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tiistai 28. marraskuuta 2017
PictureCorrect.com: Sunset Photography Tips
In today’s photo tip we’ll move back into landscape photography… How to get better sunset photos!
photo by Rajarshi MITRA
Sooner or later we all give sunset photography a shot. It’s almost a rite of passage! In fact, for a lot of us, seeing stunning sunset photos is what got us interested in photography in the first place.
But, for most of us, our first attempts at sunset photography were dismal, at best. This and the next few articles are going to cover ways to move our sunset photography from the reject stack to the wall.
Our first sunset photography photo tip is concerning exposure.
This photo tip is pretty basic, but we all have to start somewhere. If you haven’t learned how to get the right exposure, then it isn’t basic—it’s a game changer.
For the most part as beginners, when we first start shooting sunset photos, we have our camera set on automatic and trust in the in camera’s meter to get the exposure. When we see the final shot, the sun is there (as expected) but the whole rest of the photo is black. Or at least really dark.
Why?
When we first looked at the scene, the sunset was gorgeous. All the oranges, reds, and yellows reflecting off the clouds are what attracted us. But, in the final version, the clouds were pretty much gone! It just showed a muddy, dark mess.
It’s the meter.
The light meter in your camera is designed for the “average” shot. Not for one that is overly bright or overly dark.
Because the meter is assuming your sunset photo is an average shot, it “reads” the amount of light in the scene and sets the exposure to an average—or to somewhere around the middle of the scale between totally washed out and totally dark.
For most photos we create, there are bright points and dark points, so setting the exposure to an average is acceptable. (Not great, but serviceable.) The light points will show as light, and the dark points will show as dark, while the averages will record properly.
photo by Ben Cremin
But, in a sunset photo, the sun is very bright in comparison to the rest of the scene. Let’s face it, at sunset the ground is starting to get pretty dark. The meter sees all this light from the sun and sets the exposure—not for showing the sun way up on the brightness scale, but lowering the exposure to show the sun’s light in the middle.
This dramatically underexposes the rest of the shot and everything but the sun goes black.
By the way, the middle of the road exposure is called 18 percent gray. It’s the point halfway between blown out and black.
There is a lot of science involved, but simply put, that’s the way your camera’s meter works.
The opposite is true, too! If you metered the darker ground, the sky and sun (after bringing the exposure up to an 18 percent gray average) would be totally over exposed and blown out.
How to fix it?
Since the extremes of light and dark are what’s creating the problem, the “fix” is to take your meter reading from the sky but with the sun out of the frame. The sky—without sun—is pretty close to average (18 percent gray) so the reading will be correct. Or at least as correct as you’re going to get.
The way to do that is take your meter reading from an area of the sky near to the sun, but with the sun out of the frame. Then recompose with the sun where you want it, and shoot.
Now the sky and clouds (which are probably what we were going for in the first place) will record all the colors.
photo by Christopher Michel
Take this landscape photography photo tip and do some experimenting! Try doing some sunset photos by metering with the sun in the frame, then try one by metering from the ground. Finally try metering the sky—with the sun out of the frame. Compare the differences! It’s a good way to get a good understanding of your light meter—how it works and how to work it.
About the Author:
Dan Eitreim writes for OnTargetPhotoTraining.com. He has been a professional photographer in Southern California for over 20 years. His philosophy is that learning photography is easy if you know a few tried and true strategies.
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PictureCorrect.com: Interesting Photo of the Day: Daytime Christmas Lights
‘Tis the season for photographing holiday lights! While most photographers wait around for dusk, this amazing shot of Christmas decorations hanging in a shopping mall was shot in broad daylight:
Christmas lights against a midday sky (Via Reddit. Click image to see full size.)
JaguarPF captured this photo using a Canon 1200D with a 50mm f/1.8 and no flash. He noticed the decorations hanging about two meters above a walkway, outside the path of shoppers. Though not apparent from the photo, the ornaments were pretty large—about double the size of a soccer ball. He took three shots before mall security caught informed him that what he was doing was prohibited! This was his third and final shot.
