while the background is blurred. Using our train example, the train would be in focus and the wall of trees would be blurred, thereby conveying the train’s movement. Similar to the first method, you need to use a slow shutter speed. However, instead of using a tripod, you’ll be panning your camera along the directional path of your subject.

Panning Explained

Most beginning photographers are trained to “secure” their cameras. That is, your camera should remain as still as possible for certain types of shots. By contrast, panning requires that you move your camera with your subject. Specifically, you’ll be matching your subject’s rate of movement and the direction in which it is traveling.

In our train example, assume the man on the bike is moving from east to west. In that case, you’ll need to pan your camera along the same direction, matching the speed of the bike. The best results occur when you have a clear view of the moving object and ample room to swivel your camera along a parallel axis to it.

Panning effectively can be difficult. You can practice and perfect your technique by photographing athletes who move quickly (for example, basketball players). Try to capture their facial expressions while blurring everything in the background. It will take some time to get it right, but once you do, the technique can be a valuable addition to your repertoire.

Other Techniques To Capture Motion

Besides the two main techniques described above, you can also freeze the entire field of vision or blur everything. Freezing the entire scene can give your photographs a unique look, especially if the objects strongly imply movement. For example, consider a bird that is flying in front of a waterfall. Both imply motion to the viewer. Freezing the entire scene captures that motion in a single moment and can produce a breathtaking image. You should use a shutter speed of at least 1/1000th of a second for this type of shot.

Blurring everything produces the best results when the scene offers bright, contrasting colors or varying shades on the grayscale. In most cases, capturing motion in this manner is done purely for artistic purposes.

Another effective method for capturing motion within your images is ‘chrono photography’.

Using the continuous shooting feature on your camera, you can capture a series of shots and join them together in the post processing stage to create the effect shown above. A tripod is essential when attempting to shoot motion using this method.

Determine The Proper Shutter Speed

A lot of novice photographers ask what the proper shutter speed is, given their objective for their photographs. Every situation is unique. One speed doesn’t suit all circumstances. To identify the right shutter speed, you’ll need to ask yourself a few questions:
How fast is your subject moving?
How much distance exists between the camera and the subject?
How much motion do you want your photograph to convey to the viewer?

The faster the shutter speed, the more frozen and crisply-defined your subject will be. Most cameras today will allow you to freeze a scene using 1/8000th of a second or faster. That being said, the numbers only serve as a rough guideline. You’ll need to experiment with different shutter speeds in a variety of situations.

Potential Issue: Excess Light

When you slow your shutter speed to blur elements in your image, there’s a chance that too much light will enter and impact your photograph. It’s a common problem, but there are a couple of ways to resolve it. First, check the aperture on your camera. The larger it is, the more likely excess light will enter. Try adjusting the settings to reduce its size. Second, review the setting of your ISO. When it is set high, the image sensor in your camera may be overly-sensitive to light. This can create unwanted noise in your image.

Mastering The Art Of Motion Capture

Like other photography skills, becoming proficient at capturing motion requires practice and experience. You’ll need to spend time learning how shutter speeds will impact the quality of your images. Even if you’re just setting your camera on its tripod, timing a perfect shot of a fast-moving object can be difficult. In the end, capturing motion in your photography is part technique and part art. Fortunately, with practice, you can master it.

more reading on motion here

Brealing the rules ...

2009-01-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me would understand my concept of "breaking the rules" because sometimes you just have to step outside the box...

Take Family Portraits That Break the Rules... Because You Answer to No One.

Since time immemorial, family portraits have been constructed thus:

Everybody put your nice clothes on and pose in front of this decorative interior/ body of water/ big rock. Now smile.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But if you already have that picture and want something new, here are some ideas.

1) Work with contrasts: John Olson did a brilliant series for LIFE in 1970 of rock stars with their parents, including David Crosby, Frank Zappa, and Eric Clapton. The whole set’s on Google now that LIFE has put their archives online.

How you can do it: Olson contrasted scruffy rock stars with their clean-cut families. Try posing your goth cousin with Grandma in her Sunday best and you’ll get the same effect.

2) Use downtime: Marie Angeletti and Katrina D’Autremont take advantage of quiet moments like watching TV or resting on the comfy chair. Some of their best family photos don’t even have people in them, just the space they occupy.

