How to take care of your Camera Equipment

(From: http://phototip.blogspot.com)

Ok, so maybe you don't have a $3,000 camera, or the expensive lenses that go with it, but you've put in a tidy sum to get your camera gear, and I'm sure you'd like a couple of ideas on how to keep that gear ship-shape and humming all the time.

Keep it in use
Keeping your gear in use is one of the best ways to ensure that its working when you need it. Buying an expensive lens and storing it away in your closet is not going to keep it nice and well. You want to keep it in shape?Use it... Using the lenses and cameras that you have keeps the gears, motors and hinges lubricated and rust free. It keeps you lenses aerated and free of fungus (if you're not in an excessively humid area) and your camera's springs and gears lively and full of punch!

More than anything else, it keeps the photography gears running in your head. Remember, we talked about that...

Control the humidity when possible
Its important to keep your lenses in a moderately humid area, especially if you live near the coast or in a humid region. Excess humidity helps fungal growth in your lenses, which, over time will lead to poor image quality and softness. Once fungal growth has begun, its almost impossible to remove it completely without damaging the lens's coating. Low humidity (below 20%) could dry out the lubricant.

In this case, prevention certainly is better than cure... And prevention is easy, just make sure that your lenses are in air-tight containers and that you have fresh indicative silica gel inside, along with those lenses. Don't use too much though, a couple of sachets should do for most situations.

Keep them away from vibrations
Any delicate machinery should be kept away from vibrating surfaces. Vibrations make screws get loose in their threads and eventually fall out... Consider that your camera's shutter is a delicate part and that a loose screw getting in between it while its moving could ruin it completely. Vibrations could also mess up the various delicately calibrated parts other than the shutter...

Make sure that your camera bag is well padded on the sides and the bottom so that vibrations are dampened to the maximum possible extent.

Clean it often, and keep it clean
A good assumption to make is that your camera is allergic to dust. Wipe its nose, will you? and keep it wiped...

Dust, sand and moisture are a camera's worst enemies and the worst you can do is to keep it in an environment with these elements around...

• Dust gets jammed in inconvenient places and is very hard to get rid of once it enters your camera body.
• Sand is extremely abrasive and could instantly jam any moving part in a camera.
• Moisture/water and electronics do not mix. They go together like, well, electricity and water... a lethal combination. Keep your camera as dry as possible, even if the manufacturer claims that the camera is weather-proof. In addition, moisture is bad for your lenses, remember? fungus...

Cleaning your camera equipment takes care of dust that could enter the camera body, makes sure that you don't have sand around the lens mount when you change lenses, and safe storage keeps moisture out of the equation.

Use UV filters on your lenses
The front element of your lens is always exposed to the open. Getting fingerprints, dust and often, horrible scratches on the lens element are not all that rare occurances. Getting an Ultra-Violet filter for your lens keeps your lens one step away from these disastrous events. You can leave them on all the time as they have a very minor effect on the resulting photographs...

In general, pamper them, but not too much
Your cameras have to be taken care of, kept clean and charged, but you do have a life beyond the camera. At the end of the day, your camera is just metal, plastic and glass; people need to be taken care of a lot more... and you also have those photographs to take...

Lenses for Portrait Photography

(From: http://phototip.blogspot.com)

Portrait Lenses

by saisiv

A good 'Portrait lens' should be able to separate the person being photographed from the background and feature him/her in a pleasing perspective.

Imagine that you’re taking a photograph of a beautiful model out-doors, near a forest, under the shade of some massive evergreen trees with gigantic ferns in the background (don't look to the left, picture this in your mind). You’d want to get the model in sharp focus but if the ferns are also in focus, they’d just add clutter to the photograph. In this case, a telephoto lens set at a nice, wide aperture will give you a shallow depth of field, separating the model and the background. If you’re just using natural light with some reflectors, the added advantage of having a fast lens is that you’ll be able to shoot at faster shutter speeds!

The best range of focal lengths
Most photographers use a zoom lens in the 85-135mm range for most of their portrait photography. Some of the faster lenses in this range of focal lengths come with apertures as wide as f/2.8 and f/1.8. Canon’s EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens is one such lens.

You’ll also want a lens that enables you to stand a reasonable distance away from the subject. Long focal lengths help with that… Staying away from the subject and taking portraits with a 70mm or 135mm lens has two major benefits.

1. The first is that it gives the sitter’s face a pleasing perspective. Noses are not enlarged and sticking into the camera while ears disappear into the distance; instead they are nicely proportionate to each other.
2. The second is that you will be able to give the model or sitter some space instead of intruding into their personal space. This always makes the sitter more comfortable, making for a more productive shoot.

