Most of the time the automatic exposure setting on your Digital SLR will produce fine images. The camera’s brain along with the lens’ impressive array of sensors can usually figure out the best balance between shadow and highlight and provide a decent image. A perfect record of a moment in time. To me, photographers are the ultimate historians, but that is for another time.
Historical photography theories aside, there are times when you want to convey more than just a moment in time. Perhaps you want to add more light to a sunny country garden scene to give it a misty impression. Or maybe you want a portrait to have a dark, brooding feeling. Automatic settings will capture the moment in time, but to express yourself you need to be able to twist and bend the light like a sculptor does with clay.
As with any tool, the quality of work it produces depends entirely on the competence of the user. The tool itself is merely the apparatus your mind uses to create a physical object from the neural info stored in your brain. A Digital SLR (DSLR or any manual camera) is designed to be intuitive. The basics are simple, and the learning curve is short, if you practice. Take your camera everywhere, shoot everything on manual mode. Erase nothing. Keep track of your settings, figure out what works best.
I will show you how to use the manual mode on your camera, my bet is that you will never use automatic settings again after a little training.
Three Main Components
Shutter Speed
Aperture (fstop)
ISO (film speed)
Shutter Speed
The shutter is the mechanism on the camera that opens for a predetermined period to expose the CCD sensor to the light from the lens. The longer the shutter is open, the more light is allowed to fall onto the sensor. Shutter speeds are measured in fractions of seconds. Shutter speed is generally adjusted by the thumb wheel with the right hand.
Example: A shutter speed of 1/2sec is open 50 times longer than 1/100sec. A shutter speed of 1/100sec is open 50 times longer than 1/5000sec.
In general, slower shutter speeds means a higher chance for blurry pictures. Since the shutter is open for a longer period, any movement will show in the photos. When taking photos of moving objects, always use the fastest shutter speed possible.
Aperture (fstop)
The aperture in a camera works very much like the iris in your eye. It’s main function is to regulate the amount of light allowed into the eye, or in this case, the camera. As with the eye, the iris is also critical in focusing and depth of field. Instead of tiny muscles contracting and expanding according to lighting conditions, the aperture has several petals that overlap to make a circle in the middle where the light passes through. A ring on the lens, or a servo motor in the camera is turned by the photographer to adjust the diameter of the aperture.
Designation: A large aperture opening has small numerical designation. A small aperture opening has a large numerical designation.
Example: An aperture setting of 4.5 is larger (more light) than an aperture setting of 22 (very small opening, less light).
Depth of field: If you want to have foreground and background objects in focus in a photo, you will need to use a smaller aperture opening. A smaller opening compresses the image in the lens, and a byproduct of that is the depth of field is much greater. This means that more objects will be in focus in the photo, regardless of distance from the camera. Many sports photographers use large depths of field to show the crowd reaction AND the action on the field in one shot. Many nature photographers prefer to blur the background to isolate the animal or flower they are shooting. Having control of depth of field is critical in expressing emotion in photography.
ISO
The ISO setting is simply an expression of how sensitive you want the image sensor to be. Choosing ISO speed is the same as choosing film speed in the old days.
The larger the ISO setting, the more sensitive the sensor. You might ask why isn’t the camera always set to the most sensitive setting at all times? The answer is because that higher ISO speeds produce very ugly noise on the images. In fact, the lower you can keep your ISO setting the sharper, crisper the images will be. Low light situations will call for higher ISO’s, but always use the lowest setting possible for the situation. Don’t forget to shoot in manual mode!
Built in Exposure meter
Use the meter in the eyepiece as a guide, learn to read it and it will help fine tune your shots.
Summary
Used together with manual mode, these three components provide countless exposure combinations. As you shoot and become more comfortable with the relationships between the components, the relationship between the components and you, and your relationship between you and your own personal creativity, you will develop the most important part of being a successful photographer, a unique style.
Here are a few things you can do to make expressing yourself with photos easier.:
Must you stand so close?It doesn’t matter if you are taking a photo of a person or a landscape, it is important that you get as close to the subject as you can. Our brain interprets distance and size differently than the camera does. In other words, be aware of how much of the frame is occupied by what you think is interesting. If the interesting part of your photo is a mountain in the distance, and it only takes up 5% of the frame, no one will ‘get it’ because they don’t know what to look at. The same thing goes when photographing people. Viewers will be distracted by all of the other things in the scene and wont see what you are trying to get across. The subject should take up most of the frame.
