But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a great idea. A DIY cautionary tale, inside.
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Strobist
Category: Photography
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50mm Focal Length: Weekly Photography Challenge
We’ve written many times about why we like 50mm lenses here on dPS (for example here, here and here) and every time we do we get a heap of readers telling us that they love them too.So this week your photographic challenge is to take and share an image taken with a 50mmm lens (or if you don’t have one – taken at around the 50mm mark on your zoom lens).
Feel free to take any kind of photo – just make sure you’re shooting at 50mm!
Once you’ve taken your 50mm photo upload it to your favourite photo sharing site either share a link to them even better – embed them in the comments using the our new tool to do so.
If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag them as #DPS50mm to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.
Also – don’t forget to check out some of the great shots posted in last weeks Low Light challenge – there were some great shots submitted.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
50mm Focal Length: Weekly Photography Challenge
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Break the Rules: 100 Lomo Photography Ideas to Get Inspired
Lomography is a quite unknown term, but many of us practice it more than once. Actually, what some consider mistakes like exposure defects or over-saturated colors are what makes lomography so special. This movement was born in early ‘90s by a group of Viennese students who discovered the Lomo LC-A camera while on vacation in Prague. Since then lomography has Continue Reading
The post Break the Rules: 100 Lomo Photography Ideas to Get Inspired appeared first on Photodoto.
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Do You Know these 15 Key Features of your DSLR? [VIDEO]
Got a new DSLR? Still trying to work out where to start? Check out this free video by Jeff Cable that runs you through 15 features of that DSLR that you should know about and be able to use.
Jeff covers a heap of ground – some is quite introductory but he does get a little more advanced too with lots of great examples.
The video is around an hour long so grab yourself a cup of your favourite beverage and settle in for some good learning.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
Do You Know these 15 Key Features of your DSLR? [VIDEO]
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6 Tips for Getting Better Parade Photos
My last article I went over 15 tips for successful fireworks photography. This week I’m following up with 5 tips for better parade photos. I figured it is the season for parades and they’re so much fun I want to give you a few quick tips to help you get more engaging, stunning photos at any parade.
#1 Location, location, location
Find a good spot by getting there early and checking out the parade route. This seems like a no-brainer, but the lighting can be tricky especially if you’re in a spot where the floats and people are half in the sun, and half in the shade. So select a spot where you can either get them all in the shade (and have a shady background too), or all in the sun. Don’t be afraid to move if you find the location you selected isn’t working, for whatever reason. Maybe the lighting is bad, or the background is too busy or too bright. Then see tip #2 below!#2 Use your feet
Unless this is prohibited by parade marshals or the local police (check first if you aren’t sure so you don’t get in trouble), don’t be stuck to sitting on your butt on the curb. Get up and move around. Most people that attend parades find a spot and basically camp out there for the duration. But what do you see the real photojournalists doing? The guys and gals that work for the newspapers? Right, you see them following the parade and getting right out on the street.
Notice where I am standing here? In between the dancers, they literally walked around me!
**NOTE: do not get yourself in trouble, if the parade marshal or police tell you to cease and desist please listen to them and follow their guidelines. Perhaps find out ahead of time if you need special permission to walk the parade route.**
#3 Join the parade and a part of it
I followed this float for 5 blocks because their music was so good!
Joining the parade either officially, or unofficially can get you closer to the action. Volunteer to be security, or help out and ask if you can bring your camera along. You may get access to backstage areas, or being on the street in places that you might not otherwise get to go. Many parades, at least here anyway, encourage people to get up and join in and march along behind the bands, or dance behind the floats with the great music. That’s part of what makes parades to universally fun. We have a parade called “Cariwest” which is a celebration of Caribbean culture and music. They highly encourage people to follow them and dance along the entire parade route. I love to attend this parade because it’s so colorful and I can get close to the action. Try to find ones like this, often in smaller cities or towns the rules are more relaxed, so get out of the big city if need be.
#4 If in doubt, back-light your subjects
As I mentioned earlier you can encounter some really tricky lighting situations at a parade. I tend to like to put the sun behind my subjects, then I expose so they are well lit and the background gets overexposed or blow out. I’m fine with that as opposed to the opposite of drab photos in the shade with no sense of drama and separation. The sun creates a rim light (outline on the subject) and separates them from the usual boring buildings behind them.
#5 Use a telephoto lens but get in close
Often in my beginner photography classes my students assume that the longer telephoto and zoom lenses are for photographing things far away. While that is sometimes the case, as in wildlife or birds, they have other great uses as well. See my article on “How to achieve blurred backgrounds in portraits” as those tips apply here as well. Using a longer lens and large aperture, will help you get the distracting background of the parade route more out of focus.
