Tips from the book: 500 Digital SLR Hints, Tips and Techniques (Part 3)

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I think this will be the final part of my review, and what I can recommend, or to be precise, what I want to remember from that book.

Once again, that is 500 Digital SLR Hints, Tips and Techniques by Chris Weston

Read on...
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from page 54:

Top 10 tips for choosing lenses

• Quality - Always buy the best lenses you can afford. It's better to have less expensive camera body and a quality lens than vice versa.
• Zooms - Zoom lenses provide the greatest flexibility in composition, allowing you to alter the focal length exactly as needed. When choosing a zoom lens, try to avoid extreme zooms (e.g., those that have a very wide range, such as 7-500mm or 28-300mm), as the quality of the optics is compromised by their versatility.
• Primes - While being less versatile than zoom lenses, prime lenses (lenses of a fixed focal length) are generally of better optical quality. With extreme focal lengths, such as very wide-angle lenses and super-telephoto lenses, image quality will be noticeably better when using prime lens.
• AF lenses - Not all auto-focus (AF) lenses are as good as each other. If focusing speed is important to your photography, it's worth testing AF performance before you buy the lens.
• Inside job - Internal focusing enables lenses to be more compact and lightweight in construction than lenses where the barrel extends outward when focusing.
• Aperture - The maximum aperture of the lens will, to some extent, dictate the level of control you have over exposure settings. For example, in low-light conditions with a "slow" lens (a lens with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or less), you may not be able to attain the shutter speed necessary to freeze motion or capture a sharp image.
• Zoom issues - With some zoom lenses the maximum aperture can vary depending on the focal length set. This system is used to reduce the size and weight of the lens but, again, can limit your options when it comes to setting exposure. If possible, always opt for a zoom lens with a fixed maximum aperture.
• Glass - Lenses that use low dispersion glass help to minimize chromatic aberration, a type of image and color dispersion that occurs when light rays of varying length pass through optical glass. In so doing, they improve sharpness and color correction.
• ALEs - Lenses with Aspherical Lens Elements produce better image quality by eliminating the problem of coma (distortion at the edge of the image) and other types of aberration, particularly prevalent in wide-angle lenses use din conjunction with large aperture.
• Stability - Increasingly, lenses are being produced with some form of optical stabilization. These lenses make hand-holding the camera at slow shutter speeds more practical, and reduce the likelihood of image blur caused by camera shake. They are widely used in sports and wildlife photography.

Metering Modes, and when to use them

• Multi-segment metering - Matrix metering by Nikon, Evaluative metering by Canon and Honeycomb by Minolta. All but referring to multi-segment metering. Takes from many areas around the frame, then average the result. Usage: General-purpose photography or difficult lighting conditions
• Center-weighted metering -usually the subject is occupying the frame large, about 75% or more. Usage: Formal portraits of people and animals; backlit subjects (except silhouettes).
• Spot metering - the camera takes in about 2-3% of the frame only; what to say, it is for precision metering! Usage: Photography of high-contrast scenes or scenes of multiple tones, like landscape photography; critical exposures; assessing the subject brightness range (SBR).
• Manual metering - as it says, this is manual metering. There's help in the camera. An analog meter display in the camera's viewfinder, with 2 arrows pointing and moving right and left. Bar stops at middle, or '0', to say that camera meter reading aligns with the exposure setting as you adjust the aperture and shutter speed. Usage: creative photography that is not governed by the auto or preset settings.

The sunny f/16 rule:

• When taking pictures in bright sunlight, the high level of contrast can sometimes confuse a camera's internal meter. To avoid inaccurate exposures in these conditions, set the lens aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed equivalent to the ISO setting. This is known as the 'sunny f/16 rule," and is remarkably accurate.

The sunny f/22 rule:

• When photographing predominantly white or very light subjects in bright sunlight, a variation of the sunny f/16 rule is the sunny f/22 rule. The process for assessing exposure is the same, except that f/22 is used as the base aperture. By stopping down by one stop, you avoid overexposing the highlights.

When photographing in moonlight:

• When using moonlight as the main light source, set a shutter speed of around 4 min when the moon is full and the sky clear. Double the amount of exposure when the moon is partial. To photograph the moon itself, use a long telephoto lens and set an exposure of around 1/1000 sec @ f/8 with an ISO of 400.

