Where is your camera?

If you aren't taking your camera with you everywhere you go, then you are most certainly missing out on great photo opportunities. Why not take it and use it everywhere? The key, by the way, is to use the camera -- not just take it with you. Bring it with you and use it so often that the camera becomes an extension of you.
Soon it will feel strange when you are without your beloved sidekick.


Do you ever think you're running out of picture ideas? When you always have your camera by your side, ideas are all around. Driving by the fire or police station? Why not stop in and take a few pictures? Are you taking the kids to the carnival this year? How about the park? A camera is a "must have" in these situations. Have you taken your camera to the office yet? Co-workers might just make good models. Need something to keep you occupied at the Laundromat? How about when you get your oil changed?


Don't forget to take along a few model releases in case your mechanic doesn't have one of his own.



Always remember that the right time to take that great picture is now. If you wait until later, the lighting will surely be different and waiting until tomorrow easily turns into never.


The moral of the story is this: if you see a great subject, take the picture then. A few minutes out of your busy schedule won't matter much in the long run and the rewards of the perfect image will last forever.

Photography 101: Aperture and Depth of field {DOF}

Depth of Field (DOF) is that amount of your shot that will be in focus.

Depth of field is governed by three factors: aperture, lens focal length and shooting distance.
*The smaller the aperture, the deeper the depth of field (the other two factors remaining the same).
*The shorter the lens focal length, the deeper the depth of field (the other two factors remaining the same).
*The greater the shooting distance, the deeper the depth of field. i.e. other two factors remaining the same).

There are times when you desire a great depth of field, i.e. where objects both close to you and far from you are in focus. This is especially true when you are taking a landscape picture and want as much as possible to be in crisp focus.
Large depth of field means that most of your image will be in focus whether it’s close to your camera or far away where both the foreground and background are largely in focus.

Then there are times when you want to isolate your subject, as when you are taking a portrait and want your subject to be in sharp focus but the background to be out of focus. In this case, you desire a shallow depth of field.

One way to influence DOF is by selecting the appropriate aperture.

The rule of thumb is this:

Select a large aperture (or small f/value or small aperture value), e.g. f/2.8, to obtain a shallow DOF
Select a small aperture (or large f/value or large aperture value), e.g. f/8.0, to achieve great DOF


Small (or shallow) depth of field means that only part of the image will be in focus and the rest will be fuzzy).
DOF also changes with focal length. Use a small focal length to increase DOF, a longer focal length obtain a shallower DOF.

Aperture and the Sweet Spot - sweet spot is the place where the lens is in its sharpest point. For most lenses (that go on DSLRs) this is somewhere between f/8 and f/11. Remember that when looking for sharpness in your picture.

“What are the most important things I should do to improve my photographs?”

Twenty-One Ways to Improve Your Artwork

1.) Shoot more than you do; print more than you do; and be a ruthless editor. I’m serious. There is a great deal to be gained in practice . Besides, relentless practice does have a twin sister known as luck. If you are not throwing out ten finished prints for every one you exhibit you’re not being critical enough. If you are not shooting 100 images for every one you print, you are not being energetic enough.

2.) Avoid bulls-eye composition whenever possible. Art is supposed to have meaning, emotion, power, or magic. Don’t merely show what the subject is; show what it isn’t, show what it means, show why it is, how it is, for whom it is, where it is, and/or when it is.

3.) Think in two-dimensions. Learn to see flat. Learn to see edges and shapes instead of details and colors. Squint and look at the world through your eyelashes so the details dissolve. Or, try looking through a lightly frosted piece of plastic. See your composition in terms of its large masses first, and let the film reveal the details. Learn that composition is about shapes and that texture is about details.

4.) Move closer. Move even closer. Use wider-angled lenses and get closer. The best photographs are almost always ones in which the viewer feels directly involved in the world in the image, and this happens most successfully with direct engagement. If 30% of your images are made with a wide-angle lens and 70% with a telephoto, reverse this ratio and you will find your photographs improve dramatically.

