photography tips Archives - Page 6 of 13

Getting Silky Looking Water In Stream Photos

flowing water — Slow shutter speeds are necessary to get this whispy look to water - by baaker2009

We’ve all seen the photos of rivers and waterfalls where the water looks silky smooth, almost a blur. Well, it’s not almost a blur, it is a blur. Not because the water is moving particularly fast, but because the shutter speeds are very slow.

To get those silky smooth blurry water shots, you’ll need to get familiar with your camera’s shutter priority settings. That would be the “Tv” setting on your Canon dial and the “S” mode on Nikon.

There are many instances where you’ll want to use Shutter Priority, it’s handy for a lot of different types of shooting. It’s probably the program mode I use more than any other besides CA (Creative Auto) on my Canon. You’ll use either Shutter Priority or Manual for most strobe lighting situations, unless your external flash is compatible with your camera’s eTTL system. It’s also the setting you’d use when photographing objects moving very fast at air shows or racing events. And it’s the setting to use for getting blurry water shots in a stream.

You’ll need a moving stream will a little bit of fall and a tripod. Once you have your scene framed, select a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second or faster, if you want the freeze the water. For the blurry effect, start with a shutter speed of an ⅛ or ¼ of a second and go longer from there, all the way up to two or three seconds.

Surprisingly, an object doesn’t have to be moving very fast to get the blurry background effect. If you’re trying to make a car look like it’s going fast, it doesn’t have to be moving much faster than a slow walk to make a car look like it’s speeding along with a slow shutter speed.

Just like with water in a moving stream, you can get the blurry effect with ocean waves. When done right it actually looks really cool, almost like mist over the ocean, but that takes some really long shutter times, three or four seconds. For many modern DSLRs that means working right up until it’s almost dark.

Bracketing In The Digital Age

photo of exposure bracketing - by SmialSmial — Bracketing still has value, even in the digital age -

Bracketing started back in the days of film photography because film was cheaper than trying to find new clients. The only way to make sure you got a tricky shot was to take five or six shots, constantly bumping either the shutter speed or aperture, sometimes both, to make sure you had at least one good shot. After that you sent the film to the lab and crossed your fingers.

Bracketing in the digital age takes on a different context and technique. When working with RAW images there’s no incentive to bracket white balance. White balance is a notation in the headers of a RAW file and you can change it at your leisure, along with sharpness, contrast, and other color settings determined by the compression algorithm.

If you’re not working with RAW or your camera doesn’t support it, then think about bracketing white balance. You can get some interesting effects deliberately using the wrong white balance for the scene.

I still bracket on exposure, partly out of habit, partly because in these days of digital photo manipulation, you might like the sky better at one exposure and the subject at another. You don’t always have to go full HDR, but that’s another good reason to bracket.

Along with that, exposure by itself can do a lot to change the mood of a shot. The optimum exposure is not always the best for the scene and, in my experience, the closer to perfect coming out the camera, the better the photo will look in the end.

Another time I still use bracketing is when I’m shooting with a flash. I don’t completely trust the LCD screen, even with the histogram. It’s really pretty easy to go a half-stop on either side when shooting with a flash and the difference can be hard to see in the LCD. But that half-stop can make quite a lot of difference in post.

While you may not need to bracket as much in the digital age, there are still good reasons to do so. Besides, it’s not like you’re spending a lot extra on film. Some of you have cameras that have automatic bracketing. Take advantage of it. If nothing else it will help you determine what exposures look best to you.

And, for us old dogs, maybe old habits are just hard to break.

Photographing Lightning Storms

eiffel tower lightning strike — Photographing lightning is part skill, part dumb luck. - by M. G. Loppé

One of the greatest challenges in photography that’s also the most fun when it works out is catching pictures of lightning.

The challenge is getting a snapshot of something moving 140,000 miles per hour and generating temperatures upwards of 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Once you solve those two problems, it’s a breeze.

There are 16 million lightning storms in the world every year, so with a little patience and pre-planning, you’ll get your chance.

Some basic safety rules, which are mostly common sense. You want to get pictures of the lightning, not get up close and personal with it. That means being careful when working in open areas and elevated vantage points. Aluminum tripods make great conducting rods and you don’t want to become the path of least resistance. I was covering a series of devastating storms in western Tennessee, getting some great lightning shots, when I noticed my tripod started tingling with static electricity. That was my clue that it was time to go.

Another basic precaution is a rain sleeve for your camera. A tripod that’s light enough to just grab and run is another advantage. A cheap plastic tripod is better for lightning photography than high end aluminum or carbon graphite.

