I wanted to share some basic photography videos from www.youtube.com that have been very helpful to me. Youtube is a great resource to find good basic information on all sorts of aspects of photography. Rick Sammom has a number of videos that break down things to sweet and simple steps.
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This is a great video from Robert Vasquez from Photo Magic Productions. He simply explains, shutter speed, ISO, and depth of field. Awesome job!! His website is www.smays.com
You know what ruined this absolutely fabulous picture?
THESE, Evil Dust Bunnies! And you know what? They could ruin your photos too. Oh sure, the image may look just fine on your computer but zoom in close and then you’ll really know the quality of your shot. In this case, CRAP! The healing brush and blur tool in this case were very helpful. If you have a digital SLR camera and you’re scared to clean your sensor, you should be. Read why: http://www.photos-of-the-year.com/articles/clean-sensor/ If you have OCD, I would recommend skipping this link altogether otherwise you may needlessly obsess about all the possible damage you may do to your camera (experience here). But know if you send it off to be cleaned, be ready to wait for at least two weeks. If you feel brave enough to try to clean your sensor on your on, read this. If you have a digital SLR camera and you want to know how to clean your sensor click here. http://www.beyondmegapixels.com/2009/12/tips-for-keeping-your-camera-clean/ Come back for Freebie Friday and a featured action of the week on yes, you guessed it FRIDAY. It’s a brand new year and I’ve promised myself to take better pictures more often. It’s easy to get stuck in click and go mentality. Sometimes just moving around and looking for a new angle can make your pictures so much more interesting. Shot #1 Welcome to Idaho! Nothing about this shot excites me (not that Idaho is terribly exciting anyway). So what do I do? I move.
Shot #2 Ok, this is more interesting, we’re getting a little warmer. Let’s take it one step further.
Shot #3 So this is a totally different feel from Shot #1. I really love how the blue of the sky is matching his eyes. I like his expression and how his body just kind swags. I think growing up in front of a camera my son feels fairly comfortable having a big lens following him around.
Shot #4 I take one more shot, with his head replacing the “O” of IDAHO. I’m thinking this is the shot I’m going to like best until I look at them at home on my computer and then I can see Shot #3 just works better for me. Good heavens, my filter over my lens is filthy (fortunately an easy fix). Looking for that better angle isn’t rocket science, just a few steps one way or the other. Try it at home and let me know how it works for you!
Here’s another shot from the shoot last week with Rodger Newbold from the Salt Lake Arts Center. Rodger brought along a number of reflectors as well as large plastic mirrors he picked up from an industrial type of store. The mirrors were more powerful than the traditional reflectors and were helpful adding more light to shape around the model.just didn’t cut it. Here, by reflecting the early evening light back on to the model, Jessica, it eliminated shadows and created those beautiful catch lights in her eyes (love this light). Here are a few other steps that I always do for outdoor pictures.
So are girl photographers just dumb about the whole technical aspect of photography? That was meant to be an inflammatory statement (my brothers are famous for them). But I really got thinking about this after reading David Hobby’s blog post about the gender gap of his readership on the incredibly popular Strobist (a blog dedicated to providing information on how to use off camera flash) and the attendance to his flash workshops (6% vs. 75%). What was more intesting to me than the article itself were the 200+ responses on his blog including one woman who wrote that she never noticed there was a gender gap…and I thought, is she autistic? If we don’t want to get fired from our positions at a Harvard, maybe, we’d say there is no difference in the way men and women approach, learn, and do photography. After reading this I’ve been ruminating about this….it would be politically correct to say…no, but it is honest to say….yep…generally women are dumber about the technical aspects of photography than men. You can quote me on that. As a whole women may not be as technically savvy as men with camera technical issues, but they certainly don’t let it hold them back. I can’t speak for my gender because I, more than most people, am technically developmentally delayed with technical stuff. Some of this is by choice; I don’t text or know how to use a DVD player (I don’t watch DVD’s) and some of it simply due to the fact that I am a little slow in processing written technical information. As a rule, I never shoot in anything other than manual on my camera and for my flash, only because by shooting in these modes, I always know what I’m going to get. Show me and I’ll be just fine. I did this shot and a whole bunch of others after watching commercial photographer Michael Schoenfeld Michael Schoenfeld do a test shoot. I thought, hmmm, “I can do that.” For this shot, I didn’t want just another pretty picture. I want to capture the fragility and uncertainty of childhood. I used an off camera Canon Speedlite flash a 60′ umbrella that my inebriated friend had stepped on, and a reflector that the neighborhood kids had used as a parachute, in my small dining area. I have no backdrop so the set up is just about as low tech as you can get when it comes to off camera flash, but I was thrilled with the results. Flash set 1/4 +.03 about three and half feet to the left of my subject. A reflector placed on the