How you can do it: Angeletti and D’Autremont use stillness as their ally. Take photos of your family when they’re not posing, just being themselves. And remember to document the rooms and things that mean home to you.

3) Be a complete spaz: Akihiro Furuta takes hilarious (and definitely memorable) family pictures using silly outfits, odd situations, and matching costumes.

How you can do it: Furuta dresses his family in goofy costumes and has a lot of fun. If you must have matching outfits, go for ponchos and bunny-ears instead of white shirts and khakis.

1 70's rock stars with parents

2 Katrina D’Autremont’s Family Portraits

3 Marie Angeletti

7 Tips from Professional Fashion Photographer Adriana Curcio

2009-01-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I came across the website of fashion and editorial photographer Adriana Curcio. I was immediately impressed by the quality of her work and spent the next half an hour looking through her portfolios and learning form her work. I then shot Adriana an email and asked if she’d be interested in sharing some tips with my readers - fortunately for us she said yes!

Following are 7 tips (and a few images) that she took the time to write up. Enjoy.

When asked to write about tips and advice for aspiring photographers, I mulled over a few different topics, and everything I came up with was technically related. Then, I thought about myself, and my journey into fashion photography, and thought about the advice I wished I’d been given. What I needed were tips about the little things that fall through the cracks when you’re so focused on getting the mechanics down. The truth of the matter is, you can create an image that is 100% technically correct, but the elements that truly make your image worth looking at may be lost. So here’s my list of tips…

Getting the Whole Picture.

1. Preparation

In my opinion this is the most important bit of advice I can give you. In fact, don’t just prepare, over prepare! I never walk on to a set without having a concrete idea of what I’m looking to achieve. I have books, and books of tear sheets of images of lighting, makeup, hair, styling, posing, editing, etc. It’s very easy to become burnt out as a photographer, but if you have these books of inspiring images to glance through, I can pretty much guarantee something will catch your eye, and a concept or story will begin to develop.

2. It’s Your Concept

Working in fashion, there is obviously a team of hair stylists, makeup artists, and stylists I work with, however, I’m involved in all of it from A-Z. I’m always open to suggestions, and ideas, and love to see what others can bring to the table, but I never hand over the reigns. You cannot let someone else take over your vision. If you do, it will read in your images. You need a very smooth execution of your story in order for your audience to grasp it, so be sure to take control of it.

3. Move and Move some more

I experiment from every possible angle when I’m shooting. I shoot and move, shoot and move. You can’t wait for the shot to come to you, you have to go find it.

4. Be a Director

I direct, A LOT. There are some models that don’t need a lot of direction, and I love to be inspired by what they bring to set, however, I don’t lose sight of my direction. Again, you can’t wait for the shot to come to you, you have to create it.

5. Break the Rules

Whomever said “rules are meant to be broken,” was on the right track. I was taught the correct way to light my subjects, and for a long time that’s what I did. After a few fortunate accidents, I realized there’s something to be said about high contrast, and dramatic lighting. Not everything needs to be lit just so, or be perfectly flattering. Bend and break the rules, and see what you find. You will surprise yourself.

6. Never Stop Shooting

Shoot whenever, and where ever. The second you stop shooting, is the second your “photographic brain” starts slowly disappearing and getting lazy. You start losing your creative energy, and second guessing yourself, then you begin to thinki maybe you’re not good enough, etc. If you keep on shooting, you don’t have the chance to fall into that hole. Once you’re there, it’s hard to dig yourself out! Shoot, shoot, shoot!

7. Confidence

You have to believe in yourself, and your work! The best way to learn is to completely throw yourself into it. You can’t be afraid to screw up! The reality of the situation is that inevitably, you will screw up! But it’s ok, it’s actually wonderful because it’s how you learn. Every time I make a mistake on set, I learn, and know better for next time. My first shoot with clients, I almost walked off set because I didn’t trust myself, and I was so scared of making a mistake, and embarrassing myself. I sat there running through all the possible disasters that could occur, then I shut it all out because I knew if I didn’t shoot then, I never would! The images from that shoot are some of my favorite images to date!

Do yourself a favor and check out more of Adriana’s fashion and editorial photography at www.adrianacurcio.com.

What Everybody Ought to Know About Posing for Portraits

2009-01-17T20:13:00.000-08:00

“Do you have any tips on posing for portraits?”

