Photography Tips & Tutorials7171 articles

There are basically two kinds of lighting to consider for portraiture: natural and artificial. Considering the pros and cons, as well as requirements for different situations, will help you decide which kind to use. Natural lighting, whether used outdoors or indoors through a window, is perhaps the easiest for beginners. Simply take your subject outside during the last couple of hours before sunset for a stunning quality that is unmatched by that of strobes. Or if you are inside, put your subject near a window during mid-morning. You’d be amazed at the beautiful results you can achieve using only natural light.

One problem that plagues digital camera owners is marginal light situations. Here’s how it works – we all know that when you try and take a photograph in low light your worst enemy is camera movement. I don’t care if you try to not breath and press the shutter slowly as you fire off a shot your photo will probably be blurry. By setting your camera to burst mode you’re now taking 3-5 photos in a very short time frame. Come on! At least one of them is bound to be fired when your not moving. If nothing else you put the odds in your favor.

The aim of this eBook is to expose photographers to some of these opportunities through examples, detailed descriptions and diagrams of setups from my own photographic experiences. Essentially, the eBook is of those who find themselves in the same situation as me – on the move, with a need to stay compact and in love with light. The eBook is broken up into three sections: Flash, Reflector Light and Natural Light. I’ve purposely placed them in this order, from types of light which are easiest to manage, to those which are the hardest. I feel that looking at real-life examples is the best way to learn and so I have included multiple images, descriptions and diagrams, which deconstruct particular lighting scenarios.

A good landscape photographer is always well prepared. Don’t leave home without these ten items. A graduated filter will allow you to even up the lighting between the sky and the ground. When the ground is covered with snow or ice, put the dark area at the bottom. At all other times, put it to the top. A polarizing filter will reduce reflections on glass or water (but not polished metal) and will make the sky bluer without affecting other colors. The effect is most pronounced at 90 degrees to the sun.

As soon as the guards spotted my camera, I saw them relax. This is obviously what they were expecting, so much so that the gentleman who was about to jump on me had stepped back and cleared the way for me to take my pictures. I got about five frames off on a cheap and nasty Sigma lens on an ancient Canon A1 body. The pictures were in every UK national newspaper the next day, published around the world and still sell now, on occasion. For that one hours “work” I made £11,000.

There are two kinds of tripod heads: ball heads and pan heads. The ball head is simplest and provides a full range of movement for your camera. If you tend to shoot quickly or at moving objects you will like a ball head. With pan heads you have multiple locking levers that adjust the pan in different planes of movement to allow you to move the camera on the tripod. Pan heads are quite useful for panoramic shots. The trade-off is speed, it takes more time to unlock and adjust the levers than with a ball head.

In digital cameras, we all talk about settings like brightness, exposure, contrast and white balance very frequently. But still, if we are questioned about what all these settings actually mean and how are they different from each other, we may end up confusing ourselves. To bring to an end such of our confusions, we have histograms. They provide the simplest mechanism to make us understand, observe, differentiate and tune these settings. Now let us learn how we can get an idea of this picture’s brightness, exposure, contrast and white balance through such histogram.

When posing, have her seated on a stool or chair – preferably with no back – where she can have both feet flat on the floor and so that she cannot lean back and/or lounge. Have her sit up straight. (Like mother always used to say)! Have her turn about 45 degrees to the side so that she is not straight on to the camera. The ONLY time you want a subject’s shoulders straight on to the camera is if they are a football player in full uniform. Wide faces can be narrowed by turning her head to a three quarter view. Thinner faces can be widened by having her turn more toward the camera.

There are few subjects that draw photographers as much as wildflowers. Why shouldn’t it be so? After all, wildflowers seem to offer the photographer so much: striking hues, graceful curves, and dramatic color contrast. It’s no wonder that so many people photograph wildflowers. However, like any other area of photography, creating wildflower images that rise above the ordinary requires knowledge and skill. Thus, this article looks at seven ways that can be used to create great wildflower images.

Whenever I go out on a photo shoot I love to include as much color and as bold as possible. Color is more important to our worlds than we think and is often taken for granted. Although monochrome photos are great, there is more to color photography than we think. A few techniques mentioned in this article will add a dramatic dimension to your images.