RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘Best’

The Highs and Lows of ISO and How to Use it to Your Best Advantage

29 Apr

Treating ISO as the foundation of the exposure triangle and only adjusting it when you really need to will help you produce more consistently creative photographs.

Asian woman taking a photo - all about ISO

ISO 100 (allowing a wide aperture setting).

ISO stands for International Standards Organization, which does not really help you understand what it is. But it does indicate the standard is international and it is constant across all brands and types of cameras.

The ISO is the measurement of how responsive your camera’s sensor is to light. The lower the numeric value, the less responsive, the higher the value, the more responsive.

Editor’s note: ISO is actually much more complicated than that but for purposes of this article, this is generally considered the easiest explanation of ISO to understand, especially for beginners. 

Close up of twp people holding DSLR cameras - ISO settings

ISO 400

Low ISO

Choosing a low ISO setting, say less than 400, is best when there’s a lot of light or when you have a tripod and the style of photograph you want to make allows you to use a long exposure. When the ISO setting is low, the sensor is less responsive to light, so, therefore, it requires more light to create a well-exposed photograph.

Using a low ISO setting will result in better technical quality photos generally. There will be little or no digital noise, the colors and contrast in your images will be better.

Woman standing in a fresh market holding vegetables - ISO 100

ISO 100 allowing for a slow shutter speed in bright light. My friend was standing very still and my camera was on a tripod.

High ISO

Choosing a higher ISO setting is best when the light is low or you are not able to make a long exposure. Higher ISO setting means your camera’s sensor is more responsive to light, so it needs less light to reach the sensor to create a well-exposed photograph.

It also means the technical quality of your images may be affected by digital noise, colors may be less vibrant and overall image contrast is flatter. How much, depends on how high you have your ISO setting and your camera model.

Sensor technology is rapidly changing and, if you have a newer, higher-end model of camera you can more confidently choose to make photos at higher ISO settings than with older, lower-quality cameras.

Sky lanterns being released in Chiang Mai during Yee Ping festival - high ISO

ISO 6400. Allowing a fast enough shutter speed to avoid motion blur in the lantern in low lighting conditions.

When and Why to Adjust the ISO

Unlike shutter speed and aperture settings, the ISO setting has no direct creative impact on your photographs. If you think the inclusion of obvious digital noise in an image mimics a creative value similar to film grain I suggest you do some more serious study on the matter.

Adjusting the ISO can assist you to achieve the shutter speed and/or aperture settings you desire to create the style of photograph you have in mind.

Street scene at night in Thailand - ISO

ISO 100 allowing a very slow shutter speed (long exposure).

ISO and Aperture Creativity

If you are wanting to blur a background using a wide aperture setting when the light is bright, you will need to adjust your ISO to one of the lowest settings to accomplish this. If you were to use a high ISO setting you may not be able to obtain a good exposure with a wide enough aperture setting, so your background will not be as soft looking as you want it to be.

Asian woman portrait - ISO

ISO 160 allowing a wide aperture setting to achieve a blurred background.

Alternatively, if you want to create an image where everything in your composition is in sharp focus, it is best to choose a higher ISO, especially when the light is not so bright. By choosing a higher ISO you will be able to set your aperture to a higher f-stop number and achieve a greater depth of field than if your camera were set to a lower ISO value.

ISO and Shutter Speed Creativity

Choosing a low ISO can assist you in achieving a slow shutter speed when you want to create a photograph incorporating some motion blur. If you are photographing a moving subject, like a waterfall, and wish capture a lovely silky effect in the water, you will need to use a slow shutter speed.

This is easier to do when your ISO setting is low.

Mae Ya Waterfall - low ISO

ISO 50 on a bright day to set the shutter speed slow enough to capture motion blur in the water.

Freezing action by using a fast shutter speed will often require you to choose a higher ISO setting, especially if the light is not so bright. Being able to adjust your shutter speed so that is will render a fast moving subject as though it’s frozen in time will often mean balancing your exposure with a higher ISO.

