Photography tips: Bad weather

Photographers are heavily biased towards nice weather. If we were to judge the word by pictures alone, we would be inclined to believe that we live under a clear blue sky for 90% of the time. Of course, we don't. Photographers just don't like getting wet, so they only go out when the weather is nice. Such a shame, since bad weather can be a very interesting subject.

Bad weather means bad light

Unfortunately, that is true. You won't have much light and the light is pretty flat. But there are ways around that. You will probably still have enough light if you use a fast lense, and high ISO-values are not much of a problem for cloudy skies. Nevertheless, pick your weather carefully. Mixed weather (clouds with showers and some sunny spells) is best. It will give you better light and more spectacular clouds, with more depth in your pictures. If you're photographing a subject rather than just clouds, try to keep the sun behind you. Heavy clouds and backlight are not a good lighting combination for anything other than silhouettes.

Post processing

The flat light of a cloudy day implies a little extra work on post processing your pictures. The most important issue here is contrast. Look at the two versiona of the same picture to the left (click for larger versions). The picture is taken with a lens that renders good contrast. Nevertheless, the unedited (upper) pic is a bit flat. That's because of the flat light.

All I did in post processing was adding three layers of level adjustments, creating more contrast, as well as the slight color change, that adds somewhat to the spookyness of the weather. Obviously, the very dark tones are applied to clouds rather than the foreground.

It's okay if your pics are a little darker than what would normally be considered correct exposure. After all, the message you are trying to convey is that of bad weather. This implies a little darkness. You can either do this in post processing or use exposure correction while shooting.

Photography tips: repetitions

Pretty much like the previous photography tip, this is an encouragement to go out and try rather than a tip. This time, I want to you to go out (or stay in) and look for anything repeating. Could be architecture, could be household equipment, could be anything.

Repetitions are everywhere, you only have to recognize them. Looking for them and photographing them is a great practice and helps you train your mind and eye. Like with the previous tip, you don't need any specific gear. Any camera will do.

Walk and watch

The best vehicle for this type of photography is by foot. Just walk around and look around. Chances are you´ll see a reptition in no time. If you see one, shoot it. But wait. Don´t move on yet. Walk around the object, or move it about if it´s small enough. Try different viewpoints, get closer, get further away. Don´t just zoom if you have a zoom lens. This is not about focal length. Moving closer or further away changes your point of view. A flight of stairs looks entirely different from 10 meters away than from right beneath it. Explore this differences. The object will probably retain its repetitions, but their nature will change, and so will your picture. Have fun!

Photography tips: puzzle macro

This is not so much a photography tip as it is an encouragement to have fun with your camera. Puzzle macros are very rewarding and you learn a lot from them at te same time. The concept is simple: take a picture so close that the viewer is unable to tell what the subject is. You don't need professional equipment to do it, just a macro function on your lens or camera and some creativity. And a subject ofcourse, but you'll find out that the world is full of subjects that you can use for this type of photography.

Think lines and curves

Puzzle macros are essentially abstract pictures. So forget about the function of your subject and look at it in terms of shapes. Try all kinds of angles and distances and watch your image change. Discover all the hidden lines and paterns. Change the direction of light if you can and watch your image change again. Experiment as much as you like, see how many different pictures you can get out of one single subject.

Learn while you have fun

Puzzle macros are fun to do, but you'll learn from them too. You look through your lens at a very different way than you normally would and you see the effect of small changes. This will help you develop your skills and experience, no matter what your level is.

more resources:

Results from DPChallenge on Puzzle macro

Photography tips: exif data

The pics on my site contain so-called exif-data. In fact, they contain only a small part of the actual exif-data, but its the part most people seem to be interested in. Among photographers, the word exif means information on camera type, lense type, focal length, ISO, aperture and shuttertime. Why do the pics on my site contain these data? Well, because people want that information. Why do they want to know? I haven't got a clue.

Mmmm, that's not entirely true. I do have some sort of clue here, it just doesn't convince me. The point is, if you see something you like, you want to know how it's made. Well, some people do. We have two ways to find out. First: think, how you would make it. This approach will not give an exact reproduction, but you'll have fun doing it, learn a lot from it and develop a style of your own.

