Photography Archives - Page 8 of 32

Take Better Pictures Today

Take better holiday photos this year straight out of the box - By Nina from Australia

Many of you will be receiving or have asked for digital cameras for Christmas. Or maybe you got your new camera before the holidays so you could take pictures on the way.

This year I want to help you get better pictures right out of the box. No more blundering around with shots containing massive foreground and family photos that look more like suspect line up from an episode of CSI. This year things are going to be different. Follow these tips for getting great shots from day one with your new camera.

Read The Manual

I realize some of you think manuals are totally retro. This little paper book written by people determined to make you as miserable as they apparently are in their little, unhappy cubicles by making the manual as dry, boring and devoid of joy as humanly possible.

Really, when you break it down, you can read through most camera manuals in about an hour. You don’t have to memorize it, just know where to find things if you want to look something up.

Most digital cameras today have an amazing array of built-in functionality that never gets utilized because owners don’t realize it’s in there.

Get In Close

The biggest rookie mistake with a new camera is inevitably focusing on the subject in the center of the picture and leaving way too much foreground and background.

Get in close and, when you think you’re plenty close enough, take another step in. Get in so close all of your subject can’t fit in the frame.

Warm It Up

Most digital cameras have an automatic white balance setting called “cloudy”. That’s for use on overcast days when lighting is heavy on the blue side. But, as it turns out, even on sunny days your pictures can look a little on the blue side, so don’t be afraid to try the “cloudy” setting, even in bright sun. You may the like warmer colors you get as a result.

Gorilla Pod or UltraPod

On thing you’ll regret later in life as the photographer is not having more pictures of you doing things. Being the family scribe is a great thing, but use one of these clever supports and the self-timer to get in the shots yourself.

Get High On Resolution

Crank your cameras picture resolution up as high as it will go. You’ll thank me later. Photos may seem huge by today’s standards but, in a few years, they may seem laughably tiny. Shoot the biggest photos your camera will take.

There are more tips to come, but these should get you over the most common mistakes people make. Just remember to read that manual!

When Does Photo Manipulation Go Too Far?

image manipulation — These retouches are considered minor by today's standards

It all started innocently enough; editing out a pimple here, a blemish there, maybe a chipped tooth. It was easy, it made the client feel better, and it was, for the most part, harmless.

Fast forward to today and digital manipulation has gotten totally out of hand. It’s not just blemishes and pimples anymore. Today we shave years off a face and pounds off a body, lengthen necks and make eyes bigger, lips pouty, and change hair color on a whim. Clickity, clickity done.

Color and lighting are now skills that can be mastered in post. With Photoshop plugins like Color Efex Pro 4 you can change the color scheme, lighting and almost anything else you desire.

All that taken together is bad enough, now comes along a product like LayerCake Elements and now the manipulations to the subject are just the beginning. Now you can add trees, grass and flowers. Don’t like the sky? How about nice sunset sky instead? Add a few clouds for dramatic effect. Put the moon over there, add a few stars because we have to pay attention to details. Need a horse? No problem, drag and drop, resize to fit the scene. Done and done.

Time, date, and place are now meaningless. It reminds me of the sunset scene in the John Wayne movie Green Berets (1968), supposedly set in Vietnam but featuring the sun setting behind the ocean. Those with a 5th grade understanding of geography know that Vietnam doesn’t have a westward facing ocean view. But that didn’t stop the filmmakers and it doesn’t stop the photographer with LayerCake. You can have a sunset anywhere.

So where does all this stop? Or does it? It’s easy to smirk and wonder if grandpa is having trouble adjusting to the new digital reality but keep in mind I was digitally manipulating images when most of you still had training wheels on your bike. At some point do we in the photography community have to say enough and start asserting ourselves in favor of reality? How will we know when we’ve gone too far?

In some fields that question has already been answered. Like photojournalism, where retouching, even adding a little smoke is a non-starter. You’ll not only get fired, you’ll be vilified and humiliated as a value added bonus. Your career will be over.

But what about the rest of us? Do we owe reality a nod, or is reality merely a canvas for us to paint our vision? Are master photo manipulators actual photographers, or something less?

Where it all ends is with H&M’s new lingerie catalog where the faces of the models are real, but the bodies are computer generated. What do you think is “too far” in digital manipulation?

Learn To Lie To Your New Camera

daylight flash fill — This was a tricky exposure with skin tones bracketed by dark and light colors. You can see the fill flash in the sunglasses catch lights which also helped with the shadows under the ball cap

Honesty may be the best policy in life, but one of the keys to getting the best pictures is learning to lie to your new camera. Unfortunately, in many ways, your relationship with your new camera will be one based on deceit. But it’s okay, your camera is not going to feel betrayed and you’re going to like the results.

Lie About White Balance

I guess you could classify this as little white lie (ba-dum pah!). Specifically you’re telling the camera the light is really a different color temperature than its electronic sensor is measuring.

Your camera is measuring the temperature of the reflected light reaching the lens and comparing it to daylight. It then uses those calculations to try and determine the type of light source illuminating the subject. These days your camera is really good at making that calculation but there are still good reasons for you to lie about it.

Most cameras balance out full daylight a little on the blue end of the spectrum. Human perception likes skin tones a little on the warmer side, with a slight reddish gold cast. So lie to your camera’s white balance calculation by telling the camera it’s really cloudy outside and not clear. Your camera will shift the color to the red end of the spectrum thinking that it must be overcast outside.

You can also do something called white balance bracketing and just run through all the options and pick the one you like best.

