In this article, we have collected some beginning digital photography tips and tricks from three of our most expert online instructors. These tips on lighting contrast, flash output, and camera settings will point you in the right direction and help you make your own masterpiece photographs.
We’ve all seen – OK, we’ve all photographed – pictures in which a long, straight horizon line slants in one direction, making it appear as if everything is going to slide right out of the photo! Before you go out shooting seascape and landscape scenes, here are a few of the ways you can prevent a tilting horizon line or shoreline.
I have always been fascinated by ancient mathematical rules and how they have been applied in design. The “golden rectangle” or “golden mean” is one such rule if you like, that has often sneaked its way into my design work – sometimes planned but more often than not it just seems to happen.
In portrait photography there are a few guidelines that you should review and think about when you take pictures of people. The three general types of portrait photography are: close-ups or facial shots, upper body shots, or environmental portraits (where you focus on the subject and the surrounding environment that gives the subject character).
Do you wish you were a better photographer? All it takes is a little know-how and experience. Keep reading for some important picture-taking tips. Then grab your camera and start shooting your way to great pictures.
Your digital camera exposure time determines how long your digital camera takes to record its picture. On a well-lit day, exposure times can be very short because plenty of light is available to help record a photograph. At nighttime, exposure time can increase dramatically due to the near absence of light.
You’ve taken a great picture only to find out that it looks washed out or that you can’t see detail of the subject very well due to shadow and glare. What’s the deal?
If you’re planning on using photographic images of people for commercial reasons then you will need to have a signed model release. This simple contract covers typically one side of A4 paper and includes information such as the Photographer and Model contact details, a statement of how the images shall be used, and finally signatures of the parties involved sealing the contract. Model releases are easy contracts to draw up and this article sheds some more light on writing your own model release.
Photographing an eclipse of the Moon is fun and easy. You don’t even have to worry about special filters to protect your eyes or your camera. Unlike eclipses of the Sun, eclipses of the Moon are perfectly safe to watch with the naked eye.
“Macro photography” is simply another name for “close-up photography.” The closer you can focus on your subject the larger it will appear in the frame, which is the point to macro photography — to magnify small objects. Some purists insist that the term macro be reserved for images that are at least life-sized in the film — an object 1" long must record an image 1" long or longer in the film to count as macro to these folks.
The sight of early morning snow, the shimmering frost in the trees, your sister falling off in your snow filled front yard and your stunning snow angel, don’t you ever wish you could just capture that moment right away and place them in your computer desktop? Right, sounds easy but for an amateur photographer this may sound too challenging and laborious. But thanks to the dawn of digital photography and winter photography need not be exclusive to the professional any more.
Any time of year is a great time to snap a photograph, but Fall is, of course, at least twenty times more so. (IOHO, of course.)
High Dynamic Range explained – The concept of high dynamic range processing has been around since 1997, but has started to increase pace in the digital photography world. Peter Bargh explains what it’s all about and how you use it.
There are advantages in using both screw and square filters. Screw in filters attach to your lens’ filter thread and are the least bulky option. They are often better quality too because they are usually made of glass and don’t scratch easily. If you have a number of lenses with different filter thread sizes it can be an expensive option and that’s where square filters have the advantage. These fit into a holder which in turn attaches on to your lens via a removable adaptor ring. You only need one holder and one filter which can be attached to a variety of lenses using different size adaptor rings. The range of filters available in the square system is usually broader too, with some unusual special effects from the Likes of Cokin and a much wider range of colour correction filters from the specialist producers, such as Lee Filters.
One of the best sites around for desktops has to be Desktopography. Inspired by their amazing work today we are going to put together a sunset image mixing some vector shapes and dusky lighting effects to produce a slick image that would make a nice album cover for a chillout mix!
There are times when a regular photo just doesn’t cut it and you need your photo to pack a punch. Here is one technique that you may find useful. As with all photo-based techniques, it doesn’t really make up for having a crappy photo though, so if you are trying to rescue something ugly don’t get your hopes up too high!
If you have just picked up a camera for the first time, or have been taking pictures for years, the information contained in this guide will ensure that you do not overlook anything as you frame and shoot that picture. Taking your photographs to the next level, by using a few computer tools, no special filters, and free clip art, we will walk you through the steps to create a picture like the one on the cover of this book as easy as 1-2-3.
Introduction To Photography Composition: Examples
Depth-of-field is very important in portraits because a shallow one allows you to isolate the subject and separate it from the background, concentrating the viewer’s attention. To achieve this you need to shoot with a wide open aperture, but some lenses have wider apertures than others. Then there is the digital problem. With SLRs you get around half a stop more depth of field than you might expect, which isn’t a killer, but still a slight drawback. If you are using a compact digital, which have a much smaller sized CCD, then an aperture of f/2.8 suddenly produces the depth of field sharpness of something like f/16. Now that’s useless for portraits as it means everything behind the subject will be in focus. That’s one reason why compacts are aimed at point and shoot snappers rather than photography enthusiasts. This PSP X1 tutorial aims to reduce the depth of field in a graduated fashion to help the subject stand out from the background.
Abstract photography is nothing new, and people constantly come up with new – or re-invent old – versions of photography techniques. One of the ones that is going like wild-fire (excuse the pun) around the interwebs at the moment is the art of photographing coloured smoke.
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