PHOTOGRAPHY NOTEBOOK

Adjusting studio flash on location

2011-04-23T01:42:00.000-07:00

Balancing a light from a studio strobe with available light outside can give you some stunning images. When you use a flash outside, you have to control two exposure at the same time. Reason for this is that you are working with two different sources of light.

One of the sources of light is ambient light. Ambient light is the light comes from the sun. Sometimes it also called Available light. Other source of light is called Artificial light, the light comes from studio strobe. Ambient light is the light we cannot control. We have to adjust the camera settings to the Ambient light for its proper background exposure. Artificial light is the light we can control. Once we have the exposure set for the Ambient light, we can adjust the settings of the strobe to match and get a perfect fill light.

As told we can't control the Ambient light, its really important that you shoot at a time of a day when the light looks its best. Try shooting just after sun rise or just before sun set. If you shoot at the middle of the day you won't get the desired result. Since you are using a studio strobe on location we have some limits what we can do with our camera.

There are three steps to get started:
1. Set your camera to manual mode. Make sure your shutter speed is set to your camera's sync speed.
2. Point your camera to the area just behind your subject, and adjust your aperture to have correct exposure.
3. Meter your flash: adjust your flash up in telemeters at the same f-stop value, as your camera settings.

Once you finished these steps, you are ready to shoot. There are two more steps which would help you out.
4. Take a test shot and see how everything looks. You might want to adjust the shutter speed if you want to change the ambient light exposure. You can always overexpose or underexpose the background depending of the looks you want to achieve.

You should keep measuring the Ambient light as its changing continuously.

Travel Photography Tips:

2011-04-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some tips for Travel Photographers.

Getup early in the morning.
Take wide angle and telephoto lenses with you.
You can take pictures with same 18-200mm lens. But its better to split to two lenses, 18-55mm and 52-200mm.
Don't shoot everything with the lens at infinity. Go in close for interesting details. This can reveal a lot of information about the place.
Some pictures look better in the portrait or vertical orientation.
Don't shoot every time in high level. Try to shoot from lower levels too.
Don't put the camera everything in the Program Mode, it will miss the opportunity to take creative shots. Try setting lower shutter speeds to have creative blur and wide aperture for shallow depth of filed.
Some times flash does magic in day light too. So try to use flash in low light (shadow) situation. Off course use flash at night. But
Don't forget to take snaps of people. A Place is much about its people and culture. A telephoto is recommenced for portraits.
Try to shoot the Sunset as it shows the end.

An example for great travel Photography:

RULES TO TAKE GOOD PICTURES

2011-04-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

Composition is an essential to know how to take good pictures.
1. The Rule of Thirds states that the strongest composition is created when the subject is off-center in the photo. You look through the viewfinder on your camera and visually, divide the area into three areas vertically and horizontally. Your subject should be in the upper left, lower left, upper right or lower right section of the viewfinder.

2. When to ignore the Rule of Thirds. Sometimes, you will have a subject that will just not follow the rule, but still works as a strong composition. For example, when photographing a flower or face that it fills the entire frame of your viewfinder it wouldn't make sense to use the Rule of Thirds. Filling the viewfinder is usually a great way to have a strong composition when you are photographing just one item.

Rules take good pictures

2011-04-08T06:48:00.000-07:00

Composition is an essential to know how to take good pictures.
1. It is important to learn the Rule of Thirds.
The Rule of Thirds states that the strongest composition is created when the subject is off-center in the photo. You look through the viewfinder on your camera and visually, divide the area into three areas vertically and horizontally. Your subject should be in the upper left, lower left, upper right or lower right section of the viewfinder.
2. You need to know when to ignore the Rule of Thirds. Sometimes, you will have a subject that will just not follow the rule, but still works as a strong composition. For example, when photographing a flower or face that it fills the entire frame of your viewfinder it wouldn't make sense to use the Rule of Thirds. Filling the viewfinder is usually a great way to have a strong composition when you are photographing just one item.

How camera Shutter Works?

2011-03-26T02:12:00.001-07:00

Our Camera is made up of two curtains. They are names as First Curtain (upper) and Second Curtain(lower). These curtains are always closed. Unless the curtains in out houses, camera curtains move vertically. When you press the 'shutter release' it tells the camera to open the shutter. Then the first curtain opens to reveal the light to the camera sensor. Then the second curtain follow behind to hide the light. Then the first curtain reset ans wait for you to release the shutter release again. In slower shutter speeds like 1/200 and below, only the second curtain will wait for the first curtain to open completely.

