7 Creative Ways to Use A Ring Flash
Ring flashes (or ring lights) provide some awesome light. They are very common with the fashion industry where they are used to create a glamorous look. However if you want to use one the lights they use on high-end fashion shots, be prepared to say good bye to a couple of Big Ones. The oddly shaped – around the lens – modifier, combined with lots of lighting power does not come cheap.
Luckily new, easy on the pocket, rings lights like the Orbis ($200) and the DIY Ring Flash ($25) provide access to this wonderful tool to the budget minded photographer as long as they own a small hot shoe strobe.
With the wider availability of ring flashes, I thought it would be nice to explore seven ways (both orthodox and unconventional) to use ring flashes.
Use It For Subtle Fill
The most common use for a small ring flash is to use it to create a subtle fill light. Since the light is coming from 100% on-axis, it has very little effect on the scene other than to provide additional light.
Photographer Benjamin Von Wong explains how you create such a photograph:
Use It For Framing
Though it is not trivial, it makes sense to use the ring of light coming from the strobe as a framing element – it provides a perfect white circle of light:
The interesting thing, is that using an ultra wide lens (like 8mm wide) you can also use the edges of the ring as framing element while placing the lens behind it. This is demonstrated by photographer Fallon Chan
Use It To Expose Details On a Hard Light Shot
David Hobby A.K.A Strobist came up with one of the coolest and interesting ways to use a ring flash. Using several strobes as hard lights he creates a contrasty scene. Then he uses a ring flash as fill to add details to the final photograph. you can learn more about this technique here and here.
Use If For Interesting Catch lights
One of the most visible signatures of ring lights is the unique shaped catch lights they produce.
Since the light is coming from a bagel shaped source, they catch light it produces is bagelled as well. This is wonderfully illustrated in John Winters photograph.
If you are going towards this look, one thing that you need to take care of is the distance between the ring flash and your subject. The closer the ring light, the more prominent the catch light effect will be.
Of course, if you are into catch lights, you may want to try having your subject ware sunglasses. While I am not sure that this would qualify as ring light per se, the effect is well worth trying. And if you want to take this into extremes you can always add some star patterns into the ring light.
Use It As Key
Of course it is always an option to use a ring flash as strong key light or even a single light. This is where you can see the “signature” lighting pattern of the ring light at its best. Note the halo of shadow originating around the model as the light hits her exactly from the lens center.
Use It For Macro
If you opt to photograph the small things, a ring flash is your perfect companion. Its even illumination is great for macro shots where you need very soft light.
Use it As Softbox
Lastly, you can forget the fact that this is a ring flash at all and simply use it off camera and off axis as a small softbox.
This is exactly what Tomer Jacobson did for Nadia, his model. Using a Lastolite Triflector Speed-Lite as soft glamorous light with a ring flash coming from top left and actually acting as a softbox to add a bit of directional light.
Your Turn
Are you using ring flash at all? Got any favorite ring flash image? How will you use (or have you used) a ring flash to take great photographs?
About The Author
Udi Tirosh runs DIYPhotography, and makes great photography products.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
7 Creative Ways to Use A Ring Flash
How to Take Gorgeous Photos of Your Kids: New dPS eBook
Today on dPS I’m excited to announce an eBook that is for parents, grandparents or anyone else with kids in their lives – an eBook that is all about helping you to take Gorgeous Photos of Kids. It’s called ‘Click!‘ and you can read all about it here.
My Motivation for Publishing this eBook
It’s an eBook that I have always wanted to publish, and I wanted to share with you personal story that I think explains why…
Recently I was invited to a kids party of a family friend. As usual I took along my digital camera to capture the event. I didn’t take a lot of shots that day but did take a few candid shots of the 3 year old birthday girl enjoying her big day – which I later emailed to the family.
I didn’t think much of it at the time – the shots were not my finest work.
However a couple of days later I received a call from the girls mother. She was obviously moved by the photos – shots that she described as the best ones they had of their daughter and images that would help them remember that day forever.
At first I thought she was being a little overly generous with her compliments but as we spoke I realised that the photos I’d taken had had a profound impact upon this mother. The reality was that not only were they the ‘best’ photos she had of her daughter – they were among only a handful of shots she’d taken in 3 years.
She had some good reasons – she was busy, she didn’t feel she had a good enough camera and her early attempts didn’t produce results that motivated further attempts.
The shots she did have were largely either the backs of her daughters head as she ran away, tantrums as a result of her daughter not wanting to pose for shots or overly staged and obviously posed shots that didn’t really capture anything of her daughter.
As a result – she was feeling guilty about the lack of shots she’d taken and feared not having anything to look back on when her daughter was grown up.
“I could never take photos like yours of my kids!” was a statement that has really stuck with me since that day.
I’ve heard that comment so many times from friends and family members but the reality is that you don’t need years of training or expensive gear to take beautiful photos of children.
I was moved by the story – photographing my kids is such a big part of my life. While I relate to the challenges my friend faced I also know the joy taking photos can bring.
And that’s why I always wanted to publish a guide to kids photography.
Gorgeous Kids Photos Are Not Out of Your Reach
Great photos of kids don’t just happen – but they’re not out of reach your reach.
So when Commercial children’s photographer – Rachel Devine – offered to write an eBook guide to Kids Photography with dPS I jumped at the chance.
Rachel is all about photographing kids in a way that captures their emotion, personality and story.
