Learn Digital Photography - Learn More About FOCUS!

The area in a photograph, from near to far, which appears to be in sharp focus is called “depth of field” (probably better called “range of focus”). The laws of light physics and optics dictate this sharply focused area extends from one-third the distance in front of the point of focus to two-thirds beyond. To maximize the area in sharp focus: simply select a focus spot one-third of the way into the scene. Doing this, the front third and the back two-thirds will be in focus to maximize the range of sharp focus. (You should your camera’s multi selector button to place your camera’s focus point on this spot to preserve your composition.) Focusing here, coupled with an aperture of f/22, will give you the widest possible range of focus throughout the image.



What and How

This image of the frequently photographed Moulton barn and Grand Tetons is actually a High Dynamic Range composite of five bracketed exposures. It was shot off a stout tripod and ball head by a Nikon D700 camera through a Nikon 70-200mm lens set at 78mm. To maximize the range of sharp focus, an aperture of f/22 was selected. The D700’s full frame sensor handles light well, so I chose ISO-800 to get a shutter speed of 1/250.

Learn Digital Photography - Photoshop Levels Tutorials

One of the best uses for Photoshop is correcting what your camera did wrong, or what whoever taking the pictures did wrong. Our courses on exposure control are a good place to start on how to get better exposure from your camera. If you already have poorly exposed photographs this is the tutorial for you!




Photoshop Levels

The Levels tool in Photoshop can be brought up buy going to Image>Adjustment>Levels or by simply using the shortcut of comand+L on a mac or control+L on a PC. The Levels tool shows a histogram and three triangles that can be slid under the histogram. Read up on histograms for a better understanding of what the levels tool does.



Get the Right Exposure

To get the right exposure on an image you have to slide the left triangle to the beginning of the histogram and move the right triangle to the end of the histogram. Often these are the only corrections that need to be made to get you a good exposure. The middle triangle can give you that final touch you need for a great looking image that will stick out on a page.

Want To Set The Sharpness Of Image To A New Level ? Read The Article

If the light isn’t perfect, if you are shooting action – everything that might go wrong will go wrong if you aren’t prepared. Aim of this series is to give you understanding of the digital camera and how it interacts with photographer to produce images you like so much. In this article I will cover common photographer mistakes that result in blurry images, or lack of sharpness in photos. This is the basics of photography that will help you deal with tricky situations such as low light and action photography.




Have you properly sharpened photos?

Using proper post-processing technique can greatly improve quality of your images. Since many digital SLRs on the market incorporate mild in-camera sharpening, you might find this tip very useful.

Left: Original image, Right: Sharpened using USM

Try to sharpen your photos with Photoshop. I use USM (un-sharp mask filter) with following settings: 300%/0.3/0 (Read more about my basic work flow here: Processing jpeg). If you don’t have Photoshop you can use software that came with your camera, almost all photo editing programs have sharpening feature.



Soft focus or motion blur?

It’s important to understand distinction between soft-focus and motion blur. While soft focus could be result of defective equipment, motion blur is strictly a user error. It can be a result of: camera shake during exposure.



There is a simple rule that will help you deal with motion blur. It goes like this; you have to keep your exposure setting higher than: (focal length of a lens) multiplied by (Size of sensor).

For example: If you are shooting with telephoto lens, let’s say at the long end 200mm, and you use crop 1.6 camera – then, to avoid handshake, you have to shoot at the exposure equal to 1/320 or faster (200mm multiplied by 1.6 = 320).



This is a handy rule, and personally I use it all the time. So make sure you remember it, in tricky situations it will save you a photo or two.




Are you shooting in the dark?


If you are low light shooter, get a tripod!



As I already mentioned in the previous section, slow exposure can be a serious problem if you want clean and sharp images. So, if you shoot predominantly in low light (clubs, events, inside house, sunsets) try to get a tripod. Tripod will minimize handshake, and will let you shoot even the darkest scenes. If you use tripod, long exposure isn’t a problem anymore, you can shoot few minute exposure and expect crisp images.



