Friday, February 11, 2011
Bad Weather, Good Light: The Art Of Being Flexible
We’ve all sat, staring out of our window and cursing at the rain poring down or the flat, grey sky that just happened to cloud over on few hours we’ve managed to set aside in our busy schedule to head out and shoot some photos. But all is not lost for the opportunistic and well prepared photographer.
Be Patient
After many rainfalls or storms, comes a spectacular burst of light. Often this light lasts only momentarily, but is worth waiting for. But you’re never going to catch it if you’re still staring out of that window. Part of making good photographs is being an opportunist. Weather reports are easily accessible through the internet, over the radio, and in newspapers, often with detailed information. You might be able to find out if the cloud cover or storm is about to pass. If not, head out anyway. Yes, it might all be in vain and remain gray and unappealing until nightfall and be a complete waste of time, but what if it isn’t? If you speak to, or read any book written by a successful landscape photographer, they will tell you stories about how they visited a place dozens of times and waited for hours before getting that one in a million shot. Have a look at that shot. Was it worth the time? Chances are it was. Imagine the satisfaction gained from someone looking at your photo and letting out a breathless “Wow!” Then you’ll be the one telling the stories.
A simple way to think about it is that you get out what you put in.
Be prepared
Have you done any research on your subject? Have you visited your location at this time of day before? Do you have a list, or at least a mental outline, of the photos you want? Have you considered the equipment you might need to take? Answering these questions will take you a long way to being able to seize the moment when it does eventually arrive. Instead of fumbling around trying to attach lenses, tripods, filters and any other gadgets that might be necessary, (and I do mean “might”), you will simply be able to step out of your car, or hiding place, gear in hand, and calmly collect the images you’ve been imagining. A little foresight in taking care of these things beforehand allows you to focus completely on taking photos once in the field. As with anything else, if you can concentrate completely, you’ll likely do a better job.
What’s your purpose?
Think about what you are actually trying to achieve with these pictures. Do you even need blue skies? Many a moody, muted landscape has been created using the worst weather conditions. If you have an interest in shooting black and white images, you could be in for a real treat. Many subjects, such as outdoor portraits, can work better in overcast conditions, enabling you to pick up the lines in someone’s face and add character to the portrait without having to worry about your subject squinting their eyes from the sun or dark shadows appearing over half of their face.
Most successful photography, like anything else, comes from having a clear goal and taking the steps necessary to achieve it. It also comes from working with the elements and planning for various possibilities. Open yourself up to new ideas and you will find that your photography improves markedly.
Be Patient
After many rainfalls or storms, comes a spectacular burst of light. Often this light lasts only momentarily, but is worth waiting for. But you’re never going to catch it if you’re still staring out of that window. Part of making good photographs is being an opportunist. Weather reports are easily accessible through the internet, over the radio, and in newspapers, often with detailed information. You might be able to find out if the cloud cover or storm is about to pass. If not, head out anyway. Yes, it might all be in vain and remain gray and unappealing until nightfall and be a complete waste of time, but what if it isn’t? If you speak to, or read any book written by a successful landscape photographer, they will tell you stories about how they visited a place dozens of times and waited for hours before getting that one in a million shot. Have a look at that shot. Was it worth the time? Chances are it was. Imagine the satisfaction gained from someone looking at your photo and letting out a breathless “Wow!” Then you’ll be the one telling the stories.
A simple way to think about it is that you get out what you put in.
Be prepared
Have you done any research on your subject? Have you visited your location at this time of day before? Do you have a list, or at least a mental outline, of the photos you want? Have you considered the equipment you might need to take? Answering these questions will take you a long way to being able to seize the moment when it does eventually arrive. Instead of fumbling around trying to attach lenses, tripods, filters and any other gadgets that might be necessary, (and I do mean “might”), you will simply be able to step out of your car, or hiding place, gear in hand, and calmly collect the images you’ve been imagining. A little foresight in taking care of these things beforehand allows you to focus completely on taking photos once in the field. As with anything else, if you can concentrate completely, you’ll likely do a better job.
What’s your purpose?
Think about what you are actually trying to achieve with these pictures. Do you even need blue skies? Many a moody, muted landscape has been created using the worst weather conditions. If you have an interest in shooting black and white images, you could be in for a real treat. Many subjects, such as outdoor portraits, can work better in overcast conditions, enabling you to pick up the lines in someone’s face and add character to the portrait without having to worry about your subject squinting their eyes from the sun or dark shadows appearing over half of their face.
Most successful photography, like anything else, comes from having a clear goal and taking the steps necessary to achieve it. It also comes from working with the elements and planning for various possibilities. Open yourself up to new ideas and you will find that your photography improves markedly.
Travel Photography – Packing Your Accessories for the Journey
Taking your camera with you on holiday provides a great opportunity to capturing on film new landscapes, different cultures and their landmarks.
Whether you are at a beach, rural or city location, the pictures will provide a record of the memorable experience whilst building your photography skills and expertise.
It is always worth learning a few new tips to improve on those skills and make those pictures more rewarding.
Before you travel
Get to know your camera and film well before packing all your accessories to travel with. Be sure to test all your equipment before you leave. Once you’re there on your travels you may not be able to repeat the visit for some time.
Your film sees things slightly differently from you so get to know the characteristics of the type of film you use.
This will help in predicting any differences, in doing so prevent any unpleasant surprises. After booking your travel carry out some research on the area you are travelling to, making a list using travel guides, magazines and books will help plan for the location you are going to visit.
Try relevant web sites, online communities and newsgroups provide more up-to date information to get some first-hand information, travel tips and advice on finding some scenic spots.
This will save precious time when you are there and also help with the type of shots you may wish to take when you are there, nature pictures of animals feeding, sunsets, historical buildings or even fireworks.
Charge camera batteries before you leave, again this saves time. Take an extra memory card with you and clear the memory on both cards before you leave, this will help as with the modern digital camera holding so many pictures you can shoot lots of pictures of the same subject. Wait till you get home before deciding on and sorting out the good from the bad before printing them.
Try learning some of the language. Even a few phrases can go a long way with people as in many countries people do not expect visitors to be able to speak their language and are pleasantly surprised as this shows that you are taking an interest.
What to pack
Make a list of items you want to bring with you before travelling. You’re guaranteed that whatever you leave behind will be the travel accessory you need when you are travelling.
Aswell as your camera, keep in mind the following accessories to travel with:
Batteries, extra batteries, battery charger, memory card(s)
Film (be careful, film purchased abroad may have been stored under the wrong conditions)
Portable storage device, external flash
Tripod (useful for low light situations or when using a strong telephoto lens)
Power adapter (if travelling abroad)
Camera case, waterproof if going to a wet location or beach (purchase silica gel packs from your camera accessories store to reduce moisture further)
Underwater camera if you are travelling to a beach location (even a small disposable underwater camera will capture great shots)
Get a wrist strap for your camera, helps against the possibility of losing your camera.
Using a flash, as fill flash can be more helpful in broad daylight than at night. Typically an in built camera flash
will have a range of only a few metres.
Wide-angle lens, monopod zoom lens
Purchase the best lens you can afford, these are more important than a camera with many features.
Take as many spare parts as you can, for example: second camera body, small pocket tripod, wide angle lens and
50 mm lens incase light conditions are bad. You can always keep these spare accessories at the hotel if you plan ahead for your day trip.
Filters
To reduce contrast use a neutral density grey filter to cover the bright parts of the picture
When using filters, always take an unfiltered version of the picture aswell (except for UV or daylight filters).
A polarising filter may eliminate reflections and enhance saturation.
Airport X-rays
On flights, never check in film with your main luggage there is the possibility that the strong X-ray machines at airports that scan checked in luggage may damage your film. Hand baggage would be a safer option.
The damage can range from a lack of sharpness or a cast to severe damage.
Whether you are at a beach, rural or city location, the pictures will provide a record of the memorable experience whilst building your photography skills and expertise.
It is always worth learning a few new tips to improve on those skills and make those pictures more rewarding.