At the same time, you don’t want to be too far away from the sitter, making it difficult to communicate… Also, you may not have all that much space! Taking a full length portrait of a 5’ 10” model with a 200mm lens would require you to stand about 30-40 feet away! So, extremely long focal length lenses are generally given a miss for this category unless you’re doing some really tight close-ups, in which case it would generally be cheaper to take a couple of steps forwards!

Alternate Focal lengths

by Shutupyourface

The 70-200mm lens we talked about earlier is great if you’re doing half-length or close up shots, but if you’re taking full length, or group portraits, you may want to add a wider zoom to your repertoire of lenses to give your photographs some variety. A wide-to-medium-telephoto lens is usually good for this usage. I use the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens but have to keep reminding myself to stay at the telephoto end of the lens. A good way to remind yourself not to go wide is to set a marker at a safe distance away from the model and to remain behind it at all times. This will ensure that you don't distort the sitter's features beyond their most pleasing proportions.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule and sometimes a portrait taken with a wide-angle lens could emphasise a certain quirky aspect of your sitter’s personality, so remember, there is always room for a couple of pictures taken with non-standard focal lengths and angles…

Portraits with a Prime Lens
Some photographers prefer to use 'Prime lenses' (also called block lenses) for portraiture because of the increased sharpness over zoom lenses. The Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L is one of the major candidates for this as many photographers feel that the perspective and bokeh. Many photographers also like using 105mm and 135mm prime lenses for their portrait photography. However, using a prime lens means that you have to keep 'shunting' forwards and backwards to get your framing right.


Here are some popular ‘Portrait lenses’ for Nikon and Canon Cameras

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L
Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom
Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom
Nikon 85mm f/1.8D AF
Nikon 135mm f/2.0D AF DC

8 ways to keep your compositions simple

(From: http://phototip.blogspot.com)

First the why

Why would you want to leave things out of a frame? More the merrier, right? The bigger, the better, right? Umm… sometimes, yes… But not here. You see, when people look at a photograph, they expect to understand what it is you’re trying to communicate right away, without having to wait. Today, when everybody uploads about 20-200 pictures to flickr a day, you really do have to have an eye catching photograph for it to stand out at all… you could do that by having a great subject, or by having a simple subject and simplifying it further. Remember, less is more!

Now the how:

1. Go in close to the subject. This could either mean moving closer physically, or changing your lens to a longer focal length one or if its something small, it could mean changing to a macro setup.
2. Cut the Clutter. Very often we fail to realise that there are elements inside the frame that are not really needed. Remove anything that does not ‘belong’ in the frame. It could be as simple as taking a step to the side to remove the interfering bum of a relative while photographing your nephew at Christmas, but it could make a vast difference.
3. Keep an eye on the background. Backgrounds are very important. They contribute to the mood of a photograph no matter how much out of focus they are. If your photograph has a background, make sure that it does not interfere with your foreground elements and distract the viewer from the experience that you’re trying to share.
4. Fill the frame. This is a great way to get rid of an interfering background. Step in close, and fill the frame with your subject. If you’re doing a portrait of a child, go down to her level and fill the frame with a tight close up.
5. Use backgrounds to your advantage. This may sound like a contradiction to the previous two points, but let me assure you that it’s not. What I mean is that when you have a clean, clear background, make use of it. You can always use ‘white-space’ to de-clutter a photograph, bringing the subject into clear relief. When doing this, remember that if you can find a textured background without many distinguishing marks, this will do very nicely too.
6. Use simple light. A couple of photographers have told me, “there’s only one sun, so why should I use 4 lights” what they mean is that the more directional lights you have, the more unrealistic your photograph will look. While this is not always a bad thing, you may want to take simple photographs with clear cut lighting so that the lighting does not take meaning away from your subject.
7. Use simple colours. Yes, even the hues and shades of a photograph can make it either complex or simple. Try to make sure that your compositions don't have too many colours. Very often, a photograph can be sufficiently varied, yet simple, by simply having various shades of the same colour.
   
8. Above all, keep your equipment simple, stupid. Very often we get carried away with all the lenses and gadgetry that we may own. I know that I do, but I try to remind myself to choose the lens that I’m most likely to use, with maximum advantage to me. That way, when it comes to crunch time, and there’s a photograph you’re about to take, you know exactly what you have in hand, and you’ll be able to make the most of that. It’s all too easy to find yourself changing lenses when you come across that rare tiger spotting… or while your child is taking her first few steps.

Remember, always to breathe deeply and relax when you find that you’re not sure about what you're going to do. Then, remember these 8 simple steps and you’re on your way to taking some remarkably simple, yet memorable pictures.

