Finally, spring came up and it’s a wonderful time of the year to start grow your business and improve yourself as a photographer. We do a little search to find the best fresh photography business articles from leading blogs which will help you to thrive in 2015. Here you’ll see 80 online and offline marketing strategies for photographers, the recipe Continue Reading
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Time to try out your aperture range. Last week you were encouraged to shoot wide opened using a large aperture.
Now you need to crank it the opposite direction and get some maximum depth of field in this weekly photography challenge of using a small aperture.
By Michael Chen
First let’s define small aperture. Usually when photographers talk about a large aperture it’s in the f/1.8 to f/4 range. Small apertures would include f/11 and smaller (f/16-f/32). What that means is the lens is letting in less light due to the smaller opening – and it also means more of the scene is in sharp focus, or deep depth of field.
You may need to use a tripod for this one as the small aperture consequently also means you’ll need to use a longer shutter speed. Keeping the ISO low will help you avoid noise as well and keep sharpness to the maximum.
Here are a few more examples:
By zman z28
By Michael Bohlander
By Vasile Hurghis
Lavender perspective by Peter Zelei on 500px
Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.
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The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Using a Small Aperture by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
The United Kingdom is hoping to retain an album containing photographs by Oscar Rejlander, and as such it has instituted a temporary export ban on the relic. The ban will prevent the album from being sold to a foreigner and leaving the country (for now), and will possibly provide enough time to study the collection and its origins. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
You’ve got your DSLR and you are excited to test it out. You might have gone out for the first few days or perhaps weeks and then all of a sudden the excitement wears out. Why?
Because you don’t seem to get what you want out of your mighty DSLR, right? You may have spent countless hours in your college, office, or at home in search of a best DSLR that can take the best photographs you want. All your efforts have gone in vein and you have a frustrating backlog of your actual work.
Next time you feel such frustration about your photography remember this quote:
“You will only fail to learn if you do not learn from failing.” – Stella Adler, The Art of Acting
So, get ready to learn about the 10 common photography mistakes that you may have committed and how to overcome them.
The first and foremost mistake is setting the wrong White Balance. We see white as white under all lighting conditions, but the camera doesn’t. You have to guide the camera to know the light source of the current scene you are photographing.
Say you are shooting in daylight; if you set the camera’s White Balance to Cloudy then the scene will have orange cast. On the other hand if you are shooting in cloudy light and the camera White Balance is set to Daylight then the scene will have blue cast.
Here’s an easy way to remember this:
Solution: Set the correct White Balance in the field or shoot in RAW mode. If you shoot RAW, you have a choice to set the correct White Balance in post-processing.
Remember that the dynamic range of your eyes is far greater than the camera’s dynamic range. Dynamic range is the ratio between the brightest elements to the darkest elements in the scene.
You might see the details in both brighter as well as darker regions, but the camera wouldn’t be able to record those details. As a photographer, it is your responsibility to make an exposure that is pleasing to the viewer’s eyes.
Humans are more sensitive to the highlights than the shadows. Overexposed highlights (white patches in a photograph) are more unacceptable to our eyes than underexposed shadows (black patches).
Solution: Expose for the highlights so that nothing gets overexposed, unless you are doing it intentionally. Almost every DSLR will have a blinking indicator (highlight warning, also simply called The Blinkies) that shows overexposed regions in your photograph on the LCD monitor during image playback.
If there are blinkies, then go ahead make exposure compensation (underexpose the scene by the required amount) to get that right.
It is a common tendency of a beginner photographer to keep the subject in center of the frame, which yields a boring, static composition. The viewer has nothing else to look for his/her eye goes straight to the subject and is stuck there.
Solution: Use the Rule of Thirds and keep the subject out of the middle of the frame. An off-centered subject makes the photograph dynamic and uneven negative space creates interest.
No matter how good your photograph is technically, if the focus is not sharp enough, then your photograph doesn’t work. The main subject of interest needs to be in sharp focus, otherwise viewers will get distracted and will not find a point to rest on in the image.
We see objects sharp in reality so we expect them (at least one) to be in sharp focus to make any sense.
Solution: Make sure you check the focus by zooming in on your subject after you take a photograph (zoom feature in playback mode). Make sure there is enough light or color contrast between the subject and the background so that autofocus is able to lock the focus properly.
If you are making a portrait, then focus on the eyes of the person (or bird or mammal), because the viewer needs to make eye contact.
It is quite common to fill the frame with your favorite subject so that it looks big in the frame. But how often does it feel that they are squeezed in the frame? They look suffocated because there is no place to move, forget about the movement there is no place to breathe!
Sometimes there will be enough space around the subject, but in the wrong direction – which is no good either.
Solution: Rule of Thirds is the best composition technique that helps you to give enough space around the subject. Think about the image border as a concealed box where there is no ventilation, you don’t want your favorite subject to suffocate.
