Photoscout

• Fixing the Top 4 Digital Photo Mistakes

  All of us, especially the beginners, have committed some mistakes in taking digital photos. Even professional photographers make some mistakes from time to time. This article identifies the top 4 photo mistakes - namely, poor lighting, poor composition, red-eye, and blurry photos - and suggests some ways to fix them.

  Mistake # 1: Poor lighting

  Digital photography is about having a great lighting to capture that magic moment. Sometimes, however, we don’t get the light we want and proceed to take pictures. This often results in poor images. We can fix this mistake. In a bright light condition, try your camera’s Sunshine or Beach mode. You can also set a faster shutter speed in order to control the amount of light. In a dim light condition, use the night shooting mode. You can also lower your camera’s ISO to 50 or 100 for richer detail.

  For indoor shooting, allow natural light to come in and avoid using the flash. In addition to muting color, your flash can cast unflattering stark and deep shadows. When shooting outdoors, follow the basic “against the light” rule. The sun should be behind you when you take pictures. It’s also ideal to shoot at dawn or dusk as it provides lovely light.

  Mistake # 2: Poor composition

  A minor shift in emphasis can ruin a photo. There are many ways to improve your composition. One of the time-honored techniques that you can follow is the “Rule of Thirds”. Another way to achieve a great composition is to shoot photos at different distances and angles, giving you an idea which perspective will give better results.

  Another basic rule in photography is to eliminate those distracting background clutters. You can do this by getting closer to the subject or using the Portrait pre-set mode of your camera.

  Mistake # 3: Red-eye

  Glowing red eyes can spoil the otherwise cute photo of your child or pet. Red-eye happens when our eyes’ retinas reflect light. You can avoid this mistake by not using your camera’s flash. Instead, open the curtains or turn the lights on for additional light. You can also take advantage of your camera’s red-eye reduction setting.

  Mistake # 4: Blurry photos

  Another common mistake is a blurry photo. While a blur can add drama to the phoro, it can also make the subject incomprehensible. In order to add clarity to your photos, you must reduce the shutter lag (the delay between pressing the shutter and when the camera actually records the photo), minimize camera shake, and use the Action shooting mode.

  Posted in Tips & Techniques

  November 19th, 2008 / No Comments

• Simplicity In Your Photographs

  One of the first things that you have to remember whenever you’re composing your photograph is that you should make it as simple as possible. Try to find different ways in giving the center of interest in your picture the most visual attention. One of the ways to do this is to select uncomplicated backgrounds which will not take away attention from your subjects.

  If, let’s say, you’re taking a picture of a scene with a public payphone but along with the background, you have a cactus and a bridge that’s in the frame. How do you know now what subject to focus on? If you’re taking a picture of the whole scenery with a wide angle view, you’re going to lose the attention of the viewer because you’re essentially leading them to so many potential subjects.

  The best thing to do in this type of situation is to frame the subject close enough so that you’ll be able to have the viewer focus on one subject. One of the best subjects that you could probably focus on would be the cactus since you’d be framing it against the sky which would be devoid of any particular distraction. The output is that you have a simplified and improved appearance in your photograph.

  One other scenario is if you’re taking a picture of a bird perched on top of a lamp post. What you could avoid is taking a closely cropped picture of a bird that is against some tree leaves. If you do that, you might have a busy background that will eventually bother the viewer the longer he or she stares at the bird. You could employ the same technique by simply adjusting your point of view by getting the bird in front of a blue sky instead of the busy background given by the trees.

  One of the things that you need to remember when composing your photograph is when someone looks at a picture that you’ve taken, they should immediately know the reason why you took that picture. It should be clearly seen. Arrange the other parts of the picture in such a way that they will complement your center of interest. You should know how much of your subject you should include and whether it should be framed horizontally or vertically. You are faced with so many decisions when it comes to composition so it would be a very challenging decision to keep it simple.

  Posted in Tips & Techniques

  December 6th, 2007 / No Comments

• Betterphoto.com

  Nowadays, you will discover that there are thousands upon thousands of online resources that you will be able to look at if you’re looking for photography material. If you’re looking for quality material online, you need not look any further. Betterphoto.com boasts of their excellent online photography courses as well as the different avenues that they provide so that you will be able to learn and apply what you learn in photography.

