Digital Photography

Muna wa Wanjiru asked:

When I first thought about doing wildlife photography I was a bit stuck for inspiration. I was in the middle of the city with no wildlife in sight, unless you counted the people milling all around me, and I wasnt due up for another long vacation for at least a few months yet. So obviously wildlife photography in the wild was out, but someone very helpfully pointed me in the direction that Im about to point you in now. What about the wildlife at the zoos? There was more or less all the wildlife that I could want just sitting there bored in their cages watching people make funny faces at them. (Sounds a bit like what a baby has to go through doesnt it?)

But I still had to wait for the weekend for that and I was chafing at the bit to get into my stride in wildlife photography, when the second suggestion struck me as being the answer to all my troubles. Wildlife photography from home! I could get started immediately I went home, and if nothing else I could always go after the dog. Now that weve sorted out where you can take your wildlife shots, maybe we should now think about what kind of wildlife photography you were thinking of doing.

This is a crucial step in your wildlife photography but not something that you might want to look into just yet. You might still want to get your hands into everything to decide exactly what it is about wildlife photography that you like. Is it the thought of capturing on film the big cats like lions and tigers? Or maybe you want to photograph elephants. What about hippos, or zebras or even rhinos?

And if you dont like the idea of going big, then do you like the idea of going small? Have you thought about birds and insects? What about the much maligned rodent varieties? As you can see there are many different types of wildlife photography options available to you and you just have to reach out and take it.

In the wild is where you get all the action, all the heart pounding terror of being in the wild along with the animals, knowing that youre in their home court and that your advantage depends entirely on the guide whos leading you around. This then is what many of the greatest wildlife photographers yearn to do and where they end up anyway. Whether the reality meets their expectation of the dream is another matter entirely.

Theyre there, in the wild, with the ability to get up close and personal with their wildlife subjects. Nothing at all like the zoo back home, but then again what did you expect right? However, its also true that wildlife shots, are natural, dont only have to be shots of the big game animals. Wildlife shots can be of anything that is considered wild. Take my dog for instance. I consider the shots that I took of him to be wildlife purely for the reason that there isnt a tame bone in his body. He bounces and bounds around like nobodys business and defends his territory with deep menacing growls. The fact that he wouldnt hurt a fly is another matter entirely.

So although in-the-wild wildlife shots are great and look amazing, I would take whatever I can get, at least in the beginning. In the wild is preferably where you might like to take your wildlife photographs, but sometimes you just dont have the choice or the ability to do that. In that case I would recommend that you start your sojourn into wildlife photography at the zoo. Going to the zoo will offer you the opportunity to catch some of the fiercest wildlife, if not in their habitats, then at their best and their worst. Its a bit like catching a movie star in their baggy sweat pants with absolutely no makeup on them! Its fascinating and you wont necessarily get the chance for such candid shots if you were in their natural habitat.

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Tags: Nature, Wildlife

Usually, on starting a photography business, people work on a freelance basis or part time until they are able to build up enough reputation to open a studio of their own. Usually people wait till they have done sufficiently well before opening up their own studio. You can always opt to set up a photography studio at your home, if you have the space, which will save you money, or you can rent a space for setting up the studio. It really depends on the budget you have assigned and also on your own personal preferences. If you livesomewhere in the boonies, you will probably want to rent a space nearer to the town so that people don’t have to drive too far to see your work and meet you. Your studio should reflect your own personal style and you should strive to make it look like that. Continue reading “Photography Studio- Things You Need To Keep In Mind!” »

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We can get a glimpse of fashion photography almost everywhere we look on TV, newspapers, internet and all media. Dazzling women with long legs and tanned skin scream for attention on news stands all over the place. It is the fashion photographer who is primarily responsible to bring those photographers to us, the everyday people. Unlike what one often imagines, there is more to fashion photography than a glitzy life style, fun and happening models. In fact there is a lot of planning involved behind every single fashion photograph that we see. Continue reading “Fashion Photography – 4 key points to success” »

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Just the mere mention of “boudoir” photography and you immediately get the vision of sensual, elegant photos that leave much to the viewer’s imagination, and accomplishing the task of making him want more.

In the 1700′s, the term “boudoir” referred to the dressing and bathing room of a woman, complete with romantic furniture, floral arrangements and beautiful fragrances; the boudoir was a place for women to pamper themselves and indulge in feminine luxuries. Today, boudoir, a term derived from a French verb, meaning, “to pout,” has become one of the most popular forms of personal glamour photography. Continue reading “Boudoir Photography” »

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Landscape photography is essentially all about ones ability to see. No matter what camera you might have, unless the photographer has the ability to see the essence of a landscape, he or she will never end up with any images out of the ordinary. This ability to see, distinguish, and isolate the extraordinary from the ordinary, and then have the technical knowledge to be able to capture it photographically, is what separates the best photographers from the crowd. Too many people get obsessed with the equipment, and it tends to distract them away from what photography is really all about, which is seeing. Continue reading “Shooting a Landscape” »

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Macro photography is one of the most attractive and popular forms of photography. According to some experts it is very easy to master the art and techniques of macro photography and that is, perhaps, the secret behind its fame. Continue reading “Macro Photography A Brief Discussion” »

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Ever wondered how a photographer is able to get blown up pictures of a frog that is less than an inch long? What about a close up picture of living tissue or a postage stamp?