She teaches how to not only take photos of your kids – but how to take photos that you’ll treasure forever because they communicate something that transports you back to that moment in time through the stories they tell.
The resulting eBook – Click is a resource that puts gorgeous images of your kids well within your reach.
Inside: Beautifully Illustrated and Practical Advice
7 Reasons ‘Click’ is the Kids Photography eBook for You
- because it is about taking images that reflect the personality of children
- because it is comprehensive – Click covers every stage of photographing kids – from preparation, to shooting through to post production
- because it is not about the gear it is about working with what you have and improving your technique
- because it is practical – you’ll not just learn theory, you’ll be encouraged to put it into action with practical questions to consider and projects to try
- because it has variety – featuring case studies and interviews with a 5 other photographers – you’ll be exposed to a number of approaches to kids photography
- because it is inspiring – this eBook is full of stories and images that will motivate you to explore the possibilities
- because it isn’t just about how to ‘make’ kids ‘pose’ and stay still – its about creating images with meaning that tell your kids story
Who is Click for?
If you have kids in your life – this is an eBook you’ll want whether you be a parent, grand parent, uncle, aunt, friend or child care giver.
Written with all levels of photographers in mind – Click is for anyone who points a camera of any kind at the children around them.
What Does it Cover?
Click is a 100 page resource that is broken down into 7 chapters:
- Think – a challenge to rethink how you approach photographing kids
- Prepare – some of the practical things to consider before you start shooting including gear, settings, exposure, styling, light, composition, color and more
- Smile – tips and tricks on working with kids
- Refine – post-production, editing, printing and sharing your images
- Research – seeking new inspiration and styles (includes project ideas to try)
- Push – 7 photo setups you can try to help you push your own boundaries
- Look – case studies, interviews and photos with 5 amazing kids photographers
Download Your Copy Today – 30% Off
I’m very excited about this eBook and know it will help many in capturing the important moments memories that all families have.
To celebrate the launch of this exciting new eBook we’re releasing it for a limited time with a 30% discount. Normally $29.99 USD today you can download your PDF copy for just $19.99 – just hit the ‘download it now’ button below or check out the eBook information page here.
As with all our eBooks – Click comes with a 60 day money back guarantee. If you don’t find it helpful for your situation, just let us know and we’ll refund the purchase price.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
How to Take Gorgeous Photos of Your Kids: New dPS eBook
5 Ideas to Kick Start Your Photography Again
Image by Eric May
Last week I was speaking with an amateur photographer who told me that he’s been struggling for photographic inspiration and ideas lately.
He reflected that he felt like he’d become something of a lazy photographer and was in a bit of a rut – always photographing the same things in the same ways.
I shared a number of ideas from my own experiences of seeking photographic inspiration (some of which I’ll share below) but it struck me halfway through the conversation that a lot of the ideas I was suggesting was actually about him limiting himself in his photography in some way – in order to find inspiration.
Let me explain by looking at 5 photography ideas that I shared with him.
Note: by no means am I suggesting that these are the only ways to get inspired – they’ve just helped me at times.
5 Ideas to Kick Start Your Photography Again
1. Fixed Focal Length Shoots
I wrote about this recently in a challenge here on dPS. The idea is to choose a focal length and only shoot at it for a period of time.
While many of us have become used to (or reliant upon) shooting with a zoom lens – there’s something about shooting with a prime lens (fixed focal length) that makes you think about the composition of your shots a little more.
So choose a focal length that you don’t shoot at much and stick with it for a week and see how you go (and if you don’t have a prime lens to do this with – use your zoom but simply stick at one end of its range for a week).
Variation: another option for this is to choose a lens that you may not have used much before. Many photographers buy multiple lenses but then stick with one, ignoring others. Alternatively swap lenses with a friend for a week or even try renting one for a short period.
2. The 1 Roll Rule
Image by Paul G
I was out shooting with a photography enthusiast friend recently and was amazed at the number of shots he took. At one point we were photographing his son (who was quietly playing with lego) and my friend shot off a burst of 20 or so shots at 4 frames per second.
Considering his son was sitting still and only really moving his fingers for those few seconds I did wonder at the need to shoot so many shots.
Of course I also know the temptation – shooting heaps of shots is easy to do. It doesn’t really cost you anything (although fills up hard drives pretty quick) and some might think it increases your chance of capturing the perfect moment.
The problem is that when you rely upon the quantity of your shots to improve the quality of your images that you can easily become lazy and complacent.
Here’s my challenge – next time you go out on a shoot – limit yourself to 36 shots (the number in a roll of film). In doing so you’ll find yourself really thinking about your shots. You’ll time them better and make sure each shot counts!
3. Turn Off the Live Preview/Review
Image by Alan Antiporda
Speaking of old school film photography – do you remember that feeling when you got to the end of shooting a roll of film and wondering how your shots would turn out?
You’d put the film in for processing and wait a week or so for them to be ready and then go to the photo lab with anticipation… rip open the package and go through them one by one – reliving the moments you captured a week or so ago?
I love that digital photography gives us instant access to the images we take – but sometimes I wonder if by having that little screen on the back of our cameras we might be missing something from the experience of photography?
There are certainly advantages of being able to quickly review our shots or compose them on a larger screen – but similarly to my point above on shooting lots of shots I wonder if the instant review could be making us a little lazy? We’ll just keep taking shots till we’re happy.