5.) Photography is part art and part science. Limit the number of cameras you own, especially early in your career. Learn thoroughly what your materials will do and don’t get seduced by the idea that better photographs reside in better equipment. All the great photographs in history were made with more primitive camera equipment than you currently own.

6.) Work on projects. Make lots of images and look deeper. Rephotograph things you’ve already photographed. Allow the images to unfold as you work the project repeatedly. Every project, no matter what the project, requires research – the kinds of research you do in the library as well as in the field. Read, study, ask questions, look at the work of those who’ve gone before you, think, ask questions, listen some more, and ask more questions. Write things down. If a project doesn’t occupy a serious percentage of a notebook full of notes, you probably haven’t done enough to think about the project before you pull out the camera.

7.) Start with the image or the project and figure out which tools will best help you to succeed. If you find you are constantly needing new equipment, review #5 above and be honest about whether or not you are choosing the right projects.

8.) Attend workshops. Read books. Seek out the advice of experienced photographers. If you want to make great photographs, look at great photographs and talk to great photographers. Be someone’s apprentice for a while. Assign yourself the task of reproducing great photographs as closely as you can. Learn from the masters, but don’t become them.

9.) Work through the compulsories. It has truly been said that to see farther than others you should stand on the shoulders of giants. Great photographers and artists before you have made work that survives today as a testament to their creativity. In order for you to carry their torch, you must first trod their path. Don’t be discouraged if it takes you years to learn what they already know; it took them years to learn from those who came before them. Study history. Know the conventions, the rules, the clichés, the techniques – know the mind of those who have already asked and answered your questions.

10.) Finish it. There is nothing to be gained by having the potential to be great. Opportunities will unfold as if by magic. But if your best project is, for example, your 10th project, there is no way you could have gotten there until you completed the first nine. There is no faster way, no more efficient way, to get to your life’s best work than to finish the necessary work you need to do that prepares you for your eventual best work. Finish it, let go of it, move on.

11.) Realize that creativity does not work on a clock. Use a memo recorder. Carry paper and pen. Be disciplined about capturing odd thoughts at odd moments when they pop up. Do photography (or at least think photography) every day. Don’t be surprised if your best and most creative ideas happen when you least expect them.

12.) Let go of photography and make art. The objective of photography as a fine art pursuit is not to accumulate artifacts that will impress collectors and curators. Ultimately, your real work is to connect your Self to the world. In doing so, you will pass on to the viewer an artifact which connects them to the world and back to you. Ultimately, if your work does not move someone, it does not move anything.

13.) Read books, attend exhibitions, subscribe to magazines and develop your own personal mental gallery of images, image-makers, imaging trends, and likes and dislikes. The more you know about other photographers, the more you’ll know about yourself.

14.) Ignore advice from others if they tell you how to do it their way. There is no more useless critique than when the comment starts out, “If it were my picture I would have done...” The best critics will tell you what it is they see in your photograph and leave it up to you to decide whether or not what they see is a function of their unique vision or your success or failure in making the image you intended.

15.) Live with it for a while before going public. Create a space in your home or your studio where you can thumbtack lots of pictures to the wall. Keep them there, look at them repeatedly, look at them at different times of day, in different light, in different moods. The process of doing so will likely lead you to try printing variations, cropping variations, and even entirely new approaches with a given image.

16.) Figure out a way to make it happen on your own. Don’t let the lack of resources get in your way. Do not let limitations prevent you from doing your art. Do not rely solely on the generosity of others. To do so will mean that your work can only progress when someone else wills it. Ultimately, no one cares about your artwork or your artistic progress more than you.

17.) Think clearly about your objectives. Which do you care about more: making images the public loves or making images that you must? Clearly knowing which is more important to you makes everything else easier.

18.) Photography is not a group activity. Learn to work alone, without distractions.

