Digital Photography secrets

Digital Photo Secrets

Secrets only the Pros know!

Copyright Information Important Notice:

This is NOT a free book and cannot be given away in whole or in part. Digital Photo Secrets is a copyrighted work © 2005-2007 David Peterson from Digital-Photo-Secrets.com.

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without expressed written, dated, and signed permission from the author.

Disclaimer and/or Legal Notices

The information presented herein represents the view of the author. This book is for informational purposes only. While every attempt has been made to verify the information presented here, the author does not assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any slights of organizations or people are unintentional

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© 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

Introduction

Digital cameras are great!

They take a lot of the guesswork out of photography because you can see your results instantly. Once the novelty wears off though, you may find that the images you take aren’t any better than the ones you took with your film camera.

So, what went wrong?

Nothing! You have just found out what all professional photographers know already. Most of the time a bad photo is NOT the result of the camera. Purchasing the latest and greatest camera does not mean your photos will look the same as the professional photos. What does matter is how you compose your shot, and the extra secrets you employ to place your subject just right, or get the lighting the way you want it. That’s what this book is about. We not only expose the secrets the professional

photographers have been hiding for years, but we’ll show you how to take care of your digital camera, and explain lots of the more complex camera terms in plain English. Let’s enter the exciting world of Digital Photography with a look at 21 tips you can use instantly to create stunning photos every single time! Enjoy! David Peterson.

© 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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Digital Photo Secrets

Secrets only the Pros know!

Table of Contents Copyright Information Introduction Table of Contents Move in closer Use Optical not Digital Zoom Place your subject off-center Take More, And Erase Shots Preset Exposure and Focus Use A Tripod Unusual Angles Using Flash During The Day Use Continuous Shooting Give Yourself A Theme Look For Light Use Red Eye Reduction Flash Don’t Rely On Flash Use Different Lenses or Filters Use Predefined Modes Look for Reflections Take Spare Batteries Use the LCD Monitor Don’t add frills Clean your Camera The Biggest Photo Tip Digital verses Film Cameras White Balance Filters Exposure Value Focus Metering Modes Composition The Rule of Thirds The Golden Ratio The Golden Triangle Use Diagonals Fill the Frame

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2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 20 21 21 21 22 23 24 28 30 32 33 35 38 39 40 40 41 41

Watch the Background 41 Use Vertical 42 Open a Path 42 Frame your Picture 42 The Elements of Visual Design 43 Weddings 52 Vacations 53 Photographing Children 57 Night Scenes 59 Fireworks 62 Sunsets 64 Action Shots 68 Sports 70 Optical vs Digital Zoom 72 Resolution and Optical Zoom 73 Notes 74 Depth Of Field (DOF) 80 Shutter Speed 86 ISO 88 How do I bridge the gap between Film and Digital? 96 Which Digital Camera Should I Purchase? 99 Essential Maintenance 102 Digital Printing Options 106 Printing on Inkjet Printers 110 Why are the images I print always cropped on the sides? 116 Which is the best way to name your digital files? 117 Why doesn’t my photo look the same on the screen as it did when I took the image? 118 Why doesn’t my printed photo look the same as on my monitor? 119 Acknowledgements 120

© 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

Secrets only the Pros know!

Digital Photo Secrets

The Top 21

Tips To Using A Digital Camera

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Digital Photo Secrets

Secrets only the Pros know!

Move in closer

Almost any shot will look better if you take two or three steps closer to your subject. Filling the frame entirely with your subject will make a terrific difference to your photos. Alternatively, instead of moving closer, use the Optical or Digital Zoom of your camera to get a close up shot. When taking shots of family and friends, most people place the subject's full body in the frame, or

There is a lot of unnecessary background in this image

place head and arms in the shot. Instead, fill the frame with your subject's FACE only - particularly if they are smiling or are in a moment of reflection. Why does this work? With less clutter in the image, there's less to draw the eye away from the main subject of your photo. Also, human faces (particularly children's faces) are something we all feel pleasure looking at. If you can't get close enough when you're taking the shot, you can zoom in later using photo editing

Moving closer shows just the subjects and makes a better image

software. Crop out everything except the subject's face and see the difference. When using the viewfinder for close shots, be careful of Parallax. Because the viewfinder is not at the same position as the camera's lens, centering the subject in the viewfinder may mean it is not centered for the lens resulting in an offcenter final picture. Most digital cameras now come with an inbuilt LCD screen. You can eliminate this problem by using the LCD - which shows you what the lens sees - rather than the viewfinder. Page 6

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Secrets only the Pros know!

Digital Photo Secrets

Use Optical not Digital Zoom If you've used a film camera, you'll be used

to optical zoom. Optical zoom uses the lens of the camera (the optics) to bring the subject closer. Digital zoom uses clever software to digitally enlarge a portion of the image - thus simulating optical zoom. So, which is better? Definitely Optical zoom. Here's why. Digital zoom is not really 'zoom' in the

This shot just uses optical zoom.

strictest definition of the term. Digital zoom just enlarges the image. Eg it takes a portion of the image and enlarges it back to full size. You lose quality because of the enlargement process so photos that have been taken with digital zoom won't look as good as those without. See further down in this document for a further explanation of using the zoom.

This was taken from further away and used the digital zoom of the camera to get closer. Note the image is not as clear.

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Place your subject off-center

Rather than placing your main subject in the middle of the screen, place it to one side and ensure something interesting is in the background that fills the remainder of the image. This can be especially effective if the background has the same theme. For example, if photographing a child opening a Christmas present, frame them to one side and have the Christmas Tree with unopened presents filling the rest of the image. There are a few guidelines that can help you place your subject in the frame. See the “Rule of Thirds” in a later chapter.

© Victoria Vinnikava

Three examples of placing your subject off-center.

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Digital Photo Secrets

Take More, And Erase Shots The ability to erase your

photos is one of the major advantages of a digital camera. You'd be mad not to use this to the fullest extent! Take MANY more shots than you think you need, and then erase those that aren't right.

I took all six photos and deleted all but the last one.

Every half an hour, go back through your most recent photos erase any that don't make the grade, or you have better versions of. Because you'll be erasing often you can just keep the 'best of the best'. Erasing often also ensures you don't need a large memory card, as it will not be storing your not-so-perfect images. If you're always pressed for time, you can either invest in a larger memory card, or copy your images to another storage device like a laptop or card storage unit until a later point. This is also a huge tip when photographing groups. With such a large number of people, there always seems to be someone blinking, or looking the other way. Having a large number of shots means you can pick the best of them to keep. Be careful that you don’t trade quality for quantity. Don’t take heaps of random

shots and ignore the composition of your photos. Otherwise you’ll have heaps of shots but no good ones.

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Preset Exposure and Focus When set to auto, some cameras can take a

while to adjust for white balance and focus. This is the 2-3 second delay between when you first push the shutter button, and the shot actually being taken. If this happens with your camera, try presetting these by holding the shutter release half way down to tell the camera to focus BEFORE you need to take the shot. Then, keep your finger held half way down until you get the perfect shot, or use your camera's 'lock exposure' feature to keep the exposure settings locked until you find the right time.

I was only able to take these candid photos because I had previously preset my exposure and focus.

Presetting your exposure and focus can REALLY help out when taking shots of children. They tend to not sit in one place waiting for you to adjust your camera, so the best shots are taken when you are prepared for a candid moment - eg when the child is engrossed in a task. Take care not to preset your exposure to the wrong level by moving to a darker or lighter subject after your exposure has been preset. Watch the focus as well – if the subject is moving, preset your focus using an object at the same distance as your subject will be when you want to take the shot. Presetting the focus works really well for street carnivals with floats moving towards you.

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Digital Photo Secrets

Use A Tripod

Yes, tripods can be a hassle to carry around with you but they help you take great shots in two ways. First, the time you take to get out the tripod, set it up and position the camera on it will slow your picture taking down. This means you'll become more aware of other elements like composition of the image, and lighting. The more focused you are to external conditions, the more likely you will be to take a great shot. The added advantage is your camera is steadier allowing you to take razor-sharp images particularly in low light situations.

Images taken with and without a tripod. In this low light situation, you can plainly see the right image is much clearer. In this instance, I used a telephone box as the tripod.

An alternative to a tripod is a 'mono pod'. These only have one leg and don't have the stability of a tripod, but they have a greater stability than just your hands - particularly if you lean them against something. If you do a lot of mountain walking, there are also extendable 'walking canes' (like a ski pole) that are great for helping you walk up steep hills. The top unscrews to reveal a tripod mount underneath turning it into a mono pod. Tripod Tip : If you have a lightweight camera, you might consider purchasing a ultra lightweight tripod. These are small, don't weigh much and easily fit in a backpack. Extra Tip : You don't need to purchase a tripod either! Any horizontal surface around can make a tripod - arms of chairs, railings, rocks, anything! No tripod or other suitable surface handy? Holding your camera properly can minimize camera shake. Hold the camera in one hand and use your other hand to steady the camera’s body from underneath. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Unusual Angles

Most photos are shot at eye level. I think this is because traditionally, you needed to have the viewfinder up to your eye to ensure you get everyone in the shot. Because most digital cameras have an inbuilt LCD, you can now take the camera away from your eye and try taking photos from unusual angles.

This image of moth-eaten leaves was taken from directly underneath and allows the viewer to see the sky through the leaves.

Try tilting the camera left or right to better position your subject in the frame. Try taking the photo from below, or above your subject. Try getting further away or closer. There's always more than one way to photograph a subject. Using different camera angles can make an otherwise boring image really stand out. The more you practice using different angles, the quicker you'll know what works and what doesn't. Angle Tip : Lie on the ground and point

This bridge image was taken by holding the camera on the side of the old bridge to get this unique viewpoint.

your camera towards the sky for an interesting angle to shoot large monuments with.

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Digital Photo Secrets

Using Flash During The Day Interestingly, one of the best uses of your flash is during bright sunlight! I know it sounds strange but it's true. Professional photographers use flash much more often than amateurs. A flash helps to eliminate dark shadows (for instance under the eyes and chin of faces). It also helps to emphasize your subject.

This image was taken without the flash. Because of the bright sky, the leaves in the foreground were underexposed and hence very dark.

When you take pictures of subjects with bright light behind them, for example a portrait that is backlit, or a duck swimming in water reflecting the sun, the camera will be fooled by the bright surroundings so the subject appears dark. By turning flash on, you will fill in the

This is the same shot but taken with the flash. The leaves are now as brightly lit as the sky.

shadow areas making the picture much more pleasing. It can also be used to add a sparkle to eyes, and to reduce shadows under the nose when pictures are taken when the sun is bright and high in the sky (eg at midday). Nature photographers even use flash to ensure the nooks and crannies of flower petals are properly lit – again to reduce shadows.

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Use Continuous Shooting Most digital cameras have a continuous shooting mode, where shots are taken one after the other in rapid succession. When taking shots, there is often a short delay between when you press your finger on the button, and when the picture is actually taken. This delay may mean your subject has finished their action (eg blowing out

These six photos were taken with the continuous mode on my camera. I wanted to get an action shot, so only kept the bottom left image.

candles on a cake) and you have missed the magic moment. With Continuous Shooting you can take a sequence of shots and keep just the right one. Continuous Shooting also increases your chances of capturing a candid moment. Where else can this be useful? Any shots of children or groups will benefit from continuous mode.

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Digital Photo Secrets

Give Yourself A Theme Sometimes you need to think creatively to find better

shots. Set yourself a theme to give your brain a head start. For example, on a vacation choose a different color every day and ensure all your shots for that day have that color in that image. Or shoot only shots with triangles in them. Other examples of themes are:        

Fences Bright Colors Time Cliché Unfinished Repeating Patterns Desperation Bliss

© Theresa VanderStaay

Make sure your theme is simple otherwise you'll be more pre-occupied with getting a shot in line with your theme than the image itself. Another option for a theme when on vacation is to choose a selection of themes that captures the essence of the

Water Theme

destination. Every area has themes relating to its landscapes, climate, cities, culture etc. Do some research by looking at local postcards or talking to taxi drivers to get an idea of the good picture taking locations.

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Look For Light

Different lighting can change the mood and feel of a shot, or be the difference between a mediocre and stunning shot. The light from the setting sun can produce wonderful lighting for a subject, as does sunlight through leaves. Maybe you see a shaft of light between two large objects such as buildings that can

There was a wonderful orange glow to the pool chairs that I had to photograph.

be a perfect backdrop for your subject. Other options for different light sources at night include:  Neon lights make great night time subjects. You can silhouette your subjects in front of them, or use them as a subject themselves.  Use a long exposure on a tripod

I saw this sunset on the way home from work one night. The red contrasts well with the car tail lights

to capture streaks of car lights on a road or highway, or other moving lights like on a ferry.