Before you travel
Get to know your camera and film well before packing all your accessories to travel with. Be sure to test all your equipment before you leave. Once you’re there on your travels you may not be able to repeat the visit for some time.
Your film sees things slightly differently from you so get to know the characteristics of the type of film you use.
This will help in predicting any differences, in doing so prevent any unpleasant surprises. After booking your travel carry out some research on the area you are travelling to, making a list using travel guides, magazines and books will help plan for the location you are going to visit.
Try relevant web sites, online communities and newsgroups provide more up-to date information to get some first-hand information, travel tips and advice on finding some scenic spots.
This will save precious time when you are there and also help with the type of shots you may wish to take when you are there, nature pictures of animals feeding, sunsets, historical buildings or even fireworks.
Charge camera batteries before you leave, again this saves time. Take an extra memory card with you and clear the memory on both cards before you leave, this will help as with the modern digital camera holding so many pictures you can shoot lots of pictures of the same subject. Wait till you get home before deciding on and sorting out the good from the bad before printing them.
Try learning some of the language. Even a few phrases can go a long way with people as in many countries people do not expect visitors to be able to speak their language and are pleasantly surprised as this shows that you are taking an interest.
What to pack
Make a list of items you want to bring with you before travelling. You’re guaranteed that whatever you leave behind will be the travel accessory you need when you are travelling.
Aswell as your camera, keep in mind the following accessories to travel with:
Batteries, extra batteries, battery charger, memory card(s)
Film (be careful, film purchased abroad may have been stored under the wrong conditions)
Portable storage device, external flash
Tripod (useful for low light situations or when using a strong telephoto lens)
Power adapter (if travelling abroad)
Camera case, waterproof if going to a wet location or beach (purchase silica gel packs from your camera accessories store to reduce moisture further)
Underwater camera if you are travelling to a beach location (even a small disposable underwater camera will capture great shots)
Get a wrist strap for your camera, helps against the possibility of losing your camera.
Using a flash, as fill flash can be more helpful in broad daylight than at night. Typically an in built camera flash
will have a range of only a few metres.
Wide-angle lens, monopod zoom lens
Purchase the best lens you can afford, these are more important than a camera with many features.
Take as many spare parts as you can, for example: second camera body, small pocket tripod, wide angle lens and
50 mm lens incase light conditions are bad. You can always keep these spare accessories at the hotel if you plan ahead for your day trip.
Filters
To reduce contrast use a neutral density grey filter to cover the bright parts of the picture
When using filters, always take an unfiltered version of the picture aswell (except for UV or daylight filters).
A polarising filter may eliminate reflections and enhance saturation.
Airport X-rays
On flights, never check in film with your main luggage there is the possibility that the strong X-ray machines at airports that scan checked in luggage may damage your film. Hand baggage would be a safer option.
The damage can range from a lack of sharpness or a cast to severe damage.
Choosing A Subject
How do you know what photos you will take? Are you going to a family reunion? Are you going out for a hike and hope to see some wildlife? There are many questions when it comes to photography. You will want to have a basis of photography techniques to provide the best photograph and once you learn those techniques the subject will be up to you. Most photographers whether they are professional or amateurs like you will have a medium they work with. It is the same with other artists; you have painters, sculptors, sketch artists, and much more. Photography is art and therefore requires an eye for the right photograph.
How do you know what subject you will shoot? This is where your interests lie. If you wish only to take pictures of wildlife then you will have to wait for the subject to come into view. Obviously you can go to a wildlife park such as the Rocky Mountain National Park and hope to find subjects. Most often it will depend on the time of year. Elk and Deer are more prominent when they come down the mountains to mate and eat. Birds will always be available, but the type of birds will vary. If you are in Alaska chances are you will have several chances of shooting a Bald Eagle, while in Florida you may find heron or cranes.
When you are practicing techniques you will have to choose your subject accordingly. A lot of us are regulated to the area around us. Landscape photography requires the use of the land you have around you, unless you are going on vacation to some place new. This is another important fact to choosing a subject. You are either limited or you have the whole world at your feet. It will depend on your traveling abilities. For now we will stick close to home.
Once you choose your medium you will then go in search of subjects. The subject that speaks to you is what you should choose to shoot. If a tree and the knots it’s formed interest you, you will want to check the lighting of the area. Deciding which angle to shoot from will also make the decision on the subject. The lighting may not be right for the subject you have chosen and the other side of the subject may not yield the best picture.
To choose a subject you will need a good eye for detail and observation. Often the best subject is not the one you can see with a plain eye. Have you ever looked at a tree and found a spider web hiding in the leaves? If you look closer you might even find a spider. A spider web can make a great picture not only because of the technique required to have the web show up in your photo with the silky threads, but also the pattern of a spider web. We are fascinated with an organism that can create a symmetrical pattern.
Again your eye is the best tool for finding a subject. How you choose the subject will depend on what is available, the angle and the light. Moving slowly through an area such as landscape will help you determine the subject. Looking under leaves or rocks is often beneficial to finding something new and different. You never know where you will find a picture just waiting for you to click a picture. Some people and animals do things that will never again happen and this is when you want to have camera available. Most people interested in photography carry a camera with them everywhere they go. If this sounds like a habit, a real habit turns into a hobby and a possible income if you become good at taking the right pictures. As you get better at taking the pictures, you can then start displaying your pictures for others to see and possibly buy.
How do you know what subject you will shoot? This is where your interests lie. If you wish only to take pictures of wildlife then you will have to wait for the subject to come into view. Obviously you can go to a wildlife park such as the Rocky Mountain National Park and hope to find subjects. Most often it will depend on the time of year. Elk and Deer are more prominent when they come down the mountains to mate and eat. Birds will always be available, but the type of birds will vary. If you are in Alaska chances are you will have several chances of shooting a Bald Eagle, while in Florida you may find heron or cranes.
When you are practicing techniques you will have to choose your subject accordingly. A lot of us are regulated to the area around us. Landscape photography requires the use of the land you have around you, unless you are going on vacation to some place new. This is another important fact to choosing a subject. You are either limited or you have the whole world at your feet. It will depend on your traveling abilities. For now we will stick close to home.
Once you choose your medium you will then go in search of subjects. The subject that speaks to you is what you should choose to shoot. If a tree and the knots it’s formed interest you, you will want to check the lighting of the area. Deciding which angle to shoot from will also make the decision on the subject. The lighting may not be right for the subject you have chosen and the other side of the subject may not yield the best picture.
To choose a subject you will need a good eye for detail and observation. Often the best subject is not the one you can see with a plain eye. Have you ever looked at a tree and found a spider web hiding in the leaves? If you look closer you might even find a spider. A spider web can make a great picture not only because of the technique required to have the web show up in your photo with the silky threads, but also the pattern of a spider web. We are fascinated with an organism that can create a symmetrical pattern.
Again your eye is the best tool for finding a subject. How you choose the subject will depend on what is available, the angle and the light. Moving slowly through an area such as landscape will help you determine the subject. Looking under leaves or rocks is often beneficial to finding something new and different. You never know where you will find a picture just waiting for you to click a picture. Some people and animals do things that will never again happen and this is when you want to have camera available. Most people interested in photography carry a camera with them everywhere they go. If this sounds like a habit, a real habit turns into a hobby and a possible income if you become good at taking the right pictures. As you get better at taking the pictures, you can then start displaying your pictures for others to see and possibly buy.
The Art of Portrait Photography
Portrait photography can be indoors in a studio setting or outside in natural light. You can also take full body shots, half body or head anf shoulder shots. It is important to plan your shoot before actually getting into it.
When the location has been decided you should establish what source of lighting is available and from which direction it will be coming, or do you need to provide your own lighting. From there you can determine what camera is best suited, which lenses to bring and what other props are required.
So you have now scoped out the scene, gathered your equipment and are raring to go.
But wait there is something equally as impoerant that is you need to develop a close rapport with your client. It is imperative that you put your client at ease. Find out there likes and dislikes, discuss the procedure and reassure them that everything will be fine.Keep a close watch on their mannerisms and look for their best side and recognise their natural smile
Most clients are nervous at first and usually try to hard, as the shoot procedes they will relax and better shots will be taken.
