Photoscout

• Direction of Light

  Lighting is important in photography, whether it is a studio portrait or an outdoor landscape. It gives detail, depth, and emotion to the image. In the same way, the source and the direction from which light comes from and strikes the subject, relative to the position of the camera, has a significant effect on color, form, and texture in the photo.

  There are three kinds of lighting and we would discuss each one of them and their uses.

  Frontlighting is the most common. The light source falls squarely on the front of the subject. Auto-exposure systems handle frontlighting well because it is even.

  Frontlights produces bold, saturated colors, but can wash out some colors if overdone. The disadvantage is that since all the shadows are blotted out and falling behind the subject, frontlit scenes lack a sense of depth.

  Here is where other light sources are used to produce more shadow. Sidelighting comes from the left or right side of the subject. Since the light is traversing across, it catches every surface bump, leaving a trail of light shadows and highlighting surface textures.

  Sidelighting is ideal for landscapes where you want to present the tactile qualities of a subject. Sidelight also imparts form to objects. Sidelighting also works for portraits because it creates a delicate modeling of facial features.

  Finally, backlighting can produce theatrical effects, especially with landscapes. Shadows coming towards the camera exaggerate details like depth and distance. They also help lead the eye into the scene.

  When backlighting is used behind partially translucent objects, it creates an effect called rim lighting. This separates the subject from its surroundings. As a reminder, backlit portraits may need to increase exposure by a few stops over the metered value to keep the face being lost in shadow or may need to use flash fill instead. In outdoor shots, keep the sun out of the frame or it will give you underexposed photos.

  In outdoor photography and in practicality, one can change the apparent direction of lighting by shifting locations. Walk a few steps or take a shot from a different angle.

  Posted in Photography Techniques

  May 6th, 2008 / No Comments

• Depth of Field

  Depth of field is defined as the range in a scene, from near to far, that is in sharp focus. Depth of field provides depth, among other things, to your picture, thus giving it life, not like a flat two-dimensional photograph.

  Technically, depth of field is achieved when there are subjects in various distance in relation to the lens. You then adjust the focus by manipulating the aperture. A smaller aperture creates more depth of field, a larger aperture produces the opposite effect. Depth of field is dependent on lens focal length, aperture, and distance from the subject.

  With all things equal, shorter focal length lenses, smaller apertures, and greater lens-to-subject distance increase the range of sharp focus. Longer lenses, wider apertures, and a shorter distance to the subject, meanwhile, decreases depth of field.

  The ability to control how much is in focus effects your shots immensely. Shooting a landscape entails as much focus as possible, so a high depth of field is needed. In the opposite end, taking a portrait requires a shallower area of sharp focus, isolating the subject from the background.

  Although this is taught in basic photography, depth of field intimidates beginners because it is hard to pull off. There is a caveat with camera viewfinders. In point-and-click cameras, you are not viewing directly through the lens. Instead, you are looking through a separate viewfinder. In SLRs, on the other hand, you are looking through the lens at its widest aperture. It closes to a smaller f/stop only at the instant you press the shutter button.

  SLRs have a feature called a depth of field preview button. When you press it, the lens will briefly close to the shooting aperture, showing you the real depth of field. Take note that when you press this button, the image in the viewfinder will temporarily darken. If too much is in focus, simply open the aperture, put on a longer lens, or move closer. Or do all three.

  Posted in Photography Techniques

  April 10th, 2008 / No Comments

• Taking Group Shots

  Indoor shots
  Whenever you have cameras with you, there’s bound to be a lot of  people who will be posing for you. One of the best places that you could have a group picture is outside. However, if you really need to take pictures indoors, you should be able to compensate for the lack of lighting. Whenever you’re using an external flash along with your camera, be sure to keep the group within the maximum flash distance range. This is so that all of the individuals in the group will be properly exposed. If you need to add some more lighting you could probably turn on the lights in the room to introduce more light into the room. Another thing to remember is whenever you’re positioning the people, don’t go more than two rows as the light might not be able to shine on the row furthest from the camera.
  
  For outdoor shots, you could simply just position the people if their sun is lighting their faces. It’s also important that the group gets different poses so that it won’t look like a boring, typical class picture. Be sure to have some people looking to the side, some standing while other holding onto someone else. The important thing is that variety must be present in the picture. To add to the variety, you could probably add two or three different small arrangements in the bigger group. You could probably highlight a trio of characters and also see if you can arrange maybe another four in the group. Also you should try to pose behind a plain background so that it won’t distract those who will be viewing the picture afterwards. However, having your group centered around a singular device such as a swing or a car will be beneficial for your group.
  Just remember that you need to make you indoor shots well-lit enough so that when you’re going to take them, they will have enough detail and not have too much shadows while they are developed. These pesky shadows will ruin your day by the time that you’re reviewing your pictures. For outdoor shots, on the other hand, the rule of thumb is to keep it very dynamic.

