Archive for Make Better Photographs – Page 23

Droidography – Shooting Tips with Droid phones

By Craig Johnson
Thursday, June 16th, 2011

So far if you have been reading my columns, I have reviewed several apps that are out there. Trust me there are tons more and most of them are free or cheap unlike the iphone. This week I thought I would take a break from that and give a few pointers on getting good cell phone pictures, particularly focusing (no pun intended) on Droid phones. I think the best way to approach this subject is to offer a few suggestions in each of my next few columns. Hopefully these tips can improve you photos and help realize what the limitations (currently) they have.

1. Don’t Zoom! – If you have been spending anytime at all looking at the settings on your Droid’s phone, you have probably noticed it has a Zoom feature. I am asking something very difficult of you, don’t use it. Here is why…its a digital zoom. Most cameras these days even the point and shoot variety have digital zoom of course, but they also have optical zoom as well. Let me explain the difference and show you example images of a zoomed in shot and an unzoomed shot. Optical zoom uses actual lenses to magnify an image whereas digital zoom gives the appearance of zooming by cropping a photo, adding pixels, and so forth to compensate for lack of a motor-driven lens. Lets look at a couple of examples.

Silktree Zoomed in 4X

Silktree unzoomed

Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Phoneography
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Tying The Knot: Location Scouting

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Like a good boy scout you should always be well prepared when shooting weddings. Packing the right kit, making sure the batteries are charged and the memory cards formatted are essential tasks on your checklist, but these become second nature and can be done the night before if necessary.

However, what can’t be done the night before are the location checks. These are crucial, especially when you’re starting out and unfamiliar with wedding and reception venues. Why are checks so important? Well a wedding is an event and once it starts there’s no stopping it! So for each of the big moments during the day you need to know exactly where you’re going to be, which lens you’re going to use and what the camera settings need to be. All under the pressure of missing moments that last a split second.

Think of F1 drivers and professional golfers. Can you imagine any of them turning up for a major competition without having studied the track or course in the most minute detail? Or not knowing exactly what gear or club they’re going to use at any given point? Of course not. They’re professionals and so are you.

Even if you’ve been to some of the more popular venues as a guest, it’s highly unlikely you’ll remember what they were like from a photographer’s point of view with regards to light, space and shooting positions. If you do then well done, but as a guest you really should have been focusing on the wine!

I provide location checks to all my clients as standard and I advise you to do the same. The number of checks will vary depending on the plans for the day, but they typically include the locations for: Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Why Your Client Needs A Professional Wedding Photographer

By Robert Hillis
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

We all love photography. It is what we do. We are artists and sometimes the business end of the business doesn’t really seem like our cup of tea. We would all be happy if all we had to do was shoot and edit and not have to worry about marketing and selling our services. Convincing potential clients of why they need to choose you can seem daunting but I am here to give you some advice. I am here to help you understand why you need to make them understand they need you.

Weddings can be such inspirational events. The grace, the charm, the elegance, the beauty, all things that make for great photographs. As a photographer I love to photograph weddings for exactly these reasons. They inspire me. They truly bring forth the meaning of a fairytale. Everything seems possible on a wedding day. As a photographer it would be ideal for us to be able to control all aspects of a shoot from lighting to setting to color to positioning. Unfortunately during a wedding this is just not possible. Some of the hardest shots we take are on the move with less than ideal lighting with very limited timeframes in order to achieve beautiful timeless photos that will capture client’s memories forever. It is because of this reason that wedding photographers are both in high dollar demand and can leave a bad taste in people’s mouths. It’s also because of this that your client needs your professional abilities.