19.) Don’t photograph what is “photographable.” Photograph what interests you, even if it is impossible to photograph. It is almost impossible to make a great photograph of something that doesn’t interest you.

20.) Think from your subject’s point of view. Think from your audience’s point of view. Think about what you are communicating. Think about how this will look in the passage of time. Think about what’s on the edges, just inside, just outside the photograph. Think about what you have said. Think about what you haven’t said. Think about what people will think you have said, and what they’ll think you haven’t said. Most importantly, know when to think and when to suspend thinking on purpose. Art without thought is incomplete. Art with thought is incomplete.

21.) Remember, art is not about artwork. Art is about life. To become a better artist, first and foremost become a better person – not in the moral sense, but rather in the complete sense. Remember that the greatest artist is not the one with the best technique, but the one with the most human heart.

White Balance

White Balance is the process of measuring the light source's color temperature based on lighting conditions.


If your camera’s white balance is set incorrectly, you will see a color cast on your image: it will look slightly blue, slightly orange, or slightly green. A low color temperature shifts light toward the red; a high color temperature shifts light toward the blue. Different light sources emit light at different color temperatures, and thus the color cast.


Color temperature is effectively the warmth that is emitted from a light source, and the effect that temperature has on the intensity of any particular color in the visible spectrum. For example, a 200 W bulb has more intensity in the orange/red end, and shows purples and blues with very little intensity. This makes your photo appear “warm”. Daylight has equivalent intensity across the whole spectrum, so you see purples and blues with the same intensity as oranges and reds. But shade or a heavily overcast sky has more intensity in the blue/purple end, so your oranges and reds will have very little intensity. This makes your photo appear “cool”.

Some examples of color temperatures:

1500 K: candle light

2800 K: 60 W bulb

3200 K: sunrise and sunset (will be affected by smog)

3400 K: tungsten lamp (ordinary household bulb)

4000-5000 K: cool white fluorescent bulbs

5200 K: bright midday sun

5600 K: electronic photo flash.

6500 K: heavily overcast sky

10000-15000 K: deep blue clear sky

Newer light sources, such as fluorescent and other artificial lighting, require further white balance adjustments since they can make your photos appear either green or magenta.



Your camera searches for a reference point in your scene that represents white. It will then calculate all the other colors based on this white point and the known color spectrum. Remember, white balance is the automatic adjustment that makes sure the white color we see will also appear white in the image.

Setting your camera’s white balance to AWB will provide color accuracy under many conditions. Your camera will adjust the white balance between 4000K – 7000K using a best guess algorithm. Auto white balance is a good choice for situations where the light changes over time and speed is an issue.

You should avoid using auto white balance settings in the following situations:

1) The scene is heavily dominated by one color

2) Colour accuracy is absolutely imperative

3) You are photographing particularly warm or cool scenes

White Balance Presets

Most digital cameras come with multiple white balance preset options.

Tungsten - The color temperature of this setting is fixed at 3,000K.
Best Use: indoors at night. Otherwise, your exposure will turn out too blue.
Creative Use: Set your exposure compensation to -1 or -2 and use this setting in daylight to simulate night.

Fluorescent - The color temperature of this setting is fixed at 4,200K.
Best use: Fluorescent, mercury, HMI and metal halide lights used in your garage, sports stadiums and parking lots. Otherwise, your exposure will turn out too purple.

Daylight - The color temperature of this setting is fixed at 5,200K.
Best use: studio strobe lights. Otherwise, your exposure may have a slight bluish tinge.

Cloudy - The color temperature of this setting is fixed at 6,000K. Best use: direct sunlight and overcast light. This setting will warm your photo by giving it an orange tinge, which is often desirable in landscapes and portraits.
Creative Use: sunsets.

Shade - The color temperature of this setting ranges from 7,000K - 8,000K.
Best use: shooting in shade, no direct sunlight (cloudy), backlit subjects. Otherwise, your exposure will turn out too orange.
Creative Use: direct sunlight – it will warm up your photos even more!