Is subject moving?


Tell him/her to stay still!

Fast moving subjects need higher shutter speed to capture images without motion blur. This is closely related to the previous sections of the article. If you are photographing kids that run around, or a moving car, anything that isn’t still, you need fast shutter speed (or quick exposure) to freeze action. Try to use higher ISO even in daylight to boost shutter speed.



What are you shooting?

Is your subject low in contrasts? Is it all one color? Camera AF system has problems grabbing focus in high contrast scenes. It also has problems when most of the frame is one color. For example if you are photographing white wall, focus will most surely get confused – in this situation try to find spot that stands out; in case of a wall, it could be a nail or something of diverse texture and color.



Do you know what is DOF?

DOF stands for depth of field. Increasing depth of field improves image sharpness, sometimes considerably. This is more pronounced when using cheap lenses. For example canon kit lens 18-55 IS that comes with entry level SLRs produce fantastic results when stopped down. Stopping down means increasing DOF. You can control this in your camera through aperture setting. Read more about this here: Depth of field explained.



Center focus point vs. Automatic focus point selection

There is reason why professionals prefer to use Manual mode of the camera. Modern digital camera is an advanced piece of technology, but it isn’t as smart as a human photographer – there are situations when camera can be fooled, focus point selection is #1 on that list. Camera doesn’t know exactly where you want to focus, so it’s better to give exact instructions. Besides giving exact instruction, I only use center focus point; it’s the most sensitive area of my Canon EOS 50D AF system.



Conclusion

Image sharpness is a critical element of photography. Camera manufacturers know this, and they provide excellent tools for us. So if there are problems with image quality, inconsistency of AF, etc. you can be sure that it’s due to photographer mistake. My advice is to stop blaming equipment and instead practice more!

Learn Digital Photography - Meet A Professional

On becoming a Pro. How to become a professional photographer or start a Career in photography? First and foremost.

1.Do your homework

2.Study your subject matter

3.Do not go into any situation shooting blind- Know your subject -Build Relationships

The more you know ahead of time, the less time you will waste trying to come up with relevant, intelligent art. Let’s take the simplest of situations shooting a sunset.

Be helpful to other photographers, especially other pros. A career as a Free-lance photographer is a very difficult way to make a living so help out. Share info and equipment if you can. Be tolerant and friendly to amateur photographers who ask your help. They show their love and respect for something you believe in.

Rules of Professional Photography

You must never be a part of the situation you are shooting be it a wedding or a news event or a family gathering. You must learn to be an unattached observer or you alter the purity and honest of the events before you. You must not photograph people when you are in a private place unless you have their permission. That is invasion of privacy and against the law.

If you get their permission you are well advised to tell those folks what you intend to do with the photo.

In fact, you may not sell that photograph for commercial purposes, even though you received permission to photograph the person, unless you have a “Photo Release” from that person giving you the right to use the picture for commercial use.

If you are on public property and manage to photograph something that transpires on private property you may use that photograph for you personal use, and have it published in a legitimate media – like a newspaper or Internet website – however, you may not sell, or use, that photograph for the purposes of making money off of it.

Being a photographer carries with the responsibility of never altering a photograph. (You can lighten, darken, sharpen, or crop the image and be safe. To alter is to “Make or become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one’s or its former characteristics or essence – either through darkroom techniques or digital “enhancement” – you are compromising the purity and integrity of the art.) Photography has an inherent quality of honest and you must have the courage to stand by the image.

