Phototuts+

Capturing Simplicity in a Maternity Photoshoot – Tuts+ Premium

Grace Salzer — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:00:21 +0000

We have another Photo Premium tutorial exclusively available to Premium members today. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through a simple maternity photo shoot. Learn more after the jump!

As with anything, you can make a maternity shoot as simple or as detailed as you like. The outfits, the locations, the potential results could be endless! However, there are many excellent reasons for keeping it simple.

One reason may be that you don’t have much time carved out for the shoot due to the mother being busy preparing for baby’s arrival. Or maybe the mother is quite far along already and doesn’t have much energy for 2-3 hours of shooting. Maybe the mother wants to capture a few shots of her baby belly while on bedrest. There are numerous reasons to keep a maternity shoot simple and here I will outline ways to do so.

1 The Location

Choosing an outdoor location will all depend on how willing your expectant mum is on venturing out. Hiking out to a remote waterfall in the jungle might be out of the question! Do you have a beach nearby? Or a nice neighborhood park? Even somewhere as simple as the brick wall of a house can make for a fantastic outdoor venue with plenty of texture & contrast.

Your client might be one who’s on doctor’s orders to stay in bed. Your location is now chosen for you. You might feel ‘stuck’ creatively by being at someone’s home, but don’t let that get you down! There are many options at hand.

Think about using the nursery or a pretty window on the landing. Maybe it’s their house which has the nice brick wall! Or their garden, driveway, fountain, water feature, pond, library, kitchen.

2 Equipment

Most of the time all a shoot like this calls for is your camera and favorite portrait lens. If shooting inside, consider bringing your flash, a small spotlight (or use a lamp already at the house). If outside consider a reflector…and that’s about it really! Obviously, don’t forget all your back-up bits and bobs like a spare battery, next favourite lens, extra batteries for your flash, and all the rest.

3 The Outfit

This will most likely depend on what the mother feels most comfortable in. You can of course make some suggestions! Dresses would seem the most feminine and depending on the fabric used can give off different sentiments such as romance, love, beauty, nurturing, etc. The way dresses fall over the body shows the expectant shape wonderfully and will flatter any figure.

Some other outfits might include a men’s oversized shirt with buttons undone halfway down to show belly. Or for a more classy look go with piece of long cloth to drape over female form in various ways. For a more casual look, go with a tube top or bikini top with unbuttoned pre-pregnancy jeans to show off belly’s size & contrast. Think about jeans & a simple tank top, striking colour combinations, stripes/dots, lingerie or nothing at all!

Tune In for More

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This is a really interesting technique to perfect, and you’ll be really pleased with the result! This Premium tutorial will help you get started with ease.

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Using LumiQuest’s Fold Flat Softbox

Andrew Childress — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:00:23 +0000

The power of small flash units is really remarkable. From battery powered flash units, we can pull enough light for portraits, wildlife, and lighting entire scenes. However, sometimes that light can be harsh and unflattering to subjects. Modifiers are a fantastic way to soften the light and spread it more evenly, and today we’ll be looking at one of the best ones out there, the LumiQuest Softbox III.

Why a Softbox?

The entire purpose of a softbox is to soften the light from a flash source. If you’ve visited or checked out the setup of big photo studios, you might have noticed big flash units, often called monolights or strobes. You’ll almost always see some type of modifier attached to these unit, whether it’s a big umbrella, a softbox, or a more unique type of modifier such as a beauty dish.

The truth is that for flattering photos of subjects, direct light from these units is almost always too harsh and throws unsightly shadows on the person being photographed.

When we think of light, we should always keep in mind the size of our source. An example that I frequently use is the sun and clouds. If you’ve ever been out and taken pictures on a bright and sunny day, you’ll notice the harsh shadows almost anywhere you look. Portraits in direct sunlight will feature big shadows under the chin or around the eyes, depending on the placement of the sun.

Now, consider the quality of light that you’ll observe on cloudy days. Even if you can’t see the sun directly, it passes through the clouds and is softened. Shadows on subjects are almost unobservable when there are clouds to diffuse the sun’s rays. In some ways, clouds are the world’s largest softboxes. They increase the size of the light source (in this case the sun) from a tiny dot in the sky to the size of the entire sky. The light is then described as soft.

The relationship in size with flash units is much the same. If we use a bare flash, the quality of our light is going to be harsh. We are pushing a lot of light out of a relatively small rectangle, so harsh light is the result. You’ll see photographers bounce flash to get around this, but another great way is to use a softbox.

You might not consider overcast days to be great for portrait shoots, but the truth is the giant clouds act as great softboxes for the the sun. Photo by Claire Whitehouse.

The important part of my personal flash philosophy is mixing ambient light with light from flash units. If you aren’t familiar with the term “ambient”, it simply refers to the light that’s already in a scene. It can be something like the sunlight coming through the windows, or the lamp that lights up a living room. Sometimes, it’s not enough to light a scene, so we mix in flash with the ambient light.

However, flash can have a dominant effect. This is where a softbox becomes invaluable: softening the light introduced by the flash to appear more like ambient.

As you may have already learned with photography, there are rarely absolutes. Soft light isn’t what we are always looking for, but when we do, we look to softboxes as the perfect way to lose the harsh shadows and provide great light.

