Digital Shutters

You have a big day planned at some major event and there is going to be a lot of action, weather it be a race, sporting event, or anything that has a lot of action. But how do you shoot the action and capture that great shot?

First you’ll want to determine where the event is going to be held and the type of lighting and filters you’ll need. Make sure you have extra batteries and media cards. There is nothing worse than running out of batteries or disk space. Of course you’ll check that all your equipment is functioning properly. And most important of all use your tripod. But you do this at every shoot and that’s the basics. HOW do you take that action shot?
Read you owner’s manual on how to take the type of shots you want. It’s always good to refer to it every now and then especially if you haven’t taken a lot of these shots or if you it’s been awhile since you’ve opened the book. You might be surprised at what you find.
A couple of basic tips:
With a digital camera there is what is called shutter lag. SO there is really only 2 good methods of taking the action shot.
1. Anticipate where the action is going to be-• If you want your pictures to come out with the motion blur, slow down your shutter speed. Determine where the action is going and point the camera at that spot then just as the action starts to come into view start snapping.
• The same applies if you want to stop the action altogether. Point the camera where the action is going to be. Set your camera on action shot and wait until the action comes into frame and start snapping.
One thing to remember, do not wait for the action to enter the center of your view finder, if it is going fast enough you might miss the action. Sometimes if the action is moving quickly you might loose the shot with the camera trying to focus on the subject.
• If you have auto focus you will want to set the focal length by pressing you shutter button halfway, or turn off your auto focus and set it to manual.

2. Follow the action-
• As you are snapping the shot, follow the action. Keeping your camera on the tripod will help reduce camera shake and keep the action level. You do not want a shakky subject. This effect will also give the subject a diffecent motion blur by bluring the background insted of the subject.

References
Cryosphere.com
Popphoto.com
Picturecorrect.com
basic-digital-photography.com

action, digital photography, tips, how to

As you probably already figured out I am not a portrait photographer. I do landscapes, real estate, product and anything for stock photography and the web. With portrait photography its setting up the shot and the getting your models to do exactly what you are wanting them to do to get that perfect shot. You know you’ll edit it in the digital darkroom to get the effects you want. So what is exactly needed to do portrait photography besides your model or subject?

First you’re going to need a location.
Thinking about your location your going to need lighting, and most important the backdrops. Some ideas on locations are great outdoors, a nice lobby of a big building that has soft skylights to give that diffused effect. Any place that will not distract from the subject but enhance the overall look and feel of what you are trying to portray.

Your lighting is very important you want soft diffused lighting, keep away from direct harsh fluorescent lights. And use a reflector to add additional soft light to the face area. Of course with a deflector either your subject will have to hold it in just the right place or get yourself an assistant, or have a deflector stand.

Your backdrop is important if you are setting up studio shooting. There are plenty of readily available commercial backdrops or a simple back drop you can make is using a wrinkled white sheet. (Sounds corny?) Pin the sheet so it drapes nicely and center your subject in the middle of the sheet. Recently I did this because I was shocked at the price of my son’s graduation pictures. The Portrait Company used plain white backdrops, and since I am a photographer I decided to recreate them myself. I took the sheet outside to get natural lighting had my son stand in front of them. Snapped off a few pictures edited them in Photoshop and then got them professionally printed at no other place but Wal-Mart. With some beautiful matting photo holders and no one could tell the difference. Saved me a total of $350.00.

References
Olympus.com
Photonet.com
vividlight.com

portrait, digital photography, tips

Sunsets are one of the most popular photographs, but how can you make a sunset jump out at you? Before venturing out to shoot that sunset think about the composition you are shooting. Are you shooting action at sunset or are you shooting a landscape sunset. Apply all the basic photography tips to shooting the sunset. Starting with a good image makes for a better edited photo in the end. Now what kind of twist can you give a sunset to capture the viewer and draw them in?

This is where your digital darkroom comes into play.
Turn your photo into a classic black and white and let the subject matter speak for itself. Enhance the brightness and contrast. Play with the Hue and Saturation. You can still edit the color balance in black and white to bring out unique effects. In the orginal photo you are drawn to the right where the brightest part of the photo is. As you can see I brought out the street lights and the lighting around the buildings. Bringing the focus back to the center of the photo and not just on the bridge.

