High Five Photo Tips for Jan-Feb 2012

High Five Photo Tips for JANUARY - FEBRUARY:

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1. Light Painting is done in the dark with the camera on a tripod set with manual focus - preset using a flashlight to aide focus) and shutter speeds in the seconds up to minutes. Use a continuous light source such as flashlight, light pen or instantaneous flash with or without gels. Dress in black, move quickly through a scene and even cover flashlight grip, etc. with black.      2.  Get inspiration for your still life and food photography from your local museum. Look at classical paintings from the old masters. Carefully observe the use of color, contrast and composition. Simple lighting with the use of a single light source will create lovely shapes due to cast shadows.  Dark shadows will produce the illusion of depth. Prime lens with a 50 mm equivalent crop factor will mimic the physical limitations of paintings. Experiment and create harmony with complementary colors such as orange with blue. Don't wait for the perfect object, the perfect lighting or the perfect equipment. Blue Plate with Onions

Pepper Duo 3. Create a mood or inspire an emotion with your photography.   Heading Home, Gloucester Harbor    4. Choose your subject and find the simplest elements. Then compose and shoot with your concept in mind. Think and compose. Remember these key elements to create not take an image. Peony Sunrise 5. More on Patterns. Explore B&W and Color. Look for duplicity of patterns and how the light enhances the effect. Side lighting will bring out the texture. Sand Patterns Square Sand Patterns

All prior photo tips archived in the JMP Blog.

High Five Photo Tips for December

1. When shooting Portraits, alter you viewpoint and either get up higher and shoot down or lower and shoot up. Try direct eye contact and then have the subject look outside the field of the camera or inside the camera field. Try props or candid poses often during action such as with jumping or in an activity. Add light Painting.



2. Lighting is the key to compositing. This will make the selections easier and the composite look real. The lighting on the subject and on the composite needs to match. Another trick - don't include the feet if possible. Plan ahead.

3. Simple compositions are often best. Clean and pure. Follows my photo motto: Simplify. Fish 4. Foreground elements help to balance a composition. Choose them wisely. Use leading lines to draw the eye into the photo. Or just look for patterns and colors. Times Square 5. Location, location, location. True in photography as it is in real estate. Choose a great location and a landmark of that location to be the key focus. This is an infra red pannoramic shot vertically at Pepsico in New York. Infra Red Panno

Accent Line Block Closing Block

High Five Photo Tips for September

High Five Photo Tips for September: 1.Depth of Field is a great creative tool.  Remember,     The most important item to control is the aperture setting. The larger the aperture used, the smaller the depth of field range. A good review at: How to use Depth of Field  Tony at F 2.8 with 70-200 zoom racked out to 200 for bokeh

Tony at 70 mm_same settings Even though set at same wide aperture of f/2.8, better Bokeh racked out ( ie the outer limits of the Zoom; so 200 mm on a 70-200mm zoom lens). Try it out.     2. Remember to MOVE:  Every time you you go out shooting, try different camera setting on the same subject. Move around!  Low high, close up to zoomed out.Change lenses and perspective. Try a tilt.  Or think of the horizon line.  Centered or at 1/3rd. Vary it and see what works.  Be Creative!! Coneflowers from a low perspective

3. Use your Tripod.  It will help you take clear photos all the time whether it is action or close-ups.   A great advantage of having a tripod is you can shoot images hands free. The reason is that you can use a remote release to start the shutter.  People often using telephoto lenses will also find the tripod useful. As having longer lenses normally create more weight to your digital camera, a tripod will keep your device steady. A tripod also slows you down and helps you think and create better images. 4. Black is needed to make an attractive B&W photograph, it says it right in the name, black and white.  If you've grown into the habit of using the histogram in Photoshop or Lightroom to show you the black and white highlighted areas don't adjust the exposure or increase the fill light to the eliminate all the flashing area.  Solid black in some portion of the image is not only acceptable, it's needed.     Searching, Nude Matured Project 5.  A good landscape usually includes an interesting foreground as the focal point that leads you into the rest of the picture.    Pigeon Cove