Meet the LumiQuest Softbox III

Awhile back, I began becoming interested in using flash in a less obtrusive way. I loved that I could manufacture my own light on location, but I wasn’t always pleased with the quality of light that my flash units provided me. I once told a friend that my goal with flash was always to make it seem as if I hadn’t used flash.

When a fellow photographer offered up this softbox as a solution, I took the plunge. It was inexpensively priced at under $40 and was virtually a no brainer. Additionally, it didn’t require any type of special connector or attachment to affix to my flash unit of choice, and worked with all of my flash units.

The LumiQuest Softbox III is fantastic because it folds flat and fits in the side pocket of my camera bag easily.

Another one of the things that attracted me to this product was the amazing form factor that it provides. It can fold down and fit flat in my camera bag and can spring to life in a matter of seconds.

The best modifiers are the ones that you will actually carry, so this softbox scores big in this category. I’ve got enough big accessories that stay at home because they’re inconvenient to carry. So when I add something, size is always important.

After receiving the softbox, I couldn’t wait to get started with lighting scenes. Setup was nearly instantaneous. The flaps of the softbox have the crinkly velcro that attached to the soft velcro on my 285HV. One thing that I might suggest is to pick up a Honl Speed Strap. This wraps around the flash and the softbox and keeps the connection tight. The softbox is pretty lightweight so it won’t fall off easily.

I affixed the softbox to my flash unit using velcro on the flash unit. The softbox has flaps with crinkly velcro to attach to the soft side of velcro.

The softbox does a great job of softening the light and increasing the area of your flash.

I used some metallic, reflective blinds to give you a better idea of how this softbox modifies the light. The top photo shows off the effect of direct flash, while the bottom shows off the impact of the LumiQuest Softbox III. As you can see, the light has a much greater spread and throws off far less harsh reflection in the center. The reflection from the blinds is different because the light is softer when you use the softbox. Harsh light throws back harsh reflections, so imagine the ways that a softbox will aid in providing high quality light in portraits.

In this photo using bare flash, some reflective glare appeared in the center of the image.

This photo used the softbox and the result is a much greater, even spread of light. (The vignetting was an effect of the lens and aperture being used)

The cool thing about softboxes is the fact that they can be used for so many different things and in so many different ways. I spent the afternoon making some shots with this softbox to show off the variety of things that can be accomplished with it and a small flash unit.

Studio Portraits

It doesn’t take renting space and furnishing a studio to get those great studio quality photos. With this softbox, all it takes is a flash unit and a large enough space to manufacture studio style portraits from anywhere in the world.

I again recruited my friend for what would appear to be a “studio” type black background photo. In reality, the image was made in the middle of the road using only a chair and the LumiQuest Softbox III with a flash unit. Adding in a simple reflector or another light could really complete the look and provide a “studio on the go” type setup.

Lighting Environments

One of my favorite tricks to light creatively is to apply gels. It can make a part of a photo really stand out. Gels are simply colored, semi transparent thin plastic that go over flash units to change the color of the light involved.

In this photo, I used the flash with a softbox and a yellow gel to light the mailboxes outside my apartment. It makes them stand out and appear unnatural in a good way, although the softbox makes it look perhaps as if I didn’t use a harsh flash. The effect here is to provide a light that appears from nowhere, yet doesn’t have the telltale look of bare flash.

Environmental Portraits

One of the most ideal applications for a softbox like the LumiQuest is to utilize it on the go in environmental portraits. When I use the term “environmental portraits”, this just refers to placing a subject somewhere outside a studio in the midst of any type of environment.

The truth of the matter is that you will rarely have ideal lighting for photographing a person. Although natural light works quite frequently, the truth is that only flash can provide certain lighting looks. If that’s what you’re looking for, the need to introduce flash arises.

However, with bare bulb flash (no modifier) we are somewhat tied to a look. Bare flash is harsh. Again, this isn’t always bad, but if we’re looking for natural yet unique lighting, introducing flash with the LumiQuest softbox III attached is the perfect solution.

That’s exactly what I applied when I ventured out for the evening with a friend. We were testing it and fired a test shot in the nearby woods in front of some train tracks. It was almost pitch black, but we used the softbox with our flash unit to provide simple yet effective lighting.

This photo used the flash with the softbox to the right of the camera to light the scene. Despite being almost completely dark, the softbox was an improvement over the rather harsh lighting of bare flash.

Wrapping Up

In all, I can’t recommend a softbox such as this one enough. It may sound cliche, but it’s truly a game changer when it comes to using small flash units. I feel as if I can get the best of both worlds, portability and quality, from the small flash units that have somewhat limited my lighting style in the past. Inexpensively priced and extremely portable, it’s not hard to justify a spot in your bag for it.

The examples above show just some of the applications of a softbox with a flash. However, these are just a few of the great applications for it. You can turn to a softbox any time that you want to subtly add in your own soft light. Bare bulb flash certainly has its place in my list of flash tricks, but I find myself turning to applying natural flash techniques more often that mimic the look of ambient light.

How do you feel about using modifiers on the go? Have you picked up something like the LumiQuest, or are you a bare bulb flash fan? Make sure to chime in with a comment to let us know.