Auto ISO

If you are comfortable with having your camera in control of your exposure, then Auto ISO is a good option to consider. If you set your ISO to Auto as you adjust your aperture and/or shutter speed settings, the ISO will modify itself to make an exposure the camera finds appropriate.

Night time photo of Chedi Luang Thailand - ISO 800

ISO 800

If you do choose to work with Auto ISO, I recommend you do some testing first to discover what maximum ISO setting you are comfortable with for your camera.

To do this, take a series of photos of the same subject in the same lighting conditions and double your ISO setting each time. Then compare all the photos (look at them close-up and full image) and find the ISO setting for the image you are comfortable with, the one just before you see too much digital noise.

Editor’s note: Try not to overly pixel-peep. By looking at your images at 100% on your computer screen you will not get a true feeling for the amount of noise which will be visible at a normal viewing distance. 

Many cameras have a means to set a maximum when using Auto ISO. So you can now set this to the number you determined with the test above.

Practical Conclusions

Three Asian woman review an image on a DSLR monitor - ISO

ISO 320

Adjusting your ISO setting is generally only necessary when you want to achieve a specific effect or when the light conditions change.

When we do our photography workshops we always make sure to choose some locations which are outdoors and some which are indoors. This gives us the opportunity to demonstrate when it’s good to make an adjustment to the ISO setting.

Thai Wood Carver - ISO

ISO 2000 allows for a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action in this low light setting.

If you are photographing outdoors on a bright day, your ISO setting will most likely be between ISO 100 and ISO 400. If you go inside, especially to a dimly lit building with few windows, you may find yourself struggling to obtain a good exposure with a fast enough shutter speed if you are only adjusting your aperture and shutter speed settings.

By adjusting your ISO so your camera’s sensor becomes more responsive in the low light you will be more flexible and capable of being more creative with your camera.

?

The post The Highs and Lows of ISO and How to Use it to Your Best Advantage appeared first on Digital Photography School.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on The Highs and Lows of ISO and How to Use it to Your Best Advantage

Posted in Photography

 

Video: How to find the best natural light for portraits

18 Apr

How do you find good quality natural light while walking out and about? It’s not always easy, but if you know where to look and what to look for, you can almost always find the perfect light for a portrait. At least that’s what London-based photographer and YouTuber Sean Tucker believes, and he’s created a helpful tutorial for his series ‘Good Light’ that explains what it is you should look for in natural light to make the most of a scene for an impromptu portrait session.

In the six-minute video, Tucker and his friend Sarah hit the streets of London in search for a backdrop for their photo shoot. As tends to be the case with so many street shoots, the pair end up in an alley, where Tucker sets up shop to explain the benefits of this particular scene and why it provides good natural light for the portrait he’s trying to capture.

Tucker hows how the buildings on either side of the alley not only provide good leading lines, but also serve as black flags of sort, helping give depth to the subject by making the natural light more directional. After a few shots, he noticed a problem though: panda eyes. To fix this, Tucker uses a simple white grocery bag his subject had on hand as a reflector. A bit primitive, but as his final image shows, it did the trick.

Photo by Sean Tucker

To wrap up the video, Tucker shows how he went about editing the image in Lightroom CC on his iPad—itself a helpful tutorial for those of us who frequently edit images on-the-go for sharing on social media and beyond.

Watch the full video for yourself up top, and then head on over to Tucker’s YouTube Channel to see more from his popular “Good Light” series. You can also find him on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, or read his DPReview Photo Story of the Week.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Video: How to find the best natural light for portraits

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Don’t buy the phone with the ‘best camera,’ buy the phone you like as a phone

14 Apr

If your job entails giving people on the internet buying advice about photo gear, you field a lot of questions from friends who want to make a camera purchase. It sounds corny, but we at DPR actually love these questions – it’s a chance to put an otherwise somewhat useless store of knowledge to work. We get something out of the transaction too: a data point about the needs and wants of people who are actually buying cameras. It’s like a pop quiz we spend 40 hours a week studying for.