If you are wondering what to talk about with your clients then the answer is anything that will show you something distinctive for that person. Try to look for different face expressions and eye or mouth movement. When you see something beautiful keep it in mind and later capture it in your portraits. Believe me that studying the subject before making the portrait photography is the biggest secret in this art.
I advice you to always use natural light if it’s possible. Choosing the background is very important. If the picture is to close then the background looses any meaning, if it’s to far then the background will overwhelm the subject. So try not to merge the subject with the background in an indistinguishable shape.
From my perspective portrait photography has it all. You have the subtlety og lighting, angles, poses expressions and character traits that all form part of the storey.
There is nothing more satisfying than to see the amazed reactions of your clients as they come face to face with themselves in a way that they have never seen before For many of us a realistic portrait gives the subject a degree of immortality.
When the location has been decided you should establish what source of lighting is available and from which direction it will be coming, or do you need to provide your own lighting. From there you can determine what camera is best suited, which lenses to bring and what other props are required.
So you have now scoped out the scene, gathered your equipment and are raring to go.
But wait there is something equally as impoerant that is you need to develop a close rapport with your client. It is imperative that you put your client at ease. Find out there likes and dislikes, discuss the procedure and reassure them that everything will be fine.Keep a close watch on their mannerisms and look for their best side and recognise their natural smile
Most clients are nervous at first and usually try to hard, as the shoot procedes they will relax and better shots will be taken.
If you are wondering what to talk about with your clients then the answer is anything that will show you something distinctive for that person. Try to look for different face expressions and eye or mouth movement. When you see something beautiful keep it in mind and later capture it in your portraits. Believe me that studying the subject before making the portrait photography is the biggest secret in this art.
I advice you to always use natural light if it’s possible. Choosing the background is very important. If the picture is to close then the background looses any meaning, if it’s to far then the background will overwhelm the subject. So try not to merge the subject with the background in an indistinguishable shape.
From my perspective portrait photography has it all. You have the subtlety og lighting, angles, poses expressions and character traits that all form part of the storey.
There is nothing more satisfying than to see the amazed reactions of your clients as they come face to face with themselves in a way that they have never seen before For many of us a realistic portrait gives the subject a degree of immortality.
Make Money With Your Photos
So you learned to take a great picture and now you would like to make some cash from them (and of course, share your artwork with the world). Here are three ways you can go about this without costing you a fortune.
–Create your own products using your photos, such as framed prints, greeting cards or t-shirts, and sell them on Ebay. Ebay receives millions of visitors eager to buy, provides easy step by step instructions on getting you set up (their website also offers advice and tips on selling) and costs are very minimal. You have the choice to auction your product or let your customer “buy now”. Your biggest investment in this is producing your products.
–Sell products on Cafepress. They provide the products (framed prints, t-shirts, coasters, mousepads, clocks, teddy bears and much more) which you will apply your photos to (just upload and add to the product you choose) and they provide complete service (orders, delivery, complaints). You build your store (through their website) either using one of their templates or you can customize your own using HTML. They have a base price for each product and you set the price above that. You are paid the price above the base price. You can open a free store or you can pay a small fee each month and receive more benefits. Thou your products will appear in their Marketplace (which they receive millions of customers) so will millions of other products. So your biggest investment here is to advertise your store. I am not going into advertising here but there are free and low cost ways of doing this (read articles regarding this matter).
–Submit your photos to online stock agencies such as Shutterstock, Fotosearch or iStockphoto. Stock agencies house large files of images and markets the photos to potential clients. You are paid a percentage or a set price of each sale. You give these clients permission to use your photo (such as in their magazine or on their personal website) but they can not resell to profit from.
Whichever way you decide to sell your photos, the better the resolution your pictures are, the better the quality. To achieve this, first you must have a high megapixel digital camera. This does not mean you need to buy the top of the line. A 5 megapixel is quite sufficient. Second, your picture should have a high DPI (dots per inch) such as 300. If you want a high quality 8×10 inch picture, you will multiply the DPI by the inch. For instance, 8×300=2400 and 10×300=3000 so you want your picture size (resolution) to be 2400×3000 pixels. You can always decrease the size of your picture but never increase the original size.
Before joining any program, be sure to read their terms carefully. I wish you much success!
–Create your own products using your photos, such as framed prints, greeting cards or t-shirts, and sell them on Ebay. Ebay receives millions of visitors eager to buy, provides easy step by step instructions on getting you set up (their website also offers advice and tips on selling) and costs are very minimal. You have the choice to auction your product or let your customer “buy now”. Your biggest investment in this is producing your products.
–Sell products on Cafepress. They provide the products (framed prints, t-shirts, coasters, mousepads, clocks, teddy bears and much more) which you will apply your photos to (just upload and add to the product you choose) and they provide complete service (orders, delivery, complaints). You build your store (through their website) either using one of their templates or you can customize your own using HTML. They have a base price for each product and you set the price above that. You are paid the price above the base price. You can open a free store or you can pay a small fee each month and receive more benefits. Thou your products will appear in their Marketplace (which they receive millions of customers) so will millions of other products. So your biggest investment here is to advertise your store. I am not going into advertising here but there are free and low cost ways of doing this (read articles regarding this matter).
–Submit your photos to online stock agencies such as Shutterstock, Fotosearch or iStockphoto. Stock agencies house large files of images and markets the photos to potential clients. You are paid a percentage or a set price of each sale. You give these clients permission to use your photo (such as in their magazine or on their personal website) but they can not resell to profit from.
Whichever way you decide to sell your photos, the better the resolution your pictures are, the better the quality. To achieve this, first you must have a high megapixel digital camera. This does not mean you need to buy the top of the line. A 5 megapixel is quite sufficient. Second, your picture should have a high DPI (dots per inch) such as 300. If you want a high quality 8×10 inch picture, you will multiply the DPI by the inch. For instance, 8×300=2400 and 10×300=3000 so you want your picture size (resolution) to be 2400×3000 pixels. You can always decrease the size of your picture but never increase the original size.
Before joining any program, be sure to read their terms carefully. I wish you much success!
10 Tips For Better Photography
The first most important thing to do is to read your cameras manual from cover to cover. Digital cameras today are an absolutely amazing tool and by spending a hour or so learning about all he features offered by your camera you will begin to understand how to use these features in taking your photos. No matter what level of experience you have there is always new features that need to be understood before you set out taking photos.
1. Don’t rely entirely on photo-editing tools to digitally enhance the your photographs. It is to easy to depend on this – in the back of the mind will always be the thought, “if it does not turn out, I can always fix it with software”. The pleasure of photography should begin with the way the picture is shot, along with its emotional connection, not the result of the digital manipulation with a half-done picture. There is nothing the matter with the photo-editing tools, only what we do with them to make our photos look good.
2. Avoid taking Underexposed Photos. Underexposure lacks color quality, so it really should be avoided. What happens is the sensors fail to read the colors that form the image. However, if given a choice, several photographers choose underexposing above overexposure. This is because even if underexposed, the details of the photograph are still recorded. In addition, it can still go into an editing program repairing overexposed photographs.
3. Digital cameras use millions of assorted pixels to produce the final image, with each sensor designed to capture a certain tonal range. When we do not allow full light to fall on the sensor, we are doing a great injustice to the image. Most of the pixels are unable to capture the tonal range in their full sweep and brightness, which ends up lowering the picture quality. The choice of sensor size is equivalent to choosing between assortments of formats – 35mm, medium and large format cameras. There are many different sensor size options regarding depth of field, image noise, diffraction, cost and size/weight.
4. When focusing on a subject, there are three factors which affect the depth of field: focal length of the lens; distance from the camera to the subject; and the size of the aperture or setting of the f-stop. You must focus on the subject, and not on people or objects around the subject. The subject at a greater distance will have greater depth of field than one that is close-up. This will reduce the noise level in your photographs. Also, less worry needs to be given to being out of focus, bringing in clarity and sharpness to the image.
