Megapixel Madness

Megapixel Madness

If you are interested in purchasing a new digital camera, you are might be familiar with all the talk about megapixels. With high quality cameras now available to the general public in the 12+ megapixel and above range, it might seem crazy to get anything less. But these cameras are mostly specialty tools for advanced photographers with very specific needs. For nature photography for beginners, starting with a camera of between 6 and 8 megapixels is actually more ideal and produces excellent images.

Also, the quality of the image produced by the camera is not necessarily equivalent to the number of megapixels it uses to record an image. All the physical components of a camera are equally important to the quality of an image. Therefore, one camera with 6 megapixels can have much lower image quality compared to another camera with better parts and the exact same number of megapixels.

Knowing how to use your camera and technique is also very important in creating quality images.

TAKING PHOTOS PART I: Nature Photography for Beginners

Knowing Your Machine

Today's digital cameras are set up to take successful photos under many different conditions and of many different subjects. It can be a great aid to you while working on nature photography for beginners to learn to use the preset buttons and settings on your digital camera.

Most digital cameras come with options to shoot macro (usually shown as a flower icon), landscape (usually shown as a mountain), portrait (a face or person), nighttime (stars or stars and the moon), high speed (a person running) and possibly several other settings. Though you may want to shoot everything in full manual mode someday, these basic functions are an excellent place to start.

Playing with your camera will help you learn all of its functions and all the possibilities available to you. It is also important to learn your cameras limitations, which generally comes from research and time spent with the camera. You might find with time that limitations can be used to work for you, and not just against you.

If you are working with a point-and-shoot camera, which has a single lens that is built into the camera it you will likely soon notice that when shooting something in the distance, you have a limitation as to how close you can zoom in on a subject. This same limitation can be overcome with a digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera by simply changing to a longer zoom lens. Buying separate lenses for a digital SLR camera can quickly become an investment, however, so it is best to really think about what your needs are and how much you are willing to spend.

All cameras can be used much more effectively with the additional support of a tripod, monopod, or beanbag. Though sometimes camera support can be improvised in the field, it can be very helpful to have these additional tools for support. Tripods and monopods can give dramatically sharper images under a variety of conditions.

TAKING PHOTOS PART II: Nature Photography for Beginners

Knowing Your Subject

In the art of nature photography for beginners, knowing your subject is of great importance. Whether you are intending to shoot pictures of flowers or frogs, ants or elephants, it is vital you know some basic information about them.

• For instance, with flowers you will want to seek them out when they are in bloom and look for them where they like to grow.
• If animals are more your interest, know where they might live, what they like to eat and what time of day they are likely to be active is a good starting point.
• If you are intending to photograph more dangerous animals in the wild, such as bears, moose, alligators, rhinos or lions it is better if you do so with an experienced woodsman or wildlife guide.

It might be a surprise to you, but good photographers might actually spend a great deal of time reading about their intended subjects before they go out and try to photograph them. Some spend more time at their local library or online doing research, than they do in the field actually taking pictures.

TAKING PHOTOS PART III: Nature Photography for Beginners

Reading the Light

Photography really comes down to the simple act of capturing light. Seeing and understanding how that light can used and captured photographically is really an art form in itself. Some of the most masterful photographers of all time, such as Edward E. Curtis or Ansel Adams, were extremely skilled in using light to make their subjects stand out clearly. Here are just some of the many ways of looking at the use of light in nature photography for beginners:

Light and shadow: when you look at a subject, notice only the light and shadow. What shapes do you see?
Light behind the subject: is the background behind the subject dark or light? What about if you change your angle relative to the subject?
If the subject is an animal, is there light in the eye? Or shadow?
Does the light in the image add to or take away from the subject?
Come back to the most basic questions, like: what do you want to capture in this photo?
Composition

The art of composition is another essential part of photography. How the elements in the photo are arranged and where the subjects falls in them is of immense importance. There are many aspects to composition, so let us focus on just a few here. Though beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, some photos are seen as beautiful by more people than other photos.

What is it that makes a photo great?

How can I make my photos stand out, and express beauty to others?

Are there secrets out there that I can use to make my photos better?


These are some questions you are bound to ask yourself when you work on creating or improving composition. The truth is, there are some techniques that can help get you on the right track with photo composition as you practice nature photography for beginners.

• Light and shadow: when you look at a subject, notice only the light and shadow. What shapes do you see?
• Light behind the subject: is the background behind the subject dark or light? What about if you change your angle relative to the subject?
• If the subject is an animal, is there light in the eye? Or shadow?
• Does the light in the image add to or take away from the subject?
• Come back to the most basic questions, like: what do you want to capture in this photo?

Composition

The art of composition is another essential part of photography. How the elements in the photo are arranged and where the subjects falls in them is of immense importance. There are many aspects to composition, so let us focus on just a few here. Though beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, some photos are seen as beautiful by more people than other photos.

What is it that makes a photo great?

How can I make my photos stand out, and express beauty to others?

Are there secrets out there that I can use to make my photos better?

These are some questions you are bound to ask yourself when you work on creating or improving composition. The truth is, there are some techniques that can help get you on the right track with photo composition as you practice nature photography for beginners.