  BetterPhoto.com is the leader in online photography education. It has so many user-friendly resources for photographers of all walks. If you are a photographer and you are looking to share your photos and get critiques from people who are willing to help you, as well as improve your skills, you will be able to learn a lot through this very helpful website.

  The aim of BetterPhoto.com is to help different photographers be more creative in their photography. It also has the objective of improving the photographic skills of photographers while they are having fun doing it. For photography-enthusiasts, it is all about helping them realize their potential with regard to creativity. The site is also a means for different people to make new friends and share their photos to other people of the community.

  The founder and president of BetterPhoto.com, Jim Miotke, was compelled to explore Web publishing during the late 90s. When a friend was able to open her experiences in creating an online college thesis, he knew that he could build upon that idea so he was able to apply his passion for web development and he eventually started out with BetterPhoto.com.

  The passion for creating the site stemmed from a particular passion that Jim already had before web development. He listened to the advice that was given to him one fateful day: “Write about what you love.” Because he was already into photography, Jim published a particular article which began what would later become the current site of BetterPhoto.com.

  The site is built upon innovation, creativity as well as exceptional support. The staff of BetterPhoto.com know what they can accomplish together and so they continually to strive to provide the service that they can give to the wide range of audiences that they have. The site is more of a community website instead of a having it owned by those who are regular contributors of the site. This photography site stresses the importance of an excellent photography but also a solid community.

  Posted in Tips & Techniques

  November 29th, 2007 / No Comments

• Shooting The Moon

  People don’t have nearly enough opportunities to shoot the moon on a clear night. However, if the moon does show up where you are, then count it as a blessing and quickly prepare your camera gear so you’ll be able to shoot it as soon as possible. If you have the moon in the right location and try to shoot it, you would be surprised to know that it also moves at a fast rate. It crosses the sky much faster than you would think and it typically travels its own diameter in distance across the sky in two minutes. That’s a pretty large space to cover if you’re a photographer.

  Another thing to remember is that that will give you just about enough camera shake to blur the moon if you’re ever thinking about capturing it using a slower shutter speed or using the handheld method. One of the things that you have to remember is to make the right lens choice.

  If you use a standard 50mm lens on a 35mm film, the moon can appear quite small in the image. You will probably need more than that in order to capture the moon in all its glory. You would probably need 110mm of focal length per 1mm of moon on the negative. This will probably bring the moon in much closer to a better photographing distance and make it much larger in the final photograph. You should remember that since you’re using a telephoto to capture the moon, that will be exaggerated as the moon is moving at a very fast speed.

  When you’re exposing the moon, remember that it is a lot brighter than one thinks. On a sunny day here on earth, the average exposure that a photographer would set his camera settings on would be on ISO 100 and 1/125 at f/16. The moon receives just about the same amount of sunlight therefore your exposure of the moon should be roughly around the same exposure for daylight. Shooting using those particular settings will give you a good, properly-exposed view of the moon.

  Another thing that you have to note is the haze that is present your surrounding environment. That is why it is harder to get a clear picture of the moon when you’re shooting on ground level in a city as opposed to getting a shot of the moon when you’re on the Grand Canyon. The haze has so much to do with the quality of the shot.

  So set your sights, mark your calendars, get up a high building or go to the mountains and start shooting your moon picture.

  Posted in Tips & Techniques

  November 23rd, 2007 / No Comments

• Shooting Stock Photos

  Whenever someone hears the idea of shooting stock photography, their minds flitter away to thoughts of expensive camera gear which would cost an arm, a leg and maybe even more. However, shooting stock photography isn’t as hard as it may seem—and it definitely isn’t as expensive. Here are some tips on how to shoot beautiful and profitable stock photos that you can sell in the future.

  One of the things that you could do if you’re shooting stock photography is to simply get out there and shoot. You will most probably get one or two shots from time to time but unless you experience shooting for yourself, then you will never be able to get in the necessary portfolio that could be potentially sold in the future to websites that market stock photographs.

  Shoot the common themes
  Some of the most common themes that sell are those of nature. Some of them are about people which essentially have particular poses. You should remember that when you’re talking about stock photographs, these are the type of photographs that will most probably be seen in magazines. These are pictures which clearly depict something such as “dancing couple” or “sunset”. Stock photographs are easily classified because of their obvious portrayal of the given subject.

