AdvancedPhotography.Net

Create a Realistic Torn Photo Frame Effect using Photoshop

Shivanand Sharma — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:43:00 +0000

This is the first tutorial of its kind on APN about photographic and other special effects. I had a beautiful photograph of my son and I wanted to make it my desktop wallpaper. But not without adding some special effects. The torn edge frame effect was the one that came to mind. But the tutorials were either too long, unrealistic or just not relevant. Here’s something simple you can do to add a torn edge effect to any photo. Fire up Photoshop. We are going to use this photo —

Select the part of the picture that you want to retain in the frame — a good estimate is about 5-10 pixels from the edges like so:
Next, (align the selection to the center if not already and) go into quick mask mode using the last button on the Tools.
Go to Filter > Sketch > Torn Edges…
See the edge preview here (like in the picture below) and adjust the settings using the controls on the top right and click OK.
Exit out of the quick mask mode using the button as in step 2. You’ll have the following area selected:
Right click on the image and click Select Inverse. You’ll now have the edges selected. Hit Delete on the keyboard and you’ll have the torn edges frame —

We’ve shown this on a patterned background to distinguish the photo’s white edge from the page background. This method works the best on medium sized images. Share or bookmark this tutorial. What other methods have you tried to create the torn edges frame effect?

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Considerations when Choosing a Carreer in Photography

Shivanand Sharma — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:35:16 +0000

This article is written by Kathy Wilson, who writes on the subject of Photography College . She can be reached at her email id: kathywilson1983@gmail.com.

My husband holds a degree in visual communications, and although he’s a skilled photographer, that’s not how he earns a living. Instead, he chose to follow in his father’s footsteps and joined the family law firm soon after he graduated. Of his classmates, one is a well established and renowned fashion photographer today, who is sought after by the cream of the industry and makes a ton of money on each assignment (he was lucky enough to intern with a world class photographer who himself had no formal training in the subject, and from there, branched out on his own after a few years). And while most of the others are still in the photography business, their levels of success vary from low to mediocre.

This scenario should give you a general idea on the photography industry, and if you’re unable to draw your own conclusions, read on for all that you need to know before you choose a career in photography:

A formal degree is not necessary to make it big or even earn enough money in the field of photography.
In this business, you need a whole lot of luck to make money on a regular basis or find a well-paying job that is not temporary.
To make it as a photographer, you must be willing to follow your heart even though there may not be too many opportunities in the beginning. Be patient yet persistent as you wait for a break to make your entry into the world of photography.
Not everyone who has a degree in photography continues to work in this field or finds the success they hoped for.
While you do stand a chance of making it to the elite list of photographers or even earning a better than decent living, there are many drawbacks to being a photographer too, especially if you live from assignment to assignment.
Your continued success depends on your reputation, so you must make sure that your work speaks for itself and that people come back to you for their photography needs and also recommend you to their friends.
If you’re going into business for yourself, you must be prepared to bear the overhead costs even when you’re not getting regular work. Besides, you must also know how to manage money, find clients on a regular basis, manage your schedule, and follow up with customers. There’s more to running a photography business than just shooting great pictures.
And finally, you must know enough about photo editing so that you’re able to make the necessary adjustments to the pictures that you shoot. If you need to take a course for this, go ahead, but most people pick up the technique as they go or learn from tips and tutorials on the Internet.

Photography has been rated among the top 200 jobs for 2010 by Careercast with a starting salary of $17,000, midlevel salary of $29,000 and top level earnings of $62,000, so if you think it’s your cup of tea, go ahead and choose a career in this field.

This article is written by Kathy Wilson, who writes on the subject of Photography College . She can be reached at her email id: kathywilson1983@gmail.com.

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6 Suggestions for Photography Hobbyists

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:51:07 +0000

Here are five quick tips for those of you starting out with photography.

Hold your camera right

Holding the camera right means many things. It aids you in the composition and a firm foot helps you keep the motion artifacts down. Use your left hand as a base to hold and support the camera while the thumb and forefinger controls the lens rings. With the right hand you grip the camera and use its forefinger to fire the shutter. Keep the horizons straight. Stand firm and if required lean or take support for your camera against the walls and the trees in absence of a tripod.
Plan your photo

Very important. You must know what kind of results you want. Sometimes it purely a matter of luck that a photo comes out to be a surprisingly amazing. But do your homework. Visualize what the camera will see and how you’d want to capture it. Planning your photos goes a long way in getting you photographs that leave a lasting impression.
Use the right equipment

While there’s nothing that will keep a creative pro from getting the results they want, but all other things being equal the equipment that you use can make all the difference. Of all the digital cameras available you want to pick an SLR. That’s the camera the professionals use. It captures light and detail well while keeping artifacts to a minimum. It gives the control you need over your equipment over things that make or break the appeal in a photograph. The same goes for a lens. Investing in a good quality lens is a must. The camera only captures the photograph. However it’s the lens which all this light travels through. Never undermine the optics. Check out a few digital cameras at Test Freaks .
Shoot till you are satisfied

The beauty of digital is that you never run out of film. You don’t have to take shots in dark and speculate the result. It’s instant. Thus the more you shoot the more you learn and experience. Shoot as much as you like and of all the shots pick the best. The below was shot handheld – nope it was also the lotus that was plucked-handheld. I had already taken several shots but I didn’t give up even after it was plucked. Later while analyzing I found this to be the most appealing.
Don’t hesitate to give a few finishing touches

In the days of the film, retouching was more dignified than it is today in the world of Photoshop. While you can make the clothes transparent and do all kind of trickery as a photographer you must use these tools to give a natural finishing to your work. It was there in the days of the film and it will be there in the days to come. If there’s something you couldn’t correct while shooting, try to fix it in the post-production. Here’s what I did to the above to get the feel I wanted. Nothing much but just black and white.
Experiment

Or the more misused “break the rules” if you will. Nothing can compensate for experimentation, experience and creativity. So every once in a while take a moment to experiment and see what works for you than what works for others.

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7 Things you can do today to fall in love with photography

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:15:41 +0000

The thumb rule is – you fall in love with things that you can do right. If you can get some astounding pictures you’ll fall in love with your own art. But just in case you haven’t made it there yet here’s a list of things you can do today and see yourself shooting like a pro.

Shoot a low-light scene

Your camera still can see everything in the night when you play blind. It’s just a matter of getting the settings. Go out of the city from where you can see all the city lights. Place your camera on a stand or steady surface. Set your camera to ISO100 and aperture priority mode. Set the aperture to your liking… you may want to open up the full aperture. Compose and shoot. The shutter will take some time to do it’s thing but the results will be beautiful.
Shoot wild colors

If you look around, you’ll find at least one object that has wildly saturated color(s). These subjects stand out real well in photographs and form a point of interest.
Shoot black and white

Sometimes colors tend to add unnecessary complexity to an image. If you have more to your composition than colors, wash them out. Black and Whites look classy.
Shoot from a weird angle

Unusual angles always create interest in a photograph. They showcase the subject in a new perspective.
Use an effect to create interest

A blur and bokeh are two simple effects you can achieve by shooting in Shutter priority and aperture priority respectively. Adding some blur gives the effect of movement or motion in the photograph. Bokeh gives some surreal beautiful effects in portraits. When you shoot in aperture priority, using a low f-number gives you a very narrow depth-of-field thereby eliminating your subject from the background. And if you’ve got a good portrait lens, the background is even beautified.
Use the magic light to your advantage

Here’s what magic light looks like at an extreme.
And this is how it lights up the subject.

Magic light will give you wonderful effects, color and pictures. Learn to use it.
Tweak your camera settings

People go crazy spending time reading the camera specs and doing the noise and sharpness comparision of their equipment. But the main flexibility that your DSLR allows is that you can always tweak the settings to your liking. Learn to saturate the colors and to alter the white-balance. Depending on the kind of scene and lighting that you shoot in you will almost always need to change these settings. Go for it and get creative while you are at it. Explore and discover what works best for you.

Shoot these and share your pics with us in our Flickr pool.