This question hit my inbox earlier in the week and I shot the reader back a few links to tutorials that I've read and followed on the topic of posing for portraits. I thought that the list of posts might be useful to others too so have included it here (assuming anyone ever reads these blogs):

Posing Tips for Portraits - Posing Shoulders

Which Way Should Your Subject Lean?

Portrait Photography’s Power Posing Part I: The Components

Portrait Photography’s Power Posing - Part II: The Poses

Posing Tips - Waistlines, Thighs and Bust lines

A Posing Technique from A Girl With a Pearl Earring

How to Pose Hands in Portraits

Where is Your Subject Looking and Why Does it Matter?

4 Tips for Natural Looking Portraits

Want To Get More From Your Point and Shoot / Compact Camera?

2009-01-13T12:15:00.000-08:00

Compact cameras, or point-and-shoots, are those that have no interchangeable lenses. It is essentially a light-tight box to hold your film, a lens and a shutter mechanism to let light onto the film for a brief moment.

Which all means that shooting with a compact can be pretty restrictive. Unless you use the camera within the confines of its ability.

We know the advantages of compacts: that they are, well, compact and easy to cart around. Convenient, small and instantly ready to shoot. And of course, they don't require a helluva technical mind. They're not called "point-and-shoot" cameras for nothing, you know.

So what are the disadvantages? Firstly, they mostly have fixed focal length lenses (whoah, big words!) with essentially means they're stuck on wide angle.

Now wide angles are normally fine to do landscapes etc., but a characteristic of such lenses is that they produce a degree of image distortion. So if you brought them too close to the subject, they would distort someone nose, for instance, and make you very unpopular.

Secondly, their lenses are focus free. That sounds quite cool, because these days, nothing is free! But what it really means, if you can see past the advertising blurp for just a second, is that they're actually unable to focus.

Wide angle lenses naturally have a large field of focus, which means that if set on their infinity setting (your compact is set to this already) everything from a meter away from the lens to infinity will be in focus. Again, this is cool. But what if you want to creep up really close to your subject for a nice, tight shot of a flower or the new puppy's cute little face? It'll be out of focus, that's what.

Thirdly, compacts rarely have exposure compensation in the form of different shutter speeds. To reduce costs, their shutter speeds are set to around a 125th of a second. In normal daylight conditions, this will allow just enough light onto the film to expose your pictures correctly.

However, if the light levels drop, you cannot increase the time the shutter is kept open to allow enough light onto the film. That would account for those nasty, grainy pictures taken at your sunset picnic, won't it?

The fourth drawback of compacts is that their flashes are mostly inadequate for lighting subjects further than 2 to 4 meters away from the lens. This leads to, as above, underexposed film and murky pictures.

OK, hope I haven't made you sell your compact by now. I also own a compact and I'm very happy with the results I get. In fact, I've shot quite a few magazine cover pictures with my Olympus MjU II.

Simply recognize the limitations of your camera. And shoot accordingly. Some hot tips:

People look best when photographed with a medium telephoto lens. This is so because of the compression of the perspective such lenses allow, which basically means that the picture is flattened, not distorted into a bulbous shape.
So if your compact has a zoom facility, use it. It may even have those funny little numbers on the zoom - like 28mm, 35mm and so on all the way up to 105mm or longer. Zoom in until you reach 85mm or the equivalent of 75% of the available zoom length.
Here's a nice tip: the best zoom is your feet. Lift your camera, look through the viewfinder, then step further back or forward until you frame your subject tightly. Remember that you are photographing people. You want to see their expressions, their character. Not the horse in the paddock behind them as well.
So go in tight. And hold your camera in portrait format, in other words vertically, not horizontally. This will enable you to go in even tighter and enlarge the size of the image on your film to the maximum.
If you are too tight, step back, but do not zoom back. Don't be lazy - use your feet. You want to use the perspective compression ability of your zoom lens. Zooming out negates that.
And what if you do not have a zoom? Live with the fact that your compact is not ideal for portrait work. At least not for flattering portraits, anyway!
But there is a way around the typical distortion of a fixed focal length such as the ones you'll find on zoomless compacts: make sure you stand far enough back from your subject. Give yourself at least a meter and a half. Make sure you still shoot in portrait format, and frame the shot so that you frame the sitter from head to hip. This way, you can have the image cropped tighter in a lab later, to give you that nice, strong and tight image a longer lens would have given you.

