I was shooting a Babe Ruth League baseball game a few of weeks ago and a parent friend of mine came up to me with her brand new DSLR camera. She had been using an entry level DSLR for a couple of years and she thought it was time to invest in a newer more up-to-date body. I asked her how she liked her new camera and she told me that most of her photos weren’t much better than what she was getting with her old camera and that she was a little disappointed.

Over the years she had purchased several photos from me and she thought because she bought this new camera that her photos would look more like mine. I noticed that the camera was sporting a kit lens (a lower cost lens sometimes sold with new cameras). I asked her about the lens and she said she bought it because it was cheaper and allowed her to also purchase another zoom lens with longer reach. The money she spent on these two inferior lenses would have been better applied to the cost of one good lens.

To greatly increase the quality of photos, invest in good glass and not camera bodies.

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If you are thinking of pulling out your camera to take some photos of the Christmas lights, you’ll want to be sure and read this tutorial on how to photograph them well. There are some great tips!

I think that the BBC is the master of all media. I am constantly impressed by the documentaries, articles, etc on the BBC site. Yesterday I was checking out the photo tips from Tom Ang, a professional photographer and a senior lecturer in photographic practice in London.

The page is called “How To Take Good Photos” and the layout is simple. There are six categories. (Compsition, Light, Colour, Landscape, People, Being Ready) And, there are four to six subcategories under each main category. What I like about this is that each subcategory only has 3 or 4 one liner tips. Sometimes that is all it takes to get you started.

Link: BBC: How To Take Good Photographs

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You are going to take a photo of your family so everyone lines up facing the sun and you snap the shot. Everyone has shadows under their eyes and mom hates the way tht her wrinkles look. Is that about right?

When people start taking portraits, a common mistake is to assume that you don’t need the flash while taking photos on a sunny day. This is false. In fact, famed photographer Derrick Story offers, “that the one killer tip that will inprove your pictures more than any other is to turn on your flash for outdoor portrais.”

The reason is simple. Regular outdoor light is hard to control. If is it shining across the face, the texture and bumps will show. If it is straight on the subject, the shoadows will be strong.

So, what to do? Mr Story suggests that you “finda comfortable spot for (the subject) to stand in the open shade…with a complimentary background.” Next, you’ll want to turn on your flash. Now, as you take the shot, the subject will be lit with the flash. This light will come from their front so the light smooths over texture and blemishes. However, your camera will still recognize the bright background. This is called “Fill Flash.” It “fills in” the shadows and angles.

There are some things to consider:

• The flash will drain your battery faster. Be sure to have a backup.
• Stay close to your subject. Most flash only travels about eight feet. External flashes will travel further.
• Changing your ISO to 200 will let give you a little more room to play with the flash.

Below is a picture I took at my sister’s wedding. It was in Las Vegas in the middle of the Summer so it was hot, bright, and everyone was sweaty. Using the fill flash really brought out the vibrant colors of the flowers and softened the shadows from the strong sun.

I just read a nice article on how to express motion in your photos. It deals with the different ways to freeze motion, or to use the panning method to show the motion. If there are any readers out there just learning about action photography, this is a good place to start. Later, I will be writing about shutter speed and how that will determine how action is recorded in your photos.

The article: Expressions Of Motion In Photography

(PS, the image used here is from The Swing Jumping Pool. If you are looking for a fun Saturday activity, get out your camera and take some swing jumping photos.)

When I was in college, I always tried to get a lot of fun photos of all the activities and parties. In my attempts to have good photo documentation of my college years, I learned a few things to help others who like to be the social photographer in their group of friends or at their family gatherings