This is probably the most common mistake of all. Why? Because, it’s a common tendency to take photograph the moment you see something beautiful or interesting. So, what’s wrong with that you may ask.
Nothing. But have you paid attention to the background? Probably not. You are so overwhelmed by the subject, that you hardly notice anything around it.
A cluttered or distracting background plays the major role in ruining photographs.
Solution: The real photography starts after you choose your subject. Once you’ve done that, forget about it. Pay attention to the rest of the scene; include only those things that complement your subject and exclude everything else.
The background makes the picture. Cleaner background makes the subject stand out making it the primary focus for a viewer.
Another mistake that I see quite often is that horizon is not perfect. This is such a simple thing to notice but still a whole load of photographs have skewed horizons.
How can you miss that? Viewers feel uneasy when the horizon is skewed. It also indicates that the vertical subjects should be perpendicular to the ground. A person, building, bird, or tree tilted to one side makes them vulnerable to fall (unless of course they are tilted in reality like the Leaning Tower of Pisa).
Solution: Use the grid overlay while composing in the field, or correct the horizon using the Crop and Straighten Tool in the post-processing stage. Find a subject in the scene/photograph that should be horizontal or vertical in reality, and use it as a reference when you straighten the image.
Remember, Photography is two dimensional medium but we see everything in three dimensions. Photographers often miss the depth that is inherent in photography.
You saw that most beautiful scene in 3D and you captured it, but you wonder what went wrong as you stare at your monitor, right? Something is missing. This is not what you saw.
Why? You didn’t realize that you are capturing a 3-Dimensional scene in a 2-Dimensional photograph.
Solution: There are lots of ways to create depth – include a foreground object, use leading lines, use perspective distortion, change the point of view, and so on. But the most important thing to remember when you are out in the field is that a photograph is 2-Dimensional.
Too much of anything is bad. When you see a scene, you see it as whole, which is natural. But if you try to include everything that you saw in one image then you end up with a photograph that has too much.
When you looked at the scene, were you really looking at the entire scene at once? Think about it. If you do this exercise of how you actually consume a scene you will know a whole lot more.
Solution: Try simple compositions. Instead of making one photo of the entire scene, ask yourself what interests you the most? Then pick that subject and make a photograph that emphasizes only that subject.
What is in a photograph is just as important as what is not in there. Once you master these simpler compositions you will be able to take grand landscapes in a much simpler, but more interesting ways.
Photography is all about Light. No light means no photography. But light has quality and direction. The best photographs are normally done in the golden hours and just few hours before and after sunrise and sunset when the light is at its best.
Many photographers don’t seem to care about the direction and the quality of light at all. Either the light is so harsh that there are multiple patches of light and shadows in the scene, or the subject’s eyes are in dark shadows, or light is just flat making the photograph 2-Dimensional, and so on.
Solution: Remember that photography is all about Light. More you learn to see the light better photographer you will become.
The best way to appreciate light and its amazing qualities to transform a scene, is to go to the scene before sunrise and stay beyond sunset.
Still waiting to hear more?
Go ahead and correct the mistakes now. You will see yourself becoming a better photographer when you take control over these common mistakes.
Good luck!
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The post 10 Common Photography Mistakes and How to Overcome Them by Prathap DK appeared first on Digital Photography School.
William Henry Fox Talbot prints from as early as 1844 are part of a collection of over 200 photographs that are due to go to auction in London next month. All of the pictures in the sale come from a single private collection which includes a many well-known and important works, and many of the prints were made at the time the original pictures were taken. See gallery
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Let’s get a discussion going on what you wish you understood better when you first got in to photography. Please fill in the poll below, you can check off up to three choices, and add your comments below.
If it’s not listed check off “other” and add a comment.
What was your biggest obstacle? What did you struggle most to understand?
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
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Based in the UK, nature photographer Will Burrard-Lucas is highly dedicated to wildlife photography. He’s even developed his own remote-controlled camera system for getting as close as you can with dangerous animals like rhinos, lions and… meerkats. The photographer spent an entire year living in Zambia where he used new technologies like drones, camera traps and remote-control devices to capture nature from tricky perspectives. See gallery
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
This week’s challenge is all about using a large aperture, shooting wide opened. You can see some examples of this technique using shallow depth of field here.
Aperture is one side of the exposure triangle and understanding it, and truly mastering it is so important to taking your photography to the next level. This is your chance to practice.
By Evan Leeson
Even if you do not have a lens that has f/1.4 or even f/2.8 you can still achieve a shallow depth of field. It also has to do with distance to subject, and focal length. So throw on a long lens and use the largest aperture you’ve got and just go do your best.
Here are a few examples using wide open apertures:
By premier-photo.com
By Mark Strozier
By Janet Ramsden
By Alex
By Susana Fernandez
Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.
