In just a quarter decade’s time the cellular phone has morphed from being a novelty item like a car phone to powerful “smart” machines capable of more than anyone imagined. According to the latest Pew Research poll, 90 percent of Americans have a cell phone, and 58 percent of Americans have a smartphone. Nearly all cell phones and smartphones have Continue Reading
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Have you ever tried shooting food? If you have, then you know how hard this can be. There are so many things you have to think about while making sure your food looks as fresh as it can be at the same time. Here is a beginner’s guide to help you get the food shots you’ve always wanted.
You probably know this already, but I just have to mention this here to make sure. After all, this is Digital Photography School. Your on-camera flash looks horrible on food. You will get loads of specular highlights on any area that has moisture, and these specular highlights are not only distracting, but will make your food look greasy instead of moist. You will also get strange and unattractive shadows either on your food, on the plate, or both. On-camera flash is so harsh. Food usually looks its best with soft light. The shot below on the right has soft backlight coming from a window in a restaurant.
Ok, I just heard all the booing and hissing from this tip but, since I just told you not to use your on-camera flash, you are going to have to shoot using a tripod instead. I actually love shooting on a tripod and I use one anytime I can. Try it! It will completely free up your hands to style your dish, in order to work on your shot. I am a commercial food photographer, so I am either shooting in my studio or some other controlled environment where I can use tripods, so this tip is for those situations.
Notice in the image above right, there is a a nifty tripod arm extension enabling me to get the camera out over the set. If you are trying to hand hold a camera AND shoot overhead, just schedule an appointment with your chiropractor right now! Not only is it back-breaking to shoot overhead like that, but it’s impossible to line up your shot exactly the same way each time you take a shot. Lock it down on a tripod, focus your set once, then start styling your food.
Now, if you can’t shoot on a tripod for some reason, for example maybe you are shooting an event and have to gets shots of the food, then you have the option of raising your ISO setting on your camera to accommodate for the lack of light. I use this as a last resort. You must keep in mind that raising your ISO will increase the digital noise in your file. Depending on your camera, the digital noise could be very severe if you are in a very low light situation. See in the image below the difference between shooting at ISO 100 and ISO 1600 on a Canon 5D Mark II.
For the most part, you can get away with digital noise when using images for the web because of the lower resolution. However, if you need to have the image printed, then this is where you might run into problems with the digital noise. It can be very hard to correct out of the image AND keep the image in sharp focus at the same time. Applications that can correct digital noise in software do so by softening the edges of the pixels creating the noise. This gives the appearance of the image being a little soft with the focus afterwards.
I see so many food blogs with shots of food in a plate, or a bowl, with nothing else in the shot. This to me is just a documentation of a food dish. There’s no story behind the image when you have no props. I get it – it takes more time. But, if you start real simple, props can dramatically improve your photos. Notice in the shots below that all the props are secondary – meaning the first thing your eye goes to is the pasta in both shots. All the props are low key and not distracting. It’s still all about the food, but it gives the food some visual support to get your viewer to look at your photos. There is a fine balance between just the right amount and too many props that take your eye away from the food.
You are telling a story with your props. The story of the two images above is that these are nice pasta dinners. That’s it, real simple. You need to use the placement of your props to get the viewer’s eye where you want them to look. The first thing we see in an image is text, if there is any. Second will be a blaring highlight or a very bright color. Third, we look at what’s in focus. Your props should guide your viewer’s eye to look exactly where you want, and eliminate any distractions along the way. If you have a blaring highlight on something that is catching your eye, then guess what, your viewer is going be looking at that same highlight too, so get rid of it, or put a prop in front of it. Get your viewer to look at your food.
Food photography is all about creating an image that naturally has the viewer’s eye looking right at your beautiful food. As I mentioned above, all the fabulous props in the shot are just the supporting actors in your story. If you have a crazy pattern on a plate, your reader is going to look at the crazy pattern first, then your food (hopefully) second. Your story is not about the plate. Your story is about your food. You might be in love with that pattern on the plate but that’s probably not what your image is about. Beloow is a shot before props have placed, to give you a sense of how the food looks on different plates.
I will test plates with food just like this to find the right one for the photo I’m doing. The problem with patterns is there will be areas of the pattern that will be in focus and competing with the food. A colored plate can be great as long as the color is complementary or a nice contrasting color. Then, white or cream will always make your food stand out.
The same rules generally applies to table clothes and fabrics as well. We never use bold patterns on the surfaces we shoot on. I’m saying “we” here because when I am shooting a job I have a food stylist AND a prop stylist. We all work together in making a shot for our client that is all about their food. When you are shooting on fabric with a bold pattern, that bold pattern will absolutely compete with your food. It’s just human nature. Our eyes are so easily distracted and you only have a few seconds to get your point across to your viewer, don’t blow it on some crazy pattern on the table.