© Gary McGowan

Look at the patterns of shadows created by the clouds

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Digital Photo Secrets

Use Red Eye Reduction Flash Most newer cameras

have two flash modes. Standard and Red Eye Reduction. The Red Eye Reduction flash causes the camera to flash multiple times before taking the shot to get subject's eyes used to the bright light. Use this whenever taking photographs of people looking directly at the camera in low light. Many people don't realize they needed to

The top photo was taken without the Red Eye Reduction flash. The bottom photo was. You can see the obvious red tint in the child’s eyes in the left image.

use the red-eye flash until they look at their photos after the event. So remember to use red eye reduction whenever taking photos in situations where the following three points are true:  People looking directly at the camera  Low Light  Using your flash. It is also possible to remove Red Eye with software programs if you don't have the red eye reduction feature on your camera.

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Don’t Rely On Flash We've discussed using your flash a lot until now. There are occasions where using a flash ruins the mood of the event you are photographing. Why? A flash tends to create harsh subjects and will ruin any natural mood. So, rather than using the flash whenever

This image was taken at night, but because the subject was too close to the back wall, the flash has illuminated it as well as the subject – ruining the mood of the dark room.

your camera tells you to, use available light whenever possible. In a dark situation, it's often better to open the shutter for a longer period of time to let in more light, or turn on existing lights to illuminate the room than to use the flash. In daytime and when your subject is inside and near a window, have them face the light and position the camera between the window and your subject. This will allow the sunlight to light your image fully.

© Ruxi Stanescu

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Digital Photo Secrets

Use Different Lenses or Filters There are a wide variety of lenses and filters available to increase the range of options you have for shooting a photograph. Not all digital cameras come with the ability to attach different lenses and filters. Check the manual for your camera if you are

© Janet Kinney

unsure. Some lens types include:  Wide Angle  Telephoto  Fish Eye Using a Wide Angle lens is good for shooting an indoor room, or shooting a mountain vista. A Telephoto lens can be useful when

© Janet Kinney

These two images show the Telephoto lens in action. It acts just like an optical zoom, but generally zooms in much closer.

you need a close up. Telephoto lenses are basically better optical zooms.

Filters

A polarizing filter can be the most useful filter to own. A Polarizing filter can deepen the color and contrast in the sky, eliminate glare from water or reflective surfaces, or cut through fog like haze. Soft Focus filters generate more diffused looks for romantic, moody, atmospheric, foggy or glowing effects in your shots. Cooling filters add more blue to an image giving a psychological effect of calming or serenity in the image. Warming filters cut out excess blue in an overcast sky to add more reddish tones to the image - making your photos look less harsh. Finally, graduated lenses help for scenes that have a huge difference in light level – eg late in the day when the sky is still bright, but the foreground is in shadow. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Use Predefined Modes

Most cameras now come with selected modes for taking shots. Eg Landscape, Cloudy Day, Full Sun, Indoors, Night. Changing the mode of your camera to match your situation can result in better shots, as the camera has a better chance of selecting the shutter speed, flash and other exposure choices for a perfect picture.

Look for Reflections Water is a fantastic element to include in your

photos, as the reflections it generates can make your image stand out. Keep a look out for water

© Iva Villi

around your environment when you shoot. Reflections from lights, or splashes of color can really help with the ambience of an image. Rainy days are particularly good as puddles abound! Extra Tip: Photographing just the reflection and leaving the subject out is a great way to produce abstract images.

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© Iva Villi

Notice how the reflections help make these images special.

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Digital Photo Secrets

Take Spare Batteries

One of the worst things that can happen when using a Digital Camera is for your battery to run out. Instantly, no more photos! Purchase an extra battery or two and keep one in your charger so you’ll always have a charged battery around.

Use the LCD Monitor

The LCD monitor will show you what your final image will look like. It won’t be as large in size as your final image, but you will get enough of a feel for the image to know how your shot will turn out. If your camera can show you a half second freeze of your shot just after you have taken it, turn this feature on. The half second will give you enough time to see if the image was well framed, or if you need to take another one. The LCD does tend use more battery, but in our experience it’s better to buy a spare battery and continue using the LCD rather than turning it off.

Don’t add frills

Some manufactures give you a feature that can imprint the current date and time, or the current exposure settings onto your image. Turn these off! You don’t want anything to distract you or your viewer from the subject of your photo. Modern digital cameras record the time and date the shot was taken in a separate part of the

© Sandesh Gangoda

Don’t place the time and date in your images.

image file anyway (see EXIF in the glossary) so you can always see it.

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Clean your Camera

If your images always turn out all blurry, it may mean your lens needs a clean. Most high end cameras come with threads to which you can attach a SkyLight (or UV) filter. This helps to protect the lens from not only dirt, but scratches. Cheaper cameras don't have threads so remember to cover the lens when not in use and try not to touch it. Don't clean the lens too often - depending on how often you use your camera, every few weeks or few months is fine. To clean your lens, pick up a lens cleaning kit from your local photo store. Use the lens brush and air blower to remove any loose clinging particles. Place a drop of lens cleaning fluid onto some lens tissue (or a cloth) and wipe the lens clean with a circular motion. Use the blower to dry the lens, or let it dry naturally. Don't use any abrasive solution (such as soap) or wipe too hard on the lens as you can wipe away the special coatings. There are other techniques – see the section on camera maintenance. Ensure you protect the other parts of your camera as well. Particularly the Memory Card slot and Battery contacts. If you find they have any corrosion, you can remove it easily with a pencil eraser. Make sure you remove the excess eraser that can get left in the compartment with an air blower. Never ever insert anything into the memory card slot that isn't meant to be there, as you could break the small pins. To keep clean, it's best to leave a memory card in the slot, or at least keep the cover closed.

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Digital Photo Secrets

The Biggest Photo Tip

We’ve saved the best for last! To take absolutely stunning photos, try to incorporate as many of these tips (as well as the ones contained in the rest of this document) as you can in every single image you create. I know it can be a hassle at first to remember everything. Sp how do the pro's remember all the tips when photographing? They practice, practice, practice. And then they practice some more! Like anything in life, the more you practice, the more the activity becomes second nature and the better you get. But all this practice doesn't need to be time consuming or hard. Remember when you first learned to drive a car? Initially, driving took all of your concentration, but over time, you got used to it and were able to think about other things while driving. It's the same with photography. Practice just a few tips at once. Over time, you'll remember more and more techniques. And each time you'll improve your photography. You'll get to the point where, without you even consciously thinking about it, you'll be taking much better images! Your brain will have switched to 'autopilot'. So here's what I suggest. The next time you take a camera with you, I recommend you concentrate on just three tips from this book. Concentrate on using JUST those few tips. The next time, concentrate on another two and add those to the two you have practiced already. Before you know it, you'll be applying all the tips on autopilot!

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Digital Photo Secrets

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Digital verses Film Cameras

People say the traditional film cameras are still better than digital cameras. Is this true? The short answer is ‘it depends’. Although most digital cameras don’t have the resolution of their film counterparts, they have other advantages over film cameras. Let’s look at the advantages of Digital Cameras

Advantages of a Digital Camera

 Access to images is almost instantaneous. There are no chemicals needed to develop the images.  You can email the images directly from your camera all around the globe.  Directly view your photos through the

LCD screen. See immediately if you’ve taken a good shot.  The speed of the sensor can be changed without needing to change the film. This is very useful when light levels drop.  Take hundreds of pictures without paying anything for film.

 Much more cost effective than film if you shoot lots of photos.

 Retouching on a computer is really easy. Most cameras come with software you can use to touch up your photos to get that professional look.  If you want to post-process your images on computer, copying the files directly from a digital camera is a lot quicker and usually gives a better quality than scanning.  Instant review of photos, allowing you to know what has worked and what hasn’t worked.

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Digital Photo Secrets

There are some disadvantages, however.

 Digital cameras are much more expensive than their film counterparts to purchase.  They are more complex. Film cameras are easy to learn and use because of their simplicity.  Image quality depends solely on the camera. Even a cheap film camera can (with a modest lens and high quality film) produce spectacular photos.  Images need to be stored on memory cards, which are also very expensive.  The resolution of digital cameras is still not as good as film. An SLR film camera with modern film can store much more than 8 megapixels of information.  Film has a color representation and balance that is more pleasing to some people.

So do you do digital or stay with film? The answer will depend on your needs from a camera, and how much you are willing to spend.

Go with film if:

 You really need quality. A good SLR film camera can produce better quality shots than a digital camera costing 100 times more. Although Digital is catching up.  You don’t need Digital’s fancy features. If you’re happy to point and shoot and only want to put your developed photos in an album, stay with film.

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Choose digital if:

 The digital quality is good enough for you  You need to manipulate your photos in a computer. It’s much easier to copy the images from a digital machine than to scan a processed negative.  You rarely need to print your photos. Most people who shoot digitally never print an image. Instead they produce slideshows on their computer, or create a CD or DVD. We recommend you still have prints produced though – see later in this document.

The important thing is to work out what you use a camera for and choose one that suits your needs and lifestyle. Friends of mine regularly pull out their only camera - an old 1970’s SLR and take fantastic shots with it. The best tip to taking better photos is not which model you choose, but learning to use your camera properly.

© Gary McGowan

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Digital Photo Secrets

Better Looking Pictures

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Digital Photo Secrets

Secrets only the Pros know!

White Balance

Ever taken an indoor photo where the colors were very mediocre or even have blue, yellow or brown tints? Do your images have dull colors or lack vitality? This is a very common problem and results from a lack of white balance. White balance is unique to digital cameras and is the ability for a camera to adjust the color of an image based on the lighting situation.

White Balance Examples

This image was taken using the camera’s automatic white balance setting. Because there is some white in the image, the camera was able to use the “Sunlight” setting to reproduce the original colors.

Here, we’ve used a manual white balance set to “Fluorescent”. You can see the image now looks ‘warmer’ because the camera has compensated for the particular wavelength light from a fluro light.

The manual white balance is now set to “Incandescent Bulb” (normal indoors lighting). The colors in this image now look wrong because the camera is correcting for a light source that doesn’t exist.

You see, different lighting sources emit color tones the human eye can’t see, but

a digital camera picks up. Sunlight has different hues from indoor tungsten lights which are different again from fluorescent lighting. Photos taken with the wrong white balance setting won’t show the correct colors when viewed on a screen or printed out. Most of the time, the camera can find the correct white balance and automatically correct this problem. Sometimes though, when there is no white in the image (like clouds), it has a hard time. One way to overcome the problem is by using a flash, but the flash can present more problems. The flash will reflect against shiny surfaces, has a limited range, and takes a while to recharge (meaning you can’t take multiple shots quickly). Page 28

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Digital Photo Secrets

A better way to overcome this problem is to use the camera’s White Balance setting. The White Balance setting tells the camera which apparent color is actually ‘white’. This allows the camera to correct the color of the image to save a more accurate representation of the scene. Different cameras represent the different white balances in different ways. Most cameras have a number of options to choose from: Auto, Daylight, White Fluorescent, Standard Fluorescent and Incandescent. The Auto setting is the one that has trouble if there is no white in the camera. Some more advanced cameras allow you to manually set a white balance from a white card placed in front of the lens. This is the most accurate way to correct for color imbalance.

Tips for using the correct white balance

 Assess the light source for your image and change the white balance to

the appropriate choice for your shot. Eg if you’re indoors with fluorescent lights, choose the fluorescent setting.

 If you have a number of light sources, try using a few different white balances to ensure you get the best picture.  If there’s some white around (eg clouds), tell your camera to take it’s automatic white balance meter reading while pointing at the clouds. This will give the camera’s auto settings something to reference from.

7

© Mark Bowden

 If you don’t have a white card handy, another option is a white coffee filter. You can also change the white balance using image manipulation programs such as Photoshop. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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Filters

Filters add color and flavor to your image and can help to portray your style, or what you’re trying to communicate. A filter is usually a thin piece of plastic placed in front of the lens that changes what the camera sees. Most cheap digital cameras don’t allow you to attach filters, but most of the time you can improvise the attachment using special kits you can purchase that are designed to allow you to add filters to a cheap camera. You can also use image manipulation programs to simulate filters. Filters fall into a number of different categories, depending on their intended use. Types include:

Plain Color

These simply add a tint to your photograph. These filters aren’t that useful in the Digital world because you can just as easily do the same thing in an image manipulation program such as Photoshop. If you do use one, ensure you take note of the white balance setting, as it may just compensate for the filter and get you back to an image without the filter.

Gradient

Sometimes scenes will have a huge difference in light level. This usually occurs late in the day when the sky is still bright, but the foreground is in shadow. You can set your exposure to capture the sky and clouds, but the foreground will be too dark. Alternatively, you can capture the foreground detail but overexpose the sky. A gradient filter can help here by stopping excess light from the top part of the image, while allowing all light from the bottom half through. This allows the foreground to retain details while at the same time not washing out the sky.

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Neutral-Density

These filters simply reduce the amount of light that gets into the camera. This can help when the scene is overly bright such as a sunny snow scene as it increases the exposure range of your camera.

Image with no filter

These filters don’t alter the image in any way – they just allow your camera to do a better job of it.

