photography tips
Photography Tip -Motion Blur – by Myrtle Beach Photography
Tips to Avoid Motion Blur
The number one frustration that parents have come to me with while trying to photography their child at an event or practice is motion blur. To understand why this happens, you need a little background about shutter speed and the aperture. The aperture or the F-stop setting determines the amount of light getting into the camera. The more light that is allowed in, the better chance to stop the motion blur. Also, the shutter speed needs to be fast in order to stop the blur. When photographing a gymnastics event, I usually have my shutter speed set to around 400, which is pretty quick. If the shutter speed is fast, less light is allowed into the camera. So, you need to pick the lowest shutter speed possible to allow in the light but still keep the blur from messing up you shot. The more still you can keep you camera, the lower your shutter speed can be set. Your number one best solution is to buy a lens that is F2.8 or lower. The more expensive lens will usually come with image stabilization and will allow you to set your aperture so more light can enter your camera. Your cameras aperture will only go as low as your lens will allow. That is why if you purchase a lens at F2.8, your cameras aperture can be set to allow in more light. This can be an expensive fix so here are a few other things that you can do to make blurry photos less of a likelihood.
Buy A Tripod
If you are having trouble keeping still because of health issues such as muscle weakness or pains, this is your best bet. Even if this is not the case with you, a tripod is still a great investment for your digital camera use. No worries from shaking while you hold your camera makes this a winning choice for many photo opportunities. When buying a tripod you must make certain that you are getting a sturdy, well built model. You don’t want to have it falling down with your expensive digital camera and lenses.
Prop Yourself
The camera will detect shaking even if it does not seem like we are moving and this is a major cause of blurry photos. Before taking the shot, look around for some sort of prop that you can use to lean on.
If you are sitting down, a good prop can be your knees. I will sometimes prop up my knees and set the lens on them to hold the camera steady. Same goes for a fence or stair rail. Anything you can find to hold you steady will work.
If you are inventive and have the resources around you such as small buildings, cars, trees, even picnic tables, then you can come up with a position that you are comfortable with.
Snap Gently
Don’t go overboard on pressing the button down! Too much force can actually give your camera a slight shake. Slow and gentle can do wonders for your photos !
Hold Your Breath
Many people don’t realize that breathing moves the body and therefore the camera in such a way as to make the seemingly perfect shot blurry. You made every effort to be still and it happened again ! Even the slight movement caused by inhaling or exhaling can disrupt a shutter that is staying open to take a low light shot.
As you can see there are some simple solutions that should get you back on track to taking great photos. Take your environment into consideration and use it to your advantage.
Shooting Through a Fence at a Sporting Event Tip by Myrtle Beach Photography
Shooting Images Through A Fence
OK, here is a problem many mom’s and dad’s run across trying to get shots of their kids at a sporting event. Getting stuck behind a wire fence when trying to shoot your child’s game can be a real challenge.
So how do you minimize the impact of the fence in your shots? Here’s a few quick tips:
Switch to Manual Focusing
A challenge you may face shooting through any kind of fence is that your camera may not know what to focus on – the fence or the object behind it. Switch to manual focus mode and you’ll be in complete control of what is in and out of focus.
Get close the the Fence
Ideally your best bet is to try to make the fence so out of focus that it can be barely seen in your shot. To do this one strategy is to get up very close to the fence – so close your lens has no chance of focusing on it. It may not be possible to be right up against a fence. The closer the better.
Use a Large Aperture
Choose a large aperture (making the number of your aperture as small as possible) will help to narrow the depth of focus and will hopefully through the lens even further out of focus.
Wait Until your Subject is away from the fence
If your subject is moving around behind the fence – wait until they are a little further back from the fence to take the shot. The closer they are to the fence the more the fence will be in focus.
Avoid Reflections
If shooting through a part of a fence where there are reflections from the sun or other lights coming off the fence you’ll find the fence will become even more noticeable. As a result try to find a part of the fence that is shaded – or get someone to stand in a way that casts a shadow on the fence.
Incorporate the fence into your composition
It may be that the fence can become an important part of your composition – so consider breaking all the above rules to try that out!
Free Photography App For Android Phone by Myrtle Beach Photography
Color Touch Effects allows to recolor images and apply cool effects to them.
You can select an image, turn it to gray (or sepia, ..) and bring the color back with your fingers.
– Easy to paint, move, zoom with your fingers
– draw something for your friends
– Two finger zoom
– Many effects such as black & white, sepia coloring or blur.
– Import photos easily from your photo gallery, camera or from Facebook
– several cool image effects in the fx gallery
– configure brush and opacity
– add a caption / title to your image
– Post to facebook, share via email, or send via MMS
So much fun to edit your photos and pictures. Download this free picture editor now. Works also great together with the free photoshop app or camera effects (fx).
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Photography Tips to Reduce Red Eye
Photography Tips by Myrtle Beach Photography
Reducing Red Eye?
What Is Red Eye?
When you take photos in a dim or dark setting, the light from your camera flash is bright enough to reflect off of the blood vessels within your subject’s retinas. The result is red-eye.