1. Always have your camera. Not only does this insure that you get the good photos, but it always lets your friends and family get used to the idea of you having your camera. If the camera is always present, it will be less of a surprise when you do pull it out and people will be able to relax.
2. Find a way to distribute the pictures. If you can establish a pattern of distributing the pictures, people will be eager for your photography because they know they will be getting a copy of their own. I use Flickr.com. I’m sure to upload the full size of the image and make it available to download. This is important because people can grab the full file and be able to print a clear picture.
3. You should take the pictures because you enjoy it. Trying to make a buck off your friends or family is not a good idea. Have the pictures online and free for anyone to grab. If you want to make money eventually, just perfect your skills with these social settings and as people see your expertise, you may be asked to do wedding photography, engagement photos, or family portraits. That is where you can earn some money for your hard work.
4. Learn how to use the different feature of your camera. It is important to know how to take photos at different levels of light and in different situations. Learn about ISO levels, white balance, and shutter speeds. If you ruin a nice social setting with a big bright flash, you may not get to have the natural feeling in the room.
5. Buy a large memory card and an extra battery. Sometimes parties and trips can go late and last long. You want to be able to continue snapping photos without any worry of running out of room or battery. These items aren’t that expensive and they allow you to try all kinds of things.
6. Do not post embarrassing or ugly photos of people. This one may be the most important of all. As a social photographer, you can build a really good track record by making people look great in your photos. One bad photo to embarrass some one can ruin it. It will make people more hesitant to pose for you in the future. Go thru your pictures and be sure that you won’t embarrass anyone by posting them online. (Note: If the person was making an ugly face for the camera on purpose, that is ok.)
7. Get to know as many people in the setting as you can. Do this without the camera in front of your face. A good relationship with everyone in the room can go a long way.
8. Take plenty photos of everyone, not just your favorite niece or your closest friends. You can build good friendships with people as you photograph them and make them look good. You never know who is important to whom in a social gathering. Let everyone enjoy the memories by seeing themselves and their friends.

I am really glad that I took a lot of photos in college. I have a ton of good photos of all the fun things that we did. I still get emails from people asking me to send them a photo from these times. This acts as a great way to keep in touch with old friends. When they want photos, they’ll come find you and this gives you a chance to catch up.

(Are You a Digg User? Digg this article here.)

I love black and white photos. They succeed at pulling out details that you could have missed otherwise.

This morning I read a wonderful tutorial on the Digital Photography School Blog. This tutorial taught five different ways for you to create Black and White photos. The first one is using the in camera filter, which I tend to steer away from. The last four examples are post processing methods and all four offer good tips. Personally, I prefer the “Lab Color Method”, which is example number four.

If you’d like to learn the five techniques, you can read them here.

Depth of field is the area of acceptable sharpness in a photo both in front of and behind the plane of focus.

A Shallow depth of focus (dof) is a picture where the subject is in sharp focus and the backgroun and/or the forground is soft or blurred. This best for portraits as it helps the viewer focus on the person. You’ll also see this in macro shots like flowers and bugs.

An extensive depth of field will be found in an image with a reasonably sharp focus from front to back. This is best for landscapes so you can see everything. Also, you’ll be sure to have an extensive depth of field when taking pictures of large groups. You wouldn’t want your darling niece blurry in the back row while your Uncle Frank is clear as can be in the front row.

There are three main things that determine your depth of field:

1. Aperture: When you use a narrow aperture, such as f/8 or f/11, you will see an extensive depth of field. Reversely, a wide aperture (f/4 or f/5.6 for example) will give you a shallow depth of field. We’ll talk more about aperture is a later “FMP Defines” post.




2. Camera To Subject Distance: The further you are from your subject, the larger the depth of field will be.




3. Focal Length: Focal length is determined be how much of a scene your lens can “see”. For instance, a wide-angle lens may have a 110 degree angle of view. This would result in seeing more of the picture and in turn would provide a greater depth of field. A shorter length, or being zoomed in on a subject will lessen the depth of field.

On the great Photojojo site (which I love) they wrote a great tutorial on turning your panorama photos into little floating planets. The correct term would be “Polar Panoramas”Althought I haven’t been able to try it yet, I’m really excited to put the technique to the test.

If you’d like to know how to do this, take a look at the tutorial. The Photo above came from Dirk Paessler. If you’d like to see some more examples, you can visit the Creat Your Own Planet Flickr Group.