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Sunday, August 17, 2008

NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY



There are some things to know that help create better shots at night and there is certain gear that helps get you from a good shot to an incredible shot.
The important thing for shooting at night is the tripod.The tripod is a must because most of the time you have to shoot without flash and with long exposure.So you have to buy a good one.
Another important equipment is a cable release,which lets you push a switch on the end of a cable to open your shutter without the need for you to touch the camera.It is very good as it keeps the shutter open for as long as you want and it avoids camera shake that can damage you image.If you cant afford one you can shoot by setting the time at your camera(lets say 10-12 sec) which allows your camera to stabilize.But if you want no camera movement at all you should always use a cable release

Much of the glow from the shot comes from the long exposure, which is a bonus. And when you are shooting digitally, you can check in a second to see if you are under or over-exposed.Take lots of photos. Be sure to take a lot of photos when you are doing night photography, and try them at different exposures. Somewhere in the group, there may well be a spectacular photo, that was the result of a experimental combination of shutter speed and aperture. Remember, film is cheap, and for digital camera users, there is always the trash can for unwanted images.Oh the endless advantages of shooting digital...

A good night shot is not captured by accident. The right planning creates the perfect night shot.
-Check the weather forecast. That way you will know if you need to dress for cooler weather after dark, and how much cloud cover to expect.It is easy to get cold standing around waiting for the right photographic opportunity after the sun has gone down.
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Use bug spray in the appropriate seasons. If you are going to be anywhere near water or in the woods, apply a heavy application of bug-spray. You are likely to be sitting or standing for a while in the same place, no point in making yourself an extra attractive meal for the local bugs.
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Bring a bubble level. Bubble levels let you know if your camera is level, so you don't have the annoying problem of images running down hill in your pictures.
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Bring your cell phone. Remember, you are going to be out in the dark, having a cell phone with you for emergencies is only common sense. If you are going out with another photographer, it helps if you both have phones with you. That way if you get separated, it's much easier to find one another in the dark.
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Bring a flashlight. A pocket flash light is a great tool to have when you are doing photography. Not only can it light up your camera dials so you can see how your camera is set, it can also help light the path on the way back to the car.
-T
he best times for landscape digital photography without additional light sources, or looking at it in a different manner, away from city lights, is either when the moon is full, the two days before the full moon and the two days after the full moon. Any clouds in the sky will also affect the amount of light available for your night photography, just as they would if you were shooting during the day.
-Try some photos before the night is pitch black. Sometimes having some color left in the sky can add to the photo.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

HOW TO SHOOT WATERFALLS



Waterfalls are a very beautiful subject to photo- graph,but you have to be patient to do that.You have to try over and over again so you probably should stay in that place for a long time or you should return in the same place several times.

Practice can make perfect!This will help you compose your shoots in different ways so you later can choose which is the best picture.
Lighting:The best lighting for shooting waterfalls is overcast,but you can have good results even if the water is in the shade.It allows for the longer exposure times without blowing out the highlights.You should not photograph waterfalls on a sunny day.Sunny days in the forest may be nice for close-up studies, but adding sun to a waterfall landscape is not a good idea , the range of light and dark is so extreme that your compositions will be washed out or hidden in blackness.

Shutter Speed: In order to get that blurred-smooth-flow look to your waterfall scene, you need to shoot at a shutter speed of 1 to 1.6 seconds.The longer the shutter speed the smother the surfice will be and the prettier the picture. In order to achieve a properly exposed scene at those slow shutter speeds, you’ll need to set your aperture to a setting of f/16 or smaller, up to f/22. You’ll get great depth of field, with the entire frame in focus too. If the lighting is too bright to bring your shutter speed down to 1 to 1.6 seconds, try a neutral density filter.You should never use the auto-setting of apeture and shutter speed.Metering is something that cameras generally do very well. They begin to fail, however, when you start to introduce very white or very black subjects in an image. The reason for this is because humans see in 16-stops, whereas cameras "see" no more than 5-stops. This means that images with high contrast are not correctly exposed when left to the camera's automatic settings , if you have a lot of white in your subject of focus, the camera tends to make it grey in the final image, and correspondingly underexposes the rest of the image. Similarly, if you have a lot of black in your image, the camera tends to make the black turn out grey in the final image, thus overexposing the rest of the image.