Polarizing

This can be the most useful filter to own. A

The same image with a warming filter. Notice the snow now has a reddish tinge

Polarizing filter works like Polaroid sunglasses and can deepen the color and contrast in the sky, eliminate glare from water or reflective surfaces, or cut through fog. This filter is very useful for landscape photography.

Special Effects

These filters come with names like Starburst, Diffraction, Fog and Soft Focus. These effects can make a big difference in some circumstances and are difficult to replicate in image manipulation programs. They should be used very sparingly though as they can be over-used.

Cooling/Warming

Cooling filters add more blue to an image giving a psychological effect of calming or serenity in the final image. Warming filters cut out excess blue in an overcast sky to add more reddish tones to the image and make your photos look less harsh. There are lots of varieties of filters and some can cost quite a bit of money. We recommend you try our image manipulation techniques first and only invest in filters if you shoot lots of photos that can benefit from one of the filters listed above. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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Exposure Value

You can change the mood of your photos by changing your camera’s Exposure Value (or EV). EV compensation helps to make up for unrealistic scene depictions that can result from using the automatic settings of your camera. For example, a camera set on automatic will average the light levels throughout the whole scene. A brightly lit scene (eg in direct sunlight) will end up looking darker than it actually was. You can change the EV to compensate. For the brightly lit scene, move your EV setting to +1 or +2 ensure the whole scene is captured as it really looks. You can also use Exposure Value to add artistic flare to photos.  To add cheeriness to an image on a dark day, keep increasing your EV until it looks brighter.  To make a low light scene (eg sunset) look peaceful, decrease your EV setting to decrease the light level of the image.  If you want to create a more reflective mood in a bright setting, decrease the EV. This will darken the scene giving a calming effect.

Different Exposure Values

The same subject with three different Exposure Values. The left image was taken with –2EV, the middle with normal EV and the right with +2EV. Note how the image gets more overexposed the more EV is added.

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Focus

Knowing what focus system your digital camera has and how it works, can help you get more shots in-focus and shoot with added confidence.

Using Auto Focus

Unless you’re using a really high-end digital camera, it’s likely to have only an auto focus option. Be aware that it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to easily tell if your shot is in focus from looking at the optical viewfinder, or LCD screen. A cheap optical viewfinder doesn’t actually look through the lens, so you have no way of knowing what focus the lens sees. On the other hand, the LCD screen is too tiny to tell if the shot is in focus or not. Since you can’t easily tell if your shot is in focus until later (when you look on your computer), there are a few tips you can use to ensure you have the best chance of an in-focus photo.  Pre-focus. You can press the shutter button part way down to tell your camera to focus now, but don’t take the shot. The camera will usually

beep at you to let you know it’s completed focusing and is ready to take the photo.  Use Auto Exposure. Changing the exposure levels can affect focus (see

the section below on Depth of Field) so it’s important to ensure you let the camera decide the exposure level to use.

The two focus systems

Digital cameras come with one of two focussing systems. Knowing the type you have can help you ensure your camera stays in focus.

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Active Focus Active focus is usually included in lower end cameras and works by using an infrared light beam to measure the distance to the subject and focus accordingly. The red indicator on the top left of this image is the active focus.

How can you tell if you’ve got Active Focus? There will be a red lens similar to

the one on your TV remote on the front of the camera. Check your manual to be sure. This type of focus works great in the dark. On the other hand, you must have a clear line of sight between the camera and the subject. You can’t take a photo through leaves, fences etc. You also need to be wary of infrared sources like fires.

Passive Focus Mid and High end digital cameras use a passive focus system. This works through the lens and is a system that detects contrast in the image. The camera adjusts the lens until it detects the highest level of contrast. You need enough light to produce contrast, so this method does not work well in the dark. Also watch for scenes with overly bright ambient light. This focus type works well in the situations where Active Focus fails – eg through leaves or fences because the system uses the image the camera sees to determine focus.

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Metering Modes

All digital cameras have an auto-exposure mode to determine the shutter speed and aperture required to expose a scene correctly. To do this, the camera analyzes the amount of light in the entire scene and comes up with an average exposure setting based on the lightest and darkest elements of the image. This works fine for most scenes, but if a particularly bright or dark object is in the frame, the resulting image will be either underexposed or overexposed because the overly bright or dark part has affected the average. To rectify this, most cameras include a few manual metering modes to give you control over the exposure. There are three basic metering modes found on digital cameras.

Matrix Metering

Matrix metering can also be known as multizone, average or pattern metering. This mode is used as the default for most cameras. It works by taking a series of

© Wendy Arthur

readings from a ‘matrix’ of different points around the frame and calculating an average exposure for the entire scene. It is effective in most situations because it takes into account the whole image.

Center-weighted metering

This operates in the same way as matrix metering in that it operates over the whole of the image. The difference is that Centerweighted metering takes more notice of the center part of the image by giving the © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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center readings more weight compared to the edges. This metering type works on the assumption that the subject of your photo will most of the time be in the center of the photo. Because the subject is the key element in the photo, it is the object that should be exposed correctly.

Spot Metering

In this mode, the camera takes a reading from the center of the image only; ignoring the rest of the scene. This is useful when you want to emphasize a subject in the center of the frame. A handy trick when you don’t want to put your main subject in the center of the frame is use the ‘Exposure Lock’ on your

camera if you have one. First, center your subject. Tell your camera to lock the exposure. Then move your subject off-center and take the photo. The camera will remember the exposure setting from the lock and expose your subject correctly.

© Mufaddal Tapia

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Composition

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Composition

Great images don’t just come by mastering the technical aspects of the camera. Attention must be paid to composition as well. Effective images are those that command attention and communicate some feeling to an audience. Capturing a ‘feeling’ requires knowing the basic elements of composition and visual design as well as experimentation and practice. There are a number of ‘magic’ places of an image that produce a more pleasing image. Knowing these techniques can be the difference between a mediocre and a stunning image.

© Amanda Radovic

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The Rule of Thirds

One of the most popular rules in photography is the “Rule of Thirds”. It is a simple rule that can add dynamism to your photos. Simply, divide the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. When composing your shot, place important elements either along these lines, or where the lines intersect – NOT at the centre of the frame. For example, place a subject’s eyes where the top third

line is, or place your subject on the place in the image where two lines intersect.

Rule Of Thirds

The subject in this image has been placed on the right vertical ‘thirds’ line, and centred on the intersection between the right and bottom ‘thirds’ lines.

It’s a very simple rule to follow and will result in a nicely balanced, easy on the eye picture. It also helps get rid of the ‘tiny subject and large amount of space’

tendency because you need to position items relative to the edges of the frame. Having said that, the Rule of Thirds is also one of the rules you’ll want to break

often! This is fine – the Rule of Thirds is more of a guideline and sometimes you will find a better image when you break the rule. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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The Golden Ratio The Golden Ratio, or the Golden Mean is

found often in nature. The ratio is 1:1.618 and is formed from the following sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 etc. Each number after 1 is equal to the sum of the two proceeding numbers. The ratio between any two numbers gets closer to the Golden Ratio the

© Wendy Arthur

The Golden Ratio is found everywhere in nature, as evidenced by this curve (drawn using the golden ratio) matching the flower.

higher up you go.

The Golden Ratio is very pleasing to the human eye – it may be that we are genetically programmed to recognize the ratio. Studies have shown that most of the top super models have faces with an abundance of 1:1.618 ratios.

The Golden Triangle The Golden Triangle is another rule more

convenient for photos with diagonal lines. Think of three triangles in your photo and roughly compose three subjects with approximate equal sizes in these triangles.

© Fernando De Paternal

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Use Diagonals

Placing your subject on a diagonal will almost always make a more dynamic image. Even an imaginary diagonal between two points. Try moving your camera around your subject and look for a pleasing diagonal.

Fill the Frame

Diagonals - What would normally be an ordinary photo is given life by shooting on a diagonal.

One of the most common mistakes is not filling the frame with the subject. If you’re photographing an interesting bird, just shoot the bird and not the trees surrounding a very small bird-looking object in the centre of the image. This also ensures viewers have very little else to distract them from what you

This close-up shot of a birds nest would not have been as effective if we showed the surrounding tree.

intend them to see.

Watch the Background Once you’ve got your subject composed, take a quick look at the surrounding area before finalizing the shot. Make sure Granny doesn’t have a light pole growing out of her head! If there is something in the background that isn’t pleasing, move until that background element is no longer in the shot, or ask the subject to move slightly. Particularly watch for possible reflections of your flash. An otherwise nice picture is ruined by the reflection from the flash in the painting on the wall.

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Use Vertical

Remember you can hold the camera vertically to take images. Waterfalls usually work best with a vertical camera, but you might want to try both horizontal and vertical and find what works best for each situation.

Open a Path

In your picture, anything that moves needs an area to continue that action. Also, anything with eyes needs some open space to look at. Ensure you leave a blank area where your subject is moving or looking. This makes a much more pleasing image.

Frame your Picture

There is open space on the left of the image for the young child to look towards. This photo also obeys the ‘Rule of Thirds’.

The use of a frame can make an otherwise plain picture a pleasing one. You can use any natural or man made object as a frame. A window is a perfect frame, as is a door, arch or fence. Overhanging branches of trees can provide natural frames as can © Mark Bowden

bridges.

The fort in this image is framed by the tree. This helps the eye focus on the main subject.

A frame will mostly be in the foreground and isolates your main subject to create an interesting composition.

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The Elements of Visual Design There are a number of simple elements of

visual design that, once understood, can help to bring powerful emotion to your images.

Lines

A line represents a path between two points. Lines imply movement and show a direction or orientation. Lines can be straight, curved,

© Brian Smith

Lots of lines in this image. Vertical (implying strength) and curved (sensual).

vertical or horizontal. A line can also be implied (the brain will fill in the missing points). Eg three equally spaced dots will given the brain the illusion of a triangle. Different lines convey certain feelings. Horizontal lines imply rest and tranquility whereas vertical lines imply strength and power. Curved lines imply quiet or sensual feelings. Lines that converge imply depth, scale and distance – eg a roadway or wall. Actively look for lines in your image to invoke specific feelings.

Shapes

Shapes are closed lines like squares, rectangles, triangles and circles – or more complex shapes

© Wendy Arthur

This image shows both shapes and form. The color boundaries define the shapes, whereas the differnce on light (eg just above the eye) shows the shadow and form. Additionally, notice how the curved lines invoke a sense of peace.

like stars and hexagons. Shapes can be created without lines by using colors or color boundaries in the image. Ensure you balance shapes in the image with equal areas of the image without shapes.

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Form

Form is the three-dimensional quality of an object caused by light reflecting off it. The reflected light produces some areas of light and some of dark (ie shadows) and the contrast of these imply volume. The direction of light can also imply a feeling. Backlighting a subject will create a silhouette (an object lacking form which will look two dimensional).

© Bevan Timm

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Color

The use of color is one of the best ways to convey a feeling. Colors effect us emotionally with different colors evoking different emotions. Analogous Colors are next to each other on the color wheel. Eg Green and Yellow. These colors ‘get along’ and when used in an image have a soothing effect.

Complimentary Colors are opposite one another on the color wheel. Eg Purple and Green. These colors show more contrast when placed next to each other in an image and makes the colors appear more intense.

Cool Colors. These are near the blue end of the spectrum and include violet and green. They are thought of as cool because of our association with snow and ice.

Warm Colors. Yellows, reds and orange. We associate these with the sun and fire.

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You can position different colors in an image to maximize the contrast between them and to provide perspective.

Texture

Texture is the feel, or surface quality of an object. Texture can be implied by the contrast between the elements of an image, or highlighted by placing the light source close to the plane of the object so shadows are more pronounced.

© Iva Villi

This image shows a fantastic texture. You can feel the crinkly texture of the leaf just by looking at it.

Composition

Composition is very important in creating effective design. So much so, that we dedicate an entire section to composition above.

Dominance

It is possible to influence the order in which visual elements in the frame are observed and how much attention each element receives. This can be done in a number of ways. To make an object seem to dominate the image:  Make it larger in the image. Larger objects dominate smaller objects.  Ensure the color is a warm color rather than a

The younger child has dominance in this image. He is larger in the image, positioned closer to the center, and has a different clothing color than the other child. The eye is naturally drawn to the front child in this image.

cool color.  Position the object in the center of the image as the center is where the eye usually looks first. Actually, just to the side of center is the best placement – see the discussion on proportion below. Page 46

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 Place the object at the convergence of lines. The eye follows the lines to the point at which they converge.  Make it different, or exceptional. If most of the elements in your image are similar (either in shape or color), ensure your subject is a complimentary color, or has a different shape from those around it.

Coherence

Parts of an image that are coherent are similar enough in color, form or texture to ‘belong’ to one another. Eg a scene with lots of green leaves implies coherence because they have a similar color and shape.

© Victoria Vinnikava

The leaves in this image have coherence because of their similar shape and color.

Be aware that too much similarity can make the image look boring.

Weight

Ensure the elements of your image have a proportional weight, and that weight is balanced in the image. Weight can be expressed by light and dark sections of the image, or by the positions of large and small elements in an image. Ensure you have a similar number of light and dark objects in your image, and have larger objects closer to the center than smaller objects.