Lately, it’s not just cameras we’re asked about. Friends have seen plenty of advertising declaring this or that smartphone as having the ‘best camera.’ More and more, we see people treating their smartphone purchase as a camera purchase too, so it makes plenty of sense that these claims hold a lot of sway. People who seek our advice are now debating between a couple of flagship devices, sometimes within the same operating system, and sometimes not. But the question is the same – “‘Such and such phone’ has the best camera, should I buy it?”

Here’s the short answer: Not necessarily.

The flagship phones from the major manufacturers all have pretty darn good cameras at this point. Sure, there are slight advantages in image quality in different scenarios, but overall, any minor shortcomings are going to be easier to live with than an operating system you don’t like. This is especially true if you’re upgrading from a phone that’s several generations old. Manufacturers have been leaning hard into camera tech innovation for the past few years, so you’ll probably see plenty of improvement even upgrading from a device several years old to last year’s flagship.

You’ll probably see plenty of improvement even upgrading from a device several years old to last year’s flagship

There’s a slight caveat here: while quality from most smartphone cameras is good, a few of them do offer unique hardware-based camera features. The LG V30’s super-wide-angle lens is a good example – if a wider lens is something you really want, it’s worth checking the V30 out because it’s basically one-of-a-kind right now.

It’s also worth remembering that the demands on image quality in smartphones are, in most cases, much lower than on dedicated cameras. Photos taken with phones will likely only ever be viewed at lower resolution on another device screen or in smaller printed formats, like Chatbooks. In many situations, even the image quality benefits of a dedicated camera will be negligible when images are downsized for viewing on a 5″ screen.

So why even test phone cameras if they’re all good enough at this point? The same reason why we test cameras: so you can make an informed buying decision. We also fully expect them to eventually challenge more traditional cameras, but that’s another story for another day. Even if we could declare one traditional camera as the objective ‘best camera,’ that would be a pretty meaningless award. Size and cost, for example, are two huge factors to consider when buying a camera. It doesn’t matter if you bought the ‘best’ camera of all time; if it’s too heavy and you leave it at home most of the time then it wasn’t the best camera for you.

How you get along with your smartphone is an important consideration since many of us spend an embarrassing amount of our waking hours using them

How you get along with your smartphone is an important consideration since many of us spend an embarrassing amount of our waking hours using them. It has taken the place of a dedicated camera for lots of folks, but it’s not just our camera – it’s also our communication hub, media player, notepad, grocery list, bank, travel agent, the list goes on. How you like using it and how it feels in your hand should be given as much, if not more consideration than whether the camera scored three points higher than another.

We’ll keep testing smartphone cameras so we can help inform your decision and point out where there’s still room for improvement. In the meantime, if you’re debating upgrading to a new phone and you’ve got an eye on the one with the ‘best camera,’ consider heading to a wireless retail store and see if that’s the one you like best as a phone. You’ll be glad that you did.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Don’t buy the phone with the ‘best camera,’ buy the phone you like as a phone

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Quick Video Review – What is the Best Camera Bag or Way to Carry Your Gear?

07 Apr

There are many ways to carry around your precious camera gear – so which is the best? Well, that is a very subjective question, that only you can answer. In this video from the Camera Store, Jordan demonstrates some of the pros and cons of the most popular options.

?

Here is a list of all the camera carrying bags, straps and other options mentioned in the video and a few extras.

List of camera straps mentioned:

  • Op/Tech Pro Loop Neoprene neck strap
  • BlackRapid Curve Strap Ultra Padded
  • Cotton Carrier Camera System
  • Lowepro S&F Technical vest system
  • Lowepro S&F Technical Belt
Video Quick Review - What is the Best Camera Bag or Way to Carry Your Gear?