There is no magic to how this is done. An ordinary 35mm. camera can do this but if the hobbyist wants to get down on things, using something that is 100mm. or higher is better. This art is known as called macro photography or “photomacrography.” Continue reading “Macro Photography – the Basics” »

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One of the most satisfying forms of photography, and one of the easiest to master is macro photography.

A practical way for defining macro photography is by the strength of the lens, or how nearby it can focus. For true macro photography, you’ll want to have a lens that focuses down to a 1:1 range. For example,for 35mm film,your camera has to have the ability to focus on an area at least as small as 2436mm ,because this is the size of the image on the film.After having the film developed,the picture of the subject on the negative or slide will be exactly the same size as the subject photographed. Continue reading “What is Macro Photography?” »

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Depth of field is one of the most important aspects of photography you can learn. Use depth of field well in your photography and you can gain immense control over the look and impact of your photos. Unfortunately, depth of field also seems to be one of the toughest aspects for beginners to learn and master. Continue reading “Depth of Field: Three Ways to Make it Work for You” »

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subject is reproduced in a photograph can be very different from how it looked to you as you took the picture. When you cast your eye over a scene, everything in it seems more or less equally sharp, but sometimes in the finished shot only part of the subject appears acceptably sharp.

This zone of sharpness is called the depth-of-field, and it extends in front of and behind the point that you actually focused on. The size of the zone is determined by three key factors – the aperture of the lens, the focal length of the lens used, and the distance you are from the subject. Varying these three elements allows you almost complete control over the depth-of-field in a picture.

When most of the picture is sharp, we say there’s lots of depth-of-field. When only part is sharp, we say depth-of-field is limited. As we’ll see later, whether you go for extensive or limited depth-of-field depends upon the subject matter and how you want to depict it

Three main factors that can be used to control depth-of-field

1 The aperture.

There’s a simple, direct relationship between aperture and depth-of-field – the smaller the aperture, the more extensive the depth-of-field.

So if you want to keep as much as possible sharp, you should set as small an aperture as possible – preferably f/16, or even f/22 if your lens offers it.

Depending on lighting conditions and your film stock, you may need to use a tripod or some other form of support at such small apertures, as the resulting long shutter speeds create a risk of camera-shake.

If, however, you want to concentrate attention on just one part of the scene, and throw the rest out-of-focus, you should select a large aperture. Exactly how large this can be depends on the maximum aperture of the lens you’re using. On a 50mm standard lens it will be f/1.7, f/1.8 or f/2, but on a standard zoom it will typically be f/3.5 or f/4.5.

For general picture-taking, when you want most of the picture to be in focus, you might want to set a middling aperture of around f/8 to f/11.

This is what a program exposure mode sets when left to its own devices Whenever possible you should take control of aperture selection and use either an aperture-priority or manual mode.

Four common techniques using depth-of-field

Use these four common approaches when planning a shot to ensure depth-of-field works for you

1 Everything sharp.

With subjects such as landscapes, groups, interiors and travel you’ll usually want to keep everything sharp. Using a wide-angle lens set to a small aperture will give you extensive depth-of-field, perhaps from around one meter through to infinity. But there will be times when foreground interest is closer than that. Here you need to resort to a neat little technique called hyperfocal focusing that allows you to increase the depth-of-field.

As a rule-of-thumb, there’s twice more depth-of-field behind the subject than in front of it. So if you photograph a distant subject such as a landscape and focus on infinity you waste lots of depth-of-field. By focusing a little closer, you’ll extend the depth-of-field at the front so it comes nearer to the camera, while still making sure that infinity falls within the depth-of-field behind the actual point of focus.

You can guess the hyperfocal focusing distance, but life is much easier if your lens is marked with a depth-of-field scale. This used to be regarded as an essential feature, but with the development of wide-ranging zooms many manufacturers now omit one. If you do have such a scale, simply line up the infinity mark against the mark for the aperture you’ve set and, although the image in the viewfinder will look out-of-focus, the finished image will be sharp from front to back.

2 Main subject sharp with background completely out-of-focus.

There are some subjects where you want the main subject to stand out strongly from an out-of-focus background. Portraiture, where the emphasis is on the person, rather than the location, is probably the most popular area. What you need here is a use a telephoto lens at its widest aperture. It’s also worth moving the subject as far away as possible from the background – in cramped studio situations this is often impossible but outside against a wall or foliage it’s usually easier. Take care, though, that you focus accurately, as the limited depth-of-field will be unforgiving of any focusing errors. For portraits focus on the eye for the best results.

3Main subject sharp, with background out-of-focus but still recognisable.