I personally also find myself looking at my camera a whole lot more than I am looking at the scene in front of me and wonder if some of the joy of the moment could be lost.
So try this – turn off your LCD screen. Some cameras let you do this in your settings while others might take a little self discipline to do this – but I’d be interested to see what impact it has.
4. Manual Focus
Image by Shazeen Samad
Shooting recently with the Leica M9-P (a fully manually focused camera) reminded me how little I shoot with manual focus these days.
I admit it – I’ve become lazy and have relied too much upon Auto Focus.
Shooting with the M9-P also reminded me how focusing manually can open up all kinds of possibilities. Just thinking about your focus rather than relying upon those 21 auto focal points your camera has (or how every many there are) puts you in a different frame of mind.
I find shooting in manual focusing mode makes me slow down a little, consider my shots and get a little more creative.
So switch to Manual Focusing and see what impact it has on your photography! I’d love to hear how it goes for you in comments below.
5. Limit Yourself to an Aperture
Image by Travis Lawton
I was flicking through some of my shots recently in Lightroom and as the images opened in front of me I noticed something that I’d not considered much before. Almost every shot I’d taken over a month or so had been taken at the maximum aperture of the lenses I was using.
I was shooting wide open almost all of the time.
There were a number of reasons for this – partly I shoot a fair bit indoors where the extra aperture lets more light in – but I guess it is also part of my style. I love narrow depth of field shots – bokeh is my friend.
However I wondered whether by shooting wide open so much I perhaps was ignoring other possibilities. Perhaps some of my portrait work would have been better if I shot with a smaller aperture and included more in focused backgrounds to give my subjects context (environmental portraits).
For the next week I began to shoot with a smaller Aperture – it was challenging at first and I wanted to give up – but at the end of the week I realised I was again being more thoughtful with my shots and had expanded the possibilities of styles at my fingertips when shooting.
Share Your Ideas for Finding Photographic Inspiration
These are about half of the ideas I shared with my friend – I’ll write up the others in the coming week – but in the mean time I’d love to hear ideas from others too. What do you do when you find yourself in a photography rut needing inspiration?
Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
5 Ideas to Kick Start Your Photography Again
Family Portraits Do’s and Don’ts
For a photographer, skills in family portraits are are essential and are usually the bread and butter for up and coming photographers. Looking at the history of photography, one of the first popular uses the camera was not for abstract art, or photographing the family pet, but for photographing people and their families. Because of the expense and difficulty of each photo taken, they became masters at getting things right the first time and being able to fit in as many people as possible into the frame. In order to hone in on the small things that make a difference in this classic and often overlooked form of photography, I have come up with my five DO’s and five DONT’s of Family Portraits. I’ve also included a few examples from portrait sessions we have done.
Family Portraits DO’S
1) Do squish your groups together
Most likely, even though they are family they won’t be getting close enough. Maybe it’s an American personal space thing, but it’s always been an issue for me and having everyone in tight truly makes a difference in the tone of the picture. When families are physically close, it emits a warmth and visually shows what families should be like…close. Even if you are photographing the Adam’s family, when you get everyone rubbing shoulders they look like a model family and the overall composition is more finished than a typical snapshot. As a starter, try having people stand at slight angles with shoulders overlapping. Also, consider the age of your family. If Grandma is present, make sure you have a chair for her. If grandma and grandpa are both there, you’ll will need two chairs.
2) Do coordinate clothing
Before you meet with your family you should guide them in a wardrobe choice. Ultimately it is up to them and their families style to choose what they wear but simply reminding them to possibly overlap in a color scheme, avoid extreme colors, prints and logos on their clothing can make a big difference. This will give you an easier time post production, and you will have both options in color and black and white. As I said, it’s their picture and their choice, but a casual recommendation from a professional is usually appreciated.
3) Do check the screen for blinking
Shooting and shooting is OK for one or two people, but in a larger group it can be hit and miss and you may miss that one photo where everyone has their eyes open. I used to think “Hey, its digital. I’ll use the rapid fire method and surely I’ll get one right.” After a few sessions of transplanting eyes from one photo to another in Photoshop, I’ve changed my methods. You can get away with a weak smile but if someone looks like they are sleeping or on drugs in their first family portrait in 10 years, the customer may not be too happy. With experience you learn to quickly scan across everyone’s eyes in an instant.
4) Try and be funny to get some genuine smiles
A few cheesy jokes work surprisingly well to break the tension. A typical photographer joke might be saying “Ok, I need everyone to get in focus.” Or asking everyone to strike their best glamor pose. Other ways to get a smile is to get them doing something they don’t normally do. Have them try jumping, running, human pyramids or whatever comes to mind. If you have a one-liner you’ve used SUCCESSFULLY, or a creative and fun pose, sound off in the comments for the rest of us.
5.) Do try and blur the background
Choose the largest aperture setting you can, while still keeping everyone sharp. An aperture of 2.8 might make the trees and shrubbery look silky smooth, but it might make Uncle Bob at the end of the line look fuzzy. This is especially a problem when everyone is standing on different focal planes. The solution is often to shoot a few clicks smaller than the lenses widest aperture, then use the preview screen and zoom button on your camera to make sure everyone is looking good. Then adjust and continue. If you’re really serious about this, I’ve even heard of photographers setting out cups length-wise on a picnic table to estimate the distances you start to loose focus. Seems extreme to me, just don’t forget about Uncle Bob.
