Daily Photo Tips Archive

Page 13

These photography tips are a record of new entries to the Daily Photo Tips RSS feed since November 2007. There are currently 1567 tips in the database! Contact Me to comment or add tips.

Daily Photo Tip

Even very fast shutter speeds cannot freeze an extremely quick subject. Though shutter speeds on most newer cameras are fast, they cannot capture the motion of a bullet or an exploding balloon. (First published Oct 25, 2009)

06.Sep.11Normal prime lenses are lenses from about 35mm to about 60mm (35mm equivalent). These are often the fastest (or smallest) and sharpest in a company's lineup, because they are usually the easiest to design. They are used for scenes where very little perspective change is desired.

05.Sep.11RAW photos will generally look less saturated and less contrasty than JPEGs collected in-camera. Because JPEG files have clipping and saturation adjustments pre-applied, they will tend to 'pop' more than the original.

04.Sep.11Zoom lenses can sometimes be grouped into fixed-aperture and variable aperture zooms. Regardless of focal length, fixed-aperture zooms tend to be of higher quality than variable aperture zooms.

03.Sep.11Converting baby photos to black and white is best done using more sophisticated techniques, like channel mixing. Since some channels are more noisy or blotchy than others, this method can help produce a smooth, professional picture of baby.

02.Sep.11Certain types of lens designs have their own strengths and limitations, regardless of the camera brand. After using many lenses, the experienced photographer can learn how each lens style will likely behave.

01.Sep.11'Pancake' type lenses, even when manufactured well, usually vignette quite strongly at large apertures. This is characteristic of the lens design, and is very difficult to change optically.

31.Aug.11When processing photos of babies (in colour or black and white), a smoother, lower-contrast approach will usually work best. Contrasty or grainy photography is better suited to people with an aged or weathered look.

30.Aug.11To find out how various colours will affect a black and white conversion, move each colour mixer slider rapidly back and forth. The sections of the photograph that fade from black to white are areas affected by that particular colour.

29.Aug.11Dedicated macro lenses are usually prime lenses with the ability to focus very close to the subject. Though most prime lenses can also perform well at infinity, they are optimized for close range work and are used for rendering small objects very large in the frame.

28.Aug.11A 'developing' camera system, or one that has not been available for long, may not yet include all the lenses you might expect. As the camera system matures, the manufacturer will typically start with the most popular lenses, then gradually fill in the gaps as their customer base improves.

27.Aug.11Before setting up a tripod on a large train, plane or ship, make sure that the engine has been turned off and that the vessel has been allowed to 'settle' for a time to quell movement and vibrations.

26.Aug.11When using a long telephoto lens, the ground your tripod is set up on affects the sharpness of your photographs. Spongy or grassy ground will tend to bounce or rock the camera in response to small tripod movements (like a shutter release) instead of absorbing the vibrations and steadying the camera.

25.Aug.11If your camera does not perform well at high ISO, don't feel disadvantaged. For many years with film, photographers made groundbreaking, life-changing photography on ISO 100, ISO 50, or even ISO 25 film.

24.Aug.11Camera companies that make a large selection of prime lenses tend to cater to the more traditional, quality-minded photographer. These brands tend to be more expensive, but are often more appealing to professionals.

23.Aug.11To really identify your best photographs, you may have to go through your work in stages. Sorting and resorting a 'keeper' group can help weed out photographs that seemed good at first, but are not to the standard of your current best work.