Photo Project: Photo Stories

(From: http://phototip.blogspot.com)

Back to school, Baby! We're doing essays!

photo by arndalarm

Don't you remember how you hated doing essays in school? First you had to come up with a topic, or you'd be assigned one, then you'd have to research the essay, make notes and finally write the essay! Oh, the piles of books that would have to be read and sometimes referenced! and do you remember the library? [sigh] I mean, want to forget the library?

Well, now here's a chance to get back at the establishment!

Photo Stories, or photo essays are a sequence of photographs that tell a story by themselves when placed together. You'll see them frequently in magazines along with some text. One of my favourite sources of photo-stories is National Geographic magazine. You can usually understand most of whats happening just by looking at their photographs. Of course the content is gripping too, but for many people its the photographs that make the magazine what it is.

Now, down to business. It's easy to make a photo story. Choose a topic, preferably something which is close to your heart and easy to access for starters. Try doing something like "A day in the life of..." series for your family or just a series of photographs of something in your neighbourhood. This will get you in the mood for more challenging series...

You could then move on to more interesting time based stories, like capturing certain buildings and their interiors over the passage of a day, or a year! The working of a local charity, featuring the key people behind it and the work that they do, the people their work benefits would make an impressive photo story. Here's a decent attempt at capturing a Russian, Ilya, and the 44 disabled dogs that he cares for. The photo story is in Russian, but it could be in any language and not make much of a difference. The story is still there.

photo by Xylonets

Photo stories are most often seen in journalism and reportage of events as in this photo story about Riots in Dublin but there's no reason why they cant be used to tell interesting everyday stories too, like this "Story of a parrot" by Subhasish or Surreal stories like Xylonets' "If You Go Out to the Barn Tonight . . . You Better Not Go Alone" and this one about the "Modern Family" by bihua.

Remember that what you are trying to do is to capture the key moments that define what ever it is you are photographing. Try capturing emotions, locations, interaction between people, interactions between things - objects and places - and also capture some of the surroundings. Essential skills that you'll need will be good composition, a discerning eye for detail that could add meaning to the photograph and good communication skills (if your story is about people).

But, worry not if this list sounds daunting, for we are all learning... Thats why I asked you to start with an easy topic, remember? Doing photo-stories helps you to refine your skill in composition and portraiture, and if you're doing something outdoors, maybe even your landscape skills. Remember, there are no hard and fast rules as long as you capture the essence of what you are trying to convey.

Finishing it off
The ideal old-world finish to the photo-story is to print your pictures out and paste them in a photo-book with larger pictures wherever you want to emphasise the photograph and to show some extra detail in it. You could also put together a multimedia presentation like this one made by the baltimore sun. These days, its not all that difficult to do. Otherwise you can just put them together in a folder on your computer and number them 001, 002, and so on so that they are displayed in order when seen with a slide show software. [TIP:] The two zeros in front of numerals zero to nine ensure that they are not displayed just before ten and twenty.

8 Good Habits for Creative Photographers

From: http://phototip.blogspot.com

How do you derive inspiration for your picture-taking? How do you stay creative? How do you get creative to start with? I'm hoping to open up some answers here, but you're welcome to add to this list in the comments section.

Keep your mind open

by 'SeraphimC

There's nothing on this planet that can 'not inspire'. If you look at a piece of trash and say "How could I possibly be inspired by this?" you're not looking beyond the obvious. Here's a couple of different ways in which to look at a piece of trash:

• If it's an interesting piece of trash (not at all as rare as you may imagine), look for interesting shapes, colours, reflections, juxtapositions, etc...
• If its not, look around, look at it in the bigger social context. What can you find that is relevant (or irrelevant) 10, 15 or 20 feet from it. What are the kinds of people in the vicinity? are they affected by it's presence?
• Or you could just figure that the piece of trash should not be there in the first place... so why is it? you could do a series of pictures on why and how it got there.

So, you see, its only a matter of looking at it with the right mental perspective.

Practice
Practice helps you reach perfection, right? Keeps you tuned and humming, in sync with your chosen skill and the mastery over its functions that turns you from a mediocre user/artist into a master...

It also helps you keep in good form. Photographers who take pictures daily are more likely to 'see' an interesting picture where others may miss it. That's why I'm going to buy a simple point and shoot camera to carry around with me on a daily basis... so that I remember to practice seeing, composing and making pictures.

Look for, and at light

by The Department

Light is light, is light... its diffused, its direct, its reflected, its coloured... yes. But its also different in each context because it changes the mood of a photograph. A park at noon is quite likely to be much more drab than a park in the morning. Both in direct sunlight, but the morning's sun a bit more yellow/golden, and streaming through the branches at an angle...