The second method is to copy the process. Hardly as much fun, no style of your own (but by mistake) and not too much learning either. But it will give a perfect reproduction? Of course not, silly. The exif information tells you only so much. The shuttertime and aperture reveal that I used a flash for this picture. But how many flashes? And at what lighting ratio? How were they placed? No way you can tell that from the exif data, but it's the lighting that brings out the texture, which in turn is essential for this pic. But even for daylight shots, the direction, intensity and hue of the avalaible light are not in the exif data.

Technical information only tells a small part of the story of the picture, and it's never the interesting part. Set-up, lighting, composition and timing are all far more important than shuttertime and aperture. Even postprocessing is more important. The only interesting thing about exif data is why on earth people think it's important enough to use the right mouse button.

Photography tips: self portraits

Self portraits are among the most difficult and most rewarding types of photography. It provides you with an extremely patient model, capable of understanding all your problems and prepared to try all kinds of lighting setups and crazy ideas. He or she may not be particularly pretty or very experienced in posing, but will make up for it with flexibility, perseverance and dedication. And all of that for free, your model won’t even ask for prints. It does however require some skills and a lot of practice to get decent results from self portraits.

The basics are the same as in the case of standard portraiture. Lighting, composition and expressions work out similar as in the case of photographing someone else. Likewise, self portraits require the same post processing steps as normal portraits, provided they are the same type of portraits.

Use a tripod
Here’s a pretty obvious tip: use a tripod. Yes, you can hold your camera at arm’s length and in some cases, this will yield a great self portrait. In most cases, it will only limit your possibilities. If you don’t have a tripod, put it on top of your wish list. It will open up a new world for you. In the meantime use something that’s sturdy and horizontal and has the required height.

Use a dummy
Once you’ve put your camera on the tripod, put a dummy in the place where you will be when shooting the portrait. Autofocus on the dummy, the set your camera or lens to manual focus and don’t move the camera. When ready, replace the dummy by yourself. Use a timer or a remote to trigger the shutter.

Make it a little easier on yourself
Getting decent self portraits is hard enough as it is, so why not make it a little easier on yourself. First of all, frame the picture a little wider than you normally would. This gives you room to crop the picture afterwards if you weren’t in the exact position you should be. Likewise, do not use very wide apertures. If you do, your depth of field becomes small, and your exact position will become a very critical factor. Using a smaller aperture (higher f) will literally give you some breathing space.

Photography tips: skiing

Once the calendar turns to November, my heart starts beating faster. The skiing season is about to arrive. Most Europeans postpone their skiing trip to February or even March, when the sun is stronger and the days are longer. Nevertheless, the skiing season opens (if it ever closes) mid-November in high stations, such as Tux, Tignes and Val Thorens. That’s why November makes my heart beat faster, though this year I will have to wait ‘till mid-December to actually go there.

If you ever went on a skiing trip and took your camera, you might know how frustrating it can be. These majestic mountains, the steep slope you just managed to ski down from. They scream to be photographed, but once you get home, the magic’s gone. In fact, the magic is left behind in the mountains, not on the pictures. The mountains do not look so majestic, that slope does not look half as steep as it actually was and your superb skiing technique never shows on the pictures. Why? Because photographing snowy mountains is not as easy as it seems. These tips might help though.

White balance
First of all, get your white balance right. That’s the easiest tip, and you can actually do it in post processing if you shoot in RAW. If you don’t, the snow will look blueish, not white. Other things will look off too and you'll loose contrast.

Time of day

Like with any type of photography, choose the right time of day, which is either early morning or late afternoon. Don't try shooting at midday, the high sun will flatten all detail, especially since things are all white anyway.

Reference
This is a general tip for landscape photography. Try to have some points of reference in the picture, prefereably in the front and the back. This makes it easier for the viewer to relate. This picture (click it for a larger version on Flickr)shows some loose snow in the front and rocks in the back, as well as the boundary of the slope. The latter gives the viewer a clear indication of how steep the slope really is.

Timing

Skiing is a sport and in sport photography, timing is everything. And to time right at sports, you have to know the sport. Shooting exactly in the middle of turn is not going to give a great skiing picture, nor is shooting at a straight end. Breaking and finishing a turn are nice moments in term of spectacular snow clouds, whereas the body position is great at the start of a turn. Obviously, jumps are also great moments to shoot, not matter if they go right or wrong.