Family Portraits DON’TS
1.) Don’t forget to check ALL your basic camera settings before clicking away
ISO (go as low as possible), Image Size (RAW, fine), Exposure Compensation, Metering etc. It would be sad to get to the end of a great session and realize you didn’t change the low quality settings from the last time you used your camera shooting Garbage Pal Kids you planned on selling on Ebay. Of course in-door and out-door settings will differ as will naturally lit an artificially lit.
2.) Don’t let your subjects tilt their heads into each other
This is fine for your everyday Joe at the family Bar-b-que, but not a paid photographer. Subjects tend to think they will fit into the picture better if they tilt and lower their heads. Funny thing is, I’ve even caught myself doing this when I was being photographed. Watch for it and avoid it. There is always the lovey-dovey pose where they intentionally lean heads in, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
3.) Don’t sound insecure
Don’t say things like “This isn’t working.” Rephrase it into a positive, “Great, lets try a few more positions.” The more you tell them the pictures are looking great the better looking the pictures will get. Think high fashion cliche’s like, “Love it,” “Your beautiful,” “What a great one.” If you act like you have never seen such great photos the energy will give you just what your looking for and they will show confidence in their smiles.
4/5.) These last two may seem to contradict each other so I want to put them together. 4.) Don’t let Mom run the show. 5.) Don’t be afraid to let Mom, Dad, and kids come up with ideas and posing.
First about Mom. We all remember the drill, no running, no jumping, no dirt, and pretty much no fun until after the pictures. If you do this you can get a treat on the way home. This is probably the best way to ruin family picture day for the rest of every 8 year old’s life. Besides the fact that it is almost impossible to control what 8 year old’s do, it makes for bad portrait sessions. If you are sensing a strong arm from Mother, make sure to get the squeaky clean formals done right off the bat. They are easy and traditional. After that let mom know that you’ve got it covered and now you want to have fun with the kids. Let them be kids, let them wrestle and play and capture them at their best. Once in awhile you will find families that are more relaxed. They may have seen fun family photos of their friends and want do do some in a similar fashion. Take their suggestions without letting them think you have none of your own and work them in. Often they will turn out great and they’ll feel like they had a little more to do with the pictures than just a pretty face.
Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
Family Portraits Do’s and Don’ts
13 Tips for Improving Outdoor Portraits
Outdoor Portraits present portrait photographers a variety of challenges and opportunities. Today James Pickett from America the Lost suggests 13 tips to help you with your outdoor portrait work.
Image by riot jane
With my very first digital SLR there was a sigh of relief, everything was going to be so much easier now and I didn’t have to think anymore.
You know the scenario; you pull the camera out, charge the batteries, go for a walk around the house and down the street taking the same pictures you have taken every time a new camera came into your life. “This is great!” you think to yourself, “this is going to make my life so much easier!” I was wrong… In fact, I was dead wrong.
There are three very simple things that improve all photography, including portraits. To this day, there is no trick I have found that replaces the need for proper exposure, white balance, and sharp focus. Today’s digital cameras have less exposure latitude than a roll of Kodak gold film. In-camera metering systems have become much more advanced, but the sensors still lack the seven ƒ-stop exposure latitude that negative film has.
1) Never select all of the focus points for portraits, pick one.
When you pick the autofocus option that allows the camera to select focus points, you are doing your portraits a terrible disservice. This feature of a camera is usually designed to pick whatever is closest to the lens and focus there. In some cases, like with my 1DS Mark III, the camera will choose a cluster of focus points and make a “best guess” based on averaging the distance between all of the chosen points. Using one focus point gives you, the photographer, ultimate control.
2) Always focus on the eyes.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, and should be the focal point of any good portrait. Not only are the eyes the most important part of a good portrait, but they are the sharpest element on the face and should be left that way. When you are shooting with a wide aperture value focused on the eyes, the lens’s bokeh will aid in softening the skin as well.
Image by Geomangio
3) Shoot wide open for shallow depth of field.
There are quite a few reasons to invest in a fast lens capable of wide aperture values; the most common is for shallow depth of field. Now that you can shoot at ƒ2.8 or ƒ4 you should use it. Most fantastic natural light portraits are from wide aperture values and it is all because of the wonderful smooth background blur we call “bokeh”.
4) Never, ever, shoot a portrait at less than 50mm; try to stay at 70mm or higher.
The last thing you want to hear from a client is “Why does my head look swelled?” Any focal length below 70mm can distort your subject, however it doesn’t become very noticeable until you are below 50 MM. The compression effect of a telephoto lens will also increase the blur of bokeh. Most of my portraits are done between 120mm and 200mm.
5) Always shoot in RAW.
A thousand times these words have bellowed from my mouth, and it will surely come out a million more. Raw is an unmodified compilation of your sensors data during the time of exposure. It is your digital negative. When you shoot in JPG format, everything but what the image processor needs to make a shell representation of the image you intended to capture is stripped away. For every edit you make to a JPG, you lose more data. With RAW, you can make a vast range of edits before creating the JPG. How can this make you portrait better? Think about the last time your white balance was set incorrectly, and you tried for hours to remove the color cast only to destroy the image with every attempt. RAW would have saved you by allowing you to fix the color before opening the image for retouching.
6) Always bring a gray card or a piece of a gray card for white balance.