ND Filter: A neutral density (ND) filter is a must for waterfall shooting. Placing an ND filter over your lens reduces the amount of light, thus decreasing the shutter speeds to accommodate the reduction of light, without affecting color in your scene.Often is made a mistake by not using a polarising filter.In a nutshell, polarizing filters cut the glare. Wet surfaces tend to reflect the sky colour, so you'll actually need the polarizing filter more for rainy days where the sky colour is grey than for sunny days. But we've already agreed you shouldn't photography waterfalls on sunny days Removing glare from an image allows you to see the colourful world underneath the glare, and no amount of Photoshopping after your shoot will fix it..

Tripod and Remote Shutter Release: At shutter speeds of 1 to 1.6 seconds, use of a tripod, a good tripod is a must.With those speeds, you’ll also need to use a remote shutter release. Using a remote shutter release eliminates any vibration introduced to your camera from your hand when your finger actually presses the shutter.A remote release is available for almost all camera models and it makes a huge difference in obtaining sharp images. If you don't have one you should use your camera's self timer.

Self-Timer: Using your cameras self-timer feature will accomplish the same effect as using a remote shutter release. When this feature is set, you press the shutter, and the camera doesn’t expose your film or image sensor for a pre-set number of seconds. Setting your self timer to 5 seconds will allow for any vibrations to cease when pressing the shutter button.

Friday, August 15, 2008

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY


Wildlife subject can be divided in two groups:
Wild and under human control.By shooting one or the other you can produce
great images.Of course, there's nothing more exciting than capturing a spectacular image of a wild animal in its natural environment, but many times it's not possible to travel to exotic locations or spend days or weeks tracking an animal. What's more, many animals are extremely dangerous.

How to Shoot Wildlife Photography: Close-up vs. Environmental

It's not necessarily desirable to always get full-frame head shots of wildlife - you can always take head shots in a zoo. Including the environment along with an animal gives a sense of place, and if the location happens to be spectacular then it becomes an integral part of the composition. Still, the subject should be significant enough in the frame to make a statement.

How to Shoot Wildlife Photography From a Vehicle

In many cases, a vehicle can gain a closer approach to a wild animal than a person can on foot. For example, most wildlife in national parks have grown accustomed to vehicles, and they know there's no threat.

Shooting from a vehicle can be done using a stable platform that attaches firmly to the driver's door when the window is rolled down. (These door mounts are available through various sources.) You can also use a burlap or fabric pouch filled with uncooked rice, beans or coarse sand.

Finding Wildlife Subjects to Photograph

There are many options for locating wildlife - even if you live in the city. One technique is to try the Internet.

How to Shoot Wildlife Photography the Right Way: Keep Things Steady

In addition to doing your wildlife photography in the best light, I strongly suggest using a tripod whenever possible. When photographing with a tripod is not possible, use a bean bag or some other stable support.
Image stabilization lenses, if you can afford them, go a long way to helping wildlife photographers get sharp pictures in low light. They minimize camera movement when you hand hold them, which in turn gives you more flexibility in your shooting. However, I would still recommend a tripod when it's feasible.

Lighting
There are five types of lighting that you have available to you when photographing outdoors. Light can illuminate a subject from:
  1. the front,
  2. the side,
  3. the back,
  4. a three-quarter angle, or
  5. within, where a translucent object seems to glow from within.

Contrast Reduction When the Sun is Low

When the sunlight is low to the horizon, contrast is reduced. Contrast is significantly lower than when the sun is higher in the sky. The lower the sun is to the horizon, the lower the contrast will be. This will allow both the shadows and highlights in your wildlife photography to have a pleasing degree of detail.