Get down!
Choose a low angle, both for skiers and for mountains. Low angles will make slopes look steeper, will make mountains look higher and will make jumps and other actions much more impressive. It will also allow you more often to get some sky in your picture, providing the much wanted contrast of the bright blue against the clear white, especially if you use a polarizer.

Photography tips: still life photography, a primer

Still life photography is a genre by itself. Derived from the old masters and their paintings, photographers collect stuff to photograph it. The still life has no fixed rules of right and wrong and gives an incredible freedom in lighting and composition. Some things should however be kept in mind when trying to make a still life that stands out.

A theme
A still life should be more than just a collection of thingies. The vast majority of great still lifes has a theme. It could be anything: a profession, a season, any activity. a song title, a color, the list is endless. The main point is, that the items in the still life should be presented in a theme, and be consistent within the theme. Cornucopia still lifes for instance implement abundance, so they require a lot of items. ICT still lifes would become inconsistent if done against a very natural or classical background.

Table shots
Most good still lifes are table shots. That is, the camera is at the same height as the scene is, or just a little higher. This camera standpoint provides a natural looking perspective, altough in real life, we would not look at most of these things horizontally. I do know of a couple of successful exceptions to this rule, so it's no fixed rule. Like always, deviating from the rules provides an extra handycap, but it can work out great.

Composition, background and lighting
The freedom in composing a still life is endless. One can use any composition rule, combine a couple of them or ignore them all together. Combinations of the rule of thirds with other rules are often used, but again, feel free to break the rules as you go.

Background and lighting are free too, but they should not attract too much attention and be consistent with the theme. Neutral backgrounds are okay, but if the still life has a nautical theme, why not use a nautical map as a background? If it is too distracting, use a shallow depth of field to tune down it's presence. White backgrounds are fine too.

Still lifes often use light tents are a single light source that suggests natural light through a window (often using fill lights or reflectors as well). But if you feel backlight works better, why not give it a try? As long as all the relevant details are revealed properly and the lighting does not distract from the the, it's fine.

Photography tips: Print Size

A question I hear quite often is "I have a camera of such-and-so-much megapixels, how large can I print?" The question is in fact fairly easy to answer, but the problem is that many people tend to loose themself in the worship of figures that are only meant to suggest quality.

Resolution: Pixels per inch

The resolution of a picture is defined by the number of pixels per inch (ppi), often also referred to as dots per inch (dpi). The latter term is incorrect, but used so often that you can safely assume that ppi is meant. The industry standard for high quality printing (glossy magazines, art books) is 300 ppi. That is allready a high number, but still you can hear people in discussion forums state that 500 or 600 is better. That is plain bullshit. You will need a magnifying glass to spot the difference between 240 and 300 ppi, so it will take a microscope to recognize any difference beyond 300 ppi. For pictures that are closely inspected, 200 to 300 ppi is the range you should be looking for.

Viewing distance

But wait. Most people posing the question from the intro pose the question because they want to make a large print. Will the large print be up for close inspection? No, large prints are looked at from a larger distance. At arms length, 100 to 150 ppi is allready fine, and if the viewer is 5-6 feet away, 70 or 80 ppi might even be okay, provided the picture itself is sharp and you use decent paper and a good printer.

Start calculating

Once you know for what purpose you will be calculating and have choosen the correct ppi, the calculation is easy. Simply divide the length and width of you picture in pixels by the ppi number you've picked, and you find the size in inches. For centimeters, multiply by 2.5. Let's say you have a 3072 x 2048 (=6 MP) picture, and you have decided to print it at 100 dpi. You print size is then 3072/100=30.72 x 2048/100=20.48 inch or 75 by 50 cm.

More resources:

PPI and Print Size

DPI in Wikipedia

Ken Rockwell: The Megapixel Myth

Photography tips: Vanishing point

One of the main challenges in photography is trying to capture three dimensions in a two-dimensional frame. A picture, either on paper, on canvas, or an screen, has no depth. It is up to the photographer to suggest depth. Last week’s article, on shallow depth of field, showed you one way to suggest depth. This week’s article is about a composition technique called vanishing point.