Holdfast Moneymaker dual camera strap system

Photography backpacks:

  • Pro Trekker 650 AW Camera Backpack
  • Manfrotto Pro Light camera backpack RedBee-210
  • Lowepro Tahoe BP 150 backpack
  • Lowepro Slingshot Edge 250 AW
Video Quick Review - What is the Best Camera Bag or Way to Carry Your Gear?

Agua Versa 90 backpack

Other kinds of bags:

  • Domke Journalist Chronicle Shoulder Bag
  • Kelly Moore Luna fashion bag
  • Ona makes stylish designer leather bags
  • Jill-e Designs also make fashionable bags
  • Filson makes stylish unisex bags

OR read this to avoid having a bag collection in your closets like I do – 5 Camera Bag Hacks to Help You Curb the Temptation of Buying More.

Others options not mentioned:

  • Wrist straps
  • Holster systems (like the Cotton Carrier G3 Strapshot Holster)

What do you use?

So of all those options, which do you use to carry your gear? Are their other options we’ve missed? Please tell us in the comments below.

The post Quick Video Review – What is the Best Camera Bag or Way to Carry Your Gear? appeared first on Digital Photography School.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on Quick Video Review – What is the Best Camera Bag or Way to Carry Your Gear?

Posted in Photography

 

How to Choose the Best Portrait Lens According to Three Professional Photographers

30 Mar

Here on dPS, we’ve covered this topic in previous articles. For example: How to Choose the Perfect Portrait Lens.

In the following videos, see which lens these photographers chose and why.

85mm versus the 70-200mm f/2.8

Portrait photographer, Manny Ortiz takes you to a live shoot in this video. Watch as he shoots the same subject, in the same location with both the 85mm f/1.4 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses.

See how they differ and watch all the way to the end to find out which is his favorite lens and why.

Is there such a thing as the “best” portrait lens?

In this next video, Gabriel Sanchez (Gabe) talks about the four lenses he uses most often for portraits and which are his go-to and favorites.

He goes over the 24mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.2, and a Sigma 85mm f/1.4, and the benefits and results you can get with each lens. See why he says there is no “perfect” or best portrait lens, watch to the end.

?

Favorite lenses – fashion photographer

Finally, get a different point of view from fashion photographer Julia Trotti as she explains why the 35mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.2 are her favorite lenses.

?

Which lens do you use for portraits?

So at the end of the day which lens are you going to choose for doing portraits? Do you have any favorites? Tell us which lenses you use and why in the comments below.

If you’re still undecided here are some more dPS articles to help you out:

  • 3 Tips for Taking Portraits with a Kit Lens
  • Tips From a Pro to Help You Know Which Lens to Choose
  • Primes Versus Zoom Lenses: Which Lens to Use and Why?
  • Comparing a 24mm Versus 50mm Lens for Photographing People

The post How to Choose the Best Portrait Lens According to Three Professional Photographers appeared first on Digital Photography School.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on How to Choose the Best Portrait Lens According to Three Professional Photographers

Posted in Photography

 

Battery Reconditioning – A The best way to Guidebook

15 Mar

You may manage to convert old batteries into fresh ones after you master about battery reconditioning eagleelectricvehicle.com. This is the good action for all those individuals that typically toss out their batteries after they appear to prevent operating, and finish up obtaining new ones. Think regarding how significantly dollars people today can be conserving if all people discovered about this.

Numerous persons are puzzled with regard to the discrepancies involving battery reconditioning and simply recharging batteries. Surely, whenever you recharge a battery, it will only very last to get a transient time. Reconditioning your batteries suggests that your batteries is going to be entirely and thoroughly restored.

After you learn about battery reconditioning, you can see there are alternative ways to accomplish this. Selected people today assemble their unique units, while others use mechanical tools for this function. Other individuals will go away batteries inside of their freezer right away in advance of recharging them. These procedures usually consider a few cycles in advance of your battery will fully functionality once yet again. Some battery chargers also can recondition batteries, and function extremely proficiently when batteries are refrigerated forward of time.