Learn Digital Photography - Histograms - A Tool That Any Good Digital Photo Editing Software Program Should Have

One tool that any good digital photo editing software program would have is a histogram and a way to manipulate the histogram. A histogram on your digital camera or displayed on your computer shows the distribution of light in a photograph, the darks to the left and the highlights to the right, while everything else is in between. The histogram is divided into 256 different values. The height of each part of the graph shows how much or how many pixels are displaying that value of light. Therefore you end up with a distribution of values within your shot. So your histogram becomes an enhanced light sensor. Many light sensors will just give you an average of the histogram, for example, if there was a high number of pixels displaying hard shadows such as a dark value of 5 and highlights of value 245 a camera’s light sensor would tell you that the light is somewhere around a value of 120. Not only these two extremes would get you a value of 120 but many other setting could get you that average and have a camera in automatic that is using that light sensor give you the wrong settings. The histogram allows you to see exactly what light your camera is seeing and then it is your responsibility to ensure that you are setting the exposure in order to get the right lighting. The “right lighting” is typically a good distribution across the spectrum, if you have all your histogram crammed into the left corner you will have a photo that is too dark, if the histogram is crammed to the right you will have an over exposed image.

The histogram tool in photo editing software will allow you to tweak the histogram or better to tweak the exposure of your image and see what those changes do to your histogram.

Learn Digital Photography - Light - The Key To Good Photography

I am sure you have heard that the golden hours of photography are early in the morning or right at dusk, but sometimes ideal lighting conditions are hard to come by. What is a good photographer to do? Keep your eyes peeled and look for the light. I was shooting a wedding recently at the most beautiful location, there were waterfalls, gazebos, little bridges, beautiful fountains, it was lovely. However, at the time of day we were shooting there were tons of oddly shaped shadows from the sun filtering through the trees at all of these photo ops. I tried to put my bride and groom in different areas to block out the shadows, and was mildly successful, when I happened to look up and see the most delicious light filtering in over a back fence into the garbage area of the venue. Despite their protests and the looks of shock from the grandmas in the group, I dragged them over, posed them up and started shooting. There were overflowing garbage cans, no trespassing signs and an ugly shed behind us but I got the light I wanted to create some dramatic effect.

Sun Flair Light Effect

The key to getting a cool sun flare is knowing your camera. I know that in order to properly expose my subject when they are back lit I need to shoot a few stops down from whatever my camera is telling me. Once I have the shot lined up and the subject focused, I re-frame enough to let the sunlight spill into the lens, just a touch, right at the tippy top.

Resourceful Photography

Frequently there are big reflectors in the environment that can help brighten your subjects; you just have to open up your eyes to them. I recently shot a wedding and the mother of the bride wanted a group picture of about 45 people on the steps of a massive building. By the time I got everyone set up, I was expecting to find that the people in the back would be extremely dark, but was pleasantly surprised to see that they were actually fairly bright. Looking around to see what was causing it I noticed that the noonday sun was bouncing off a nearby metal roof top and right on to my enormous group, saving me the trouble of trying to figure out my flash.

So, the key is, when you don’t have the greatest light, keep your eyes peeled and look for it.

Learn Digital Photography - See The Bestseller Digital Cameras

The debate can go on and on about which Digital SLR Camera is best, but Canon is king when it comes to the best Selling Digital SLR Cameras and choosing the camera that fits you best is the most essential step when you are going to learn digital photography.

Digital SLR Rundown

The Canon Digital Rebel XSI 12.2 MP Digital SLR Camera is Canon’s best selling Digital SLR Camera on Amazon followed by the Canon EOS Rebel T1i 15.1 MP Digital SLR. Nikon’s best selling Digital SLR camera is next, the D90, followed by yet another Canon Digital SLR, the Canon Rebel XS. Nikon’s Professional Level DSLR cameras-the D3000 and D5000 are separated by the Canon’s 18 Mega Pixel camera and then Nikon’s beginner D40 Digital SLR finishes up the list at #8.

What to look for In your DSLR Camera

You are almost sure to find a Digtal SLR within your Price Range these days with more than you could have ever imagined 5 years ago. Digital SLRs come with over 10 Mega Pixels standard, allowing you to create fine prints of at least 8X10. The Newest Digital SLRs should have self cleaning sensors and a wide variety of lenses. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Canon and Nikon always have the best selling Cameras- they always have the widest selection of the best lenses.