Hey pal, you got the time?A common mistake is trying to capture dramatic nature shots when the light is not right for the scene. Pay close attention to the time of day. Generally, the light 2 hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset has more color and warmer tones than mid day sunlight. If you are forced to shoot during the day, do your best to keep the sun behind you.
Nature wins.Deal with it. It is extremely frustrating to drive for hours to a location only to find conditions completely unsuitable. That isn’t to say that you cannot get good shots during bad weather, but the shot you came for simply isn’t going to happen. How does this tip help you take better photos? I will ask the questions around here, if you don’t mind. Since you asked, it’s not so much about taking better photos, it’s about not letting bad photos get out. If you present a shot that isn’t exactly like you want it, people will ONLY see that version in their minds from now on, regardless of how awesome subsequent shots are. Ask yourself, would your favorite musical artist release a song before it’s ready?
The low down. Everyone pretty much sees the same view of the world, between 5′ and 6′ above the ground. In order to take people out of the regular world mindset, it sometimes helps to lower your perspective. Literally. Don’t be afraid to bend, sit, lay, kneel, squat, jump, twist to get a different view. A different perspective on a common item is a very popular subject.
Courage. When I was first starting out, I would see great photos and be too intimidated by the conspicuousness of photography. People are curious about what you find so interesting and they will look at you. Don’t be like me, take the shots. One more note, be aware of photographing areas that might be sensitive, like bridges, important buildings, airports, you might attract more attention than you really want. Also, it is perfectly fine to ask someone if you can take their photo. Most people will agree (some will say no, just thank them and walk away), but have no idea what you see in them. Do not photograph people without permission, it is very rude.
Composition and exposure are the two major elements in creating a pleasing photo. Getting a good exposure is a technical skill. After all, there are only so many combinations of shutter and aperture that you can use on a specific shot. Composition is a different matter entirely. Composition cannot be defined, there are no rules to explain how to convey what you see in your head into a sequence of steps that end up with an image that moves people. There are no standard rules for composition, but there is a nifty little rule that will turn a standard snapshot into a photograph. This is the rule of thirds.
It is really simple. Imagine the scene with lines drawn horizontally and vertically at each third of the image. You end up with what looks like a tic tac toe board. The intersections of these lines is where you want to put the interesting part of your photograph. Many of today’s DSLR’s have a ‘grid’ setting for their viewfinder, this will place the lines automatically in the viewfinder. Very handy.
There are many situations when a photographer needs to convey interior AND exterior details in the same image. Since exposure values are so different between inside and outside, it is impossible to show detail in both areas in one shot. You have to choose whether to blow out the windows entirely to show the interior, or underexpose the scene to look through a window. There are ways to get usable images out of those two options, but nothing beats achieving the desired results in a single image. The way to do that is to add light to the interior to match the brightness outside. It is a great skill to develop, but be patient. There are infinite variations in lighting, window issues, time of year, etc.. A method that works in one circumstance may not work in a dozen others, and sometimes you get a perfect balance without any effort at all. It is a fantastic challenge. That being said, a few basic technical tips will get you started. We will be using a single strobe to achieve these results (adding more strobes will make better shots, but it’s not always practical to spend 3 hours shooting a 2000 sqft house).
The location of the space in relation to the sun is going to have a lot to do with how you approach a scene. I will address the most difficult situation: A room in a regular house (not a mansion) with only north side windows, dark walls, dark floors, and mixed lighting (incand and indirect sun).
Shadows are hard to kill in this type of room, you will have to learn how to work with them. The approach is to apply only enough light to add highlights to the surfaces that will accept it. This type of room is dark and shadowy, the perfect photo will convey the darker vibe without the scene drowning in shadow. I happen to like a shadowy house (the photo is of my office), so don’t be afraid to let a space speak for itself.
Here is the rig: Nikon D300, Sigma 12-24mm, SB-800 on a short tripod tethered at the hot shoe with one of those springy cords.