I prefer the natural look that ambient light gives,as long as I can choose the type of lighting.You should try to avoid direct sunlight during the middle of the day.Shade can be much more attractive for outdoor portrait because it retains the subtle light and dark relationships on your subject.Flash even fill flash,tends to eliminate or reduce those subtle details.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

CHILDRENS PHOTOGRAPHY AND FAMILY PORTRAITS


1.Lighting

A very important factor when shooting portrait of your children or family is the light.By understanding how lighting
affects a scene and by learning how to light people,
you can improve your portrait images.

Harsh Flat Light-A common blunder that occurs when people photograph their family, friends, or general portrait situations is they position themselves between the sun and their subject, with the sun at their back, providing the most light on their subject’s face.This not only causes the subject to squint heavily - since they are forced to stare directly into the sun - but now the light created on the subject and surroundings is flat and boring
Ambient or Diffused Light-Instead try a few different methods when it comes to capturing people.First off,try photographing them in ambient light,that is non-directional light where it is equally intense everywhere,such as shade,the diffused light from an overcast sky,or non-direct light that enters a window.This offers little or no shadows on a face providing beautiful soft complementary for most people
Backlight-Another method is to turn your subject away from the direct sun allowing their eyes to relaxed while taking their photograph. Called backlighting (the sun at the subject's back), it's an easy way to provide even light on faces while creating a more dramatic feel. Pop in a little fill-flash to brighten the shadows on the face, and now you're working with two light sources (the sun, creating rim light on their hair and body, and your flash creating even light on the face).
Side-lighting-And the last approach is to side-light your subject. This gives them depth and dimension through the highlights and shadows cast on their face (as well as on the setting or landscape). Side lighting can also thin out a face, since only half or part of it is lit, giving the appearance of a more narrow face, but side lighting can also create more shadows showing visible lines or wrinkles in a face as well.Just remember, your lighting can not only help you create a more interesting portrait, but can also determine the look and feel of the image.

2.The Background

Most of the time you will need a background that will support the image of a person with out competing with the subject.Sometimes you can use a background that helps telling the story of the persons being photographed.The first thing you need from a background is size. I think that 9X20 feet is the minimum. Why so big? Well, the first reason is that you can do a head to foot shot on this size drop and have the subject standing on the background. Even a king-size sheet isn’t big enough for the subject to stand on.Another important aspect of a big background is that you don’t have to worry about whether you have enough on the sides. This frees up the photographer to move around in front of the subject. The other thing a big drop provides is the ability to move the subject away from the background so that you can adjust the light separately on the background from the subject. This provides a lot of ability to manipulate the color and density of the background without changing the subject.
The extra distance between the subject and the background means that we can solve the problems of shadows from the subject falling on the background.Generally you can use at least 5 feet between the subject and the background.

3.Composing

Full-length photos and head-and-shoulders shots always make for strong images. But don't stop there! Successful portraits also take the form of facial close-ups.Another option involves the environmental portrait - which shows a subject at work or at play, around the house, or on holiday. The trick to capturing priceless pictures of people in a natural environment? Make sure other elements in the scene don't detract from your star attraction.

4.Increasing ISO for Sharp Results

Sometimes when is a littel bit dark even with f/2.8 zoom lens.the shutter speed can be to slow,and this doesn't allow you to shoot without a tripod,just hand holding and expect sharp result.in this case you need to boost your ISO from low to high(say from 100 to 800).The increase of 3 stops can allowed you to shoot at a shutter speed of 1/60 second, which works much better.With this shutter speed you can hand hold your camera.You always have to control your shutter speed as you begin to shoot,because many great images can be ruined because of camera motion resulting in a soft image.Though you can make effort to hold you camera as steady as possible,there is always a little vibration occurring.Its not a problem with fast shutter speeds.But when the shutter speed drops below 1/60,especially in combination with the use of focal lengths of 80mm and higher, there is an increased risk of softness due to camera movement. Noting your shutter speed before exposing the first frame helps you take the steps needed to make sure my photographs turn out tack sharp
Through increasing the ISO to 800 or even higher introduces more noise into the image,you have to choose from a noisy image that is sharp or a noiseless image that is soft.
You could lose some great shot,because you could have decided there wasn't enough light.Now the ability to change ISO on the fly,has provided the means to make quality images virtually anywhere.