I also suggest you get physically closer to the people you’re photographing. This will do two things . . .
First it let’s them see you’re taking their photo, and allows interaction with them if only by eye contact. They know they’re on display in the parade and expect to have their photo taken many times. So if you are hesitant or tentative taking people’s photos this is a perfect opportunity because you have a whole stream of willing subjects literally parading in front of you (sorry pun intended). Sometimes you’ll get a great reaction when they see your camera like the series of images below. She turned, saw me, and I captured a few shots as she rotated and pointed right at me. If I were out on the street edge, likely that wouldn’t have happened.
Second, it will simplify your images and allow you to focus more on one thing at a time. Parades can be visually stimulating, and overly busy so getting in closer will help solve those problems. Pick one person, or one part of a float and get closer.
Float details
#6 Try to create a series of images that tell a story
Over on my own site I wrote “What is your message? Storytelling photography” and gave some examples. As you photograph the parade try and create a series of images that tell the story of the event, and relate it to someone that wasn’t there. What do you see, hear, feel, taste and touch? What is the main thing you want tell people that see your images of the parade? Journalists will say that you need to cover: wide, medium and long. What that means is show the big picture by shooting some wide shots; show the medium range like one person or one float; and show long or tight shots like details of costumes of floats or musical instruments. Try to also capture some action images, dancers in mid-bounce, drummers with hands or drumsticks all a blur in motion. A story also needs a beginning, middle and end. Think of those things while you photograph and you may surprise yourself with the results.
Hmm, is it just me or are these firemen enjoying the parade just a little too much?!
Bonus tip
Don’t forget to drink lots of water, stay hydrated, and have some FUN with it!
Have a great summer (if you’re in the northern hemisphere) and enjoy it while it lasts.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
6 Tips for Getting Better Parade Photos
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4 Essential Ingredients for Great Landscape Photographs
When you are out in the field and you’re not sure if your the image you are making is any good, go through this quick mental checklist to see if your image contains these four essential ingredients.
1. Good Light
Light is by far the most important element of a landscape photograph. A photograph of a stunning location taken in harsh mid-day light will fall flat. A photograph of a boring location taken at that perfect moment when the light is magical will turn into a unique and memorable photograph.
I don’t actually believe that there is any kind of light that is inherently bad. You just have to know what to do with the light conditions that you are given.
Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA.
The golden hour light of sunrise and sunset are usually a favourite time for photographers. My favourite time is the blue hour: twilight. It’s hard to go wrong with these two types of light.
When you have a day with bright harsh sunlight, take advantage of the opportunity to look for interesting shadows.
The white sky of an overcast day is an excellent time to photograph close-ups.
And what about those stormy days? Those can be the best of all with the dramatic clouds that accompany a storm.
2. Main Subject
The next thing is to make sure you have a main subject. That may sound pretty obvious but keep it in mind. You may find yourself, as I sometimes do, making an image of some general landscape without a clear subject. It’s just some land with some trees and maybe some water. You need to decide what the subject is and that will help you make an image that is more compelling.
Little Finland, Nevada, USA.
When I get to a location I like to think of what it is about that place that grabbed my attention and I make that the main subject. That’s not to say you cannot then turn your attention to another main subject later, but if you have too many subjects in your scene, none of them with be the main subject and your image will be too general to be interesting.
While we’re thinking about the main subject, what is it about that subject that you like? Having descriptive words in your head when you are making an image will help you focus and bring that description into the image. What is it about the lake you like? Is it the reflection? The shape? The peacefulness? How it is so clear you can see the bottom? Not only will this help you convey meaning in your image, but it will help you write about it later.
3. Clean Background
Just as important as the main subject is what is behind it.
Clutter and distracting elements can ruin an otherwise good image. This is where perspective becomes important. You must find an angle to photograph your subject so there are no distracting elements in the background. That can mean getting up high and shooting down on your subject so the background is filled with only one texture, or getting low and shooting upwards so the background is filled with only sky.
Try to isolate your subject and simplify the image as much as possible.
Steptoe Butte in the Palouse Hills of Washington, USA.
4. Interesting Composition
I like to think of photography as the opposite of painting. Painters start with a blank canvas and start adding things to it, whereas photographers are presented with a scene full of details and must start eliminating things from it until it contains only the most important elements of the scene. Then, those elements must be arranged to create an interesting graphic design.