How To Prevent Red-Eye:
The best way to prevent red-eye is to avoid using your flash whenever possible. However, if you have to use a flash, try these tips for preventing red-eye:
Add lighting: Whether you wait to shoot on a sunny day, or move your subject closer to a lamp or window, a brighter setting will cause your subject’s pupils to contract, allowing less light to reflect back to the camera.
Adjust your subject: Ask your subject to look toward the camera, but not directly at the lens. Also, try moving farther away from your subject.
May cameras have a setting for red eye reduction so consult your cameras paperwork.
PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS BY MYRTLE BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY Basic Elements of Photography
Photography Tips by Myrtle Beach Photography
The Three Basic Elements of Photography
Each of the three aspects of the triangle relate to light and how it enters and interacts with the camera.
The three elements are:
- ISO– the measure of a digital camera sensor’s sensitivity to light
- Aperture– the size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken
- Shutter Speed– the amount of time that the shutter is open
These three elements are what determines how your image will turn out.I will have to say that as a student of photography, these elements were the most difficult for me to understand.Remember, I have had no professional training and have had to pick up this knowledge from the professional photographers who work at my Studio’s in Myrtle Beach.I also have ADHD so these concepts were difficult for me to grasp.It was only after sitting in my daughters gym and playing around with all three, that I began to understand how they all affect the image.I would understand one and then the others would change and I had to finally realize that each affects the other.Most importantly – a change in one of the elements will impact the others. This means that you can never really isolate just one of the elements alone but always need to have the others in the back of your mind.
3 Metaphors for understanding the digital photography exposure triangle:
Many people describe the relationship between ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed using different metaphors to help us get our heads around how the three work together.One of my photographers, Joe, explained the concept like an human eye.Another used the window analogy.Here goes my “photography for dummies” attempt at a more simple understanding of these basic photography elements.
The Human Eye
Imagine your camera is like your eye that opens and closes or blinks (the shutter).If you stand in front of a mirror and hold your eye open and shine a flash light into your eyeball, the pupil will enlarge and become smaller based on the amount of light.Your eyelid opens and closes which when open, the pupil becomes smaller because there is more light and larger when the lid closes because of less light.Your eyelid is the shutter and your pupil is the aperture.Now imagine that you’re wearing sunglasses.Your eyes become desensitized to the light that comes in (it’s like a low ISO).
Let’s talk about the shutter speed first using the eye analogy.The speed of your blink (shutter) determines how much light gets to your pupil (aperture) to determine how large or small the pupil/aperture needs to be depending on the light you need to see.The slower you blink, the more time light has to reach your pupil and the smaller your pupil becomes.
Now for aperture.If you walk outside into bright sunlight, your pupil will suddenly shut down or become smaller just like the aperture on your camera because it needs less light.In reverse, if you walk into a dark room, your pupil will enlarge to be able to take in as much light as possible under the dark conditions.
These two functions of the eye work together, like with your camera, to determine the best light for you to be able to see in a dark or bright situation.Example:You walk into a very dark room.Your blinking (shutter speed) slows down so that more light can reach you pupil (aperture) so that it can become larger and more light can get in so that you can see more in a dark place.
Lastly, let’s talk about ISO.The ISO is like sunglasses.The eye is effected by wearing the sunglasses or taking them off.Now imagine that you’re inside the room and are wearing sunglasses (hopefully this isn’t too much of a stretch). Your eyes become desensitized to the light that comes in (it’s like a low ISO).
There are a number of ways of increasing or decreasing the amount of light in the room. You could increase the time that the shutter is open (decrease shutter speedby slowing down your blink), you could increase the size of aperture (increase pupil size) or you could take off your sunglasses (make the ISO larger).
Just remember, if you are in very bright light, your camera does not need as much light to create a good image so you will need to lower or close down your aperture and/or you can speed up your shutter.
In reverse, if you are in a low light situation, you will need to open up that aperture and slow down that shutter speed.If you still need more light once you open up that aperture and slow down that shutter speed there is something else you can try.Increase you ISO to allow more light.
I hope I have not confused you with this analogy.It really helped me understand the concept and hopefully that it helps you as well.Go out and play around in different light with these techniques to see how these elements effect you image.
To practice, I sat on my sofa and turned off all the lights except for a few small lamp.I was using a CanonMark III and an 70-200mm f2.8 lens.I put the camera on my knees to steady the lens and was taking pictures of my bookshelf across the room.I started at with a high number f-stop and a shutter speed at 800 and a low ISO.The image was black.I then lowered the f-stop to f2.8 (which my very good lens allowed me to do) and lowered the shutter speed to 100.The image was ok but not great.The next image I left the F-stop at 2.8, kept the shutter speed low and cranked up the ISO higher and finally got an image that was good.Good luck with this and I can’t wait to see if any of you have a “light bulb” moment and finally understand this very complex elements of photography.
I included a graphic at the top of this post to show examples of the eyeball and the lens to help with this explanation.
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