Best Way to Learn About Exposure: Exposure Modes and Metering

Andrew Gibson — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:00:52 +0000

Today, we’ll build on out knowledge of histograms and exposure compensation and continue our exploration of exposure. You now may be wondering why your camera has so many exposure and metering modes, and which ones you should use. This article will help you understand the difference and select the best modes for you.

There are two more steps to taking control over your camera’s exposure controls:

Choosing Exposure Mode for More Control

Most cameras (with the exception of some semi-professional and professional models) have a range of fully automatic exposure modes. These are indicated by various icons and have names such as portrait, landscape and night.

If you use any fully automatic exposure mode, now is the time to stop. These modes are quite restricted and don’t give you much, if any, control over the shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings.

Why does your camera have so many exposure modes? The fully automatic modes are designed to help people who don’t know much about photography to use the camera right away. They are not aimed at photographers who can decided for themselves which aperture, shutter speed or ISO to use.

In my view, the fully automatic exposure modes clutter up the dial and create confusion. In practice, you only need four exposure modes. They are Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program and Manual. Here’s how they work:

Aperture Priority

You set the aperture and ISO and the camera sets the shutter speed accordingly. I use this when I’m taking landscapes, as I normally set a small aperture to ensure front to back sharpness, or when I’m taking portraits as I often set a wide aperture (around f1.4 to f2.8) for a narrow depth-of-field.

I used an aperture of f/2.5 to take the photo of a flower above. My priority was to use a wide aperture to throw the background out of focus.

Shutter Priority

You set the shutter speed and ISO and the camera sets the shutter speed. I use this when I’m hand-holding the camera to set a shutter speed to prevent camera shake. Sports photographers may use this mode to set a shutter speed that freezes action.

Though in the landscape above, I used shutter priority to insure that the wave blurred. I set the shutter speed to 1/2 second and asked my model to stay still throughout the exposure.

Program AE (auto-exposure)

You set the ISO and the camera selects both aperture and shutter speed. Some cameras have an Auto ISO setting that lets you tell the camera that it can adjust ISO between two settings (say ISO 100 and ISO 400). This is a good general mode to use that lets you concentrate on composition while the camera takes care of aperture and shutter speed.

The photo above is the sort of scene you could use Program AE for. Neither the aperture or shutter speed is important for creative reasons, and it is be fine for the camera to select both.

Creative Exercise One:

Put your camera in aperture priority mode and take a series of photos where you decide which aperture to use, and let the camera take care of the other settings. If the shutter speed is dropping too low to hand-hold the camera safely, raise the ISO to compensate. This exercise works well if you use the widest aperture settings of your lens to take photos with a blurred background.

Portraits, like this one taken at f1.8 , are a good example. The out of focus background adds atmosphere and directs your attention to the girl.

Now put your camera in shutter priority mode and take some photos where you decide which shutter speed to use and let the camera take care of the other settings. This is a good chance to experiment with using slow shutter speeds to blur motion. Put your camera on a tripod to keep it steady while you do this.

I used a shutter speed of 30 seconds to take this photo. The long exposure has blurred the motion of the sea and the clouds.

Learning the Difference Between Metering Modes

Most digital SLRs have the following exposure modes:

Evaluative Metering

The camera’s most advanced metering system. The camera divides the viewfinder up into zones and compares exposure readings from each zone to come up with a suggested exposure setting. Gives good results most of the time. Exposure is weighted towards the active autofocus point (or points) as they are likely to be covering the main subject.

This diagram shows how Canon’s iFCL (intelligent focus, colour and luminance) evaluative metering sensor works. The sensor is divided into two colour sensitive layers and 63 zones. It is complex and sophisticated, but will still get the exposure wrong if the subject is lighter or darker than average.

This diagram shows Canon cameras with iFCL metering split the frame into 63 zones. Each zone is metered individually, with the overall exposure reading weighted towards the in-focus AF points.

Note: Evaluative metering is Canon’s term; Nikon uses “matrix metering,” Pentax and Sony “multi-segment metering.”

Center-Weighted Metering

Weights exposure towards the centre of the viewfinder. Works well if your subject is in the centre of the frame. If not, you have to point the centre of the viewfinder at your subject, hold the shutter button half-way down to lock in the exposure, then reframe. Evaluative/matrix/multi-segment metering were developed to make it easier to measure exposure with off-center subjects.

Spot Metering

Takes an exposure reading from where your focus point is. Some people use this if they base exposure on the Zone System. When I find it really helpful is when you have small bright subject against a black background. You’ll find this situation a lot during theater performances and the like.

Creative Exercise Two:

Try photographing the same scene with the different exposure modes. Do they give you different exposure readings? Is it easiest to get the correct exposure with evaluative or centre-weighted metering? What does spot metering tell you about the brightness range within the scene?

Results will vary according to what you’re photographing, so try this exercise with several types of subject matter.

Personally, I use evaluative metering the mowt, but it’s useful to know how the other metering modes work in case one of them suits your way of working better.

Using Manual Mode

One potential problem with evaluative metering is that the camera readings can change according to how you frame the subject, even though the ambient light levels haven’t changed. This is down to the balance of light and dark tones within the frame, and is quite common.

