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.