For camera settings I leave AWB on and turn auto-focus off. Auto-focus has a hard time in poorly lit scenes and rain drops can fool some of them into shifting back and forth looking for a focal point. Just turn it off.

You’ll want to use your camera’s “B” or Bulb setting and I’d recommend a remote release instead of trying to hold the shutter release button with your hand.

I generally start with ISO 400 at f/5.6 and make adjustments based on what shows up on the LCD screen.

If you’re working in the dark, the process is simple. Point the camera, set the focus to infinity, open the shutter and wait until you get a couple good bolts in the right area.

If there’s enough light for a long exposure, you won’t need to use the bulb setting, just let the camera handle the exposure and notice how the best lightning flashes seem to be able to sense when the shutter is closed. I’m kidding, it’s all the luck of the draw.

Just be careful, stay aware of your surroundings and when you can’t count three between the flash and the thunder, get under shelter.

Studio Lighting Series – Basic Five Point Lighting

The basic five point lighting setup adds two kickers at 45 degree angles to the subject

This is another installment of a long series of articles shot and composed with the help of professional photographer Karl Leopold at ImagesForever.net in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Karl is one of the top photographers in the area and president of the Atlantic Professional Photographers Association and graciously opened his studio up to us and lent his expertise for this series.

So far in this series we’ve covered basic three point lighting, lighting ratios, and lighting styles. Today it’s time to look at a basic five point lighting setup.

Just to review the equipment we used in this series:

The camera was a Canon 7D with a 28-135mm zoom set at my best approximation to 85mm.

We used 1/125th of a second throughout and either f/11 with a dark background or f/13 with the light background.

Our key is an Alien Bees 800 in a Fomex rectangular softbox.

Our fill is an identical Alien Bees 800 in an Octodome.

Our hair light is an Ultra 1800.

This time we’re going to two Alien Bees 400’s in homemade softboxes with diffusion gratings as “kickers”. We’ll have the kickers set out of frame at 45 degree angles to the subject with the power set at -2 stops from the fill, roughly the same as the hair light. The kickers and hair light were set in slave mode, only the key and fill were on PocketWizard radio triggers.

We’ll use the kickers two different ways: One to help separate the subject from the background by providing some extra back light around the shoulders. The other way we’ll use them is we turn the kickers around, away from the subject, to blow out a white background.

In the two photos the difference the kickers make is readily apparent. The hair really pops with uniform highlights and the back shoulder achieves better separation from the background. We also got a little blow back from the white jacket, which shows up in the light areas of the background pattern. It’s a subtle but significant difference. I like the photo with the kickers much better.

before and after — The kickers make a big difference separating the subject from the background

Finally we turned the kickers around and used them to blow out a white background. In the last picture it’s obvious we could have bumped the power even more, there’s still some gray in the background. Next time I’d go +2 full stops on the kickers and raise them up a little higher to really swat the background and prevent the gradient effect that’s still visible. We also lost the hair highlights, but they would have been largely lost on white background anyway.

five point lighting — This was taken with the kickers turned toward the background

Photography In Cold Conditions

log cabin covered in snow — Working in cold conditions requires some pre-planning and spare batteries - By K3vin

Not all of us are lucky enough to live in a tropical paradise and winter brings with it the challenge of shooting in cold conditions. More specifically, going from the dry warmth inside to the sometimes frigged temperatures outside and then back in again can give your camera fits.

The most important consideration is condensation. Bringing a cold camera into a warm, moist environment will cause water in the air to condense on your expensive camera equipment and it will not make an improvement.

One facet of cold weather shooting is protecting your camera from rapid temperature changes in either direction. The easiest way to do that, is to seal your camera in a bag, trapping it with air at ambient temperatures. Then when you take it inside the condensation forms on the bag and not your camera internals and the temperature in the bag will adjust at a slower rate.

The dedicated photographers are the ones sitting in a freezing cold car waiting for their camera to equalize. Putting the bag on the hood of your car won’t work if you’re running the engine and leaving it on top of the car is an invitation to forget your camera is up there.

Another factor to consider shooting in cold conditions are your camera batteries. Cold temperatures will increase the internal resistance of your batteries. What was a marginal battery will quickly become useless in cold temps. Always have a spare battery in an inside pocket, close to your body where it is warm.

The other thing to consider is your own exposure. I don’t know about you, but when I’m taking pictures I lose track of everything else. I once saw a video of a wreck at an auto race when a car came over the rails and killed a pair of photographers near the wall. Someone near me asked how that could happen, and I said it was because they were trying to get the shot.

Pay attention to exposed skin, losing feeling and numb feet. Those are signals it’s time to go in for a while.