The above photo shows a situation where this happened to me. The girl is dressed in white and the camera’s suggested exposure settings changed as I framed the scene in different ways. Switching to manual mode stopped that from happening.

The advantage of manual mode is that, once you’ve established the optimum exposure setting, that the camera settings are locked in and won’t change if you reframe the subject. This works well as long as the ambient light is steady. If the ambient light is changing (for instance, if the sun is going in and out behind clouds), then you are better off using an automatic exposure mode.

I start off by taking an exposure reading in aperture priority mode. I transfer the settings to manual mode then take a photo and check the histogram. I make any adjustments required then take another test photo. Once the histogram is where I want it I can continue with the shoot.

Creative Exercise Three:

Go out and take some photos in manual mode, adjusting the ISO, aperture and shutter speed individually and checking the histogram to arrive at the correct exposure. This is a good way to learn about the relationship between these settings.

Additional Resources Here at Phototuts+

Phototuts+ Exposure Session – A series of articles about exposure.
Exposing to the Right – Learn about exposing to the right area of the histogram, what it means and if it works.
18% Grey Cards – Grey cards are a useful accessory for helping to determine both exposure and white balance.
Phototuts+ Quiz: Exposure – You should be an expert by now, so why not take the exposure quiz?

Books

These books (linked to on Amazon) explore the topic of exposure in more depth:

eBooks

These short eBooks will also help you get to grips with exposure:

Conclusion

Exposure is a surprisingly complex topic, but once you understand the underlying principles you should be able to cope with just about any lighting situation. The lessons and exercises in these articles are a good start, and the articles and books listed will help you gain an deeper understanding.

Ed Kashi on the Changing Face of Marseille

Cameron Knight — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:00:57 +0000

Just because you didn’t get to go to that awesome photography conference doesn’t mean that you can’t learn something from the pros! Occasionally, we’ll be featuring a recommended photography lecture or interview on Phototuts+.

Today, we’re featuring a piece from National Geographic Live! Ed Kashi recently documented the city of Marseille, France. According to his website, “while the rest of Europe frets over immigration and its impacts, Marseille, France’s largest city, has built a peculiar cohesiveness out of diversity and difference. The population of nearly one million is the most ethnically diverse in France: a third claim roots in Italy; there are 80,000 Jews making it the third largest Jewish community in Europe; there are 200,000 Africans of which most are Muslim.

“This mlange of identities has created a distinct sense of belonging and pride though it has not been without its challenges. Still it remains strangely immune to ethnic violence. Once famous as a hang out of the Mafia and a highway for heroin it is on the verge of becoming a hip destination with its broad beaches, world music and international cuisine. And perhaps even a lesson in tolerance for the rest of Europe.”

Ed Kashi is probably one of the top ten photojournalists currently working in the world and a pioneer of new media journalism. Visit his excellent website at www.edkashi.com.

Which Tuts+ Site Should We Launch Next?

David Appleyard — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:12:29 +0000

We’re planning our next few Tuts+ sites, and would love your opinion and advice on which topics you think we should cover next! We’d be really grateful if you could take a minute to answer our quick poll and share your thoughts…

Have Your Say

We’ve been considering lots of different ideas for our next Tuts+ sites over the past few weeks, and wanted to also ask the opinion of our awesome community!

A selection of different concepts are included in the poll to the right, along with the option for you to submit your own ideas as well.

The important thing to note is that these are just ideas. Some of these are close to making our final cut, and others aren’t… We’d love to hear what you think, to help guide our decision.

Thanks for taking the time to offer your suggestion — I can’t wait to see what you have to say!

Win a 6-Month Tuts+ Premium Membership

Our poll will be running for the next couple of weeks, and we’ll be choosing one respondent at random to receive a six-month Tuts+ Premium membership!

To be entered into the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post to go into a bit more detail about your site suggestion. We’ll choose one comment at random to win the Tuts+ Premium membership when the poll ends.

Best of luck!

Easy Tips for Shooting the Moon

Jose Antunes — Sat, 12 May 2012 15:00:37 +0000

Pictures of a big moon over a landscape are many times the result of a double exposure. Even when the moon comes closer to Earth, as it did recently, it is too small to fill the frame with normal gear. Still, there are ways to get around the thousands of miles that separate us and our big nightlight.

For the 5th of May perigee, the Moon was closer to Earth, but not enough to fill the whole frame on a EOS 5D MK III with a 400mm.

The 5th of May 2012 had the Moon at its perigee (point of trajectory closer to Earth), and closer to us than usual. The same happened in March 2011, but in both occasions, even if closer, it was still far too distant for you to get more than a small coin in the middle of your frame. In fact in March 2012 it was at 356,575 km and this May it was at 356,955 km.

Using a wide-angle lens makes the Moon become a small white disk up in the sky. That’s how the moon looks in many photos.

Depending on where you were on Earth, you had a different sized “supermoon”, as people called it, to watch. Getting the Moon rising on the horizon is one of the best options, as it seems to become smaller as it travels upwards. And once it is up there, it’s a small dot in the night sky, especially if you are using a wide-angle lens to fill the image with, for example a monument.

1. Longer lens or telescope

Unless you attach your camera to a telescope, not even a 400mm lens is enough to get a bigger picture of the Moon. The trick is to do two exposures, and then merge them together in your image editor.