Overcoming inadequate flash power

Most compact flashes are quite weak and only OK for work up to around 2-4 meters. If your subject is further away, the flash beam will have to travel all the way there, get bounced back and expose the film correctly. This is a highly unlikely event, given the strength of these little flashes.

On-camera flashes are designed to only light subjects within a perfect distance from the lens. If you're too close, your film will be overexposed. If too far, the opposite will happen. So experiment with ideal flash distances. Actually pace out the distance from your subject and remember to check your photos later for the best results.

If you're seriously underpowered on the flash end, consider buying an cheap extra flash and a slave unit, as well as a miniature tripod. A slave unit (that's the little 'eye' underneath the flash in the picture) detects your camera's flash and pops a signal to the flash unit attached to it, causing this flash to fire simultaneously.

If you placed the slave to 45 degrees to your left or right, it will be able to "see" your flash and fire accordingly. The result is a more evenly lit subject, with virtually no ugly shadow behind.

Experiment with the position of the flash - hold it higher than your camera flash for even better results. The ideal position is 45 degrees off camera axis and 45 degrees up as well. Just be careful of bring the slave too close to your subject. This could result in overexposure. Try fitting some tracing paper over the slave flash to soften the light for still better results.

Overcoming camera shake

Camera shake is caused by shooting in low light level conditions and moving the camera while the shutter is open. To counter it, you have to learn the rifleman's technique of "shooting" film: take the full weight of the camera in your left hand. Now depress the shutter button with your right hand index finger, with only your thumb pressed underneath the camera body to help. Don't stab at the shutter - depress it gently. If you grip the camera in your right hand, you tend to attack the shutter button, whereas if you steady the camera with your left hand and squeeze the "trigger" with your right, you cause minimal camera movement.

Choosing the best compact

Compacts are essentially as good as their lenses. When you choose one, always look at the lens and find the scribblings that will tell you more about the lens' pedigree. There should be a number of figures such as f=5.6 or 4.5 or 3.5. The lower this figure, the "faster" the lens, or put differently, the better the optic, therefore allowing more light through (hence "faster").

The Olympus MjU II sports a whopping 2.8 lens - one of the fastest in the game. The quality is therefore superb but there are a lot of other great compact/ point&shoot cameras on the market. Research, find one you like then go out and HAVE FUN!!

How to Be a Great Photographer

2009-01-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

How can I step up my game?

If you decompose the art of photography into a few steps, you are going to end up with something similar to:
Buy camera and film
Load film in camera
Point camera towards subject
Click shutter
Take an aesthetically pleasing, visually compelling photograph

All this seems very simple, except for the last point. Some people are never able to reach this point and others will take a long time before they do. This is what we will discuss in the article.

On your journey to become a photographer, here are some approaches you can take;

Don’t do anything

The majority of people only use their camera to take pictures of family gatherings and holidays. Almost all of them are content with the pictures they take.

Search for websites and resources that teach you how to take better pictures

By scouring the internet, you can learn several new tips and tricks to improve your photograph taking skills.

Publish your photos and have people critique them

This often takes a lot of guts. Putting your work ‘out there’ and waiting to hear peoples comments is often difficult. You may expect less than stellar reviews of your photographs or sometimes they may be glowing ones. Either way, you can rest assured that you will pick up numerous tips on how to improve your photographs.

Study the photographs of the professionals

Look for the acknowledged greats in photography and their work. Study not only their work, but also what other people have to say about their work. In this way, you can learn some of the aspects of taking great photographs that are widely acclaimed.

If you also want to relate how your work compares with these photographs, you will need some feedback on your photographs. As mentioned in point 3 above, join a forum where people can critique your work. This will acquaint you with what criticism to accept and what to ignore.

Join a club

Joining a photography club can be a good way to improve your skills. They often have lectures or workshops which you can visit. Photography clubs are a great way to get some good hands-on experience.

Enroll in a class

You can find a number of classes on photography, both online and by physically attending a campus. Try to choose one which has assignments that are ultimately critiqued by a panel of experienced photographers.