High Five Photo Tips for AUGUST:

1. Photograph the small things. Instead of trying to fit in as much as possible in one shot, try breaking it up into 2 or 3 closer ones. Small details can often tell a story about the region your visiting. For example, the texture in a building or the details in a shop can often be lost if the photograph is taken from a distance too far away. Wooden Shoes, the Netherlands 2. Vary your Depth of Field to add Bokeh - blur to the background.  Try shooting with a wide open aperture, such as f/2.8.  If using a long telephoto lens, keep it long but get close to achieve this effect.   Bearded Iris, Giverny, France 3. In the  middle of the day with lots of contrast, keep shooting and then convert to Black & White.  Look for patterns, textures, simple compositions. Some say, the most pure form of the art of photography. Marine Railways, Rocky Neck, MA  4. Don't put your camera away at Dusk or at Night.  Use a tripod and play with slower shutter speeds.  Or if you can't use a tripod, raise your ISO with a wide open f stop, such as f/2/8 to 5.6 to obtain a sufficient shutter speed to hand hold your camera.  At least the reciprocal of the lens length, such as need 1/200 sec or faster to hand hold a 70 to 200 racked out to 200 mm.  Turning on Vibration Reduction will also help.   Following Mom, Elephants, South Africa 5. Consider using Fill Flash! Off camera or with the pop up flash using the Gary Fong Puffer to diffuse the light.  Can work pretty well with the camera on Program Mode and the Flash to TTL. For total control, however, meter in aperture priority with the f stop you want and then use those settings (or slower shutter speeds to drag the shutter) with your Camera in Manual mode.  Flash in TTL with flash exposure compensation down to minus 1 1/3 to - 2. Adjust as needed to get the fill you want.    Alum floret with fill flash

High Five Photo Tips for JULY:

1. Fireworks Season is approaching and there are many techniques you can try!  One is using the double exposure setting available in Nikon cameras - set for 3 to 5 exposures, ISO 200, auto gain on and single exposure mode.  Shoot when bursts are at their peak. This is an alternate to the old bulb technique with the black card over the lens between bursts.

2. Another is Shooting Separate Fireworks Bursts then blending in Photoshop - Use a tripod, a cable release, zoom tele lens, camera on manual with shutter speed around 4 sec, aperture at F11.  Manual focus to infinity.  ISO 200. Do a test shot and evaluate it and adjust as needed.  Take a background image first before the show at a wide angle to use as your background image. Then lasso the individual bursts in Photoshop onto a new layer above your background and blend with lighten.  Move individual bursts as needed to line up as you like.    Fireworks over the Boulevard in Gloucester

3. Use Black & White to add Drama - especially for dull scenes. Then adjust the shutter speed to slow the movement of water in seascapes to really add drama.  4. Try Intimate Compositions for Seascapes -     The vastness of the ocean invites the photographer to shoot the grand seascape using a wide or ultra-wide lens. But a telephoto can be used to create intimate compositions from coastal scenes, specially if you have rocks. Try different focal lengths to search for a composition you haven't considered, use a long exposure if needed to create an abstraction and you'll have a new photo. Thatcher's Twin Lighthouses  5. Get Close -   Because wide-angle lenses take in a bigger angle-of-view than other lenses, using a wide-angle lens at the same distance from your subject will render that subject smaller than it would otherwise. To compensate for this, you'll have to move closer to your subject. Don't be bashful about getting close, particularly with super-wides. Sepia Archway

High Five Photo Tips_ #2_March 2011

High Five Photo Tips

JMP Top Five Monthly tips for March are:

1.      Try a star effect for the sun using a small aperture F stop such as f 22.  If there is too much glare, position the sun behind an object such as a tree and use a lens hood or shield the front of the lens such as with a cap or hat.   