You got me, gray cards aren’t free. However, $5.95 US for a cardboard Kodak gray card is darn close. To avoid confusion, I am going to explain this backwards. When opening Adobe Camera Raw or any other RAW image editing application there is always a way to select a custom white balance. Usually it is an eyedropper of some kind that you can use to click on what you think is neutral gray in your image. Imagine a world where your photo shoot involved 4 locations and a total of 800 images, and all day the camera was set to Auto White Balance. That is 800 different white balance values, a post production nightmare. If, at each location, you have your subject hold the gray card on the first shot, you will save hours of work. When you open location one (200 images) in your favorite post production application, all you have to do is click the eye dropper on the gray card, select all and synchronize the rest. Precious hours have been saved. (If you plan on taking your time, it may be wise to do this once every 30 minutes or so to compensate for the changing light of day.)
7) Shoot in the shade (Avoid direct sunlight)
Direct sunlight is harsh, makes your subject squint, and creates hard directional shadows and unpredictable white balance conditions. When shooting in the shade, there are no more harsh shadows, only smooth milky shadows created by your subject’s natural features. With proper exposure and white balance, you can make these shots look amazing.
Shooting carefully on an overcast day.
Natures softbox is a giant blanket of clouds. A good heavy blanket of cloud cover can help you enrich your colors, and make some very smooth and pleasing shadows.
9) If you must use hot, hard, bright light…
Always try to control the direction, use some kind of reflector, and try to mimic a studio light. Putting the sun directly behind your subject isn’t a good idea, unless you are trying to make a silhouette. When the sun is at my back, I have the subject look off camera (away from the sun) and get very nice results. Another great trick is to wait for a cloud to move in front of the sun, this usually creates a very bright yet contrasted look.
Image by Meredith Farmer
10) Use an existing reflector.
For example, my guess is that about 75% of the delivery trucks on the planet are white. These big white delivery trucks can make amazing fill light reflectors as long as they weren’t painted with an off white. (A yellow tint can change the white balance in your shadows.) Picture framing outlets and craft stores always have medium to large sized pieces of foam core lying around that have been left for scrap. They are usually more than happy to part with these scraps, and if not, chances are there are pieces by the dumpster.
11) Learn the sunny ƒ16 rule.
Why? So you have a baseline for proper exposure in your mind to work with if no other tools are present. The sunny ƒ16 rule states that on a sunny day, with your aperture value set to ƒ16, your shutter speed will be the inverse of the current ISO speed. For example, if your camera is set to ISO 100, and your aperture value is ƒ16, your shutter speed will be 1/100th of a second. On a cloudy day (or when in the shade) you simply use ƒ8 instead. If you own either an incident light meter, or gray card use either for the most accurate exposure instead. (Note: the procedure for metering exposure with a gray card is not the same as a custom white balance.)
12) Bring a sheet and a few spring clamps from home.
Leave the expensive 200 thread count sheets on the bed. You already got them? Well go put them back. You know that cheap old sheet you stuck in the corner of a closet to use as a drop cloth the next time you paint? Go get it. (Another option is to buy the cheapest, lowest thread count, white top sheet you can find.) A queen size sheet is an amazing, cheap, diffuser. Sort of a sever foot soft box for the sun. Wrap an edge of the sheet around a branch or clothes line and clamp for a side light. (Anchor the bottom corners with rocks to keep it from blowing into your image.) Clamp all for corners to anything you can above your subject for an overhead light.
13) Keep the power-lines and signs out!
We have already discussed keeping your camera focused on the eyes; keep your mind focused on the image as a whole. Power lines, signs, long single blades of grass, single pieces of garbage, sometimes even trees can be serious distractions from the overall focus of the image… The person you are photographing.
Last, and most important, have a great time shooting, enjoy what you’re doing and it will show in your work, and the expression of your subject.
A few Bonus Tips on Shooting on Cloudy Days
Clouds are wonderful. They create a giant blanket of natural sunlight diffusion to make your images rich and powerful. The clouds can fool your mind in ways you can’t imagine, much like your mind corrects for the natural white balance throughout the day.
When you are shooting on an overcast day, custom white balance is especially important. Every day is completely different for color, and that color depends on two things. First, the time of day, as most people understand white balance and how it changes throughout the day. Second, you have to account for all of the wonderful things that light has to pass through before it hits your subject.
Pollution changes the color of the light from minute to minute even if your eyes don’t see it, your camera does. On a cloudy day, pollution particles are being carried around in the sky by little tiny prisms; water droplets. Now your sunlight is passing through nature’s prism and reflecting off of pollution particles in infinite directions.
Don’t forget to white balance with that custom, tricked out, six dollar piece of cardboard, your Kodak gray card.
The ultimate secret to shooting on a cloudy day is a compass. (You either tipped your head like a confused Chihuahua or just had an epiphany.) I am an experienced, internationally published photographer, and rarely can I see where the sun is coming from on an overcast day. The light isn’t omnipresent; it’s just diffused, softened and scattered. Sunlight on a cloudy day is still directional, and your subject still has a dark side. Use a compass to find out where the sun is, put it at your back and shoot like mad. Never again will you look at an image after and wonder why the sky is blown out when it was so cloudy, or why the clouds look great but your subject is dark.
Check out more work of James Pickett at his site America the Lost
Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
13 Tips for Improving Outdoor Portraits
6 Winning Ways to Work Wide
Today Joe Decker shares some tips on wide angle photography.