Light is all around you, but actually looking for interesting light will help you understand it better. I'd also add that looking at just the light is not enough, look at the textures, effects, patterns and paths that it creates, look for colour casts, reflections, flare, and sparkles as it reflects off various surfaces...

If you're a photographer who wants to work in a studio at some point of time, looking for, and remembering lighting moods and feels is invaluable when you're trying to recreate emotions in a studio environment.

Empathise/Enthuse
Understand your subject. They're always a better source of inspiration and creativity than most other things when it comes down to shooting creatively. Think about it... what could inspire you more about a subject than the subject itself? You need to be sympathetic/enthusiastic about it though!

If you are, you'll automatically think of possible tangents, related fields of interest... and be enthusiastic about it. It is awesomely hard to be creative and pepped up if you're not enthusiastic about what you're shooting.

Look at other photographers' work
Look at it, and try to figure out what's important to their photography. Look at it upside down, left to right and inside out... How do you know what is important to them? Usually it shows in their style of photography, choice of subjects, treatment of the subject and a whole lot more.

Derive inspiration from other arts
I recall an old interview with a documentary photographer who was photographing the devastation in the wake of WW2. He'd noticed a trend in his photography at the time, and on reflection figured out that it was an influence from Beethoven's 5th symphony which BBC was using at the time as an opening for their news programmes.

What was the trend? Three tall structures and one fallen/broken/destroyed structure... don't get the resemblance? listen to the music... again...

Well, the point here is that if other arts can influence our subconscious thinking, they surely can influence our conscious thought processes. Use that influential power... soak up all of the art that you love, and let it empower your photography.

Let your mind wander
A wandering mind gathers no dust. Um, is that right? Yup, I think it is...

Give yourself time, and space to think outside the box. Think about anything/nothing/everything... personally, I feel that it relieves you of all 'requirements' and lets you go on a flight of fantasy, where the only limits are what you cant imagine... (if that's a limitation you need to let your mind wander, rather badly). Give yourself time for this activity / inactivity, you cant rush it...

Know your equipment

by Jason Armstrong

Yeah, it always creeps in, no matter how much you try to kick it out the back door. Equipment. My suggestion; get back to point 1. Practice... that's the best way... use it, use it till you know every groove in the handgrip, every speck of dust that you've removed from the viewfinder, every dash in the text of your LCD...

Phew, that was intense... well, you get the point, don't you? Understand your equipment so that you can get the most out of it.

If You See It, Shoot It

Don’t spend all of your time and energy trying to get one perfect shot. Experiment and take as many pictures as you can.

If you see something that strikes you, photograph it. You may find that your spontaneous photos are better than the ones you spent a long time composing.

It’s easy to pass by a good shot. You might be out backpacking and think, “Do I really want to stop the group and pull out my camera to take this photo?” You have to. Because you might not see it again.

How to Take Better Night Photos

Do you like to take photos at night? I know I do. There's something magical about them - pictures of the moonlight sky and dazzling neon lights convey a special something that daytime photos can't. When I started out taking digital photos at night, boy, did I have problems! The issue is that many digital cameras do not perform very well under low-light conditions. To take good night photos, there are some tricks you need to remember - so here are a few of them.

A photo of Hong Kong at night

Tip 1: Use Long Exposures

The key to successful night photography lies in a long exposure. We’re talking about exposures measured in seconds. When a long exposure is used, more light is allowed into the camera, allowing the details in your night photo to be captured.

The problem with using long exposures is that you may shake the camera, resulting in poor pictures. The way around this is to use a tripod. I prefer to install a tripod with a shutter-release cable to ensure that I don’t jolt the camera at all.

Tip 2: Take Control Shots

One problem with digital cameras is that there are always some pixels on the image sensor which are bad. When taking day photos, these defects are not discernible. However, they are pretty obvious in night photos. How do we correct these? Here’s a simple way – take a control shot, then use image editing to subtract out those bad pixels.

This is how it works. The next time you’re out to take night photos, go ahead and snap a picture of Scene A, as you normally would. Then, when it’s convenient, take a photo of the exact same Scene A again, but with the lens cap on.

Now you will have two images, one night shot and one control shot (with the hot pixels). Load them up in say, Paint Shop Pro. Switch to the control shot and select Edit and Copy from the menu. Next, switch to the night shot and paste the copied image as a new layer. Then, select the new layer and change the Blend Mode to Difference and click OK. You’ll get the correct night shot with the hot spots subtracted out.