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PictureCorrect.com: How to Use Export Presets in Lightroom to Save More Time
We’re all familiar with the power of Lightroom presets. They’re time saving tools that we use on an everyday basis to edit and finalize our images. But did you know that you can also use presets to export your images with your preferred file name convention and sizing? Aaron Nace has this solution:
From Lightroom’s Develop module, go to the Export dialog by right-clicking on an image and selecting Export—or go to File > Export.
Under the Export Location menu, for the Export To option, select Choose Folder Later.
Renaming the file is the ultimate objective—making a preset that automatically renames your images according to the end purpose. Under File Renaiming, check Rename To and select Edit… from the dropdown menu. This option will allow you to keep your file name and then add some custom text to it. Now edit the custom text. As Nace was making this preset for Instagram, he entered the custom text “_1080_instagram”.
Filename Template Editor
Take a look at the other settings, including the color space, image format, quality, etc. Scroll down to the Image Sizing option and enter your file width and resolution. Nace wanted to make this export preset specific to Instagram, so he kept the width at 1080 pixels. Check or uncheck Output Sharpening according to your needs. Okay, you’re set. Now to save this preset.
Saving an Export Preset
Clicking the Add button at the bottom left of the page opens up the New Preset dialog. Enter a name for the preset. Select the folder name and click Create. This will save your preset in the folder you chose.
Nace recommends using Google Drive or Dropbox folders for the final images. This allows your images to be accessed from anywhere in the world and from any device.
Using Your Presets
The next time you choose to export your images with the specific settings, all you have to do is right-click on the image and choose the right preset, then select the folder where you would like to store the image, and click Open.
You can replicate these steps for each of the file dimensions you need.
Creating a New Preset
You can also make a preset for saving full-sized version of your images. In this case, make sure that you uncheck the ‘Image Sizing’ option.
That’s it. Now, when you want to make appropriate file size exports for a series of images, all you have to do is select the right preset and export them to your preferred folder. This can save an incredible amount of time, especially when you’re working on a series of images and need multiple file dimensions for all of them.
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maanantai 27. marraskuuta 2017
PictureCorrect.com: How to Use Lens Aperture to Demonstrate Importance and Tell Stories
Single lens reflex cameras have interchangeable lenses that allow photographers to change the aperture of those lenses. The aperture is the hole inside the lens whose size is determined by you, the photographer. And that is as long as you’re using your camera in Manual or Aperture Priority Mode.
You may wonder why the size of the aperture matters to you as a photographer, but be assured that it does. The size of your lens aperture determines the depth of field in your photographs.
Photo by Luca Serazzi; ISO 100, f/5.6, 8-second exposure.
And… it is the depth of field that will determine:
- where your viewer’s eye is drawn in your photograph, and
- whether or not your photograph is telling a story.
These are the two ways you can use your aperture setting to control the depth of field in your photos, creatively. Let me explain in a bit more detail, but first things first.
Aperture Size
Aperture is determined by the f-number on your camera, and there is an inverse relationship between the f-number and the size of your aperture. A small f-number (let’s say f/1.4) means that you are using a large, wide open aperture. A large f-number (let’s say f/22) means that your aperture is small and has a narrow diameter. So I will use the term “large aperture” to mean wide open, indicative of a small f-number and “small aperture” to mean narrow, not-so-wide open, indicative of a large f-number.
Here’s a statement to remember: the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field.
Depth of Field
So what is depth of field? The best way for me to explain is to try and get you to picture in your mind a row of parked cars in a parking lot. Walk to the end of the row of cars, kneel down and then look straight down the row. Imagine taking a photograph of this row capturing the rear end of the first to the very last car. The depth of field is the distance that everything is in focus both in front of and behind the focal point. Every photograph has some level of “depth” thanks to the third dimension in our world. Notice I said depth and not depth of field.