Sometimes throwing the background completely out-of-focus is going too far. You want to show the subject in its natural environment, but with the background toned down to it doesn’t compete for attention. A person on the beach, for instance, an animal in the zoo, or a flower in a garden. Here a standard to short telephoto lens, somewhere from 50mm to 135mm, is ideal – especially if it’s coupled with a middle range aperture of around f/8.

4 Zone of sharpness deliberately limited.

Occasionally you may want to limit the depth-of-field to a very specific zone. Maybe in a portrait you want just the eyes in focus, and not even the ears or the tip of the nose. Here, once again, a depth-of-field scale on the lens helps, or, failing that a depth-of-field preview facility on the camera, This will give a visual indication of what will and won’t be in focus by manually stopping down the lens.

Summary

Overall, the practical use of depth-of-field can be summed up as follows:

To maximise depth-of-field and have as much sharp as possible use a wide-angle lens, set a small aperture and stand back from your subject

To minimise depth-of-field with only a small zone of the scene sharp use a telephoto lens, set a large aperture, and get closer to your subject.

27/08/2008 http://8x10cameras.com

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Tags: Depth of Field

There are many photographers in this world who seem to favor landscape photography more over any of the other types of photography. Personally speaking I like it when my photographs have some element of life in it be it human or not, but I can see where sweeping shots of rolling hills, toiling seas and endless skies does have an impact on the viewer.

To my mind there are two distinctly different types of landscape photography around. That of the natural landscape photography, and that of the urban landscape photography. Both have their pros and both have their cons, and its really up to the photographer and their sense of imagination to get across to us a grand scene.

Be that as it may though, to get a decent landscape photography shot you dont need to travel to far and distant lands, in fact you dont even need to leave your home.

To start your landscape photography you can just take a ride on out to your back, or front yard, and have a quick go there to see how well you can make this everyday setting into something extraordinary.

Of course the fun with traveling to far and distant lands to get your landscape photography shots is that most of the hard work has already been done for you.

The scenes have already been set to perfection and theres always going to be some really great vantage point that you can go to, to take your pictures.

The trouble with going it at home is that you need to set the shot up for yourself. You need to see the good in your yard and you need to be able to translate that into something that doesnt look like your back yard.

Landscape photography is not an easy task, but it is well worth the try as you open yourself up to the vast array of possibilities and you learn to think outside of the box. So the next time you go to far and distant lands you wont just be taking the same old boring shot that everyone before you has, instead youll be looking at the various possibilities to be had from different angles and how you can possibly accomplish landscape photography.

Like I said earlier there are two types of landscape photography and natural landscape photography is one of them. Landscape photography of this variety is what you see most of the time. Shots of lightning streaking down from the sky, tumbling waterfalls, roiling seas and densely packed green foliage from the middle of a rainforest, weve seen them all and yet we keep coming back for more. We never tire of seeing these glorious photographs, just as we never tire of seeing the more mundane landscape shots either.

The ones taken of the more tranquil scenes, of ponds filled with lily pads, of gardens filled with riotous flowers, and of mile upon mile of rolling farmland stretching out into the distance as far as the eye can see. These all appeal to us and what appeals to us most is what we will also try to photograph.

The urban jungle on the other hand is not something that appeals to everybody. Some find it to be too stark and prefer instead the landscape photography view of nature.

But the urban jungle is a truly magnificent place in which you can get lost and take the most amazing pictures. You just need to know where and how to look. There are so many interesting sights that we take for granted and pass by everyday without thinking twice about it.

Its only when the truly inspired landscape photographer takes a look into this little world of ours and sees it for what it is and shoots it, that we also see the beauty in it. As you can see, and as you have seen in the past, landscape photography doesnt need to be only about Natures landscapes, it can also be about the magnificence of man-made landscapes as well.

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Tags: Landscape

The growth of digital photography had made it feasible for everyone to capture the perfect moments of their lives better than ever. The big improvement in shutter speed and photo resolution, make it convenient and easy for both beginners and professional photographers to take good pictures. In addition, photo editing can now be done to create a more creative and artistic photos. Continue reading “Few Points To Consider On Digital Fashion Photography” »

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Lighting quality can make or break a photograph. Proper lighting not only provides the camera with the necessary visibility to capture a photograph, but can be strategically utilized to portray moods and effects representing a sentiment more profound than the image itself. Photography lighting is an inexact art, lending its eminence to the vision and experience of individual photographers. Here we will examine some common portrait lighting terminology and outline a basic lighting configuration for taking stunning indoor portraits. Continue reading “Indoor Portrait Lighting Basics” »

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Tutorial on how to cut out an image in Photoshop and stack layers to create image effects.

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Don’t you feel a little jealous when you look at photos taken by someone else and they look incredibly good, while yours are almost always bad? Some amateur photographers feel that everyone can take a great picture except for them. The fact is that taking good photos is not something you just have, but something you learn. Even a basic digital camera can take beautiful portraits if you learn a few simple techniques and keep them in mind each time you take a new photo. Here are some of the most common techniques you can use. Continue reading “The Secret of Shooting Beautiful Portraits” »

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