Many people take all their photos in a horizontal format. I understand why, it’s a lot more comfortable to work that way. When shooting vertically, all your settings are now on the side and if you’re on a tripod you have to keep cranking your head over to see them. Well, you just have to suffer through it! Shooting vertically can give you nice depth in a photo from foreground to background. This also enables you to have large photos on your blog, if you have one. Shooting vertically can give you room for text like a title. Many sharing sites like Pinterest are better with vertical shots, so think about how this image will be shared and go from there. Mix up the images on your blog. Have some vertical photos and some horizontal ones as well. If you do everything the same way it can get very boring.
The other habit I see a lot of new students doing is being afraid to crop into plates. Here are two shots. One full frame and one cropped in. Now, of course it depends on how the images will be used, and sometimes you might even need two formats of the image, but play around with cropping an image to see if you like it better. It’s okY to crop the plate. You are not selling the plate, remember, so show off that food a little more.
Now for the cropped version – a lot fewer distractions and it’s all about the food.
Every student wants to know, what is the best lens for shooting food. For my 35mm DSLR (full frame), I’m always using my 100mm macro lens. I use this about 90% of the time. You really can get great depth of field with that lens. Here is shot I took with three lenses. Many people have a 50mm lens because that is what came with their camera. The only time I use that lens is when there are several dishes on the table that I have to get in one shot. That type of shot requires a wider angle lens, like the 50mm or the 35mm. When I am only focusing on one dish in the shot, I will always use my 100mm macro lens.
When using wider lenses, like the 50mm or the 35mm lens, you will need more background in your shot. Also, the wider the angle of your lens, the harder it will be to get very shallow depth of field, unless you get real close to your food, and open up that lens by opening your aperture. Depth of field is referring to how much is in focus versus out of focus in your shot. Which leads me to the next tip…
The f-stop, or aperture, controls the opening of your lens that lets light into the camera. The f-stop also controls how much of your image will be in focus, and how much will be out of focus.
Here is an f-stop grid showing the most common f-stops that many lenses have. Some lenses don’t open as wide as f/1.4. It seems to be that the more expensive the lens, the wider the f-stop. For instance, the higher end 50mm lenses will go to f/1.2, but you’ll pay for that in cost.
When you are just starting out, f-stops, or apertures, are very confusing to learn about. You see, the smaller the f-stop number, the LARGER the opening. It’s very counter intuitive. What I always say in class is, the smaller the f-stop number, the smaller your depth of field and the larger the f-stop number, the larger your depth of field. This gives you such creative control with your images. I always suggest you shoot your food with a very “shallow depth of field”. This means less things in focus. See the two images below:
The image on the left has shallow dept of field because I am shooting at f/5.6 on a 100mm macro lens. This shot is all about the olive oil, so that was the only thing I wanted in focus. The shot on the right was shot at f/16 and has a much larger depth of field (more things in focus). I find this distracting. There’s too much in focus and your eye bounces all over the place (see more in my article: Using Focus Creatively with Food Photography. You use your f-stop to control what you want to show in focus. As a very general guide, the f-stops for shallow depth of field are usually from about f/5.6 and below (this can also depend on how wide your lens is as well).
Now, if I was photographing a Thanksgiving table with loads of dishes on it that I wanted in focus, then I would definitely use an f-stop like f/16 or even f/22 with a wider lens, like a 50mm or even a 35mm lens.
Here I am painting a steak with butter to make it look nice and moist. I’m using butter because when they serve this steak at the restaurant they have melted butter all over it. You can also use vegetable oil, or water and glycerin, or just water on foods. If the food has an oily or fatty content, like meats and poultry do, then use vegetable oil. If you are keeping salad moist, you can just spray it with water.
When shooting burgers, I am always painting an TON of oil on the beef to keep it looking really juicy. There is nothing worse than a dry looking steak. Yuck. Who wants to eat that?
To keep foods that can oxidize looking fresh, use Fruit Fresh or Accent on them. You can usually find these in the spice section of the super markets. I highly suggest you do not eat the foods that you treat with this stuff. It’s actually MSG. I use it two ways. I will soak things that turn brown, like artichokes and pears in a solution of 2 cups water with a few tablespoons of the MSG. The other way I use it is by taking the same solution and painting it onto the food once it’s on set to make sure it doesn’t turn brown.
When I tell people this trick they say, “oh, you can just use lemon”. Lemon works, just know that you will have to keep reapplying it.
This image below would not be possible without using Accent or Fruit Fresh. Artichokes turn brown right away when you cut into them. I soaked both sides in a bath of a lot of Accent and water. I soaked them for 30 minutes too. This artichoke didn’t turn brown for hours!
All right! There’s so much more I can say here but hopefully some of these tips will inspire you to try to take your food photos to the next level.
For more food related articles check these out:
The post 10 Tips to Improve Your Food Photography by Christina Peters appeared first on Digital Photography School.
I have a confession to make: I used to be a pixel peeper. There was a time when I’d spent hours zooming in and inspecting photos at 1:1 or even 300 percent. I was looking for a technically perfect photo. Back then, most of the work I was shooting was aimed at micro stock outlets. At most of them, the inspectors and image editors were not easy to get around. Noise, camera shake, out of focus, chromatic aberration, white balance, basically any issues would end up in an image rejection. That actually helped me. I learned the technical side of photography, but I also became obsessed. I became a pixel peeper.