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Photo of the day: Passing by a peacock

Shivanand Sharma — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:08:20 +0000

This one was quick and dirty. I wasn’t on a wild-life photography spree but still I was lucky enough to apply breaks and shoot this one from within my car. And I had to wait and wait to get this shot which seems the best of the set.

By the way here’s a bonus – the better half. Have a nice day!

Should you digitally manipulate your photography?

Shivanand Sharma — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:53:31 +0000

Dariia Goncharenko 01 studio.es by Vincent Boiteau

This is a highly debatable question. The purists swear by originality and look down upon manipulated work. But in the digital age when most of the photographs don’t even take form on paper and just are passed from screen to screen, sure quite a lot has changed. It’s easy to use Photoshop to cover up the blemishes or may be only enhance the exposure. So while one photographer showcases the original, others have retouched images in their portfolio. Which way should you go?

Find your art

With new factors coming into the world of art, every field of art is growing. You have to decide your medium of expression. After all that’s what art is – it is a medium of expression. How do you want to express? You’ll find DeviantArt to be such a resource of artistic expressions. There’s no stopping, no-holds-barred. People share what they create in whichever ways. So basically you have to decide which way to go.
Photography manipulation is nothing new

Before digital was born, in the times of black-and-white, photographers employed custom film development to get the right exposure and results. They used the filters of their choice to bring out what they envisioned. So strictly speaking they did alter the original. But that’s about classical photography. Today the medium has gone digital. So why shy away from using Photoshop?
Retouching kills the technique

One thing that goes against retouching is that enthusiasts tend to be careless in technique and try to fix things later during post-processing. Basically here’s how I interpret it: if you falter at technique but achieve the desired results in the post-processing phase – you are more of a retouching artist. If you get the result right in-camera you are more of a purist and a classical photographer.
You don’t have to choose

Every professional photographer gets his work retouched before their photographs take form on media be it in advertisements or news. Things have to be polished to look surreal and marketable. In fact the job of a professional photographer demands that the results be polished and be marketable. But for something that doesn’t need marketing and is a pure specimen of artwork, the right employment is critical. This is the case with photography competitions etc.
A blend of both

Trick photography is another field that comes into play. The original can be retouched. To extend that idea trick photography fakes the result. So basically it all is a blend of everything. Employ the method that you feel like best expresses your expression.

So at last it all depends on the situation. If you are shooting a product for marketing you’d need everything you can get hands on to suppress the reflections on the product body or to create them when needed. When you are out their on the country-side streets capturing some the raw scenes you may prefer to perform the role of a purist. But just in case your rainbows feel unsaturated I find it ok to tweak them in Photoshop. The basic guideline is if your work sells commercially it has potent to be retouched. If your work sells to connoisseurs of art you keep it pure. Just be honest about your artwork. Retouching is by no means a way to say that you are a better photographer. But if you don’t tweak the curves or white-balance in Photoshop or tune your camera settings you are overlooking the limitations of the camera and as Ken Rockwell says “You cannot let the camera drive itself“. Do you digitally manipulate your photography work?

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Busting the megapixel myth: How much resolution do you need for print?

Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:24:54 +0000

How many megapixels does your camera have? Mine has about 10 megapixels. But how much of it do you really need for a print? Here’s a small reference table to outline the pixels required to print some common sizes. This assumes that you print them at 200 dpi (dots per inch).

Print Size (in.)	Diamension in Pixels	Megapixels
3½ x 5	700 x 1000	<1
4 x 6	800 x 1200	1
5 x 7	1000 x 1400	1.5
8 x 10	1600 x 2000	3.2
11 x 14	2200 x 2800	6

So just in case you thought the pictures taken with your old 2 megapixel cameraphone were a waste, don’t give up hope yet. Retouch them to your liking and feel free to press the print button when you are satisfied. And if you want do bookmark this post – those reference tables do come in handy.

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What Every photographer Ought to Know About Exposure Compensation

Shivanand Sharma — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:10:11 +0000

Today’s cameras are the the know-it-all kind of equipment — they have everything built-in to help you get the correct exposure. But as they say they are machines. Cameras don’t make photographs you do. Cameras only aid you in getting it right. And for that matter the definition of right and wrong is very flexible in the field of art. The cameras expose to get a well illuminated photograph of the subject. All is well until you want to get creative. And that is when you have to take control of the settings.

Many recommend learning to use manual exposure settings and getting used to them. But then for something as trivial as exposure why do you need to fiddle with ISO, aperture, shutter speed or bracketing? Not unless you want to get creative.

What is Exposure Compensation

The exposure compensation control is one such setting that saves you fiddling with ISO, aperture, shutter speed or bracketing and get the exposure of your choice. This comes in very handy when you just want to underexpose or overexpose a particular scene at your will. Depending on the mode that your are shooting in the exposure compensation will vary the shutter speed or the aperture automatically. For example let’s say you want to shoot in aperture priority mode. This means you want to take control of the depth-of-field. Thus using the exposure compensation will leave the aperture to the setting of your choice and alter the shutter speed instead.

Uses of Exposure Compensation

Capturing challenging lighting conditions

For certain scenes the smart camera is really dumb. For example, for an evening scene the camera will automatically set the exposure so that the shot is well illuminated. This results in a scene which looks similar to shot on a bright cloudy day – no harsh light but still so much that it doesn’t look like the evening any more. Setting the exposure compensation to -1 or -2 will help you bring down the exposure level to portray the scene correctly. Also see how you can portray weather and various levels of light.
Fine-tuning

At times you may not really like the default results of the camera. If you feel your shots are overexposed or underexposed in most situations you can change the exposure compensation by 1/3 stop or 1/2 stop.
Getting the Colors right

That red of the sunset will never come out right unless you set the exposure compensation to negative (i.e. -1 or -2 – your mileage may vary). Or you could bracket at the cost of wasted storage space. Hint: underexposing leads to darker colors. Overexposing leads to washed out colors. In other words the more the level of white (light/illumination), the less the level of colors. Or you could slightly underexpose to exaggerate the colors.

This was a sunset for which I had to climb 342 feet. I toiled around all day for a location and waited till the evening to get the light just right.

Setting the exposure compensation to one stop less gave me the strong red that I was expecting. It would have ruined the entire shot if I hadn’t used exposure compensation. Not only the cloud have a golden line, they look more three dimensional.
Using Shutter speed to your advantage

If you are shooting a low-light scene in the aperture priority mode, shooting RAW at high ISO and a negative exposure compensation (-2) gives you several stops (2 stops) of critical shutter speed. This means you have two extra stops of ability to freeze action in low-light. Isn’t that great! You will have to bring out some shadow details in the RAW editing program.
Using Aperture to your advantage

If you are shooting a low-light scene in the shutter priority mode, shooting RAW at high ISO and a negative exposure compensation (-2) gives you several stops (2 stops) of critical aperture. This means you can shoot at smaller aperture and gain more depth-of-field that you would without exposure compensation. You again will have to bring out the shadow details in the RAW editing program.

There is no such thing as an absolutely correct exposure. Unless you do something funny and obvious like shooting a portrait resulting in an unilluminated subject in the photograph (which makes it quite obvious to point out that you faulted), the right exposure is ideally the choice of the photographer. It is his expression – what he wants to capture or the feel and mood he wants to bring into the image. Exposure compensation button comes in handy

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HDR with any camera: Take control of the Dynamic range like a pro

Shivanand Sharma — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:46:32 +0000

HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is the in-thing. If you are new to the subject do read more about what HDR photography is. So while HDR seems like a lot of fun and beauty, it looks surreal but fake. There are photographers going crazy trying to shoot HDR, bracketing trying to dodge the science behind capture, screen and print media. Some spend endless hours comparing the dynamic range specs of the latest cameras. Do you ever wonder how the pros spend this time? No wonder – they spend their time shooting beautiful pics which put the HDR to shame. The pros know all about HDR and they know what it takes to picture the extended dynamic range. Wondering how? Well that’s a secret you know… (just kidding).

Get the lighting right

Books have been written about the subject. It’s all about light. You have the right light means you capture the right light. There’s not much you can do to try capture bad light. If it’s a landscape look for the right time to get the light right. If it is indoors arrange the lights to your advantage.
Shooting against light
- Dark foreground against bright background
  
  Depending of the lighting conditions you may want to use a GND filter or the Graduated Neutral Density filter. This will help you tone down the highlights to bring the dynamic range of the scene in control. Here’s a before and after example.
  