  Posted in Photography Techniques

  October 3rd, 2007 / No Comments

• Deeper Colors In Your Pictures

  Everybody would like to get richer and deeper colors in their photographs. It is one of the trademarks of a good photographer to be able to get vivid colors in their photographs. So here are some techniques for you to apply so the next time you take a color photograph, you’ll be able to get more out of the colors that are available to you.

  Use a narrow tonal range
  You might have a bit of a problem when you try to photograph things which have a wide tonal range. This means you trying to photograph the sunlight that is reflected in the water of a peaceful lake and the shadows that are in the trees. You will probably end up losing all of the intricate detail and then you’ll get overexposed whites and totally underexposed blacks. To solve this problem, you should simply opt for subjects which have mid-tones and have little difference between the brightest and darkest highlights. One example regarding this rule is to photograph flowers and trees on overcast or drizzly days. The human eye might be able to handle a dynamic range of about 2,000:1 or 11 camera ‘stops’ but some digital cameras are only able to hand just 3 stops. Because of this, you should try to capture mid-tones that will make your subject perfectly exposed.

  Take different angles
  The difference in angles will more than likely make up for your bad lighting plus, the more you work the subject, the more you’ll be able to hit an angle that will probably expose very favorably than when you first envisioned it. So make sure that you take pictures of the subject from all angles and give a subject ten shots and then edit the nine bad shots out. You might want to use several viewpoints and different distances. Try shooting from a low and high position so you’ll eventually end up getting a wonderful picture. It is often said that the only difference between a professional photographer and an amateur photographer is the amount of shots taken. Professionals take way much more photos than amateurs. National Geographic magazine uses only 1 out of 1,000 shots taken.

  The art of bracketing
  Bracketing is simply exposing a picture for more highlights. If you are not that sure about the correct exposure of a photograph, you might want to try to bracket your shots. You can essentially do that by taking a normal shot without any stops, then take a shot which is slightly darker (-1 stop) and a final one which is slightly lighter (+1 stop). This feature is found mostly in SLR (single lens reflex) cameras and in the end you will have the shot that most likely applies as the correct exposure.

  Try out these suggestions to get the rich and vivid colors that your photos deserve. You will eventually find your way around exposures, bracketing, angles, natural and ambient light. Eventually, you’ll be able to get all elements correct, leaving you with a photograph that has rich and vivid details.

  Posted in Photography Techniques

  July 25th, 2007 / No Comments

• Shoot People From Different Angles

  Photography is one of the many things that you can call “diverse”. From the framing alone to composition of certain people, you are able to keep yourself busy for quite a long time. Some people might dabble in still life photography and others might simply be content with shooting landscapes and sceneries. But for the photographer who likes a challenge, nothing could be more challenging that photographing people.
  For the ignorant photographer, the perfect shot would be the subject or the group of people in the middle of the frame while showing a lot of headroom and space around the group. You can basically characterize it as a tourist photo, if you can call it that. But there is certainly more to shooting photos of people other than centering them in the middle of photographs. You might actually benefit from photographing people from different angles and that is what we’re here to discuss.

  Because people come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, they would definitely benefit from having their photographs taken in all sorts of angles and perspectives as well. Some people are just too tall or maybe a bit on the heavy side so they will all need a different angle if their figure and features are to be emphasized. People shouldn’t be photographed by stock sizes and angles. You should try to experiment and see what works for your subjects. Try to get down as low or as high as you can and see if you are able to photograph your subject in a very interesting way. Try to see if you can climb above your normal point of view and see if you are able to take interesting angles of them. You would be surprised to see the difference that changing your position will do.

  The good thing about changing your viewpoint is your subjects will then be able to express themselves in a different way as opposed to a normal frontal smile. Sometimes, a change of orientation can bring so much change and life to an otherwise normal-looking subject. It all depends on how you are able to shift and tilt your angles before you click the shutter. Just remember to change the orientation of your subject or maybe simply go lower or maybe even higher. In going down low, you might want to crouch down and shoot using a wide-angle lens so that you’ll be able to get a unique perspective of the subject in the surrounding background. It would benefit you as a photographer to not just have normal-looking shots. Not only will you be trained to look at things in a different way but it will also challenge and enhance the way you compose things. One of the most important things that a photographer must have is creativity and ingenuity. Nothing can hamper a photographer more than having his shots so ordinary that anyone can practically shoot the same shot. Changing angles will definitely help you become a creative and savvy photographer. Try it for now and you might just start to love it in the long run.

  Posted in Photography Techniques

  June 6th, 2007 / No Comments