Monday, August 11, 2008

LANDSCAPE AND SEASCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

Before you go out shooting seascape and landscape scenes, here are a few of the ways you can prevent a tilting horizon line or shoreline.
  • Use a tripod. It helps keep your camera steady so you can compose your picture more precisely.
  • A bubble level often tips you off to any tilting. Some tripods come equipped with a level; otherwise, an add-on accessory is available that slips onto the camera's flash shoe. But remember: Such a bubble is NOT foolproof (see next item).
  • Trust your eye: On occasion, the horizon may not look right, even though the camera appears perfectly level ... and even though the bubble level confirms it. In those cases, you may need to actually slant the camera ever so slightly in order to keep the image visually level.
  • After composing your shot, perform this last-minute task: Check the viewfinder to see if things look "right." Specifically: Is there the same amount of sky AND the same amount of land (or sea) on each side of the picture frame
  • But remember that these tips aren't always right,because you may intentionally want to have some angle on the photo.
    Some other tips to take breathtaking landscape photos.
    1. Early morning and late evening are the best times for shooting landscapes. This is because the low angle of the Sun picks out shadows and reveals textures.
    2. The best landscapes are rarely found at the side of the road. So be prepared to go for a trek with a map or a GSP unit in an effort to seek out the most interesting locations.
    3. Wide angle lenses are commonly used for landscapes because they will allow you to include more in the frame and open up prespectiv. A wide-angle zoom lens gives you more latitude in framing the scene and cropping out distracting features.
    4. Whenever possible, place something of interest in the foreground of the shot to create a sense of depth. At the same time, ensure that you use a small aperture to keep everything in focus.
    5. You should always have your tripod with you to prevent camera shakes on the shoots
    6. Look out for scenes that will let you crop the top and bottom of the image to produce a more dramatic "letterbox" panoramic composition.
    7. Use a polarizing filter to darken the sky and saturate the colors in the landscape (this is the one must-have filter for landscape photographers).
    8. Use color correction filters to change the color of light on a landscape. These filters can either warm up the landscape or cool it down, depending on the filter color used. In this image, a sepia graduated filter was used upside-down to color the foreground rocks only.
    9. Try using a soft focus filter to add an ethereal quality to the scene. These filters blur the bright areas of a scene into the shadows to give the image a glow.
    10. Use the Hyperfocal Distaqnce to obtain the fastest shutter speed with greatest depth of field.Hyperfocal focusing allows you to get everything sharp, from things close up to the camera to those far away. It's more reliable than just setting the focus at infinity. You will need a camera that allows manual focusing though.
    11. If you use a digital camera, and your camera is capable of it, shoot RAW images rather than JPGs. The RAWs will take up more room on your memory card but there's no in-camera processing done on the image (as there is for JPGs). RAW images will give you greater latitude for image manipulation (using Adobe Photoshop,Photoshop Elements,Paint Shop Pro or some other image manipulation package).
    12. Be original! Develop your own style and unique vision. Any competent photographer can duplicate others' work. Truly great photographers produce unique images. Avoid cliche photography. Go for non-standard viewpoints, say from ground-level rather than eye-level. Imagine the world as seen from an animal's viewpoint rather than a human's!

    Sunday, August 10, 2008

    MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY

    The macro or close up photography is a very incredible new way of seeing the subject.The smaller view can sometimes reveal more about a subject than the broader perspective.Of course its sometimes easy to miss the smaller scene within the bigger view,especially when the grand-scale scenic is so awe-inspiring.The trick to finding good detail images is to be AWARE.You will need to sloooow waaaay down and analyze your scene in order to isolate some of the phototgenic parts that make up the hole.

