Daily Photo Tips Archive

Page 9

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)

05.Nov.11Noise in photography has measurable standard deviation and magnitude. This means that a standardized photograph can be, if desired, analyzed for the amount and severity of noise produced by a certain sensor in certain conditions.

04.Nov.11Most wide angle lenses distort the image at least slightly in the edges and corners of the frame. If you are photographing an object that is sensitive to distortion, experiment to see how far from the centre of the frame you can place it.

03.Nov.11Light in deep valleys or canyons is often better on partly cloudy days, especially in the morning or evening. Since much of the light is reflected from rapidly changing clouds (instead of the darker, bluer sky), light in the canyon can be even softer and warmer than outside!

02.Nov.11With distant landscape photography, photos can be blurry because of poor air quality. Haze, particularly at midday, can make a scene appear quite blue and low-contrast.

01.Nov.11Moving from still photography to video seems like a logical step to many photographers. However, the two mediums are quite different. Many artists find that the skills they acquire in one do not translate completely to the other.

31.Oct.11The only way to truly eliminate haze from a distant scenic is to wait for better, clearer weather. Haze reduction through filtration or through post-processing can be difficult, and can affect the final image in negative ways.

30.Oct.11Lens flare can be partly controlled by stopping the lens down. Since the size of the polygonal shapes that flare in the frame match the aperture, reducing the aperture should reduce the size (but possibly not the intensity) of the shapes.

29.Oct.11The best way to control lens flare is always to use a lens hood. Other alternatives (like stopping down or using your hand to shade the lens) can be less effective and fairly unreliable, particularly with non-SLR cameras which make it difficult to see the flare directly.

28.Oct.11If sensor noise and image detail are nearly the same (for example, in a photograph of a sandy beach) you may want to avoid filtering noise. Not only will existing noise not distract from the photograph, but reducing noise will erase real image details!

27.Oct.11Minor haze reduction in post processing (by warming and increasing contrast) can be effective, but will lower the bit-depth of the image, sometimes significantly. The scene may appear clear and sharp, but may look like it was captured by a 'cheaper' camera.

26.Oct.11Often, a camera will become obsolete before it is worn out or broken. Especially if you like to have the latest technology, keep this in mind before you spend extra money on a super-durable camera.

25.Oct.11Noise can often be filtered out (to a point) by post-processing algorithms. Minor noise can usually be completely removed; however, programming an algorithm to tell the difference between coarse noise and very fine image details had proven to be extremely difficult!

24.Oct.11Zoom lenses can sometimes be grouped into wide zooms, normal zooms, telephoto zooms, and super-zooms. Zoom lenses rarely include specialty features, like true macro performance, fish-eye optics, or tilt-shift capabilities.

23.Oct.11'Pancake' type lenses make it easy to get your fingers in the frame. Particularly with wide angle pancakes, your fingers must sit flat against the camera body to operate the focus ring.

22.Oct.11Prime lenses can be grouped into super-wide, wide, normal, portrait, telephoto, and super-telephoto lengths. Prime lenses sometimes include specialty features, like true macro performance, fish-eye optics, or tilt-shift capabilities.