Flash - The color temperature of this setting is fixed at 5,400K. This is almost identical to Cloudy but sometimes redder depending on the camera.
Best use: overcast skies. Otherwise, your exposure will turn out too red.

5 Common mistakes and how to fix them

Problem: Lackluster composition
Sometimes just a subtle shift of emphasis is all it takes to turn a throwaway photograph into a treasured keeper. Here are the top tips to immediately improving your composition.

Tip 1: The Rule of Thirds is a time-honored technique professional photographers use to improve composition. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid over the image you want to take. Use the intersection of those lines to place your subject slightly off center, and bring interest up or down.

Tip 2: Take photos at various angles and distances to give you more options to choose from. Also experiment with vertical and horizontal camera orientation. You may discover that this simple shift yields interesting results.

Tip 3: Eliminate distracting background clutter by getting closer to your subject. You can achieve the same effect, known as a shallow depth of field, by manually adjusting your aperture setting to a low f-number, such as f2.8.


Problem: Poor lighting
Photography is all about catching that magic moment when the light is just right. But lighting also provides some challenges. These tips will help, whether you’re indoors or out.

Tip 1: Balance bright or dim light
Digital cameras get “confused” by unbalanced conditions, such as a very bright or dim light, causing the camera to under or over expose your photo.

In low light conditions, lower the ISO to 50 or 100 to get rich detail in low light. Use a tripod, or steady yourself against a stable object to avoid moving the camera.

In bright light, manually choose a fast shutter speed to control the amount of light that comes in.

Tip 2: Shooting indoors
Avoid using your flash. Instead, provide as much natural light as possible—open curtains, or even the door. Or use lamps to add light to the scene. Your flash mutes color and casts stark, deep shadows that are especially unflattering in portraits.

Don’t place your subject in front of a bright window or they will become a silhouette (although this can be a nice effect when done intentionally). Try placing them off to the side instead, or facing a natural light source.

Tip 3: Shooting outdoors
Try to have the sun behind you when you shoot. This will provide the most flattering light to your subject.

Shoot early or later in the day—dawn and dusk provide lovely light, whereas midday light can be harsh.

Take advantage of overcast days. That’s when the light is even, and casts almost no shadows.

Problem: Red-eye
The appearance of glowing red eyes can ruin a portrait of even the cutest child or pet. The red color comes from light reflecting off of the retinas in our eyes. The following quick tips can help get the red out.

Tip 1: Try not to use a flash if possible—it is the number one cause of red-eye. Instead, turn on lights or open curtains to add additional light to your scene.

Tip 2: Ask your subject to look toward the camera but not directly at the lens or to look into a bright light first.

Tip 3: Stand farther away from your subject.

Tip 4: Take advantage of in-camera red-eye removal. Many digital cameras and photo printers now allow you to remove red-eye or prevent it altogether. Check your digital camera’s manual to see if it includes these features.

Problem: Blurry photos
While a photo with a dramatic blur can often be artistic, it can also render a subject incomprehensible. Here are some ways to add clarity to your digital photographs.

Tip 1: Reduce shutter lag. The time between pressing the trigger and the camera taking the picture is called shutter lag, and it can cause blurry pictures. Avoid it by pressing the trigger halfway down until you’re ready to shoot. When the right moment comes, press the rest of the way. This strategy is great when you're taking pictures of people (especially kids) or animals.

Tip 2: Minimize camera shake. Even the slightest camera movement can cause unclear photos. Use a tripod or brace yourself against a stationary object to hold the camera still. Some digital cameras come with image stabilization, another way to get clear images of moving subjects.

Tip 3: Use your digital camera’s Action shooting mode for sports or other action shots. It automatically optimizes your shutter speed to help capture motion. Or manually increase your camera’s shutter speed to achieve the same effect.

Problem: Low-quality prints
If you plan to print your photographs using a digital photo printer, keep resolution in mind. Resolution is measured in megapixels (MP), and matching the resolution to the print size will help you get clear digital photo prints.