The pics:
Cameras matrix metering no flash
The exposure setting selected by the camera at f4.5 is 1/125(ISO400). This allows us to see through the windows, but the detail inside is non existent, and the right side of the photo is almost entirely dark. The first thing I did was to add the SB-800 set at the automatic setting (iTTL).
Flash added - SB800 with automatic settings.
This image has the same exposure settings, but an SB800 set to full automatic mode has been added. Very little detail has been added. Still an unusable photo. In order to provide the light needed, we will bypass the automatic settings used by the camera and add the amount of light needed manually.
Flash added - manual mode at 1/4th power
This image has the same exposure settings with an SB800 set to Manual mode. The amount of light applied is 1/4 of a full blast. More detail have been added to the image, but it is harsh and there are still deep shadows on the right side of the photo. By reducing the output of the flash unit, we will be able to balance the scene a little more, then finish the balancing in Photoshop.
Flash added - manual mode at 1/8th power
This image was made with the flash at 1/8th power. While the over all image is dark, it has better balance and can be edited to be just right. The key is to get a balanced exposure while on site, then trust your editing skills to bring it home.
Edited image
This image has been edited, and is the one I would use to best represent the space. There are a couple of things left to do on this image, removing the reflection from the computer monitor as well as removing the shadows cast behind it will enhance the shot.
The differences between the initial shot and the final image are dramatic. You can see that by just adding a little light to the scene, we are able to add depth and color to a very challenging scene. Here are the images together:
Initial exposure
Final image
To enhance the image further, consider putting a second SB800 on the floor on the right side of the image (around the corner). This will add a very attractive sidelight, and soften any shadows created by the main flash unit.
It’s all about trial and error from this point forward, try to balance every room in your house at different times of day, also different times of the year. Eventually, you will be able to solve almost any situation.
Now that your new images have been cataloged in the Aperture 2 library, it’s time to select, edit, and export the shots. You will need files that are versatile, good for print and web.
Excerpt from the video:
This tutorial will lead you through the selection, editing, cropping and rename-export process.
Open Aperture 2 and select the project you want to work on.
Click the Quick Preview icon to keep RAW images from loading while making selections.
Make your selections by clicking the green checkmark. This will assign 5 stars to the image.
You can isolate your favorite images by filtering the five star rated images.
You will need to disable Quick Preview in order to edit the images.
Click on the image you would like to edit. Information about the image is displayed in the adjustments tab.
Watch the following video for the rest of the tutorial.
Aperture 2 can be a daunting program without any guidance. The following video is the first tutorial in a series designed to make using Aperture 2 easier to use. This video covers workflow from beginning to end, importing photos and getting organized.
Excerpt from the video:
Create a folder called “dump folder” on your desktop. This is a permanent folder, you will use it to temporarily hold all new pictures until they are uploaded into an Aperture 2 Library.
Create a folder with a name you would like to have for the project. We will call this folder “House Plant Photos.”
Set Image Capture to import into the “dump folder.” Download Images.
Drag the images from the “dump folder” into the project folder.
The Food Nerd has moved! He now has his own place to live. Check out The Food Nerd‘s new home.
Food Nerd will be bringing his obsession with cooking to the masses, please stand by.
Food Nerd Episode #1:
Macaroni and cheese made from scratch is simple, fun, and delicious. Watch the video below for in depth instructions on preparing this comfort food staple. All ingredients and cook times included, runs 4 mins.
The streams and rivers in Colorado are usually packed with anglers on the weekends during the summer. Any opportunity to escape during the week is almost a guarantee that you will have the water to yourself. The fishing spot in the video is one of the small streams that run through Rocky Mountain National Park, and that’s all the location info you get!
It was a breezy, cool day. Autumn is definitely on its way in the high country. I had maybe a dozen strikes throughout the four hours on the river, I only landed one.
The area south of Chatfield Reservoir, and north of Roxborough State Park is home to impressive rock formations and equally impressive neighborhoods. Ravenna is a new development south of Waterton Rd, near Waterton Canyon. All of the homes in Ravenna are designed in an Italian style, this one in particular was built by Villagio homes. These shots are the builders entries for Custom Home of the Year. Taken over three days, these shots represent the best of the builder’s work, and I was proud to be part of the project. Hopefully, the images will help bring home the gold for Villagio. The home sits in the valley between two immense hills, with exposed rock providing privacy for the back yard and a grassy hill providing balance for the other side. The front of the home faces west, making for sunny mornings out back, and golden evenings out front.