I don’t know about you, but the very first thing I learned when drawing perspective, is to place a point on the horizon. All the horizontal lines in the drawing should the lead to this point. This technique creates the suggestion of perspective and hence depth. Photography is not the same as drawing obviously, but photographers use many tricks that drawers thought of first. This is one of them. The difference is that the photographer does not have to place a point on the horizon. The point is already there, the photographer only has to recognize it. How? By following horizontal lines. All horizontal lines pointing into the photo seem to lead to one point. That point is the vanishing point.

Having multiple lines aiming at a single point gives a picture depth in the exact same way as it is done in drawings. Buildings are always glad to provide horizontal lines leading to a vanishing point. The picture of the Parthenon clearly shows how it works. Similar powerful lines toward the vanishing point may be found in rails and railroads. Note that the point itself does not have to be visible. It doesn’t even have to be in the picture. The mere suggestion of the point is sufficient to give depth to your picture.

More resources
DPChallenge Vanishing point Challenge (lots of examples)

Photography tip: Shallow depth of field

It is my experience that the use of shallow depth of field (dof) is one of the easiest ways to impress people with your photography skills. Obviously, we're not here to impress people with our photography skills, so it's good to note that shallow dof is also a great way to isolate your subject from busy backgrounds.

The picture to the left clearly shows this latter function. Despite the fact that the background is a pretty girl with fresh-colored clothing, there is no doubt where your eyes want to go. The orange draws the attention away from the face, which would be the natural focus point in such a picture. It is the narrow dof that creates this effect. The sharpness is carefully laid in only one place in the picture. That's the 'why', now for the 'how'.

Aperture

The obvious way to create shallow dof is using a wide aperture (i.e. a small f-number). The example picture was shot at f/1.8, which obviously requires a lens capable of such a wide aperture. Do not despair if you do not have such a lens however, the effect can be reached at f/4 or f/5 as well.

Focussing distance

Your depth of field is also narrowed if you approach your subject closer. If your lens or camera is not capable of wide apertures, just move in a little closer. In macro-photography, this is even considered a disadvantage, as the extreme close focussing distances do not leave room for sufficient depth of field in the picture. I allready explained that, remember?

Focal length

Finally, focal length also influences the depth of field. The longer (more tele) the focal length of your lens is, the narrower the depth of field will be. Of course, there is a rade off between focal length and focussing distance. You can calculate the your depth of field from the website given in the link below.

Don't overdo

Some people are so impressed with the wide aperture of their lens that they use it wide open all the time. Next thing you know they start complaining about lack of sharpness in user reviews. Let's face it, using a 50 mm lens at f/1.8 at 1 meter shooting distance, leaves you a depth of field of 3 cm. Nice for an orange, but hardly suited for anything bigger. Use a dof-calculator or your good judgement to choose the aperture that keeps the larger part of your subject in focus.

More resources:

Depth of Field Calculator

Photography tips: Join a community

This week's photography tip is very non-technical, yet useful for photographers of all levels: join a community. Communities help you develop your skills, as other members comment on your pics and tell you how they made theirs. These are great places to gather new ideas, learn new techniques and sharpen your skills by engaging in photo contests. And you can have fun while you're at it. For any community, the golden rule is that you recieve more when you give more. Just dumping your pics without ever commenting on the pics of others will not earn you respect. Communities can only thrive if members participate.

In the pre-internet era, the local photography club was the only option. Today, that option is still open, and many many are added. The world wide web is full of communities, many of which are dedicated to photography. In fact, the web is so full of these communities, that you'll have a hard time picking one. I'll mention a couple of the options, by no means suggesting that the others are not worth a try.

DPChallenge

Contests (or challenges) are the backbone of this community. You can either become a registered user (free) or a member ($ 25/year, check out the differences here). Apart from challenges, DPChallenge has a forum with some very experienced and helpful members.

FredMiranda

The site is famous for its extensive user reviews of photo gear, but it also has a nice forum with mostly very friendly and helpful members. The forum features a weekly and a monthly assignment with an oddly flexible deadline. Membership is free, but you can buy extra features as well as post processing software and gear.

Trekearth

Trekearth is all about travel photography. You can put your travel photo's online and hope for comments that either praise your photo or help you increase your skills. Sometimes, a member takes the trouble of re-processing your pic if he or she thinks it can be improved in post processing. Membership is free.

