Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ Category

Posted on December 17, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 17

Spend money on glass

I’m a big believer in spending money on lenses rather than camera bodies.  You can get a beautifully sharp picture with a low-end digital camera body with a high end lens.  You can’t, however, get a good photo with a top of the range digital SLR with poor optics.

Digital SLR camera manufacturers are pretty shrewd as they lock you in with them once you decide to invest in equipment.  Canon equipment, for example, will only work with Canon cameras so if you decide to switch to, say, Nikon down the road then it’s a major decision to source a whole load of like-for-like gear.

Purchasing lenses from manufacturers such as Canon and Nikon ensure you get the the sharpest possible images available but come at a higher price compared to third party equivalents from Sigma and Tokina, for example.  Third party equivalent lenses are a great alternative and could save you about a third off compared to the main brands.

-Ben

Posted on December 16, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 16

Storage

Today’s tip is about where you store all your digital photographs on your computer.

I thoroughly recommend you purchase an external hard drive and dedicate this to storage of your precious photographs.  Always avoid storing all your photographs on the same drive as your operating system as this is a very risky setup.  If your hard drive fails or you get a virus then you lose everything.  In addition to storing on an external hard drive, I recommend you make at least one back up of the external drive contents and store in a different location.

Archival Gold CD/DVDs are also another option as these will last up to 100 years compared to 3-4 years with standard blank CD/DVDs.

-Ben

Posted on December 15, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 15

Shoot at high resolution

Quick tip today.  It is often tempting to lower the resolution of your camera to allow more images to be stored on your digital memory card.  With the price of memory so cheap nowadays, I suggest you buy a high capacity memory card so that you can always take photos at the camera’s highest resolution.  It’s easy to reduce file size later but you can’t add on resolution if you take a photograph which you’d love to enlarge at a later date.

N.B. Check your camera’s instruction manual on maximum memory card capacity as this can vary depending on the age of your camera.

-Ben

Posted on December 14, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 14

Mirror Lock Up through Live View (LV)

Today’s tip is a more an advanced tip for digital SLR users which I discovered perchance when photographing this year’s fireworks display at Clickimin.

I was frapping around in the guts of my camera settings trying to work out how to use ‘mirror lock up’ to minimise the chance of camera vibration when making long exposures of the fireworks.  It suddenly dawned on me that if I switched to ‘Live View’ on my digital SLR the mirror would lock up allowing me to compose my image using the camera’s LCD.  The photograph above was made using this method and I’m pleased at how it turned out.  Now, not all digital SLRs have the Live View feature but if your camera does then you might find this tip useful.

-Ben

Posted on December 13, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 13

Improve your portrait images

For nice portrait images this Christmas I suggest you reduce the depth of field on your camera so that your subject is sharp but your background is out of focus.

To do this on a digital SLR or bridge camera turn your camera to the ‘AV’ setting which puts the camera into ‘Aperture Value’ or ‘Aperture Priority’ mode.  This mode allows the user to select the desired aperture and the camera will select the shutter speed for you.  I suggest an aperture of f5.6 or lower (lens dependent) for pleasing portrait images.  If you are not using flash and your shutter speed is too slow (blurry photos), I suggest you put up the ISO rating a notch until the shutter speed is fast enough to get a sharp image.  You may have to uprate the ISO maybe 2 or 3 times before you get an acceptable photograph.

If you have a digital compact camera you can select the ‘Portrait Mode’ on the camera which will do what I described above automatically for you – pretty good eh?!

-Ben

Posted on December 12, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 12

Keep those eyes open

If you’re photographing a group it’s often very difficult to ensure that everyone’s eyes are open when the exposure is made.  My tip is once you’re ready to make the photograph ask everyone to close their eyes.  Next, ask them to open on the count of three, pause for a split second once they’ve opened their eyes and then take the shot.

If you’ve got an older digital camera with a slight delay between pressing the shutter and the photo being taken, I recommend you push the shutter when your subjects immediately open their eyes so that the exposure is made a split second later at the suggested moment mentioned earlier.

Try it and let me know how you get on.

-Ben

Posted on December 11, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 11

Aspect Ratios

The 6×4-inch print has been the standard sized photograph since I can remember.   The size came from the fact that a 35mm negative (remember those?!) measured 36mm x 24mm.  The common theme here is termed the ‘aspect ratio’ which sounds quite complicated but is quite simple in principle.

The aspect ratio of a digital photograph is the relationship between the width and height of the photograph.  The two most common ratios are 3:2 and 4:3.  The first number represents the width of the image and the second number represents the height.  Both numbers are not indicating the measurement but rather a relationship.

The 36x24mm negative measurement has a 3:2 ratio.  A 6×4-inch print also has a 3:2 ratio.  This means that when a 6×4-inch photo is made from a 35mm negative the full image is shown on the print.  The problems arise when we try to print a 7×5 or any other standard print size that doesn’t have a 3:2 ratio.

For some reason when digital cameras were introduced the designers decided to use an aspect ratio of 4:3 with mainstream digital cameras compared to the standard 3:2 which had been the norm for so long.  As a result, to get a full image without any cropping from a digital image, the smallest standard sized print is 8×6.

It is important that you are aware of the aspect ratio issue whether you print at home or send your image to a lab.  What you see on the back of your digital camera is not necessarily what the finished print will look like depending on the print size and consequent aspect ratio.  I suggest that you crop your images to the desired final output size prior to printing/sending to a lab so that you know exactly what the finished print will look like.

So, what happens when the aspect ratio of the photo produced by your digital camera does not match the aspect ratio of the print? What happens when you print an image that is 3:2 ratio at 7×5-inch or 10×8-inch print size? Your image gets cropped to fit the aspect ratio of the print.

Original 3:2 image

7×5-inch Crop

10×8-inch crop

The images above illustrate what happens to the original image which you’d see on the back of your digital camera when printed at non 3:2 ratio standard photograph sizes.

I hope this clears up an issue that I often find myself explaining to people.  If you have any questions then please leave a comment below.

-Ben

Posted on December 10, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 10

Create a personalised photo book

You’ve been away on a great holiday and come back with a series of exciting photographs.  What do you do now? Download them to the computer to never look at them again or make a lasting momento from the trip?  I’m a big fan of photo books and they are excellent for yearly events such as holidays.  Photo books are also much more personal, are great to show family and friends and mean you don’t have to boot up the computer every time you want to show off your photographs.

The new software from Kodak allows for easy creation of photo books from their kiosks.  The Camera Centre now have four state-of-the-art kiosks installed where you can create photo books in just a few minutes.

There is a range of great themes to bring your creation to life.  Staff are always on hand to assist and as the photo books are made on-site you don’t have to worry about postal deadlines either.

-Ben

Posted on December 9, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 9

Landscape Photography

In my opinion there are only two times to get great landscape photographs; either at sunrise or at sunset which is often termed the ‘golden hour’.

Have a look at the weather forecast in advance to gauge sunrise and sunset times so you can plan accordingly.

-Ben

Posted on December 8, 2010 - by benmullay

Digital Advent Calendar 2010 – Day 8

Changing Lenses

When you’re changing lenses on a digital SLR care needs to be taken so that dust doesn’t get inside the camera body which can find its way onto your camera sensor.  Dust on your camera sensor will result in spots appearing on your photographs which can only be removed by using specialist equipment.

To minimise the chance of this happening ensure you’re in a dust free environment and that your camera body is facing down when replacing your lens.  It is good practice to put both the front and rear lens caps on the lens you’ve just taken off to protect them fully.

-Ben