The thumbnail shows the whole frame and its size, while the 600×400 image shows the section cut and resized, taken with a 400mm on a APS-C camera (so a 640mm with the crop ).

You can do a picture for the view you want and then shoot the Moon at the same location, to create a final image, afterwards. Or you can shoot the Moon whenever you find it looks interesting, and keep a library of our natural satellite to use in different situations. Remember, though, to tell people that it’s a composite image.

2.The Sunny 16 Rule

Because the Moon is so far away and surrounded by dark sky, people tend to not be able to expose it correctly. Cameras read the vast expanse of black and ask for more light than needed. The result is a washed out disc without any detail. Now, remember: the Moon is just reflecting the light from the Sun. So, as a guide to expose it, think of the “Sunny 16″ rule. In fact, an exposure of 1/125 at f/16 ISO 100 will work, especially with a full moon.

When exposing, keep a value constant and change the other to see what is right. I kept the aperture at f/8 and changed the speed (on a tripod) until I found a combination that worked.

3. Do the Maths

The Sunny 16 rule is a starting point, not a rule. Use it as guide. If the image is too dark you can either lower the speed or open the aperture. If you’re using a tripod, it really does not matter which one you change as long as you don’t go too slow. Working around 1/15 as the limit will keep you safe, but remember the speed is connected to the size of lens you use: the bigger the lens the more visible the movement will be.

Hand-holding the camera asks for something else. If you’re working with a long lens, let’s says a 400mm, you need a higher speed to keep it steady: A value of 1/500 f/8 will give you the answer and the same exposure. Now start from there. Too dark? Open the aperture. It’s that easy. The last step you can take is to increase ISO, which is easy to accept with the new sensors we have these days.

4. Remember Your Fundementals

Remember, again – this is important – that you cannot make a long exposure of the Moon. Due to the rotation of Earth, you’ll end with a white line up in the sky. But if you’ve to go to slower speeds and use a tripod, for sharp images, think about using mirror lock up together with a cable or wireless trigger to make the picture. You can also use the timer in the camera together with the mirror lock, to reduce vibrations. And get a sturdy tripod, as those flimsy supermarket ones cannot even stand a light breeze.

The big image is an example of a montage. But the thumbnail shows a real picture and proves that the Moon does pass that close to the palace.

Once you’ve got the pictures of the Moon it’s time to get the landscape you want to place it in. The image above is such an example. When creating images for this purpose leave enough free space in the upper area to get the Moon in place. This is obviously a montage, but I needed it to illustrate a concept. The palace in the picture sits atop a mountain range called, in ancient times, Mountain of the Moon.

On the other hand the small thumbnail shows that when the distance from the camera to the subject is big, elements as the palace on top of the mountain and Moon seem to have similar sizes, what helps to create those images where the Moon seems really big without having to resort to tricks.

Photo Critique #136

Cameron Knight — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:00:09 +0000

Friday Photo Critique is our weekly community project, where we publish a photograph submitted by one of our wonderful readers, then ask you all to offer constructive feedback on the image. It’s a great way to learn more about photography, express your viewpoint, and have your own image critiqued!

Quick Ground Rules

Play nice! We’ve deliberately chosen photographs that aren’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
Feel free to offer any type of advice – composition, lighting, post-processing etc.
You can also link to photographs that you feel offer a great example of this type of image shot exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here is this week’s candidate for Friday Photo Critique!

The Photograph

Photo Details & Inspiration

Canon 500D
188mm
f/11
1/250
ISO 400

I wanted to capture the beautiful warm sunset setting over the sea at Lepe Beach in the South of England. I spent about two hours standing there with my tripod waiting for that perfect picture, which I eventually got. I focused on a wooden post sitting in the water and just took a series of photos as birds flew over. The small aperture combined with a medium shutter speed allowed me to create the silhouette of the bird, the post and the land in the background creating a wonderful effect. This is my favourite picture as it creates a warm and summer feeling.

Photographer: Oliver McQuitty

Please let us know what you think in the comments – how would you have approached the scene or taken the photo differently? A massive thank you to everyone who commented last week.

The most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site. Interested in submitting your own photo? You can do so here!

Best Way to Learn About Exposure: Exposure and the Histogram

Andrew Gibson — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:00:19 +0000

Even as an experienced photographer, I still get caught out by exposure. It’s easy to forget that I can’t tell whether the exposure was accurate by looking at an image on my camera’s LCD screen. The only way to tell for sure is to look at the histogram. I’ll come to that a bit later in the article. But first, in order to understand why the histogram is important, let’s start by looking at the basics of exposure.

On most cameras you can set the brightness of the LCD screen. If you select manual and set the screen to it’s brightest setting, this makes it easier to see the screen in bright light, but it may also mislead you into thinking that your photos are well exposed when they are not.

The brightness of the screen will more accurately reflect brightness of the photo if you select Auto. However, you still need to check the histogram.

Your Camera’s Meter

The first step to understanding exposure, and why your camera can get it wrong, is to learn how your camera’s exposure meter works. Once you understand the following three points, you will know why your camera’s meter can easily give the wrong reading:

1. No matter which camera you have, or which metering mode you use it in, the exposure sensor inside your camera is measuring light reflected from the subject.