  Here’s what I got after I put on the GND filter.
- Dark faces against bright background
  
  Light up the bulbs at the right places – that translates into using a good flash.
Get your metering right

Sometimes it is important to shoot in spot-metering, sometimes it is important to shoot in matrix/evaluative metering. Metering does not end there. Take control of the exposure compensation button and set the camera exposure right.

Sorry to disappoint if you expected more. There’s no better way to capture dynamic range than to tone it down. All the above methods do the same in their own ways. The outcome is real and beautiful unlike the fake HDR images that you see around. They are fake because no monitor can show you the scene in its true dynamic range yet – it’s a technical limitation. You want to be like the pros – use the techniques of the pros.

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White balance: Unlocking the secret to great color

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:22:54 +0000

White Balance is one of the most neglected controls on a digital camera. You can tweak settings like contrast and sharpness etc. but most of us still choose to set the white-balance to auto. While white-balance is used to correct the color temperature of the pictures, it is a very powerful tool to manipulate your photographs for some extraordinary effects- or even more original for that matter. Take the following image for example. I shot it in on a clear blue late morning with my D80 set to auto white-balance.

Compare the above to the following. See how the sky looks more neutral and the yellow of the flowers pops out. Done as a part of post processing, it’s best to neutralize white at the source or in-camera.

The reason this happens is that all cameras have different settings. Shooting under different kinds of lights changes white balance too. Thus the only way to get the perfect white balance is to painfully fix it during post-processing for every image.

Or, you could use filters depending upon the scene. That’s what filters are made for. When under a strong clear blue sky, you get cooler (more bluish) images due to the sky reflecting back on the scene. Depending on whether you are shooting indoors under the light you may get a warm color cast. These can be removed in-camera by using warming or cooling filters.

Welcome to the digital age. There’s another way to do it without filters. Depending on your camera you may have the ability to tune white balance and make it warm or cool. You can also do it in-camera as a post-processing step. Some cameras offer the ability to use a preset white balance or measure it in the scene.

So far the main idea is only to neutralize the color temperature. However some of the surreal effects are often achieved by choosing a custom white-balance not in the favor of neutrality but to blow the colors to your preference. After all photography is not only a science but also an art – an art to visualize the results before you shoot photographs. Here’s another image I shot with my D80 in the evening. This temple is built of white marble and was already glowing warm during the sunset after a rain under red clouds. Pretty much everything seems fine. Shot under the magic light, the marble glows beautifully.

But this is not what I visualized to achieve under magic light. I applied a warm filter (85 ) in Photoshop. The glow is prof0und yet subtle.

Warming up the warm colors and leaving the cool ones alone is what makes Fuji Velvia 50 the world’s standard for nature and landscape photography.

Beware it is too easy to overdo this. Using filters to do it in-camera keeps things in check. The main idea is to know the effects of the light you are shooting in. To extend it further feel free to experiment and bring out results that are truly what you feel look great – it’s your art and expression after all.

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A new design and a Flickr Group too …!

Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:40:22 +0000

We’ve come a long way since we started. And keeping in mind the feedback we received and to address the growing fan-ship of the site we’ve redesigned the site. During the process we experimented with dark themes which usually are used to showcase photo-blogs. However AdvancedPhotography.Net is more than a photo-blog. It is a place to learn and share tips about photography also. Thus with all these things in mind we made subtle changes to the basic site layout. To add an artsy touch we used some grunge design. Please share your inputs about the design with us.

Another feedback we received – a need to share the photographs with our blog community. Time and again we were asked by you if there was a way to share the photographs with us. Well we just launched the APN-Readers Flickr group. A slideshow from the same is embedded into the sidebar. So all the photos in the group-pool will be a part of the slide show. Feel free to share the links to your Flickr photographs with us. They don’t have to be perfect, ask for feedback or criticism on your art work, share with the community – that’s what this group is all about.

Going forward we’ll hope to bring you more features as well as articles rich in the subject area. If you have not subscribed to the blog yet now would be a good time to do so. Do remember to join our Flickr group too. As always we are feedback hungry and if you have any specific inputs about the site design or the Flickr group, don’t wait.

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5 Auto-level tips for post-processing

Shivanand Sharma — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:51:27 +0000

I was scanning some old images when the thought of using auto-level for batch post-processing dwelled upon me. So quickly to share my findings.

Auto-Level is not mandatory

Auto-level is not a necessary step during post-processing. When you get a good exposure right from the camera, auto-leveling can introduce artifacts into your images.
Consider Manual Level adjustment instead

In most software auto-level adjustment happens on per-channel basis. Thus red, green and blue channels are all auto leveled. This changes the ratio of these three colors. This step in turn alters, destroys the original image colors and introduces color cast.
Batch post-processing

There is nothing called batch post-processing. Only go for it if you are willing to get acceptable images. The only way to get the best result is to go the painful way of hand-editing each image individually.
Use Auto Contrast instead

Auto-level attempts to balance the image histogram on per channel basis while giving enhanced contrast. A better way to handle this is to go for auto contrast which does not interfere with color balance.
Tap into the power of Curves

The curves tool is a more powerful tool which gives realistic and appealing results.

Photo by samdiablo666

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Demystifying HDR: High Dynamic Range Myths and Truths

Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:55:00 +0000

High Dynamic Range photography is a very interesting aspect of photography. HDR photos being out the never-see-before details in the photograph making it life-like. This post is dedicated to the subject and is an effort to shed light on some of the lesser known truths about HDR photography.

What is dynamic range?

Dynamic Range of a device signifies the ratio between the maximum and minimum brightness levels that a device can capture or render. Dynamic range is measured in f-stops or EV (exposure value) which is expressed in the power of two. Thus a dynamic range of 10 stops is 2¹⁰ = 1024 levels of brightness.

The dynamic range of the camera

Typically DSRLs have a dynamic range of 5-6 f-stops but it varies by the manufacturer. Film cameras have a higher dynamic range with black and white topping out at 9 stops. Thus from all the available levels of light in the original scene the cameras can only capture a limited range.

When you change the exposure (aperture, shutterspeed, ISO) you are basically shifting the dynamic range of the camera towards or away from the dark or the bright side thereby being able to capture daytime scenes or nighttime scenes. Due to the limited dynamic range of the camera, the less-than-dark levels of light are rendered dark and less-than-bright levels are rendered bright and the clipping occurs as evident in the histogram. This is better explained through an analogy. The human eye has an approximate dynamic range of 24 stops which is still limited as compared to the available light. The eye adapts to the available light depending on whether it is dark or bright which is similar to what happens when you vary the exposure of the camera. When you look at the sun the eyes are blinded which is what happens to the camera when it meters for the shadows and the highlights bloom out. On the other hand once your eyes adapt to seeing the sun you are again blinded when you look away. The camera similarly meters the underexposed as dark when trying to expose for the highlights.

Reproducing an HDR scene

There are two phases to this the first being capturing and the second being rendering. Ideally in order to reproduce a scene with its complete dynamic range you need a device that is not blinded by the sun or the shadows. You will need a monitor that can shine as bright as the sun (the sun being the brightest natural source of light and thus referenced as the upper limit) and render the darkest black levels in the shadows.

The dynamic range of the monitor

The term used to measure the dynamic range of the monitors is the contrast ratio however all monitors render 256 levels of brightness which is 2⁸ = 256 or 8 stops of dynamic range. (Another way to verify is to see how the rgb color space works – 0 is black while 255 is white).

The secret behind the so-called HDRs

On the face of it, it is nothing more than illusion. With the limited dynamic range of cameras and monitors what you see as HDR is nothing more than image manipulation. To render these HDRs multiple exposures are taken from a camera with varying f-stops. Thus each shot captures a different dynamic range. These are then blended to compose a single image which contains a greater level of dynamic range but still pretty much useless because of the bottleneck the dynamic range of the monitor poses. To get around this “Tone Mapping” is used more popularly known as curve manipulation is Photoshop. This is nothing more than mapping the darker areas in the image to render brighter thus visible on the monitor.