Get some help

Getting some help from an experienced photographer is a great way to develop your skills. One point of note here, look for an artist who will introduce you to a way of looking at the world. He will help you to develop your ‘artistic eye’ and find your unique talent. If, however, you’re only after ways to improve your stock photo taking skills, then choose on of the six options listed above.

Join an art school

This is by far the best approach if you’ve got the money and time. An example of how such a school may work would be intensive classes about 3 to 4 times a week. Here you will learn to critique photographs of others as well as your own. You will learn history of photography and other topics related to art such as drawing, painting and sculpture. Here you receive a well rounded introduction to the world of art, not just photography. The emphasis of these schools is to teach you the very basics of art and set you free. No rules are likely to be thought here. Only expression.

Obviously the tips listed in this article are to be considered on an individual basis. If you have more time and are really dedicated to becoming a true artist, by all means pursue the art school option. If, however, you’ve only got a little time and are more interested in basic, stock or wedding photography, then follow the other tips listed in the article.

What Causes a Dark Photo?

2009-01-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

Photography is the art of recording light. Whether you shoot digital or film, you are recording light. The tricky part comes in when trying to record the right amount of light. Recording the wrong amount of light is the most common cause of dark photographs.

Most of the time if you say your image came out too dark someone in the room will chime in with "use a flash". "You need a flash" is all to glib an answer for such a complex subject. While adding flash to your images will increase the amount of light available, it is not a "cure-all" for dark photographs. Another way to increase recorded light is to use a faster film speed . This will decrease the amount of light needed to record the image.

Beyond the immediate answers of flash and film speed there are several more reasons as to why images may turn out too dark. In general, there was a reason you may have not realized how much light was needed or why you captured the wrong amount of light.

Causes of Improper Light Recording

Incorrect Shutter Speed/Aperture/Film Speed Combination
Metering Off of Wrong Spot in Composition
Inaccurate Light Meter
Old and/or Damaged Film
Improper Developing

Incorrect Shutter Speed/Aperture Combination

An incorrect shutter speed/aperture combinations are a major cause of dark images. What shutter speed and apertures you can use in a given situation are dictated by the available light, not by what you need to capture the subject. Even though you may want a 1/1000th of a second shutter and a f22 aperture to capture the action at a football game, it will not properly capture the scene at night. The faster you set your shutter speed, the less time light will have to imprint on the film/sensor. Likewise, if you use a small aperture, less light can move through the lens to reach the film/sensor. In order to ensure a properly exposed image when setting the shutter speed/aperture yourself, it is vital that you use your light meter.

Metering Off of Wrong Spot in Composition

Metering is what it is called when you take a reading with your light meter. Whether you actually see the light meter reading or not, unless you have camera with only one setting (like a disposable or pinhole camera), your camera has a light meter. When you point your camera at an object and press the button part way down, the light meter reads the amount of light reaching the film/sensor.

The vast majority of cameras meter purely off of the exact center of the frame. This means that if the center of the image is brighter than your main subject, your subject will be underexposed. SLR type cameras often allow the photographer to select the type of light reading the meter will use.

Center-weighted Average
Single Point Selection
Multi-segment

This allows the photographer to select a reading method more consistent with his/her own shooting style. Even in cameras that do not allow the photographer to manually select the metering style, some cameras are beginning to use a smart metering algorithm that allows the camera to meter off of the obvious subjects in a frame rather than purely off of the center. This does help but it is important you know WHERE your camera is taking its light reading from.

Once you know where the light meter is taking a reading from you can adjust your shutter speed/aperture setting accordingly, or you can force the meter to take its reading where you want it to by pressing the shutter button halfway down when properly pointing at your selected metering spot. If you meter off of a bright blue sky, the hawk that is your actual subject will be underexposed/dark.

Inaccurate Light Meter

Even if you take a good light meter reading and set your shutter speed/aperture correctly, it is still possible to have a underexposed/dark photograph due to an inaccurate light meter. Next to taking a meter reading off of an incorrect point in your composition, an inaccurate light meter is a major cause of dark images. This is especially easy to see in point and shoot and digital cameras. With film cameras, the lab was often able to correct exposure problems when they developed film and the photographer never saw the problem. Now, we are our own photo labs, and we see the problem!

If you are using a basic point and shoot camera and it is under warranty, get it repaired as there really isn't a good workaround for you on this problem. You will either have to get the meter repaired, purchase a new camera, or continue to try to lighten the image in a digital darkroom program. Even using flash probably will not eliminate the problem as the light meter will adjust to the flash.