Streaked lighting:

• To create streaks of light from moving cars, set the camera on a tripod, manually focus the lens, and set an exposure of between 10 sec and 20 sec at f/22 (ISO 400). Use the Bulb (Time) setting if necessary, and activate the shutter using a cable release.

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I think that that is all that I want to cover. It doesn’t mean that there are no more that can be derived from the book. On the contrary, there are a ton of useful tips and tricks from that book. What I am saying is that go and grab a copy of it, whether that means buying your own, or borrowing from the library.

Enjoy!

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Master Composition Guide for Digital Photographers

Image by Jim's Theme 1969 via Flickr

I have finished reading one more book on photography, and I want to give a short review. Furthermore, I want to give the points as highlighted in the book itself. This is one good book, and while the content is already very similar to many other books written about photography, I do find some points that would set apart this one book: Master Composition Guide for Digital Photographers by Ernst Wildi.

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MASTER THE TECHNIQUES YOU NEED TO COMPOSE EYE-CATCHING DIGITAL IMAGES

Good composition - or the effective arrangement of all of the visual elements that fall withing the frame of the final image - is critical to the success of any photograph. When the image elements are carefully placed, the viewer is engaged in the image; without an effective composition, the eye wanders through the frame and the intended subject may be diminished by distracting colors, shapes, or other pictorial elements. In this book, master photographer Ernst Wildi shows you how to fine-tune your photographs and ensure the most dynamic, powerful image possible. Easy-to-read text is paired with ample before-and-after photos, making it wasy to see how each technique will affect your final images.

FEATURES:

• Composition techniques for photographing landscapes, architecture, still life, people, and more
• Understanding the impact of technical consideration, like exposure, contrast, and depth of field, on composition
• Tips for selecting the right lens and focal length
• Using lines as compositional elements, with tips for placing lines effective and avoiding distracing lines
• Determining how to place your subject effectively in the frame of the image - including tips for composing images with multiple subjects
• Understanding the importance of color when designing effective photographic compositions
• Tips for evaluating each scene for attracting and distracting elements
• Composing effective panoramic images
• Using filters to improve your compositions
• Evaluating the background of your image, and tips for working with problematic background elements
• How posing affects the composition of a portrait
• Tips for post-capture image manipulation that let you fine-tune your compositions
  
  
  
  

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What I learned from this book

Aside from the usual, these are new ideas that I got from this book:

1. When shooting waterfalls, make sure that there is one, not two, waterfalls, in the frame. Two usually distracts the attention of the viewer, and the composition fails to arrest the viewer's attention.
2. When shooting waterfalls, include the top and bottom. Viewers want to know when the water is coming from, and where the water is going.
3. Change focal length to make the composition better. When a statue or a sculpture includes a background, such as a tree or anything of that sort, and it detracts from the overall 'correctness' of the composition, change lens. Compose the picture in such a way that the background will augment, at the least, not clutter, the resulting photograph.
4. There should be balance in the colors. When composing a shot, especially on landscape photographs, make sure that the light and dark areas are properly positioned. All dark at the top or all dark at the bottom makes a photograph one-sided, and will tip off and topple.
5. Use the correct focal length to signify 'size'. Change from wide angle lens to telephoto lens to signify the size of a truck against a looming mountain. Do that for all other shots that need to have the size or size relationship of the subjects in the photo emphasized.

And more!

What's your say?

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Macro Lenses and Macro Photography

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While getting a 1:1 (read, almost lifelike size) shot of a flower, a leaf, an insect, or anything for that matter is one area of photography that is so satisfying and gratifying, this trick isn't really that easy, and at times, it can be so frustrating that you would tend to give up sooner than you have begun.


Patience  is a virtue, and it is its own merit already, but applied to photography, and you can come up with those shoots that people will really admire - with no word spoken - but with just plain expressions of "oohhs" and "aahhs".


To help us out with the things in macro photography, here is an Ezine article original. Together, let us learn macro photography. Read on...


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A Beginner's Guide to Macro Photography

Macro photography is a technique which allows photographers to take close-up shots of subjects. Though it once referred exclusively to photography which rendered the subject in life-size on the negative, it has come to encompass almost all magnified photographic techniques. Macro photography differs in many ways from other types of photography: it often requires specialized equipment and it requires that the photographer make a number of special considerations when planning their shots. This brief guide will give you an overview of macro photography techniques.