5. When a picture is overexposed, too much detail is too high in tonal range. Just as under exposure makes a picture dark and toneless, over exposure makes colors too rich giving the picture an artificial hue – causing highlight to lose their detail. Over exposures also blanks out light and dark effects, along with the tones that give an image a natural look causing everything to look gray with less saturation.
6. Exposure warning lights have a purpose – with the word “warning.” We must learn to look and respect under exposure warning lights just like a red flashing light at an intersection. These are especially good for beginners who can change the exposure until the blinking areas disappear. Later, the user can start using their own insights in deciding the exposure levels.
7. The camera can take a great picture, but we as the photographer prepare before then. The best photographs are those whose parameters are decided by the human mind. No amount of automation can change this fact. We, too, should gradually move away from automated functions and start making our own combinations when it comes to exposure, color, noise etc. Only then will we find gradual, but unmistaken, improvement in the quality of photographs taken.
8. Thinking of the composition should be the focus before clicking the button. Composition is the art of focusing on the subject using frames, movement, lights etc. We can learn composition techniques either from a senior photographer or from a book. Then we should start practicing them with new techniques. We will find an automatic improvement in the quality of our photographs.
9. To constantly improve one’s photography skills, you must take as many different photos as you can – whenever possible. The more pictures that you can take will give you the experience to know how to make subtle changes which improve your photos.
10. The last ip is to plan ahead, think what you want to shoot, think how it is to be shot, think about its exposure, color, noise – all about visualizing the shot you want. We must learn to critically examine each image that we shoot as. Try to find the weaknesses of the photograph. Make corrections to your settings and Shoot again to remove the weaknesses – until we are completely satisfied.
1. Don’t rely entirely on photo-editing tools to digitally enhance the your photographs. It is to easy to depend on this – in the back of the mind will always be the thought, “if it does not turn out, I can always fix it with software”. The pleasure of photography should begin with the way the picture is shot, along with its emotional connection, not the result of the digital manipulation with a half-done picture. There is nothing the matter with the photo-editing tools, only what we do with them to make our photos look good.
2. Avoid taking Underexposed Photos. Underexposure lacks color quality, so it really should be avoided. What happens is the sensors fail to read the colors that form the image. However, if given a choice, several photographers choose underexposing above overexposure. This is because even if underexposed, the details of the photograph are still recorded. In addition, it can still go into an editing program repairing overexposed photographs.
3. Digital cameras use millions of assorted pixels to produce the final image, with each sensor designed to capture a certain tonal range. When we do not allow full light to fall on the sensor, we are doing a great injustice to the image. Most of the pixels are unable to capture the tonal range in their full sweep and brightness, which ends up lowering the picture quality. The choice of sensor size is equivalent to choosing between assortments of formats – 35mm, medium and large format cameras. There are many different sensor size options regarding depth of field, image noise, diffraction, cost and size/weight.
4. When focusing on a subject, there are three factors which affect the depth of field: focal length of the lens; distance from the camera to the subject; and the size of the aperture or setting of the f-stop. You must focus on the subject, and not on people or objects around the subject. The subject at a greater distance will have greater depth of field than one that is close-up. This will reduce the noise level in your photographs. Also, less worry needs to be given to being out of focus, bringing in clarity and sharpness to the image.
5. When a picture is overexposed, too much detail is too high in tonal range. Just as under exposure makes a picture dark and toneless, over exposure makes colors too rich giving the picture an artificial hue – causing highlight to lose their detail. Over exposures also blanks out light and dark effects, along with the tones that give an image a natural look causing everything to look gray with less saturation.
6. Exposure warning lights have a purpose – with the word “warning.” We must learn to look and respect under exposure warning lights just like a red flashing light at an intersection. These are especially good for beginners who can change the exposure until the blinking areas disappear. Later, the user can start using their own insights in deciding the exposure levels.
7. The camera can take a great picture, but we as the photographer prepare before then. The best photographs are those whose parameters are decided by the human mind. No amount of automation can change this fact. We, too, should gradually move away from automated functions and start making our own combinations when it comes to exposure, color, noise etc. Only then will we find gradual, but unmistaken, improvement in the quality of photographs taken.
8. Thinking of the composition should be the focus before clicking the button. Composition is the art of focusing on the subject using frames, movement, lights etc. We can learn composition techniques either from a senior photographer or from a book. Then we should start practicing them with new techniques. We will find an automatic improvement in the quality of our photographs.
9. To constantly improve one’s photography skills, you must take as many different photos as you can – whenever possible. The more pictures that you can take will give you the experience to know how to make subtle changes which improve your photos.
10. The last ip is to plan ahead, think what you want to shoot, think how it is to be shot, think about its exposure, color, noise – all about visualizing the shot you want. We must learn to critically examine each image that we shoot as. Try to find the weaknesses of the photograph. Make corrections to your settings and Shoot again to remove the weaknesses – until we are completely satisfied.
Promote Your Photography Site – Part 1.
You may have spent a great deal of time and money creating the perfect Website – your photography images may be superb, but if people cannot find your site your images and talent along with your business may become a white elephant.
Promoting your Website is not that difficult but will take up some of your precious time. My advice for you is to set out a few hours per week for this.
If your Website is new the chances are that Google, Yahoo or any search engine won’t index your site for a few months. And it may even take several months before they place it to appear when someone types in a search phrase that suits your site. So you need to give your photographs and business a reasonable chance of getting paying customers.
When a search engine index’s your Website it looks to see how many links point to your site. The more links you can create the better your site will rank, but only if they are the right kind of links. Don’t spend hours and hours online getting thousands of standard ordinary links. Get links that relate to your site. Get links from other photography sites.
Photography Directories are a great way of creating free advertisement for your site and also a great way of getting valuable links to your site that search engines will recognise.
Before you submit your Website to directories, research the correct keywords that best describe your site. If your photography site is Landscaped based you need to optimise your site correctly for the keywords Landscape photography.
Once you are happy with which keywords best describe your site start submitting your site to Photography Directories. Most photography directories require a return link so you should create a links page for this alone.
When you are submitting your website you need to use the correct keywords that best describe your site in the link title to your site. The link title will be the title on the submission form. You will also need to create a good definitive description for your site. This should be no more than twenty-five words and should start with the keywords that best describe your site. This is what people will read – this is where you sell your site – a good description will enable potential customers to enter your site.
Once you have completed the form click submit and move on to the next directory. There are many good photography directories online – some specialised in certain areas of photography, more cover all areas of photography. Once you fill out the submission form correctly you will start to see the rewards.
Some directories will charge you when creating a listing; my advice is to research such websites before you part with your hard earned cash. Stay away from link farms and link companies that offer you thousands of links – these sites don’t rank well with search engines and may harm your site in the long run.
While photography directories are just one way of promoting your site; they are the easiest and quickest way to get started. Creating good quality inbound links to your site will help you achieve excellent search engine ranking for your site resulting in more and more traffic entering your photography site.
Promoting your Website is not that difficult but will take up some of your precious time. My advice for you is to set out a few hours per week for this.
If your Website is new the chances are that Google, Yahoo or any search engine won’t index your site for a few months. And it may even take several months before they place it to appear when someone types in a search phrase that suits your site. So you need to give your photographs and business a reasonable chance of getting paying customers.
When a search engine index’s your Website it looks to see how many links point to your site. The more links you can create the better your site will rank, but only if they are the right kind of links. Don’t spend hours and hours online getting thousands of standard ordinary links. Get links that relate to your site. Get links from other photography sites.
Photography Directories are a great way of creating free advertisement for your site and also a great way of getting valuable links to your site that search engines will recognise.
Before you submit your Website to directories, research the correct keywords that best describe your site. If your photography site is Landscaped based you need to optimise your site correctly for the keywords Landscape photography.
Once you are happy with which keywords best describe your site start submitting your site to Photography Directories. Most photography directories require a return link so you should create a links page for this alone.
When you are submitting your website you need to use the correct keywords that best describe your site in the link title to your site. The link title will be the title on the submission form. You will also need to create a good definitive description for your site. This should be no more than twenty-five words and should start with the keywords that best describe your site. This is what people will read – this is where you sell your site – a good description will enable potential customers to enter your site.