table where she was sitting to bounce the light up. Camera settings ISO 200, 125 ss, f 4.0 . I processed this relying heavily on my blue filter so that the skin would have a more gritty heavy feel. So the main point of this post is, “Don’t your fear or lack of technical knowledge hold you back, girls or not.” What are your thoughts? Do women photograph differently than men? Do you ever get an image printed up and think, “Wait that doesn’t look right!” One of the most important things for you to know is that your camera is a liar. The LCD screen on the the back of your camera rarely reflects the information you’ve captured accurately. He’s not trying to lie to you, he simply can not help it. The camera can only read so much information. Not only that, but getting your camera, computer monitor and printer to all speak the same language is tricky. In fact, there are all sorts of books and programs to help you with this. The best way for you to avoid such betrayal and deception is for you to do is to learn to read your histogram. Not only learn to read but learn to love it. Do you know what a histogram is? You should be able to find it by scrolling through your menu. So today, I don’t want to teach you how to give a lie detector test, I just want you to realize your camera, your friend, is a liar. He’s doing the best he can. Here are some great articles on how to read a histogram. By learning to read your histogram, you’re going to save your self a lot of headaches of trying to fix your picture after the fact. http://www.digital-slr-guide.com/how-to-read-a-histogram.html If you want to take better pictures, you’re gonna need to learn WHAT makes a good picture. This is a picture I shot, that I like. It’s pretty good, definitely not great. But it has some elements I really like. I can tell you what I think makes a good picture. You definition may be different, but here are my thoughts. 1. Synergy and Composition – The technical elements all work together (depth of field, color quality, etc.) and the composition is well done. If you say to yourself, “I just want to take pictures of my kids or my dog, do I really need to know that stuff?” Here are my two favorite places to visit to view outstanding images. You will find work that moves you, photos that make think, “What the h#$% is that?”, and photos most likely you will hate. It’s fabulous! It’s a collection of some of the world’s best photographers in two places. If you have an image that you shares the beauty in your life, share it with us and we may feature it here. I’m also taking submissions for step-by-step edits. marcel@myphotographica.com
“I love to shoot wide open!” I found those words coming from a newbie photographer who shoots in auto focus a little scary. Let me digress a little and explain what wide open means and then show you WHY you better know something if you shoot wide open and want to have your pictures turn out good.
This is Marcel speak. I’m throwing out technical terms and just going to give it to you plain and simple. Shooting wide open, at a low depth of field, on your aperture means you are using a low number and thus the portion of the image that will appear in focus will be more limited. This was shot with an aperture of 2.8. Shooting wide open means you get a nice cool blur effect. It’s great for portraiture, dandelion stems, and low light situations.
My son, Child 2 as I like to call him, asked “So I’m standing here in the middle of this field holding this stem because….?” Because I want to help you, dear readers, to get this concept. This was shot with of aperture of f/stop of 10. F/10 means more will be in focus. This picture should be sharper, but standing in a middle of field with Child 2, pondering the meaning of the situation, I was laughing…a lot. Let’s just leave it at that for right now. If you want a lot to be in focus, use a higher depth of field. Why shooting with a lower depth of field can be scary? Because people shoot in auto focus (or Auto Frack as I like to call it). You really want to mess up your pictures, shoot them in Auto Frack.
This shot? Auto Frack at 2.8. Beautiful golden autumn evening. My daughter or Child 1, is here wearing her favorite hat (which is actually mine by the way). Auto Frack focuses lovely on the hair, but the eyes? Generally the most important feature to be sharp, blurry, but boy that hair and part of the hat NICE! X for Blurry and Stars for Focused=bad shot.
Ok, so now I tell Auto Frack to go to heck and manual focus at 2.8, oh wow! It worked! Still, the left eye is softer than the right. For them both to be in focus they need to be on the same plane. They are not. You will have a button on the side of your lens that will give you the option of auto or manual focus. On the Canon lenses, it is located generally on the left side and will say AF for auto focus or MF for manual focus. Switch to MF for the most consistent results.
So, now I shoot at f/6.3 and look, oh wow, both eyes in focus (almost. the left is still out a little…the dog was jumping on me, the cat was lounging on my feet, and Child 2 was throwing dandelions stems in the shot, we will call it good). Now, if I’m standing 10 feet away will this difference be so pronounced? No, but I’ll leave that for another day. You want to understand depth of field, turn off the auto focus and practice. For a more in depth discussion and somewhat confusing article, visit, http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/dof.shtml. You may have to read it ten or fifteen times. I will visit this subject again. Next week on Photography Tips, “Why your Camera LCD is a Liar and how to avoid Deception and Betrayal from the one you love”. I’ll be here on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays.
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