• Rule of Thirds: Draw 4 sets of lines across the photo so that the image is divided into 9 equally sized rectangles. Notice where the lines intersect, and when taking a photo, trying placing your subject at one of these intersecting points.
• Centering the subject: This technique is used by most people naturally. Simply put your subject in the center of the frame. Try to take several variations of the same subject using centering and the rule of thirds.
• The eye of the viewer of a photo tends to follow certain paths while looking at the image. The eyes tend to come in and to exit along certain pathways. Find some photos you really enjoy and notice where and how your eyes travel through the frame.
• Attracting or distracting the eye: Remember to focus on elements that attract the eye to the subject, and try to exclude those that distract the eye from the main subject.
• Balance: Does the image feel balanced to you? You can frame your subject so that the overall image feels balanced. For instance, if you put your subject on the right, vertical 1/3 line then try to put another subject on the vertical 1/3 line on the left as well. Compare that with a photo where you have a single subject only on one of these lines. See which you like better.
• Horizontal vs Vertical: Try experimenting with shooting both horizontal and vertical versions of the same subjects. There are certainly times when you will find one looks better than the other.
• Using color: Focusing on color is a great way to attract the eye of a viewer. Experiment with similar color themes in your images. Also, try using color for the opposite effect, making something stand out against a starkly different background or foreground.

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Learning the ropes with your new camera

Learning the ropes with your new camera

Scan your manual

No, you don't have to read the whole thing, just the important stuff. In the beginning somewhere there will be a diagram showing you the parts of the camera. That's the really important stuff. Then turn to the index, providing the manual has one (there are some utterly heinous examples of manualcraft that don't include an index); if there isn't, use the table of contents instead. Run down the index or TOC, and look at the page in the manual for every term you don't understand.

Learn your camera's quirks

You don't want to discover that all your low-light photos look like Seurat or Monet paintings after you've photographed your kid's first birthday. To do that, you need "test" the camera somewhat methodically. For instance, set up a little still life in typical living room light, and (presuming your camera supports it), try it in various automatic and manual modes, changing settings like white balance, exposure compensation, ISO sensitivity setting, and so on. Then download and compare the photos on your computer, looking at them closely. Always examine them at full size (100 percent), not scaled down to fit the screen or smaller. That's the only way to tell if photos are sharp, that you're not using a high compression setting, and so on. Figure out which ones you like best and see which settings you'd used. You also need to know if any problems you're seeing are because you don't understand the camera or lens' limitations. For example, every lens has a minimum focus distance; if you don't know what it is, your photos may be consistently out of focus because you're too close. Which leads me to one of the most important suggestions



Read your EXIF

Learning to use a camera in the days of film meant -- for people more disciplined than I -- carrying around a little book in which to record the camera's settings so that you could match them against the shots and analyze what you'd done wrong or right. For digital, thankfully, the camera records all that information for you automatically and stores it in the file header; that metadata is referred to as Exchangeable Image File Format, or EXIF, data. Modern operating systems can usually read and display the basics: for instance, in Windows 7, the EXIF data appears in the file properties dialog, in the Details tab. You can also get free utilities which display EXIF data in combination with thumbnails for a more usable way to scan it. For example, I use Adobe Bridge and occasionally the more powerful FastStone Image Viewer. The most important settings to look for are shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity, white balance, metering, flash, exposure compensation and focal length.

Checking the EXIF data is the only way to figure out some critical information. For instance, if some of your photos are blurry, look for a pattern in shutter speed -- that's how you figure out how slow you can drop the shutter while hand-holding the camera. Because each camera model varies in size, weight, and sensitivity of the optical stabilization system, the minimum usable shutter speed can differ quite a lot for an individual across cameras.

There is some information that's not recorded in the EXIF header, or that's hard to locate, because it's nonstandard across cameras. It includes, for instance, special-effects modes. To try those out, just remember to shoot sequentially through the options so that you can later go back and match the shots to the mode. One really important setting that's not recorded in the metadata is whether or not you were actually shooting within the camera's exposure parameters. For instance, have you ever taken a photo when either the shutter speed or aperture value on the screen was blinking furiously? The camera was trying to tell you that it wasn't capable of, for example, getting a wide enough aperture at a particular focal length to deliver a correct exposure. In cases like that, the EXIF data simply reports the camera's widest aperture. But the photos may come out too dark or too fuzzy, and you won't know why. So when you're shooting, either make a note of the occasions when the camera blinks at you or don't take the photo until it reports that everything's A-OK.

Shoot raw

If your camera supports it, try shooting in raw format rather than JPEG, or in the simultaneous raw+JPEG setting. Raw is the 21st century equivalent of developing your own film, and not only does it help you produce higher-quality results, it can really educate your eyes about compression artifacts, noise patterns, exposure adjustments and how to read a histogram. You will probably need to buy software; though most cameras that support raw bundle their own software, it can frequently be confusing to use or to get good results and may only serve to frustrate you. It's fine to try it before you buy, but don't give up if it seems too difficult.

There's tons of software that will let you edit raw files, ranging from the relatively inexpensive/free (GIMP, Corel PaintShop Pro X7, Adobe Photoshop Elements 13, DXO Optics Pro 10, Phase One Capture One Express 8) to a bit more expensive (Adobe Lightroom 5, Phase One Pro 7) to the really pricey (Adobe Photoshop CC 2014). And there are more that I haven't mentioned.