One of the first lens purchases aspiring landscape photographers typically made is a wide or super-wide lens, anything (in full-frame 35mm terms) from 24mm on down, and with good reason, wides offer photographers the ability to capture the sweeping vistas of the natural landscape. But they can also be a challenge to use effectively, it’s all to easy to end up with a wide-angle shot that lacks the power and grandeur we felt when we were shooting. In this article, I’ll explain why that’s so often the case, and provide a few tips for working around those challenges, showing you how to use wide-angle lenses to create dramatic, effective images.
Nordenskjöld Lake, Torres Del Paine National Park, Chile. Image Copyright Joe Decker
1. Get Close!
Because wide-angle lenses take in a bigger angle-of-view than other lenses, using a wide-angle lens at the same distance from your subject will render that subject smaller than it would otherwise. To compensate for this, you’ll have to move closer to your subject. Don’t be bashful about getting close, particularly with super-wides&mash;it’s almost impossible to get “too close” to your subject with a 14mm lens. This emphasis in size that wide-angle lenses give nearby objects means that …
2. It’s All about the Foreground
Contrary to what you might expect, this means that the most important element of your wide-angle landscapes is the foreground. While wide-angle lenses do capture the wider landscape, they also (almost inevitably, because of their wide field-of-view) capture quite a bit of foreground as well, and this foreground is emphasized by the wide-angle perspective. As a result, if your foreground isn’t interesting, your photograph won’t be interesting. This leads us naturally to the Josef Muench idea of the near-far composition, an image which uses a wide-angle lens to not only show a broad vista, but also to show one detail of that landscape in an up-close, intimate way. When you’re photographing wide, be sure to spend some time looking for the most interesting foreground available to combine with your grand vista. (If there isn’t an interesting foreground, you might want to consider using a longer lens to leave out that less interesting foreground.)
Fallen Redwoods, Stout Grove, Jedediah Smith State Park, California. Image Copyright Joe Decker
3. Watch those Verticals!
Wide-angle lenses tend to bend and distort verticals, as you can see in the tree trunks near the top of Fallen Redwoods. Now, you might decide you like that effect, or that you hate it, but it’s important to be aware of it and to make a conscious decision about it. For some images it’s fun to embrace, but more often I find myself having to work to avoid it or correct it later. Avoiding it can be as simple a matter as composing so that there’s only a single obvious vertical (and that that’s vertical), alternatively, using shift movements with a tilt-shift lens can correct some of this distortion in-camera. Post-exposure, Photoshop’s “Lens Distort” filter can also save the day.
4. Leading Lines
Compositionally, lines (such as streams or railway tracks) leading from the bottom corners of an image towards the center often have a particular magic for guiding the viewers eye through the picture, making for strong images, and this is particularly the case for wide-angle images. Hot Stream is a great example of this, the viewers eye tends to wander from the corner back through the image along the stream. As the stream moves back into the image, the stream gets smaller (in terms of inches on the printed page) quickly due the wide perspective. This quick fade (in width) into the distance creates a real sense of depth in the image.
Hot Stream, Húsavík, Iceland. Image Copyright Joe Decker
5. Filter Woes
Shooting wide creates two problems for those of us who use filters. Polarizers are a specific problem, the effect of a polarizer on a blue sky varies across the sky so greatly that wide-angle images including the sky are left horribly unnatural, so leave off the polarizer unless you know there’s no blue sky in your scene. Screw-in filters are a separate problem, it’s all too easy for the filter edges, particularly if you’re stacking more than one filter on the same lens. Filter systems, such Cokin’s P-series filters (with the wide-angle filter holder), can help you avoid these problems if you must use filters.
Dwarf Arctic Birch, C. Hofmann Peninusla, Greenland. Image Copyright Joe Decker
6. Focusing
One of the things I enjoy most about working with wide-angle lenses is the ease of focusing them. As you move to wider and wider focal lengths, the depth-of-field at a particular aperture gets deeper and deeper. This allows you to make great use of the concept of hyperfocal distance, that is, the nearest distance you can focus a particular lens at a particular aperture and get “good focus”. At 24mm, by focusing about six feet out from the camera you’ll capture everything from about three feet to infinity in focus—even at f/11. At 17mm, focusing at the right point at f/11 will get you everything from infinity down to 17 inches away. Find (using a web site like this or any of a number of other sites, software tools or printed tables) and write down the hyperfocal distance for a couple of your widest lenses at a couple of your favorite apertures, and you’ll have an easy way of bringing the entire scene of near-far compositions into critical focus.
Using wide-angle lenses can certainly be tricky, but I love them all the same. Used well they can allow the photographer to create images that immerse us in a world with both small, intimate details and bold, dramatic vistas.
Joe Decker is a professional nature photographer and writer for Photocrati’s Photography Blog He also offers nature photography workshops and coaching around the western United States.
Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
Captivating Color – A Guide to Dramatic Color Photography
Today I’m excited to announce a brand new dPS eBook – it’s our most colorful one yet!
It’s called ‘Captivating Color – A Guide to Dramatic Color Photography‘ and we’re releasing it today with two great extras for Early Bird buyers over the next week:
- we’re throwing in a complete bonus eBook worth $12
- it’s 25% off – just $14.99 for both eBooks
Why We Produced Captivating Color
- The Dream – taking photographs that go beyond simply recording a scene – images that evoke emotion, making people feel as attached to the images as you are. The type of images people pay for.