If your camera has a manual setting you can easily work around an inaccurate meter. You will need to take some test images to see just how badly inaccurate your meter is. Take several shots of the same subject, adjusting your aperture each time. When you view your images, note what exposure compensation produces the desired image. Note this amount and remember to "overexpose" (at least according to your light meter) your images by that amount each time.

Old and/or Damaged Film

Old film will eventually lose its ability to accurately record light. While film technology has improved drastically since the day of Daguerreotypes, it is still not an eternal medium. Film stored in its original containers under good conditions (room temperature) will generally last at least a couple of years. However, it will eventually go bad. When film goes bad due to age it can produce interesting but unpredictable effects. One roll may produce dark images and another old roll may produce streaked images. There is just no way to predict with certainty what old film will do.

Damaged film, like old film, tends to have unpredictable flaws. Sometimes this flaw is dark photographs.

Film can be damaged by:

Temperature
Acceptable temperatures vary by manufacturer and film - be sure to check the film package for limits.
X-Rays
Use a lead-lined package that has been airport approved for transport.
Water
This includes condensation - keep your film well sealed and insulated.
Light
If unintended light strikes film before, during, or after the initial exposure it will create image problems. Generally this is more of a problem of overexposure than underexposure but it bears mentioning as a cause of film damage.

Improper Developing

Even if you expose an image perfectly, it is possible for the lab to ruin the image in processing. If you receive a bad photo from a lab, look at your negative. If the negative seems to be properly exposed (not overly light or dark) then try having another lab do another print. Hopefully it was only the print that the lab ruined. If your negatives are completely light or dark the negative is ruined.

Some of the more common lab errors are:

Non C-41 process film developed in C-41 process
Light contamination during processing
Wrong film brand settings
Too long or too slow processing time
Old chemicals
Contaminated chemicals

Sensor Dust Is Evil !!

2009-01-08T08:02:00.000-08:00

Here’s How to Banish It.

First, the good news:

If you have a point & shoot or a film camera, keep it clean and dust specks will never plague you.

And now the bad news: digital SLR sensors are magnets for dust.

Cleaning a digital sensor is nerve-wracking and risky, with enough methods, products, and gimmicks on the market to flummox a rocket scientist.

And that, dear friends, is why you have this blog.

I'm breaking it down right now: what works, what doesn’t, and whether the annoyance of having dust spots is worth the trouble of cleaning them. Let’s roll.

What’s the Problem?

“Cleaning the sensor” is a misnomer (like that word?). The glass filter that protects the sensor is what gathers the dust and must be cleaned. While touching the filter isn’t as bad as touching the actual sensor, it’s still a delicate, easily-scratched piece of glass that costs a lot to replace.

Dust gets into your camera whenever you change lenses or caps, so dust accumulates over time. It mostly shows up as specks on areas of flat color, like a blue sky or white wall. Dust tends to show up at narrow apertures, so if you always shoot at f1.8, you’ll never notice it. Too much dust can cause your photos to look flat, even if you don’t see the individual specks.

If you want to see how much dust is on your sensor, set your camera to its narrowest aperture (f/22 or thereabouts) and take a picture of a clear blue sky, white wall, or all-white computer screen. Then upload your photo and view it at actual pixel size. You’ll see fuzzy spots throughout the picture. If it’s hard to see the dust, follow this tutorial to make the dust pop out more.
( http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/inspecting.html )

How Big a Deal is It?

If you don’t notice the dust in your images, and you’re not shooting professionally, it’s no big deal. You can peacefully ignore it, and nobody will mind one bit.

If it bugs you, or if you sell photos professionally, then you’ll have to deal with it. Retouching the dust out of your photos can take forever, even with batch processing. And it can take up time and money if you send your camera to the repair shop or manufacturer to be cleaned.

The Quick & Dirty Rundown

To sum it all up, here’s what to do if you have dust on your sensor.

#1: Most Safe Use the automatic sensor cleaning function, blow all the dust you can off the filter, and retouch or map out the remaining dust after the fact.

#2: Less Safe, More Effective Use a very clean anti-static brush to sweep away the dust, and map out or retouch anything that’s left.