The interior space is large but not cavernous, the kitchen blends perfectly into the living room, and the sunny breakfast area is top notch. The master bathroom has a distinct linear quality, the wood cabinets and accents provide warmth. The beautiful formal dining room is made even better with a temperature-controlled wine room and direct access to the enclosed courtyard. A small casita is perfect for visitors.
This home is beautiful without being too large. Combined with the stunning natural setting and the top notch landscaping, the home is a fantastic example of the best in Denver architecture.
With image sensors getting cheaper and more powerful, most serious amateur and semi-pro shooters are opting for the versatile Digital SLR, merrily leaving their film cameras behind. This guide is geared toward people that are already familiar with an SLR photography, but are unfamiliar with the digital process.
Shooting with a DSLR is just like shooting with a film camera. All of the common mechanical functions are there, right where you would expect them to be. And, while there aren’t any chemicals to deal with, each image still has to be processed before it can be shared with the universe.
THE SENSOR
CCD chip
In film photography, a chemically treated segment of plastic is exposed to light for a predetermined period of time, permanently embedding an image onto the film. The film is then processed to create negatives, which in turn are processed into photographs or slides. The concept is the same for digital photography, except instead of a segment of film being exposed to light, a CCD (charged coupling device) is exposed and the light is converted into electrical signals that are recognized by the camera’s processor, the files are then stored on a solid state memory device such as a CF card. Each pixel on the sensor captures red, blue, and green information.
Having millions of pixels means sharp images, it also means that the images can be edited very precisely without loss of quality, bringing photography out of the darkroom and onto the desktop.
Sensor Conversion
The CCD frame is smaller than the 35mm frame by a factor of 1.5. Since almost all SLR lenses were designed to work with a 35mm image area, the focal lengths on your lenses are affected by a factor of 1.5. For example, a 12mm lens at it’s widest focal length has a digital conversion of 18mm (12mm x 1.5). That means that a fair amount of the light collected by the lens is not being used, a trade off between film and digital. But on the bright side, your longer focal lengths are helped by the sensor conversion, a 400mm lens has a 600mm focal length. Good news for bird watchers!
Film frame compared to CCD
There are full-frame image sensors on the market, but they are considerably more expensive than a standard CCD. Achieving true wide angle photography is still not possible with the digital conversion law in effect, but from my experience a 18mm on the D300 looks a lot better than an 18mm on film camera.
ISO/Film Speed
The sensitivity of the CCD can be adjusted to accommodate lighting situations, much the same as choosing an appropriate film speed on a film camera. And like film, the faster the film is, the more grain or “noise” the image will have. Noise is generally bad in digital photography, grain can be added digitally during editing, so it is important to use the slowest ISO possible. ISO 200, 400, 640 prove to be almost entirely noiseless on my D300, while there is noticeable (but not bad) noise at 800 and 1000. ISO levels over 1000 should expect a fair amount of noise.
Lenses
Any common mount SLR lens will work with a DSLR. For example, a Nikon lens from 1982 will work on a Nikon DSLR built today, but the functionality will be limited. Autofocus may be the most you can hope for with your old lenses. The difference between lenses made today and pre-digital lenses is the ability for the lens to communicate with the camera. CPU lenses have circuitry that gathers information from the scene, including depth of field, white balance readings, light readings, ISO readings, etc. A CPU lens combined with a modern DSLR provides enormous flexibility when it comes to exposure, focus, and color correction. It is likely that your DSLR came with a CPU lens, but if you have old glass be prepared to work a little harder.
Image Quality
Because finding a pleasing composition and getting a good exposure isn’t enough to think about while shooting, a new facet has been added to your game. Producing a high quality digital file is every bit as important as composition and exposure, it takes all three components for things to be just right. Think about it, how many pictures get rejected because they were underexposed? Or how many killer shots were ruined by poor composition? The same goes for the image file. You would no sooner deliver a blurry image to a customer than you would deliver a sub-par image file.