Flickr groups

Flickr is a well known place to put your pictures online. Flickr is simply too large to be a community. Instead, it houses thousands of so-called groups. Some groups are very closed or hardly active, but others are thriving communities, often highly specialized in a specific type or aspect of photography. Some just collect pictures by theme, others have discussions and contests to go with the pics.

Local communities

The web may be world wide, but you can use it to join a local community as well. Why would you? Well, beacuse the members are near, that's why. In a local community, get-togethers are easy to organize, so you can go on field trips with other photographers and learn (and have fun)even more. Local members also know a lot about local things, such as dealers, photo locations, studios, models, make up artists and so on. And they are a nice place to trade second hand gear.

Photography tips: night photography

Night photography can be very rewarding, especially for romantic subjects and for nicely lit architecture. Famous landmarks may often get an extra dimension on night photos, as do fountains. This article discusses some issues that might be helpful in improving your night pictures.

The obvious thing about night photography is that it comes at low light levels. This can be overcome by higher ISO, larger apertures or longer shutter times. After dusk, you will probably have to rely on all three of them. The most common thing to do with longer shutter times is to use a tripod, but you do not always have to. I shot the picture to the left handheld, while leaning against a sturdy fence. Of course, using a fast (and lightweight) prime makes quite a difference. The links below the article provide some useful alternatives to tripods, that may be very useful when traveling.

I have one tip that may sound silly because it’s so simple. But I know I forgot a couple of times and at those times I can really curse myself for being such a dumbass. So do keep in mind to clean you lens surface. If it is only a bit greasy, all the lights in the picture will become nice glamorous star shapes. However great this effect may be when you are looking for it, it might not be what you want in a night picture.


The moon
And then we have the moon. Be careful with the moon. It depends on the weather and the availability of other light sources whether you want the moon in your picture. If it is only slightly hazy, the moon will become blurry. If the moon is the only noteworthy light source around, it will burn your highlights. In both cases, don’t shoot directly at the moon. In other cases, you can, provided that you manage to strike a balance between the light sources. You may also use the moon as a source of backlight for a well-lit building, or play around with the differences in color temperature between moonlight and artificial light.


Post processing
In post processing, do not adjust your white balance, or at least not too much. The warm colors of artificial light and the cool color of moonlight provide the typical night atmosphere you may be looking for. You might want to darken the blacks in post processing though. The darker parts in your picture may pick up some noise because of the high ISO and/or long shutter time. You can easily reduce this by squeezing the left (dark) end of your histogram a little, while keeping the middle constant. This increase contrast and darkens out most of the noise.


More resources:
String stabilizer (video tutorial)
Other alternatives for tripods

Photography tips: macro photography and lighting

Everyone who has ever tried shooting macro shots knows that close-focussing distance comes with a huge loss of depth of field. Even at fairly small apertures like f/8 or f/11 it is hard to get an entire bug in focus. Yet if we look at 'professional' macro-shots, we see crisp and clear images. How on earth do they do that?

The answer is simple: use a flash and narrow your aperture even further. Macro lenses often go up to f/32, so that's not the problem. The problem is the direction of light. On-board flashes come from the wrong direction. Your lens gets in the way and casts a shadow over your subject. So, don't use an onboard flash, use a separate one.

Ring flashes
Flash manufacters make so-called ring flashes. They are to be mounted on your lens, and provide light from the exact same angle as your lens. This implies a total lack of shadow. It also implies that light is pretty flat, which may be desirable for some types of portraits, but not for macro photography. The very expensive types have the option of balancing (even aiming) left and right lights to solve this problem, but they come at a price. Apart from that, a ringflash might simply get in the way while trying to shoot bugs.

Off-camera flashes
The other option is to use an off-camera flash. You can either hand-hold it (very flexible), hand-hold it on a monopod (for more reach and stability), put it on an extension arm mounted to the camera (follows the camera wherever you point it) or put it on a tripod (stable, and you have both hands available for the camera). I use either of these options, depending on the situation. The main disadvantage of using an off-camera flash is the shadows it casts. This is not always a problem, but if it is, it may be softened by using a fill flash or a reflector. I have a nice small ring reflector that fits on my lense. It fills just like a ringflash would, and since it is not my main light source, I do not have the problem of flat lighting.

