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

The Trick To Distort The Size Of Your Photographs

One of the nice trick in photography is that you can change the size of near and far objects. You can make far object look closer to your subject in your picture. Or you can increase the distance between the subject and the background.

The trick is with the lens. There is no special skills.

If you want the background closer to the subject, zoom to a high setting - usually around 80mm or higher. Step a little back as you zoom your lens so the subject will appear bigger in your viewfinder. I would normally step back enough so the subject would fit well into the picture frame. Once you take the picture, you will see that the background is closer to the subject... sometimes, just behind it.

Now, if you want the background farther away from the subject, use the wide angle. Set your wide angle to the lowest number as possible - usually 28mm or 35mm - and get step closer to the subject... close enough so the subject fits well into the picture frame. You will notice that the backgound extends farther away from the subject.

Play with these settings. You can create dramatic and artistic effects by distorting the proportion.

And remember, practice and practice. It can only make you a better photographer.

David

How to Take Interesting Photography With Two Settings

The first goal of many beginner photographers is to take clear and sharp pictures. But, once you achieve this goal, you will most likely move into something more creative and different.

Imagine for a minute. If you were taking portrait pictures of your family, your photo album would be full of the same pictures but in different scenes. You will have a picture of uncle Joe in his birthday for this year, uncle Joe's birthday picture from last year, uncle Joe in aunt Jane's birthday, and so on.

I have to say that for your family, this is usually great. It's always nice to see how changes happens every year and how different each event is. But, if you wanted to show it to some friends, it will just look very repetitious to them.

Now, I went over aperture and shutter speed already. You know by now that both controls the amount of lights into the camera. The shutter speed can be changed to blur or freeze actions and movements. And, aperture, can increase or decrease the depth of field.

One thing you should understand that shutter speed and aperture works in tangent. As you increase the shutter speed one setting, you will need to open up your aperture one setting to maintain the same amount of light exposure to your picture. That is, if you take a picture at f/16 aperture using 1/125 shutter speed, you can take the same picture at f/11 using 1/250.

Combining the two controls in different settings can produce very interesting and diffferent pictures with the same digital camera.

Remember, if you want to blur some actions... then, decrease your shutter speed and narrow down your aperture to compensate the amount of light. On the other hand, if you want to freeze the same actions, you will increase your shutter speed and open up your aperture.

If you are also looking at the foreground or background, you can increase or decrease the depth of field. At the same time you can blur or freeze the action to create some visual effects.

Try testing this in a park with birds. Take pictures with the same subject and background and use different shutter speed settings while compensating the aperture settings in your camera. Look at the results. Then, use the same scenario. This time use your aperture settings to increase and decrease the depth of field while compensating the shutter speed settings in your camera.

You will see that you only need to do very little to achieve extraordinary effects by playing around with these two controls. Many savvy photographers have achieved different special effects in their photographs using these two controls. You can do the same.

Again, practice and practice. You will see how easy it is.

David

Understanding Aperture in a Digital Camera

Basically, the aperture controls the amount of light into the camera. It may be enlarged or contracted.

The size are measured on a scale called "f-stops." A f/2.8 is larger than a f/22 - the smaller the number, the larger the aperture. Most common f-stop settings are: f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11 and f/16. Also, each f-stop is about half as large as the previous one. In other words, f/2.8 allows about twice as much light as the f/4 settings.

Changing your aperture size will not only control the amount of light going into your camera; it can also change the focus of your foreground and background. This area of focusing is called "depth of field."

Larger apertures give a shallow depth of field. In a shallow depth of field, your subject or part of your subject will be in sharp focus. On the other side, smaller apertures give a larger depth of field. That's when most part, if not all, around the subject will be in sharp focus.

Skillful photographers can manipulate the depth of field to emphasize certain details of the pictures and down play other details. With a large aperture, you can focus your subject and blur the background. With a smaller aperture, you can have both your subject and background show up sharply focused in the picture.

If you play enough with it, you can even keep the subject in sharp focus while blurring the foreground and background of the subject.

Try it and see how that works.

David

The Shutter Speed In Your Camera

If you want to take clear pictures with your digital camera, then, you need to understand the shutter speed setting.

What is it? Well, you can find it in your camera with numbers like 15, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, etc. They are actually fractions of a second. For example, 60 is 1/60 of a second and 125 is 1/125 of a second.

This means... it is the time set for the light to expose the photograph. So, if you set it for 125, the shutter will open for 1/125 of a second to take the picture.

Shutter speed seems to control the amount of light to expose your photographs... but, it also controls motion of your photographs. Faster settings (above 125) can freeze movements. The slower settings can show some blurs in the subject.