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Shapes and Space

Ensure there is an equal amount of space to balance the shapes (objects) in the image. Areas of an image that contain ‘nothing’ are important visual elements that provide a great balance to the subject. Note ‘nothing’ does not mean empty space, but more the lack of a subject.

© Fernando de Paternal

Here’s a great example of shapes and space. The waterfalls are the main subject (being the shapes), but they are offset nicely by the forest canopy (being the space).

Rhythm

Rhythm is the regular repeating of elements. Repeating objects are so pleasing to the eye that we like to look at them. Examples of rhythm are bricks in a wall, or glasses lined up. The best rhythm is established when the elements are not perfectly the same size or shape because the brain gets bored with a perfectly symmetrical element and quickly moves on. A row of chairs at the beach is much more interesting when the chairs are not in a completely straight line, or are different sizes and colors. Rhythm can also be found in color changes.

Rhythm Examples

© Shelly Van Camp

© Michele Ch’i

© Stephen Anstey

Some great examples of rhythm – the regular repeating of elements. Note in each image the repeated objects aren’t quite the same which makes for an interesting image.

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Chaos vs Order

Experienced photographers take images with an order to convey the feeling they want to present. Eg vertical lines to imply power. They also add some chaos to the image so you aren’t bored when viewing the image. The ‘chaos’ elements

don’t overpower the ordered elements, but provide some obscurity and keep your interest. Nature is full of order, with an overtone of chaos. Eg trees in a forest all grow up (vertical lines), but there are different sized trees and different textures on the bark (chaos).

Chaos vs Order Examples

© Stephen Anstey

This image contrasts the order of buildings and a street with the chaos of different sizes – cobblestones and buildings.

© Iva Villi

Here’s a lovely example of nature’s chaos and order. The order of the branches contrasted with the chaos of the smaller branches ‘going everywhere’.

© Wendy Arthur

The overall symmetry of this image shows the order, but when you look closer, every petal is different – chaos.

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Emotion

Emotion is one of the most difficult elements to introduce into a photo, and yet is the most rewarding. A technically perfect image can capture a viewer’s eye but it’s the emotionally rich image that is

more likely to capture the viewer’s heart. How do you capture emotion in your photos? If you are photographing people, then the task is to capture moments in time where the subjects are visibly

© Tessa Campbell

See the emotion on each face in this snapshot taken of a couple taking a photo of themselves. Notice the look of concentration in the man’s face and the slight frown. The woman is obviously unconcerned and is ready to have the picture taken.

expressing themselves, either with a smile, frown or some other outward expression. If you are in a studio, you will need to coax a mood out of someone. When you are out and about though, it’s more a case of waiting and watching in readiness to capture the moments of expression that can make the average person in the street an interesting subject. Candid shots can play a large part in adding emotion. Often the subject is unaware (or has forgotten about) the camera so capturing their facial expressions (and thus emotion) easier. Some tips for capturing emotion  While most people want to capture the emotion of a great sports play,

often it’s the emotion after a great play that makes the better shot. Take

snapshots of the jubilation, smiles and high-fives. Don’t forget about the look of bewilderment on the opposing team’s faces.

 Don’t just think of happy emotions. Often sorrow, abandonment and emptiness can be more powerful than joy or happiness. Page 50

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Special

Occasions

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Weddings

Weddings can be a great time for photo taking.  Most couples hire a professional photographer, so be careful not to interfere with the professional’s work.  Buy some bridal magazines beforehand and look at the photos inside for inspiration.  The bride’s dress can overpower the

camera, as it’s all white. Either the dress looks perfect and the bride’s face is too

dark, or her face is perfect and the dress has no details. This can be circumvented by using a reflective surface (like a large white card) to direct extra light towards the bride’s face. A white wall can achieve the same purpose.  Use different angles. Try zooming in on a kiss, or tilting the camera.  At the Church: Some churches don’t allow flash photography; so don’t try to take any shots in the church. Instead wait until the happy couple pauses on the church front steps. Plan ahead and find a good location before they exit the church.  Don’t just focus on the bride and groom – take photos of the other guests.  At the Reception: Events at the reception include cutting the cake, the first dance and the bouquet toss. Plan ahead so you can be at the right place at the right time – it helps to have a family member alert you when the event is about to start. Page 52

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Vacations

Some tips for helping with your vacation shots  Take plenty of memory! Make sure you have extra memory cards, have another storage facility like a Laptop or media storage unit.  Start taking pictures before you leave. You might include your passport and tickets at home, or the suitcases by the door. These photos won’t make ‘wall hanging, memorable’ shots, but they will add up to tell a story.  Candid counts. Images with people are usually more interesting when the subject is caught in a candid moment. When setting up for a posed shot, try to include something interesting to liven up the shot.  Make your trip a story. Create a visual diary by photographing landmarks along your journey such as signposts and street scenes. You can also capture the mood of the day - If you feel bright and happy, shoot some scenes to capture that feeling. If you’re moved by what you see, ensure your shots convey that feeling.  Take shots at meals. This is the time when family is gathered around. Take advantage of it by taking an image or two of your relatives around the dinner table. Ensure you use the red eye reduction mode of your flash and activate the self timer if you also wish to be in the shot.  Include the mundane. Most vacation photographers just photograph landmarks and scenery. Make your vacation shots more interesting by including the mundane – washing the dishes, taking off in the car, setting up camp, waiting for an aeroplane etc. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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 Consider photographing signposts so you know where the next few shots were taken. You don’t need to print these, but they make a very handy reference later on!  Set the scene. Shoot local recognizable landmarks first so you will know later on where you took that more unusual shot. I usually shoot the landmark with a ‘conventional’ (ordinary and obvious) shot and then move in closer for the more unusual shots or extra detail. Another advantage is I then have the conventional shot to use if none of the others live up to standard.

Setting the Scene

© George Lombardo

© George Lombardo

© George Lombardo

Setting the scene. The first is the ‘recognizable’ shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The second two shows the same bridge but from different angles. These are the more unusual shots. If they didn’t work out, we still had the original.

 Make color a theme. Color usually plays a very important part of setting a scene. Think of the deep terracotta of Mediterranean rooftops, the whitewashed walls of greek chapels, or the deep blue of a tropical ocean. All provide a wonderful common ground for your photos.  Look for Detail. Visiting somewhere new gives your eyes a treat by seeing different landmarks, shapes, patterns and colors than we are used to. Take advantage of this by using your camera’s zoom to hone in on detail you might otherwise miss.  Find different angles. We all have a tendency to shoot what’s in front of us. Instead, turn your camera lens up or down to shoot unusual angles and subjects you might otherwise have missed. Page 54

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 Use Macro. If you have a macro setting on your camera, use it to shoot local flora or wildlife.  Use the cool morning or evening light to take most of your shots. In the heat of the day, your images will be bright and featureless.

And for the more adventurous….

© Wendy Arthur

Capture the ‘Sense of Place’. When we first visit a destination, our senses take in an enormous amount of data including intoxicating smells from food stalls, aromas of the flower vendors or the sweet cool wind on our cheek from the scenic lookout. Our brains can’t handle that much information, so we tend to

concentrate on the most important or attractive detail to us at the time – and point our camera in that direction. We try to capture the moment, but miss the important visual clues that will assist the viewer of the photo to interpret our experience. Here are some tips to ensure your travel photos capture the emotion of the moment.

What made you stop? What was it that made you take an image in the first place? Was it the different and colorful costumes, the light breaking from the storm clouds, or the textures of sand dunes in the early

© Simon Peter Barbara

morning light? What excited you? Which visual elements made it different from other places – those that make the destination recognizable from travel books and postcards? Once you identify the main element, you can work to reduce the amount of extra and unwanted elements in your images that distract from your main theme. For © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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instance, when vacationing in Malta, the main element you may want to convey could be the striking earthly colors of the temples. A good technique to employ is to use an adjective to describe the scene. For example, “The isolated mountain monastery”. Here, you would need to show the vast mountain scenery with a smaller, distant monastery that would draw the viewer’s eyes to seek and rest on it. You cannot allow other buildings to detract from the idea and you must have plenty of mountain scenery to give the sense of isolation. A close up of the monastery would no longer fit your description and you would need another adjective.

Technique for Visualisation… Think of an adjective

© Simon Peter Barbara

This scene describes a “Secluded Costal Town”. Only one boat sails on the harbour to illustrate the adjective in the description.

This technique is useful in helping you focus on what it is you are trying to communicate and what elements in the image would help you do this. Once you have decided your main subject, look for other elements that will help your viewer’s eyes to the center of interest in the image. This could include a walkway; winding road; river; row of fence posts or even a shaft of light. This pre-visualisation of the potential of an image at the point of capture is a powerful creative tool, so if you can master it, it can often make the difference between an average image and a show stopper.

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Photographing Children Children make a wonderful subject. Here are some tips

for ensuring photos of children are even more memorable.  Meet them eye-to-eye. Bring yourself down to the child’s level – even if you need to crouch down.

This will give your shots a ‘kids eye view’ and won’t distort their image (as taking the shot from above does). They will interact with you more and give

© Kristina Sitton

great eye contact. Even shooting with your camera on the ground works well.  Capture natural expressions. While posed shots are great, often better results can be gained by

© Iva Villi

capturing an image when their thoughts are preoccupied with something else – eg while at play. You’ll capture their faces enjoying the moment rather than thinking about the camera.  Surprise toys, comics or food can divert your child’s attention away from the photographer.  It helps to keep yourself invisible when creating shots with natural expressions. One way to do this is to use a zoom lens and position yourself some distance away. If you leave the children with something to do before disappearing into the background, they will quickly become engrossed.  Familiarity ensures success. Children who have grown up having their photo taken will be a lot less likely to freeze or show off in front of a camera. Start early and make photo taking a part of every day out.

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 Familiarity with the surroundings also works. Ensure they have some other siblings and familiar faces around to help create the right atmosphere. This is particularly useful for shy little ones.  Consider hiring a costume for your child subjects. They’ll have fun

dressing up and you’ll get a great shot. Props can also liven up a shot.

 A good tip for candid photography is pressing the shutter at the right time. Keep looking at the LCD and wait patiently for a great photo to occur.  Look at children’s clothing catalogs or magazines for inspiration and picture ideas.  Children grow up quickly. Record their growth from toddler to child to

young adult by taking a family photo every year around the same time – either the first day of school, or during spring events.

© Amanda Radovic

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Night Scenes

There are lots of ways to enhance night photography. Just because the sun has gone down doesn’t mean you need to stop taking photos! Night offers some of the most intriguing photo opportunities because they offer a fantastic blend of color and excitement. Some of the best night shots are taken during the early evening when a little overall illumination comes from the darkening sky.

Night Shot Examples

© Stephen Anstey

All three photos were shot without a flash, with a tripod and with a fairly long exposure time.

Ideas for night photos

 Capture silhouettes against a colorful sky. Make sure your silhouettes are easily recognizable and ensure your flash is off.  Neon lights make great night time subjects. You can silhouette your subjects in front of them, or use them as a subject themselves.  Use a long exposure on a tripod to capture streaks of car lights on a road or highway, or other moving lights like on a ferry.  Carnivals and Amusement parks have lots of night lights. The rides offer you the advantage of using different angles (eg taking a shot from the top of a Ferris wheel), or trying some motion effects.

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 Bridges and fountains are wonderful subjects at night. Use a longer exposure to ensure the far away lights from a bridge are recorded or to get a blurry effect from a water fountain.  Sparklers and light sticks can be a great source of artistic fun. Have your subject stay as still as possible while waving a sparkler around. The resulting image will show the person and a line of light emanating from the end of the sparkler. Alternatively, have your subject stand still and have other helpers run around them with sparklers.

Tips for shooting at night or in low light

 Don’t use a flash! A flash can drown out a lot of subtle lighting and lead to a washed out image. Try taking the shot without a flash.  Try long exposure times. Long exposures allow for streaking shots.  Use a tripod or other camera support. Because you’re shooting at lower exposure speeds, the shutter is open for longer. Thus, you must keep the camera steady. A tripod is best for this, but anything that can support the camera like a rock, table or even drinking cup will work.  If shooting stars or a cityscape, try the ‘backlight’ setting on your camera to expose the shot for longer than the automatic settings. Exposure Value compensation can also be used here.  Use the flash to capture your foreground subject, but use a long exposure to fill in the details in the background. You’re not trying to light the whole scene with the flash – just your foreground. Remember to use the Red Eye flash setting if your subject is a person.  Avoid Red-Eye. People’s pupils open wider in the dark, making them susceptible to the dreaded red-eye effect (glowing red eyes). To avoid,

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use the Red Eye Reduction flash mode to cause your camera to fire one or more pre-flashes.  If shooting people, remember to ask them to sit still as movement will

cause blurry images. Tell them it won’t be as bad as the olden days where people had to sit still for 30 seconds at a time!