Luckily I don’t care about it anymore, and you shouldn’t either, unless you are shooting commercially. I mean sometimes, depending on the type of work you are doing, a thoughtful examination could be needed. However, like every obsession, pixel peeping can be a detrimental habit.
If you find yourself analyzing 100 percent crops, debating about pixel counts, hitting the forums too often and compulsively reading gear reviews, please stop. Especially if the majority of your work is about documenting travel, street photography, and whatnot. This is not what photography is about.
Yes, I get it, photography is part technology and science, but overall it’s art. Counting pixels or buying the latest camera is not going to help you to find your vision. Those are mere tools meant to aid you in expressing your voice, your art, in a wonderful medium.
I encourage you to leave the verbal flux behind and go shooting. Photography it about communicating emotions, a moment in time, the essence of a place, the soul of people.
If you’re still unconvinced, think about this. Let me start by asking you how much of your work is being shared online? Have you ever realized that the average monitor can only display 2 megapixels? And many of our photos are being seen only on tablets and phones. None of those are even close to being even viewed at 100 percent. Let’s throw in print as well; let’s say you want to enlarge your photos to 8×10, or you want to decorate a room and print a 16×24. Grab a photo that you think is not sharp or noisy and make a test. I think you’ll be delighted by how awesome it looks.
In the end, as photographers and storytellers, what we pursue is capturing a moving picture, perhaps communicating an emotion. Of course you can go after excellence and be meticulous, but always keep in mind that what you are trying to express with the craft is way beyond just a technically perfect photo. A great subject, an inspiring place or a story will always generate a reaction, an emotion in your viewer. Such an image will never be judged as too noisy, a bit shaky, and so on. In exchange, there are gazillions of perfectly technical photos floating around without any kind of content. Photos that, even though technically perfect, nobody cares about.
It is true that we have much better technology now than we had in the past. Sensors with low light capabilities, bodies and lenses with image stabilization, and software are all better than ever. But for some, it seems to never be enough; there will be always something new, something better, and we tend to get lost in the technical side instead of pressing the shutter. Many moons ago, I was always looking at these things, to the point where I didn’t even want to shoot beyond ISO 200. It was a big mistake. I lost a lot of moments and opportunities that I would’t get again. That will never happen now; I prefer to capture the instant, the character of a place, the spirit of humankind – without having to worry about pixel counts.
Forget about pixels, awaken the artist within. Go out and shoot something that moves you. You know you can.
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If you have a pocket camera, you might have spent hours pouring over reviews, spec sheets, and comparisons trying to find something better like a DSLR or Micro Four Thirds camera. Too often we dismiss our humble pocket cameras because they don’t have big lenses, flash mounts, custom exposure controls, or even enough buttons on the back to do what we really want. While there are certainly good reasons for shelling out hundreds of dollars for a fancier camera, chances are your pocket camera can do a lot more than you might think. Let’s explore a few tips that you can use to get the most out of it, and even take some professional-style shots without spending another dime on new gear.
Many pocket cameras have a significant advantage over DSLRs because they often come with a built-in optical zoom that covers a much greater focal range than a standard kit lens. And while this can be nice for, say, shooting closeups of trees or buildings that are far away, it actually has a much more practical feature that is often overlooked. Instead of using your camera to get nice and cozy with faraway objects, you can actually use it to get professional-style shots of things that are much closer to you.
In the shot above I used my old Panasonic ZS7 point-and-shoot to take a portrait by standing about 10 feet away from my subject and zooming in as far as the camera would go. Because the background buildings and foliage were so far away from her, it created a very shallow depth of field. Of course you can only do this if you have a great deal of available light, since pocket cameras are much less sensitive to light than their larger counterparts, but if you have never tried this technique you might be surprised at the results you can get. It also helps to have a tripod since it can be difficult to keep the camera steady on a single subject when zoomed in that far, or you can simply place your point and shoot on a hard surface like a bench, railing, or brick wall.
When it comes to camera flashes, we usually think about how they can be used to brighten up a dark scene – particularly if you are using a pocket camera, most of which are already not very sensitive to light. But flash can also be used to enhance a perfectly well-lit scene, and produce some very good results that you might not expect. Shooting in the daylight can cause harsh shadows to appear on your subject, which is why many photographers like shooting during what’s called the golden hour – the time right after dawn and right before dusk.
Most pocket cameras allow you to force the flash to fire, even when there is plenty of light available. This is a technique known as “fill flash“, and it is a great way to eliminate some of the shadows from harsh lighting that can often happen during the bright afternoon sun. You can also use it to help get better photos when your subject is backlit, as often happens during the daytime. In these situations your camera takes a look at the overall scene and thinks there is enough light, so it won’t fire the flash. But since you know better than your camera just what type of picture you want to take, overriding the camera’s decision and forcing the flash to fire can help you get much better results.