Wedding photographers get a bad rap and unjustly so. Everyone with a digital camera calls themselves a professional these days. They print up a few business cards online, make a website, put up some cheap prices and start selling to everyone out there who wants to save a little bit of money on their day. They charge $300 bucks, shoot the entire wedding with their camera on automatic using an on-camera flash and give the client a CD with badly edited images and they call that professional and it makes us look bad. We’ve all seen it, we’ve all experienced it. I admit, my wife and I were no different and have experienced it ourselves. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Tying The Knot: Raiders Of The Lost CD

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

1981. I was 9 years old and already developing a thing for leather and whips.

Not like that obviously. I had no idea what puberty was let alone a fetish! No, it was the year that Raiders Of The Lost Ark opened and in doing so created a generation of wannabe whip-cracking, gun-toting, adventure-seeking archaeology professors!

One of the most powerful scenes for me was the final one. You know it – the one where the old man wheels the crated Ark on a trolley through a warehouse the size of Texas to be buried down a non-descript aisle amongst thousands of other similar generic crates, presumably never to be seen again.

Sound familiar? Well it’s pretty much what happens every time I need to store a CD somewhere in my apartment!

But CDs are still popular amongst brides and near the top of a typical want list from a package.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with issuing a disc of images if it’s part of the package or an added extra. I do believe in promoting albums and books as the best way to showcase the best images of the day, but neither will hold the number of decent photos you should be taking. So a CD has become standard issue whether you like it or not.

In addition to being a storage medium, CDs are also wanted for security. It’s nice to know the disc is near you if you need it, right? Unless you live in my place of course!

But times have changed and there’s an education job to be done. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Scenic Outlook – How to Reinvent Your Vision

By Guest
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

It’s easy to get into a routine and stay there. While this usually means you are becoming good at something it also has its consequences. Doing the same thing over and over tends to lose its luster, excitement, and opportunity for growth. We are all about growth, right? Nod your head. Yes, yes we are. The best way to force yourself to grow as a photographer is by giving yourself no choice but to step outside of your comfort zone. This is not entirely about growing and learning new things. It’s also about diversifying your work and opening your and your audience’s eyes to a new take on images.

Photography is heavily gear related. You can only be as creative as your gear allows sometimes and it is especially true in the lens department. If you spend a lot of time reading photography related blogs, I’m sure you have heard people screaming (or typing) from the rooftops proclaiming it’s about your vision, not your gear. To an extent this is true but there comes a point where guess what? Gear matters a whole lot. The biggest game changer to your images is glass. Sweet, sweet glass. Due to varying focal lengths and compression, two images from the same exact location can and will look completely different.

Leave it at home – Are you a heavy wide angle shooter like me? Leave that lens at home next time you go out shooting. Enjoy the telephoto brand of glass? Keep it in the bag and strap on the wide angle. This is hands down the best way to force you to expand your vision and skill. For the remainder of this article, I will pretend everyone out there loves their ultra wide angle lens as much as me. When using a niche lens like an UWA, you tend to compose and frame most shots in a similar fashion. Foregrounds stretch, apparent distances expand, and the sun appears very small. Read More→

Categories : City and Landscape Photography, Guest Bloggers, Make Better Photographs
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Photography 101: Lighting Alternatives

By Chris Nitz
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

When one thinks of lighting and photography, the idea of flashes and strobes probably come racing to mind right away. This maybe true for a vast number of photographers, however there are plenty of other ways to get your lighting on, and they will not even break the bank. Some solutions may even surprise you!

Let’s get the easiest lighting source out of the way right now. That solution is natural lighting, or the sun. The sun never runs out of batteries, won’t blow up in the middle of a shoot, and is not something you will need to worry about getting stolen while you are out doing your work. On the downside, you cannot control the sun, and it may not cooperate with you. There is also having to work around those peak times of shooting in the morning and in the evening. Even with its uncontrollable nature, the burning star in the sky is easily the most reliable light you can use.

So what do you do when the sun is blanketed in clouds. Have no fear, as cloudy weather can provide a big benefit to your lighting needs as well. Overcast skies often reduce harsh shadows. This means if you are shooting flowers, bugs, and whatnot, the need for fill light may not be necessary. Clouds also provide a more interesting sky. Learn to work with Mother Nature as she provides some of the best options around! Read More→

Categories : Lighting Tips, Make Better Photographs, Photography 101 - The Basics
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