 Anticipate the shots and prepare for them by pre-focusing (holding the shutter release button half way down) so your camera can be as ready as possible for the shot. This is particularly good advice in low light because it can take longer for the camera to auto focus.  Practice makes perfect! If you find you like shooting at low light, practice holding the camera in your hand while taking long exposure shots. Like any physical skill, it can be perfected!  “Bracket” your exposure settings. Some cameras have an auto-bracketing feature that will take more than one shot at different exposures to compensate for a wide variety of lighting conditions. The camera captures one shot with what it determines is the correct exposure, then will take several more shots of the same scene with different exposures to increase the chances of a properly exposed image. You can keep the good one and throw out the rest.

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Fireworks

Fireworks are fantastic to see in photos but are really hard to shoot well. There are a number of techniques that can allow you to take some spectacular shots of fireworks.

Merging Fireworks

Separate fireworks images can be merged to create a ‘super firework’ shot.

 Use a Tripod. This is essential for fireworks photography as most of your exposure times will be between 2 and 30 seconds.  If you don’t have a tripod handy, you will get some camera movement. You can counter this by exaggerating the movement by moving the camera in a circular motion, or zooming in.  Use long exposure times (eg keep the shutter open for a long time). You will want to capture both the initial explosion as well as the trails left behind by the burning particles.  If the sky is black, you can leave the shutter open for a long time and wait for the right firework to be in your viewfinder. Alternatively, you can cover the lens with a piece of black cardboard until the right firework arrives.

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 Use a Cable Release or remote control. This is a button on a lead that allows you to tell the camera to take the shot without moving the camera itself. If you use the shutter release on the camera, you can wobble the camera too much and produce unwanted effects. If you don't have a cable release, you can use the timer function of the camera so it takes the shot a few seconds after you press the button. Note you’ll need to pre-empt the firework so the camera shutter is open at the correct time.  Focus. Most of the time the fireworks will all be the same distance from you, so you can use the same focus setting on your camera for the whole show. Use the first few fireworks to set the focus and set your camera to use that for future shots. This will save a second or two in focus time for each image.  If you are really close and want full-framed shots, you should use a telephoto lens. Keep your tripod head loose and follow the tracer with your viewfinder. Release the shutter when it explodes.  To include most of the fireworks in a scene, the regular lens is fine. Zoom in enough to compose all your fireworks.  Make sure there are no unwanted buildings or lights in frame that will distract from the final shot.  Merge the fireworks together using Image Manipulation software. It’s a lot easier to get an image with lots of fireworks if you take lots of images separately and merge them together afterwards on a computer. You can even make some fireworks appear smaller or larger to make a more balanced and pleasing composition. Every situation is unique so the best advice is to go to a place that regularly runs fireworks shows and get lots of practice.

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Sunsets

Sunsets make some brilliant photos because of the deep oranges, reds, golds and purples mixed together. It’s very easy to create a sunset photo. The hard part is finding the right sunset and timing. Although sunsets happen every day, you need some clouds and dust in the air to produce magnificent

© George Lombardo

images. Where does the dust come from? Industrial pollution and smoke from fires (both man made and nature) help, but volcanos are the biggest contributor to creating great sunsets. If you happen to have a volcano erupt close by, ensure you capture some of the sunsets! Both thick and thin clouds help to create that memorable sunset shot. Thick clouds obscure parts of the sky and thin clouds create some amazing colors on their own. Timing is also an aspect. Because the colors change as the sunset progresses, plan to spend at least half an hour taking a number of shots. Remember, you can always delete those that don’t work, so take lots of images.

Photographing Sunsets

What’s the right way to photograph sunsets? Here are some tips  Don’t use your camera’s automatic light meter as it will usually look at the brightest part of the image (the sun) and underexpose the rest of the image (the reds and oranges you want to keep). Set the light reading when your camera is not looking at the sun (to find the ambient light) and keep that setting for the sunset shot. If it’s hard to find the right light level, take a number of shots at different exposure levels and keep the best. Page 64

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 The camera’s white balance will also be out

because there won’t be any white in the image for the camera to use as a guide. Turn the white balance off.

 The same goes for the auto focus. Bright objects can confuse the auto focus. Focus manually to the ‘infinity’ setting, or choose the

‘landscape’ option (which does the same thing).

© George Lombardo

 Use a tripod. Because of the lower light levels, the shutter will be open for longer (even as long as 2 seconds), so you must use a tripod to steady your camera. If you don’t have a tripod handy, try a ledge or post. Also consider using a remote shutter control so the movement of your finger on the shutter button won’t cause the camera to move. If your camera doesn’t have a cable release, you can activate the timer function and tell the camera to take the shot 3 seconds after you press the button. This will give you enough time to move your hand away and ensure the camera doesn’t move.  Keep your lens clean. Dust and fingerprints can produce unwanted lens flare when you include the sun in your photos.  The colors can disappear in a moment, so be prepared.  Watch for unwanted elements: Artificial lights (such as street lights or building lights), traffic headlights, strong gusting winds that will move your camera, and the public who love to stand directly in front of whatever you are trying to photograph!

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Composition of sunsets  Include foreground elements. You don’t just have to shoot the sun.

Foreground elements silhouetted by the wonderful sky helps to give a sense of scale and location to the

© George Lombardo

scene. For example, Palm trees will create a beach scene.  Place the horizon off-center. To include a lot of the colorful sky, place the horizon in the lower third of the

© Giulliano Spitaletti

frame.  Watch for unsightly elements. Don’t have your sunset obscured by buildings, electricity poles or wires. If this will be a problem, go somewhere high. As a general rule, the higher you are when you take the shot, the better your chances of an unobstructed view.  If the sky is dramatic enough, try eliminating any land reference.  Don’t always go for the obvious shot. Look around; frame something unusual with your camera, or try changing your perspective.

Other tips for sunset time

 Turn around! Sunset has the best light, so use it to shoot other objects as well.  Don’t stop taking photos once the sun has gone down. The light will be less but because there is no point source to create harsh shadows, there will be an all-around light that has a great atmosphere.

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 Use a flash! You can capture a scene in the foreground with the flash (eg a person looking at the sunset) and use a slow shutter speed to capture the sunset.

Warnings

Here we should add some warnings about photographing sunsets  The sun can damage your eyes. Never look at the sun directly. Particularly never look at the sun through the optical viewfinder of your camera as it magnifies the sun’s intensity. Always wait until it is low enough in the sky to turn dark red.  The sun can damage your camera – particularly cheap digital cameras. They use less expensive shutters and CCDs. The sun through the lens can create a hot spot and burn a hole in the shutter. Cheaper cameras don’t have a shutter so the CCD is always exposed to the sun’s rays and can be burned. It is not very common for this to happen, but it is possible. The best advice is to wait until the sun has changed color. A final comment: Why aren’t sunrises as good to photograph as sunsets? There are a number of factors. The air usually isn’t as warm in the mornings and warm air contributes to the colors. Usually, the air is more still in the morning as well and doesn’t kick up dust.

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Action Shots

Taking great action shots can be really easy if you follow the below tips.  Get in close to the action. Get as close as you can – it’s almost impossible to get too close. Use your camera’s zoom and a telephoto lens if you have one. Fill the frame with the action.  Anticipate and try to capture the decisive moment – the basketball going through the net; the bat hitting the ball; the runner crossing the finish line. This is where the action is at its peak. You can anticipate this by pressing the shutter a split second before the correct moment.  There are two effects in capturing the action shot. You can crisply freeze the action or blur the motion to give the impression of movement.

Blurring Action.

 Shutter Speed. Don’t select a really fast shutter speed because you want some of the action to blur the image.  ISO. Use a lower ISO setting so the shutter can stay open for longer but not let too much light on the sensor and over expose the shot.  Panning with the action. Move your camera with fast moving objects such as runners or race cars and

© Wendy Arthur

This image was taken with a slower shutter speed. See how the water in the stream ‘blurs’ together because the water moves while the shutter is open.

ensure they stay almost stationary in the center of your image. When the shot is taken, this subject will be crisp and the background will be blurry. Page 68

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 Flash. Using a flash can also allow the subject to create a crisp image but allowing the background the blur.

Frozen Action

 Shutter Speed. This time you want to use the fastest speed you can.  ISO. Use a higher ISO setting so the image will still be bright even though the shutter is open for less time.

© Luis Cruz

This image was taken in bright sunlight with a very fast shutter speed. See the water droplets are frozen in mid air.

 Flash. Flash can again be used to help to freeze the action.  Anticipating the action. Because you’re capturing one moment, you want to make that a defining moment. Anticipate this to ensure the shutter opens at the right time.

© Curtis Routh

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Sports

Sports photography can be tricky because of the split second timing and focus requirements sometimes needed.  Zoom in. An optical zoom is a requirement for most sports as you’ll likely be far from the action. Avoid the digital zoom as it will reduce resolution and your final image quality.  Use a fast shutter speed. For fast moving action sports (like baseball, or motor sports), you want to freeze the action. To accomplish this, set your shutter speed to be as fast as possible for the available light.  Follow the action. You can use a technique called panning (following your subject with the camera) to create more motion with your images. Use a slower shutter speed and keep the subject in the same place in your field of view when you take the shot. The result will be a sharp and in focus subject with a blurry background.  Take Team Photos. Team friendship bonds can be strong, so capture

team shots to look back on in future years. Don’t worry too much about

formality – an informal shot with muddy faces that captures the emotions and personalities of the players will capture the moment better than a posed shot.

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Optical vs

Digital Zoom

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Optical vs Digital Zoom

Most digital cameras advertise an optical and a digital zoom. If you’ve used a film

camera, you’ll be used to optical zoom. Optical zoom uses the lens of the camera (the optics) to bring the subject closer. Digital zoom uses clever software to digitally enlarge a portion of the image – thus simulating optical zoom. So, which is better? Definitely Optical zoom. Here’s why. Digital zoom is not really ‘zoom’ in the strictest definition of the term. Digital zoom just enlarges the image. Eg it takes a portion of the image and enlarges it back to full size. You lose quality because of the enlargement process so photos that have been taken with digital zoom won’t look as good as those without. You can perform the same result using image editing software on your computer. In fact, it can be better to crop and enlarge using your image software in your computer as you can decide exactly what part of the image to enlarge, and how much to enlarge by. So when taking shots, use optical zoom only. If you need to zoom in further, use your editing software to select the best part of the image to keep. Ensure your camera warns you when it’s switching to digital zoom from optical zoom, or use your settings to disable digital zoom entirely. Why is clarity important? The more clarity you have in your image, the larger the printed size can be without the image appearing fuzzy, or blocky. If you want to keep clarity in your images, use the optical zoom whenever possible, and avoid the digital zoom.

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Resolution and Optical Zoom

An often asked question is something like “Which is better – 2 megapixels resolution with 3x optical zoom, or 3 megapixels resolution with 2x optical zoom?” The megapixels resolution is the number of pixels available to capture an image. A 2 megapixel camera has two million pixels to record an image. A 3 megapixel camera has three million pixels in an image – an increase of one million pixels! An optical zoom does not affect the number of pixels used in an image so zoomed to maximum zoom, a 2 megapixel camera will take a photo with 2 million pixels. Likewise, a 3 megapixel camera will still take a photo with 3 million pixels but the maximum zoom isn’t as much, so the subject won’t be as large in the image. To get the same image, you’ll need an extra zoom stop which can be achieved using the digital zoom on the 3 megapixel camera. You will have less resolution (remember the camera loses information when you use the digital zoom) but it will still be equal to the 2 megapixel camera. Overall, as you are not normally at full zoom, it’s better to go with the 3 megapixel camera as you are always getting images with more detail. But you shouldn’t really compare the two. Work out which is more important to you (resolution or optical zoom) and choose a camera for this feature. If both are important to you, find a camera with both.

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Notes

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Using Manual Modes

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Digital cameras come with auto-everything now. You normally don’t need to worry about f-stops, light levels, shutter speed, focusing or lens aperture. As you become more confident, you’ll want to take over the reigns a little more so you can get the results YOU want rather than the results the camera thinks you want. This section will help to de-mystify some of the confusing array of manual controls to help you achieve the effect you want to achieve.

Digital Camera Modes

Most people use the automatic mode of their camera and it takes good shots in most situations. It is often very helpful though to let the camera know what type of shot you're trying to take. This allows the camera to select the best settings for that particular image. This can be done by changing to a different camera mode. Let’s look at each of the different modes, when to use them, and what decisions the camera makes for each mode.

Full Auto / Green Mode This is the mode that I recommend you start out with. It provides fully automated 'point and shoot' operation. All you need to do is frame the image and press the shutter!

Basic Modes

When it's time to experiment with other settings, try using the basic modes first. Choose the mode appropriate for the image you want to take, and start shooting!

Landscape Mode Use Landscape mode to take photos of mountains, scenery or cityscapes. Anytime where the whole image - both the foreground and Page 76

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background - needs to be in focus. Setting Landscape Mode will tell your camera to select a small aperture which will give a large depth of field and ensure the whole image is in focus.

