Petri

Hi all,

Because of so many requests, I thought I'd write something about how I take photos and how I photochop them. While I was thinking about what to write, I realized that this post would be easily 10 pages long if I included everything. So, to save your time and bandwidth, I won't go into the theory or the artistic side of taking photos (that's very subjective anyway) but instead try to tell which things I think are technically most important and can help an amateur taking better photos. There are dozens and dozens of things to consider if one tries to take "pro-like" photos but probably most of us just want to capture the moment as well as possible. I also know that most digisnappers don't want to spend the whole evening editing and tweaking day's photos, so I try to mention only the essential things (which I know most of you already know, sorry for repetition).

LIGHTING

In my book lighting is the number one key word for good photos. Good lighting gives vivid, accurate colors, greater depth of field and sharp images (no camera shake because of short exposure times). At least the following things come to mind when I think about lighting and lights: brightness, size of the light source, color of the light, number of light sources, distance to light sources, direction the light comes from. Usually it's wise to use as much light as possible and not to mix light sources of different color temperatures (tungsten and fluerescent, for example) if possible. Most, if not all, in-camera flashguns are pretty pathetic but it's better than nothing. A lot better solution is to buy an external flashgun with a tilt head. This way the flash can be bounced from the ceiling when shooting indoors. This creates even lighting and eliminates backround shadows and burning. It's also useful to use flashgun when photographing people outdoors in bright daylight. Without the flash the foreground and the people usually get underexposed.


WHITE BALANCE

Correct white balance is very important and simply means that if the WB is spot-on, then pure white looks white and not bluish or yellowish or something else. White balance is usually not a problem when shooting outdoors but different artificial light sources may mess up camera's white balance sensor. This is why there are different settings for different kinds of lights, for example tungsten and fluerescent lamps/tubes. For normal snapping it's best to leave the camera's auto white balance on because it works 95% of the time just fine. However, there are differences between different cameras here. It's best to do some experimenting to find out the limits of the WB meter.

Here's an example of what I mean:


Heavy tungsten lighting really messed up D30's WB meter. It's all yellow.

<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/WB_wrong.jpg">


White balance corrected with the Canon PC software.

<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/WB_correct.jpg">



EXPOSURE

Exposure is determined by an in-camera light meter. Every camera assumes that the world is a gray card that reflects 18% of the light hitting it. This is referred to as middle grey because it is roughly the average value in an average photograph and it works pretty well most of the time.

Different cameras expose differently but most cameras underexpose somewhat by default to leave safety margin for possible overexposure. Underexposure is tolerable because usually the (too dark) image is salvageable (some Photoshop magic required), but the downside is that colors might be wrong or at least very dull-looking. Overexposed images are very difficult or impossible to repair. The basic rule of thumb is to use exposure compensation to increase exposure when shooting something that's bright (sunny beach, winter scene) and decrease exposure when taking photos of a dark scenery. I usually overexpose by at least two thirds of a stop when I shoot winter photos or in bright daylight. Otherwise the snow will turn muddy grey or blue because my camera thinks it's 18% gray instead of white. For the same reason very dark scenery needs to be underexposed or it becomes too bright.

Here's a typical amateur daylight photo that's underexposed because of the bright sky

<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/underexp.jpg">


But it should look something like this with correct exposure.

<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/underexp_corrected.jpg">


SHUTTER SPEED

For normal photography it's ok to let the camera decide the correct shutter speed but it's good to know that 1/30th of a sec or faster shutter speeds are usually required for sharp pics. 1/20 is possible hand-held but it's half luck. So what if there's simply not enough light? Then use a monopod or a tripod or basically anything to prevent the camera from shaking. Long exposures always require a stand for the camera. Most soft, blurry images are caused by camera shake.

It's worth the time to experiment with different shutter speeds as longer exposures create nice effects, especially when shooting water.


Shutter speed of 1/8th of a sec to blur the water.


<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/water.jpg">


1/1500 to freeze Mika Hakkinen

<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/Mika.jpg">


APERTURE

Aperture is measured in f-stops (the ratio between the focal length of the lens and the diameter of the opening in the diaphragm). Each stop in the standard series of stops represents a factor of two in the amount of light admitted. the bigger the f-number, the smaller the aperture. Shutter speed and aperture work together to control the exposure and depth of field. For example 1/60 at f4 is the same as 1/30 at f5.6 This combination is always a compromise between how sharp the overall image is and how quickly the shutter has to open and close. Once again for normal photos it's best to let the camera decide the best combination but the possibility to manually adjust shutter speed and aperture opens up a whole new world. All digicams usually produce sharp photos with great depth of field due to the small CCD/lens construction. I recommend experimenting with larger apertures for small depth of field pics. This way you can blur the distracting backround away and create a soft artistic image.

Two examples here.


<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/flower.jpg">


<img src="http://personal.inet.fi/surf/photos/Tips/graduation.jpg">


That's it for today, my fingers are getting numb. Please, let me know if this kind of info is useful or not. I'll be happy to answer any questions if I can. I'll write the Photoshop part tomorrow or Thursday if you think it would be worth reading.

Pete

Bluto

Wow, think I need to print that all out!

Merou

OMG!!! You're awesome!!!!!! thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou

nansaidh

excellent primer, Pete.

fredfromny

Image Browser seems to be awfully slow.
Thanks.

Petri

You're most welcome ;-)

Petri

Thanks, Nancy!

Petri

They all are awfully slow. I'm mainly using the Canon TWAIN plug-in converter but also the Canon batch converter. There are some 3rd party converters that are faster but the image quality suffers somewhat. Should probably take look to find out if there are any new converters. Converting RAW files is the slowest part of my post-processing, sigh...

Pete

Larrytt

What sort of PhotoChop tips can you offer? Other than the basic cropping. How are some of the various filters used? In what situation would you use the most common filters?

Thanks.

Gnowknayme

I usually just resize my pictures or, at most, I'll adjust the levels if it's too dark/bright.