#3: Less Safe, Most Effective Use a Sensor Swab to clean the filter, make sure there aren’t any streaks or dust left, and you’re done.

Read on for the pros and cons of each method, how to avoid dust in the first place, and loads of delicious nutritious information.

The Best Solution is Prevention

The best way to deal with dust is not to let it in the camera in the first place.

When changing lenses or body caps, do so in a non-windy, non-dusty place. Turn the camera off and point it towards the ground so gravity works with you to keep dust out.

Change lenses infrequently, and make sure the optics are free of dust before attaching the lens to the camera. Also clean your body cap before placing it on the camera.

Dusty environments like the desert or an abandoned building pose another problem. Don’t change lenses at all in dusty places. Choose one all-purpose lens and use it for the whole shoot. Once you get home, make sure the outside of the camera and lens is completely clean before changing lenses again.

Keep your camera bag clean, too. Vacuum it out periodically, and shake it upside down to get out any lint and bits of crud. No point trying to keep your camera clean if it knocks around in a dirty bag all day.

Think Hard Before Cleaning the Camera Yourself

Everything inside a digital camera is very delicate and very expensive to repair. We can’t be held responsible if you try any of these techniques and something goes wrong.

Be aware that for Canon, Nikon, Pentax or Sigma cameras, touching the filter in any way automatically voids your warranty.

Before doing anything about the dust in your camera, read your manual, re-read it, and then think very hard about everything that could possibly go wrong, read the manual again and then ... call the shop?? . If it seems like a bad idea, don’t do it.

How to Remove Dust

Here’s a rundown of the various ways to remove dust from your camera:

Use the built-in cleaning system. Many cameras have a feature that vibrates the filter to dislodge bits of dust. This doesn’t work so well with stuck-on crud like pollen.

Use the camera’s dust-deleting software. Some cameras have a feature that identifies dust that’s stuck to the filter and automatically maps it out of the picture when capturing an image.

Remove it in post-processing. You can retouch the dust out of your pictures using image-editing software. This can be time-consuming, even if you use batch processes like those in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Send it to the manufacturer. Having the manufacturer clean out your camera means there’s no chance of voiding your warranty. But it does involve shipping your camera, spending some money, and not being able to shoot while your camera’s in the shop (good argument to give the spouse why you might need an extra camera though).

Use a hand-blower. This can dislodge some of the dust, but not stuck-on bits of pollen. DO NOT use compressed air or blow with your mouth.

Use a brush. This method sweeps away more stubborn dust, but not the stuck-on crud. It can also leave smears of its own, and it voids your warranty if the manufacturer can tell you’ve touched the filter.

Use a swab. When done right, this method removes dust and stuck-on crud. But it can also lead to smearing and/or scratching, and can definitely void your warranty.

Blowers

http://www.amazon.com/Coleman-5998A275-Bellows-Foot-Pump/dp/B00168PIKW

http://www.amazon.com/Giottos-AA1900-Large-Rocket-Blaster/dp/B00017LSPI

http://www.visibledust.com/products3.php?pid=503

Hand-blowers are the only method of cleaning approved by many camera manufacturers. Available models range from foot-powered bellows to hand-held bulbs.

“Hurricane” blowers have a bad reputation for blowing bits of rubber into the camera. Choose a blower with a plain tip (no fancy brush on the end).

DO NOT use compressed or canned air; the force can be too great, and if the liquid propellant gets in your camera you have a real problem. Don’t blow with your mouth either- spit particles will be really nasty to remove.

To clean your camera with a blower, put your camera into sensor cleaning mode (consult your manual for how to do this). Plug your camera in or make sure it’s 100% charged- if it turns off during cleaning, it could close on the blower and cause a lot of damage to the camera.

Blow into the camera with a decent amount of force, making absolutely sure the tip of the blower doesn’t touch the filter. Using a flashlight may help you see the dust better.

This will remove loose dust, but not the bits that are stuck on either by moisture or by a strong static charge. Do another test image (or use a special loupe ) to see if you got all the dust off, and try again if you didn’t. http://www.sensorinspection.com/index.html

If after two tries, you haven’t gotten every speck, take a minute to think about how much dust you can live with. If you can deal with a small amount, just stop, relax, and forget about it. The methods from here on in get more precarious and potentially expensive.