- The Reality – you continually take bland and lifeless photos – they just don’t capture the moment, as you see it through the lens. No matter how much you tweak in post production – you just can’t communicate the meaning behind the scene.
- The Answer – color is as much a part of visual communication as composition or light – but you need to learn to see and understand it. This eBook will teach you to do just that and will illuminate the topic of color for anyone interested in using it to produce stronger, more interesting and more emotional color images.
Written by Mitchell Kanashkevich (author of our best selling Travel Photography eBook) – Captivating Color is brimming with gorgeous and inspirational images and practical advice that will help understand the creative potential of color and how to use it.
Get Full Details on this brand new eBook at the Captivating Color information page or order it directly by hitting the ‘download now’ button below.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
Captivating Color – A Guide to Dramatic Color Photography
12 Great Photography Deals – 1 Week Only
On the 12th Day of Christmas dPS gave to me – another chance to get all our previous deals!
Welcome to the final Deal in dPS’s 12 Super Deals of Christmas! It’s been a massive couple of weeks and has been so exciting to see our readers saving literally thousands of dollars on these deals from some of our favorite partners.
As our final Deal we’ve asked for each of the previous deals to be opened up again for one last time.
Because it’s Christmas and many of our readers are having a few days off – we’re going to leave them open a little longer – but they will all be closed down for good as the clock ticks over to 2011 Eastern US time – so don’t delay securing them, this is your last opportunity.
Day 1 – Save 10% on a Lens and 2 Camera Bags from Photojojo (note: one of the lenses in the original deal has sold out – so Photojojo have added a new camera bag to replace it).
Day 2 – Save 30% on these Great eBooks from Ed Verosky (these eBooks sold like hot cakes).
Day 3 – Save 10% on All Software from Topaz Labs – I had a lot of complaints when this deal ended. You can pick or choose here, grab one or pick them all up in a bundle.
Day 4 – Save 30% on dPS’s Photo Nuts and Bolts eBook – we’ll be ending the bonus ‘pocket guide’ at the end of this deal. Grab yours today.
Day 5 – Save 10% off All Photoshop Actions from MCP Actions – I’ve had a lot of positive feedback from readers on these, many of those who picked them up had never used Actions before and are excited by what they’ve learned by trying them.
11 Surefire Landscape Photography Tips
My first love in photography when I first got my trusty old Minolta SLR as a teenager was landscape photography. There’s something about getting out in nature with the challenge of capturing some of the amazing beauty that you see. Perhaps it fits with my personality type – but I loved the quietness and stillness of waiting for the perfect moment for the shot, scoping out an area for the best vantage point and then seeing the way that the light changed a scene over a few hours.
While I don’t get as much time as I’d like for Landscape Photography these days – I thought I’d jot down a few of the lessons that I learned in my early years of doing it. I’d love to hear your own Landscape Photography tips in comments below.
Landscape Photography Tips
1. Maximize your Depth of Field
While there may be times that you want to get a little more creative and experiment with narrow depth of fields in your Landscape Photography – the normal approach is to ensure that as much of your scene is in focus as possible. The simplest way to do this is to choose a small Aperture setting (a large number) as the smaller your aperture the greater the depth of field in your shots.
Do keep in mind that smaller apertures mean less light is hitting your image sensor at any point in time so they will mean you need to compensate either by increasing your ISO or lengthening your shutter speed (or both).
PS: of course there are times when you can get some great results with a very shallow DOF in a landscape setting (see the picture of the double yellow line below).
2. Use a Tripod
As a result of the longer shutter speed that you may need to select to compensate for a small aperture you will need to find a way of ensuring your camera is completely still during the exposure. In fact even if you’re able to shoot at a fast shutter speed the practice of using a tripod can be beneficial to you. Also consider a cable or wireless shutter release mechanism for extra camera stillness.
Related Reading – Introduction to Tripods
3. Look for a Focal Point
All shots need some sort of focal point to them and landscapes are no different – in fact landscape photographs without them end up looking rather empty and will leave your viewers eye wondering through the image with nowhere to rest (and they’ll generally move on quickly).
Focal points can take many forms in landscapes and could range from a building or structure, a striking tree, a boulder or rock formation, a silhouette etc.
Think not only about what the focal point is but where you place it. The rule of thirds might be useful here.
Related Reading – Focal Points in Photography
4. Think Foregrounds
One element that can set apart your landscape shots is to think carefully about the foreground of your shots and by placing points of interest in them. When you do this you give those viewing the shot a way into the image as well as creating a sense of depth in your shot.
Related Reading: Getting Foregrounds right in photography
5. Consider the Sky
Another element to consider is the sky in your landscape.
Most landscapes will either have a dominant foreground or sky – unless you have one or the other your shot can end up being fairly boring.
If you have a bland, boring sky – don’t let it dominate your shot and place the horizon in the upper third of your shot (however you’ll want to make sure your foreground is interesting). However if the sky is filled with drama and interesting cloud formations and colors – let it shine by placing the horizon lower.
Consider enhancing skies either in post production or with the use of filters (for example a polarizing filter can add color and contrast).
6. Lines
One of the questions to ask yourself as you take Landscape shots is ‘how am I leading the eye of those viewing this shot’? There are a number of ways of doing this (foregrounds is one) but one of the best ways into a shot is to provide viewers with lines that lead them into an image.