Portrait Mode Select Portrait mode when you want to take a shot of a person usually showing their face. The best portraits are where the subject is in full focus, but the background is out of focus, so the camera increases the aperture in this mode to get a small depth of field. This places only the subject in focus.

Sports Mode Sports mode is perfect for fast action shots. It ensures the camera uses a fast shutter speed so you can take photos of moving subjects without motion blur. Also, on some cameras the continuous shooting mode is enabled so the camera keeps taking shots as long as you depress the shutter.

Macro Mode Close up shots of flowers, insects and the like require the camera to focus on an object that's really close to the lens. Macro mode provides just that setting by using the macro lens of the camera.

Night Mode Use Night Mode at night, or at dawn or dusk. This is where you want to make best use of what little light is available. The camera will choose a slow shutter speed and turn off the flash. Try to place your camera on a tripod or keep it steady some other way when using this mode to ensure your images stay sharp.

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Beach and Snow Some cameras provide a "Beach and Snow" mode. This mode is for use when shooting highly reflective scenes - like at the snow. The camera will compensate for the bright scene and ensure the image is exposed correctly.

Advanced Modes

Once you've mastered shooting with basic modes, try some of the more advanced modes your camera supports. When starting to use these modes, I recommend some experimentation so you get familiar with each mode and how it changes the final photo.

Program Mode This mode is similar to the Auto function in that the camera does some of the work, but you still have some control over how you want the photo to look. Program mode allows you to select from one of a number of shutter/aperture combinations for a specific exposure. I suggest learning how the different modes affect the shot by setting your camera on a ledge or tripod and shooting a scene with each of the different program modes. Notice how each mode changes what you see with the image.

Aperture Priority / AV Mode This mode allows you to set the aperture setting for your camera and let your camera choose the appropriate shutter speed. Changing the aperture allows you to control the depth of field in your image - basically so you can choose how much is in focus.

Shutter Priority / Time Priority / TV Mode Use Shutter Priority when the portrayal of motion is most important. Page 78

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When you want moving objects to blur, choose a slower shutter speed. A fast shutter speed will freeze your subject. The camera will select the appropriate aperture for a correct exposure.

Manual Mode Here you can choose both the shutter speed and aperture to get just the setting you want. This mode gives you total control over the depth of field, lighting and motion in your images. Most professionals use Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or Full Manual mode because they provide the most control over the image. All these extra settings do take some learning though, so I recommend trying one mode at a time and see how it affects the images you take.

© Dennis Gay

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Depth Of Field (DOF)

Depth of Field is a term you’ll hear a lot but it’s tricky to understand. The Depth of Field is the distance in front of and behind the focus point that is also in focus. This can also be called the ‘zone of sharpness’. The size of the zone is

determined by three key factors – the aperture of the lens, the focal point of the

lens used, and the distance you are from the subject. We’ll get into those a little later. When most of the picture is sharp, we say there’s lots of depth of field. When only part is sharp, the depth of field is limited.

© George Lombardo

© George Lombardo

This image has a small depth of field. Notice the out of focus sand both in front of and behind the shell. The shell is the foal point and the zone of sharpness extends from just in front of the shell to just behind.

The depth of field is large in this image. The zone of sharpness extends from a few meters from the camera to infinity.

As you can see, understanding and using the depth of field goes a long way to make your images shine.

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Changing DOF – Lens Focal Length

The first thing we need to understand about changing DOF is the lens Focal Length. The focal length determines if the lens is a telephoto or wide angle lens. The focal length normally changes when you zoom in or out. For various technical reasons, a wide-angle lens has a large DOF range while a telephoto has a small DOF range. This is why when you use a telephoto lens, usually only your subject is in focus and the background is out of focus (out of the zone of sharpness).

Changing DOF – The Camera To Subject Distance The second factor is how close you are to the subject. Again, for various

technical reasons, the closer you get to a subject, the more limited the DOF becomes. In fact, when you shoot up close objects, the DOF can be just a few millimetres in front of and behind the subject.

Changing DOF – Aperture

There is a simple, direct relationship between aperture and DOF. The smaller the aperture, the larger the DOF. What is the aperture then? The aperture is the mechanism behind the lens that controls the amount of light entering the camera. Changing the aperture changes the opening created by a moveable round iris behind the lens. The more the aperture, the wider the opening and the more light can fall on the CCD. Here’s where we necessarily need to get a bit technical. Aperture is measured in f-stops and is expressed like f4, f16 or f22. The ‘f’ stands for ‘fraction’ so f4 = ¼ and f16 = 1/16. The fraction is the focal point of the lens

divided by the diameter of the lens opening. Let’s say the focal point of the lens is © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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10 meters. At f22, that means the aperture is 1/22 of the focal lens = 45mm (1,000mm/22). With an f16 stop, the diameter of the lens opening will be 62mm (1,000mm/16). This is larger than 45mm, so an f16 will let more light into the CCD than the f22. F-stops, for mathematical reasons, have the following increments: f1, f1.4, f2, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22, f32, f45 and f64. Each subsequent step lets in half the amount of light of its predecessor. Remember, it’s a fraction so f4 (¼) is smaller than f2 (½) and thus lets in less light.

Confused yet? The simple way to look at it is the larger the f-stop, the smaller the amount of light you let into the camera. And, as we said above, the smaller the amount of light, the larger the DOF. In other words the larger the f-stop, the larger the DOF.

Changing Aperture means changing the Shutter Speed A problem emerges when we increase the f-stop to change the DOF. This

decreases the amount of light that gets into the camera, which means we get a darker image. To combat this, we need to use a slower shutter speed to allow more light back in. In fact, there is a relationship between the aperture and the shutter speed. EXPOSURE = Aperture + Shutter Speed To get the same exposure if we increase the aperture (less light), we need to decrease the shutter speed (so it is open for longer). If we didn’t decrease the shutter speed, the image would look too dark.

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With slower shutter speeds, be aware that under certain lighting conditions, you may need to use a tripod when using small apertures because the resulting long shutter speeds create a risk of camera-shake. If this is a lot to remember, don’t worry too much. Most of the better digital cameras come with a semi-automatic adjustment. You can set the camera to an “Aperture Priority” which means you select the aperture to determine the DOF yourself, and the camera will set the appropriate shutter speed to keep the same exposure. When on “Shutter Priority”, you change the shutter speed and the camera will modify the aperture for you. Brilliant!

DOF In Practice

Let’s look at some common approaches to help to explain Depth of Field.

Everything Sharp With landscapes, groups and indoor shots you'll usually want to keep everything sharp. Using a normal or wide-angle lens set with a small aperture will give you a very large DOF - perhaps from around one meter through to infinity. There will be times when your foreground is closer than one meter though. What do you do to keep that sharp as well as the background? Since with such as large DOF, everything is in focus, you can bring your focal point a little closer to the camera (that means focus a closer object). This will bring the foreground images into focus, but still leave the background in focus as well.

Main subject sharp with background out of focus In some shots, you want the main subject to stand out strongly from an out of focus background. This is perfect for portraits (where the emphasis is on the person rather than the

© Brian Briscoe

Here the bird is clear but the background is out of focus.

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location). Use a telephoto lens at its widest aperture (smallest f-stop). It's also worth moving the subject as far away as possible from any background. With a limited DOF, you need to make sure you focus accurately, as if you are even slightly out of focus, the whole of your image including your subject will be out of focus. Another example is plants and flowers. They usually have distracting backgrounds so focusing on the flower head and throwing the background out is a common technique used to isolate the subject.

Main subject sharp, with background only slightly out of focus Sometimes making 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 so it doesn't compete for attention. Examples include a

© Sandesh Gangoda

Here the foreground flower is clear and the background is not so far out of focus that you don’t see it’s a pot plant.

person on the beach, an animal in the zoo, or a flower in a garden. Use a standard to short telephoto lens and a middle range aperture of around f8.

Zone of sharpness deliberately limited Occasionally you may want to limit the DOF to a very specific zone. Usually used in flower photography where just the stamen is sharp leaving the foreground and background petals out of focus.

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© Mohd Mansor Bin Sapari

The Zone of Sharpness has been reduced to only an inch in this shot. Only the right flower is in focus with the rest of the image (including the rest of the flower) out of focus.

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Does my camera have a Depth Of Field function?

Camera’s don’t have a depth of field function – rather they allow you to change the aperture and focal point of the lens. So look for these functions. Cheap digital cameras however, have a very short focal length so it’s very hard to change the depth of field. These cameras give you a “Portrait” and

“Landscape” setting which basically means a Small and Large DOF respectively. This is perfect for most shots, but not when you want to get creative! Only the high end digitals and SLRs have the ability to change the DOF adequately.

© Vlad Sladariu

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Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is the amount of light hitting the CCD (charged coupled device – the sensor that converts light into digital information for the camera) and controls how bright your image will look. The brightness of your image is partially controlled by the ISO setting (described below). It’s also controlled by your shutter speed. The lower the shutter speed, the longer the shutter is open and the more light gets to the CCD. By adjusting the shutter speed, the movement of the subject can be controlled. Using a fast shutter speed will freeze the subject. A slow shutter speed will give a blurry image as the subject moves. You can combine flash with a slow speed to get movement and

© Stephen Anstey

A slower shutter speed has been used here to show the welding trails.

blur at the same time.

The lower the shutter speed, the more likely you will need a tripod to hold your camera otherwise you’ll get blurry images. If your digital camera can’t change the shutter speed, you can change other

values to get a similar effect. You can change the ISO setting – the lower the ISO setting, the longer the shutter is open. Alternatively, you can purchase a natural density filter over the lens. This is a grey filter that reduces the light but doesn’t affect the image color. Shutter speeds are measured in whole numbers, but these are actually fractions so a larger number means a quicker shutter speed. With a shutter speed of 125, light comes into the camera for 1/125 of a second. When the shutter speed is 8, light comes in for 1/8 of a second.

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Common Shutter speeds

 A Dog, particularly one running towards you can be captured with a lower shutter speed such as 1/350 second. To guarantee that all movement is frozen, a 1/1000 sec is better.  Showing a bird in mid-flight and freezing the propellers on a flying plane will need a 1/1000 sec shutter speed.  Slightly slower shutter speeds can show some movement. Eg a 1/250 sec shutter speed can freeze a duck and the pond water, but blur the flapping wings slightly to give the illustration of movement.  A Sunset needs a much slower shutter speed because of the lack of light. Somewhere between ½ sec and 10 seconds will work well.  Stars needs a much longer shutter speed – from one

minute up to 10 minutes. Longer exposures are possible (eg a few hours) to get those wonderful ‘star trails’ shots. Of course, with a digital camera, you can check your results immediately and change the shutter speed to get your desired effect.

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© Curtis Routh

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ISO

You are probably familiar with ISO on film used in a film camera. It's the 'speed' of the film - higher ISO values mean you can take photos in lower light. But what about in the digital world? Surprisingly, there is an ISO setting on your Digital camera. And although there is no longer any film, the ISO setting still plays a vital role. ISO indicates your digital camera's sensitivity to light. The higher the number, the less light is needed to take a photo that is bright enough (correctly exposed). In bright light (like the middle of a sunny day), you'll normally use ISO 50 or ISO 100. These are the lowest settings and can be used because there is lots of light around. However, in lower light, your camera needs some help. There are two ways of doing this:

Decrease Shutter Speed

With a slower shutter speed, the camera has more time to 'take in' the amount of light it needs. Unfortunately though, the slower the shutter speed, the more chance that your images will turn out blurry.

Increase ISO

Rather than decrease the shutter speed, you can increase the ISO. As I said above, this will increase the sensitivity of the camera which means you can get the same shot with less light entering the camera. Thus the shutter speed can be kept low enough to avoid blurry images. As increasing the ISO will increase the shutter speed, a high ISO will also help when taking fast moving sports shots. You'll get clear, crisp shots with no blur. Page 88

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However, I still recommend you use the lowest ISO possible. Why?

Problems of using a high ISO

Using a higher ISO means the camera has less light to work with. Unfortunately this also means that 'noise' is introduced into your camera. If you'd like to find out exactly what noise is and how to eliminate it, check out the bonus on noise that comes with this book. Your camera's highest one or two ISO values will produce a lot of noise in your image, so I suggest avoiding them unless the light is so low that you have no other choice.

Auto ISO

Fortunately most of the time you don't need to worry about selecting the correct ISO. Most cameras have an "Auto ISO" setting. With Auto ISO, the camera will look at the amount of light in the scene and change the ISO appropriately so that the shutter speed doesn't get too slow.

ISO Values

If you choose to use a manual ISO, what values should you use? ISO 50-100. Suitable for bright light (like outdoors on a sunny day. ISO 200. Great for overcast or cloudy days. However on budget cameras some noise will be seen in your image. ISO 400 and above. Use for indoor or night shots (even if you use a flash). Also useful to freeze the action in sports shots. These values will produce the most noise. It's also useful to set the ISO manually in some circumstances as sometimes your camera gets the exposure wrong. For instance, you may be taking a sunset © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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and the bright light of the sun fools the camera into using a low ISO setting. The problem with this is you won’t get the wonderful colors in the sky! You can thus change the ISO of the camera up a few notches to tell the camera to use a ‘slower’ film. This will over-expose the sun, but that won’t matter as you have the wonderful colors of the sky back.