Lie About Exposure

Our trail of deceit next takes us to exposure. On the Auto setting your camera is going to meter several points in the scene and set an average exposure right down the middle for 18 percent gray and try to balance the luminosity. You can lie to your camera and make it underexpose by pointing the lens at a lighter area of the frame and then push the shutter button half-way to lock the exposure, or some cameras have a special exposure lock button. You can go the other way and make it overexpose by pointing at a dark area.

The exposure lock feature on your camera is one of the best pro tips for consistently getting better photos.

Lie About Being Indoors

When taking photos of a person outside, go ahead and lie to your camera and tell it that you’re really inside and that it should use the flash.

On some electronic level it will know there’s really plenty of light, but since you’re the boss it will figure the flash into the equation and give you a nice fill for the subject’s face. It’s one of the great ironies in photography that your camera’s built-in flash is an absolutely dismal light source for pictures, but a fantastic fill light.

While it’s terrible to suggest starting off your relationship with a new camera based on lies, it’s really okay. You’ll get much better pictures while having way more fun and, scout’s honor, I’ll never tell.

What happens in the camera, stays in the camera. Or something like that.

Five Things To Do With Any New Camera

Quite a few of you may be getting new cameras for the holidays. Most people are going to charge up the batteries, plug in a new storage card and start blazing away. That’s fine, that’s part of the fun of getting a new camera.

Once you get past that first enthusiastic blast, you’ll want to settle down and follow up with these five things.

Read The Manual

You really should do that before you start blazing away the first time, but try to tell someone with a new camera that they have to spend an hour with a book that appears to have been designed to be as dry and uninteresting as humanly possible.

But you will want to read it. Cameras are so complex, so jammed with features, that a lot of the neat things your camera can do are buried deeply in complex menus. While any camera will work in Auto mode, some of the real goodies will only be found browsing the manual.

Buy A Skylight Filter

If your camera has a kit lens or if you got a new lens for Christmas, then job one is ordering a skylight or sky 1-A filter. Check the barrel of the lens to get the proper size for your lens.

Skylight filters are the cheapest insurance you can buy for a new lens.

Get a Rain Sleeve

While you’re getting the skylight filter for your new lens, get a rain sleeve, fold it up neatly and keep it in the bottom of your camera bag. That way you know where to find it without looking, day or night, in any working conditions.

Take a Class

Even if you’re an experienced photographer, you can learn a lot taking a photography classes. If you’re either a part-time pro or very skilled enthusiast, instructors will sometimes let you structure your class work to focus more on the elements of photography you’re interested in working on.

Go For a Walk

A photo walk in this case. Photo walks are organized by local photographers, photography clubs, nature clubs and bird watching groups. Many of them are free, some charge a small fee. It’s a great way to get out and spend the day taking pictures and getting to know other photographers.

I’ve met many of the local photographers on photo walks, it’s a great way to network and make connections in the business.

Five Pro Tips For Better Candid Photos

shoot while walking — Shooting subjects while walking is a great way to catch candid moments - by flickr user loura

If you want to know who to ask about taking good candid photos, find yourself a photojournalist (PJ). When I first really noticed the difference in how a “PJ” shoots and a portrait photographer was spending time in one or two area photography studios. It was obvious we came from different worlds. From the selection of lenses, to camera settings, to framing, we were as far apart as people in the same profession could be. Portrait photographers are all about consistency, PJs are all about the moment in all its unstructured naturalness.

Whether you’re hoping to break into the ever-diminishing PJ ranks some day or are just looking for better candid photos, here some PJ tips for catching those world class candid moments.

Shoot From The Hip

Aiming and framing takes time and, as soon as you point a camera at someone, they react to it. Models, people in the media, and politicians all instantly adopt one of their automatic poses (or lunge at the camera) and people unused to being photographed looked startled and uncomfortable.

A good PJ gets used to aiming and shooting the first couple of shots before ever raising the camera to eye level.

Use A Fast Lens

Waiting for a flash to charge is out, you have to shoot fast! Shooting fast on the go means a fast lens and one more on the wide side.

You want to use a wide lens, but not so wide that it introduces wide angle compression into your pictures which becomes noticeable when doors seem to tilt toward the outside edges of images and it makes your subject’s head outsized compared to their feet. I wouldn’t go any wider than 50mm for candid photos, unless you’re shooting a crop sensor camera, then you can go as wide as 35mm.

Get In Close

In the old days reporters would use huge 4×5 cameras like the Busch Pressman Model C that would allow them to shoot a chaotic scene quickly and use that big negative to crop out the photo for the newspaper later. Today you can do something similar with a wide lens by shooting close in with a full frame sensor, a 50mm lens and zooming the cropped shot in post.

Take a Different Perspective

A PJ will either elevate their camera over the crowd and shoot at a slight downward angle or get low and shoot up which makes their subject look larger than life.

It’s okay to mix in a few eye-level shots, just mix it up with high and low angles. This is especially important with a wide lens. If you have a wide angle lens, either get low or get elevation because eye-level shots are going to show wide angle distortion.

Shoot While Walking

A great candid tip comes from something PJs do all the time: Shoot while walking. Let your subject start walking and shoot while you walk along next to them and backwards in front of them. You won’t be able to aim or time your shots, you’ll just have to blaze away and see what comes out later. Walking is a natural action and most people lose apprehension about the camera when they’re moving.

Try that and you’ll discover all the PJ tricks of not aiming, holding the camera up high shooting down and down low pointed up. You’ll discover Live View if your camera supports it and how convenient that can be for shooting on the go.

It may seem hard at first, but with enough practice you can do almost anything while walking backwards and shooting. The first thing you’ll learn is to sense obstacles and curbs, another reason PJs don’t always look while they’re framing. You may only get one or two good shots, but the ones that do come out will be fantastic.