Remember the building blocks of composition that you can rely on to create interesting graphic designs:
- lines
- curves
- textures
- patterns
- shapes
- colours
- frames
The “trick,” if there is one, is to make all four of these things come together. It will take patience, perseverance, and a little luck.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
4 Essential Ingredients for Great Landscape Photographs
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Get 2 dPS eBooks For the Price of 1: This Week Only!
The middle of 2013 is fast approaching (can you believe it!?) and it has been a fun year here on dPS so far.
We know that many of our northern hemisphere readers are out and about enjoying your summer (while the rest of us freeze) and so we thought that we’d offer a little extra incentive to take your camera along that we’d put together a great deal on some of our popular photography training eBooks.
For the next week we’re offering you as a dPS reader the chance to pick up two dPS eBooks for the price of one.
That’s right – if you pick up one of our eBooks this week you can select any other eBook from our range that is either equal to or less than the value of the eBook that you’re paying for and we’ll give it to you for free.
So you can effectively bundle any two of our eBooks and save up to 50%!
For example
- If you want to improve your portraiture you might pick up a copy of our Portraits: Making the Shot eBook and then choose our Kids Photography eBook to get for free.
- If you’re wanting to get to know what your camera is capable of you might choose to bundle up Photo Nuts and Bolts with Photo Nuts and Shots (the perfect combination for getting creative control of your camera.
- If you’re going to be travelling pick up our Travel Photography eBook and bundle it with our Natural Light eBook (so you don’t need to pack a flash)
Choose the eBooks you wish to bundle here.
The choice is yours as to the combination you choose to bundle together – the possibilities are endless!
But don’t delay – this deal ends in just one week.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
Get 2 dPS eBooks For the Price of 1: This Week Only!
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20 of the Absolute Best Photography Posts From Around the Internet
The best thing about the internet? TONS of information at your fingertips, available instantly and on-demand. The worst thing about the internet? SIFTING through that information. But worry not, fellow photographers, we’ll do our best to make it easy on you this week. We’ve spent some time researching some of the best photography posts from several excellent sources online, and Continue Reading
The post 20 of the Absolute Best Photography Posts From Around the Internet appeared first on Photodoto.
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How to Use Film Simulator Presets in Lightroom
processed using VSCO’s Kodak TRI-X film presetThose of you who think Instagram and its ilk are pushing us towards the end of “real photography” can quit reading right now. For everyone else, the following paragraphs will show you how to get that ever-so-trendy, faded, slightly desaturated, vintage, “look” that is so prevalent from both professionals and hobbyists. I’m going to let you in on a secret that professionals have been utilizing for awhile (many use it secretly!) to give their photos that added edge.
Specifically, I am going to cover the use of film simulation presets to develop your RAW files in Lightroom. Why use film simulation at all? As evidenced by the popularity of mobile apps like Instagram, emulating the look of traditional film stocks has become a rather trendy and prevalent practice in photography and can be a useful tool in your post-processing arsenal. Your clients may not specifically request a certain film, but they may ask you to give them a specific look & feel that is a result of simulating film, i.e. “Can you give my engagement photos that faded, vintage-y feeling?”, or “Make my photos look like they were taken with Instagram”. I’ve had several clients ask for that style of processing without realizing it was the result of emulating a 50-year old film stock. Film simulators answer the question: “What would this digital image look like if I took it with Kodak TRI-X film?”.
In short, film simulation presets are designed to process your camera’s specific RAW files into images that emulate the look provided by some classic film types. Before I discovered these plugins, I foolishly spent countless hours playing with various Lightroom sliders attempting (and failing) to get that look I wanted to emulate. After trying a number of these, my favorite by far is VSCO Film, created by a company called Visual Supply Co (VSCO for short). They create a number of plug-ins for Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, and Aperture, that all do the same thing; make your digital image look like it was taken with an old-school film camera. We’ll be covering how to use these in Lightroom though they should have the same effect in ACR or Aperture. It should be mentioned that I do NOT work for VSCO and / or receive payment in any way from them.
VSCO’s film packs come as downloads from their website and installation is as easy as running the downloaded installer and booting up Lightroom afterwards. You will then find several new groups of presets once you’re in Lightroom’s Develop module.
Once you’ve installed the presets, applying them is as easy as selecting the image(s) you want to process, and clicking on the desired preset on the left. If you mouse-over the list of presets, you’ll notice that the Develop module’s Navigator window will show you a preview of the preset’s effects on your image. You’ll find that each different film type will give you varying effects on color, contrast, brightness, and will alter the tone curve of the image. Some film presets will introduce subtle changes, while others do dramatic things, and covert your image to B&W, add grain, and reduce the dynamic range of the image by resetting the tone curve.