2. Your camera expects the light reflected from the subject to average out to a mid-grey tone (also known as 18% grey).

3. If the light reflected from the subject doesn’t average out to mid-grey, your camera will get the exposure wrong. At this point you need to step in and override the camera’s settings.

What sort of subject matter will give a wrong exposure reading? Your camera essentially expects to see a mid-grey subject (once all the tones are averaged out), so anything that is predominantly light or dark in tone will make the camera give an incorrect reading.

Any subject that is white or black will give an incorrect exposure reading. But so will anything that is predominantly light or dark. Flowers are a common subject that cause difficulty, and so are portraits if your model is light skinned.

White, or light colored, subjects will make the camera underexpose. This is because the camera is returning a reading that makes the tones in the image average out to mid-grey.

Dark, or dark toned, subjects will make the camera overexpose. Again, the camera is returning a reading that makes the tones in the image average out to mid-grey.

Based on what you’ve just read, can you tell which of these two images of a white flower was taken with the camera’s suggested exposure settings? If you said the left hand photo, you were right.

Even with the camera set to evaluative metering (it’s most advanced metering mode) it still got it wrong. That’s because the flower is white, but the camera is programmed to believe that everything it sees is mid-grey. It gives a reading that makes the flower grey, not white.

The right hand photo is correctly exposed. I had to override the camera’s settings to take this image.

Using the Histogram

One of the biggest benefits of digital cameras is that they give you instant feedback.

When I was learning photography with a film camera, the best way to learn about exposure was with slide film. Exposure has to be very precise with slide film – just 1/3 stop more or less exposure can make a dramatic difference to the image.

With slide film, I had the choice between using Kodachrome, which took over a week to come back after being sent off to be processed, or E6 film, which took three or four days. Either way, it was a long wait to see if I had got the exposure correct.

Now, with digital cameras, all you need to do is look at the histogram. It’s quick, easy and makes learning much faster.

Check your camera’s instruction manual to see how to display the histogram when you playback your images. If your camera has the choice between a luminance histogram and color histograms, then the luminance histogram is the one you need.

The luminance histogram tells you two important things:

1. Whether the photo is underexposed or overexposed.

2. How many light, dark and mid-tones the photo has.

The luminance histogram is a bar graph with up to 256 bars pressed tightly together so that there are no gaps between. The bottom axis shows a range of 256 tones from pure black (on the far left) to pure white (on the far right). The left axis shows the number of pixels in the image that correspond to those tones. The higher the spikes, the more tones there are.

The image above shows how different parts of the histogram relate to the image. I’ve shown the image in black and white as that’s how the camera sees it when it generates the luminance histogram. It takes into account brightness values only and ignores the color.

Every photo has a histogram. Ideally, the histogram should fit within the span of the graph. It should slope down to meet the bottom axis and not be cut off on the right hand or left hand side.

I deliberately overexposed this photo to show you what happens. The histogram is cut off on the right hand side, indicating that the image is overexposed. Exposure needs to be reduced.

Here, my camera’s highlight alert shows the area that is overexposed. There is no detail here, these highlights are ‘clipped’. I might be able to pull some of that detail back in post-processing if I’m shooting Raw, but it’s better to get the exposure correct in the first place.

This screen grab shows an underexposed image. The histogram is cut off on the left-hand side, indicating that the photo is underexposed and that exposure needs to be increased. There will be no detail in the shadow areas.

Let’s take a look at the histograms for the photos of the white flower I showed you earlier:

I set my camera to evaluative metering, its most advanced metering mode, to take this photo. Even so, it still underexposed the white flower. The big gap on the right hand side of the histogram confirms this.

Here I used exposure compensation to override the camera’s meter and increase the exposure by two stops. The histogram has moved over to the right, and is nearly touching the right hand side, indicating that the exposure is correct.

What does the histogram for the above image tell us? You may think that the spike on the left shows the image is underexposed. But in reality the exposure is correct. A glance at the image itself tells us that there are lots of dark tones in the sky and the mountains. The spike in the histogram merely confirms that.

Exposure Compensation

Now that you can use the histogram to see if a photo is correctly exposed, you need to know what to do when it isn’t.

If you are using an automatic exposure mode, the easiest way is to use your camera’s exposure compensation function.

If you’re photographing a light subject and the photo is underexposed, increase exposure by a stop or two, then take another photo and check the histogram again to see if it’s correct.

The same applies, but in reverse, for dark subjects. The camera will tend to overexpose – use exposure compensation to underexpose by one or two stops to compensate.

Don’t forget to set the exposure compensation back to zero when you’re finished – otherwise your next set of photos may come out over or underexposed.

Creative Exercises

These exercises will help you put the lessons learnt today into practice:

Creative Exercise One:

Go back through the images saved on your camera’s memory card/s and look at the luminance histogram for each image. How do the tones in the image correspond to the spikes in the histogram? Do the histograms indicate underexposure or overexposure on any of the images?

Creative Exercise Two:

You can try this out for yourself. Take a photo of any white colored object. It could be a sheet of paper, a white wall, a white cup, or someone dressed in white. It doesn’t matter which exposure mode you use.