Tip 3: Try to Capture Motion

With a long exposure, you have many creative options when it comes to photography. This includes capturing motion. For example, have you ever wondered how those professional photographers shoot pictures of trails of car lights as they zoom down the highway at night? It’s all due to long exposures. Try to keep this in mind the next time you’re taking a night photo – you don’t have to restrict yourself to still images.

Tip 4: Play with the Aperture

In addition to shutter speed (which determines exposure time), you can play around with the aperture size of your digital camera. There are two scenarios here. If you set a long exposure, try to use a small aperture to avoid overexposing any stationary lights. in the picture. On the other hand, if you set a short exposure, try using a larger aperture to avoid any motion in your shot.

Tip 5: How to Use the Flash

As a general rule, I turn the flash off when taking night photos. There are some exceptions though – one specific example I can think of is trying to shoot a subject in the foreground, with motion trails of car lights in the background. In this case, bring along an external flash unit and shine it on your subject manually. Set a long exposure, then have your subject wait until the picture is taken.

Tip 6: When to Take Night Photos

When’s the best time to take night photos? I usually like to take them during dusk when colors and details are easier to capture. I’d recommend that you do some research on the evening before the photo shoot. Decide on the location, then come back the next day to take the photo at dusk.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has taught you some tips on taking better night photos. The important concept to remember is that a long exposure is need for good night photos. This means you need to keep you digital camera really, really still. Once you understand that, the quality of your night photos will definitely improve.

From: Basic-Digital-Photography.com

10 Tips on Landscape Photography

Here's a little article on landscape photography I hope you will find useful.

1. Always take a tripod (a good tripod). Yes, even on a bright, sunny day. Many times you'll want to use a very small aperture (big f number) to achieve great depth of field. Even on a relatively bright day, your shutter speed may not be fast enough at small apertures to be able to hand hold your shot. I take the time to make sure the horizon is straight, the subject is well placed, avoid distracting objects, etc. Make sure your tripod is steady. There's no worse feeling than being in front of that perfect scene with your camera on the tripod and noticing that your system is shaking a little bit because of the windy conditions.

2. Carry a cable release. The timer function on the camera is no substitute for a cable release, BTW. The cable allows you the release the shutter when YOU want to release the shutter, not 2 sec or 10 sec or 15 sec from when you want to release. The release makes it so you don't have to touch the camera at all which will definitely minimize camera shake.

3. Polarizer, neutral density filters, and graduated neutral density filters. The key to landscape photography is control of light. A polarizer will help take glare off the water and other reflective surfaces like leaves. It also gives some contrast to an otherwise flat, hazy day.

Neutral density filters will evenly stop a specified amount of light from hitting your sensor. Let's say you want to get that nice silky effect on a water fall but the day is sunny. If you just shot the image without a ND filter, you might not be able to slow down your shutter speed enough without blowing out the highlights.

The grad ND filter is dark on top and clear on bottom and there is a "gradual" transition from the dark to the clear area. Again, these filters come in different strengths. By placing the grad ND filter in front of your lens you decrease the amount of light reaching the sensor from the bright part of the scene (the sky), thereby allowing nice detail from the foreground to show through without blowing out the highlights.

There are 2 types of grad ND filters, hard and soft. Hard has an abrupt transition from dark to clear and the soft has a more gentle transition. If you're a beginner, I suggest getting a 3 stop hard and a 2 stop soft grad ND filter. All other filters are optional and I'm sure you'll experiment with them once you get these down.

4. Use a hyperfocal distance chart. Hyperfocal distance is the distance from the end of your lens you should focus at to get the maximum depth of field and still have infinity in focus (for a given f stop and focal distance combination). I always carry this sheet with me in my camera bag.

5. Know the weather conditions before going. Unless you own a sealed camera like the Nikon F5/D1 or Canon 1D/1V series, you'll want to protect your equipment from rain (perhaps a simple thing like a plastic bag and an umbrella).

6. Landscape = wide-angle lens. Personal preference, but many will agree with this statement.

7. Remember the 3 elements of a good landscape: foreground, midground, and background. Try to have something in these positions. This is just a rule of thumb...and you know what they say about rules...

8. If possible, try to avoid shooting in the mid-day... lots of harsh light and unflattering shadows around that time.

9. If you have a histogram function on your digital camera, use it! The LCD often gives inaccurate representation of the exposures. I rely on my histogram, not the little image of the scene I just shot to tell me my proper exposure. As a rule of thumb in digital, shoot for the highlights (as opposed to for the shadows, suggested for film). I'd rather have a slightly underexposed shot than an overexposed one in digital. Underexposed shots are much more easily corrected than an overexposed one.