Macro photography requires some specialized equipment. Most often, this includes macro lenses and extension tubes. The focal length of a macro lens determines the smallest size of the objects it can capture. Focal lengths in the range of 50-60 mm are most often used for product photography or small objects. 90-105 mm lenses are appropriate for insects and flowers. 150-200 mm lenses are most often used for small insect photography. Most of these lenses are 1:1, or 'standard' magnification.

Some macro lenses, however, can achieve up to 5:1 magnification. These are necessary for capturing detail in extremely small objects such as snowflakes and insect eyes. If you don't want to spend the money on a new macro lens, you can use a reversing ring. These rings allow lenses to be attached backwards by attaching to the filter threads on the front of a lens. This allows the lens to be used for macro photography. Oftentimes photos can be taken in up to 4:1 magnification with a reversing ring while still maintaining excellent image quality.

Extension tubes, or bellows, extend the distance between the camera lens and the film or the digital light sensor within the camera. This makes the focusing distance of the camera much shorter, allowing for higher degrees of magnification. This also has the effect of making the image darker for the same aperture settings, a fact which should not be overlooked by the photographer when they are planning their shot.

Another special consideration macro photographers must keep in mind is that the depth of field of macro photographs is very limited. This makes focusing a critical step, as the photographer must determine which element of the subject should be in central focus. Lighting is also a hurdle for new macro photographers to overcome. This is because macro photography setups often leave very little space between the lens and the subject. Telephoto macro lenses are a popular solution for this problem, as they leave considerably more space between the lens and subject. Ring flashes are another solution to this problem. As they attach to the outer edge of the lens, they require very little distance to the subject to properly light them.

Mr. Oliver is a marketing agent of David Proett Photography. The full-service professional photographer provides portraits to capture your most precious moments - weddings, family, baby, and special events large or small. David Proett Photography serves the Richmond Virginia area but will also travel. For more information on their Wedding Photographer Richmond, Virginia please visit their website.

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A shot using aperture priority

In all the reading that I’m doing, there has to come a time for me to put my head knowledge to practice. And as much as I would be advocating that perfection in what you are doing, though hard it may be, is not impossible.

But what would make a practice a perfection?

The old adage says that ‘practice makes perfect’, to which one of my former choir director disagreed to. Why is that? Or rather, if she disagreed to that saying, which many has found to be true and correct, what is she advocating?

Precisely, what is her stand?

Simple. It draws from that same proverb, but she gives it quite a very clear and precise execution:

“Constant, correct practice makes perfect.”

Now doesn’t that make a whole world of difference? To me it does. And from that day on, I have already made it my own guide. And is she the only one who thinks that way? No, she isn’t.

My secondary teacher, who happens to be our class adviser as well, made the same re-direction to our boys scout team, he being also the head of that department. We were doing a model of our boys scout ladders, bridges, etc., etc. and we were doing well, until he saw one guy who didn’t quite adhere to the prescribed method of tying knots. What did he say? “We’ll take it as it is, since it is just an example. However, boys, do take note that when the example is wrong, so will those who follow it.”

It turned out to be a good philosophy, then, and now.

I’ve read many books, but, I’ve done very few shots. Less than a thousand.

But when I do get the chance to click the button, I make sure that I am doing what I have learned: correct practice. I am falling of the other adjective of constancy, but, I will catch up. I will.

So here is one shot I took just today morning using aperture priority.

Actually, what prompted me to take the shot is the two, small lights that passed through the figurine, and landed on the cabinet. I immediately pictured in my mind that this is one not grand, but practical, piece of practice work.


Aperture priority. No flash. On a tripod. Multi-segment metering. 62mm focal length. ISO 1600 (not modified from last photography session). 1/80 sec speed.

I initially used 55mm focal length, but it can’t get to focus correctly. I first focused on the glass part, and the camera had a hard time ‘settling’ on what is the correct focus, going in and out, in and out, till it stopped, but to something that I didn’t want. so I moved back a bit, and changed the focus to the ceramic base instead. That helped somehow.

One more thing that I did is to check on the picture’s correctness of focus using the zoom function. This really helps, in that while initially looking at the snapshot ‘deceives’ the naked eye, zooming in reveals the focus status. This is the third shot. The shadow plays its own part, with the light at its middle breaking the shadow’s perceived imposed darkness.

Till then.

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