You are going to have the capacity to find many companies which often can provide battery reconditioning, but a lot of men and women choose to complete this process at your house rather. Selected kinds of batteries never require a unique sort of reconditioner and might basically be reconditioned by initially doing away with all electric power within the battery by using a battery-powered unit, or the utilization of a resistive circuit, adopted by an everyday recharging cycle.

Each battery, and newer car batteries, are capable of reconditioning. Undertaking this in your house really should be approached incredibly thoroughly, as being the process involves certain acids which happen to be potentially dangerous. Ahead of training you about battery reconditioning, you need to learn about the differing types of batteries, and exactly how they need to be dealt with.

You need to look at out some effective reconditioning web sites, which might offer you an awesome deal of crucial details, including instructions, approaches to increase the everyday living of your respective batteries, and other good reasons to opt for batteries that use guide acid. Train you about battery reconditioning, and you may straight away begin saving a terrific offer of cash on electrical power.

The post Battery Reconditioning – A The best way to Guidebook appeared first on Photonovice.

Photonovice

 
Comments Off on Battery Reconditioning – A The best way to Guidebook

Posted in Equipment

 

Best Herbs For Diabetes

13 Mar

Diabetes is one of the deadliest and many feared ailments afflicting www.somanindonesia.co.id/soman-27-cara-agar-daya-tahan-tubuh-kuatdan-tidak-pernah-sakit  mankind all around the earth. In the event you have been diagnosed with diabetic issues the 1st detail you should know is the fact that even though it will not be 100% curable but if you follow certain wellness norms within your day-to-day schedule you are able to continue to keep it under control. On this page allow us discover several of the all-natural methods by means of which diabetic issues is often held in a stage which isn’t dangerous for the wellbeing and talk about about a few of the natural treatments that happen to be very practical for men and women encountering diabetes.

Outcomes Of Diabetic issues

Diabetic issues is actually a problem during which pancreas practically stop working to be a end result of which insulin amounts are nearly lessened to nil inside the human body resulting in increase of blood glucose amounts inside the overall body leading to good deal of well being issues and when not appeared immediately after may even end result in blindness, multi- organ failure and in some cases death.

Some Organic Household Solutions for Diabetes Handle

You’ll find some proven home remedies which diabetic individuals might take. Amongst probably the most broadly made use of residence remedy is karela which just about a staple eating plan to get a diabetic particular person because it considerably can help decreased blood sugar degree in the human body.

Herbs

In ayurveda that is the oldest system of medicine regarded to mankind selected herbs happen to be stated which help in treating diabetic issues. Some of quite possibly the most powerful ayurvedic herbs are eurycoma sylvestre and salacia oblonga. Eurycoma Sylvestre is observed to direct the pancreas to provide additional beta cells that happen to be a major resource of insulin though salacia oblonga not only delivers down the blood sugar ranges and also enable in dropping weight which happens to be an important resource of challenge for diabetic people today.

Some Well known Organic Medications For Diabetes

Whilst there are a lot of natural medicines readily available in the market for managing diabetes but even though shopping for you should definitely invest in only the one particular by which best top quality herbs are actually utilized. Some of the popular natural medicines for diabetic issues kind 2 are glucolo and diabosal. Equally these medicines have some optimistic customer reviews affirming their efficacy ranges.

The post Best Herbs For Diabetes appeared first on Photonovice.

Photonovice

 
Comments Off on Best Herbs For Diabetes

Posted in Equipment

 

Buying Guides updated: Panasonic GH5S selected as best camera for video

07 Mar

As part of an update to our Buying Guides, we’ve crowned a new winner in the video category: the Panasonic Lumix DC-GH5S. Its excellent video quality and extensive range of support features see it take top honors from its sister model, the DC-GH5, which we recognize as a better fit for run-and-gun style shooting.