10. Some people will use a digital camera first to see what kind of metering is needed to get the proper exposure, because there is instant feed back. Then they will set up their film camera with the same settings. Wonderful idea, I think.

Author: Gary Hendricks

5 Good Tips for Taking Kids' Photos

Here are 5 good tips for shooting photos of babies and children.

1. Get them to pose properly
Easier said than done. Getting children to pose for photos can be frustrating and can often result in your children appearing tense. Involving a toy or another person for the child to interact with while photos are taken often helps child subjects to display a broader range of emotions, especially of happiness, which is what you want.

2. Get down to the level of the child
Getting down to the level of the child will make them more comfortable and give you a better view of their features. If you are outside, wear clothes that you won't mind getting dirty so you can kneel down at any moment.

3. Use a camera that you can operate quickly
Using a camera that you can operate quickly and keeping the photography equipment to a minimum also helps you get a great shot before your child's attention wanders, as you can be sure they won't hold a fleeting pose while you change lenses.

4. Use a wide angle lens
Using a wide angle lens can often give a pleasant view of a baby, because their body parts are already a bit out of proportion and the perspective offered by a wide angle lens will exaggerate this.

5. Use natural lighting
Natural lighting coming from a window will also give a more gentle and nostalgic feeling to your photographs and will also react better with the skin tone of a baby.

Author: Gary Hendricks

How to Buy Digital Camera Lenses

Do you get confused by the different types of lenses in the world of digital photography? I know I was when I started out in this field. We all need to learn about digital camera lenses because they are fundamental to good photography. However, how do you distinguish between the different kinds of lenses? Wide-angle or telephoto? What focal length and what speed? What brand of lens do you buy?

There are so many different lenses with varying specifications available that it can be quite overwhelming to find exactly what it is that you require from a lens, but that is where we step in to help.

Some digital camera lenses available to the consumer

This article acts as a guide to explain the jargon and to allow you make a better-informed purchase the next time you are shopping for a new digital camera lens.

Choosing a Suitable Focal Length

Focal length is probably the most important factor that should be considered when choosing a lens, and for good reason: focal lengths determine the field-of-view of the photos you will be able to take successfully with your camera.

The two main types of focal length are telephoto and wide-angle, and while telephoto lenses have a narrow field-of-view and are best suited for close-up shots and portraits, wide-angle lenses have a wider field-of-view which is perfect for indoor photography and landscapes.

Keep in mind that the performance of lenses can differ from camera to camera, with the magnification power behind a lens generally being greater on a digital camera than on a 35mm film-based camera.

The Need For Speed …

When you hear about fast and slow lenses, reference is being made to a lens's maximum aperture, which is the maximum amount of light that a lens can let in. A simple rule of thumb is that a fast lens lets in a lot of light, while a slow lens lets in less light, which defines how your photos will look.

Maximum apertures are measured in f/stop numbers, which are actually a ratio of the size of the lens aperture and focal length. The smaller the f/stop number, the more light is let in. An increment in the f/stop number doubles the amount of light let in, so f/1.4 lets more light than f/2.0.

This may seem quite confusing at first, so the easiest way to make sense of it is to remember the following: fast lenses are best suited towards successful photography in darker lighting conditions, and slow lenses are targeted towards photography in lighter conditions.

The Ins and Outs of a Zoom Lens

Unlike a fixed-focal-length lens, a zoom lens often gives you the diversity of a range of focal lengths all rolled into a single adjustable lens. This can be great if you often have to switch between various lenses for different shots, but it is important to remember that not all zoom lenses have a constant maximum aperture, and those that do are often larger and more expensive.

Although the maximum aperture may be reduced as you zoom in using a lens with a variable maximum aperture, this may not be as important to some photographers as the reduced cost and size of such lenses. Keep this in mind when purchasing a zoom lens.

Add-on Lenses

Add-on or accessory lenses are targeted towards compact digital cameras, and allow owners of such models to significantly lengthen or reduce the camera's built-in focal length while at the same time being able to automate camera functions including f/stop settings and focusing.

These lenses can be an excellent low-cost add-on to your digital camera, with telephoto add-on lenses being able to increase focal lengths by up to 300%, and wide-angle versions allowing for reduction in focal lengths of up to 30%.

Final Considerations

There are several other terms to take into consideration when buying a digital camera lens to make sure you are making the best purchase. If your lens utilizes aspheric lens elements, then you can rest happily with the knowledge that your lens will help produce sharper photographs and help keep lens weight to a minimum.