Start a photo project

I've found it's really hard to learn to use a new camera effectively by just kind of going out and shooting aimlessly. Find a subject you like to look at -- flowers, animals, creepy dolls -- and head out to shoot some interesting photos of them. Don't choose a subject just because you think it will impress other people. You're the one who has to enjoy it. It should also be something with an element of repetition about it. You can't tell if you're improving, or what you need to work on, if there's no consistent elements to compare. (People are great, but if you're concentrating on learning the camera you don't also want to be worrying about dealing with people.) Once you're comfortable and think the photos are coming out okay, then make an effort to use a different feature and/or to use it in manual or semimanual mode. At the same time, branch out into shooting more complex subjects, such as people and pets. But always remember to go back and look at the EXIF data for the shots you like best or least.

Train your eyes

You can't tell if the camera's working right -- or if you're using it right -- if you don't know what you're looking at, and you can't improve if you don't know what to fix. Is it camera shake, motion blur, or simply out of focus? Are the colors correct or just pleasing? The best way to do this is through sheer repetition and comparison under controlled circumstances. You'll need to calibrate your monitor; if you don't, you won't know whether your camera's colors are off or whether it's the display. You might also need to enlist a keen-eyed friend to confirm your analysis, especially if your vision isn't terrific.

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What is Graphic Design

What is Graphic Design

Indeed, architects work to incorporate strong graphic design in the doors, the windows, the facade, and the overall shape of the structure. Buildings built on a tight budget usually have to sacrifice the beauty of an elegant or captivating design, but many older works of architecture as well as modern engineering marvels are truly stunning. And they make our pursuit of beautiful graphic design easy.

Even though a building or skyline is graphically dynamic, the way you compose the photograph still has to be carefully considered. You don't want to include distracting elements like power lines, out of focus trees in the foreground, and unattractive shadows. I feel that too much concrete or asphalt is a problem as well. Don't include a lot of the street in the foreground so it dominates the picture. Our attention should be drawn to the lines of the building.

I like photographing architecture a lot, and I have thousands of examples I could show you that exhibit strong graphic design.
In the five that I've included here, notice not only the subject itself and the beautiful lines, but how I photographed it. Pay attention to what I included and what I didn't include in the frame.
Look at the camera angle I used, the time of day, note how I used a wide angle lens and a telephoto. All these things go into making a great shot of architecture with a strong graphic design.

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Find Total Shutter Actuations on Nikon and Canon

Find Total Shutter Actuations on Nikon and Canon 

During the last several weeks, I have received several requests from our readers about finding the total number of shutter actuations on their DSLRs. I decided to write a short article on how you can find the total shutter actuations on both Nikon and Canon DSLRs, in case you are interested in seeing how much you have been using your camera or how close your shutter speed is to the manufacturers’ rated shutter life of 150,000 (on most entry and mid-level cameras) or 300,000 (professional cameras).


1) EXIF Data

The information on the total shutter actuations on your camera is preserved in file headers, known as “metadata” or “EXIF”. If you do not know what EXIF is and what it is used for, check out my “What is EXIF” article that I wrote a while ago. Basically, your camera writes all exposure-related information such as date, time, shutter speed, aperture, ISO and a bunch of other important information into the header of each file. Some camera manufacturers like Nikon and Canon also add unique shutter actuations data fields that are used for seeing the total number of exposures or “shutter actuations” cameras have.

2) Switch to JPEG format

If you are shooting RAW, it is best to switch to JPEG format just for getting the required information from your camera. While the camera native RAW format preserves all of the EXIF information that is coming out of the camera, third party conversion software like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can strip out some of the proprietary EXIF data, including the number of shutter actuations. Therefore, switching to JPEG will allow you to view EXIF data straight, without having to import the image into Lightroom or Photoshop first. It doesn’t matter what size of JPEG files you choose – even JPEG BASIC works fine. Once selected, take a picture of anything you want.

3) Download EXIF viewer

In order to view the proprietary EXIF information from files, you need to use an image EXIF viewer that does not strip out anything from the file. Unfortunately, almost all current image viewers only display generic EXIF data that most people use and ignore the rest. Instead of properly reading EXIF data from files and then parsing the results, they typically just look for generic EXIF tags within the file and display them when they are available. If something is not available, it stays blank. To reduce the number of blank items to the minimum, they only provide generic information that is more or less standardized across most camera manufacturers.

Since these kinds of image EXIF viewers are not going to work to find the total shutter count, we will need to use less popular versions of EXIF data viewers, such as Phil Harvey’s “ExifTool” and Opanda’s IExif.

4) Viewing Shutter Count EXIF Data via ExifTool

Once you download the single ExifTool executable from this website, move it to the root drive of your main drive (typically C: on Windows and / on MacOS), then open up the command prompt via Start->All Programs->Acessories->Command Prompt. If you are using a Mac, fire up the shell terminal. Type “cd c:” in Windows or “cd /” in MacOS to be in the same folder where the ExifTool executable resides. Then type:

1. Nikon DSLR: exiftool source_jpeg_file.jpg | find "Shutter Count"
2. Canon DSLR: exiftool source_jpeg_file.jpg | find "Image Number"

Obviously, replace “source_jpeg_file.jpg” with the name of your actual JPEG file. The program should return something like this: “Shutter Count: 19889” or “Image Number: 19889” – the number to the right of the string is the total shutter count on the camera.

5) Viewing Shutter Count EXIF Data via Opanda IExif

If you do not want to mess with command prompts, the best alternative is to use either Opanda IExif (for Windows). Just download the latest version of Opanda IExif and install using defaults.

Once the program is installed, open it up and then click the “Open” button to browse to your file. Select the JPEG file and you will see something like this:



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Sony patents contact lens camera

Sony patents contact lens camera



Sony has patented a contact lens that comes with an integrated miniature camera module and all its components, such as image sensor, lens, processor, storage and even a wireless module to transfer images to a smartphone or other connected device. The camera is triggered by a "conscious" eyelid aperture and closure. A sensor measures the pressure of your eyelid, and other settings such as aperture and zoom can be controlled via eyelid movement as well. A display unit allows you to view captured images directly on the lens. The patent document says the following about the camera module:

"The image pickup unit includes, for example, a lens system including the image pickup lens, an aperture stop, a zoom lens, a focus lens, and the like, a drive system that causes the lens system to perform focusing operation and zooming operation."

There is even a digital image stabilization system to counteract image blur caused by motion of the eyeball. Google and Samsung have filed for similar patents before but with its range of controls the Sony variant is, at least on paper, the most advanced so far. It's impossible to know if a product like this will ever hit the market but if it does, it's certain to raise even more privacy concerns than Google Glass at the time. You can read the full document here

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Digital SLR Photographer

Digital SLR Photographer Tips

I started shooting photography with an SLR (single lens reflex) camera about 23 years ago. I was 15 and my parents bought me a Sigma camera and allowed me to enroll in a summer photography course at the local junior college, Glendale Community. I was the youngest kid in the class and found it one of the most exciting things I’d ever done. Watching a print come to life, when developing in a darkroom for the first time, is an amazing and exciting experience. Although I haven’t done much developing in the past few years, that summer began a love affair with the camera for me that has never stopped.

Today I shoot with a much more expensive Canon EOS 5D, a fantastic full frame digital that has so much more capability than my old Sigma ever did. I’ve had a lot of cameras in between and have taken literally hundreds of thousands of photos between when I started out and today. I’ve got a little over 4,000 of my shots up on Flickr and have recently begun doing a bit of professional work here and there. You can see my photos in the last three issues of San Francisco Magazine and I’m working on another assignment for them now as we speak.

Along the way I’ve picked up a few things here and there and thought I’d share what I feel are some of the basics in a post for new Digital SLR photographers. Bear in mind that these are only my suggestions and observations. Many other photographers will disagree with them and the art of photography truly is an art with many different photographers taking many different approaches. That said here is my list of 10 tips you might want to explore if you are new to the hobby.

1. ISO, ISO, ISO. In real estate it’s location, location, location. With an SLR it’s ISO, ISO, ISO. I can’t begin to tell you how many new photographers I’ve met who have no idea what an ISO is. It’s perhaps the single most important technical thing to know about your new SLR. Technically ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization and in the old days of film it had to do with film speed. But without getting very technical here, if you are shooting in the dark or a poorly lit room or at night, you can dramatically improve your photos by bumping up your ISO setting. Most digital cameras these days go to 1600.

When you see those blurry shaky photos that people take at night without a flash what is going on here is that the camera lens is being opened on an automatic setting too long to avoid the movement of your hand which produces the blur. By increasing your ISO setting you will be able to shorten the amount of time the lens is open and thus get a less blurry photo due to the ever so slight movement that naturally takes place in your hand when you shoot. I’m not going to go into the differences between ISO, noise at higher ISO settings etc. Experiment around with the speeds yourself but make *sure* you know how to change your ISO setting and make sure that you understand that it will make a world of difference to the photos you are shooting in low light situations by increasing it.

2. When dealing with low light situations that are still blurry at high ISO settings, find something to brace the camera on. You can set it on a table, chair, bar, etc. You can hold it tight against a light or telephone pole or wall. You can lay on the ground and set it there. Find something for stability. This will dramatically improve your ability to steady the camera in a low light situation.

3. Don’t cheap out on a tripod. Cheap tripods are like cheap umbrellas. They will inevitably break and you will be back buying another one. Further, they won’t work right, won’t get your camera at the right angle, will shake in the wind when it’s blowing, etc. Tripods are one of those areas where you truly do get what you pay for. Especially if you are going to be shooting at night budget for a quality tripod that can last you for years. Personally I use a Manfrotto. Manfrotto makes some of the finest tripods in the world. Spend the extra money and buy a good tripod or you will regret it. It should have a ball head and for everyday use be somewhat light and hopefully fit in your back pack. You may want a more sturdy industrious larger tripod for the car, but a basic smaller one for a backpack of good quality is money well spent.

4. It’s all about the glass. I’m continuously amazed at folks that will spend $3,000 on a digital SLR and then keep the low level stock lens that they bought with it and never do anything else from there. Personally I think you’d be better off buying a cheaper SLR but with a few good core lenses to use. The difference in shots using better lenses is dramatic. At a bare minimum find someplace that rents lenses and go rent one for a day, you’ll be surprised at the difference over the stock lens that came with your camera. With Canon their L Series lenses are amazing – you will not go wrong with any Canon L Series lens. Whether zoom telephoto, macro, wide angle, prime (fixed focal length), all will make dramatically different photos come out of your camera. Experiment with lenses and make sure that a fair portion of your camera budget is dedicated to at least one if not two quality lenses. My favorite lens for basic out and about shooting these days is the 135 prime L series, but most would prefer the flexibility of a range of distances over the fixed focal rate primes.

5. Join Flickr. Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Something happens when you start sharing your artistic photographs with the rest of the world. It’s hard to say why or how it happens but it gives you a tremendous amount of emotional support and genuine satisfaction to see like minded camera geeks sharing their work and appreciating yours. Even with one or two close flickr friends you will find that flickr provides motivation for you to continue shooting. And best thing of all Flickr is free or very modestly priced at (a well worth) $25 a year if you want a Pro account with more bandwidth. You can join other photo sharing sites too if you want. I also have my photos at Webshots, Zooomr, Riya, Vizrea and a few other places, but it is the social network of Flickr that makes the most difference.

Flickr will also give you a lot of great ideas and ways to shoot that others are using today. For more on how to use Flickr you might want to check out this review I wrote yesterday on Richard Giles’ new book, How to Use Flickr, The Digital Photography Revolution. I’ve also published two other top 10 lists on Flickr, The Top 10 Ways to Get Attention on Flickr and the Top 10 Ways to find great photos on Flickr.

6. Know your rights. Nowhere are rights more misunderstood than with photographers today. Can you take photos of strangers on the street. Yes. Can you take photos of buildings from the street even after security guards tell you not to? Yes. Can you shoot into an open door from the street into a bar? Yes. Know your rights and stick up for them. This not only helps you but it helps other photographers. For a
great primer on your rights as a photographer check out Bert Krage’s excellent .pdf called “The Photographer’s Right”

7. Shoot in RAW. Even if you shoot in JPG a lot too, shoot in RAW. I really only shoot in RAW for my art shots. RAW files are large, cumbersome and difficult to work with. They take up a lot of space on your hard drive. But being able to make modifications to the exposure, contrast and temperature (white balance, think are your whites whitish blue or whitish yellow) before really processing the photo makes a *huge* difference. Shoot in RAW and then learn how to do the production necessary with your photo processing app to do the minor modifications necessary to make your photo the best that it can be. I still shoot in JPG a lot of the time when I’m doing family snapshot stuff and don’t want to be bothered with the extra time it takes to process but for my art stuff it’s all RAW.

8. Photoshop, Photoshop, Photoshop. Whether buying the low end version of Photoshop Elements for $75 or the more professional CS2 version for $600, buy Photoshop and use it. Do *not* listen to the naysayer that will tell you that you are not a purist if you edit your photos. Almost every digital photo can be improved by editing it. Simple things like bumping contrast, altering saturation, sharpness, selective color, etc. all can make a world of difference. Buy Photoshop and use it to process every artistic type image you do. If you really, really can’t afford Photoshop or want something else for a laptop on the go or something, also take a look at Google’s Picasa. It’s pretty good for free software. Not as good as Photoshop, but you can’t argue with the price and it does do a lot of the basics nicely.

9. Take lots and lots and lots of photos when you shoot. Feel free to throw out the vast majority of the shots you shoot. When you see something you like to shoot, shoot 6 shots of the exact same thing. Some will be bad and you can pick the very best one and throw out the rest. I throw out most of the photos I take. I also have about 60,000 photos that I’ve yet to process that need more consideration on a hard drive I’ve named Scratch sorted by date. I shoot like crazy. On a typical outing I can easily fill two memory cards. And while I’m on the second card I’m transferring the photos off of the first card to my laptop to free up more space. Others disagree with me and a photographer I admire a lot Tim Gasperak was telling me recently about this discipline process thing of only being allowed to take a single photo a day in order to better focus and understand your composition and photography in a thoughtful way. There is probably something to that and as an expert it may have merit, but as an amateur shoot away.

You should never come back from a shooting outing with any room left on your card. Shoot, shoot, shoot and shoot. You’ll be surprised at the gems that you come back with.

10. Change your perspective. Whenever you think you have your shot framed and captured take your shot and consider different perspectives. Can you get down on the ground (or simply set your camera on the ground and shoot from there standing up) and get a better perspective. Look up. Is there someplace higher you can get. What about closer, further back. Turn around. What’s behind you? Are you missing something great? Look everywhere at once. Keep your eyes open for different ways to take the same shot. Tilt the camera, take a vertical, a horizontal, a diagonal. Crop out the sky. Crop out all of the land but a thin small strip at the bottom. Play with your perspective on a shot and take several different versions of the same thing.

There is this Chinese Restaurant in San Francisco called All Seasons. It’s not a favorite of mine but I’ve been a time or two. One day I went to lunch there and walking up the stairs just decided to look directly above me for some reason. There were these amazing umbrellas hanging from the ceiling. Had I not looked up I would have missed them. This shot in turn has become my most favorited and popular shot on Flickr. If I hadn’t turned my head and looked straight up at the ceiling I never would have gotten the shot.

Are you shooting at night and using a manual shutter speed for long exposure shots. Try it at 2 seconds, try it at 10 seconds, try it at 30 seconds. Shoot the same shot in many different ways.

And finally, have fun. Digital photography is a great hobby and can be loads of fun but make sure that you don’t get so serious about it that it stops being fun for you. It’s a wonderful way to be creative and to express yourself. Buy your kids, spouse, partner, brother, sister, mom, dad, friend cameras like my parents bought mine. Teach them to shoot as well. Photography is a wonderful hobby full of ways for you and them to be creative. Oh and by the way when buying all this gear (did I mention this hobby can be expensive?) resist the temptation to buy the cheapest discount gear online. Take my advice and check out my bad experience in the past in this department. Personally I like and would recommend B & H Photo for all of your online purchases but their are certainly many other reputable dealers as well.

Update: In the article I mentioned that Flickr is a wonderful place to get advice and share your love of photography with other like-minded photogeeks. In addition to my 10 tips are some more that you may want to consider that I solicited from the members of Flickr’s largest group Flickr Central.

Jeff Clow adds: “Might I also add that they should learn how to use the manual settings as opposed to just the auto focus – since manual settings are intimidating intially but become second nature when one understands how important shutter speed and aperture are to crafting good shots.

I think another important item for newcomers to learn is the steps necessary to access the great features like auto bracketing and remote shutter release that almost all DSLRs have built in to their menus. Once a person becomes adept at those, the world of photography opens up even more broadly – and not surprisingly, better photos become much more the norm.”

carpe icthus adds: “Cheap advice for beginners? In addition to the basic zooms for the range you need, pick up a 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.7. Every line has one, they’re very cheap, you will instantly be able to do things with low-light and depth-of-field that you cannot do with a bridge camera, and practicing zooming with your feet will teach you a lot about composition.

Also, if you find yourself doing a lot of flash photography, picking up a flash that can bounce its flash angle (and, better still, rotate) will improve your photography immensely. For most, the basic such flash in their line-up is more than enough, as long as it takes advantage of their camera’s metering. SB-600 for Nikon, 430EX for Canon, etc.

Also, an addition to the ISO item is to address the common newbie mistake of thinking it is better to underexpose while shooting at a lower ISO then exposing properly at a higher ISO. It’s not; always try to get the right exposure if at all possible. In particular, your images’ color will thank you for it.”

Morven adds: “One tip I got a long time ago and never forgot: carry your camera as much as you can. Great subject matter, great photographic moments, don’t just occur when you’re hunting for them. Sometimes
they just happen totally randomly. Not an SLR tip, but a general tip; in fact, it’s one of the best arguments for also owning a point-and-shoot. Even shots with a crap camera can be good, and they certainly beat the shot you didn’t take because you didn’t bring the camera with you.

Another: be cold and be ruthless when selecting shots. One of the secrets of many master photographers is simply that they take so damn many photographs and then cull ruthlessly. Garry Winogrand died with almost half a million photos he’d not even looked at yet. He deliberately didn’t look at his photographs until he’d forgotten the circumstances of taking them, so that he wouldn’t be influenced by good memories of the circumstances into favoring a poor photo. You don’t have to be that extreme, but try and divorce your emotions about the subject matter and the circumstances of the photo-shoot from your judgment of the resulting photographs. Attempt to see them as a stranger. Sometimes the most fun days out photographing produce no good shots at all, and sometimes an awful day with a subject you hate produces a winning photo.

Don’t wear good clothes. Sometimes the best shots are found by lying in the dirt or climbing up things. By the same logic, buy a camera bag that can absorb the inevitable knocks your equipment will get when you’re doing that.”

monkeyc.net adds: “Dont fall into the trap of thinking that the more expensive the camera you buy is the better your shots will be – buying a professional SLR for your first camera is pointless, it wont make you a better photographer but it will make you a poorer one – start with an SLR you are comfortable with and can use and wil use – the entry level models from Canon and Nikon are excellent but there is a lot of value in the offerings from other companies – Pentax in particular make some excellent price competitive DSLR’s that have the added advantage of being able to use a massive range of lenses and as theyre almost the ubiquitous student choice Pentax gear is readily available second hand meaning you can get some cheap lenses at a good price.

A pro camera wont make you a pro photographer no matter what that guy at the camera store tells you.

And my second advice is the most important – 3 things every photographer needs to know and understand. Depth of Field, Arpeture and Composition – theyre not hard to learn but they are essentials of taking good photgraphs – pick up one of the many handbooks on 35mm photography – you can get them cheaply normally and the principles are the same and learn what they mean – once you have these basics down pat your photography will take off – you will be amazed how much difference understanding them will make to your work.”

Proggie adds: “If you don’t want to carry a tripod, get (or make) a beanbag camera support, to support the SLR on surfaces where you may not be able to normally place your SLR. These may not work as well with larger lenses though. But they work well for me as supports when I hold the SLR on a railing, or rock.

Check your image in the viewfinder by zooming in to make sure it’s sharp. Often when zoomed out the viewfinder will make you think that a soft or out of focus photo looks good, but when you download it to your computer you’ll discover that it’s not that great. Check the histogram in the preview as well (though I’m still learning how to interpret it correctly).”

f8125 adds: “Take a photo with every mode and setting. Even if you don’t use all the functions all the time, knowledge is power and with technical fluency, your creative juices will have no bounds.

Get a a good sized memory card or 2 (at least 1 GB), running out space during a shoot is depressing.”

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Live View

Live View
D-SLRs now can see what the lens sees directly at the sensor rather than only through the 

viewfinder 

When digital cameras entered the market, Sony had one of the first cameras with a rotating lens assembly, so you could see the LCD at different angles compared to the way the lens could see the world. I shot with it up high, down low, and I loved not being restricted to shooting right at my eye level. I could actually see what the lens was seeing when the camera was on the ground without lying on the ground myself.

I reviewed this little camera (just over one megapixel) for PCPhoto Magazine and later ran into a Sony PR person at a trade show. He told me that he had seen my review and was surprised. He thought the rotating lens was just a gimmick and wouldn’t be used for anything!

That was my first exposure to the creative use of a live LCD. Live View is simply the ability to see on your LCD exactly what your sensor is seeing in your camera. This is the way that point-and-shoot and compact digital cameras always have worked ever since they got LCDs. This wasn’t possible in the technology in D-SLRs in the past because the mirror blocked the sensor from any view through the lens.

As I began working with digital cameras, I couldn’t afford the D-SLRs of the time, so I bought advanced digital compacts such as the Canon PowerShot G series of compact digital cameras. These had a live LCD, of course, because they weren’t SLR designs.

What I liked about the G series was that it had an LCD that both tilted and rotated. I’d put one of these little cameras on my tripod, tilt the LCD for convenient viewing and suddenly I felt like I had a miniature view camera. I wasn’t simply looking through the lens at a subject; I was seeing a little photograph framed in the LCD. For me, this changed how I interacted with my subject and my photograph.

Even more, the swiveling LCD allowed me to use my tripod at a low height, and I could see what the camera was seeing without contorting myself to look through a low viewfinder. I also could set the tripod up higher than normal in order to see through the viewfinder. I tilted the LCD down, and there was my image, ready for me to make a composition. And I could put the camera down on the ground, tilt the LCD so I could see what the lens was seeing, and take new low-angle pictures without having to lay down and squash my head against the ground.

This worked well for awhile. I got some quality images this way, which ended up in OP and in my books, but there were limitations. While the Canon G series of digital cameras had accessory lenses, which I used, and I used achromatic close-up lenses for some very high-quality close-up work, focal length still was a limiting factor.


The other problem was that these little digital cameras had small sensors that were very susceptible to noise. At ISO settings of 100, the cameras gave high-quality results. Above that, and the results were real iffy if you wanted low noise. For me, results at ISO 400 were unusable except for special purposes.

When Olympus came out with its EVOLT E-330, I saw the opportunity to expand what I was doing with this type of work. This camera was the first true digital SLR, with a full range of interchangeable lenses and standard SLR accessories that included a live LCD (and it tilted, too). It dealt with the challenge of having a live LCD in a digital SLR in an interesting way by having a separate, dedicated sensor in the viewfinder to simulate what the actual sensor is seeing.

I don’t know how many of you have worked with a medium-format camera, either an SLR or twins lens reflex, but one thing that I loved about them was looking down at their waist-level viewfinder and seeing a little image in a little ground glass (though upside down). There’s something very direct and appealing about this ground-glass image in how you see your subject.

With the E-330 and the LCD tilted up, I felt a similar experience. But this image wasn’t upside down, and it actually looked more like a little picture than what you saw on ground glass. This made it easy to shoot low-angle pictures without going into body contortions to see through a viewfinder. In addition, it truly did give a different experience compared to a traditional viewfinder.

Now we’re seeing Live View in D-SLRs from Canon, Nikon and more from Olympus. I expect we'll see even more in cameras announced at the PMA trade show in January (I’m writing this before the show).

All of the Live View cameras now use the image sensor itself. This has the advantage that you can truly see what the sensor is seeing, including white balance and exposure. The disadvantage is speed. When the camera has to use the sensor for the Live View and for the actual picture-taking, there are technological challenges in focus and exposure that cause a delay when taking the picture.

The Live View in all the cameras works great when you use a tripod. If you’re shooting a landscape, a slight delay usually doesn’t matter all that much. The disadvantage of most of the Live Views, however, is that they’re part of a fixed LCD on the back of the camera. You still can gain some of the benefits of the Live View with such an LCD, such as being able to see the image very differently than looking through the viewfinder. In fact, with some of the big LCDs, this is almost like using a miniature view camera.

One aside to all of this is depth of field. For many photographers, using depth-of-field preview gave a view through the viewfinder that was very dark and hard to understand. This totally changes with live LCD. Now you can see what’s sharp and what isn’t in the photograph, and how sharpness will look in your final image. You don’t have to guess how depth of field compares from one ƒ-stop to another. The LCD will show you a properly exposed image so you can see depth of field and you don’t just get a dark viewfinder.