Haleakala Crater, High Noon

   2.     Try HDR.  The new Nik HDR Efex Pro plug in filter for Photoshop or Lightroom makes the processing so much easier.  http://www.niksoftware.com/hdrefexpro/usa/entry.php

To shoot for HDR, I recommend using: 1.  3 to 5 exposure bracketed shots (each varying by one f stop for under, correct and overexposed images), with 2. Aperture priority (usually around f 8 or 11) so the camera will bracket by changes in the shutter speed, 3. A tripod,  4. Autofocus first and then set on manual, 5. Shoot on Continuous High shooting mode.

For Nikon you will need 5 one F shop bracketed images but for Canon you can choose 2 f stop brackets and thus will only need 3 images to get the same exposure info to use for HDR.  Check your camera manual for details on setting up bracketed images since it will vary.  I prefer my D3 since a dedicated button is right on the camera whereas for the D300 it is a menu item.

Haleakala Crater HDR with Nik HDR Efex Pro

3.     Instead of HDR, try double processing in Photoshop by opening the image as a Smart Object. Then Right click on this layer in the layers panel and select New Smart Object via Copy.  This will give you a second copy.  Since they are both smart objects, each can be adjusted in Camera Raw separately - such as adjust the lower one for the ground and the upper one for the sky.  You will want to keep the brighter image on the bottom background layer.  Then using an inverted or black mask on the upper layer, paint with white on this mask to expose the darker part of the upper image you want to include in your final image.  Use a medium sized hard-edged brush. Vary the brush opacity to adjust the strength of this adjustment or when done adjust the opacity of this layer to get the effect you want. Try using the gradient tool on this mask to add a gradual transition to your effect. Practice on your normally exposed middle image in an HDR sequence and see how you like it compared to your HDR image. Let me know what you think!

Double processed as smart objects

Original image_Horses in the meadow

 4.     Explore the capabilities of Lightroom 3.  You can download a trial version and have some fun.  The RAW processing is the same as in Photoshop but the workflow is better for photographers. You can then fine tune in Photoshop if you need some hi tech correction such as Content Aware Scaling or Editing.  Then just remember when done with your PS edit, to SAVE first before SAVE AS to have it go back next to your original image.   If you want to re-edit in Photoshop, make sure you select -Edit Original to see all the layers.  Let me know if you would like a list of my preferences for LR set up.

5.     Whatever downloading system you use, rename the photos during this phase and add metadata such as copyright and contact info. Keywords can be added and/or some basic processing can also be done at this time.  I use Lightroom and apply the Date, with the full year first, edit field with the name of the group or location and then the sequence number to each image.  I place them in a folder for each year under a subfolder for the date.  During the import,  I select Copy as a DNG and select  make a separate copy to  to save a copy of the RAW images under the download date to a portable or other backup hard drive.  Example of a file name would be: 20110222_MauiSurf_001 in the folder 2011 and subfolder 2011-02-22. I later rename this folder to add some descriptor such as Surf.

Surfer at dusk

Sunset HDR

High Five Photo Tips_#!_February 2011

High Five Photo Tips JMP Top Five Monthly tips for February are: Yosemite Waterfall 1.  Shoot more verticals.  Snapshots are usually horizontal but verticals will often help you redirect the eye to what you want the viewer to see. 2. Convert to B&W or sepia if depth, shape and textures play a bigger role in a scene than color. You can make a virtual copy in Lightroom to explore LR variation or use Nik Silver Efex Pro for another great way to convert to B&W. An update, version 2, to be released soon. 3. If unable to get sharp images due to movement, such as wind or water that you cannot control, go with it and use the motion creatively. Fish in Motion - Maui Aquarium 4. Try shooting silhouettes in the sunset on Aperture Priority using minus 1 to minus 2 exposure compensation to allow the silhouetted object to go to black while preserving your sunset. 5. Look at your histogram to learn to feel where highlights and shadows fall in your image and what you can accept - then adjust your exposure from there. Generally, you want a curve shifted more to the right (with digital vs film) while avoiding the blinkies except for acceptable specular highlights. Photo montage with silhouette of bird with rannunculus