Lenses using internal and automatic focusing also keep lens weight down thanks to less moving parts, and of course allow for faster focusing. Low-dispersion glass leaves photos looking less hazy or fuzzy, while stabilization systems help to keep images sharp when taken using slow shutter speeds.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has helped you to better understand what to look for in a digital camera lens. There are a lot of terms to remember here - so before shopping for your new lens it may be a good idea to take the time to make a list of what you want to do with your camera. Then you can double check your requirements against the features of different lenses. If you are still unsure if a lens will cater for your needs then by all means try to test it so that you can see some results before you buy!

From: Basic-Digital-Photography.com

6 Tips for Shooting Great Sunset Photos

Try these six tricks to capture powerful photos imbued with the beauty and positive feelings of sunsets.

1. Get a Full View:
Position yourself on a beach or a highpoint to allow an unrestricted view of the sun for maximum impact. An alternative is to capture the sun falling between trees, next to an attractive monument or reflecting off the water. Make sure your photo isn't too busy with other objects that distract attention.

2. Keep Shooting:
More attempts will increase your chances of getting the right results. As the sun gets lower, it tends to get redder as well, so your results should improve in the final moments of a sunset.

3. Look for Clouds:
Sunsets on cloudy evenings are more colorful and interesting than sunsets on clear evenings. While you may not actually capture the sun itself in these photos, capturing an amazing variety of colors and rich cloudy textures will make up for it.

4. Shoot Off-Center:
Bring more life to your sunset photos by positioning the horizon away from the center of your photo. Instead, keep it near the bottom of the shot to dramatically highlight the sky. In combination with this, leaving some foreground in the shot, such as a person or a tree, will give greater interest and give you a great opportunity to work on silhouette photographs.

5. Use Multiple Exposure Settings:
Your camera's light meter will often under-expose sunsets because there is still quite a bit of light, so bracketing (taking several shots at different exposures) may be needed to find the perfect exposure. A little under-exposure can help to make the colors of a sunset richer. If you want to include the details of a person in the foreground, try using fill flash and night mode. This will bring out their details while still allowing enough exposure to get rich colors – remember to use a tripod in this case to avoid camera shake.

6 Zoom In:
It is effective to use a long focal length for sunsets, because the sun will appear much larger and more impressive in the sky. Either choose the longest optical zoom lens setting on your camera or use a longer telephoto lens on your SLR.

Author: Gary Hendricks

10 Tips to Shoot Better Pictures with your Digital Camera

With the boom of the digital photography more pictures then ever are being shot everyday. The Digital Photography allows to increase significantly the picture production by lowering costs. But does the quality increase on the same ratio ? Probably not.

With few simple tips it is possible to take more advantage of your own equipment and increase the value of your own pictures.

1) Get closer to the Subject: 90% of the pictures are taking too far of the subject. Just step towards your subject and ensure that it fills completely your visor. It is never too close.

2) Use a tripod: take a light high quality tripod with you and use it! You will be able to capture more details of your subject and increase the sharpness, specially when taking scenics, arquitecture and landscapes.

3) Use the "Raw" mode of your digital camera: JPG pictures allows only 8 bit per channel, this means the information per channel is restricted and you may loose information when processing your picture later in your digital lab. RAW modes support the full range of your digital equipment and provides highly flexibility to re- process your pictures afterwards.

4) Use low ISO values: your digital camera is able to be setup to high ISO Values (ISO 500-1500), however the noise of the sensor will increase dramatically, needing also an intensive post-processing, i.e. using noise reduction filters. Use higher ISO values only when its unavoidable

5) Keep it simple: in photography less is more. Concentrate on the message you desire to capture and try to eliminate everything else. Keep your backgrounds simple and your main subject understandable without anything else that could disturbe your clear message.

6) Bring profundity in your pictures. The world has three dimensions, but your pictures only two. A subject that looks great to your eyes may appear flat in your pictures. Play with diagonal elements crossing the picture, but with simplicity of lines.

7) Either Fore or Background: a typical beginner error is to try to capture fore and background on the same picture. This is the typical "tourist" picture in front of some touristic attraction. Decide if you would like to capture the fore- or the background and concentrate on one subject. Only by using extreme wide-angle lens and a good composition you can have both.

8) Discover hidden details: The world is infinite complex and contains innumerable details that are waiting to be captured by your lenses. Use tele-photo lenses to bring to the audience what only you have discovered.

9) Don´t place your subject in the middle. Your pictures will be boring if everything is symetric and the subject is exact in the middle. Apply the "golden section" of the "rule of the thirds". Keep your composition balanced. Of course, extreme symmetry can be wonderful, if applied properly.