Read our updated Best Cameras for Video Buying Guide

The GH5S’s sensor allows it to continue shooting excellent quality footage in a wider range of lighting conditions than the regular GH5, and the provision of 10-bit capture ensures its footage is tremendously gradable, even in high dynamic range conditions.

Meanwhile, the higher bitrate capture and in-body stabilization of the Fujifilm X-H1 see it displace the X-T2 in our ‘also consider’ list for video cameras, and the a7 III’s lower price and full-width, oversampled 4K capture see it take the a7R III’s place, pending full review.

We’ve also added the Canon EOS T7 and EOS M50, and the Panasonic ZS200/TZ200 to the appropriate Buying Guides. This way, anyone shopping for a camera is aware of these models, while we continue to work on their full reviews. Each will be considered for recommendation as soon as our testing is complete.

Read our updated Buying Guides

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Buying Guides updated: Panasonic GH5S selected as best camera for video

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Panasonic GX9 added to ‘Best Cameras under $1000’ buying guide

22 Feb

We’ve added Panasonic’s newest mirrorless camera – the midrange DC-GX9 – to our ‘Best Cameras under $ 1000’ buying guide.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Panasonic GX9 added to ‘Best Cameras under $1000’ buying guide

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Review: Google Pixel 2 is the best smartphone for stills photographers

12 Feb

DPReview smartphone reviews are written with the needs of photographers in mind. We focus on camera features, performance, and image quality.

The Pixel 2 and its larger sibling, the Pixel 2 XL represent Google’s latest flagship phones. Both offer a single 12.2MP F1.8 main camera and an 8MP F2.4 ‘selfie’ camera. From a photographer’s perspective that might not sound like anything special – after all, the iPhone X offers dual rear cameras – yet thanks to behind-the-scenes processing, the Pixel 2 is capable of some of the most detailed photos we’ve ever seen from a smartphone.

It also features a background blurring effect (portrait mode), DNG Raw capture (with use of a third party app), 4K/30p video and optical image stabilization. Plus, all Pixel 2 owners get free Google Photo storage for photos and videos shot on the device through the end of 2020. After that point users will still get free storage but files saved will be high-quality compressed versions (full-res storage will still be available for a price).

Priced at $ 650, the Pixel 2 is not cheap, but it is 2/3rds the price of the iPhone X.

The Pixel 2 offers excellent image quality thanks to a combination of hardware and software processing .
ISO 82 | 1/23000 sec| F1.8

As smartphone cameras progress, we’re seeing a cultural split from traditional camera companies, who rely mostly on hardware and optics to achieve good image quality, just as they did with their film cameras. Instead, smartphone manufacturers are relying more on computational photography and artificial intelligence to produce a photo that is detailed and well-toned, right ‘out of camera’. With just one button press – no need to set the exposure or dynamic range compensation or AF mode yourself.

Google’s secret sauce is in what the company calls ‘HDR+’, which judges exposure intelligently and uses multi-imaging techniques for every shot. So has computational photography, à la Pixel 2 come far enough to replace the pocket cam? How about the mirrorless camera or DSLR?

Aside from the excellent camera, the Pixel 2 is a fairly ordinary smartphone.

Key photographic / Video specs

  • 12.2MP rear camera (1/2.55″ | 1.40 ?m pixels)
  • F1.8 max aperture
  • 4K/30p video
  • 1080/120p, 720/240p slow motion video
  • Optical image stablization
  • Dual Pixel AF with phase detect
  • DNG Raw capture and manual control with 3rd party apps
  • 8MP front camera (F2.4 max ap.)

Other specs

  • Android 8.0 operating system (Oreo)
  • 5 in 1920×1080 AMOLED (441ppi) display (95% DCI-P3)
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor
  • 4GB Ram
  • 64 or 128GB internal storage
  • Unlimited cloud photo/video storage with Google Photos
  • 2750 mAh battery
  • $ 650

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Review: Google Pixel 2 is the best smartphone for stills photographers

Posted in Uncategorized

 
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »