Tag: Camera Technique

No matter what you like to photograph, chances are, at some point you’ll find yourself shooting a portrait. Imagine being in the middle of composing that stunning Patagonia landscape image, when a weathered gaucho on his horse gallops up, providing a rare shot of those rugged cowboys. Or maybe you’re walking in the French Quarter of New Orleans and a jazz musician on the street gives you a stoic pose. And who hasn’t taken a few shots of their family and friends? Knowing the basic principles of creating a strong portrait is a valuable skill for all photographers.

New York-based Dutch photographer Mirjam Evers has traveled and photographed in more than 50 countries, focusing her camera and her eyes on creating environmental portraits and travel, documentary and adventure photographs. She’s able to transcend cultural and language barriers with an intangible spirit that comes through in every portrait.

While black-and-white photography has enjoyed a rebirth of interest, color is still how the world appears and is mostly photographed. Yet colors you see and experience often don’t quite translate to the picture you compose. We also sometimes want to interpret the world’s colors in ways that better express how we felt about a subject.

I just love natural light,” remarks photographer David Stoecklein, whose modern yet timeless portfolio of the American West is proof he knows how to wrangle available light. Stoecklein is constantly on shoots in areas that don’t always have running electricity. No power usually means no studio lighting—but it isn’t only for practical reasons that Stoecklein has become a master at using available light to create stunning portraits.

I had 30 seconds left. Running through the pitch-black desert night, I stumbled into a prickly pear cactus, but didn’t have time to worry about the quills embedded in my leg. I was in pursuit of a masterpiece! I quickly switched gels, aimed and fired. Twelve seconds left. I practically flattened a tripod leaping behind an old juniper. I had to get one more critical burst in...bang, bang, bang...two seconds left.

The action, costumes, colors and performances at festivals, special events and reenactments make them a ton of fun to attend and photograph. Taking snapshots is easy, but if you want to turn your snapshots into great shots, you have to pay careful attention to everything that’s going on around you, as well as realize the importance of your camera settings and lens choice. After all, you may get only one chance to photograph the event.

While recently critiquing the work of one of my students, I noticed that several of his images lacked sharpness, which I immediately attributed to camera shake. We looked at the images’ EXIF data to find out at what shutter speed he was shooting while using a 200mm lens. He had been shooting at 1⁄30 sec.—far too slow a shutter speed to use with a telephoto, particularly without the camera being mounted on a tripod. When I asked him why he didn’t increase the camera’s ISO for a more reasonable shutter speed, his response was an all too common one. 

From baseball to soccer, race cars to dance, flying birds to breaching dolphins, the world around us is filled with action that just demands to be photographed. In this article, we’ll give you tips and techniques on how you can improve your action photography and increase your percentage of great shots. And while it can be frustrating—everyone, even the pros, have their share of missed shots—you’ll get better with practice and experience, so hang in there if your first efforts aren’t perfect. 

Taking pictures in the snow is cool, literally and figuratively speaking, but snow scenes present certain photographic challenges. First, all that white can fool a camera’s exposure meter into thinking that the scene is brighter than it actually is, therefore setting the camera for an underexposed picture. The remedy: Set your exposure compensation dial to +1. The increase should give you a better exposure, which, of course, you can fine-tune further with exposure compensation and in the digital darkroom. 

Q) I just bought my first digital SLR; actually, it’s my first SLR, too. I’ve been spending nights and weekends trying to learn all of the various features, but there’s one feature that I’m just not getting. Depth-of-field preview doesn’t seem to work—all it does is make the viewfinder darker.

Q) I read your HelpLine column a few months back about photographing fireworks. Thanks for the tips. I really like the shots I got, but I’m wondering about overexposure. Also, the center of many of the fireworks seemed to be just plain white with no color. Was I exposing wrong?

Taking, organizing and perfecting your images is a good start, but the best part of photography is getting the “Wow!” from friends and family when you share your shots. Online services and software are making it easier than ever for even casual photographers to create polished, pro-quality slideshows, greeting cards, Web-based projects and more.

Part of the fun of photography is putting those finishing touches on an image and then putting it to good use. Here are a few of our favorite ways to be creative with photography.

Good color in pictures is subjective. Some people like pictures that pop with saturated hues, while others prefer pictures more subdued. What’s more, we see colors differently at different times of day—even our mood affects how we see colors. In this article, I’d like to touch on the basics of color in digital photography, with the focus on getting the best possible image at the time of capture. To illustrate the techniques, I’ll use some pictures that I took on a recent trip to Panama, where my goal was to take color pictures of the three indigenous tribes: the Kuna, the Emberá and the Ngobe.

All digital SLR cameras offer the traditional exposure modes: program AE, shutter-priority AE, aperture-priority AE and metered manual exposure control. These are the mainstays of “serious” photographers because they provide control over important aspects of each shot.

Using selective focus is a powerful technique to help frame and present your subject. Playing with depth of field will help transform your image from one that looks like a quick snapshot to one that shows you’ve put some creative thought into how you want to present your subject.

White balance and the digital camera are like the engine in a car for many people. As long as it works, they don’t worry about it, and for many users, automatic white balance works just fine. But if you want the optimum color and consistency from your images, plus more creative work from your camera, it helps to understand and use white balance beyond automatic.

Portraiture can be one of the most difficult, yet also one of the most rewarding challenges as a photographer. Unlike photographing an inanimate object, when you’re shooting a portrait, you first have to put the subject at ease. Whether it’s a person or an animal, you’ll get the most rewarding photo if you’ve built a level of trust with the subject.

Q) I’ve been playing around with the macro feature on my compact digital camera. I have some nice shots, but now I’m trying to work with a flash. All of the shots I have so far are pretty disappointing. The right edge of the scene always seems to miss the flash. What can I do?

Q) When I bump up the ISO setting in my camera, am I changing its sensitivity? If it does, couldn’t I just leave it there and adjust my aperture or shutter speed?

Q) I’m shooting RAW and my friends tell me to ignore white balance because I can fix it on the computer. Is that right?