Once you have completed the form click submit and move on to the next directory. There are many good photography directories online – some specialised in certain areas of photography, more cover all areas of photography. Once you fill out the submission form correctly you will start to see the rewards.
Some directories will charge you when creating a listing; my advice is to research such websites before you part with your hard earned cash. Stay away from link farms and link companies that offer you thousands of links – these sites don’t rank well with search engines and may harm your site in the long run.
While photography directories are just one way of promoting your site; they are the easiest and quickest way to get started. Creating good quality inbound links to your site will help you achieve excellent search engine ranking for your site resulting in more and more traffic entering your photography site.
Light for Photographers
Light is the essence of photography. It’s not things that we photograph, but the light they reflect. Without light, there is no photography and the way things look to us and the camera is entirely dependant on the light that reaches them.
People talk about the “quality” of light, but in fact this is a combination of four different things that all light sources possess. Every light has a level, a colour, a direction and can either be hard or soft. Unless you are working in a studio, where you have total control over the lighting, the first thing any photographer should do is to make an assessment of the light in terms of these four aspects.
The first one, level, is the simplest. Except for the fact that we are not really aware of it ourselves. We can easily move from outdoors to indoors without realising just how dark it is inside, but the camera can’t do that. Not without making adjustments. Fortunately, all digital cameras have an auto-exposure system that will make these adjustments for you, or you can go manual and do it yourself.
When the light level starts to go down there are three things that can be adjusted. The ISO number represents how light-sensitive your camera is and setting a higher number will make your camera more sensitive. The aperture is a hole in your lens that you can make larger to let more light in. In this case, a lower number means a larger aperture. The third adjustment you can make is to the shutter speed, exposing the image for a longer time.
Whilst the ISO number and aperture have their effect on an image, it’s the shutter speed that finally determines just how low you can go in terms of light level, without adding your own light. Although you can set a shutter speed of half a second or longer, there is no way you can hold a camera steady for that length of time. If you try, you will get “camera shake” which hardly ever looks good. Even at 1/30th of a second, you will still get camera shake unless your lens is zoomed right out to its widest.
There is nothing stopping you taking photographs like this but you will need to use a tripod or other stable means of support to avoid camera shake. Alternatively, you can switch on your flash but that will now be the main light source and the photograph will look totally different. Change the lighting, change the picture.
The second aspect to consider is the colour of the light. This is similar to light level in that we are hardly aware of it and our cameras can be set to automatically or manually compensate for it. Daylight is blue compared to indoor artificial light, which is more yellow or orange in colour. It’s not usually a big problem because even if you or your camera get the colour setting wrong, you can still edit this after you have downloaded the images into your computer.
Where you really have to think about the colour is when you have mixed lighting. That is, your scene is lit by two or more sources of light that are different colours. Imagine a room with bright artificial light and a window. The light in the room is yellow and that coming through the window will be blue. There is nothing that can compensate for two different colours, you need to make a choice. If you were photographing someone in this room then where you placed them would alter their colour. The nearer they were to the window then the more they would be influenced by its blue light and vice versa.
Also, where you place the camera is important. If you are near the window, facing into the room, then your main light will be blue and the background of your subject will be yellow. If you are further into the room, facing the window, then the opposite will be true. Given that you, or your camera will adjust the colour to make the person look right, you are more likely to be aware of the background colour in the final shot. One thing that seldom looks good is when the window is at 90 degrees to the camera, one side of your subject will be blue and the other will be yellow and there is no way to compensate for that.
The level and colour of light are important, but these are things that you simply adjust the settings in your camera to compensate for. It’s when you start to consider the direction and softness of light that you can begin to get creative and really use the light. A light is called hard or soft because of the shadows it produces and the governing factor here is the size of the light source. The sun, a flashgun or a spotlight, being small, produce hard, sharply defined shadows. Whilst a cloudy sky, being big, is a very soft light source and produces hardly any shadows at all.
When you are making an assessment of the natural light around you, the first thing to realise is that there is never only one light source. All light travels in straight lines, until it hits something. It then bounces off. If it hits a shiny object, it will bounce at the same angle it arrived at, like a billiard ball off a cushion. If the object is matt (i.e. not shiny), it will bounce off in all directions and pick up the colour of whatever it hit.
A single bare light bulb will create a hard light directly on your subject. At the same time, it creates a soft light by bouncing off the walls, floor and ceiling. The lighter those areas are, the more soft light will be created. If one of the walls was white and the others dark, then most of the soft light would come from the direction of the white wall.
A hard light source will create very dark shadows, much darker that we see with the human eye. This can cause a problem for photographers because, at the correct exposure, it may not be possible to see any detail in the shadows. The two ways of dealing with this are to hide the shadows or fill them in. You hide shadows by keeping your subject away from any background and shooting from the same angle as the hard light source. That way, most of their shadow will be hidden behind them.
You fill in the shadows by using anything large, and preferably white, that the hard light is hitting. This will be a source of soft light and, if you keep it on the opposite side of your subject to the hard light, it will fill in the shadows, allowing you to photograph the details. It is always a good idea to take a reflector with you (anything large and white) when shooting on a sunny day.
As you might expect, the direction of a hard light source is much more critical than that of a soft one. In fact, changing the angle between your subject and the light source can totally transform the way it looks. If your subject has a rich texture, that can totally disappear when the light is square on to it. The more oblique the angle, the deeper the texture will appear.
For portraits, a frontal light will make people appear less wrinkled and happier. As the light moves to the side, they will look more serious. Light from above is seldom flattering and light from below makes people look downright weird. If you like landscape photography, try to visit your favourite spots at different times of the day and see for yourself the complete transformation that the angle of light makes to a photograph.
Using natural light doesn’t mean that you need to put up with bad lighting. By making a thorough assessment of the light sources around you it is possible to make the best use of what nature has presented you with.
People talk about the “quality” of light, but in fact this is a combination of four different things that all light sources possess. Every light has a level, a colour, a direction and can either be hard or soft. Unless you are working in a studio, where you have total control over the lighting, the first thing any photographer should do is to make an assessment of the light in terms of these four aspects.
The first one, level, is the simplest. Except for the fact that we are not really aware of it ourselves. We can easily move from outdoors to indoors without realising just how dark it is inside, but the camera can’t do that. Not without making adjustments. Fortunately, all digital cameras have an auto-exposure system that will make these adjustments for you, or you can go manual and do it yourself.
When the light level starts to go down there are three things that can be adjusted. The ISO number represents how light-sensitive your camera is and setting a higher number will make your camera more sensitive. The aperture is a hole in your lens that you can make larger to let more light in. In this case, a lower number means a larger aperture. The third adjustment you can make is to the shutter speed, exposing the image for a longer time.
Whilst the ISO number and aperture have their effect on an image, it’s the shutter speed that finally determines just how low you can go in terms of light level, without adding your own light. Although you can set a shutter speed of half a second or longer, there is no way you can hold a camera steady for that length of time. If you try, you will get “camera shake” which hardly ever looks good. Even at 1/30th of a second, you will still get camera shake unless your lens is zoomed right out to its widest.
There is nothing stopping you taking photographs like this but you will need to use a tripod or other stable means of support to avoid camera shake. Alternatively, you can switch on your flash but that will now be the main light source and the photograph will look totally different. Change the lighting, change the picture.
The second aspect to consider is the colour of the light. This is similar to light level in that we are hardly aware of it and our cameras can be set to automatically or manually compensate for it. Daylight is blue compared to indoor artificial light, which is more yellow or orange in colour. It’s not usually a big problem because even if you or your camera get the colour setting wrong, you can still edit this after you have downloaded the images into your computer.
Where you really have to think about the colour is when you have mixed lighting. That is, your scene is lit by two or more sources of light that are different colours. Imagine a room with bright artificial light and a window. The light in the room is yellow and that coming through the window will be blue. There is nothing that can compensate for two different colours, you need to make a choice. If you were photographing someone in this room then where you placed them would alter their colour. The nearer they were to the window then the more they would be influenced by its blue light and vice versa.