The amount of “depth” in your photograph depends on your camera angle. If you take a picture of a sunset while standing, there won’t be much depth in the image. If you take the same photograph lying down, the photograph will have much more depth with the presence of the pebbles and stones in the immediate foreground and the sun being distant over the horizon. Remember this distinction between depth and depth of field.
So how can you use depth of field to draw the viewer’s attention to a specific point in your photograph?
By using a large aperture. This is very effective in portrait photography because large apertures are great when you want to blur out the background and bring only the subject’s eyes and face into sharp focus. And they do so because of their shallow depth of field. But is this a creative effect? Try it for yourself and see the effect a 50mm f/1.4 lens has on your portraits when shoot at f/1.4 or f/2 with bright lights or a colorful background.
Photo by Khaleel Haidar; ISO 50, f/22, 102-second exposure.
There are many ways large apertures can be used creatively. In fact, Canon even makes f/1.4 prime lenses in their wide angle range because they know that professional photographers love large apertures. In wedding photography, professionals use 24mm and 35mm f/1.4 lenses with flash to blur out the beautiful background lighting and fill the dancing newlywed couple in the foreground. Large apertures work very well in candle-lit scenes. They are much loved by professional photographers.
How can depth of field tell a story in a picture?
This concept applies to landscape scenes where everything from front-to-back ought to be in sharp focus—there is no blurring going on. When everything is in sharp focus in the entire image, regardless of depth, the scene tells you a story about itself.
A wide angle lens used in the beautiful African Masai Mara tells me a story about the watchful attentive zebra standing a few meters in front of my Land Cruiser, the care-free grazing wildebeests further away, the distant Acacia (also in sharp focus) which is perhaps sheltering a pride of sated lions in the blazing afternoon sun, to yet the even distant hills farthest away. Small apertures provide a huge depth of field bringing everything into focus allowing you the opportunity to tell a story about your scene.
Photo by Sofia Torrão; f/9, 1/1250 exposure.
If you haven’t yet invested in a Nikkor or a Canon 50mm f/1.4 then buy one as soon as possible. This lens should be a part of every photographer’s kit. Also, a wide angle lens can help you achieve great story-telling landscapes.
About the Author:
By Cee Dhinjan (dhinjan dot com). The author is a photography enthusiast and enjoys educating others.
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sunnuntai 26. marraskuuta 2017
PictureCorrect.com: Interesting Photo of the Day: A Bullet Splitting a Water Drop in Half
If you wanted to photograph a bullet splitting a drop of water in half, you would probably assume that there would be a super fancy high speed camera involved. You would be surprised to find out that you can actually pull the feat off with a DSLR, two intervalometers, a pair of Nikon SB-900 speedlights, and some very precise timing. That’s, reportedly, what was used to take the picture below:
A bullet slices through water. (Via Imgur. Click for larger size.)
How to Photograph a Bullet Splitting a Drop of Water
Essentially, the entire setup is based on the use of two intervalometers. When a jolt of electricity triggers the valve to release a drop of water, the timers are also triggered. The first timer tells the gun when it should be fired and the second timer activates the speedlights. Each of the timers works on a preprogrammed delay. The gun timer is programmed to be delayed at the exact time it takes for the water drop to fall, whereas the second timer that activates the flashes is set to delay at the same rate as the drop impact time.
If you’re feeling a little skeptical, you’re not alone. After receiving a lot of inquiries about how the photograph was taken, one photographer broke down the process and was nice enough to share details of his own setup:
The image was taken on bulb mode in an entirely dark room. The only light available to expose the image onto the camera’s sensor was that from the flash, which was set to 1/128 power–equating to a flash duration and actual exposure time of 1/38,500 of a second.
“To capture the event, I simply pre-focus on ‘ground zero’ with a 200mm Micro lens, lock the camera mirror up, shut off room lights, and press one button on intervalometer #1 to release a drop whereupon the whole process happens automatically. The whole process takes 28ms + or – a ms or two. The hit rate, using the method described, is close to 100%.”
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