So, what is the best shutter speed setting for your digital camera? Well, there is no standard setting. It depends what picture you want to take. It depends what you want your picture to look like. Do you want to capture someone in the air after a jump? Or do you want to put some blurriness of someone running so it looks like there is some movement effect?

It is not an easy answer. The best way to find out is to test. Try and try several shutter speed settings. See how they come out. This is not a hard setting to master... but it does take some effort to understand and learn.

Just remember... in the slower shutter speed settings (below 60), you might want to consider using a tripod. The shaking of your hands can affect the picture sharpness.

Go ahead... take some pictures of someone running. Take some pictures of moving cars. Take some pictures of a water stream. Use different shutter speeds in your digital camera. In no time, you will see how simple shutter speed can be useful for taking great photographs.

David

Taking Indoor Sports Pictures

I went to an arena football game last weekend. It was my first time ever and was very interesting game. There was excitement. There were great plays and awesome catches. It was overall fun to watch.

The sad part was that I could not bring in my camera to take any pictures. How am I going to remember all that excitement? How about taking a picture of that receiver diving for the ball?

But, imagined if I was allowed to take some pictures. This can happen to you. You could end up taking pictures of a loved one playing a sport inside a stadium. Now, what do you do? How do you prepare for it?

Well... there are certain things you should understand to capture those exciting moments with your digital camera.

The main thing is to find the right spot to take a picture. Look for a spot that are likely to have a lot of action. In basketball, you will be closer to the basket. In diving, you should be near the diving board. The closer to the action, the better your pictures will be.

Once you found a good spot to take your pictures. Mount your digital camera with a tripod or a monopod. You need something that will keep your camera steady while taking pictures.

Now, set up your camera so you can take those great action pictures. First, if you want still action and capture the moment crisp and clear in all your pictures, you should set up your shutter speed high. And since light will be dimmer, you need to open up your aperture setting too. Be aware that when you open up the aperture in your camera, the depth of field will decrease. That means, that the object far away from the subject will not be as sharp in your picture.

If you want a little of zest, decrease your shutter speed of the camera. This will give some blurriness in the subject of your picture. But, with some practice, your pictures will look like in action.

To compensate the dim light, set up your film speed higher. Not too high or your pictures might look kind of granular and won't be as crisp and sharp.

Another important element is how fast the camera can take a picture from the time you press the button. Make sure you time it correctly. If your camera is slow, then find one that is fast. Action pictures have a small window of opportunity. A slow camera can take the picture after the action has passed.

Taking action pictures indoor involves good techniques and preparation. Remember, test a few shots. Find the right settings. And take great pictures.

David

Three Things to Consider Before Buying a Digital Camera

Here are 3 quick things you should consider before buying your next digital camera:

1. Size - make sure it's the right size. Don't buy a SLR digital camera because it's the best out there. Sometimes they might not be convenient to carry around. Buy a camera that won't get on the way. Also, don't buy a camera that it's too small. Buy one that you can handle and that you can press the buttons easily.
2. Price - this is probably one of the big factor that everyone thinks through before buying a digital camera. But, do not let that turn you off. Also, don't go rushing and buy the most expensive camera out there. Don't buy the latest model either. Buy what you can use. If you can afford one digital camera and are in a tight budget, buy the one you can afford and will be using for a least 3 years.
3. Features - consider the features you need. Like the optical zoom, the digital zoom, the mega pixels, the flash, view screen size and the auto settings. Also, you should get a camera where you can manual set the aperture and shutter speed. It's probably best to get the one with the most optical zoom available. 3X optical zoom should be enough for most pictures you take. Digital zoom are like a bonus.

It's also okay to get several cameras (if you can afford them). Get a nice higher end camera so you can take really crisp pictures. Use it for special events to take memorable pictures. And get a cheaper and easy to carry digital camera. You can carry this one around with you all the time. You might take this to the beach, to play sports or to take pictures in crowded places like in a restaurant.

I recommend to look at the type of memory cards and batteries the camera uses. I myself like the camera that uses the SD memory cards and normal batteries like AA types.

Memory is very important for picture taking. But, they can be the most expensive item aside from the camera itself. You will spend more money with cameras that limit your choices of memory cards.

Also, it is very important that you can quickly get batteries when you run out and not worry about recharging them. If you don't care what batteries the camera uses, then, make sure to get an extra backup battery. And remember to have them fully charge before using your camera. The good thing about cameras that uses AA batteries is that you can buy rechargable AA batteries. And if you out of charge in the middle of a shoot, it is easy and economical to buy AA batteries.

Good shoot and good pictures. Until next time...

David