Using fill flash takes a bit of practice. But once you get the hang of it, you will find creative ways of using it to get a lot more mileage out of your pocket camera than you might have thought possible. Alternatively, you can instruct your camera to keep the flash off even when it thinks it must be turned on. Remember, you know better than your camera what kind of picture you want to take, and somehow all you need to do is give it a little nudge in the right direction.
When I took this photo of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., I wanted to capture the arcs of water as they shot out from the fountainheads. To do that, I left my pocket camera in Auto and told it to keep the flash off. In order to compensate for the lack of light, my camera left the shutter open longer which gave me the exact image I was looking for.
By far the most utilized shooting mode on pocket cameras is Auto; in which the camera does its best to evaluate things like the amount of light, as well as the movement of your subject, to pick the optimal exposure settings. The camera also decides whether it thinks a flash should be used, unless you have specifically told it to do otherwise. And for the most part, Auto can produce some good results. But a camera is only a tool, and it can only take its best guess as to what you really want to photograph. It doesn’t see a flower, a tree, a child, a car, a birthday candle, a waterfall, or anything else. It only sees bits of light hitting its sensor, and tries to capture the incoming light as best as it can given the information it has to work with. This is why Auto sometimes works, and sometimes produces a blurry mess.
However, there is something you can do about this even if you aren’t familiar with exposure settings and how to adjust them. Almost every camera today, whether it’s a tiny compact model or a big DSLR, has built-in scene modes that are little icons on your camera that look like a face, a mountain, a tree, a child, and more. Camera manufacturers pour millions of dollars and years of researching user behaviours into developing scene modes, so the next time you pull out your pocket camera, try switching to one of the little icons based on what you are shooting. Utilizing these scene modes is a way for you to give your camera a bit of help in interpreting the incoming light, so it can try to take the picture you really want instead of the picture it thinks you want.
Let’s say you are photographing a youth soccer game, and using Auto because it generally gives you decent photos. The problem is, your camera doesn’t know you are at a soccer game! It only sees bits of light, not a green field of grass with individual players and a ball. But if you use the scene mode to tell your camera you are photographing a sports event, it will tweak its own internal exposure algorithms by increasing the shutter speed, widening the aperture, etc., to give you better results. The same principle applies when you are shooting a portrait, a flower, a beach, or the nighttime sky: by using the scene modes, you are essentially making your camera a little bit smarter, which can make a big difference.
While pocket cameras have physical limitations, such as tiny image sensors and low ISO sensitivities, that will always put them in a class below DSLRs, Micro Four Thirds, and other more expensive cameras, this doesn’t mean they can’t produce amazing results. Hopefully using these tweaks will help you get even better pictures with the camera you already have, without spending a dime on new equipment.
Editor’s note: Do you have any other tips to share? Please do so in the comments below. Do you take your compact camera along on vacation too, for those times you just don’t want the big DSLR? I do!
The post How to Get the Most out of your Pocket Camera by Simon Ringsmuth appeared first on Digital Photography School.
As a photographer, whether it be professional or hobbyist, you have several skill sets to juggle and many hats to wear; you’ll need to be an artist when composing your photo’s scene, technically proficient with your camera and settings, and in the case of professionals, an adept businessperson who can maintain a business and satisfy clients consistently.
One of the most important roles you play as a photo enthusiast is that of image editor. Rarely do our images come straight out of the camera exactly as we had envisioned, so before release we are required to put our shots through the post-processing phase; this is where our raw photos are enhanced, adjusted, toned, and sharpened to give us the final image we want to deliver.
Although we have many tools at our disposal these days to help us through this phase of processing, the industry juggernaut has undoubtedly been Adobe Photoshop since its first version’s release in 1990. The software has been used by amateurs and professionals alike year after year, and is considered an essential part of most photographer’s toolboxes.
Through the following years, and the popularity surge of digital photography, Adobe realized the need for a tool more targeted for photographers, and in 2007, released Lightroom. This workflow-centric and management software has become incredibly popular in its own right, and maintains a massive following in today’s industry.
Click to see more on the survey results
So the obvious question is, as a photographer, which software package do you need? Both titles are excellent and carry their own strengths and weaknesses, so let’s drill down and examine them in a bit more detail to discover which one is right for you!
Rarely do we get a perfect result in camera that allows us to bypass the post-processing workflow, and even then, some editing is almost always required to prepare the photo for different mediums.
Generally, photos will need to be altered in size, adjusted for exposure and contrast, edited for blemishes or other imperfections, and possibly toned or have their appearance altered through filters, presets or other means. The file then needs to be exported in its final format, ready for the client, printing, or for web use.
Photoshop’s layers
Layer blending modes in Photoshop
Photoshop Actions
Adobe Camera Raw must be used for processing RAW files in Photoshop
Built-in RAW processing in Lightroom
Lightroom’s image management system
The power of Lightroom’s Presets
?Up until fairly recently, Photoshop would have had one additional disadvantage compared to Lightroom, and that would be price. In the past, purchasing Photoshop could set you back $ 400 to $ 900, depending on the version and any discounts you could use. Comparatively, Lightroom could be had for less than $ 100. The huge up front cost made buying Photoshop outright a financial strain for budding photographers on a slim budget.
