Archive for the ‘Tips and Techniques’ Category

S-Mode, Freeze-frame!

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

I’d like to continue our series of discussions on exposure-modes. Yes, I know with the last installment over 6 months ago, it can’t really be called a continuation. Perhaps an extension, extended-leave, or vacation, whatever you’d like to call it we’re going to chat about our next semi-manual exposure mode, Shutter Priority Mode (S).

Shutter Priority Mode or S-Mode functions very similarly to Aperture Priority Mode or A-Mode, it just does it from another point of view. Shutter Priority Mode allows you to manually set the shutter speed of the camera, or how long the shutter will remain open when you take a photo. In Shutter Priority Mode the camera will automatically set the aperture for you based upon the shutter speed that you choose.

Shutter speed is measured in time (seconds). Usually very small parts of a second such as 1/500th of a second, or 1/1000th of a second for shooting in very bright conditions, such as high noon on a bright sunny day. Or in full seconds such as 1 second or 30 seconds for shooting in low-light conditions, such as indoors by candle-light.

The shorter the shutter remains open for, the faster the shutter speed. For example, a shutter speed of 1/250 means that I could take roughly 4 photos in the same amount of time than if I was using a shutter speed of 1 second. This is because at a shutter speed of 1/250 the shutter is open nearly 4 times shorter than if I was using a shutter speed of 1 second; hence we say that 1/250 is a faster shutter speed than 1s.

By using a faster shutter speed, the cameras shutter will be open for a shorter amount of time, which means less light will be allowed to hit your digital sensor, or film. This is why we use faster shutter speeds when we are shooting in bright conditions. When we use a slow shutter speed, the shutter remains open longer and therefore lets more light into the camera to hit your digital sensor or film.

Now I know what you must be thinking at this point…”Scott this is all very fine and good information, but if I wanted to change the amount of light that enters my camera I could’ve just used the Aperture Mode that I learned about 6 months ago and not have wasted my time with the last 4 paragraphs.”

It is true that aperture also controls the amount of light entering your camera by varying the size of the shutter, and you will recall from our earlier discussions that aperture size and shutter speed are linked together. So why would you want to change the shutter speed instead of the aperture?

Well just like varying your aperture controls your depth-of-field, shutter speed has a side-effect as well. Changing your shutter speed allows you to “freeze” the action in your photos. The faster the shutter speed the more “frozen” your subject will be.

Imagine if  you were trying to photograph your child in his or her first little league game. They are about to make the winning slide into home plate. By using a very fast shutter speed we would be able toshow the exact instant their body touches the plate, and it would be extremely sharp and in focus.

Some digital cameras that do not have a Shutter Priority Mode may have a “sports setting”. Using the “sports setting” will force your camera to take photos using a fast shutter speed, usually 1/500 of a second or greater. Just keep in mind that you’ll need bright sunlight in order to shoot at such a fast shutter speed.

Take a look at this photo of a car doing aerial stunts, caught in mid-jump. Shooting with a very fast shutter speed, 1/800 in this case allowed me to “freeze” the action of the car while making sure it retained sharp detail. Also notice that the photo was taken in very bright sunlight as anything less than that would have yielded a photo with blur.

Jumping Car

"Frozen" Jumping Car, 1/800

So now that we know some exciting things that we can do with fast shutter speeds, when are some appropriate times to use slow shutter speeds? Slow shutter speeds allow you to create some very beautiful artistic effects in your photographs.

Imagine a beautiful waterfall cascading into a pool of water. If we used a fast shutter speed to shoot the waterfall we would end up with a very boring photo of sharp, “frozen” water. All of the beauty of that waterfall rushing over the mountain would be lost. There would be no sense of motion.

We can correct this by using a slow shutter speed. If we shoot the waterfall using a shutter speed of say 2 seconds, we will retain all of the motion and power that waterfall has, and end up with a beautiful photo of a nice silky waterfall. Just resist the urge to dive in, remember your camera doesn’t like water. :)

In the photo of a carousel race horse below, we are able to convey a sense of the motion of the carousel to the viewer by using a slow shutter speed. Although the main horse is relatively sharp and in focus, if you look to the other race horses moving around in the background you’ll notice they all have motion blurs, thanks to the slow shutter speed that was chosen. The slow shutter speed helps to instantly evoke thoughts of a moving carousel to anyone looking at the photo.

Derby Horse with Blur 1/30

Derby Horse with Blur 1/30

Slower shutter speeds are also used in low-light situations. It is important to remember that our cameras have a very different definition of low-light than we do. Think about it, how many times have you been in what you would consider a perfectly bright house, but when you try to take a photo, your camera almost always wants to pop up that flash! This is because our eyes are much more sensitive to light than even the most high-end camera.

Have you ever tried taking that same photo without the flash? It usually winds up dark and blurry. This is because your camera naturally chooses a slow shutter speed. With such a slow shutter speed your subjects will not be “frozen” so even the slightest movement of either them or you causes blur.

This is why god invented tripods. It was dark in those tents in biblical times, how else were the photos going to be sharp :)

For those of us with cameras that don’t have an S-Mode, your camera might have a “night mode”. When you place your camera in “night mode” it forces the camera to shoot at a slow shutter speed, usually 1/30 or slower. How many times have you heard someone complain “my camera is broken, every time I shoot in night mode my photos come out blurry”! Now you know why. You weren’t one of those people were you? :)

Now that you have a new creative tool in your photography belt, I implore you to go out and give it a try! Next time we’ll combine the best of Aperture Priority Mode and the best of Shutter Priority Mode into one big manual mode that we call…well we just call it Manual Mode :)

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A-Mode, Would you like your depth-of-field deep or shallow?