Lines give an image depth, scale and can be a point of interest in and of themselves by creating patterns in your shot.
Related Reading: Using lines in photography (mini-series)
7. Capture Movement
When most people think about landscapes they think of calm, serene and passive environments – however landscapes are rarely completely still and to convey this movement in an image will add drama, mood and create a point of interest.
Examples – wind in trees, waves on a beach, water flowing over a waterfall, birds flying over head, moving clouds.
Capturing this movement generally means you need to look at a longer shutter speed (sometimes quite a few seconds). Of course this means more light hitting your sensor which will mean you need to either go for a small Aperture, use some sort of a filter or even shoot at the start or end of the day when there is less light.
Photo by 3amfromkyoto8. Work with the Weather
A scene can change dramatically depending upon the weather at any given moment. As a result, choosing the right time to shoot is of real importance.
Many beginner photographers see a sunny day and think that it’s the best time to go out with their camera – however an overcast day that is threatening to rain might present you with a much better opportunity to create an image with real mood and ominous overtones. Look for storms, wind, mist, dramatic clouds, sun shining through dark skies, rainbows, sunsets and sunrises etc and work with these variations in the weather rather than just waiting for the next sunny blue sky day.
9. Work the Golden Hours
I chatted with one photographer recently who told me that he never shoots during the day – his only shooting times are around dawn and dusk – because that’s when the light is best and he find that landscapes come alive.
These ‘golden’ hours are great for landscapes for a number of reasons – none the least of which is the ‘golden’ light that it often presents us with. The other reason that I love these times is the angle of the light and how it can impact a scene – creating interesting patterns, dimensions and textures.
10. Think about Horizons
It’s an old tip but a good one – before you take a landscape shot always consider the horizon on two fronts.
- Is it straight? – while you can always straighten images later in post production it’s easier if you get it right in camera.
- Where is it compositionally? - a compositionally natural spot for a horizon is on one of the thirds lines in an image (either the top third or the bottom one) rather than completely in the middle. Of course rules are meant to be broken – but I find that unless it’s a very striking image that the rule of thirds usually works here.
Related Reading: Getting Horizons Horizontal
11. Change your Point of View
You drive up to the scenic lookout, get out of the car, grab your camera, turn it on, walk up to the barrier, raise the camera to your eye, rotate left and right a little, zoom a little and take your shot before getting back in the car to go to the next scenic lookout.
We’ve all done it – however this process doesn’t generally lead to the ‘wow’ shot that many of us are looking for.
Take a little more time with your shots – particularly in finding a more interesting point of view to shoot from. This might start with finding a different spot to shoot from than the scenic look out (wander down paths, look for new angles etc), could mean getting down onto the ground to shot from down low or finding a higher up vantage point to shoot from.
Explore the environment and experiment with different view points and you could find something truly unique.
updated: this post was updated in Nov 2010.
Post from: Digital Photography School
Macro Photography: Mosquitoes Emerging
Brothers William and Matthew Burrard-Lucas are up and coming wildlife photographers from the UK. Their unique approach to wildlife photography involves working as a team to take imaginative and unusual photographs of wild animals. You can find out more about them on their website, Burrard-Lucas Wildlife Photography. In this guest post they talk about how they captured these incredible images of mosquitoes hatching.
As is the case with most of our macro photos, the inspiration behind this series came from getting outside and actively searching for subjects – you can’t always expect to come up with good ideas whilst sitting around!
We were looking for subjects in our garden in the UK when we noticed some mosquito larvae developing in a pot of stagnant water. We did a bit of research into their development and discovered that it takes about 1-2 weeks (depending on the temperature) for them to develop into the adult form that we all know and love! This was perfect, since it gave us a good amount of time to devise a set up to photograph them as they emerged.
Over the course of about 14 days, we maintained a keen eye on their development. We kept the larvae in a glass of distilled water indoors and covered it with perforated cling film – we didn’t want to suffer their bites during the night! Once the larvae had turned into pupae, we knew they were close to hatching. We soon discovered that when we saw one straighten out, we had about 5 minutes until go-time.
We transferred the mosquito into a special pot of water and made final adjustments to our setup. We were using a Canon EOS 5D with a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens. For the lighting, we had three flash units – a macro ring light and two supplementary speedlite flashes. Additionally, we had two halogen desktop lamps to illuminate the green printed background. Working at such large magnifications meant that we needed plenty of light to keep the ISO low, the aperture small and shutter speed high.
In order to obtain a strong reflection, we had to get an extremely shallow angle with the surface of the water. An aperture of around f/16 provided a sufficient depth of field, however, this meant that we did encounter some softness in our images due to small aperture diffraction. The mosquitoes were only a couple of millimetres long so in order to get the required magnification, we zoomed the lens in to 4x (this means a 1 mm object was projected to a size of 4 mm on the camera sensor).
After a mosquito had fully emerged from its pupal case, it would rest on the surface of the water for a few minutes whilst it pumped fluid into its wings. We took as many photos as we could, but we were limited by the time it took the flashes to recharge to full power. In total the whole process took no more than 5 minutes from start to finish.
It really was an amazing transformation to observe and the project gave us genuine respect for these much-maligned little insects!
Note that no mosquitoes were harmed during the taking of these photographs!
To see more mosquito photographs and many other projects, please checkout our wildlife photography blog, flickr stream or facebook page.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.
Macro Photography: Mosquitoes Emerging