Making a real HDR

People have managed to capture a larger dynamic range with multiple exposure however the rendering is limited by the performance of the monitors. But technology is evolving fast. Brightside has been working on something promising. It has come out with a monitor which uses individual LEDs instead of a single bulb back-lighting the screen. This results in a very high bright screen with a very high contrast ratio. As time passes we’ll see more of such devices. Till then you cna play around with the so called High Dynamic Range images which are nothing more than surreal looking illusions of tome mapping or the more toned down, muted and realistic HDRs which look closer.

Photo by alexkess used under CC.

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Portraying weather and various levels of light

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:42:35 +0000

A high-key image by Ninja Please! (CC).

The topic needs some explanation before we proceed to the finer details. It is one thing to shoot a subject in various levels of light however when light itself is the subject, the entire gamut of generic rules take a paradigm shift.

Long time back in the earlier days of my fascination with photography, I choose to shoot a sunset scene. I set all the settings to auto and clicked. To my amazement the result looked like an afternoon scene. The camera had compensated for the low-light conditions by setting a longer exposure.

A low-key image by vincent-b (CC)

Limitations of light meters: The camera’s light-meter has several fundamental limitations when it comes to portraying levels of light. The camera tries to meter the reflected light and compensate for the levels by setting the right exposure. Thus if you are shooting pure black, the camera sets a longer exposure to compensate for the low light coming in and the result is a gray color. Similarly when shooting pure white, the camera again compensates for the brightness thereby resulting in a gray color. So what do you do when you have to portray a dark environment? This image has to be underexposed and show up as a low-key image in the histogram.
Unreliable metering. The camera’s built-in light meter is a reflected-light-meter. It used the light reflected off the subject’s surface to meter the lighting conditions. They try to adjust the exposure until the tones add up to mid-gray. But pure white is not gray and neither is black.
Overriding the camera meter: This situation necessitates overriding the light meter. A sunset has to be a low-key image and show up as underexposed. There are several ways to get such scenes right:
- Bracketing: Most of the DSLRs allow bracketing. The underexposed image will be pretty close to the original scene. The same goes for the high-key images – the overexposed image will be close to the original.
- Manually Underexposing and Overexposing: This is tricky and comes with experience. Here you are overriding the automatic settings and choosing the settings manually. Depending on the scene, if you are shooting a moving scene you may want to alter the aperture to control the light. This will make sure that you do not change the shutter-speed and introduce or reduce the intended blur or freezing of motion. For a static scene you can alter the shutter-speed as you may not want to disturb the chosen depth-of-field. However depending on the conditions similar effects can be received by altering the ISO as well.

Challenging weather conditions and light-levels like a bright desert-noon or a sunset demand creative use of controls. When light itself is the subject you must know when to take control of these controls.

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Black and White Photography-III: Utilizing the power of colors

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:42:19 +0000

Used under CC by isdky

Post-processing is not the choice of purists. But if you’ve chosen to shoot in color and convert to black and white, it is a part of the deal. Welcome to the third part of the series on Black and White Photography which comes after a big pause – let’s welcome a new member in the family In part 1 we saw how classy black and white photography is. In part 2 we explored all the elements of composition in black and white photography.

To have better control for black and white processing it is advised to capture as much information as possible which we can use later to our advantage. Thus shooting in RAW and color is recommended. This allows for great flexibility in post processing. However in this particular context, shooting in color has its distinct advantages. The presence of color information allows us to alter it for our purpose and bring out the results to our preference. Let’s see how we can do so.

Converting color into black and white takes new dimensions when it comes to playing with hues and saturation. Here are the various ways you can convert into black and white.

Basic: The easiest and the most straight forward way to convert color into black and white is to desaturate the colors in the image. This will give results identical to what the (black and white) camera sees.
Advanced: When you have colors in your image you can artificially alter the colors to get a desired effect in contrast etc. when you alter various parameters related to color like hue and saturation.

Advanced black and white conversion

Changing Hue: Hue is another term for color. A shifting in the hue results in different colors. With the colors manipulated the areas is the grayscale image will change colors resulting in different contrast and lightness. This gives you the flexibility and control over contrast and toning of the final grayscale image by shifting the hue in the image.
Channel Mixing: All images are composed of three basic colors red, blue and green. When you are editing these images in the RGB mode you have access to these channels and the ability to manipulate them. This gives you the digital ability equivalent to using color filters for shooting black and white. A detailed step-by-step procedure is beyond the scope of this article and will be a suitable topic for a dedicated post.
Toning or Changing Saturation: While we are at it it is worth mentioning that conversion to black and white doesn’t have to be complete. Certain pictures may look devoid of mood when showcased in complete black and white. A way around is to tone down the saturation to minimum while retaining a small amount of color. You can also choose to remove color completely and bring in a low tint tint of any particular color. Sepia looks great and the options are only limited by your creativity. Sometimes toning may result introducing a mood that you never expected.

As a last note its worth mentioning that advanced conversion to black and white may introduce artifacts and make the picture seem unnatural. It is thus best to learn the basics, take your time getting used to black and white conversion and only then step into risky waters. Keep the post processing to a minimum to retain the originality in the picture and before starting, always reiterate the final effect you want to achieve.

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Let’s take a break

Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:53:53 +0000

Looks like we’ll have to take a break for a few days (4-5). Here’s a pic of my son who’s keeping me busy

My son born on 2nd Feb 2009 - Pet name: Sona

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Black and white photography-II: What to photograph beyond the colors

Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:36:54 +0000

Once you’re ready to look beyond the colors you’ll discover the beauty of the colorless world. Welcome to the second part of the Black and White Photography series. In Part I we saw how black and white photography fell a class apart from the colorful world, the kind of challenges black and white photography poses and a brief introduction to looking beyond colors.

When shooting in black and white it is essential that you have a solid foundation on the very basics of photography, explore creatively, learn and then experiment. This post covers and summarizes various features and elements that you can highlight in your photographs to achieve the target results and draw viewers attention to your work. Most of these can broadly be classified into three components – composition, details and effects. Let’s get familiar with features and elements that you can highlight in black and whites.

Composition:

It is all about what you capture in the shot, what you choose to highlight and what you choose to leave out. Your viewpoint and what you frame – all is a pert of composition.
- Simplicity: Too much clutter distracts attention from the subject. Simplicity aids viewers’ interest and brings elegance to the picture.
- Rule of thirds: The rule of thirds guides you on how to place the subject at naturally pleasing positions in the frame to draw more interest and attention from viewers.
- The Golden Ratio: Just like the rule of thirds, the golden ration is another rule that guides you on positioning the subject such that the areas in the image form pleasing proportions and add a sense of natural balance to the picture.
- Lines: Lines lead the eyes. Vertical lines convey strength. Horizontal lines convey balance. Diagonal lines guide the eye and curves emphasize sensuality.
- Framing: Adding a natural frame to the image adds depth to the otherwise two dimensional view.
- Perspective: Perspective helps draw a lot of interest as it allows viewers to explore and appreciate the subject from newer viewpoints.
Details:
- Shades and Tones: Shades and tones are what the colors are in colored images. Shades and tones add definition to the image and various areas of the picture while developing an overall mood of the scene.
- Patterns: Patterns steal interest, can form the mood of the picture, emphasize energy and hypnotize the viewers. Used judiciously they are a very strong tool and make excellent subjects. However generally when not forming the main subject they are often distracting at the best.
- Shapes: Shapes distribute energy, create or offset the balance. They make excellent abstractions.
- Textures: Textures add fineness, sharpness and detail to the image.
Effects:
- Depth of Field: A narrow depth of field helps eliminate the subject from the background and introduces softness in the image. A high depth of field adds sharpness to the overall image.
- Blur: Blur emphasizes motion. Generally avoided, when intentionally introduced in the image a slight blur in the river water would liven up the image and add the perception of flowing water in the otherwise frozen waves and water reflections.
- Filters: Filter effects are often used to transform particular colors to shades and help distinguish various areas while adding definition to the image.
- Silhouettes: Silhouettes make excellent abstractions and create a strong mood in the image. The subject is totally black with a background light blinding the camera lens.
- Exposure: Overexposure and underexposure bring out details from the otherwise overshadowed or washed out areas at the cost of loosing details visible to the naked eye. They create some unique effects when used creatively.
- Quality of Light: A hard or soft light is often used to emphasize the mood, defining shapes and figures or highlighting the various areas of the subject.
- Direction of Light: Direction of light can help you highlight texture or create impressions of horror or mystery.
- Vignette Frames: Vignette frames redirect the attention to the subject and add a classy touch to the picture.
- Contrast: Contrast is the difference between the highlights and the shadows. A higher contrast forms a clearer image wherein various elements in the scene are clearly stand out. A lower contrast creates a softer image but also increases the risk of losing out a lot of tones and shades.
- Transparency: Transparency emphasize clarity and purity while making interesting subjects.
- Reflections and shadows: Reflections allude and hypnotize while shadows form abstract figures and form the mood of the picture.
- HDR: High dynamic range while visually captivating captures and retains more tones and shades than a regular image. They look more natural and life-like.
- Digital Manipulation: Other digital effects like image-overlays make abstract forms, moods or relations between the two overlays. It doesn’t even have to be black and white; desaturating the colors to the minimum while leaving a touch of hue created different mood depending on the hue. So experiment and break the rules.