Enhance the colors of the sky to make that your main focus. Play with the color balance and hue and saturation to give it that extra boost. GO extreme and change the colors all together. Add sunbursts or flares to the sun portion itself to give it extra drama. In this photo I changed the colors of the sky and darkened the foreground. Bringing out the highlights and putting balance back into the photo.

Before shooting a sunset think about the composition. If you are going to shoot activities where the action is the main focus and not the subject doing the action, then shoot at sunset to give your photos and extra twist. And enhance the foreground and play down the sun itself.

Resources
New Your Institute of Photography
Popphoto.com
vividlight.com

sunset, digital photoraphy, tips

Sometimes when taking photos you’ll get a sun streak or an unwanted streak from lights; this is what is called lens flare. It is an unwanted artifact on your photo. Lens flare is caused by light entering the camera sensors that are not part of the image. Lens flare can cause a reduction in the contrast of your photo or it may also cause over overexposure.
When taking your photo you can reduce lens flare by using a lens hood. You can also edit the lens flare in you digital darkroom. Look at your photos for areas where there is a bright light source for any unwanted artifacts. DO not confuse lens flare with spots from your flash.
Sometimes lens flare can actually enhance a photo depending on what you want to say with the image. A lot of photo editing programs have a filter you can actually apply these lens flares, or sunspots. You can even use this effect to enhance the natural lens flare.

As you can see in this photo I had unwanted sun spots. Using Photoshop CS3 I used the clone tool to remove the sunspots and then adjusted the brightness /contrast, hue/saturation, and did a color match.

References
Cambridge in Color

flare, sunspots, lens, lens flare, digital photography

With today being July 4th there will be a lot of activities, BBQ’s, and Fireworks. You will want to have your camera ready for those candid shots, and group shots. Here are a few reminder tips.
When taking those posed shots step close enough to your subjects to have everyone in the image without using your auto zoom. Your picture will come out clearer.
Use a tripod to help stabilize the camera and your self time to get into the picture yourself.
Have extra memory cards and batteries on hand so you don’t miss any of the action.

And have a Happy Independence day celebration!

Shooting Fireworks Tips

[tag]independence day,july,digital photography,tips[/tags]

Most people don’t think of color as having a temperature. This is actually a concept of theoretical physics where the light spectrum balance of white light sources is rated numerically. Warm colors, the reds are lower on the numerical scale and cooler colors the blues are higher. Cameras are provided with a white balance to detect the color spectrum and adjust to the proper colors. But sometimes the sensors don’t do the right job because depending on where you are affects the color temperature and white balance of your camera. If you are inside with ambient lighting your photos may come out with a yellowish haze, fluorescent lighting will give you a different effect. Also if you are outside in direct sunlight your photos may come out with a bluish haze depending on the time of day and the UV rays the sun is letting off.
Most photo editing software can correct these effects for you.
As you can see in this photo with the blue haze; I took with my Olympus E-500 I did not use any filters and this was taken early in the morning.

I used Photoshop CS3 to fix the photo.
First I applied a warming filter
Curves I adjusted each color individually instead of together
• Blue output 26 and input 93
• Green output 136 and input 175
• Red output 47 and input 31
I then used Hue/Saturation; Master – hue to 31, saturation to 19, lightness to 0
I then used Match color; luminance to 119, intensity to 135, fades 0
Using selective colors;
• Red – cyan -37, magenta -54, yellow +31, black 0
• Blue – cyan 0, magenta -41, yellow 0, black 0

As you can see almost any picture can be fixed in you digital darkroom.

photo editing, photoshop, white balance, color temperature, digital camera

The 4th of July is upon us and you’ll want to shoot the fireworks. Here are a few tips the experts tells us to do when you are taking the shots.
• First and foremost use a tripod. You’ll be shooting at night and you don’t want to have any movement on the camera part or you’ll get blurry images.
• Some of the newer cameras have auto settings for fireworks if yours has this setting then of course that is the best one to use.
Otherwise
• Turn off the camera flash or it will wash out the photo.
• Turn off any auto features if you possibly can or otherwise set the camera on Landscape.
• If you can adjust your ISO set it to 400, Higher ISO’s will put noise on your image.
• Set your F/stop to the highest setting, you may want to adjust and experiment with your ISO and F/stop once you’ve snapped off a few shots.
• Turn off your Auto focus otherwise you may loose the big bursts waiting for it to focus.
If you have a point and shoot camera be quick and you can edit your shots in you digital darkroom.