Tip 1: If you plan to enlarge or crop photos before printing, it’s best to shoot at the highest resolution possible. But high-resolution pictures take up more memory.

Tip 2: If you plan to e-mail images or print smaller sizes, like 4" x 6" or 5" x 7" photos, you can stick to 4-5 MP with no problems.

Tip 3: Many digital cameras let you select the resolution level, so you can determine ahead of time whether you want to shoot a big file with lots of detail, or a quick snapshot you can post to a website or e-mail to friends and family.

Photography 101: Shutter Speed

SHUTTER SPEEDS
In very simple terms, shutter speed is the time it takes for the shutter on the camera to open and close. When the shutter is open, light is let in to the sensor and when it is closed, no light gets in. The longer the shutter is open, the greater the amount of light that is let in. The more light, the brighter your image will be.

Conversely, the shorter the shutter is open, the less light that is let in.
Shutter speeds are typically recorded in fractions of a second: ½ second is a long shutter speed (more light) and 1/1000 is a short one.

There is also often a “B” (or “bulb”) setting which allows the user to hold the shutter open for as long as they wish.

With a fast shutter speed, the shutter is open for only a short time. This helps especially in two ways. First, it helps to freeze the movement of a fast moving subject. Secondly, it reduces the chance of camera shake. A slow shutter speed will allow blurring of movement and will enable much smaller apertures to be used.
Of course, shutter speed settings are combined with aperture settings in setting the amount of light that comes into the camera. You can see it as the aperture determining the intensity of the light hitting the sensor and the shutter speed determining how long it hits the sensor for.

A change from one shutter speed to the next either halves or doubles the time of the exposure. Sound familiar?

Play around with moving objects on different shutter speeds and you’ll see what I mean about the different types of effects you can get.ect such as a moving car.


As the aperture number gets smaller (for example, from f/16 to f/11) the aperture opening gets larger and the image gets lighter.
As with the shutter speed, the aperture also affects the sharpness of your picture, but in a different way. Changing the aperture changes the depth of field. Smaller apertures increase depth of field while larger ones decrease it.

Increasing the time the shutter remains open to allow light in, you must compensate by allowing less light in to expose the image sensor in that longer amount of time, if you still want a properly exposed picture. If your lens does not close down to F16, you could use a Neutral Density (ND) filter to reduce the amount of light coming into the lens, and thus allowing you to use a slower shutter speed.

Here is a list f the more common aperture values - each lets double amount of light in. I also wrote the shutter speed needed to get an equivalent exposure of f=1/2.8 with shutter speed of 1/500.

aperture f/1.4 f/1.8 f/2.8 f/4 f/5.6 f/8 f/11 f/16 f/22
shutter
speed 1/2000 1/1000 1/500 1/250 1/125 1/60 1/30 1/15 1/8




A high shutter speed (1/1000 of a second or higher) can freeze even very fast moving objects dead in their tracks. However, you will need to keep a couple of things in mind:

1.) You are going to need a brightly lit subject as shutter speeds this high don’t allow your camera much time to gather light for exposure. You can get around this to a degree by using a higher ISO setting, but don’t go to high, or noise will creep into your shot.

2.) If possible, set up your shot by having your camera focused on the spot where your subject is going to pass by. This will allow you to concentrate on timing your subject’s approach, giving you a better chance to trip the shutter at just the right moment.

Medium shutter speeds (1/20 of a second to 1/80 of a second) can be used to create motion blur when photographing moving objects. This gives the photo a sense of life and motion. Here are several ways you can approach this type of motion blur:

1.) With your camera stationary, trip the shutter as a moving subject passes by. This will make the subject look blurred, while keeping the rest of the shot clear—giving your subject a look of speed and a sense that it is moving out of the shot.