While this list is not exhaustive it certainly highlights the fact that there’s lot beyond the colors which the human eye appreciates. Effectively photographing keeping in mind the above elements and guidelines will certainly get you some outstanding results.

Continue to part 3.

Photo by ~jjjohn~ used under CC.

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Black and white photography-I: Classy timeless pictures

Shivanand Sharma — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:10:26 +0000

Black and white photography – An Introduction

The language of grays is classy, timeless, moody, artistic and captivating. Black and white pictures draw a lot of viewers’ interest, attention and reaction. Color photographs tend to be boring at times because they are the same what our eyes see day and night. Unlike color photographs, black and white photographs speak a different language – they portray the same information in a different style and draw our eyes to elements and traits that our eyes don’t generally notice. They take out the dimension of color and showcase light, tones, texture, mood and time in a prominent manner. Of all these traits, the lack of color and the timelessness in black and white photographs capture the interest of even the ignoramous. Let’s delve into the colorless world in this part-I of a two part article.

Getting ready to sacrifice colors

This can be difficult for some. Especially if you are starting out. Black and white may just not appeal to you or you may like color better. Also visualizing in black and white is challenging and comes with experience. With digital capture it’s a matter of seeing the final results instantly. However there is greater difference between the reality and the results when shooting film. However this assessment need not be left to the camera. It is important to know what you want in the final result and what you are going for. Choose your location and subject accordingly. In black and white there’s no color to mark and differentiate between different areas in the image. Also two contrasting colors will result in the same gray level in the final print. It is thus important to start seeing in terms of luminance (brigntness or lightness) or various colors and areas in the image instead of chroma or color. So if I may, let me mention the RGB and HSL color-spaces here.

All image information can be represented in either of these color-spaces however there’s a considerable difference the way these color-spaces represent information. In the RGB color-space all image information is represented in terms of the red, green and blue colors. All other colors are a combination of two or more of these three basic components. In a gray (black and white) image all these three components are equal. Thus RGB is not very helpful if we try to draw analogy with respect to black and white images. HSL is another color-space which represents image-information in terms of hue (the color), saturation (the amount of color) and luminance (the brightness). When it comes to black and white, only the luminance component matters in the HSL color-space. We thus need to visualize in terms of lightness or brightness of the color instead of the color itself.

Once you are ready to look beyond colors you will be able to appreciate subtler qualities like geometry, shapes, textures, tones and the mood. It is these qualities that build the interest in the picture and convey a message. Thus it is important to have a firm understanding of the basics like composition, exposure etc.

Considerations in digital capture

With digital capture there are more technicalities to consider than while shooting film. One important decision to make is whether you want to shoot black and white or whether you want to shoot in color and do the conversion as a part of post processing. Manual conversion during post processing can be and overhead but allows great flexibility in differentiating and manipulating tones based of color. Whereas levels are pretty much all that you can play around while post-processing black and whites.

Filters add another aspect to black and white photography. The principle behind the use of color filters is simple – a filter allows a certain color to pass through while blocking others totally or partially. Thus as an example a yellow filter will block a lot of the color of sky thereby darkening the sky in the final result. It will also enhance the yellow areas in the picture whereby brightening them up into almost white. That’s quite as simple as it gets. A judicious use of correct filters can aid you in differentiating different tones based on the real colors in the original scene or subject.

It is also important to decide on the image format which you want to shoot in.

Conclusion

Black and white images put a photogapher’s skills to test. Black and white images are classy and are appreciated as art masterpieces by the connoisseurs. It is thus important to understand the basics and essentials. As we shall see in the second part, it is of prime importance that we look beyond colors and expand upon the photography basics to communicate in the language of texture, shapes, composition, tones and moods. Also we will briefly touch upon conversion to grayscale as a part of post-processing the digitals in the second and final episode.

Continue to part 2.
Photo by 3blindmice

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Splash Photography: How to shoot a splash scene

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:25:09 +0000

Splash photography is challenging and a lot of fun. The reason – it requires some precise coordination, the results are wonderful and you are going to have a lot of fun practicing some coordination with your assistant while witnessing some funny moments. Let’s get started with this fun e-workshop.

Items – You need 4 white acrylic sheets each of a size of 18 inches, a tripod to mount the camera, a glass, some water or a liquid of your choice, some ice-cubes and an assistant. (Of course you need a camera too – a DSLR works the best).
Setup – Let’s spend some time arranging the perfect setup. We’ll arrange the 4 acrylic sheets in a cubicle fashion with only 3 sides and a floor. Use a cellophane tape to hold the sides together. Further we’ll use side-lighting in order to highlight the splash and the drops. So use two softboxes (if available) or two strong light to shine through the two opposite sides of our cubicle. Place the glass right in the center and fill it up three-quarters so that the brim is low enough for the splash to fly out into the air. Mount the camera on a tripod and place it safely at a distance of about 2 meters – that way the camera lens stays away from any liquid drops.
The Shot – This is the fun and challenging part and needs some practice too. I remember my assistant breaking a few glasses so ask your assistant to practice dropping one ice-cube at a time right into the middle of a metal glass. Ask him to drop the ice-cube precisely as you count 3. That way you’ll make sure you get the splash when you are ready to capture it – there should be good synchronization of the action and the shutter-release. So far so good. Time to set the camera. Frame the scene first. The action is going to be so quick that your camera won’t have the chance to focus so either set your camera to manual focus and adjust the focus for the glass or use auto-focus and lock the focus waiting to capture the shot. Count three and capture the shot as the ice-cube lands on the surface of the liquid creating a splash.

TIP: It’s best to avoid peeping through the viewfinder and watch the action from the camera-side with your finger firmly placed on the shutter-release button ready to shoot. This will help you anticipate the action better.

How do your results come out be?

Photo by MyNameHere used under CC.

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Best of AdvancedPhotography.Net in 2008

Shivanand Sharma — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:16:05 +0000

2008 witnessed the launch of AdvancedPhotography.Net and some of the richest content published on this blog. We tried to cover some of the basics in-depth to form a solid foundation as we and our readers grow as photographers and a community as a whole. Here are some of the posts that made it to the top on the list of popular posts.