Resources
Takegreatpictures.com
Olympusdigitalschool.com

While I’m not into reviewing sites on digital photography and I’m certainly not a critic, surfing through a Google search can be very time consuming. With the wealth of information out there on Photography and Digital Photography it can get confusing to find exactly what you are looking for. A search can pull up thousands of pages and who has time to sift through them all. Most of the time people will only go a few pages before the frustration gets to them and they stop looking. Depending on a sites rating and content you may have hundreds of pages leading to the same site. So what is a person to do? I sifted through the pages for you and found one site that was very helpful, and worth giving it a mention. Fotoforum.com has actually taken some of the confusion out the searching for you; it is a site that lists sites. Putting the top sites into 8 different categories and giving you a good selection to choose from. Although there is not a search button on the site to find exactly what you are looking for the categories seem to cover the most popular topics of interest and lists the sites that touch on that topic.

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Presidio TX. Big Bend Ranch State Park
An old wagon at the Fort Leaton Historic Site
Olympus E-500, Lens 14-45mm, UV filter

photography, digital camera, information, Presidio TX

Many people remember that around 1995 or so a digital camera came around to take photos for you to use on the web. And because of this many believe that that is when the digital cameras or digital photography was invented.
In all actuality technology for digital imagery has been around since the early 1950’s with the invention of the video tape recorder. And by 1956 the technology was widely used in the television industry.
In the 1960’s, as the computer age technology started advancing, NASA converted from analog signals to digital. The governments use of digital imagery in several of its areas, helped to boost the commercial side as well and in 1972 Texas Instruments was the first to patient the film-less electronic camera. Sony was next inline with the still electronic camera which in all actuality was a video camera that took still pictures since it used small film disks that needed a video reader.
Kodak jumped in, in the 1970’s and invented several solid state sensors that converted light to digital and then in 1986 came up with the first sensor that was capable of a 5×7 print or 1.4 million pixels. In 1990 they developed the photo CD system and in 1991 all this advancement in technology led to the release of the first digital cameras for Professional Photo Journalists, a Nikon F-3 equipped with a Kodak 1.3 mega pixel sensor. By 1994 the first digital cameras for the open market were available with the Apple Quick Take 100 followed by the Kodak DC40 the following year was the Casio QV-11. And in 1996 Sony released the Cyber-Shot.
Today with the ever advancing technology the digital camera is now out selling the film camera.

Reference:
About.com
www.Wikipedia.com

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Terlingua, TX. Hidden swimming hole
Camera Olympus E-500, lens 14 -45 mm, Filter UV and Polarizer, Landscape settings.

history, digital camera, technology, photo, Terlingua TX

Unless you are a professional photographer and take alot of pictures that need further processing, then RAW file format might be relatively unknown to you.

A lot of professional photographers have been using the RAW file format for their images; this format gives them better creative control over the final outcome of the photo.
A Raw file format contains all the data of an image that the camera sensors capture before the camera processes the image. JPEG and TIFF formats have been processed by the camera according to the settings the user has specified.

Many high end DSLR’s have the option to shoot in RAW format. The only problem with RAW images is the format is different between many of the manufactures and there is no guarantee that you will be able to open the image. Photographers needed a way to store their RAW file formats for long term. With all the file formats out there and changing technology how can we be sure that they will still be around 10 years from now so that we can still view our photos.

In 2004 ADOBE created the Digital Negative Specification, the DNG file format. This standardized the RAW file format to be utilized across the board. They also launched a free DNG file software converter.
In 2007 this program was integrated into their Photoshop CS3, this streamlined productivity and Camera RAW enhancements. It recognizes many of the popular manufacture RAW images file formats for ease with conversion.

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Terlingua TX, Hidden swimming hole. One of our babies practicing for next years Chihuahua races
Camera Olympus E-500, 14-45mm lens, UV Filter, Auto Action settings

negative, digital camera, photos, history, Adobe, Terlingua, TX, Chihuahua