::Basic Photography 101..tips, guides..etc

[tolstoi]

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just dig these informative tips about photography..basic things to consider if yu are a newbie on this field..like me

photography guru in istorya.net are free to post some tips also..salamat po
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Capture a Moment

Try to capture a moment. Look for an expression or gesture or quality of light that elevates an image beyond the ordinary.
The next time you’re photographing a friend rock climbing, look for the moment when he’s stretching, his knee is up, he’s really going for it. When you are out kayaking, wait until his paddle is down and water splashes across the frame.

If You See It, Shoot It

Don’t spend all of your time and energy trying to get one perfect shot. Experiment and take as many pictures as you can.
If you see something that strikes you, photograph it. You may find that your spontaneous photos are better than the ones you spent a long time composing. It’s easy to pass by a good shot. You might be out backpacking and think, “Do I really want to stop the group and pull out my camera to take this photo?” You have to. Because you might not see it again.

Back Off and Show the Terrain

Don’t set up every picture so that your friends are ten feet [three meters] away from your camera. Get some variety in your shots. Back up and show your surroundings.

Watch Your Backgrounds

Simple, uncomplicated backgrounds help make a good picture better. Usually, the fewer extraneous people, objects, or colors in the background, the better. Move your camera—or yourself—if you have to.

Try Different Angles

Think about how you would normally photograph a scene. Then shoot it in an entirely different way.
Come up with surprises. Once you start doing that, you open your mind up to new possibilities. You’ll come back with more interesting and creative photos.

Put People in Landscapes

When photographing landscapes, it’s sometimes hard to capture a sense of scale—how big or small that landscape really is.
Think about putting a person in the landscape you’re photographing. Everyone knows how big a person is, so putting one in your shot will illustrate how grand that landscape really is.

Shoot at Sunrise and Sunset

Professional photographers know that the best time to take pictures is in the hours just before and after sunrise and sunset. Why? The light is at its most dramatic. It lacks the harsh contrasts of midday sun. Low light can be used to evoke a special mood and feel.


Keep Your Camera Still

Carry—and use—a tripod. Tripods keep your images from appearing jittery or shaky, especially when photographing in low light conditions around dawn and dusk—exactly the times you should be taking pictures.
If you don’t have a tripod with you, improvise. Use the crook of a tree, or lay your backpack down on a rock and use that as a base for your camera.
Pushing a camera’s shutter release can cause a camera to shake. So use a cable release, or set the self-timer on your camera. Two seconds should allow enough time for your camera to settle.

Combine Blurring and Sharpness

This technique combines a slow shutter speed (1/15 second or less), panning to follow the motion of your subject, and a short burst of fill flash added during the middle of your exposure. The result will freeze the action of your subject on a blurred background of color and motion.

Blur the Motion

One approach to motion photography is to use a slow shutter speed (try 1/15 second or less) and a tripod. This technique allows you to create a colorful blur of a subject in motion, like a kayaker moving through waves or a mountain biker pedaling through lush forest.
Slow shutter speed is also useful in landscape photography when you want to capture the blur of a stream, waterfall, or other moving water.

Stop the Motion

Another approach to motion photography is to try to stop the action by using a fast shutter speed. A fast shutter speed will freeze motion and capture details—like a kayaker grimacing as he digs into the water.


Get Superclose—Without a Macro Lens

Close-range photography of flowers, insects, and other small details is best accomplished with a macro lens. Their short focal lengths allow you to get close to your subject—effectively filling your frame with a blossom or beetle.
If you don’t have a macro lens and you’re shooting with an SLR (single lens reflex) camera, try this: Remove your lens, turn it around, and place the end where your filters attach snugly against your camera body. Zoom the lens out to 50mm or so.
Do not adjust the lens to focus. Instead, move the camera closer to or farther from your subject until you like what you see.
It’s not a perfect solution, but it can work in a pinch.

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courtesy of: national geographics

note: to see sample pics on the above tips just visit this link: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pathtoadventure/

[tolstoi]

Look for Telling Details

Shoot some detail shots along the way. Take close-up pictures of insects, frogs, little flowers here and there. Zero in on some of the elements that you won’t see in the rest of your pictures. It helps create a mood and capture the beauty of the place.

Keep Your Gear Simple

Sometimes you can do more with less. If you’re out backpacking, you can travel light. Just bring a camera and one lens. You may find that you take some better pictures that way. Focusing less on your gear and more on what you’re shooting is a great way to develop your eye.

Use Fill Flash in Shady Forest and Spotty Sunshine

Shady forests with spotty sunshine make for high contrast in a photograph. Those sunlit areas will appear a lot brighter on film. So use the fill flash on your camera to pop in extra light on your subject.