How to make a mark with your photographs – The post essentially explains the theory and the idea behind the art of photography. Essential for those who want to grow professionally into this stream.
RAW vs JPEG: Which format to shoot in – An analytic comparison of shooting in these two common and popular image formats. The post is simplifies some complicated theory to equip you better and help you choose between these two formats.
The secrets of shooting during the Golden Magic Hours – “Golden hours” or “Magic Hours” is a term used to refer to some exceptionally beautiful natural light that is available almost everywhere but only lasts a few minutes of the day. The post tells you how to make the most of this light.
Sunset Photography: How to shoot memorable sunsets – Sunsets make beautiful photographs. That was the idea behind this post dedicated to photographing sunsets. While sunsets are a common subject and situation the post drew a lot of attention from readers willing to make the most of this readily available scenery.
How to clean the camera lens – Maintenance of the equipment is as important as possessing one. A costly equipment won’t serve you for long if left uncared for. The camera-lens is one part of the camera that is the most sensitive and needs a lot of care. The post outlines some useful tips steps to keep your lens clean.
All you need to know and use filters – The word “filter” is more or less a jargon to the hobbyist photographer. The post aims at simplifying it and describing what the various filters are and how they affect your results.
Photographic Composition: Framing – Composition is one of the fundamentals of photography. While there are many rules (or guidelines) for composition, framing is a less known and practiced technique. This may have been one reason why the post become popular.
Histograms II: How to use Histograms – Histograms sound complicated, but once understood they are the best friend a photographer has. A casual look at the histogram will tell you lots about your photograph, especially comes handy when you can’t see the exact picture because of the small screen or due to the daylight on the camera LCD.
Lens Maintenance – Protect your priced possession – Bare basics of your lens. Effective care of your lens depends on you understanding and knowledge of your lens equipment.
Which camera do you own? – Another one that made it to this list, the post invited a lot of attention as every photography enthusiast possesses good equipment.

While these were largely what made it to the top in 2008, what’s the one that topped your list?

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Studio Photography Essentials II: Portraits and close-ups e-workshop

Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:50:21 +0000

Shooting in your studio is fun since you are in complete control of the equipment. We looked at the basic and essential equipment for a make-shift studio setup in Part I of this post so just in case if you haven’t checked it out we’ll wait.

Light – For this workshop you’ll need to have two other members by your side of which one will act as your subject and the other one as the assistant – call out to your cousin or friends. Sit your subject against a plain background; any color darker than gray would do if your subject is in bright clothing. Position the softbox at the top front of the subject elevated at 45 degrees and about a feet from the subject - would do just fine for a closeup or portrait.
This small distance increases the effective size of the light source with respect to the subject thereby illuminating the subject more uniformly and softening the light further.
Camera - Set your camera to manual exposure mode. Mount the wireless flash trigger to the hot-shoe of the camera. Mount your camera on the tripod. Place the tripod directly in front of the subject comfortably at a distance of 12-15 feet (given that you are using a lens in the range of 70mm-200mm). Position the camera at the eye-level of the subject. Test fire the flash (strobe) to check the wireless trigger setup. For now you are done with the camera and we’ll return back to it later.
Metering - Grab your hand-held light meter, with the strobe turned on turn off all the other ambient light in the room. This will ensure that the lighting conditions are similar to the time when the camera takes the exposure. We’ll now need to measure the light as it will be at the time of exposure (the flash will provide additional intensity which we need to take into account now). So refer to your light-meter’s manual and set the light-meter to the mode where it will wait for the flash to fire before providing you the reading. Set the shutterspeed in the light-meter to 1/60 and the ISO to 100 (the camera also should be set to use the same). Now all that we need to know is the aperture which is what the light-meter will tell us. Position the light-meter under the chin of the subject (the mid-tones) with the bulb pointing to the camera lens. Ask your assistant to fire the flash. Take the aperture reading from the light-meter and set the camera to use the same aperture. Just in case the meter reads out an impractical aperture, you may want to decrease the shutter speed or the ISO and take the reading again.
Reflections - This is your call. You need to take a few test shots and determine if you want some fill light to bounce off a reflector and illuminate the subject’s surface opposite to the light. Depending on your choice you may want to bring the reflector close to the subject or move it farther away to increase or reduce the fill. Just like the soft-box, the reflector too can typically be as close as 1-1/2 feet to the subject.
The Shot – You are now ready to photograph the subject. Make your subject comfortable, ask them to pose and shoot. Given that you’ve followed this guide properly, you’ll get some commercial class results. But just in case you want to experiment, try repositioning the reflector or meter the light again just to be sure.

Good luck and do not forget to share your results with us.

Photo by adamrhoades

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Studio Photography Essentials: Tools and Equipment

Shivanand Sharma — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:35:58 +0000

Shooting indoors can be very challenging due to the limitations of indoor lighting. But indoor photography is one kind which allows you to explore your creativity to the maximum given that mostly the light sources are artificial and you can exercise complete control over them. While photography is all about light, indoor photography is also about the equipment you employ and how creatively you put them to use. In this two-part article lets get familiar with the equipment and why we need them.

Flash

The on-camera built-in flash is a generic-purpose do-everything light. While flash is not recommended for the kind of photography we are talking about, investing is an external flash-gun is highly recommended. Using it with a Sto-Fen diffuser will provide you with a secondary source of usable light.
Light

Photographers prefer to work in soft-light unless they have specific requirements for hard-light. Soft-light keeps the shadows and highlights in control while illuminating the subject uniformly. You need a soft-box for this purpose which diffuses the light and softens it. I’d recommend you to use a home-made soft-box unless your photography work is fetching you good returns in which case you should go for a commercially available soft-box with a strobe light which you can fire with a wireless trigger fitted on the camera’s hot-shoe.
Reflectors

When budget is a consideration, full-size thermocol sheets are the answer. Acrylic sheets also come in handy to build up a make-shift light-tent to photograph small objects. The purpose of these reflectors is to illuminate the areas which fall opposite to the light falling on the subject. In day-light these are often not a problem as the light source is larger than the subject and the shadows are negligible or soft. But for our purpose investing in two thermocol sheets and 3-4 acrylic pieces (about 12 x 12 inches) is economical and does the job. Now all you need is a an assistant to hold them in place or find a make-shift stand – the results are the same in either case – they are at par with commercial photographs.
Light-meter

Even as a hobbyist if you are serious about photography, invest in a light-meter. Not that the in-built exposure-meter of the camera is any less useful but there’s a fundamental difference. The inbuilt camera meter gives you the reading based on the light reflected off the subject while a hand-held light-meter gives you the reading based on the incident light or the light hitting the subject. A light-meter is thus more accurate and usable for serious photography. More on metering in my post on metering modes in your camera.
Flash Trigger

Just in case you choose to invest in a strobe light the flash-trigger will enable you to fire the slave flash. Get a wireless one and you won’t tri over the wires and multiply your camera into pieces.
Tripod

Due to the low-light conditions indoors, even at maximum aperture, the shutter-speed has to be way low. This warrants the use of a tripod. Even a table or a similar placement will do but tripod is recommended.
Lens

While a zoom provides a lot of flexibility is terms of subject distance and framing, a fixed focal-length lens provides you with better quality images. But that’s not the consideration here. When you are shooting indoors, you are shooting small subjects from a close distance. You have to keep the perspective correct and also need the ability to really zoom-in close. Go for anything above 70mm (ideally 100mm and above) and you shall be fine.
Miscellaneous

So far so good. But indoor photography and especially table-top photography is pretty much based on makeshift arrangements. When you have to splash liquid off a glass you won’t count on the ice-cubes but use transparent plastic cubes which do a better job being shot as ice-cubes and never melt away. Some glycerin mixed with plain water can be sprayed onto things to make them shine with highlights and add gloss.

So much of it is exploring, experimenting, getting creative and learning. But guess what, we’ll come back in part-two of this post to show you how to put all this equipment to use and get started with it in a “hands-on” post.

Continue to part 2.

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Landscape Photography: How to shoot landscapes?

Sudhanshu Chaturvedi — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:44:16 +0000

I have spent my childhood in the great Himalayas. Even since from childhood days I use to look at the mountains, rivers, vast forests, which we typically say landscapes; I always tried to see them in frames. I think that’s where the photography bug had bloomed. So, when I grew up and got hold of a camera, the first form of photography I did was landscape photography.

Landscape photography is really interesting and at the same time fascinating as you capture the vast area of a subject and the real feel and mood that you experienced live. It can be fun and you can get wonderful picture if you keep a few points in mind.

Depth of Field

Most of the times in landscape photography, we recommend greater depth of field so that you can capture the whole landscape in frame with the same clarity from the center of the frame to the corners. This is achieved by using a small aperture or a higher f-stop. This brings everything from the background to the foreground into focus.

Foreground v/s Background

Great Depth of Field helps but you can always experiment with it depending on how you want to show the foreground versus background. Its very important to look at both separately to take your call.