Photography tips: the sweet spot

Sweet spot, you may have heard that word before. You may even have been checking some of your pictures for it. You didn't findt it, did you? Sweet spot is not in the picture. It relates to the optimal aperture of a lens.

Optimal?

The term 'optimal' is a bit misleading here, because the optimal aperture depends on the type of picture you are trying to make. If you want a shallow depth-of-field, your aperture has to be larger than in the case you want a deep field. In low light situations, a large aperture (small f-number) is often the only option. But apart from these considerations, you may be looking for the maximum resolution (i.e. sharpness) of your lens. The aperture where the overall resolution reaches its maximum value is called the sweet spot. It is nice to know the sweet spot of your lens by heart, so that you can use it if you end up in a situation where you can. Shooting landscape photos in broad daylight would be such a situation.

Finding the sweet spot

But how do you find the sweet spot? It is not in the manual of the lens. It is actually quite simple. Find a review of your lens that contains a laboratory resolution test at different apertures. Photozone has them for all the lenses they have reviewed. Then check the resolution graph (or table) for the highest value and find the aperture that produces it. You have now found the sweet spot. Note that some lenses have different sweet spots for centre and border, and zoom lenses may have different sweet spots for different focal lengths. Then it takes some common decide to decide.

An example

Here's a quick example from one of my favorite lenses, the Canon EF 35/2. The figure (click on it to see it in it's context) shows that center sharpness is maximum at f/5.6, and border sharpness at f/8. That is not a clear verdict as to what the sweet spot is, but since border sharpness is below centre sharpness, I would say overall sharpness is best at f/8.

Photography tips: Fire!

Fire depicts warmth, coziness, maybe even a romantic evening in front of the fireplace. It may also depict danger and destruction, as fire has destructive powers. Plenty of reasons to want to photograph fire. But how?

Fire is a light source
Apart from warmth, fire provides light. It is important to note that the light that fire provides is weak and has a pretty high color temperature. Lighting a room with just fire provides a dimly lit room in an orange flow. The amount of light a normal fire provides is so weak that you can even look or photograph right into it. This obviously depends on the type of fire, since the sun is in fact nothing less than fire, and you would not want to look directly into it, even if it is thousands of miles away. But we are talking burning wood here.

Cozy or blazing?
Like I said, fire has two faces, the warm and kind one and the destructive one. If you look closely at both types of fire, you’ll note that the cozy fire burns much slower. You can use this knowledge to make a blazing fire pic out of a cozy fire. Using a fairly long exposure (try 1/3 sec for starters, and use a tripod) will create motion blur out of the slow movement of the flames, thus suggesting that the flames burn much faster.

Shorter exposures (say 1/100 sec) will freeze the motion, thus suggesting a cozy fire. However, fire provides insufficient light to make a decent picture at such a shutter speed. This implies that you will either have to raise our ISO or use a flash. In the latter case, make sure to bounce your flash and set your shutter time to balance flashlight and the light from the fire. See my earlier articles on bouncing and flashing by daylight for more details. Too much flash will result in a dull picture without the warm fire glow, so make sure to balance your light sources.


More resources:
Photoshop fire tutorials

Photography tips: 5 tips for better holiday pics

Dear tourist,

I am sorry I insulted you by calling your pictures crappy (last weeks’ article). That wasn’t very nice of me. Let me make it up to you by giving you five tips to improve your holiday pictures. You may already know one or two of them, but that still leaves the other ones to improve your shooting.

Un-center your composition
Whatever it is, you are photographing, try not to put it in the middle of the picture. It yields boring pictures. Instead, use the rule of thirds: put your main object @1/3 or 2/3 of the width or height of your picture. This gives a natural feel to your pictures. Act likewise with landscapes: the horizon should be at 1/3 (for spectacular skies) or 2/3 (if there is a lot to see in the landscape) of your picture, not exactly halfway.

Shallow dof for famous shapes
So, you’re visiting the Eiffel Tower / Acropolis / Coliseum / Golden Gate Bridge / whatever famous landmark you can think of. We’ve seen zillions of pictures of these landmarks, how will yours be better? Well, since you are going to photograph your fellow travelers in front of the landmark anyway (that’s what tourists do, they seem to need some proof that they were actually there), photograph them using a shallow depth of field (dof). How? Make sure you are fairly close to John / Mary / whoever you are photographing and set a large aperture (low f-number, or use the camera's portraiture mode). Then focus on John / Mary / whoever and shoot. The landmark will now be slightly vague in the background, but still recognizable because of its famous features.