Look at the photo on your camera’s LCD screen. Are the white tones in the image white or grey? Look at the histogram. Is there a gap on the right hand side? Change the metering mode. Does this make a difference to the exposure reading your camera gives? Now use exposure compensation to increase the exposure. How many stops do you need to increase it by to get the correct exposure?

Now repeat the exercise with a black subject. Look for a black wall, a black car, a black cat – anything that’s black and repeat the experiment. What color is your subject when you playback the image – black or grey? Is there a gap on the left hand side of the histogram? How many stops of minus exposure compensation are required to obtain the correct exposure?

Try these tests in both direct sunlight and shade. The difference in results may surprise you.

Conclusion

By the time you’ve finished these two exercises you should have a good idea of the relationship between exposure and the histogram. You should also be able tell, if the exposure is incorrect, how much exposure compensation is required to rectify it.

This is the first of a two-part article. The next part will help you decide which exposure and metering modes on your camera to use, and where to go to learn more about exposure. Stop back on Monday for the second installment.

The Complete Guided Tour of Camera Systems

Cameron Knight — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:00:36 +0000

For those of us passionate about photography, our cameras are like our roommates. We spend a lot of time with them. And no one wants to get stuck with a roommate you don’t like. In this tutorial, I hope to offer advice on buying a camera so you get exactly what you want, for the price you’re happy to spend. Consider this your chance to interview some potential roommates!

June of 2010

Digital vs. Film

The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to shoot digital or film. This may seem like an easy decision. Digital cameras are widely available. They are simple to use, allow you to review and erase images and make it easy to share your photos over the web.

But if you’re looking to get a serious camera for not a lot of money, you can’t beat a used film camera. The money you save when purchasing the camera will buy you a lot of film, too. There are extra costs in the long run for processing, but more and more people are returning to film for the retro appeal and quality of equipment.

The SLR

When most people decide to invest in a serious camera, they buy an SLR. SLR stands for single lens reflex. All of the major camera producers make SLR cameras and lenses for this cameras. They have been used by professionals for decades.

They are available in both film and digital versions, and some companies have used the same lens mounts for both, allowing the newest camera to still use very old lenses and vise versa.

They are also available to fit almost any budget. To use the company Canon as an example, a brand new digital Rebel can cost as little as $480 USD, but their digital EOS-1Ds Mark III costs almost $6,300 USD. Both of these cameras, and all SLRs, possess some great features that make them so desirable.

Interchangeable Lenses

SLRs have interchangeable lenses, meaning that they are easy to upgrade and customize to your style of shooting and budget. If you want to shoot nature photography, you can buy a telephoto lens. If you want to shoot landscapes, you can buy wide angle lens. If you want to shoot both, you can buy both lenses without having to buy two cameras.

If you choose to, you can also purchase very high quality lenses with wide apertures for shooting in low light without a flash.

Seeing Through The Lens

SLRs also use a prism and mirror to allow the photographer to see exactly the same image that the camera will see. This means that when you change lenses, the view through your camera will change. You will see the zoom.

Point-and-shoot cameras often use a viewfinder that only approximates what the camera is seeing, or they rely on a screen to show the image. Screens are usually not good enough to verify if something is really in focus and they are hard to use in bright light. The SLR doesn’t have any of these problems.

Other Typical Characteristics

There are some other things that you’ll notice if you purchase an SLR. They typically have little or no shutter lag. Shutter lag is a term used to describe the slight delay you experience between pressing the shutter release button and the shutter actually firing. Point-and-shoot cameras some time have a very long delay that can cause you to miss an important moment.

Another option available on SLR cameras is continuous shooting or, on film cameras, a motor drive. This means you can hold down the shutter button and the camera will keep taking photos, sometimes as fast as 8-10 frames a second. This is extremely helpful when shooting sports and other fast moving action.

The Rangefinder

I’ll only talk about rangefinder camera briefly because as far as I know there are only 2 or 3 digital rangefinder cameras available. The M8 and M9 made by Leica, and the Epson RD-1. Film rangefinders are much more common and competed well with film SLR cameras.

The main difference between rangefinder and SLR cameras is the way that you frame and focus your image. Unlike the SLR, the rangefinder uses a viewfinder window and determines focus by using a triangulation method. When you look through the viewfinder of a rangefinder, you’ll see a patch in the middle that shows the image you’re looking at a sort of ghost image of the same view. You match up the two images to determine focus.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The biggest disadvantage of rangefinder camera is not having the ability to see exactly what the photo is going to look like. Many rangefinders have interchangeable lenses, but the viewfinders may not switch to telephoto or wide angle (although so do). The viewfinder and the lens are also in different positions, so the scene you see is not exactly the same as the scene your lens will see.

But rangefinders are usually more compact and quiet than SLRs, as well as being much easier to focus in dark situations. Also when you trip the shutter of an SLR, there is a moment of blackout due to the mirror flipping up. This doesn’t occur with a rangefinder.

The Point-and-Shoot

The digital age seem littered with point-and-shoot cameras. Point-and-shoot cameras are small and easy to use. They often have zoom lenses to allow you to choose from a variety of focal lengths, but they usually don’t have interchangeable lenses.