Exposure Value

Some digital cameras don’t allow you to change the ISO. In the digital world it’s a made up number anyway because digital cameras don’t have film. Instead, they can have an Exposure Value setting. You can set the EV usually from –2 to +2. Plus or minus 1 EV is equivalent to one ISO adjustment. Use the EV if your camera doesn’t have an ISO adjustment. See the separate section on Exposure Value for more information.

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Image File Formats

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Most modern digital cameras give you a choice of file formats when saving your image. It's very helpful to know the benefits (and disadvantages) of each file format so you can make the best decision on the file format to save your images.

Why do we need file formats?

A standard photo taken with a 4.3 megapixel camera has 4.3 million little pixels, or pieces of information, that comprise the image. Each of those pieces needs to store a red, green and blue color value so the color of the pixel can be recreated by a computer or printer. Each color value records the strength of that color on a scale from 1 to 256. This is a lot of information! Each pixel needs three bytes to store the three color values, and there are 4.3 million pixels. 4.3 million times 3 is around 13 million bytes, or 13 Megabytes. If each image took 13 Megabytes of storage, you'd run out of space pretty quickly on your memory card! So the file formats used to save images compress the image down to a smaller, more manageable, size.

JPEG

The JPEG, or JPG format was invented to help make image sizes more manageable. JPEG is the most popular format used in digital cameras today because it's a simple and versatile format, and is supported by all image related software. JPEG works by compressing the image to a much smaller size at the expense of some image quality. Normally you won't see any difference because the JPEG format looks at the image and removes only the information that it can recreate by looking at adjacent pixels when the image is displayed again. You can specify the amount of compression with JPEG images. Your camera will usually have a quality setting - low, medium or high. Low quality increases the Page 92

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JPEG compression, and although your images will be smaller, they won't look at good.

High Quality Setting

Uncompressed TIFF

Low Quality Setting (exaggerated for effect)

TIFF is another file format popular because while it still compresses the image, it does so in a way to ensure that the full image can always be restored. There's no loss of image quality. It works in the same way as ZIP files on a computer. They are compressed, but you can always get the original file back.

RAW

Images stored in RAW format are exactly what the camera 'sees'. There is no processing done by the camera before the image is saved. This is one of the major advantages of RAW. Remember when I said above that each color value strength is stored on a scale from 1 to 256? Modern cameras can actually detect more than 256 levels of strength. But since the TIFF and JPEG formats don't allow more than that number, the camera throws the extra information away. The RAW format saves these extra strength levels resulting in a better image with more contrast levels. There's another advantage - the camera doesn't correct for exposure or white balance before it saves in RAW format. Meaning you have ultimate control in manipulating the image in a paint program - so your image looks exactly how you want it to look. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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All these advantages come at a cost. RAW images don't use any compression so they are large files and take a long time to store and copy. Also, there is no single RAW standard for all cameras, so you usually will need to use your camera manufacturer's software to read the RAW file. Note that most cheaper cameras won’t have the RAW file option, as it’s only for those who need that extra bit of quality (or who don’t like the camera playing around with their settings!)

Which format should I use?

While TIFF and RAW do give you superior images, I personally don't think the hassle of much larger file sizes are worth it unless you have a really high end camera and need to produce really large prints. Not only do the images take longer to save, but you need to purchase larger (and more expensive) memory cards; a larger hard drive; and more CDs to back up to. The JPEG format is the most popular - and it's not hard to see why. It provides a much smaller image size without losing a lot of quality. I recommend using the JPEG format set to high image quality on your own camera. Note that some cameras can store a Jpeg image as well as the RAW file, so you get the best of both worlds. You can quickly use the Jpeg file, but you have the RAW data to fall back on. This does take up even more storage space though so be careful!

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Converting

from Film to Digital

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How do I bridge the gap between Film and Digital?

There are a large number of differences between film and digital cameras but you don’t have to throw all your knowledge out! Most of the knowledge from the film camera is useful with digital cameras. How to compose your shots properly won’t change, and digital cameras still have the more advanced features of film cameras like Depth of Focus. It can actually be easier to take better shots as with a digital camera you can see your results immediately and if it’s not good enough can re-take.

How can I produce the same film images with a digital camera?

The best way to ensure you get the same results is to buy a digital camera with the same brand as your existing film camera. Here the controls will be very similar to your film camera. If you used to enlarge your film prints, ensure you get a camera with a high megapixel count.

ISO

Many will be familiar with ISO settings found on film. Film can be purchased with different ISO standards like ISO 100, ISO 200 etc. The lower the number, the less sensitive the film is to light. Therefore a film rated ISO 400 is more sensitive to light than ISO 100. Higher ISO film is better at capturing action shots because the shutter can open and close faster while still giving the film enough light to expose properly. Digital cameras follow the same basic idea but go about it in a very different way. To achieve the same effect, digital cameras amplify the output coming from the image sensor so less light is needed to produce a bright image. Most digital Page 96

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camera manufactures still use the ISO term to allow you to change the sensitivity of the film by changing an ISO setting, but it’s only to help consumers who have come from a film background. The biggest difference with a digital camera is you can change the ISO setting for each shot! With a film camera, you need to swap the roll of film - impossible to do without ruining the rest of the film.

Slow Focus

If you are used to film cameras, you may find digital cameras to have a comparatively slow focus and you find you may not be

© Kevin Watson

able to take photos as quickly. This is a problem particularly with the cheap digital cameras as they take a long time to prepare to take the shot. Either ensure you invest in a higher quality digital camera, or use some of the tips in this document like continuous shooting and pre-focusing to help

Developing Prints

Is the printing process the same as for film cameras? The answer is yes. Most photo labs now have a printing machine that can print photos from both film and digital sources. For the film source, they now scan the negatives and print from the digital scans.

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Which Digital

Camera Should I Buy?

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Which Digital Camera Should I Purchase?

As a digital camera owner, you will often be asked the question “Which digital camera should I buy?” from those who are newer to the hobby. This is probably because they might rightly consider you an expert on digital photography. And after reading through this book you are… right? I remember my first purchase. I was inundated with options and models and features. We have a choice between megapixels, Digicams, SLR Digitals, Interchangeable or Integral lenses, short and long range zooms, movie modes and pocket size or full bodied cameras. There are different memory card formats, cameras that offer RAW, TIFF and JPG, or just RAW and JPG. No wonder it can be an overloading experience. The best way to answer the question is to turn around and pose more questions. There are four main questions to ask. What do you want to do with you images? What do you want to photograph? How often will you use your camera? And what’s your budget?

What do you want to do with your images? If they just want to shoot images to use on the web or snapshot-sized images, a 3 megapixel unit will be fine. These models are small, handy and budget priced and have a nice range of features like Zoom, LCD monitor and movie mode. If the aim is for larger prints, a 5 or 6 megapixel with a 3x or 4x zoom is the way to go. These will make quality 8”x10” prints with ease. If they need to print any larger, then you can recommend an 8 megapixel camera or higher, but the price will be rather high as well.

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What do you want to photograph?

What does your questioner want to photograph? If it’s sports and action or long range nature photography, then it really needs to be a Digital SLR. These high end cameras come with the ability to change lenses, which can make the difference between being just too far away from your subjects and being up close and personal. You can also use a Wide Angle lens which will get landscape photos that a normal lens can’t even dream about. Another option could be the Digital Movie Cameras. They come with a very large (12x) zoom but the more you zoom, the lower quality your image is so we’d recommend the interchangeable lenses and an SLR.

How often will you use the camera?

Chances are, if they’re just starting out with cameras they won’t know a lot about composition, lighting, depth-of-field or any of those more advanced topics. Thus a really expensive and feature-laden camera like an SLR will probably be wasted on someone newly into the sport.

What’s Your Budget?

This is probably the clincher. I’d recommend they purchase the best camera they can afford and spend some money on training their brain on how to take good photos. As you have already found out, the difference between an ordinary and stunning shot is usually not the camera – it’s the thought that goes into taking the shot. This book is an example of training your mind, and there are photo clubs and courses in most cities worldwide.

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Caring for your Camera

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Essential Maintenance

You’d be surprised at the difference in quality between shots taken by a photographer who knows how to hold the camera correctly and one who does not. Inexperienced users often make basic errors like allowing a neck strap or stray finger to hang in front of the lens. This is more of a problem with compact cameras, as there is less camera body to hold without getting in the way of important places like the lens.

Take care of the case

Clean your camera’s body regularly by either rubbing gently with a dry duster, or

slightly damp cloth. Steer clear of the lens and doors into the camera’s body (like the battery and memory card doors).

Weather-proof protection

If you shoot outdoors a lot, consider purchasing an underwater housing. These keep your camera dry to photograph underwater. Even if you do not plan to shoot underwater, it is one of the best ways to keep your camera protected from rain, snow and dust.

Battery Power

All batteries have a shelf life, after which they need replacing. To extend the life of your battery, completely exhaust it’s power before recharging and avoid

‘topping up’ the charge. Another option to make your camera battery last longer is to use a card reader to transfer images to your computer rather than the camera’s inbuilt mechanism. Buying an extra battery, or carrying a portable charger can make all the difference when shooting for extended periods of time.

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Another option if you are short on battery power and don’t have a spare handy is to turn off the LCD. This uses most of your battery power so turning it off and using the viewfinder will increase your photography time.

Look after your Lens Your lens is one of the most

important parts of the camera, so it’s crucial to keep it clean. The most effective way to clean your lens is to purchase a lens cleaner but other options are available. Grease and dirt on your lens can best be removed by using an alcohol-free eyeglass cleaner applied in a smooth, circular motion. Dust can be best removed with a clean anti-static cloth. Sand is the biggest enemy of

© Ben Durrant

cameras and should only be removed with a soft paintbrush or ‘blower brush’. Don’t wait until grease and dirt become a noticeable problem before cleaning your lens as grime affects your image quality long before it becomes noticeable to the eye.

Memory Cards

These are susceptible to static electricity, so always keep your memory cards either inside the camera, or in a protective plastic case. Don’t leave them near a computer screen or TV either. If you use your cards a lot, it is worth periodically wiping and reformatting the memory to ensure they stay reliable. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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Printing Your Images

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Photos are memories and unfortunately it seems we are losing them at a rate of knots. With the number of digital cameras being sold increasing every year, millions of precious pictures taken with them will never be printed! When shooting with film, many prints were wasted. I know I would not have paid money to have some photos printed if I could have seen them first. Digital means that is no longer the case, and even when the best images are saved for printing at a later time, this often never

© Francisco Alvarez

happens. At best, they end up as a digital album on your computer’s hard drive. Maybe it’s the instant gratification of digital photography that dissuades people from actually printing their images, or maybe it’s too much hassle to go down to the photo store because you no longer need to do so to see your photos. Whatever the reason, it seems we are printing less and less each year. Keep in mind that the value of photos change over the years. What is now a relatively uninteresting picture now can increase in value dramatically with time. Remember the 20 or 40 year old images you value now? At the time, they would have not have been as important because they now serve as an irreplaceable record of people we love and moments we treasure. There are still a few very good reasons to print your photos:  We are a tactile species and enjoy looking at prints in our hands. The family album is definitely not a thing of the past.  Image longevity. Hard drives fail. CDs with images may become corrupted, or the technology may change and you may no longer be able to read them. Computers are not the best way to store data for a long time. So making prints is a good idea. © 2007, David Peterson. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com

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Digital Printing Options

There are a number of options available for printing your digital images. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Let’s look at each one to see which is best for your particular situation.

Inkjet Printers

These have been responsible for most of the boon in digital printing. Being able to print your images at home is a big benefit, and if printed properly, the prints can be almost indistinguishable from photographic prints. But printing from your Inkjet printer is not as simple as it looks. It’s not just as simple as

‘pressing a button’ – no matter what the glossy brochures say. The cost is a large problem – one that is exacerbated if you make mistakes. For most

© Brian Briscoe

snapshot-sized images, it is still more cost effective to take your images to the local photo store. Inks and paper to print them on are still horrendously expensive. Printer companies have a tendency to sell the printers cheap and make their money on the ink – the “Make money on the razor not the shaver” technique. There can also be problems in getting the image color correct. What you see on the screen will not necessarily be what you see on paper. This is because the printer uses a ‘subtractive’ method to create color, whereas your computer

monitor uses an ‘additive’ method. Color correction can be a time consuming process with trial and error, but fortunately some newer specialty photo printers now walk you through the process.

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Inkjets have an advantage with larger than postcard sized images and when you need to have access to the prints instantly. For more information on how to print to your Inkjet printer, see below.