Use a polarizer
If you are going anywhere sunny and want to capture those clear blue skies, invest in a polarizer. See the earlier article on how to use it and what to expect.


Avoid crowds
This one is a real challenge. Since you’re a tourist at a tourist attraction, you are part of the problem. If you’re at a top attraction during the top season, there will always be crowds. But you can limit the effect. Check for camera positions where crowds are less visible. Wait for big crowds to pass. If you just have a little patience, you’ll note that crowds tend to come in waves. Shoot between these waves. Zooming in on the subject may also help, and shooting at a slightly higher angle (especially for buildings) can be useful too. Don’t forget to picture the crowds as well, to show the folks at home just how packed the place was.

Time your visit
You may also avoid crowds by timing your visit at not-so-popular times, e.g. in the early morning or around dinner time (check the opening hours though). Timing will also help you get better light. Generally, and especially in sunny conditions, the light is much softer in the early morning or late afternoon. The hour before sunset provides the best light, and is therefore also known as ‘the golden hour’.

I sincerely hope you are not mad anymore and I wish you a great holiday.

Kind regards,


CamAbs

Photography tips: See your hometown through the eyes of a tourist

Ever wondered why most tourists take crappy pictures? There’s loads of reasons, like lack of experience, lack of photographic talent and so on. One reason in particular I would like to address here, and that is timing.

Tourists are bad timers. They arrive at a location in the holiday season, when the location is packed with tourists and the harsh light blows out the skies on many holiday pictures. Why can’t they just wait ‘till the light is better and all the tourists are gone? Simple, they are the tourists, and when the tourists go, they go. By definition. Period.

Sure, some tourists are lucky enough to catch a day with a nice sky, and some are even wise enough to visit hotspots on not-so-hot times of day. But most of them get there on a guided tour, and bring their own obstacles (i.e. their fellow travelers) with them.

You won’t do that, you’re a local, right? You will probably not even visit the hotspots. At least I didn’t. I visited all the hotspots in the cities I once lived in after or before I lived in that city. Not while I lived there. I even passed some of these hotspots dozens of times without even noticing them.

Silly isn’t it? People coming from over the planet to gaze at the beauty of your city, while you don’t even notice. Even sillier when you realize you take better pictures than they do. You probably feel where I’m going by now? Right, go out there, and be a tourist in your hometown. Shoot the pictures they would liked to have shot but couldn’t because of the light or the crowds. You can go there anytime, right? You can wait for months to get that landmark against the background of a spectacular sunset or with the moon behind it on a cloudless night. You can take your pictures when no one else is around. And you are a better photographer, remember? So you are the one to make (and sell?) the top shot of that hotspot.

All you need to do, is go out there. Go by foot or by bike. And see your hometown through different eyes. Don’t look at your place like a local heading for the shops. Be amazed by the beauty of it, like the tourists are. And picture the beauty. With your better skills and better conditions, you will very likely end up with gorgeous pictures.

Photography tips: shooting in RAW

Not too long ago, memory capacity shortage was a big issue on consumer cameras. The following quote is less than two years old: “The easiest way to sound like a professional when you talk about photography these days is to grumble about the deficiencies of RAW file converters. The ability to save pictures in RAW format rather than JPEG or TIFF is what distinguishes a "pro level" camera from a consumer device.” Consumers used the JPEG file-format, since it is much more efficient and requires a lot less space. These days are gone however (and I even wonder if they were still there in 2006), as all dSLRs and an increasing number of smaller cameras have the ability to store whatever their sensor picks up in the RAW-format.

RAW means just that, raw. It is not an abbreviation; it refers to the uncooked nature of the data. For those interested in all the technical stuff that can be said about RAW-files, please refer to the wiki link provided below. I am not into technicalities, I care only for practical use.