10) Unleash your creativity: once you have carefully applied the rules 1-9, forget them and start using creative photography. Don´t use tripod and move your camera intentionally in order to get blure pictures, play with high ISO values and extreme perspectives, extreme light situations and unusual subjects. You will be a great photographer.

Author: Alex Timaios

Understanding Exposure

Light is the key!

One trick which i have written about is understanding the right hand side of the hisotgram in digital photography and exposing to the right theory. A lot of people automatically shy away from this because we all know blowing highlights is the cardinal sin in digital photography!

Learn to understand light, learn to paint with light and learn how your image sensor controls and records light and hopefully you will have a greater understanding of exposure and how to deal with it.

Understanding your image sensor

Your cameras sensor works by recording light reflectance from black (reflectance of 0) to white (reflectance of 255; or 247 shown by my tests) / shades of gray where 18% is average exposure at a reflectance of 119 (in my honest oppion for the Nikon D70). The histogram shows this, Black (shadows) on the left, white on the right (highlights) and midtones in the middle. You'll notice red lines dividing up your histogram on your Nikon D70. The distance between these lines is around 1 f-stop of light; this varies for cameras with different dynamic ranges e.g. fuji s3 could be 1.5 stops. Therefore you know if your photo is peaking on your histogram 1 bar left of center it is around 1stop underexposed.

Now as mentioned, your cameras sensor records light on a linear scale. This is all processed as data levels through the RAW processing engine of your camera. Your camera records the most amount of data levels in the highlights (reflectance of 255/247) on the far right hand side of the histogram. I keep using the reflectance value of 247, simply because 247 is the refletance reached when pure white is recorded and 247-255 is the same value (hence why my custom curves always end at 247). Anyway, the highlights (far right hand side of the histogram) record 2048 data levels. This is halved as you loose 1 stop of light. E.g. as you move from right to left on your histogram, measued by the red dividers. Remember the dividers mark around 1 stop of light. Therefore moving from the highlights and then left to the next red divider (the bright tones), you loose around 1 stop of light and your data levels captured by the sensor are halved to 1024 data levels. This is halved again as you go from the bright tones to the midtones and so forth.

Therefore, if you understand this, you will realise that, if you dont fill the right hand side of your histogram with information you are effectivly throwing away half of your camera sensors's potential.

Working with light

You'll still get good pictures even if you didnt know about this, however, the more tonal spread you can achieve the more impact your images will have. If you can get a full set of tones in your pictures (data captured evenly from the shadows, peaking through the midtones and stretching to the highlights) you will get more contrast, graduation and dynamic range leading to a well rounded image. Filling in those right hand gaps will, as mentioned give you much more data levels to play with if you need to post process. Now to do this you need to understand the laws of photography and effectivly painting with light. Light is the underlying key to all of this. I see all too often people trying to photograph in mid-day or afternoon sun complaining of blown highlights or loss of tones through the mid-section. Its impossible on any camera to get good results of harsh lighting. You have to compromise! And by compromise i mean spot meter your subjects or use center-weighting. If your photography in direct sunlight-midday, theres always going to be a massive difference between shadows and highlights, far too much difference in f-stop's for your camera, or any cameras dynamic range to handle. Therefore your pictures will be dull, your midtones, under-exposed and the highlights blown. The midtones (the middle of your histogram) is where the tones should peak and this is the key. You'll need to get close in to your subject and spot or center-weight the exposure so at least your subject is well exposed. Getting in tight will minimise or even cut out the sky or very bright highlights that can fool your cameras meter.

To get the best tonal distribution you'll need nice soft light which you can find early morning or late evening. Harsh sunlight means a massive exposure difference between the sunlitt areas and shadows, too much for any camera to meter for and record accordingly.

So now hopefully you will now have an idea of how your image sensor deals with light and how stops of light, dynamic range and working with light plays just as much an important part in digital photography as it did with film. Its all too common these days to forget the rules of photographt and working with light by simply blaming very expensive equipment for not performing. Digital is versatile, its easier then ever to take photographs with digital bodies and people are taking more photo's than ever. More people own cameras than ever before now and that means a lot of people who didn't start off with film in which you had to learn how to deal with light and exposure. It also means a lot of trips out with the family and that means mid-day photography. And as we understand from this article mid-day is the hardest time of day to get good results.

This article isn't telling you how and when to take photographs, hopefully what i have written will educate you more into understand the restrictions and factors surrounding exposure and image sensors. Hopefully it has explained how light is the key factor and will hopefully make you think about how the light is going to effect your next frame. This will hopefully give you the scope to learn to manage and work with light and in the meantime, it will help you understand your histogram.


Understanding Exposure | Digital Camera Resource