wedding photography tips
Photographing Fireworks on the Fourth of July Night
This year, everyone grab your cameras and lets take some great photographs of those fireworks we all think are going to look spectacular until you get them home and look at them. With the following tips, you’re sure to capture some impressive images:
1) First, check the wind direction and get up wind of the show so not to get covered up with smoke. Nothing worse than a bunch of pictures of smoke.
2) Bring along a tripod if you have one. If not, use your knee to steady your camera. Shooting on a tripod allows you capture longer exposures without moving the camera.
3) Read those directions that came with your camera. Check out how to set the self timer. You want the movement of the light from the fireworks, but not the camera. Even your hand depressing the shutter release on the camera can cause a picture to blur.
4) Get your camera set up properly. First, turn off the flash. Many beginners do not realize this can be done. Usually, in the menu, you can find a icon with a lightning bolt that represents the flash. Look then for that symbol with a line through it. That should turn off your flash. Then, if your camera has a setting that allows you to set your shutter speed, try experimenting with long exposures. Try a 3, 5, and 10 second exposure to see what you get. Typically, you will be better off using a long exposure for the individual fireworks and a shorter exposure for the grand finale (since there is so much light in the sky with all the bursts). Remember that the longer the exposure, the more of a “trail” you will see for each burst and the more likely you are to catch multiple bursts in one image.
Lastly, shoot a lot. Memory cards can store lots of photos, which gives you lots of room to experiment. Like most good photographers, you need to shoot a lot to get one or two great pictures. Let us know how your shots turn out. Have a great but safe 4th of July.
Simple Photography Printing Tip
Today I am going to talk about how large or small you need to take your image for different printing purposes. Depending upon what you want to do with a photograph, you can set your camera to shoot the image at different sizes. For professional photographers, this comes naturally but for beginners, it can be a bit confusing. To simplify things, we are going to lay out how large an image needs to be to get a good print. If you are going to use your image for:
Website or email: Image should be 640 x 480
Business card: Image should be 1024 x 768
4 x 6 print: Image should be 1800 x 1200 (2 mega pixels)
5 x 7 print: Image should be 2100 x 1500 (3 mega pixels)
8 x 10 print: Image should be 2400 x 3000 (7 mega pixels)
11 x 14 plus print: Image should be 3300 x 4200 (largest possible setting)
These are some basic guidelines that you should follow to get a beautiful quality print. When you go to the menu options on your camera you should easily find the settings for image resolution.
There is another option to consider when setting your camera for the appropriate output size. There are several options for the file format but for this tip, we will discuss two file types, tiff and jpeg.
TIFF: This file format is uncompressed. Choosing TIFF means that you’re always assured of getting all the image quality captured and processed by the camera. But TIFF files can be quite large, which means that only a few will fit onto a memory card. They can also take a while to be written to the card, which, with some cameras, means it might be a few seconds before you can take another picture.
JPEG: This file format is compressed, which means that the picture information is squeezed to a smaller size before it’s stored on the memory card. Though this compression does not alter the photo’s resolution, it does come at the expense of a slight loss of detail and clarity in the photo. Typically, a camera will offer several JPEG settings, each offering progressively more compression (which translates into being able to store more photos on the memory card), with a commensurate drop in image quality.
If you are wanting more detail and a better quality photograph, purchase extra memory cards and shoot on the tiff setting. If all you are wanting to do is put your images on the internet or print small prints, jpeg will be just fine.
So next time you go out to take pictures, consider the ultimate output of the image. Take a few minutes and make sure that your camera settings are appropriate for the type of shoot you are doing. Remember also, you can always shrink your images once you get them home. You cannot however enlarge the image once it has been shot on a lower resolution. So, if you are unsure of what you will be doing with your photographs, always shoot larger resolution and tiff format, that way you can’t make a mistake.