    Depth of field
    One problem with macro photography is the limited amount of sharpness in front and behind the main point of focus. This is known as depth-of-field and is very shallow at close range. This means you may, for example, get a really sharp flower stamen but the petals in front and behind will be disappointingly soft. You have several options. One method is to shoot from a distance and crop the photo later. This means you get a sharper overall subject, but the photo quality may not be as good because you have used either less pixels or less film, resulting in lower resolution or more grain. The more sensible option is to adjust the aperture, where available, selecting a smaller number which increase depth of field.

    Light
    Another problem you may encounter, especially when using a camera with extremely close focusing capability is that the camera is so close to the subject that it can cast a shadow. Try to move around to a suitable viewpoint allowing the light source to continue to illuminate the subject. Flash can be used but only with cameras that have off camera facility, so the flash can be positioned away from the camera in a suitable position allowing adequate subject illumination. SLR manufacturers provide a series of dedicated guns for their SLRs and digital cameras, including ring flash that gives more even coverage at short range.

    FLOWER PHOTOGRAPHY


    The key to success are: isolate, simplify, and watch subject placement



    The flower could be a beautiful subject to photography,because of their beautiful shape and colors.Because they stand still they are the firs subject the new photographer seek to capture.
    • Isolate:means you should make your object clear.If you are photographing a group of flowers you should isolate one,two or from the group.
    • Simplify:you should watch out for busy background,hot spots,black holes,and extraneous elements entering the frame.
    • Backgrounds:they are as important as the subject it self,you should avoid a busy background with what you can cause it can kill your image.
    • Subject placement:there are three "centers" in a frame: center-top,which is fine;center bottom,which is fine;and center-center,otherwise known as "bulls-eye" composition which can be a little difficult to do.

    Friday, August 8, 2008

    HISTOGRAM FUNCTION

    The histogram is a graph that allows you to check the brightness of an image.You can see it in your digital camera while shooting photos or while editing your photos with photoshop,bridge, or lightroom. It is very important to control it while shooting because you will get a better image and will be easier to post processes your shoot.It is very important to start with the better photo possible,if you want the results to be the best.




    The greater the bias toward the left in the graph,the darker the image





    The greater the bias toward the right,the brighter
    the image







    In a balanced image the histogram will be like this,
    not a lot toward left or right

    WHAT IS PHOTOGRAPH

    A photograph (often shortened to photo) is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see. The process of creating photographs is called photography
    There are to type of photographs:the non-digital and digital photography
    Non-digital photographs are produced with a two-step chemical process. In the two-step process the light-sensitive film captures a negative image (colors and lights/darks are inverted). To produce a positive image, the negative is most commonly transferred (printed) onto photographic paper. Printing the negative onto transparent film stock is used to manufacture motion picture films.
    Alternatively, the film is processed to invert the negative image, yielding positive transparencies.Such positive images are usually mounted in frames, called slides.
    Originally all photographs were monochromatic, or hand-painted in color.Since then, color photography has dominated popular photography, although black and white is still used, being easier to develop than color.
    The advent of the microcomputer and digital photography has led to the rise of digital prints which are created from stored graphic formats such as JPEG,TIFF and RAW.The types of printers used include inkjet printers,dye-sublimation printers,laser printers, and thermal printers.
    Digital photography is a form of photography that utilizes digital technology to make digital images of subjects.The quality of a digital image is the sum of various factors, many of which are similar to film cameras.
    1.Pixel count (typically listed in ,megapixels, millions of pixels) is only one of the major factors, though it is the most heavily marketed.
    2.An other important factor is the lens quality which includes resolution,distorsion,dispersion.Resolution provides an indication of the amount of detail that is captured.
    3.Capture medium: CMOS, CCD,Negative film,Reversal Film etc.
    4.Capture format: pixel count, digital file type (RAW,TIFF, JPEG),film format (135 film,120 film, 5x4, 10x8).
    5.Processing: digital and / or chemical processing of 'negative' and 'print'.