Experiment With Wide-Angle Lenses

An advantage to using a wide-angle lens for landscape photography is that it allows you to play with the foreground and background at the same time. You might compose an image with a close view of a plant growing out of a rock crevice in the foreground while a waterfall—that would be out of the frame in a non-wide-angle shot—cascades in the background.

The danger in using a wide-angle lens is that it’s very easy to get too wide and clutter everything up. (The scene might look dynamic when you’re photographing it. But when you get your film back, everything seems too far away.) So use it judiciously.

[|dwyt|]

1 more thing! know your camera! =)

[tolstoi]

RULE OF THIRDS

One of the most popular 'rules' in photography is the Rule Of Thirds. It is also popular amongst artists. It works like this:

Imaginary lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. You place important elements of your composition where these lines intersect.

[img width=200 height=133]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b252/laotech/fig1.gif[/img]

As well as using the intersections you can arrange areas into bands occupying a third or place things along the imaginary lines. As you can see it is fairly simple to implement. Good places to put things; third of the way up, third of the way in from the left , you get the idea. Duff places to put things; right in the middle, right at the top, right at the bottom, away in the corner.

[img width=230 height=170]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b252/laotech/fig2.jpg[/img]

Using the Rule of Thirds helps produce nicely balanced easy on the eye pictures. Also, as you have to position things relative to the edges of the frame it helps get rid of ' tiny subject surrounded by vast empty space' syndrome.

The Rule of Thirds is fairly structured but there are a great many methods you can employ which rely on your ability to 'see' things and incorporate them into your composition.

[tolstoi]

Aperture and f-numbers.

The aperture is just a hole whose size can be varied to allow more or less light to pass through it. The size of apertures are expressed in f-numbers. You can calculate an f-number, if you are keen or don't have much of a life, by dividing the lens focal length by the diameter of the aperture. The range of f-numbers follows a standard sequence with each f-number being half as bright, passing half as much light, as the previous one. A typical aperture range may look like this:

f 1.4; f 2; f 2.8; f 4; f5.6; f 8; f 11; f 16; f 22; f 32

There are smaller and larger f-numbers but the actual numbers used are always the same and will maintain a constant value over different lens focal lengths. This just means that f-8, for instance , will always pass the same amount of light no matter what camera or lens you may be using. Similarly, f-16 will pass half as much light as f-11 and f-4 will pass twice as much as f-5.6. The difference in value between one full f-number and the next is known as a 'stop'. If you change aperture from f-8 to f-5.6 you will give your film one stop more exposure.
The smaller the f-number is then the larger the aperture is and the more light it will pass. The f-number is also used as a guide to the light gathering abilities of a lens. Lenses with large maximum apertures ( small f-number ) are described as being 'fast'.
Generally the aperture will always be held open at its maximum irrespective of whatever value you may have set it to and will not actually close down until the moment of exposure. The main reason for this is to produce the brightest image possible onto the focusing screen. To see the aperture in operation you will have to remove the lens, unless you have a preview control, and look through the lens while turning the aperture control ring.

Shutter and Shutter Speeds.

The shutter prevents light from reaching the film until the moment of exposure, when it opens for a predetermined time allowing light passing through the lens aperture to reach the film. Unlike the aperture, which is always in an open position the shutter is always closed. Like the aperture, shutter values or 'speeds' follow a standard sequence with each one being half that of the next, allowing half as much light to pass through. A typical shutter speed range may look like this;

1sec; 1/2sec; 1/4sec; 1/8th; 1/ 15th; 1/30th; 1/60th; 1/125th; 1/250th; 1/500th; 1/1000th; 1/2000th


Shutter speeds are expressed in seconds or fractions of a second. Slow shutter speeds run into seconds while fast shutter speeds will be shorter than 1/500th of a second. In normal photography shutter speeds will probably fall into the range 1/60th to 1/1000th of a second.
As you may have worked out, changing from one shutter speed to the next changes the exposure by one 'stop' in much the same way as changing the aperture.

[P-Chan]

very nice.. keep this comming..

[harvz86]

^lol...keep coming? pag 2005 pa man ni...hahaha

[koto]

hehe pwedeng pwede mag himo og "Istorya.net Photography 101"

share ko:
open both eyes when using the viewfinder XD

[makatasawi]

kining tolstoi akng pnka unang nabasahan nga photography posts.
ari sad ko niya naka kat un ug orton tech.
ambut asa na ni siya run. that was way back 3years ago

[harvz86]

@koto: unsa diay naa if i open ang both eyes?