Frankly, I am unsure if there is anything a VSCO filter can do that you can’t do manually, however, it is an incredible time saver if you don’t want to spend hours re-creating the look of specific film stocks. VSCO’s team has already done the research into the settings to emulate popular film types, and all you need to do choose which ones you like. You’ll also notice that each preset has “-”, “+”, “++” versions of each film, representing the degree to which you’d like the particular film’s effects applied. Film presets work like any other preset and the develop settings can be copied and pasted from image to image or applied to a large batch of images at once.
However, the beauty of VSCO (and similar presets), is that once you’ve selected a film stock that you like, you can then tweak it to your heart’s content. For example, you can start off with a baseline Kodak Portra 400+, and decide that you’d want to bring up the shadows, add some grain, and saturate the blues. Save those settings as a new preset, and boom, you’ve developed your own, unique look. VSCO’s film pack also comes with “Toolkit” presets that will help you fine-tune your image. With a click of a button you can add grain, bring up the shadows, save your highlights, or fix Chromatic Aberration. Again, these are all things that you can do manually, but the presets will save you quite a bit of time.
VSCO has now released three different film packs, each with its own set of films, with the latest film pack focusing on a variety of instant (Polaroid!) films. The film packs are not cheap, at $ 119 / pack, but existing customers will receive a discount on subsequent film pack purchases. I’d suggest buying VSCO 01 and only adding the others if you really like the first pack. Don’t feel like ponying up the dough or only use your iPhone to take pictures? VSCO actually has an iOS app called VSCO Cam.
So that’s all there is to it! I will leave you with some quick before & after examples that may help demonstrate how powerful these presets can be. Each of these following images will be presented in two forms, the “before”, sans preset and without any major Lightroom modifications, and the “after”, with a specific preset applied. For the sake of this demonstration, I have picked films with a relatively dramatic effect on the original image.
Before:
??After, with a “Polaroid 690 cold” preset applied: 
Before:
After, with a Polaroid 669 preset applied:
Before:
After, with a “Polaroid 690 cold” preset applied:
Before:
After, with a Kodak TRI-X filter applied:
Frank Wang is a NYC photographer specializing in portrait and architectural photography. You can find him online at www.frankwangphotography.com and www.framephotographics.com. Connect with him via witter / Instagram: @frankwangphoto
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
How to Use Film Simulator Presets in Lightroom
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Design A Wedding Dress For Less Than $20 by Angy Chesler
I was looking for a way to make a dress that would hold up in a trash the dress session. This year I got help when I went to Photography workshop by Bambi Cantrell. She taught us how to make an amazing wedding dress out of window screen. All you need is about 30 yards of grey tulle. It has to be grey, white won’t match the screen and 20 yards of window screen and a box of paper clips. At targeted I also bought a slip for the model in skin color, to cover her body and make her more comfortable. I started out with the 30 yard tulle, which I wrapped around her waist twice. It’s important not to wrap it too much around the waist, since you can easily lose any waist line. Once it’s tight around the waist I cross the tulle over her shoulders and keep wrapping it until I create a nice shape.
You can get really creative here, it doesn’t have to be symmetrical. I played with different versions, over one shoulder, over both shoulders and also left the shoulder free of tulle. The end of the tulle I tug under the first wrapper around the waist line. Once you are finished with the tulle the fun begins. It’s time to move the window screen. I bought silver metal window screen at Wal-Mart. I wrap it around the waist like a scarf that I would use as a dress. With the help of paper clips I secure it. You have to open the clips to be able to weave it through the screen. Once the first two rounds of screen are wrapped it’s time to form the metal screen. You can just bend it in any directions you want to and secure it with paper clips. Keep going and adding to the design until you use all the screen.
Searching for a background that would reflect the design in shape and color I decided that the beach after sunset would be the best place. !0 minutes after sunset the light was perfect. I put my Canon 5 D Mk 2 on a tripod. I used a slow shutter speed of a 1/6 at ISO 100 and F 2.8 with a 16-35 mm lens. My model stood super still without any movement, so I could blur the waves with the slow shutter speed. I used an off camera Flash with 1 f-stop over from the right to give the model some light and shape.
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I studied photography in Europe. Since 2001 I have been working in Hawaii. My work includes U/W photography and videography, Architecture and Weddings
http://www.vip-wedding-hawaii.com