Sync Speed:
Sync speed is the faster shutter speed, of a camera that allows the first curtain to fully open before the second curtain begins to follow. In another words it is the fastest shutter speed you can use with the studio settings.

Consider if you want to click a photo on studio in which the model is jumping. In this case you should use a faster shutter speed in normal case. But if you use a shutter speed faster that sync speed, there will be a black line in the resulting photo. What you can do on this situation?

EXPOSURE TRIANGLE

2011-03-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

Exposure Triangle is made up of three things:

Aperture
Shutter Speed
ISO

Let us have a look how light enters a camera and makes a picture.

The light coming to the lens has to pass through something called Aperture and then passes through the Shutter and finally hits the Sensor.

Aperture: It controls the quantity of light should come to the shutter and then the sensor.
Shutter: It controls the duration of the light.

Aperture and Shutter Speed and very much related to each other. Let us looks how can we balance their values while taking a picture.
If we have a large Aperture opening,more light coming to the lens, we can go for a fast shutter speed (1/2000). Same case reverses if we are using a small Aperture(Shutter speed 1/15).

To help us regarding this matter, most of the cameras having Shutter Priority Mode and Aperture Priority Mode. If we go for a Shutter Priority Mode, the camera will recognize the shutter speed that set by us and provides the best Aperture for the best result. In Aperture Priority Mode, device will choose the best Shutter speed for a given Aperture for the bast result. In Nikon Cameras, Shutter Priority Mode is given as 'S', where as in Canon it is gives as Tv(Time value). Aperture Priority Mode is given as 'A' in Nikon and 'Av' in Canon cameras.

ISO: In a low light situation, our eyes readjusts its the sensitivity to light accordingly. Same way, while shooting in low light situations, we can adjust the sensitivity of sensor of the camera. If we are shooting on a bright sunny day, we can go for low ISO values like 100 or 200. But at night or dark situation, we have to use ISO values like 1600 or 3200.

PANNING - Technique for taking action photos

2011-03-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

This technique uses a slower shutter speed. Camera and the subject will be in motion, not the background.

Example for Panning Shot:

To get a great Panning Picture:
1. Shutter Priority Mode
2. Shutter need to be slower as possible (1/30 or 1/15)
3. Continuous auto focus mode (AI SERVO mode in Canon Cameras)
4. Center Auto focus Point
5. Shoot when the subject in directly in-front of you.
6. Continuous Drive Mode (you get a bunch of shots in a single shutter release)

APERTURE VALUE - Definition

2011-03-23T04:06:00.000-07:00

Aperture value is the size of the hole the light passes through.

Small Opening - Large Aperture Value
Large Opening - Small Aperture Value

Aperture is found in your camera's lens, not in the camera!

Lens Specification:
85mm 1:1.2 : Here Milli meter is the focal length and 1.2 is the widest aperture value of the lens. '1:' means 'in a minute'. The Folca Length always comes first followed by the Aperture Value.
70-200mm 2.8: If the focal length is a range, it means that the lens is a zoom lens. It zooms from 70mm to 200mm.
70-300mm 4.5-5.6: Obviously its a zoom lens which zooms from 70 mm to 300mm. Now comes '4.5 - 5.6'. This means the aperture will not be stay constant while zooming. It varies. Most of the consumer lenses are of this category as lenses which give constant aperture value, costs more.

WHITE BALANCE

2011-03-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

To solve issues with color.

The light source may be warmer or cooler. Adjust the white balance first and then take a picture.

DEPTH OF FIELD

2011-03-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

Shallow depth of field. : It means subject is in focus and background is out of focus.

There are THREE things that control DEPTH OF FILED.

Aperture
Focal Length
Distance from Subject.

1. Aperture: To get a shallow depth of field, you need a wide (large) aperture opening (a small aperture value). The larger the opening, the shallower the depth of filed.

2. Focal Length: Focal length also have a great impact on depth of field. When focal length increases, the depth of field decreases.

3. Distance from the subject: The closer you are to your subject, the shallower your depth of field will be.