Those days are gone, thanks to Adobe’s awesome cloud and subscription program. As of the last release, all of Adobe’s main products have been converted to cloud-based programs and are all rooted in the new Creative Cloud subscription model. Generally, $ 20 per month will give you unlimited access to one Adobe title, such as Photoshop or Lightroom, and ample cloud storage, enabling you access to your files regardless of where you were. $ 50 per month will give you access to Adobe’s entire Creative Cloud suite, which is quite a deal.
This year, however, Adobe unveiled their Photography Program, and if you haven’t already gotten involved, you might want to take a look. For less than $ 10 per month, Adobe gives you Photoshop CC AND Lightroom CC, along with the aforementioned cloud storage. It’s an unbeatable deal, and eliminates the need to pick and choose which image program to use.
Since pricing is no longer an issue, the choice as to which program to use for your photography work comes down to what is most important to you.
You value a smooth clean workflow more than infinite control over the editing of your images. Having said that, Lightroom is no slouch when it comes to processing photos, and you can recreate almost any look using the controls available to you in this software.
The presets provide an endless array of styles, and thousands more are available on the internet. Lightroom’s clean, efficient interface will allow you to process those multiple wedding or portrait shots quickly and consistently, and make managing all of those photos simpler than you could have imagined.
You need more control over your images. Photoshop can do it all, but of course the cost of that is a higher learning curve. Quick presets are not what the program does best; instead, it offers complete image editing with masks, layers, and a multitude of other tools, giving you all of the options you could ever need.
BOTH titles can be an integral part of the post-processing workflow. Like anything else they both have strengths and weaknesses. Fortunately, with Adobe’s wonderful new Creative Cloud subscription model, you can enjoy both programs, and employ the advantages of each within your workflow, without breaking your bank.
The post Photoshop Versus Lightroom Which is Right for You? by Tim Gilbreath appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been featuring different colors as the weekly theme. To change it up a bit this week, and enjoy every last minute that summer brings us, I’ve rounded up some lovely cheery flower photos for you.
Who doesn’t like a good flower photo? They’re colorful, have lots of textures, maybe an insect or two, and are always interesting photographic subject material.
Enjoy and have a floral day!
Lotus by Hai Thinh on 500px
shine by park seo jin on 500px
Atmaniksepa by Josep Sumalla on 500px
… by Alena ?erve?anská on 500px
Satsang by Josep Sumalla on 500px
Orange Rose Abstract by Chris KIELY Australia on 500px
59/365 Shadows from the Morning Sun by Monika Bigelow on 500px
Mother's Day Flower by Kevin Pepper on 500px
Rot im Feld by Leo Pöcksteiner on 500px
Dandelion 2 by Margaret Morgan on 500px
* by Ayad Ashour on 500px
* by Ayad Ashour on 500px
Untitled by Ayad Ashour on 500px
Steel Blossoms by Jake Schwartzwald on 500px
Trio by Ofir Abramovitch on 500px
The Lily Pond by Ron W on 500px
Smell of Flowers by Debabrata Chatterjee on 500px
Water daisy by chimkudo on 500px
*** by Anna Dudnik on 500px
Tori by Emily Soto on 500px
Alena Kasia – Orchid by Simon Fuller on 500px
Beauty hiding by almalki abdullrahman on 500px
Bright Intentions by H. Becker on 500px
vintage daisies by Mariló Irimia on 500px
poppy field by Anton Sadomov on 500px
summertime … by Ernest Stierschneider on 500px
Red Dawn. by Brian Adelberg on 500px
Tulip Sniffer by Kaylee Greer on 500px
In red… by Eleonora Di Primo on 500px
Bridal Bouquet…… by Gina J. D. on 500px
shadows of tulips by Borni Merisoniom on 500px
A walk by Miki Asai on 500px
Very Deep by Wave Faber on 500px
We just wanna play drums! by Alberto Ghizzi Panizza on 500px
Pollination by Cesar Castillo on 500px
small but beautiful by Eric Bonkhz on 500px
The post A Collection of Cheery Flower Photos to Brighten Your Day by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Back in June, I decided to try my hand at modeling. Now, this is not completely new — I’ve been modeling for myself (with my mom pressing the shutter button, as I don’t have a remote and have never mastered the self-timer) for about six years now, on and off since I got my first (and only) DSLR. I’ve modeled Continue Reading
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Close-up photos of flowers can make for interesting colours and shapes
There is something magical about seeing a subject up close and personal. This opens up a whole new world of options for you as a photographer. Close-up photography, or macro photography, can be a very rewarding form of photographic expression. The great thing about it is that you can do this from your basement at home, if necessary. Of course you can, and should, go outdoors too and setup shots in a forest or at the sea, but you can also setup shots of everyday subjects and shoot them up close.