Oh no! What have I done?
Recognize that? Post processing a large number of pics, getting into routine mode and finding out a little too late that that single precious picture should have been processed a tad different? No problem if your workflow is right, but what if you do this while taking the picture? Still had your white balance set to ‘cloudy’? Was your exposure correction still set to –1? No problem if you shoot in RAW. The great thing about using RAW is that it stores all the data that the sensor picks up. It does have its limits –a burnt highlight is a burnt highlight, detail that is not there, can not be stored- but its limits are much wider than that of a jpeg-file, leaving you far more room to compensate for your own stupidity during shooting.

Once you use RAW, you’ll start counting on it. I never bother to check the white balance on my camera, as it can simply be restored. I mostly use a grey card while shooting, but I have to say that Photoshop often does a great job at automatic conversions from RAW. True, white balance can be altered in any file type, but it works better with RAW-files, since all the data are there. This way, the quality loss is smaller (or even zero) than in the case of, say, a jpeg file.

If a pic is underexposed, you can save it in post processing at the cost of substantial noise. The same thing can be done in RAW, but at lower noise levels and with greater recovered detail in the dark areas. No wonder RAW files are far more suited for High Dynamic Range (HDR) applications. Most modern HDR-software even allows for HDR files from one single RAW-file. Try that with a jpeg-file!

The bottom line is that RAW files can help you save some of your result if you made a mistake or if the situation did not allow you to take a perfect picture. If your camera allows you to shoot RAW-files, start doing it now. If your camera doesn’t, take that ability into account when deciding on your next camera.

More resources

Wiki on RAW
Raw-workflow-links
Correcting your white balance using a grey card
Tutorial for a HDR-picture from 1 RAW-file

Photography tips: Don't wait for full frame

Digital SLRs come in two types, full frames and crop cameras. The distinction between the two is that the full frame has a sensor the same size as 35mm film, whereas crop cameras have a smaller (cropped) sensor, also labeled APS-C. Since picture quality (at least the part that the camera can influence) is positively related to sensor size, full frame sensors deliver better pics. Moreover, manufacturers tend to put full frame sensors in better cameras, hence full frame cameras are likely to produce better results. No wonder full frame cameras are major wannahaves

Some lenses out on the market are designed specifically for APS-C cameras. They won’t fit on full frames and if they fit, they’ll cause heavy vignetting. Someone who owns a full frame camera will not buy such a lens. That makes sense. People who plan to buy a full frame camera in the future don’t buy these lenses either, which makes a whole lot less sense.

Let’s face it, most people who plan on going full frame one day, in fact only dream of going full frame one day. Even if they do buy one, ‘one day’ might be months or even years from now. All this time, they’re missing out on the good lens. Some people even buy the wrong focal length, since they are going to switch ‘one day’. Why not just have all the fun you can have with the right lens on your APS-C and resell it once you switch to full frame? The second hand market for lenses is pretty good.

And then there is technical progress. Every new generation camera is better than the previous one. If the APS-C camera is a couple of generations newer than a full frame one (as is the case with Canon’s 40D versus 5D), it might be as good and in some respects even better. Of course, you can wait for the next generation full frame. And put up with the wrong lens even longer.

More resources
Advantages of ful frame
A comparison between full frame and APS-C

Photography tips: Get down!

Okay, I’ve got to get this of my chest. This morning, I visited the nearby city farm with my two year old son. There was this little boy petting a rabbit. And then there was this boy’s granddad taking pictures. His camera was a small sized Canon dSLR, probably a recent Rebel-version. It had a zoom lens with a red stripe, I think it was the 24-70L. (not that It matters though) Granddad was obviously very proud of his grandson and he was taking dozens of pictures of the little boy having fun at the farm. And although granddad was apparently not very old or crippled, he did not bend his knees once.

“What’s, the problem?”, you might ask. Well, the problem is that this guy spends an awful lot of money on gear and still fails to get a decent pic of his grandson. He is photographing the top of his grandson’s head, rather than the boy’s face. I see this happen a lot, people taking pictures of the top side of their dearly beloved child/grandchild/pet. It has to stop!

No matter the size or price of your camera, remember to get down to the level of the subject you are shooting. Pet or kid, you are picturing their world, and they live it at their level. Let the camera enter their world and lower it to their level as well. Don’t bother about getting dirty, a good picture is worth washing your trousers.

Really, if you weren’t already doing this, start doing it today. You’ll be amazed with the results. If you take only one lesson from this entire blog, let it be this one. Get down. Please!