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The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Wide Opened by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Motion blur photography gives an illusion of speed and motion. Apart from taking pictures of objects in motion like in the case of capturing sports related events, or movements of animals like a running deer, motion blur photography also helps add dramatization to stand still photos. It helps focus on aspects and highlights the importance of certain movements. It is Continue Reading
The post How To Create Photographic Illusion With Motion Blur Photography appeared first on Photodoto.
Get the most out of your travel photography and capture the moment with these 10 simple tips. Most of these tips are pretty basic and some of them are useful for traveling in general.
Sounds obvious I know, but whether it’s wildlife or people, it’s often best to focus your lens on the face of of your most important subject. We are naturally drawn to eyes, so that’s where you’ll usually want to focus.
Photographing people in fascinating cultural situations requires a totally different mindset to shooting landscapes.
Forget your tripod, forget low ISO settings and think less about image quality and more about capturing the moment. Be ready, by relying on your autofocus and fast shutter speeds to freeze the action. Handheld is the way to go because you just don’t have the time to be fiddling around with tripods.
In bright sunlight you’ll get away with ISO settings between 400 and 1000 but when the light starts to get low, don’t be afraid to crank that ISO way up into the thousands.
Use wider apertures like f/2.8 to achieve faster shutter speeds and get a pleasing shallow depth of field to accentuate your main subject. Shooting in Aperture Priority mode (AV) lets you quickly dial in the desired aperture while your camera decides on the shutter speed.
If your lens has some kind of vibration reduction be sure to switch that on when going handheld.
Take at least a few hours while traveling to learn the basic language skills for your location. Knowing how to say ”Hello, excuse me, please, thank you, sorry, yes, no,” etc., goes a long way even in countries where English is spoken in tourist areas.
Having some basic language skills can make a huge difference to the type of access you’ll get, and the things you’ll get to see. Language opens doors that would otherwise be closed to the average tourist.
Getting access to people’s everyday lives is often difficult if you don’t know any locals, especially if it’s your first time at a particular location. Consider hiring a guide or translator so that you can communicate with locals on a deeper level than just knowing the basic phrases.
I’ve done this a few times and you sometimes get to make great friends with your guides, who will be happy to introduce you to interesting people and places.
When taking pictures of strangers or communicating with locals, don’t be a dour faced tourist. Smiling is universal and softens what might otherwise be an intimidating approach to people who have little experience with adventurous foreigners.
If you want people to like you, a smile is a good place to start.
If you’re able to ask a person for permission to take their picture, you should. In many countries there is no legal obligation to do so but it’s just good manners, and some people may have religious reasons why they’d really prefer not to have their picture taken.
Conversely, don’t interrupt a delicate social situation if there’s a chance it might be socially awkward. This picture I took at the very famous What Pho in Bangkok is a good example. The monks were taking an exam in front of hundreds of tourists under a high pressure situation so I’m hardly going to walk up and interrupt.
When it comes to capturing atmospheric cultural shots, I’ll choose prime lenses that offer a lovely blurred bokeh effect while keeping my main subject sharp. Typically these will be in the 35mm, 50mm or 85mm, range on a full frame camera. These types of lenses will give you that lovely cinematic look that all-in-one zoom lenses just can’t deliver.
You can achieve a similar look with big telephoto lenses but those are less portable. Smaller primes also make you look more low-key and have great image quality.
One of my favourite lenses for travel photography is the Sigma 85mm 1.4 prime.
This goes back to what I said about shooting fast. With people and animals you often won’t have time to switch lenses, so consider carrying two cameras that have lenses for different purposes. Let’s say a wide angle lens on one camera, and a lovely 85mm prime for portraits on the other. This way you’ll be able to cope with most situations at a fast pace.
If you are going to carry two cameras, try and keep one in a small bag at all times. If you look too much like a paparazzo it might intimidate some people.
I’m not advising you to put yourself in danger. You should always use common sense, but consider doing things you might otherwise find yourself saying NO to. That’s where you’ll find the best photo opportunities.
An example of this would be my recent visit to a mountain cave in Thailand called Phra That Cave in Kanchanaburi Province. The cave has no lights, claustrophobic tunnels and thousands of bats, some of which you’ll have flying right in your face. To me, that’s fun, but to others it’s a living hell.
”Bats, you say? Thousand of bats?”
Third world countries (and even some first world countries) have a very vague concept of Health and Safety. Modern day westerners are raised in a bubble of relative safety that can sometimes result in us having a misplaced sense of responsibility.
Use common sense when traveling, and don’t assume that those hastily built steps you’re about to climb have been passed by a safety inspector.
I’d love to hear your travel photography tips. From always carrying toilet paper to having your lawyer’s phone number on speed dial, please share your hard earned experiences and let’s grow this tip list.
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The post 10 Ways to Improve Your Travel Photography by Gavin Hardcastle appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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