Think of an old watch, a flower or even some food items that could be shot on your kitchen table. The shapes, textures and colours come to life in the world of macro photography, but it can be tricky and fidgety. Sometimes beginners are put off by this aspect and assume they need specialist skills to make close-up images. This is not necessarily true. Like any other aspect of photography, you need to understand how your camera works, and work within the limits of the equipment you have. Do you NEED to have a macro lens? In short, no. There are a few other cheaper options that you can experiment with before investing in a macro lens. Let’s take a look at how you can get going in close-up photography. This is really an introduction article, and I will be putting together some more detailed articles on the various aspects of macro photography, but first, let’s start with the basics.
Sometimes overexposing or underexposing can add to the image
This sounds obvious, but try it. Set your camera up on a tripod, choose a subject (anything will do really) and get your camera up close to the subject. Switch your camera to Manual focus. You can try autofocus, but generally you will be able to focus a little closer on manual focus. If you are using manual focus, the tripod will be important. There is nothing worse than trying to get your subject in focus when you are off balance, or you keep moving, so use the tripod. Once you have your subject in clear focus, look at the composition, just as you would with any other image. Use the various composition guidelines to put your image together and take the shot.
This is just the beginning, you will find that you will make minor adjustments and shoot another shot and so on. I find that when I do close-up or macro photography I get lost in this small world of intimate details. When you look through the viewfinder, try and visualize it as a small world or a small landscape scene. Pretty soon you will find that you will be totally swept up in it and that is the fun part.
Getting in close will help to isolate the subject and throw the background out of focus
To do some great close-up shots, you won’t need a macro lens. You can use almost any lens to make close-up images. Bear in mind that each lens has a minimum focusing distance. This can range from a few centimetres (1-3″) to half a meter (20″) depending on the lens. Telephoto lenses will have a longer minimum focusing distance, while medium range lenses (24-70mm) will have a closer focusing distance. The difference between macro lenses and non-macro lenses is that a macro lens has a much shorter focusing distance (30cm/1 foot or closer) in most cases.
Also, a macro lens has a magnification ratio of 1:1. What that means is that the lens can reproduce the subject onto the sensor at it’s actual life size. So if your subject is 20mm in size and it is captured as 20mm on the sensor, that means it has a 1 :1 ratio. Some lenses can only reproduce a 1:2, or 1:3, ratio which means that the subject will be half the size or less, on the sensor, relative to the size of the subject. I would suggest that you try close-up photography with the range of lenses you have. See which one works best. Prime lenses are usually a good place to start as they have great clarity and sharpness. I used my 50mm f/1.8 for a long time before I invested in a macro lens. Once you feel that you are limited by your lenses or that you think macro photography is a genre you want to expand on, only then consider buying a macro lens.
This image was shot with an old 70-300mm lens at f/4
The beauty of close-up photography is that – when one properly, a shot of a cup of coffee can be fascinating. Suddenly the pattern in the latte cream looks amazing, the bubbles and cup shape become very intriguing. We very rarely look at everyday subjects up close and when we do, they can be really interesting. The same is true for flowers, an aged piece of wood, electronic goods, even a knife and fork, just about anything can become a subject for macro photography.
Some of the more challenging subjects are those that move. Subjects like insects, flowers, leaves, grasses and any other subject that is outdoors. For these, you will need more patience and better timing. Photographing a close up of a flower on a windy day will be really tough. If you want to do macro photography outdoors, maybe start off doing it on a windless day or in a sheltered area. Alternatively, you could go and buy some cut flowers and set them up in a vase, setup the shot and take a few images. The controlled environment of the flowers in a vase will make things much easier. Insects are even more challenging. They sit still for very short periods and move very quickly.
The name of the game to get good insect macro shots, is to be patient. To get some honeybee images in the past, I have set up my camera on a flower and attached my cable release. I then manually focused the lens to the flower and simply waited until a bee or another insect was in the right place and snapped off a few shots. Generally one in ten shots were usable and I was pretty happy with that, but they take time and patience.
Be patient and setup your shot beforehand when photographing insects
I found that I really enjoyed close-up photography. Once I got into it, I spent many hours trying to get some unusual images of flowers or insects. You may find this too. Get your tripod, cable release, choice of lens and set up a scene either indoors or outdoors. Get in a close as you can and start working with the scene. Change your depth of field until you are happy with what is in focus and what is out of focus. If you are using a macro lens, be careful about shooting with a very shallow depth of field. F/2.8 will mean that a VERY thin sliver of your scene is in focus, and that can be difficult to work with at first. Start at f/8 and work from there.
Experiment with different exposures, sometimes a slightly overexposed macro scene can look good, so play around with that. Above all, have some fun. Use it as an exercise in learning more about photography, and try and get some dynamic images too! In a future article, I will go into more details about settings and exposure modes. In the mean time, start shooting some close up images and let’s see how things look.
A close-up of a poppy flower, the details are what is mesmerising!
For more information on macro or close-up photography check out these dPS article:
The post Getting Started Guide to Macro or Close-Up Photography by Barry J Brady appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Pick up Oded’s new SnapnGuide (a dPS sister company) Snapn Travel here for only $ 7, a lifetime of travel memories in a snap. Traveling is fun and rewarding, but sharing memories of your journeys with friends, family, and the world through your own beautiful images can be even better.
Georgia (the country)
Here are 20 more tips for great travel photography:
(You can read Part One 20 Photography Tips Every Travel Photographer Must Know here)
For most of us, deciding where and when to go is based on many decisions, not necessarily related to photography. But there are some small decisions you can make to turn an ordinary trip into a photo-worthy one. For example, let’s say you are going on a business trip. You can squeeze a few hours of photographing between meetings. But a much better option would be to take a day or two off and spend this extra time photographing on location.
Or when planning your next family vacation, add a little visual research before the trip. Is there a nice festival or a market worth visiting at your destination? Is there something unique like an interesting ethnic group or unusual landscape that’s worth documenting? These small visual decisions can make a huge difference in your photographic experience during your trip.
A “shot list” is a term from the movie industry. It’s a list of shots that are planned for a specific day. Want to come back home with better travel photography results? Then the shot list is your tool for the job.
Thailand
First, make a list of visual ideas as your “I won’t come home without” image list. Combine the iconic images with more creative ideas. For example, if you’re going to Paris, don’t skip the Eiffel tower. As a true symbol of Paris, it should be on your list. But make sure to add creative visual ideas, such as boutique wine shops, farmers markets, or anything to your liking. The shot list is there to help you, not restrict you. When you’re on the road, with so many new sights and smells competing for your attention, the shot list will keep you organized and be a continual inspiration for creating the next shot.
Don’t take all of your equipment with you! Match the gear to the destination. Do you really need that flash on the beaches of Thailand? Or that 50 mm prime lens for the safari trip to Tanzania? Choose wisely and you’ll worry (and carry) a lot less.
If you’re not making images on a daily basis, it will probably take you a few days on location just to “get in shape”. Get a jump-start by warming up at home by creating a daily photography routine at least one week before departure. This will make sure you’re at your best as soon as you step off the plane.
Thailand
Apart from our photographer’s “hat”, we all wear other hats, such as “father,” “spouse,” or “friend”. When traveling with others, we must wear many other “hats”. You must coordinate expectations with your travel partners to make sure the importance you’re placing on your photography during the trip won’t cause problems. Think and plan together about places you all can visit that would be great for even those who don’t take pictures: vantage points with scenic views, colorful markets, religious centers, etc.
This is another movie industry term. It means that before even taking out your camera, it is wise to get familiar with your surroundings. Take at least a few hours to learn the area. Understand if there are any interesting places around your hotel, visit one or two places that are on your shot list and adjust it accordingly.
Uzbekistan
Yes I know, this one is a crazy ratings downgrade. But hey, travel photography is not for the lazy! The most precious thing on a trip is your time. Do not waste the hours of golden light of morning (or afternoon) on sleeping. Especially if you are traveling with non-photographers, it’s your time to do your best shots. You can save sleeping in for weekends at home.
Colors, food, local people, culture; markets are a photographer’s paradise. It’s always better to visit open markets (for the daylight) rather than covered ones. Some of the best markets I visited happen only once a week, be sure to be there.
China
You took a landscape photo with a wide lens? Excellent, now do it again with a telephoto lens.
You’ve got the main square in daylight? Wonderful! Come back at night with a tripod and shoot long exposures. Make the most out of your once-in-a-lifetime trip as your diversify your shoots and portfolio.
We all have places that are less comfortable for us, but visiting a new place is an excellent opportunity to get out of your comfort zone. Do you not have the courage to approach strangers in the street in order to take their portrait? This is an excellent opportunity. You might be surprise how easy and fun it is to do this with strangers.
Thaliand
We all know how Times Square, The Taj Mahal, and the Eiffel tower look. Don’t come back with the same, “we’ve seen it all before” images. You don’t have to skip those iconic places, they usually are truly worth the visit. But think of new and fresh ways to feature them. Try using a fish-eye lens, creative editing process, or reflections – the sky is the limit.
Uzbekistan
When I’m on a photography assignment, I always try to pay a short visit to a local gallery. Yeah, it sounds bit snobbish, but seeing the photography, paintings, or any other local art forms acts as a huge inspiration for my travel photography. We all want to create different and unique images. This is great way to do just that.
I love this technique. Instead of jumping from place to place, looking for interesting subjects to photograph, I suggest to stay put and start building your frame with the background. Find an interesting vantage point on the street. You can even do this sitting at a sidewalk café. Establish your frame by determining the composition and exposure setting. Then wait for something interesting to enter your frame.
Dominican Republic
From experience, in travel photography, there is nothing like working with a local photographer. Use a social platform (Facebook, Flickr, couchsurfing) and find a local photo enthusiast like yourself, who can show you all the best places to photograph. Of course, there are always risks when meeting strangers from the internet. Use your common sense and don’t meet them somewhere secluded at first.
