The Flexibility of a Tripod

Some might think that tripods are a hassle to carry around. But, they are very useful and essential for taking great photos. A tripod can be useful in low light situations or when slow shutter speed is required - it keeps your picture sharp and clear and eliminates any accidental blurs. The other benefit is that it helps you compose the image correctly and increase the chances for a super shot - this is true when doing macro photography.

You should consider in investing on a light weight and compact tripod. It is a little more costly, but worth it... especially if you need it a lot of time. Make sure that it's stable and sturdy. One with quick release mount will give you some flexibility.

The best thing is that you might not need to purchase a tripod if you can be creative. Use any sturdy surface in the area. That can be a chair, a table, even a rock... anything that can keep your camera steady! Be very careful that the item can hold the camera really well... you don't want to damage your camera if it slips and falls down.

To good shots,

David

A Different Perspective in Composition

The first and perhaps the most important guideline for better composition in a picture is simplicity. Look through the camera's view finder or the LCD screen... give your subject in your pictures the most visual attention first - don't let the backgrounds steal attention from your subject.

Next, frame your subject correctly. It could be horizontally or vertically. Zoom in or zoom out. Tilt your camera a little bit to one side. Find a different angle - shoot from a higher or lower angle to give a different perspective. Make your subject more dynamic by placing it slightly off center in your frame.

Strengthen your subject by selecting uncomplicated and simple backgrounds - avoid unrelated subjects, clutter subject or unwanted objects from the frame.

Now, go find one subject. Take many pictures of that subject and study what worked and what make them so good.

David

The Light Side of Photography

One of the challenge for a beginner photographer is to understand the use of lightning. The easiest thing to do is to always leave the flash on the camera before taking every picture. However, the results will not always be the best.

Flash is a useful feature, but with improper use, it will make the human skin look too pale, and it can cause unwanted shadows in night photography. If you must use it, make sure you are as close as you can to the subject instead of staying back and zooming in.

But, if you want to get better, you need to start turning off the flash and learn to use the available light. One rule to follow is that if there is enough light to read a book, then, use the available light without any flash.

Also, taking picture without a flash will force you to adjust the shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings. At first, this will be a challenge. And you might overexpose or underexpose your pictures. But, with a little practice, it will get easier. The rewards is that you will learn how to use all your settings and take even better pictures.

Now, try this for today, take some pictures using the available light and no flash. And see what happens - you will learn a lot just doing this.

David

The Low and High of Contrast

Contrast is heard a lot of times in black and white photography. It is used in many ways. It could be good or could be bad. It all depends what you are trying to accomplish.

When you increase the range of tones and details, this is referred to increase of contrast. It is like having black and white together. The sharper the point where black and white meets, the higher the contrast. You can tell what is black and what is white.

Decreasing the contrast is when there is more haze and there are more soft ranges of tones in the picture. The difference between black and white is less noticeable.

Now, neither low nor high contrast is better than the other one. Again, it all depends what you are trying to accomplish. High contrast will give some sharpness and details will pop out. Low contrast will look softer and gentler.

The main point is to bring out the details that you want people to see.

Ok, go take some pictures and play around and try to take some high and low contrast pictures.

David

What Is The ISO Setting Used For?

In the digital photography age, ISO measures the light sensitivity in the image sensor of your digital camera.

Its settings are normally 80, 100, 200, 400, 800 etc. The higher the ISO setting in your digital camera, the more sensitive the image sensor will be to the light - but the noisier (grainier) the image will be.

Here is one way to better understand how ISO works.

When you are asleep in a dark room and someone wakes you up and turns on the light, what happens to your eyes? At this point, they are very sensitive to the light. It's like you are blinded by a little amount of light. Your eyes are extremely sensitive to the light at this point. And you don't need much light to see well. Well, that's equivalent to a high ISO setting - where you don't need much light to expose the picture correctly.

It is also the same when you are outside in a bright sunny day and go inside a house with poor lightning. Your eyes won't be sensitive to the light. You need more light to see well. This is equivalent to the low ISO setting - where it will need lots of light to expose the picture correctly.

What does this means for you?