Photo Kiosks

Most large general retailers now have Photo Kiosks which you can use to have your photos printed. You can

© Bill Liversidge

use these yourself by inserting your CD or memory card and selecting the images that appear on the screen for printing. Many kiosks allow you to crop, sharpen or color boost your images before printing, and some even allow you to create borders or create greeting cards. These are a great advantage if you don’t have a computer at home. You can take your memory card straight out of a camera and select just those images you want to print. They are also handy if you don’t have a photo shop close by. The disadvantage of this method is they don’t have the extra options you can order from a photo store like automatic color correction, or personal service. You also need to be able to work out the often complex menu of choices offered by these machines.

Photo Store

This is the same option as has been available with your film cameras for all these years. The big advantage of the digital age is that like with a kiosk, you can select only those photos you wish to print and put them on a memory card or CD before you head to the store.

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The other advantage of this method, is you can prepare your digital photos for printing beforehand on your computer. Cropping out parts of the image you don’t like; Sharpening;

adding color saturation to add ‘punch’. And you get to keep the CD and can use this for backup purposes. If you aren’t handy with technology, you can take your full memory card into the store and have them help you select the photos to print.

© Iva Villi

The disadvantage? You need to leave your house! Seriously though, they tend to be more expensive than the Kiosk option but you have a more personalised service.

Online Printing Services

Another option gaining in popularity is to use one of the many online printing services. These services allow you to upload your images directly from the Internet to their website. From there, you can modify your images, and select options like type of paper, and special requests (like thank you cards, or personalised calendars) before submitting the image for printing. Most places also store your digital images for you without charge. You pay by credit card and have them delivered. Your prints usually arrive in 5-7 days. This is a very competitive industry, so pricing is relatively cheap, and they tend to throw in extra bargains. If you’re in the USA or UK, try Shutterfly. We’ve found they are cheap and reliable. http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/r/shutterfly

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Prolabs

Once exclusively for the use of professional photographers, Professional Labs, or Prolabs, are more and more catering for the general public. These places ensure you always get a high quality result at a reasonable price. Their staff have decades of experience to ensure an exposure is printed just right, or a color balance is spot on. You pay more for this service though. Pro-labs are the most expensive, so we recommend not using them until your skill improves to a level where you’ve outgrown your local photo store. If you wish to try a Prolab, here are some tips  They usually only accept bulk orders (more than 50 images at a time, or multiples of each image)  Ask for color correction on each

© Luis Gomes

image. This can cost a little more, but is worth it in better image quality.  Most Prolabs can add a border around your images. This can make the prints stand out more. Ask them to show you a sample first so you can see what they look like.  You can bargain down the price if you have a lot of images to print, so store your printing needs up and get them all done at once.

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Printing on Inkjet Printers

You have your photos on your computer and want to print them. Will your current color inkjet printer do the job? Most of the time, the answer is yes, but you will need to invest in some good quality photo paper and inks.

Photo Cartridge Kits

For most printers, you can get a “photo cartridge kit” which will contain special paper and special ink that has been designed to print photos. Printing on normal paper won’t work well because the ink from inkjets tends to run causing awful images. Be aware of a few gotchyas when purchasing these kits  Make sure they are specific for your brand of printer  Where possible, use same brand of cartridge and paper as the printer itself. The printer manufacturers usually ensure their paper works best with their printers. The ‘clone’ brands can work well but to save on costs they tend to use inferior inks. Also, placing inks on a page is an exact science and using a different brand may mean your colors won’t be exactly right.  Ensure the inks used are rated to a 60 year lifetime or more. Without this, your images can fade in as little as 2 years.  Use Archival paper for longer lasting prints. It costs a little more, but for some shots it’s worth the investment. It does tend to dull the image though.

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Photographic Quality Inkjet Printers

There are a number of photo printers on the market now that have been specifically designed to produce true photographic quality images. Some examples are the HP PhotoSmart and Epson’s Stylus Photo. Most other brands

have photo printers too, so do your research. You’re looking for printers designed to produce true "photographic" quality continuous tone prints. These printers use a different process called dyesublimation. The printers are small, more compact and easier to load (because the ink is already embedded in the paper, there are no ink cartridges to worry about). They use heavier, slightly more durable paper, so the

© Tony Micallef

prints may last longer than the ink-jet prints. A standard printer with a "photo cartridge kit" will not even come close to these printers in quality of output. If you haven’t purchased a printer yet and want to use a printer only for printing photos, these are a good way to go.

How to ensure sharp photos

To ensure you always print sharp images, you need to ensure the resolution of your pictures are close to the resolution of the print. Here’s a good guide for the image resolution (and megapixels) needed for the different print sizes.

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Print Size

Good Results (200 ppi)

Excellent Results (300 ppi)

4 by 6 inches

800 by 1200 pixels

1200 by 1800 pixels

(about 1 megapixel)

(about 2 megapixels)

1000 by 1400 pixels

1500 by 2100 pixels

(about 1.5 megapixels)

(about 3 megapixels)

1600 by 2000 pixels

2400 by 3000 pixels

(about 3 megapixels)

(about 7 megapixels)

2200 by 2800 pixels

3300 by 4200 pixels

(about 6 megapixels)

(about 14 megapixels)

3200 by 4000 pixels

4800 by 6000 pixels

(about 13 megapixels)

(about 29 megapixels)

5 by 7 inches

8 by 10 inches

11 by 14 inches

16 by 20 inches

Remember that bigger is not always better. If you have a 7 megapixel image, don’t try to print a 4x6 without resizing the image to a more appropriate size first. There just aren’t enough pixels in the print to print every one, so the printer will

need to scale the image down. Modern printers can’t scale well, so it is better to use an image manipulation program to scale to a more appropriate size (2 megapixels in this case) before printing.

Printing Paper

There is a confusing array of printing paper available now. Glossy Photo Paper. Glossy paper uses a resin coating material to make a high gloss photographic paper. There are premium versions that have a porous surface so the ink dries instantly. There are less expensive versions that still produce a nice glossy finish but the paper is thinner.

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Semi-gloss Photo Paper. This is the same paper as the Glossy paper, but the surface of the gloss has a texture applied to it that is designed to scatter light and reduce glare. The result is a paper with the color and clarity of a mirror-finish gloss, but with significantly less reflection off the surface and a smoother-looking finish. This also has a cheaper version with thinner paper. Lustre Photo Paper. This paper is almost identical to the semi-gloss. If you look close the bumps of the texturing may be a little taller and the paper slightly shinier. Another word for this type is Pearl. Photo Quality Glossy Film. This is a sheet of pure white glossy plastic. It’s not the best paper to work with because of the low ink penetration. It creases very easily as well. Used mostly for backlit photos. ‘Colorlife’ Photo Paper. This is a brand of paper made by Epson and is a special semi-gloss paper made from an absorbing polymer. The result is a paper that chemically absorbs and encapsulates the ink beneath the surface for great protection against the atmosphere. Seems to have a longer archival period than Glossy. Matte Paper. This paper has no gloss at all but is photo quality. Images printed on Matte paper don’t look like traditional photos because traditional photos have a glossy finish. There are versions like Double Sided, and Heavyweight that can suit different needs. Photo Quality Inkjet Paper. It looks and feels like plain paper with a matte finish. This paper works well for proofs. We recommend always choosing a brand name paper – even better choose the same brand as your printer. Generic photo glossy paper is not worth the time or expense. Use the professional grade photo paper where possible. The added expense is worth it in the results.

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General Tips for printing

 Ensure you don’t reduce the size or resolution of your images before printing unless you know your image is too large. Because your computer’s screen resolution is relatively small, an image that looks fine on a computer screen after a resolution change may look blurry in print. See the previous section for a good guide to the appropriate resolutions for the different sized prints.  If you’re not sure if an image is good enough quality to print, look at the file size for a guide. A size of 100 kilobytes is on the small size. 400 kilobytes is better and will normally allow a photo at 8”x10” dimensions.  Before you start each print job, check the printer settings (or preferences) and make sure you have selected the proper print size and type of paper (eg glossy, matte, plain).  To save money, print a few different images on each sheet. The print wizard should give you a chance to select a particular page layout (eg two 5x7’s, four 3.5x5s etc).  Keep photo paper stored in a dark and cool place. Don’t leave it sitting in the printer tray. Exposure to sunlight and humidity will degrade this paper (as well as the prints you produce with it).  Ink cartridges are expensive, so conserve ink wherever possible. If the image you are printing is, 400K in file size (or has a picture resolution of 300 dpi), and your print size is a small size (5x7 or smaller), select "normal" or "standard" print quality. If you select "high" or "best" or "maximum dpi" the printer will pump out more ink than is necessary without any real improvement in print quality. On the other hand, if you are printing large 8x10s, or if you have zoomed in, choose the top-quality print setting.

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General

Questions and Answers

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Why are the images I print always cropped on the sides? This is a common problem caused by the

4:3 ratio verses 3:2 ratio

different image aspect ratio between digital cameras, and 35mm film. The aspect ratio is the ratio of the length of the sides of the images. A traditional 35mm film frame is approximately 36mm wide and 24mm high to give an aspect ratio of 3:2. Most digital camera images are shown on a computer monitor. With this in mind,

Original Image. This was taken with a Digital camera and has a frame ratio of 4:3

the digital camera makers chose the same aspect ratio for their cameras: 4:3. The size of a standard print is 4”x6”, which has the same 3:2 aspect ratio as 35mm film. A digital print, because of the different aspect ratio of 4:3 will be sized to either 4”x5.3”, or 4.5”x6”. The

first way, it doesn’t quite get to the 6” length so

When printed on 3:2 photo paper, the top and bottom parts of the image will be cut where the yellow bars are, losing part of the chin.

you will have white parts. The second way, you lose the top and bottom quarter inch of the photo to fit the 4” height. If you want your whole image, ask for the images not to be cropped. They will have white borders on the left and right which are easy to

If you ask for images to not be cropped, you won’t lose any of the image, but will get white bars on the left and right of the image.

cut off. Note Some high end digital cameras (including most digital SLRs) have a 3:2 aspect ratio like their film counterparts.

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Which is the best way to name your digital files?

If you want to keep track of your digital images, you need some kind of filing system. Otherwise your images will quickly get out of hand and you won’t be able to find anything. I use the following method to store my digital images 1. Turn on the ‘date storage’ function of my camera. This tells the camera to store the images I take in a new folder with the day’s date.

2. When I copy my images from my camera, they will be automatically arranged by date. I simply copy the date folders (with all my images inside) to my computer. 3. I then rename the date directories and add the activity I was doing. For instance, if the folder name was 20050301 meaning the first of March, 2005, and I photographed my nephew’s birthday on that day, I would rename the folder to “20050310 – Joshua’s Birthday”.

4. I leave the images themselves with the same filename as the camera gives them. Mostly because when I view the images, I use Windows XP’s slideshow feature to see all the images and don’t normally need to select a particular image. 5. If you need to select particular images, it would be worthwhile going through each image once you’ve copied it to your computer and renaming the file to explain what the image is about.

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Why doesn’t my photo look the same on the screen as it did when I took the image?

The most common reason for the image color looking different is White Balance. See the section on White Balance earlier in this document. Another reason could be because your monitor isn’t calibrated. Calibrating your monitor changes it’s color and brightness settings until it provides an accurate

display. Calibration isn’t difficult – and free software is available. Search for “free monitor calibration” using your favorite search engine

© Ruxi Stanescu

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Why doesn’t my printed photo look the same as on my monitor?

There are many reasons why monitor displays and printed output are different. These include:  Monitors use ‘additive color’ (starting with black and adding Red, Green

and Blue to get the desired color) whereas printers use ‘subtractive color’

(starting with white and ‘subtracting’ Cyan, Magenta and Yellow to get the same effect).  Ink layering in printouts can cause small color imbalances in the image where the layers aren’t aligned properly.  Printed images don’t have the same color range as a monitor meaning the colors are typically darker and less vibrant than on screen.  The texture of the paper can affect the printed image. The most common problem is printer heads that are not aligned. This can be easily corrected by calibrating your printer. Your printer driver will usually provide controls for aligning the heads and also for calibrating colors the printer produces.

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Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the generous help from my family, friends and fellow Internet users. My family and friends (particularly the professional photographers) have been invaluable in ensuring the text of this book is easy to read and contains factual information. Thanks also to the following people who have generously offered the use of their images to illustrate the tips and techniques. Without them, the book would not be anywhere near as effective. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Photographic contributions gratefully accepted from: Iva Villi - http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/dynoGallByMember.asp?mem=51528 Stephen Anstey - http://www.pbase.com/steveanstey The Anderson Family Amanda Radovic Ben Durrant Bevan Timm Bill Liversidge Brian Briscoe Brian Smith Curtis Routh Dennis Gay Fernando De Paternal Francisco Alvarez Gary McGowan George Lombardo Giulliano Spitaletti Janet Kinney Kevin Watson Kristina Sitton

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Luis Cruz Luis Gomes Mark Bowden Michele Ch’i Mohd Mansor Bin Sapari Mufaddal Tapia Ruxi Stanescu Sandesh Gangoda Shelly Van Camp Simon Peter Barbara Theresa VanderStaay Tessa Campbell Tony Micallef Vlad Sladariu Victoria Vinnikava Wendy Arthur

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