Color Saturation

When you capture landscapes you typically capture, grass, trees, sky, mountains, water (rivers, sea, etc.) and some other things. With such variety of objects you need to ensure all these things come out in bright colors and look good. Hence, you need high color saturation for landscape photography. Make sure you use UV filter to enhance the colors especially of the sky. Also using a polarizing filter will help you cut through haze while enhancing the color saturation. These colors will fascinate you when you look at your pictures. If your camera setting allow it, do crank up on the saturation level.

Exposure

This is something that never loses its importance. Keep track of how you want to capture the mood. Like in the post on how to shoot sunsets, I mentioned that you can go down on exposure a bit to enhance the look by darkening the colors. Similarly, I would suggest try out low shutter speed if you are capturing the water falls or streams. It will help you capture the water in motion and not as a frozen look – that slight blur in the water flow will bring the water to life rather than make it look still and boring.

Tripod

If you are serious about photography, I can’t emphasize it enough – invest in a good quality tripod. You would definitely need it when you go down on shutter speed. Even otherwise, it’s always recommended to use a tripod for landscape photography.

Composition

A perfect landscape should have perfect composition. Plan out the shot. Walk around and visualize how you’d like the final result to come out. Following the rules of composition will make the shot look aesthetically more pleasing.

So, what are you waiting for? Go out and try your hand on landscape photography. Do share your experience here….

Photo by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton

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Breaking the rules of Photography: Before you break the rules

Shivanand Sharma — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:31:00 +0000

I was having a casual conversation with a renowned photographer. And he proudly said that it was all about breaking the rules – he never follows any rules. He said he does that because if he followed the rules he would never have grown beyond those rules.

Though breaking the rules is creative, lately I’m getting the feeling as if it’s becoming a fashion statement – such statements seem to be lacking depth and knowledge and irresponsible. I have a more conservative approach to “breaking the rule” rule. It is this attitude that prepares you for a long haul at photography. So go ahead and break those rules; but here’s a checklist before you set out to break them.

Know the rules – You can’t break something you don’t know about. You need to understand what the rule is, why is it practiced and what is the barrier it poses to your creativity. Certainly there must be a drawback else why would you bother to invest time in breaking the rule.
Perfect the rules – Understanding the rule is not good enough. You should be perfect at following them. If you are not, you are already neglecting them. That’s breaking the rules in a sense – but it also implies what level of control you have on your art and equipment. Practice till you set some of the best examples for yourself. You will realize, at some level the rule gets in the way of your creativity and results. Now you know you can explore further.
Don’t reinvent the wheel – Most of the times people just end up reinventing the wheel. I asked this photographer “Do you make use of the rule of thirds?” His answered that he never followed any rules. The rule of thirds is a rule of composition that helps you frame shots which are aesthetically more pleasing. This and similar rules are tested by specialists and through big surveys. When you make such a statement saying that you don’t follow the rule of thirds, you are saying you don’t invest efforts in making your composition more aesthetically pleasing. You may make some great compositions and then you may make some other – but in this context they are more of exceptions than rules. At the end of the day after shooting a few hundred shots you realize all the best shots follow some or the other rule of composition.
Work to get better results – Breaking the rules is a great idea provided you get better results than you’d have got following the rules. What’s the point in breaking the rules when you end up with something which doesn’t make sense? Get better results – that’s the way creativity is rewarded.
Experiment - Breaking the rules doesn’t work by itself. You have to spend hours experimenting with light, composition and several other parameters, get creative, visualize and try again. Explore your talent and get creative. Getting creative is the way to breaking the rules. It is when rules get in the way of your visualization and creativity that you have to chose not to follow them. Creativity is what makes a photograph stand out of the thousands. Creativity gives you the edge and you realize the individuality of the photographer within. The more you experiment, the more you get experienced and the better your work becomes.

So go ahead and break the rules. But tick off this list first.

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Tips to improve the background: Are you neglecting the background?

Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:22:01 +0000

Backgrounds place the subject into the perspective of its surrounding. However most of the time the attention of the photographer is mainly on the subject. But the slightest margin for error can result in a funny shot, wasted film or a moment lost forever. Let’s see how we can make the background better.

Choosing the background

Backgrounds are used to place the subject into perspective. Backgrounds also help create the mood and feel in the photograph. Ideally backgrounds should assist in highlighting the subject of the photograph. They should thus be simple, minimalistic and undistracting.
Background as a secondary subject

How many times have you stood to be photographed against the leaning tower of Pisa? Backgrounds are often used as secondary subjects especially in travel photography to frame them into memories. Several points here:
- Make sure that the subject does not obscure the background.
- Ensure that the subject and the background are in focus. Use a small aperture to extend the depth of field and keep the subject and the background in sharp focus.
- Backgrounds may affect the camera metering. A judicious use of flash and the various metering modes in the camera will give you the best results.
Subject versus the background

When the main highlight in the scene is the subject, the last thing you want is the background fighting for attention. Again depth-of-field comes into play. Use maximum aperture to reduce the depth-of-field. This will blur the background and soften it while keeping the subject in sharp focus.
Better backgrounds

When background is a concern almost all photographers invest in a (make-shift) studio setup. This gives you complete control over the backgrounds and also on lighting, composition and privacy. A studio allows a lot of flexibility in photographing your subjects.

Paying attention to the background as much as the subject makes a huge difference. After all attention to detail is what differentiates a photographer from just another photographer.

Photo by AHMED…

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All you need to know and use filters

Shivanand Sharma — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:23:20 +0000

Filters are glass fittings that are used in combination with the camera lens to alter the image being captured. Filters come in various sizes which decide their compatibility. Depending on the type of camera you have your camera may or may not accept filters – all SLRs and some prosumers do.

Depending on the type of filter you are using the filter will have a certain effect on the scene being captured. Filters are used to equalize areas of extreme highlights, reduce haze, reduce the light in the scene or even just to protect the lens.

Filters are of various types and sizes. Here are some of the more prominent types.

UV/Skylight Filter

These are colorless filters mostly used to protect the front element of the camera lens – better to loose a filter than scratch a lens. However these filters are also used to cut through the haze and ultra-violet radiation thereby improving the contrast of the scene.
Grey graduated filter/ Graduated Neutral Density Filter (GND)

This filter has a slight tint at one end and is clear at the other. This forms a gradient across the filter. The grey graduated filter is used to darken a part of the scene which contains extreme highlights. A good example is a scene where the presence of the sun causes vignetting or alters the metering of the DSLR resulting in a loss of details in the underexposed areas. A graduated filter (simply called ‘grad’) will reduce the intensity of the sun showing through the tinted part while the rest of the image shows through the clear part. This will equalize the light in the overall image thereby allowing better metering and exposure.
Neutral Density Filter

Simply referred to as ND, a neutral density filter is uniformly grayish all over and reduces incoming light. It finds use in overly lit scenes where a big aperture is warranted (because of DOF considerations) or where long exposure is warranted to induce motion blur.
Polarizing Filter

Polarizers have the most dramatic effect on the scene. Polarizers are used to reduce reflections, cut through haze and increase color saturation in an image. These filters are quite complicated as is their use, so we’ll cover the polarizers in a dedicated article.

While the necessity of using a filter depends on the application it is recommended that you invest in a good quality UV/Skylight filter. As mentioned above, it serves as a lens protection element and is easy and economical to replace than a damaged lens. Which filter do you use the most?

Photo by Nadar

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Sunset Photography: How to shoot memorable sunsets

Sudhanshu Chaturvedi — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:00:09 +0000

Sunset… One word can make a lot of memories alive in a second. No matter how many sunsets I see, I still get fascinated with the view of a sunset. Who doesn’t?

The reason why sunset has been one of the most interesting subject for photography is because

Every sunset is unique with the unique set of clouds or things in foreground.
It gives you infinite variations of colors in one evening itself.

So, here are the things you need to keep in mind while doing sunset photography so that your sunsets become memorable for time to come.