One exception to the flat LCD as I write is the Olympus E-3, which has a versatile rotating and swiveling LCD. You can use the camera like a traditional, high-quality digital SLR, and it works just fine that way, or you can turn on the Live View and see what the sensor is viewing through the lens. I’ve taken this camera and laid it on the ground and have been able to get vertical and horizontal low-angle close-ups. I’ve been able to put it on my tripod at a higher height than I could normally see through the viewfinder and still be able to make my composition because I can tilt the LCD down to see it better.

True, there’s a delay in the time from when you press the shutter release and the shutter goes off, just like in all the other cameras with this type of live LCD. For me, however, the advantages are great, and this camera gives me new opportunities for nature photography.

I expect that we’ll see tilting, swiveling LCDs like this from other manufacturers very soon. The benefits of such a Live View LCD compared to the locked-down LCD on the back of the camera are huge.

This technology may mean we’ll see the SLR type of camera change. Perhaps someday we’ll have a digital camera that’s like a little view camera. This camera would have a lens and a sensor, but no viewfinder. You’d only see what’s coming through the lens on the sensor on a live LCD.

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Metering Mode DSLR

Metering Mode DSLR

Digital SLRs and some compact digital cameras offer different types of metering modes: multi-segment, center-weighted average metering, spot metering, partial metering and auto-exposure lock. For example, I used the exposure lock mode for this sunset photograph that I took in Rajasthan, India. I pointed my camera at the area surrounding the sun and depressed the shutter release half way. That locked the exposure setting—the ƒ/stop and shutter speed. I recomposed the shot with the camel and rider in the frame, then I snapped the shot.

In this article, I’ll give you an overview of metering modes. Each one has its advantages. If you know which mode to choose in a particular lighting situation, you’ll have a good chance of getting a perfect exposure. And keep in mind that different model cameras feature different types of metering modes, and not all digital cameras offer all the modes I’ll discuss.
Multi-Segment Metering
Multi-segment metering, also called evaluative, matrix or honeycomb metering, is an advanced TTL (through-the-lens) metering system that interprets simultaneous readings from multiple areas in the frame

It’s ideally suited for quick shooting when you need to get a light reading on an entire scene and set the exposure in a hurry. It can also be good to use when there’s a lot of contrast between light and shadow in a scene, as illustrated in this picture I took on the Ponderosa Ranch. On some cameras, this mode not only measures light, but it can identify some challenging situations (such as backlighting) and, therefore, automatically adjusts the exposure. Furthermore, on some cameras, this metering mode “knows” where your primary subject is located in the frame, because many multi-segment metering systems are linked to the camera’s autofocus system.

So, multi-segment metering is a good choice in many situations, because it evaluates the different areas of the scene and selects the best exposure.

Center-Weighted Average Metering
Center-weighted average metering gives special emphasis to the center of the frame, but also covers the surrounding area. Some photographers prefer this metering mode because it’s simpler and more predictable than multi-segment metering, which uses complex algorithms to sort through the data from all the different points of measurement.

Center-weighted metering is a good mode to select when you want to capture a brightly lit subject and be sure it’s exposed correctly compared with the surrounding areas. This is an excellent compositional technique because people’s eyes are always drawn to the brightest part of a photograph.

Unlike multi-segment metering, which interprets virtually the entire picture area, center-weighted metering does not attempt to identify and correct situations like backlighting. This means you have to be a bit more careful when using this type of metering.
However, many experienced photographers prefer this mode because they can apply their own exposure compensation (+ and –) and know that the camera hasn’t automatically tried to do likewise. I used this mode for this picture of Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah.

Spot Metering
Spot metering measures only a small area in the center of the frame. Typically, this area is a spot that’s only about two or three percent of the entire area of the picture (hence the term “spot” metering). When you have a select area of a picture that you want to precisely meter, and don’t want other areas of the scene to affect your exposure, such as this polar bear that I photographed in the sub-Arctic, this mode is the way to go. However, it can be a challenging metering mode to use because you really have to pay attention to exactly what it is measuring and interpret the brightness of the spot yourself.

The size of the spot varies from camera to camera, with high-end cameras usually having a smaller spot than entry-level cameras.

Partial Metering

Partial metering covers an area exclusively at the center of the scene, taking up about 10 percent of the total picture area—not quite as small as that of a spot meter. Here, too, if the surrounding area is darker or lighter than the main subject, this mode is a good choice. It will usually give you the correct exposure for your subject, as long as your subject isn’t very light or very dark. That’s why I selected the partial metering mode for this shot of a cowboy riding at sunset at the Ponderosa Ranch in Oregon.

Not all cameras have spot-metering mode. For those that don’t, they’ll typically offer a partial-metering mode instead.

Autoexposure Lock

Some digital cameras feature an exposure lock as part of the autoexposure metering system, which is extremely useful for scenes with a high contrast between the light and dark areas. One way to use this feature is to point your camera at an area of a scene that’s a middle brightness or midtone. Once you activate the autoexposure lock mode (AEL), depress the shutter release half way and lock in that exposure. Then you can recompose the scene and take the picture with that setting. 

For my photograph of the camel and rider in Rajasthan, India, a balanced exposure was not my goal. I just wanted to capture their shadowed silhouette, illuminated by the radiance of the setting sun. That’s why I pointed my camera at the area surrounding the sun and not at the camel and rider. 

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