Brushes

Sensor brushes are more expensive than hand blowers, ranging from twenty to more than a hundred dollars. The specialized brush has an anti-static charge that helps dust release its static cling hold on the filter.

Brushes still won’t work on stuck-on crud like pollen, though. There’s also a chance that any oil or dirt on the brush can leave smears or scratches on the filter. Using a brush will void your warranty if the manufacturer can tell that you’ve touched the filter.

If you use a brush, never touch the bristles, clean it before each use, and don’t store it anywhere that it could get dusty or dirty.

Dust-Aid http://www.dust-aid.com/08DAplatinum.html makes a single-use cleaning wand that eliminates the problem of accumulated dirt on the brush.

Swabs

Using a swab is known as “wet” cleaning. When done properly, wet cleaning will remove stuck-on crud and leave the filter squeaky clean.

When done wrong, it can leaves streaks, smears, residue or scratches. Yikes!

There are lots of different swabs and cleaning solutions on the market, including plenty of DIY options.

http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/howto.html

The highest acclaim I’ve heard is for Photographic Solutions’ Sensor Swabs http://www.photosol.com/swabproduct.htm and Eclipse cleaning solution http://www.photosol.com/eclipseproduct.htm .

Some manufacturers use them at their in-house facilities, and Photographic Solutions says they’re guaranteed not to damage your camera if used as directed. Fuji, Leica, and Kodak even allow you to use Sensor Swabs and Eclipse fluid to clean your sensor without voiding your warranty.

The drawback to Eclipse fluid is that it’s flammable and cannot be shipped by air. Ultra-Clean http://www.dust-aid.com/08ultraclean.html gets good reviews, and is a good alternative for traveling.

Bad Ideas

Other methods we’ve seen on the web include just about everything from Scotch tape, Q-tips and vacuum cleaners to ritualized human sacrifice. Most of them are really bad ideas that will almost certainly damage your camera (not to mention your sacrificial victim, who may come in handy later on).

Stick with methods and products that have been rigorously tested and have a solid guarantee. Learn how to use them properly and be very very careful.

More Resources

The best resource I’ve found is Cleaning Digital Cameras

( http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/index.html ).

It has reviews of most of the cleaning products on the market, instructions on how to use the various methods, and tons of good advice.

Copper Hill http://www.copperhillimages.com/index.php?pr=Copper_Hill_Products ,

Visible Dust http://www.visibledust.com/products.php ,

Dust-Aid http://www.dust-aid.com/index.html

and Photographic Solutions http://www.photosol.com/products.htm

all sell a variety of cleaning products.

More B&W Conversions

2009-01-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

In the days of film we had to either carry an extra camera loaded with black and white film or waste rolls of film swapping back and forth. Today with the digital cameras we can take all of our photos in full color then convert them later in the “digital darkroom” (computer). You may also see a feature on your digital camera for in camera conversions ... though this seems like a really cool feature, my advice is don't use it. There are several reasons for this:

in camera processing sucks away battery power an a very fast rate.
If the photo is taken in B&W ... you are limited to B&W only, you can take the color out using software but it is very hard almost impossible to add the color in if it wasn't shot in full color
unless your software is very lame the tonal quality and clarity you get from converting to B&W on the computer is much better than what the camera does for you\

As far as I am concerned any of the above reasons is enough to leave the converting and processing for the darkroom work.

Here is another photo I did some processing/conversion to ....

As you can see I have already done some tone and color/tint adjustments but other than crop, contrast and a minor saturation this is straight out of the camera.

In the next photo you can see I did the “basic” B&W conversion and have not yet tweaked the clarity or contrast/brightness from the original photo

Next I “selected” the subject using my selection tool and increased the contrast and lowered the brightness of the girl and swing chains, then I increased the brightness over the entire photo

The next photo shows that I increased the clarity and contrast of the entire photo together to bring out the cloud patterns and the silhouette more.

Finally I added sepia tone until I had the result I was after ...

a tinted B&W photo where the silhouette “pops” out of the photo almost giving it a 3-D feel

I hope this mini-tutorial has been helpful to you, I am still learning how to convey to others “how I did it” and like everyone I am definitely still learning my camera, software and photography skills and techniques.

As always if you have tips, comments or suggestions please feel free to leave them in the comment section or contact me by email at tricountyphotography@yahoo.com

Thank You!

John