Shooting with available light

Catching up on some older posts I’ve been meaning to reference here. The first is a wonderful post over at DPS on Shooting with available light.

Sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? In fact, shooting available light frees you from all the encumbrances of dragging strobe equipment around with its stands, modifiers, strobes and possibly even power packs. On the other hand, shooting available light chains you to whatever the light is willing to do at a given time of day. So you see now how it can free you or chain you up. There are a few tips and techniques you can use to tame available light and bend it to your will in many circumstances. Best of all, you don’t have to purchase a thing to use this technique.

I’ve shot with available light a lot, I really do enjoy it, especially playing with the manual settings to get the exact look that I am going for.

Check out the How To Shoot With Available Light post over at the DPS Blog.

Tags: available light, DPS, light, Tips

Strobist: Lighting 101

Good set of articles over at Strobist.com with regards to off camera flash use and lighting…

Been having fun with the 430EX I picked up for the wedding shoot just over a week from now… been learning a lot as well! The image above I actually used the pivot features on the Speedlight and bounce it off the wall slightly up and pretty much right behind me… definitely makes a difference over the on-camera and straight on flash.

Tags: 430ex, bounce, external, flash, light, lighting, photography, Portrait, self-portrait, strobist, Tips, Tutorials

10 More Tips for Stunning Portrait Photography

To follow up the 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits post from the other day, DPS has posted 10 more tips:

11. Frame your subject
12. Go with a wide angle
13. Play with backgrounds
14. Change the format framing
15. Hold your camera on an angle
16. Take unfocused shots
17. Introduce movement
18. Experiment with subject expressions
19. Fill the frame
20. Find an interesting subject

Seems I’ve managed a couple of these in past self-portraits, good tips for the future!

Check out the 10 More Tips for Stunning Portrait Photography for more details!

Tags: DPS, Portrait, self-portrait, Tips

10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits

Being part of the 365 Days/threesixtyfive self-portrait a day for a year project, I found this article over on the DPS Blog today very interesting. Always looking for different ways to shoot myself, and I’m sure this will come in handy for portrait shooting as well!

How do you take Portraits that have the ‘Wow’ factor?

Today and tomorrow I want to talk about taking Portraits that are a little out of the box. You see it’s all very well and good to have a portrait that follows all the rules - but it hit me as I was surfing on Flickr today that often the most striking portraits are those that break all the rules.

I want to look at some ways to break out of the mold and take striking portraits by breaking (or at least bending) the rules and adding a little randomness into your portrait photography.

In a nutshell here are the ten points from the post today:

1. Alter your perspective
2. Play with eye contact
3. Break the rules of composition
4. Experiment with lighting
5. Move your subject out of their comfort zone
6. Shoot candidly
7. Introduce a prop
8. Focus upon one body part - get up close
9. Obscure part of your subject
10. Take a series of shots

My favorite technique, as you can see, is playing with and experimenting with light (photo above). I also find some of my best portraits are when shot candidly - as can be seen in the two photos below.

Be sure to head on over to the DPS Blog and read in detail 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits!

Tags: 365, DPS, People, portraits, self-portraits, threesixtyfive, Tips

Tilt-shift miniatures

I’d seen them on occasion, but recently looked into how to actually fake a tilt-shift.

In case you are wondering, Wikipedia defines tilt-shift as:

Tilt-shift photography is an artistic technique where the lens is tilted and shifted relative to the attached camera.

On a view camera, the lens and camera are connected by a bellows. When tilt is applied, the film or image sensor is not at a right angle to the optical axis of the lens, causing a gradient of focus. The technique can also be done with a modern camera by constructing a tilted lens manually.

On the other hand, tilt-shift miniature faking (according to Wikipedia):

…is a process in which a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model. By distorting the focus of the photo, the artist simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is. Many miniature faked photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature.

It’s pretty easy to do, just check out this tutorial… I use it loosely, and usually add a vignette on most as well to help draw in the focus. Happy miniaturizing!

Tags: fake, miniature, photoshop, tilt-shift, Tips, Tutorials

Tone-mapping: Single RAW vs 7 exposures generated from single RAW

Had a few people inquiring after reading my blog post about HDR if I’d tried tone-mapping from a single RAW file. So here’s the result… the top image is tone-mapped from a single RAW file using Photomatix, the bottom image is tone-mapped from an HDR file generated from my 7 exposure from a single RAW method that I described in my blog post.

There are noticeable differences, the 7 exposure version definitely still gives a wider range of detail, it’s especially noticeable behind the pipe on the far right… I found it interesting that there was a slight color variation as well. I’ve uploaded this larger than I usually do to give you a better chance to see some of the differences.

Anyways… just thought I’d test it out and fill you all in!

Tags: hdr, jpg, photomatix, RAW, Tips, Tutorials

5 Steps to Improving Your Shots in Photoshop

Just received this tidbit in my email from the Digital Camera Magazine:

1. Rotate and crop: If you rotate and crop the image first, you’ll minimize the file size for subsequent edits and keep things speedy.
2. Levels: The Levels dialog will tell you if the image has a full tonal range or not. Adjust levels to give solid blacks, brilliant highlights and solve saturation problems.
3. Brightness: Don’t use the Brightness/Contrast command. Instead, move the midpoint slider in the Levels dialog or drag the image curve up or down.
4. Colour balance: If there’s still a colour problem after Levels adjustments, try the Variations dialog, Color Balance dialog or use the Set Gray Point eyedropper.
5. Sharpening: is best applied right at the end because it can produce edge effects and noise that the other processes might exaggerate.

Looks like I was doing a couple things wrong/out of order - I’ve been using the Brightness/Contrast command, as well as sharpening right away. Will have to try their tips and see what it changes!

Tags: digital camera magazine, edit, editing, photoshop, Tips

HDR Tidbits (links, news, inspiration)

Great little article and list of links regarding HDR over at Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips blog. Few links include software, learning and inspiration.

Happy Friday again. Everyone seems to be enjoying the HDR video so I thought I’d include a whole post about HDR stuff.

Interesting, never though how great using HDR would be for real estate, something I should look into! Check out the post over at the Lightroom Killer Tips blog!

Tags: hdr, lightroom, links, photoshop, Tips

5 Quick Tips to Keep You Motivated

Short little piece over at the Digital Photography School blog… as photographers we all get into funks or feel unmotivated from time to time… here’s 5 quick tips to keep you motivated!

1. Go for a walk
2. 5 in a half (take 5 photos in half a mile or kilometre)
3. Check past DPS articles
4. Be random on Flickr
5. Fill in the blank - what do you do?

As for number 5, I find that playing with other peoples photos helps get things cracking again. Below is a photo that I modified for the Stop, Collaborate and Listen. group on Flickr.

Check out the original 5 Quick Tips to Keep You Motivated post over at DPS.

Tags: bca, bigcrustyape, collaborate and listen, digital photography school, DPS, motivation, Portrait, scl, stop, Tips

Photography Niches You Never Considered

Another article from Photopreneur - this time they offer up 21 photography niches you never considered:

1. Your Street
2. Cakes
3. Parks
4. Success
5. Construction
6. Technology
7. Butterflies
8. Children Playing
9. Minorities
10. Seniors
11. Mustangs… (or any other car model)
12. Infra-red photography
13. Water
14. Sand
15. Reflections
16. Leaves
17. Blue (or any other color)
18. Student bands
19. Church groups
20. Psychedelia
21. Theater

I think the key isn’t so much as finding a niche, but bringing something new to a particular subject that hasn’t been fully explored before. Check out the Photography Niches You Never Considered post over at Photopreneur.

Tags: niches, photopreneur, photopreneur.com, Tips