In the ever-evolving world of photography, there are some cameras that are blurring the lines between point-and-shoot and professional (but I’ll get to that later). Because of the huge variety and price of the point-and-shoots available. I want to talk about some features you’ll want to look for when selecting any camera, but especially a point-and-shoot.

Widest Aperture

Some of the specifications that I’m going to ask you to look for may require some online research or a glance at the owner’s manual, but this one will be easy. Simply look at the front of the lens. There will be a code there. It may say 1:2.8 or 1:3.5 or 1:3.5-5.6 or something like that. These numbers indictate the widest aperture of the lens.

The wider the aperture, the more light the lens can let in, which will allow you to shoot in darker situations at better ISO settings. The numbers after the “1:” are what you need to pay attention to. 2.8 is great, 3.5 is alright, 5.6 or higher isn’t very good.

When it has two numbers, like 3.5-5.6, that is showing you that when you are zoomed all the way out, the aperture is 3.5, and when you’re zoom all the way in, it is 5.6. For a zoom lens, 5.6 is fine for the higher number. This logic also applies to purchasing lenses for an SLR or rangefinder.

Image Sensor Size

If you’re buying a film point-and-shoot, this doesn’t apply. But if you’re buying digital, you’ll want to know how big the sensor is. The bigger, the better. What is called a Four Thirds sensor is great for a point-and-shoot, also anything termed APS-C is a great size for a sensor.

Digital SLRs have more standard sized sensors termed DX and FX (or full frame). Don’t confuse image sensor size with megapixels. The megapixels of an sensor more or less relate to the size of image and, in some ways, the detail that can be captured in the image. The sensor size relates more to the quality of the image and the performance of the camera in low-light situations.

Other Considerations

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention megapixels here. Most new digital cameras have more than enough megapixels. A six megapixel camera can easily print an 11×14 inch image, and most point-and-shoot buyers don’t ever print that big. Considering that many point-and-shoots are over 8 megapixels now, I think we can move beyond it.

On the other hand, manual controls are something you should definitely consider. If photography is a serious hobby for you and your budget is keeping you in the point-and-shoot range, you can still purchase a camera that allows for manual control of aperture and shutter speed.

Modern Camera Configurations

As I mentioned earlier, there are cameras that are coming out now that don’t easily fit into one category. The Four Thirds camera system and Micro Four Thirds system are something I really get excited about. I feel that they are symbolize the next real stage of development for cameras.

I think that more systems like this will be developed. Once the big professional camera companies (i.e. Nikon and Canon) jump on board with a system resembling this, photographers will be in for a big treat.

The Four Thirds Model

Four Thirds is more than a camera system, it’s a business model. Originally Kodak and Olympus joined forces to create a standard lens mount for the DSLR market. Using an open source business model similar to many internet companies, Four Thirds lenses and cameras are now produced by Fuji, Leica, Kodak, Olympus, Panasonic, Sanyo and Sigma. In theory, all of these cameras and lenses are compatible.

Technical Specifications

The Four Thirds system uses a sensor that is half the size of the 35mm film. That means a 50mm lens mounted on a Four Thirds camera would have the same field of view as a 100mm lens on a 35mm camera.

The smaller sensor means that the cameras do have a little more noise at high ISO settings than their bigger DSLR brothers. But they are extremely compact and many sport a real SLR viewfinder with the mirror and pentaprism configuration.

But the main advantage of this open source system is the huge variety of lenses and bodies, some more focused for the consumer, some more appropriate for the professional. It’s all very democratic.

The Micro Four Thirds System

The Micro Four Thirds cameras are even smaller. They can use Four Thirds lenses with an adapter, but Micro Four Thirds lenses cannot be used on Four Thirds cameras. The main difference between the two systems is that the traditional SLR mirror and prism have been eliminated.

Some Micro cameras have a digital viewfinder and some rely exclusively on a screen on the back. Unlike the Four Thirds system, the Micro system is not really open source, and is used exclusively by Panasonic and Olympus.

In Conclusion

The world of cameras is constantly changing. In a couple of years, someone will have to come back and update a lot of this information!

Buying a camera can also be a big investment, but remember that there is a camera out there for every budget. A used film system can often be had for less than 100 bucks, and the top end cameras with a full run of lenses can cost more than most cars.

There are also a lot of additional bells and whistles that can distract the consumer from what they are really buying. I think if you read this, it should help you decide what type of camera is most appropriate for your style of shooting. In addition to that, you’ll know how to best maximize your dollar by concentrating on the features of the camera system that are most important.

Just remember that the camera doesn’t make the photos, the photographer does. Your skill and dedication are far more important than your camera. But you might as well own one you can love.

A Look at Making Evocative Automotive Photos – Tuts+ Premium

Oliver Pohlmann — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:00:16 +0000

We have another Photo Premium tutorial exclusively available to Premium members today. In this tutorial, we’ll present an on-location video for making great-looking car photography. Learn more after the jump!

Producing an evocative, professional-looking automotive shot is simpler than you think. What’s more, you don’t need a high-end equipment set-up.

We walk you through the equipment used, our thought process on the image composition, our simple lighting set-up and the settings used to capture the perfect shot. We then show you our final edit of the shot and talk you through how we got there. It’s the complete start-to-finish tutorial for a professional-looking car image.

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