Well, if you are in a low light situation, then you might want to use a higher ISO. For example, if you want to take pictures of the city at night (flash will be worthless since it's only effective to about 12-15 feet).

The reverse is true, if you are in a bright and sunny day, you want to use a low ISO setting. The pictures will be less noisier (less grainier - which means sharper too) with low ISO settings.

Remember, when you set the ISO in your camera, you’ll impact the aperture and shutter speed to take a well exposed shot. For example - if you increased your ISO setting from 100 to 400, you can shoot at faster shutter speeds or smaller apertures. For this condition, the trade off is that your picture will be noisier.

Another thing to be aware about setting ISO is to know what you are going to do with the picture. If you are using it for e-mails or small prints, then high ISO settings won't have much impact. But, if you want to blow up the picture to a 8X10 inch or a poster size, then you should try to keep it to the lowest ISO possible - you will be able to see the grain in the large image if you take it in a high ISO.

A simple way to see the difference, it's to take your camera and take the a picture with the highest and lowest ISO setting on the same subject. Use your digital zoom in your camera or in your computer and look at particular spot. You will see that the highest ISO setting have more noise than the lowest ISO setting.

Ok, now go take some pictures and keep practicing.

David

The Magical Tricks of Taking Explosive Firework Pictures

Back on 2004, someone asked me how to set his camera to take pictures of fireworks. It was 2 days from July 4th. I was in a hurry and could not give him a tutorial.

But, I wrote him back with a quick and simple step-by-step instructions. It turn out to be so helpful that I want it to share this with you too. Here it is:

Fireworks are a little trickier because of the situation and timing.

* First arrive early to find the best spot. Again, walk around to
find the best angle and location to shoot what you want. If it's windy, you want the wind blowing from your back towards the firework - that way the smoke won't be in front of your pictures.

* Bring a tripod and extra memory cards and plenty of batteries.

* Set your image to the highest resolution - this is to get the best picture and you can always tone it down with your computer.

* Now, start to take pictures with shutter of 1/125 to freeze the motion or 1/30 to blur the fireworks.

* Your aperture should be set as high as possible - start with f8.

* Set ISO at 100.

Once the firework starts, take a shot with the initial settings. View it in your screen. If it's overexposed, increase your shutter speed or narrow your aperture openning. If it's underexposed, decrease your shutter speed or open up your aperture. Increase or decrease the shutter or the aperture one at a time...not both.

If you are a beginner, I would recommend to start with shutter priority setting. Set the shutter your want and let the camera set the aperture to compensate. Make sure you see what aperture the camera choses before taking the picture. Take the picture and preview. If it looks good, then it was a good setting. If you want to go a step further, put it to manual setting and set the same shutter speed and aperture you had. Then increase and decrease the shutter or aperture settings.

Start simple with one or two settings. Take pictures and preview. Change one setting, take another picture and preview. You will see the difference everytime. Write down or remember what your settings are and look over what you did...this is one of the best way to learn!

I want to add a little more to it.

* Another thing to remember, it's to keep the camera very steady when taking the picture. Use the 2 seconds self-timer to take the picture if you can't keep the camera steady - the only bad thing is that you will need to have good anticipation and timing if you use the self-timer.

* Also, don't autofocus. The autofocus might not focus what you want and everything could be blurry. Manual focus first and leave it at that setting.

* Turn the flash off - there will be plenty of lights from the fireworks.

* Try to use the highest aperture setting as possible for sharper images.

* This is the hardest one... make sure your spot is not too close. You will have a harder time capturing everything into the picture's frame. I would stay a little far away so I can fit the whole explosion of the firework in the picture.

* Go in with a goal... what do you want to accomplish? Do you want freeze motion or blurred motion in your pictures? Do you want to include the crowd too or just the firework or do you want to catch some buildings that are near by? Try to envision what your pictures will look like to get an idea of what you want first. It doesn't have to be concrete, but it will help.

Don't be scare to take a lot of pictures. It's ok to take many pictures. You can discard the bad ones later on.

Have fun and take explosive pictures.

David

Digital Camera Training: The Trick To Distort The Size Of Your Photographs

Digital Camera Training: The Trick To Distort The Size Of Your Photographs