Also, where you place the camera is important. If you are near the window, facing into the room, then your main light will be blue and the background of your subject will be yellow. If you are further into the room, facing the window, then the opposite will be true. Given that you, or your camera will adjust the colour to make the person look right, you are more likely to be aware of the background colour in the final shot. One thing that seldom looks good is when the window is at 90 degrees to the camera, one side of your subject will be blue and the other will be yellow and there is no way to compensate for that.
The level and colour of light are important, but these are things that you simply adjust the settings in your camera to compensate for. It’s when you start to consider the direction and softness of light that you can begin to get creative and really use the light. A light is called hard or soft because of the shadows it produces and the governing factor here is the size of the light source. The sun, a flashgun or a spotlight, being small, produce hard, sharply defined shadows. Whilst a cloudy sky, being big, is a very soft light source and produces hardly any shadows at all.
When you are making an assessment of the natural light around you, the first thing to realise is that there is never only one light source. All light travels in straight lines, until it hits something. It then bounces off. If it hits a shiny object, it will bounce at the same angle it arrived at, like a billiard ball off a cushion. If the object is matt (i.e. not shiny), it will bounce off in all directions and pick up the colour of whatever it hit.
A single bare light bulb will create a hard light directly on your subject. At the same time, it creates a soft light by bouncing off the walls, floor and ceiling. The lighter those areas are, the more soft light will be created. If one of the walls was white and the others dark, then most of the soft light would come from the direction of the white wall.
A hard light source will create very dark shadows, much darker that we see with the human eye. This can cause a problem for photographers because, at the correct exposure, it may not be possible to see any detail in the shadows. The two ways of dealing with this are to hide the shadows or fill them in. You hide shadows by keeping your subject away from any background and shooting from the same angle as the hard light source. That way, most of their shadow will be hidden behind them.
You fill in the shadows by using anything large, and preferably white, that the hard light is hitting. This will be a source of soft light and, if you keep it on the opposite side of your subject to the hard light, it will fill in the shadows, allowing you to photograph the details. It is always a good idea to take a reflector with you (anything large and white) when shooting on a sunny day.
As you might expect, the direction of a hard light source is much more critical than that of a soft one. In fact, changing the angle between your subject and the light source can totally transform the way it looks. If your subject has a rich texture, that can totally disappear when the light is square on to it. The more oblique the angle, the deeper the texture will appear.
For portraits, a frontal light will make people appear less wrinkled and happier. As the light moves to the side, they will look more serious. Light from above is seldom flattering and light from below makes people look downright weird. If you like landscape photography, try to visit your favourite spots at different times of the day and see for yourself the complete transformation that the angle of light makes to a photograph.
Using natural light doesn’t mean that you need to put up with bad lighting. By making a thorough assessment of the light sources around you it is possible to make the best use of what nature has presented you with.
The Tripod – A Photographers Best 3-legged Friend
All a tripod actually does is to provide a stable platform for your camera allowing you to make long exposures without the risk of camera shake spoiling your picture. You could of course, just rest it somewhere but the tripod will allow you to lock your camera in virtually any position without the danger of it falling over.
So, how long is a long exposure? The governing factor here is camera shake. A long exposure is simply one that you can’t hand-hold steadily enough. If you are zoomed out to a wide angle, this can be around 1/30 – 1/60th of a second but, if you are zoomed right in on a long lens, this can be as short as 1/500th or even 1/1000th of a second. Not much of a long exposure you might think.
Perhaps a word for the tripod’s smaller cousin is required here. You have probably noticed that sports photographers doing long lens work usually have a monopod, rather than a tripod, attached to their cameras. This is not because a monopod is better (I’m sure they’d all rather be using a tripod), but because it’s convenience when changing locations quickly outweighs the advantages of a tripod. So, a monopod is only really useful if you need shots on a long lens quickly from different positions.
It’s using a long lens that requires the fastest shutter speed more than freezing any action. This is because the lens not only magnifies the image but equally, any camera movement. Even when using a tripod, it’s possible that the camera will move during the shot. This is because the very act of pressing the shutter may induce movement. Although this will be very slight, the magnifying effect of the lens will turn it into camera shake blur.
The best way to avoid this is to use a cable release or remote control when using a tripod. If you don’t have either of these, then you can use your camera’s self timer. Even if your camera moves when the shutter is pressed, it will have settled down long before the photograph is taken. Some cameras have a short self timer option for precisely this purpose.
The benefit of being able to use a longer shutter speed is that you can use a smaller aperture for greater depth of field or a lower ISO number for better image quality. However, this is minor in comparison to the psychological benefit that the tripod brings to the act of taking a photograph. Quite simply, using a tripod slows you down, and that’s a good thing.
How many times have you looked at one of your photographs and thought: “that looks great, except for this one little mistake, I wish I’d noticed it at the time.” Well, that’s one thing that using a tripod can help with. The reason you notice the problem in the final result is that you spend more time carefully looking at it. If you do that with the image in your viewfinder you are much more likely to spot any problems.
I’m not suggesting that if you see something interesting, you shouldn’t take a quick snap of it. far from it. But, having done that, you might consider other ways of looking at your subject or specific photographic techniques that might better suit it. This is where a tripod really helps because it gives you much more flexibility as to the camera settings you can use.
Not only that, but it separates the two different things you have to do when taking a photograph, namely camera settings and composition. Using a camera hand held means you always have to think about both of these things at the same time, making it all to easy to get a great shot spoiled by being on the wrong setting. With a tripod, you can decide on the setting depending on the type of shot you want, then fully concentrate on the framing and composition.
The opposite is also true. If you want to try different photographic techniques, you frame up the shot first, then start to work out the different settings you need. This way, you guarantee never getting the best setting when the framing is not quite right. Also, if you have taken one shot and decided that it could do with a bit of say, exposure or colour compensation, you can do this in the sure and certain knowledge that the framing won’t have changed.
Some techniques can only be done using a tripod, for instance 360 degree panoramas. Another is when dealing with very high contrast situations. Sunsets are a good example. You usually have a choice of either a good sky and black ground or properly exposed foreground and a bleached out sky. The only cure is to take both these shots and blend them together in a photo editing program. This will only work properly if both shots are identical in every respect except exposure, hence the need for a tripod.
There is a wide range of tripods available and what you tend to get more of the more you pay is a greater maximum height and more weight and solidity. From experience, I would say that height is probably more important than weight. A lightweight model is not any more likely to move than a heavy one, except in a high wind. For your own comfort, you should choose one that allows the camera to at least reach your eye level when standing normally.
The weight of tripod you need is largely determined by the weight of your camera. If you use a Dslr and big lenses, you need a fairly sturdy one. Under normal circumstances, you won’t need a top of the range professional model because most of their strength is to protect them from harsh treatment. They are much more sturdy than need to be just to hold the camera steady.
If you do use a heavy camera then even more important than the weight of the tripod is the strength of the pan and tilt head locks. With a long heavy lens fitted, they can be put under quite a strain. The strength of these locks is always the first thing you should check when getting a new tripod. Fit the camera and tighten all the locks. Gently try to move the camera to check for any play (like you would with a steering wheel). If there is any, check all the locks on the head, legs and column. It’s easy to forget the lock that fixes the column in place and the camera will not be secure unless this is done up.
In practice, the only rule you need to follow is never to move your tripod any great distance with a camera attached. The locks are designed for the tripod at rest. When you move it you apply odd forces at weird angles that could easily overcome the locks. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The best way to use a tripod is to start by finding the camera position you want, either by eye or with the camera hand held. You then set up the tripod and tighten up all the locks. fit the camera and check the composition. If you have to slightly move the position, it’s OK, as long as you hold on to both the camera and tripod when doing so. You then fine tune the framing by releasing and tightening only one lock at a time.
With cheaper tripods you sometimes find that tightening the lock actually moves the camera. This is something to watch out for. Once you are happy with the composition and framing, take a step back and think about your camera settings and how they will affect the shot. If you are not sure then try lots of different settings and find out later. It will be a very good learning experience.
I hope that, after having read the above, you will understand why I would say that a tripod is probably the most useful photographic accessory of all. The best piece of advice I could give anybody looking to improve their photographic skills would be to get a tripod and use it.