I cannot stress how important this tip is. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Laptop, hard drive, cloud storage, you name it. Backup your images on more than one source.
Before you store your stuff, you should clean it. Sea salt, sand, or even just fingerprints on the lens, can damage your gear. Keep your equipment in good shape and you will enjoy it for many years.
Kyrgyzstan
In the past, I was recording a notebook of all my “almost got it” frames. Those fuzzy, overly bright, and “what the heck is this thing in the background” images.
I kept this notebook in order to learn how to not repeat my mistakes (and because we photographers like to be angry at ourselves from time to time). Then, I realized that it is just as important to understand why I failed as it is to understand why I succeeded. So, even today, after every assignment, I write ten things to keep and ten things to work on until the next trip.
I know it’s tempting, but resist the urge to filter, edit, and post-process your images the minute you get home. Give yourself at least a week before you do so. We tend to emotionally connect to our images, usually by the degree of investment and hard work we put into creating them. Give yourself time to disengage yourself from the experiences of your journey. This will help you see your images with less bias.
Laos
After learning from your successes and mistakes by yourself, use the help of someone else. Choose a friend, (preferably one with tact) and get his/her opinion on the images. It doesn’t matter if they’re a photographer or not. They should be honest, sincere and non-competitive with you.
Now, after resting from it, seeing it again with a new perspective, and hearing someone else’s advice, it’s time to get your art out to the world.
Choose up to 15 photos (not more). It is important to pay careful attention to the opening and closing images. Each image must stand on its own and together as a set. Add some text and post it to the world.
Note: the author would like to thank Nicholas Orloff for his help in writing this article.
India
The post 20 More Photography Tips Every Travel Photographer Must Know by Oded Wagenstein appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Chromatic aberration is a phenomenon caused by distortion of the lens. Basically, it is a failure of the lens to focus all the colors to the same convergence point.
The effect can be generally seen in dark edges adjacent to bright areas of an image; it looks like an out-of-focus ghost of magenta or purple color. In photography this is also called “purple fringing”.
The quality of the optic plays an important role here, as not all lenses will produce the same effect. This problem tends to manifest much more in zoom lenses with variable aperture. However, no lens is exempt from having some distortion of this type, but we are not going to enter into that right now. I just want to share with you an easy solution with Lightroom 5. Your photos will look much better on the screen and, of course, in print once you easily correct this.
First off, let me share the example above, where you can see a 100 percent crop of a photo where you can see the distortion. If you look around the edges of the building against the sky, you can clearly see the magenta lines and out-of-focus effect.
Now, depending on the type of camera you are shooting with, if you shoot in JPG, chances are you’ll probably notice it less. The camera will apply some automatic correction when converting or processing the JPG in-camera. So please note that this will work much better when you are shooting in Raw.
We are going to be working in the Lens Corrections panel in Lightroom. Correcting chromatic aberration is fairly easy and can be done really quickly in Lightroom 5. All you need is a few clicks in the appropriate boxes and Lightroom will work its magic. Please note that this panel is also used to correct other type of lens distortions as well, including barrel distortion, vignetting, etc.
Locate the Lens Corrections panel in the Develop Module. You’ll probably have to scroll down. The Lens Corrections panel is located between the Detail and Effects panels.
The Lens Corrections panel is divided into four sections: Basic, Profile, Color, and Manual. Be sure to start from left to right and select the Basic section. Select the options Enable Profile Corrections and Remove Chromatic Aberration. The software comes preloaded with profiles from all major camera manufacturers and lenses. So as soon as you enable these options, you’ll notice that the image will change and any distortion will be automatically corrected. It will also correct and reduce the chromatic aberration or purple fringing.
Now, go to the second section of the panel, Profile. Be sure that the checkbox Enable Profile Corrections is selected. Right below you’ll notice that Lightroom already recognized your lens make and model. If for any reason it is not, you can browse and select it manually. If your lens is not available you can switch the Setup option to Custom and correct distortion yourself by moving the sliders Distortion and Vignetting manually.
Move to the Color section. Again, be sure that the Remove Chromatic Aberration checkbox is selected. In the majority of situations this is all you need to do. But for some particular images, you may need to do some extra work to completely remove the distortion. For that you can move the sliders until underneath until you notice the fringes disappear. A more precise method is to use the eyedropper to select the purple or green fringes for correction in a more accurate way.
As you can see, this is a very simple process. Like stated before, in most cases you’ll be just clicking a few checkboxes and the program will do the rest. There are really very few occasions where you need to do any manual work – especially if the lens is already profiled in Lightroom, which applies to a very wide selection.
Here are the final results. In both, the same 100 percent crop as before and the entire image. As you can observe, the chromatic aberration no longer exists and the photo looks much better.
For more Lightroom articles click here.
The post How to Fix Chromatic Aberration in Lightroom 5 by Daniel Korzeniewski appeared first on Digital Photography School.