Composition

The most important part of a sunset is the sun. But sun alone can not make your pictures wonderful. You need to take care of the complete view – the composition; like the clouds, when light passes from them you get various shades and as the clouds move and sun goes further down, you get different patterns. Make sure you take a longer shot to capture the whole view. It doesn’t mean you can not zoom into sun and get the frame filled with the big ball of fire. That can be interesting too. Make sure you know how you want to capture your sunset. No place is bad, be it a beach or a mountain or even in the middle of the city. What matters is how you decide on your composition and how you capture it.

Exposure

Thumb rule says, if you are clicking the sun with the whole sky, go down on the exposure. One or two stops down on exposure. It works. It can help in putting all the things in foreground to look dark and you have a perfect back lit picture. Also a slight underexposure will result in more saturated colors. But be creative. There are no hard and fast rules.

Equipment

A digital camera or a DSLR (depending on what you want) with a normal lens will do. I have seen some good outputs from a wide angle lens but I won’t suggest that. That’s your call. Also make sure you carry a tripod, if in case you need to use low shutter speed. I prefer holding it my hand. I generally don’t go so slow on shutter speed that I need a tripod. But tripod is a good option. A good estimate is anything slower than 1/20sec can use a tripod.

You as a photographer

“Patience is a virtue” makes absolute sense in photography. You need to wait for the right moment and be ready to click. If you are new click every five minutes because you don’t want to miss that special moment that only occurs once a day. At times you might have to hold the camera for several minutes in order to get the perfect picture you are looking for. Sunset is a like a process. It takes a little time for the sun to set completely. But throughout the process you get huge variations and good chances to take a good picture. You get various shades in the sky during sunset. But you need to keep in mind that one shade combination will stay for a few minutes. Once gone, it will not come back. So, as a photographer you need to by ready for the right picture.

What to you say?

Photo by mischiru

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RAW vs JPEG: Which format to shoot in

Shivanand Sharma — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:03:15 +0000

A wise choice of image format before taking your shots will decide the flexibility and the control you will have over the final result. Let’s put a few things in perspective first. JPEG or JPG is an image format devised by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. Pronounced “J-peg”, it is a compressed and lossy format thus giving you a image that is smaller on storage (not resolution). The JPEG format depends on the shortcomings of the human eye to do away with some of the detail in an image.

The RAW format on the other hand is literally the raw data captured by the camera sensor. To be precise, it is the minimally processed data captured by the camera sensor and holds information of every pixel of the sensor. RAW files are huge in size since they hold a lot of data in an uncompressed format (not actually true since some RAW formats do compress minimally). So where does this leave us?

Image Quality

JPEG is lossy. The loss may not be evident at the first conversion, but when you digitally modify the image and save as JPEG again, the changes will be apparent.
RAW is lossless. No matter how many times you read and save the RAW file, there is no loss of the image quality.

Image Size

JPEG is compressed. This results in a smaller file size at the storage level though the measurements of the image area remain the same. Shoot JPEG when you are running low on storage.
RAW is uncompressed. Each RAW file eats up several megabytes of storage. If you are carrying extra storage you will want to shoot RAW.

Post-Processing

JPEG is lossy and results in the loss of detail on every save. However JPEG is a standard format and can be read by the majority of imaging software. The post-processing required is none or minimal.
RAW is proprietary format and depends of the camera manufacturer. Though RAW plug-ins exist for software like Photoshop, they are generic and do not necessarily allow you to get the best out of the RAW image. You’ll need to use a proprietary software to get the exact color rendition and details.

Shooting Speed

JPEG files are small in size and can be written to the storage very quickly. The camera buffer gets freed very quickly and the camera is ready to shoot the next image in continuous mode (given that you are not waiting for the flash to recharge).
RAW files are large in size and take time to be written to the storage. The camera buffer is occupied during this time so if you are shooting in the continuous mode, the fps or frames-per-second rate drops down.

Image Control

JPEG format contains the final image which is arrived at after all the processing has already been done inside the camera. Suited when you don’t want to do much post-processing.
RAW is well raw. You can open it up in its software and you have access to all the controls and various parameters. Its virtually like being able to take the shot again – you can vary the sharpness, exposure, contrast, brightness and a whole range of other parameters. This comes in very handy when you don’t want to miss a particular shot – you can open the RAW file and do any adjustments that you couldn’t do then.

I generally shoot in RAW and I delete images all the time trying to retain only the best. Even when I’m out shooting I make sure I have enough storage and I shoot in RAW. JPEG is only a last resort if I risk missing a particular shot. Which image format do you shoot in?

Photo by Chaval Brasil

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The secrets of shooting during the Golden Magic Hours

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:18:33 +0000

Lighting effects can bring out some of the most unique, interesting and dramatic compositions. We have already discussed the various features of light in a previous article and it is essential that you understand light before you proceed with this article. So if you haven’t read that article I’ll wait…

Natural lighting can be the most dramatic and brings out some unusual effects during certain times of the day. The dawn and the dusk are two parts of the day when the natural lighting is in its best and most unusual forms. These times of the day are also referred to as the “Magic Hours” or the “Golden Hours”. The light during these times has very special characteristics – the intensity is very low, the angle is unusual (as compared to the most part of the day when the sun is generally above us), the light is diffused, the sky and the clouds reflect in amber casting different hues and colors. The colors in the scene are varied and more saturated than during other parts of the day, the shadows are long and mysterious and the sky contains a variety of gradients from any one part to the other. The magic hour is one of the best times to experiment and shoot in natural lighting. It is no surprise that some of the award-winning shots of landscapes have been captured during the magic hours.

However shooting during these times of the day pose their own challenges so it is essential that you go prepared – especially when you sacrifice your morning sleep and leave the bed on a cold morning.

Low Light Conditions: When the sun is on the horizon, light is low in intensity. You will need to be prepared to take long exposures and it is very important that you carry a tripod along to reduce camera shakes.
Camera Mode: Most of the times I prefer to set the camera to auto mode and it takes care of everything. However auto mode tries to balance the light for optimal exposure of the subject which is not what we want during the magic hours. During the magic hours you want to make sure the auto mode doesn’t overexpose and make the photographs look like as if they were shot in the noon. Set your camera to programmed-auto or the manual mode and experiment. Read Digital Camera Modes: What do they mean.
Bracketing: You will definitely want to bracket your shots. The underexposed shot will most likely be the one that you will want to retain – it will have saturated colors and very dramatic effects. Read more on how to bracket your shots.
Timing: The biggest challenge photographers face during the magic hours is the timing of the shot. The light during the magic hours changes so rapidly that you’ll want to start with taking one shot every 5 minutes. Once the sun is on the horizon you’ll want to take one shot every minute. No matter how much you practice there will always be a chance that you may miss the moment. And you don’t want to repent and come back the next day. There are only a few minutes of the magic light during the magic hours. You don’t want to miss them.
Image Format: In tricky shots like these you want to shoot in RAW (if your camera allows). Though manipulation is not a way of the purists, technology can be leveraged upon to get the best out of every shot (after all beautiful photographs are generally post-processed in one way or the other to make them sell). RAW allows you full control on the picture data.
Angles: Try different angles. Light during these moments varies with every angle as does the reflection and gradient and the colors.
Peripherals: As always carry extra battery, storage etc. since you will be taking shots every few minutes, shooting in RAW and bracketing them too.

Now that you know what you need, set the alarm, go out and shoot some lovely pictures and share them with us.

Photo by Al Ebnereza

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Photographic Composition: Framing

Shivanand Sharma — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:14:38 +0000

There are so many compositions, and then so many styles of composition. How do you like your photographs in print, framed or unframed? It is interesting to see that a simple photograph when framed within a white margin on all sides generally appears more elegant and pleasing than its original. A frame helps draws the viewers’ attention to the subject. One style of photographic composition is natural framing.

Framing is a lesser known and practiced technique because of its very nature. Framing your subject in a natural frame not only draws viewer’s attention to the photograph, it also makes it more interesting while inviting different reaction from the viewer. It adds depth to the picture and places the subject in perspective of the foreground frame. Framing increases the interest while adding the missing dimension to the two dimensional image – the depth.

Framing is tricky is more than one ways. First it needs to be used judiciously, not every foreground element frames the subject. Second not every subject is complemented by a frame. However implemented correctly framing brings out some very interesting pictures. Try it out and tell us about it.

Photo by jzakariya

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