So, how long is a long exposure? The governing factor here is camera shake. A long exposure is simply one that you can’t hand-hold steadily enough. If you are zoomed out to a wide angle, this can be around 1/30 – 1/60th of a second but, if you are zoomed right in on a long lens, this can be as short as 1/500th or even 1/1000th of a second. Not much of a long exposure you might think.
Perhaps a word for the tripod’s smaller cousin is required here. You have probably noticed that sports photographers doing long lens work usually have a monopod, rather than a tripod, attached to their cameras. This is not because a monopod is better (I’m sure they’d all rather be using a tripod), but because it’s convenience when changing locations quickly outweighs the advantages of a tripod. So, a monopod is only really useful if you need shots on a long lens quickly from different positions.
It’s using a long lens that requires the fastest shutter speed more than freezing any action. This is because the lens not only magnifies the image but equally, any camera movement. Even when using a tripod, it’s possible that the camera will move during the shot. This is because the very act of pressing the shutter may induce movement. Although this will be very slight, the magnifying effect of the lens will turn it into camera shake blur.
The best way to avoid this is to use a cable release or remote control when using a tripod. If you don’t have either of these, then you can use your camera’s self timer. Even if your camera moves when the shutter is pressed, it will have settled down long before the photograph is taken. Some cameras have a short self timer option for precisely this purpose.
The benefit of being able to use a longer shutter speed is that you can use a smaller aperture for greater depth of field or a lower ISO number for better image quality. However, this is minor in comparison to the psychological benefit that the tripod brings to the act of taking a photograph. Quite simply, using a tripod slows you down, and that’s a good thing.
How many times have you looked at one of your photographs and thought: “that looks great, except for this one little mistake, I wish I’d noticed it at the time.” Well, that’s one thing that using a tripod can help with. The reason you notice the problem in the final result is that you spend more time carefully looking at it. If you do that with the image in your viewfinder you are much more likely to spot any problems.
I’m not suggesting that if you see something interesting, you shouldn’t take a quick snap of it. far from it. But, having done that, you might consider other ways of looking at your subject or specific photographic techniques that might better suit it. This is where a tripod really helps because it gives you much more flexibility as to the camera settings you can use.
Not only that, but it separates the two different things you have to do when taking a photograph, namely camera settings and composition. Using a camera hand held means you always have to think about both of these things at the same time, making it all to easy to get a great shot spoiled by being on the wrong setting. With a tripod, you can decide on the setting depending on the type of shot you want, then fully concentrate on the framing and composition.
The opposite is also true. If you want to try different photographic techniques, you frame up the shot first, then start to work out the different settings you need. This way, you guarantee never getting the best setting when the framing is not quite right. Also, if you have taken one shot and decided that it could do with a bit of say, exposure or colour compensation, you can do this in the sure and certain knowledge that the framing won’t have changed.
Some techniques can only be done using a tripod, for instance 360 degree panoramas. Another is when dealing with very high contrast situations. Sunsets are a good example. You usually have a choice of either a good sky and black ground or properly exposed foreground and a bleached out sky. The only cure is to take both these shots and blend them together in a photo editing program. This will only work properly if both shots are identical in every respect except exposure, hence the need for a tripod.
There is a wide range of tripods available and what you tend to get more of the more you pay is a greater maximum height and more weight and solidity. From experience, I would say that height is probably more important than weight. A lightweight model is not any more likely to move than a heavy one, except in a high wind. For your own comfort, you should choose one that allows the camera to at least reach your eye level when standing normally.
The weight of tripod you need is largely determined by the weight of your camera. If you use a Dslr and big lenses, you need a fairly sturdy one. Under normal circumstances, you won’t need a top of the range professional model because most of their strength is to protect them from harsh treatment. They are much more sturdy than need to be just to hold the camera steady.
If you do use a heavy camera then even more important than the weight of the tripod is the strength of the pan and tilt head locks. With a long heavy lens fitted, they can be put under quite a strain. The strength of these locks is always the first thing you should check when getting a new tripod. Fit the camera and tighten all the locks. Gently try to move the camera to check for any play (like you would with a steering wheel). If there is any, check all the locks on the head, legs and column. It’s easy to forget the lock that fixes the column in place and the camera will not be secure unless this is done up.
In practice, the only rule you need to follow is never to move your tripod any great distance with a camera attached. The locks are designed for the tripod at rest. When you move it you apply odd forces at weird angles that could easily overcome the locks. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The best way to use a tripod is to start by finding the camera position you want, either by eye or with the camera hand held. You then set up the tripod and tighten up all the locks. fit the camera and check the composition. If you have to slightly move the position, it’s OK, as long as you hold on to both the camera and tripod when doing so. You then fine tune the framing by releasing and tightening only one lock at a time.
With cheaper tripods you sometimes find that tightening the lock actually moves the camera. This is something to watch out for. Once you are happy with the composition and framing, take a step back and think about your camera settings and how they will affect the shot. If you are not sure then try lots of different settings and find out later. It will be a very good learning experience.
I hope that, after having read the above, you will understand why I would say that a tripod is probably the most useful photographic accessory of all. The best piece of advice I could give anybody looking to improve their photographic skills would be to get a tripod and use it.
Commercial Photographer: Click To Clique
Ansel Adams, the renowned photographer from America, famous for his black and white photographs, had said, “Negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance”. And the performance of a commercial photographer is best judged by the response the client gets on any advertisement he places in any kind of medium. By response, we mean the acceptance and the action taken by the target audience, to whom the ad is directed.
The work of a commercial photographer is different from other kind of photographers in the same fraternity. And this difference arises chiefly due to the fact that the work is meant to impress a target audience. The entire work of a commercial photographer is surrounding the target group which is basically a group of consumers or potential consumers for a particular product. Each product, service or any idea has a particular set of target customers which differs from product to product or service to service.
What commercial photographer shoots is basically meant for promoting this product or service or idea to the people who form the target audience for it. Although this form of photography involves similar equipments and has similar elements as compared to the other branches of photography, yet there is a big difference in the work of a commercial photographer and that difference is that he shoots to impress people while most of the others shoot to impress themselves, satisfy their desire to capture moments from life, to inform or to promote the institution of photography.
Life of a commercial photographer is quite challenging but it is also full of rewards. And these rewards are more in monetary terms than mental satisfaction of the professional. If your clicks clique well with the target group, you can expect more work, more projects and therefore more money flowing in.
The work of a commercial photographer is different from other kind of photographers in the same fraternity. And this difference arises chiefly due to the fact that the work is meant to impress a target audience. The entire work of a commercial photographer is surrounding the target group which is basically a group of consumers or potential consumers for a particular product. Each product, service or any idea has a particular set of target customers which differs from product to product or service to service.
What commercial photographer shoots is basically meant for promoting this product or service or idea to the people who form the target audience for it. Although this form of photography involves similar equipments and has similar elements as compared to the other branches of photography, yet there is a big difference in the work of a commercial photographer and that difference is that he shoots to impress people while most of the others shoot to impress themselves, satisfy their desire to capture moments from life, to inform or to promote the institution of photography.
Life of a commercial photographer is quite challenging but it is also full of rewards. And these rewards are more in monetary terms than mental satisfaction of the professional. If your clicks clique well with the target group, you can expect more work, more projects and therefore more money flowing in.
Travel Photography: Creating Your Own Luck
Ok. So you’ve read up on the technical side of taking great photos. You know your aperture from your exif and you’ve experimented with shutter speeds. But there is something missing from the photos you’ve been taking. They’re ok, but that’s it. Just ok. Why? You wonder. Well, here’s a little secret: it’s all about luck. Well not really. More to the point, great travel photography is about creating your own luck.
Preparation
There is an art to being lucky in travel photography, and it usually involves a lot of hard work. Research is the key. Find out all you can about where you are going. Read travel guides, books, newspaper and magazine articles, scour the internet, watch television programs. Knowing a little about what life is like in that part of the world can go a long way to getting the most out of your time there. For instance, how would the locals react to someone trying to take their picture? Some cultures can be quite offended by having their photo taken. This is especially true of women in Islamic countries. At other times, people will practically beg you to take their picture. Sometimes, you will be expected to pay for the privilege.