Workflow
The time period from when you depress the shutter to when you post the images online for your family is called a ‘workflow’. Having an efficient workflow is critical to providing high quality files on a consistent basis, once the workflow is second nature to you, you will be able to focus entirely on shooting. The key to a successful workflow is being well organized, time spent setting up now is time very well spent. See my detailed workflow for Aperture 2. Here are the basics of a general workflow:
Shoot only RAW (uncompressed) photos. You should completely forget about the other resolution settings on your camera. You wouldn’t drive a Ferrari only in second gear, right? So why limit the information gathered by your camera? Memory cards are cheap, and having only a small JPG original of the best shot you have ever taken is EXTREMELY frustrating. Save all of your images, even the bad ones.
Have plenty of external storage space. You will be generating a lot of data, you will need a safe place to keep it away from your main machine. Spending an hour juggling disk space on your main drive when you just want to work on your photos is a very quick way not to work on your photos. Keep only your active photo library on the internal drive, move older libraries to the external drives. I create a new library every two weeks, moving the previous to its archive drive.
Use a dependable image management software package like Aperture 2 (for Mac only) or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2. These applications are designed to manage the large amount of data generated by high resolution cameras. One of the biggest benefits of these apps is that they keep your original files untouched. Any adjustments made to the photos are made on a version of the original, you will be able to export the version in any size, resolution, format directly from the program. Using a good image management software is the most critical part of developing a smart workflow, I cannot overstate the value.
Histogram
Having the ability to review your shots instantly (referred to as ‘chimping’) is part of what makes digital photography fun. But there are cases when the action is too fast, or it is too bright outside to get a really good look at the preview. The DSLR solves this by putting a histogram for each image at your fingertips. A histogram of a photo is a graphical illustration of the data gathered by the camera. The graph places the ‘dark’ parts of the image on the left side of the graph, and the ‘light’ parts of the image on the right. An underexposed image will have the bulk of the graph info on the left, and overexposed will be pulled to the right. An image with a flat histogram does not have a large tonal width, and will be very difficult to edit. A good photo histogram will have a large amount of data in the center, tapering down on each side toward the highlights and shadows. You can consult the histogram while shooting to optimize the amount of data gathered by each shot.
Histogram Examples
White Balance
Every light source emits a certain ‘temperature’ of light. Florescent and Incandescent light sources emit a blue, cooler, tint. Sunlight, flash bulbs, studio lights are all “white” light and are generally much warmer. The white balance meter in your camera will assign a temperature to each image automatically, using the most intense light source in the scene to set the temp. In my experience, white balance is an area where DSLR’s really need improvement. Very often, the auto white balance is not correct, rendering the image too warm or too cool. This can be very frustrating when shooting mixed lighting conditions, such as a typical photo of a kitchen and dining area. There are florescent light bars in the kitchen, incandescent bulbs in the recessed ceiling cans, and natural light coming through windows. I used an Expodisc to achieve accurate white balance in the image below.
Example of mixed lighting conditions.
In order to achieve natural looking results you might need to adjust the white balance in Aperture 2 or LR.
Powerful Tool
The DSLR takes photography to the next level. It can take a dedicated amateur and turn them into a paid professional, and turn an established professional into a master. But, like any tool, it only works if you use it correctly.
Two more bits of advice: shoot only in manual mode, and carefully read the owners manual.
and select the project you want to work on.
s from 1982 will work on a Nikon DSLR built today, but the functionality will be limited. Autofocus may be the most you can hope for with your old lenses. The difference between lenses made today and pre-digital lenses is the ability for the lens to communicate with the camera. CPU lenses have circuitry that gathers information from the scene, including depth of field, white balance readings, light readings, ISO readings, etc. A CPU lens combined with a modern DSLR provides enormous flexibility when it comes to exposure, focus, and color correction. It is likely that your DSLR came with a CPU lens, but if you have old glass be prepared to work a little harder.
. These applications are designed to manage the large amount of data generated by high resolution cameras. One of the biggest benefits of these apps is that they keep your original files untouched. Any adjustments made to the photos are made on a version of the original, you will be able to export the version in any size, resolution, format directly from the program. Using a good image management software is the most critical part of developing a smart workflow, I cannot overstate the value.
