depth of field
Vacation Picture Basics
Portraits
– A family is on vacation and wants to get a nice portrait shot with the wondrous background scene. The problem is when the family gets home and looks at the portrait and realizes that they tried to get too much background into the shot and they can barely tell who is in the picture. This scene can be anywhere: on vacation, at the beach, even in the backyard. The most important thing to remember with portraits is that the subject is the person or people in the photograph. I recommend head and shoulder shots for the most part. It is okay to pan out a bit to let some background in, but too much background may cause a subject conflict and the viewer’s eye may not be able to tell what to focus on.
If you pan out to get a better picture of an action portrait then the background is too distracting. To fix this you can decrease the aperture setting on your camera to narrow the depth of field and this will cause the background to be out of focus while keeping the subject in focus. This technique takes a bit of practice but the effect is worth it. Depth of field means your subject is in perfect focus while the background becomes out of focus causing a blurred effect. Notice in the sample photo, the subjects are clearly in focus while the ocean background is a bit fuzzy. This is a nice effect. Most people tend to shoot what they see with there eye. This becomes too distracting with much more background than necessary
While a point and shoot camera usually does not allow the user to change aperture setting, this same depth of field effect can be obtained by simply moving closer to the subject. The closer the subject is to camera, the narrower the depth of field it will appear in. Notice in the sample image, the subjects appear perfectly in focus and the background a bit blurred. This is an example of depth of field. It is a beautiful effect.
Tips For Better Quality Photographs
* Take high-resolution photos. Getting more images on your memory card in the past was an issue because they were expensive. Today, you can get very large memory cards at a fraction of the cost. If you are only interested in putting your photo’s on the Web or e-mailing to family and friends, by all means, set you camera to a lower resolution. If you plan to print your photo’s, set your camera to the highest resolution to ensure you capture enough detail to provide good print quality.
* Edit your photos before printing. The digital imaging age is wonderful, giving you the opportunity to take as many photos as you want and not worry about quality or wasting film. When you print your photos, though, quality matters. If the color levels in your photo are off, touch them up in editing. If your photo is off-center, crop it. More advanced photo-editing software gives you the opportunity to apply filters and special effects to your photos for a truly unique memory. Take advantage of the ability to edit digital photos to create the best possible photo to print.
* Make a test print. You can do this with your printer set on a lower quality print function to save on ink. Make a test print on regular paper. Decide whether you need to make any adjustments. After you have a proof done, then set your printer to the highest quality for your final print.
* Consider your ink. Some photo-quality printers use inexpensive ink for everyday printing and special photo ink for photo-quality reproduction. If you’ve got a photo printer that uses special photo ink, invest in the high-quality ink for your photo prints.
* Use good paper. When possible, use the manufacturer’s paper. Manufacturers know what paper works best with their printers and can offer specific paper stocks for the best-quality prints your printer can produce. If you want to use a third-party brand of photo paper, buy a small pack first and test it with your printer to ensure good-quality prints.
Tips for photographing people
*Get in there to get the shot. If you see something interesting, don’t be satisfied with just a wide shot. Get closer and closer until you can capture the essence of the shot.
* Look for objects that make sense in the picture in your foreground. Be careful not to let the object overpower your subject.
* Every time you start to take a picture, look for foreground elements, frames or anything that can enhance the subject image. Strive to make photographs three dimensional.
* If you forget or don’t have a tripod, use stationary objects such as rock, camera bag or anything to steady your camera to be able to drop your shutter speed.
* Go at your subject from many different angels. Change your height levels as well to give your photograph more dramatic effects.
* Create a catch-light in the subject’s eyes with a small reflector, such as a dulled mirror or the silver side of a CD, to add a bit of glimmer.
* When using a flash indoors, move your subject away from walls to prevent harsh shadows.
* A piece of very light orange gel over the face of your electronic flash can warm up the light and give it a more pleasing cast.
* Be patient when you are shooting. Wait for the good shot. Once you have that shot in view, then begin multiple shots.
* While looking through your lens for different textures and patterns.
* When you first arrive at a new location, make note of any features that strike you and try an use that in the composition of your shot.
* Anticipate kids’ behavior. set up, compose your image, and wait for them to come running.
* Most important, when photographing people, find out their interests and try and capture that in your image.
Crop, Crop and Crop
I see alot of raw photographs as I sift through literally hundreds and hundreds of family beach pictures every day. A big misconception is that because you are being photographed by a professional photographer, that the photos come out of the camera and are ready to hand to the customer. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What the photographer strives for is to get excellent exposure, natural posing and to bring the best background possible out of a shoot. Then comes the task of editing. The best pictures are the ones that don’t have to be dramatically edited. That is just a fact. Many of our clients come in and want the sky color changed, the face of their kid taken off of one photo and put on their chosen photo, all the wrinkles removed from faces, all the windblown hair put perfectly back into place. All of this, while it makes the studio tons of money, it harms the natural look of the photo. No matter how good a graphic artist is, it still plays with the integrity of the original shot. So, what I tell my photographers is to bring in photos that only need a slight levels(we will discuss levels in a follow up article)tweaking and some basic cropping. Most all digital photos need this done. It is truly amazing how a single photo can be transformed with simple cropping. Cropping can most of the time eliminate unwanted and unavoidable background clutter as well as zooming in on a subject so to be able to catch that very personal expression or action. So, in closing, even your most basic photo editing software comes with a crop tool. Don’t be afraid to use it. Get in there and play with different crops and see how your photo will transform. One thing to remember, the larger the digital file, the better quality the final cropped image will be. Remember to set your camera to take the largest file possible.
The Best Photography Tips
1. “Photoshop is cheating”, Strive to take ‘good’ photos, rather than photos that I can ‘improve’ later on.
2. If your photo is not good, you are probably not close enough!
3. When shooting portraits in bright sunlight use a flash to reduce facial shadows.
4. Have the subject stand with their body at a 45 degree angle to you but have their eyes look directly at you.
5. “Think BEFORE you press the shutter”
Therefore, putting much more effort in the photos.
6. Examine the 4 corners in your viewfinder.
Make sure there is nothing in the corners of the viewfinder that is distracting form the central subject. For most of us it is relatively easily to focus on the main subject and to find an interesting perspective to capture what we find interesting, but we tend to be so focused that we may forget to examine the rest of the scene for objects that don’t fit. Bright highlights, disconnected object sticking in. Things that distract from the image.
7. “Don’t take photographs of subjects, take photographs of the light”
8. “Take three steps closer.”
Superficially this seems pretty vague, and you can even think of lots of shots in which this might actually be the wrong advice. But in terms of getting one to focus on the main subject – or even to make sure that there is a main subject.
9. “Shoot often and shoot many.” Especially in the age of digital, don’t shoot one, shoot five pictures, 10 pictures, try different settings. The more experience you have, the more you’ll learn and the better a photographer you’ll become.
10. The difference between great photographers and a not so great photographers is that the great ones don’t show their crappy pictures.
And Lastly for this series, don’t forget your camera and take off the lens cap.
You must be logged in to post a comment.