If you are intending to photograph well known landmarks, there will be plenty of images available in the various media, so that you can get an idea of what it might look like during different times of the day or different seasons. This might help you in your planning. There is nothing quite as valuable in photography as knowing how to be in the right place at the right time.
Flexibility
Sometimes the shot you want is just not possible. You may be in a busy city square attempting to photograph a serene monument basking in the afternoon sun, but being interrupted by a stream of passers by wandering through the frame. Unless you are able to stop traffic, you are not going to get the shot you came for. This is where you might need to adjust your approach. Try to capture the feel of the place as it is. If the square is bustling with people going about their day, show it as such. Make your focus the intensity and speed of which life moves within the space. Be creative. Maybe use a bit of motion blur to capture the essence of a city in a hurry. You might also be able to return at a quieter time to capture that monument at peace. Again this comes back to preparation and research. Yes, I’m harping on about that again, but it really is that important.
The Wider Picture
Doubtless you will arrive at your destination with an intended subject. Maybe the local people, or architecture, or you’ve planned your trip around a particular festival that is taking place. However, do not limit yourself to this one subject. Instead of fixing your viewfinder on a subject and keeping it trained, try looking around you. Look up, down, behind you. You will be amazed at how much more there is to photograph. And how much more of a sense of time and place you will be able to show in your images. Isn’t that your purpose anyway?
Great travel photography does require great technical skills. Let’s not kid ourselves about that. But more often than not it’s about being in the right place at the right time and having the awareness to take complete advantage of it.
Preparation
There is an art to being lucky in travel photography, and it usually involves a lot of hard work. Research is the key. Find out all you can about where you are going. Read travel guides, books, newspaper and magazine articles, scour the internet, watch television programs. Knowing a little about what life is like in that part of the world can go a long way to getting the most out of your time there. For instance, how would the locals react to someone trying to take their picture? Some cultures can be quite offended by having their photo taken. This is especially true of women in Islamic countries. At other times, people will practically beg you to take their picture. Sometimes, you will be expected to pay for the privilege.
If you are intending to photograph well known landmarks, there will be plenty of images available in the various media, so that you can get an idea of what it might look like during different times of the day or different seasons. This might help you in your planning. There is nothing quite as valuable in photography as knowing how to be in the right place at the right time.
Flexibility
Sometimes the shot you want is just not possible. You may be in a busy city square attempting to photograph a serene monument basking in the afternoon sun, but being interrupted by a stream of passers by wandering through the frame. Unless you are able to stop traffic, you are not going to get the shot you came for. This is where you might need to adjust your approach. Try to capture the feel of the place as it is. If the square is bustling with people going about their day, show it as such. Make your focus the intensity and speed of which life moves within the space. Be creative. Maybe use a bit of motion blur to capture the essence of a city in a hurry. You might also be able to return at a quieter time to capture that monument at peace. Again this comes back to preparation and research. Yes, I’m harping on about that again, but it really is that important.
The Wider Picture
Doubtless you will arrive at your destination with an intended subject. Maybe the local people, or architecture, or you’ve planned your trip around a particular festival that is taking place. However, do not limit yourself to this one subject. Instead of fixing your viewfinder on a subject and keeping it trained, try looking around you. Look up, down, behind you. You will be amazed at how much more there is to photograph. And how much more of a sense of time and place you will be able to show in your images. Isn’t that your purpose anyway?
Great travel photography does require great technical skills. Let’s not kid ourselves about that. But more often than not it’s about being in the right place at the right time and having the awareness to take complete advantage of it.
A Few Basic Tips For Taking Digital Photos
My first tip for taking digital photography for anyone whether they are beginning, or have some degree of experience is “don’t be frightened of your camera”. Get used to handling your camera so that you feel comfortable with it. Make sure you know where all the controls are, and familiarise yourself with their functions. This is one of the basic beginning photography tips that often gets overlooked as it is such an obvious one.
Once you are comfortable handling your digital camera and have learnt how to use all the controls and functions, my next tip for taking digital photography is to take lots and lots of pictures. The beauty of digital photography is that you do not need to keep every picture that you take. You are not paying for a long processing sequence like you would be if you were using a camera that uses rolls of film, so you can be a lot more extravagant when it comes to taking pictures. Plus you may just take a prize winning photo purely by chance, and any photos you don’t want you can simply delete.
Another of the basic beginning photography tips that people often forget is to hold the camera steady. Again this may sound pretty obvious but it’s surprising just how many of us forget this simple little tip when we rush to get a good photo. It is important to actually practice holding the camera so that you automatically steady it for every picture that you take. How often have you seen the chance of a great picture only to rush it and ruin the shot? It’s far better to get one or two great pictures than dozens of blurred or poor quality ones.
My next tip is to always make sure that you have enough memory capacity on your digital camera. There is nothing worse than coming across something that would make a great picture only to find that you have no more room on your camera. Get into the habit of going through the photos stored on your camera on a regular basis, and deleting the ones you don’t want, and downloading and storing the ones you do want onto your computer, or have them printed off. Also buy a second card for your camera so that you always have a spare one with you just in case you need it.
Once you have got this far you should have loads of photos that you have taken, now is the time to study these and see if there is room for improvement. Maybe some of them are still coming out slightly blurred, so you will need to pay attention to your focusing. Remember that a digital camera has a tendency to take a little longer to focus when compared to a camera that uses roll film.
Maybe you are not happy with the lighting on some of your pictures, so try practising using the flash. The flash on a camera is not only designed to be used when taking photos indoors, it is also great for getting good sharp pictures outside as well, especially if the subject is in shade or if the natural light is low, like in the late evening.
I suppose that one of the most important beginning photography tips that I can give you is to “get out there and have some fun with your camera”. Take loads of photos and practice as you go. Use your camera as often and as much as you can. My last little tip would to be to get hold of a good book on digital photography, this way you will get all the tips for taking digital photography and learn all the usual mistakes to avoid right from the start.
Once you are comfortable handling your digital camera and have learnt how to use all the controls and functions, my next tip for taking digital photography is to take lots and lots of pictures. The beauty of digital photography is that you do not need to keep every picture that you take. You are not paying for a long processing sequence like you would be if you were using a camera that uses rolls of film, so you can be a lot more extravagant when it comes to taking pictures. Plus you may just take a prize winning photo purely by chance, and any photos you don’t want you can simply delete.
Another of the basic beginning photography tips that people often forget is to hold the camera steady. Again this may sound pretty obvious but it’s surprising just how many of us forget this simple little tip when we rush to get a good photo. It is important to actually practice holding the camera so that you automatically steady it for every picture that you take. How often have you seen the chance of a great picture only to rush it and ruin the shot? It’s far better to get one or two great pictures than dozens of blurred or poor quality ones.
My next tip is to always make sure that you have enough memory capacity on your digital camera. There is nothing worse than coming across something that would make a great picture only to find that you have no more room on your camera. Get into the habit of going through the photos stored on your camera on a regular basis, and deleting the ones you don’t want, and downloading and storing the ones you do want onto your computer, or have them printed off. Also buy a second card for your camera so that you always have a spare one with you just in case you need it.
Once you have got this far you should have loads of photos that you have taken, now is the time to study these and see if there is room for improvement. Maybe some of them are still coming out slightly blurred, so you will need to pay attention to your focusing. Remember that a digital camera has a tendency to take a little longer to focus when compared to a camera that uses roll film.
Maybe you are not happy with the lighting on some of your pictures, so try practising using the flash. The flash on a camera is not only designed to be used when taking photos indoors, it is also great for getting good sharp pictures outside as well, especially if the subject is in shade or if the natural light is low, like in the late evening.
I suppose that one of the most important beginning photography tips that I can give you is to “get out there and have some fun with your camera”. Take loads of photos and practice as you go. Use your camera as often and as much as you can. My last little tip would to be to get hold of a good book on digital photography, this way you will get all the tips for taking digital photography and learn all the usual mistakes to avoid right from the start.
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