  Be patient
  One of the things that you need to learn whenever you’re photographing stock photographs is patience. Whether you’re setting up some off-camera flash for some additional lighting or you’re walking around a nature trek, trying to look for insects to be able to capture, then you’re always going to be tested with your patience. Stay with the photo opportunity and keep your eyes alert at all times. You might just miss a moment simply because you were too busy being irritated at one particular time.

  Think small
  If you’ve already decided that you’re going the nature stock photography route, then you should start small. By that, we mean that you should keep an eye out for insects and other bugs which may be crawling around. This will open up a whole new world for you as you take shots of the small things in life.

  So there you have it: some of the best advice when it comes to shooting stock photography. Try to understand them and come up with your own ways on how to be able to apply them when you’re on the road or simply on your backyard.

  Posted in Tips & Techniques

  November 14th, 2007 / No Comments

• Purchasing Proper Gear

  Every photographer will eventually want to go beyond the normal kit lens that was included in his or her SLR unit before. And when that day comes, it is good to know that you are able to find articles like this to help you in finding what lens you should get.
  There is a continuing debate that if a person should get an extra piece of glass, he or she must opt to get a prime lens. These types of lenses have a fixed focal length which means that they will have to be stuck to that particular length for the remainder of the event. The advantage of having a prime lens as your lens of choice is that it will always give you that important professional photographer look with its depth of field.

  For those who have varying situations as well those who want different focal lengths while adjusting their cam, it is recommended that you go for zoom lenses instead. The advantage of zoom lenses could be that you basically have the best of both worlds. The increased popularity of the zoom lenses nowadays are making it a big hit as opposed to those primes which have not yet been able to turn convince others.

  There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages for both the prime and zoom lens. For the prime lenses, obviously the disadvantage is not being able to zoom in or zoom out just like that. If you’re using a prime lens, you might have to invade the privacy of the next subject. You will get that wonderful bokeh or background blur but I don’t think it will be as useful and versatile as that of a zoom lens. It’s as if having your cake and eating it too. Sadly the setup does not exist that much because you care about the weight and the price of the lens.

  There are a lot of things to carefully consider when you’re buying a lens but it will be much easier if you’re already decided on what type of photographs are you gunning for and in what type of event will you be using that particular lens. If you find that in the future, you will be shooting at an indoor setting that does not allow any particular flash to be fired, then it’s primes for you. For those wackier and much more active events, you might want to have a zoom lens to capture varying degrees of emotion and movement.

  Posted in Tips & Techniques

  October 24th, 2007 / No Comments

• Improving Your Composition

  In today’s hi-tech world, you have a slew of options to choose from. From various auto-focus cameras to the next-generation waterproof ones, the photographer today has virtually limitless potential to take that perfect picture. However, because of the advantages that are available to each person technologically, the equalizer for any person who’s taking pictures is the composition. This is the factor that makes a big difference between an excellent picture and a mediocre one.
  In all of the pictures that we take, we can always choose the boundaries of those photos. We essentially decide to frame every picture a certain way and sometimes that element of framing is everything that matters, all else being equal. We also choose the perspective and the viewpoint of our photographs and whenever we are taking pictures of people or movable objects, we essentially have the freedom to arrange them as we please.
  If you are photographing landscapes, you would want to be the one to move to be able to adjust your point of view and also frame the subjects of interest properly inside the wide-angled landscape shot.
  One of the more important things to look out for is the viewpoint that you’re working with. Being able to select your viewpoint from the position that you are primarily in is very important in the composition of your subject. Most of the time, it is one of the most unappreciated and underused elements in photography. It is important that you always look to change the mediocre and typical layout of your subject within the frame. One of the best techniques to follow is to simply move yourself. If you’re photographing a pair of slippers and you’re standing next to them, you might want to take a picture of  those sandals with a “worm’s eyeview” or more of a lower angle to accentuate the placement of the object.
  Any photograph will take on a totally new dynamic simply because it is an angle that is not explored as much. Try to take an extreme angle of view and shoot something with a different point of view. You can either take it at a very high angle or simply just go all the way down and lie down on the ground for that different approach. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities where you will be able to fully appreciate and experiment in the world of photography. Try changing your viewpoint and amaze yourself in the process.

  Posted in Tips & Techniques

  October 17th, 2007 / No Comments