Different Ways to Display Your Photography
I am going to let you guys in on one of my favorite ways to show off my photographs. Being that we have a photography studio and Fuji 370 professional printers, it is a little easier for us to play around with the images that come into the studio. My favorite thing to to with photographs is print them in different sizes other than the traditional 11×14, 8×10, 5×7, 4×6 and wallets. I have customers come in all the time and ask for different ideas on how to show off their new beach portraits. Well here it is. My favorite thing to do with images is print them in a square format. Take an 11×14 and make it a 12×12 or an 8×10 and make it a 10×10 or an 8×8, 5×7 looks interesting as a 5×5. Now, how do we do this? When you take your images to the local drug store or discount warehouse stores, you stick your card in and you are given the traditional options. Next time, before you just stick that card in and say print, do a little post production work. Any basic photo editing software will do. Be sure when you take your pictures, if you are planning on cropping to these unusual sizes, you leave plenty of border around your subject. Next bring the image into your software and crop it to the desired size. Next open up a new document and size it to the closest traditional size such as an 8×10 if you are wanting and 8×8 result.. Now you have two documents open, the original image(cropped to 8×8) and the new document(sized to 8×10). Take the original image and either drag and drop it or copy and paste it into the new document. Now you have an 8×8 image on an 8×10 document. Remember to make sure the dpi or resolution of both documents are the same. For example if you original photo is 72dpi then your new document needs to be the same resolution. I suggest 300 dpi for printing. Now that you have saved all of the images you want into the new documents and named them appropriately, save them on a disk, memory stick or cd and take them for printing. It would be a good idea to purchase a professional photo trimmer, prices range from around $20 up to hundreds of dollars. You can also purchase frames in these sizes or have them made at your local craft store. Now you have it, the big secret to odd sized prints.
Tips On Photographing A Wedding
In today’s economy, more and more family members are being asked to bring along their camera’s to document the event. Being a professional photography studio, I do not suggest this but understand the need when budgets are being squeezed. I am going to outline some basic tips that can be helpful when photographing a wedding.
1. Go to the wedding site ahead of time at the same time of day as the wedding is to proceed so you can check for any lighting problems or ideas!
2. Have the bride complete a “group shot list” prior to the wedding. On the wedding day, you can use this as a check list to make the group photos orderly, and to make sure you don’t miss an important photo.
3. Spend sometime before the wedding to advise the wedding couple to pause and look at the camera for all the significant moments in the wedding, such as the first dance, cake cutting, and etc. remind the couple again on the wedding day.
4. Incorporate personal items, things that mean something special to the bride or the groom, into your photo sessions!
5. When photographing a large group of people, have everyone close their eyes, count to three, then tell everyone to open their eyes! This way you are more likely to get everyone with their eyes open and if there are any children in the shot, they will be laughing by this point…which should all make for a great group shot!!
6. Try not to shoot everything at the front of the altar. Try windows, middle of the church between the aisles, or even the back of church. Mix it up a little for different perspectives.
7. Walk around the church or reception site and look for any architectural details, such as arched windows, stone steps or balconies that would add a special element to your photographs.
8. Encourage your bride to tear pictures out of bridal magazines to show you what she likes. This will tell you what shots are important to the bride.
9. When shooting weddings, be patient, and something beautiful will happen.
10. Don’t be afraid to shoot into the light. Spectacular halos and brilliant saturation are waiting for you if you just turn around.
11. When shooting in various environments, try to find background colors that match the eyes of the subject to enhance the focal point of a photo.
12. 99.9% of wedding photography is anticipation. Keep your camera up, and your eyes sharp and the magic shots will come.
13. The lower a bride holds her flowers the thinner she will look.
14. Pay close attention to the facial expressions of the subjects. Do not seek only the smiles, but also the frowns and genuine emotions of the moment.
15. Almost any photograph can be improved by getting closer to the subject (or zooming in) to eliminate needless background details.
I hope that you find these tips helpful. I do want to mention one last time that having a non-professional photographer is a very risky proposition. If you want to guarantee that your memories with be captured properly, always try and hire a professional photographer. It is worth the investment and there are many studios that have very affordable wedding packages.
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.
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