2.) Follow your subject through the viewfinder in a smooth sweeping motion as it approaches, and trip the shutter as your subject goes by—this is called “panning.” This method will keep your subject relatively clear, but will blur the background, giving an overall sense of speed and movement. The timing for this type of shot takes a little practice, but the results make it well worthwhile.

3.) When shooting a stationary subject, purposely move your camera in a sweeping or circular motion to create a blur of colours and lines. This one is a lot of fun and can provide some interesting abstract results.

Low shutter speeds (1/8 of a second up to 30 seconds and beyond) can be used to create a variety of effects—here are just a few:

Note: For most of these long exposures a tripod or some other means of keeping the camera perfectly still is necessary to avoid creating unintended blur.

1.) Moving water will look smooth and silky when shot at shutter speeds of 1/8 of a second or more—the longer the exposure the more pronounced the effect.

2.) When photographed at shutter speeds of 2 seconds or greater, car lights will turn into long colourful trails—the longer the exposure, the longer the trails.

3.) When very long exposures are used (15 seconds plus) city lights will often take on a stretched, star-like appearance.

4.) Photographing city lights at shutter speeds of 1/15 of a second, or so, either from a moving vehicle, or while walking, can produce interesting and colourful abstracts (no tripod needed.)

Composition tips

1. Emphasize through placement: slightly off center.
2. Emphasize through relative size: fill frame
3. Emphasize through framing: sense of depth and perception, guides viewers eye
4. Emphasize through selective lighting
5. Emphasize through selective focus
6. Emphasize with converging lines: low camera angle or wide angle
7. Emphasize through repetition: lines, curves, circles, triangles, and squares.
8. Emphasize through motion
9. Emphasize foreground object with wide angle, move in close
a. Vertical: foreground on the bottom
b. Horizontal: object to one side
10. Use a large dominate foreground subject with a with complimentary background.
11. Use a smaller foreground element leading to a larger background element
12. Compose in a way to create diagonal or direct lines from on to another.
13. Shoot horizontal and vertical.
14. Use backgrounds as subjects
15. Concentrate on a single subject; try to isolate it against a plain background.
16. Use contrasts:
a. Light and dark
b. Color and monochrome
c. Contrasting colors
d. Large and small
e. Texture and smooth
f. Warm and cool colors
17. Find center of interest.
18. Keep backgrounds simple
19. Follow the rule of thirds
20. Do not put horizon in dead center of frame
21. Use lines of direction to lead eye into the frame: diagonal, ‘S’ curves.
22. Vary POV
23. Radical balance: feeling of directional movement

Photography 101: What is an "aperture"?

Aperture is one of the three main controls you can use when you are taking a picture. Along with shutter speed and ISO, aperture controls how light will hit the sensor or film.

Aperture is referred to the lens diaphragm opening inside a photographic lens. The size of the diaphragm opening in a camera lens controls the amount of light that passes through onto the film inside the camera the moment when the shutter curtain in camera opens during an exposure process. The size of an aperture in a lens can either be a fixed or the most popular form in an adjustable type (like an SLR camera). Aperture size is usually calibrated in f-numbers or f-stops. i.e. those little numbers engraved on the lens barrel like f/22, f/16, f/11, f/8.0, f/5.6, f/4.0, f/2.8, f/2.0, f/1.8.

The larger the hole the more light that gets in - the smaller the hole the less light. "Stopping down" the lens from f/4 to f/5.6 will halve the amount of incoming light. "Opening up" the lens from f/5.5 to f/4 will double the amount of light.
Stopping down means to reduce the size of the iris of a lens. This increases the depth of field of the image, but results in dimmer images at the film plane. You can can compensate for this by increasing the exposure time (shutter speed),or increasing the ISO. Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also - this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in - very handy to keep in mind).



The best way to get your head around aperture is to get your camera out and do some experimenting. Go outside and find a spot where you’ve got items close to you as well as far away and take a series of shots with different aperture settings from the smallest setting to the largest. You’ll quickly see the impact that it can have and the usefulness of being able to control aperture.