Friday, September 4th, 2009

I’d like to continue our series on exposure modes. I know it’s been a while, I was just waiting for your comments and photos from the last post. It’s ok, I forgive you, I know you were just waiting until we got to the manual exposure modes so your creative juices can flow free :) So we pick up where we left off with Aperture Priority Mode (A).

Aperture Priority Mode is the first semi-manual mode that we’ll discuss. This is the first opportunity for you to have some say on how your camera sets it’s exposure. So let’s get to it. What is Aperture Priority Mode?

Aperture Priority Mode allows you to manually set the aperture on the camera and then have the camera set the shutter speed automatically. As you recall from our previous discussions, aperture, controls the size of the opening of the shutter, or how much light is allowed to hit your film or digital sensor during the time the shutter is open. It is measured in f-stops. So why would you want to set your aperture manually when your camera does a perfectly good job of setting it in P-Mode?

Well, you may recall that aperture not only controls the amount light entering the shutter, but also has the side effect of controlling your….come on, you know this one, depth-of-field! This is an excellent reason to override the camera’s settings and set the aperture yourself. Say your taking a portrait of a beautiful model in a lovely woodland setting…what’s that? No models around you say? No problem, let’s say you’re taking a portrait of your cute as can be 10 year old in a lovely woodland setting. Huh? No woods near you….hmmm ok you’re taking a portrait of your cute as can be 10 year old in a very crowded city park.

This situation is even better, you have all these other people around, and even worse they are in the background of this lovely photo that you are trying to take! What are you to do? You turn to Aperture Priority Mode (A) of course. By manually taking over control of the aperture and using a very large aperture setting of say f/1.8 or f/2.8 you can take that beautiful photo of your cute 10 year old and have all those people in the background become just a blur, so the cuteness of your subject shines right through. Like in the example below:

Bird with shallow depth-of-field

Bird with shallow depth-of-field f/2.8

Ok so my cute 10 year old happens to be a bird :) The point is that this photo has a very shallow depth-of-field and a lovely blurred background because of the large aperture setting of f/2.8 that was used. Working with the camera in Aperture Priority Mode (A) allowed me to manually set the aperture to f/2.8 and ensure that setting is what the camera would use when it took the photo.

Now those of you have been reading carefully, might think I’ve made a mistake about something. You might even think I’ve completely lost it, because it seems I’ve made that mistake in more than one place. You may be thinking, “dingus over here doesn’t know that 2.8 is a small number..he keeps saying that f/2.8 is a large aperture, how can that be??!!” Let me assure you it is no mistake, and it is something that does take getting used to.

You can think of it like fractions, 1/2 is bigger than 1/10 even though 10 is a larger number. It turns out that aperture numbers work the same way. The larger the f-stop value the smaller the aperture size. You can see an example of this below:

Aperture sizes and depth-of-field (Courtesy of http://howtotakepics.blogspot.com/2009/03/basics-terms-of-dslr-photography.html)

Aperture sizes and depth-of-field (Courtesy of http://howtotakepics.blogspot.com/2009/03/basics-terms-of-dslr-photography.html)

The diagram above clearly illustrates that the larger the aperture, the smaller the f-stop number. You can also see that the larger the aperture, the more shallow your depth-of-field becomes. This is why photographers love to get lenses with the largest aperture possible. Since a larger aperture lets more light in, this allows you to use a faster shutter-speed when shooting in low-light (remember reciprocity from our previous discussion). For those of you that own DSLR cameras, you may have noticed that the lens that is included has an aperture range of approx. f/3.5 – f/5.6. This means that the largest aperture that can be set is f/3.5 and as you “rack-out” your zoom the largest aperture your lens can achieve is only f/5.6. By the way, to rack-out, means to zoom your lens out to the maximum focal length.

This is why camera companies can afford to include these lenses in the kit with your camera. As you can see they do not have a particularly large aperture. Or as we say in the industry, they are not very “fast” lenses. A lens that has a larger aperture compared to another lens is referred to as “faster”. The faster a lens is, the larger the aperture setting that can be used, and also the more expensive it is! You will find that most people who shoot with the lens that came with their camera always feel they cannot get great photos in low-light situations. This is because as we’ve seen before the kit lens is usually not very fast, or the camera companies wouldn’t be able to afford to give it away. It is not uncommon for a photographer to buy a faster lens, either an f/2.8 or f/1.4 after shooting with the kit lens for a while.

We’ve learned before that when shooting portraits a large aperture is usually used to achieve a nice shallow depth-of-field. So what if we’re shooting landscapes? Well for that we want just the opposite, we want to use a very small aperture like f/16 or f/22 (remember small aperture, large f-stop). This will give us a very large depth-of-field or high degree of sharpness throughout the photo. This is exactly what we want for landscapes. Picture a beautiful mountain scene with water, hills, trees, in a photo like this we want to make sure that everything in the scene from the water in front to the mountains in the distance are nice and sharp. How do we do this? With a small aperture of course!  Take a look at the example below:

Reservoir, large depth-of-field, f/16

Reservoir, large depth-of-field, f/16

Wow, look at that, not only is everything in the photo nice and sharp because of the small aperture we used, but the content of the photo actually matches what I was describing, how unusual :) By the way when we want to refer to an area in the photo which stretches on as far as the eye can see past the horizon, such as the one above, we refer to that point as infinity. So for a photo like this you would actually set your focus to infinity when taking the shot.

Now that you have a new creative tool under your belt, go out and start shooting! Don’t be afraid to experiment with your aperture settings. Try out what we talked about above, or mix it up a bit. Sometimes using an unconventional aperture setting can create some very interesting results. Shooting in Aperture Priority Mode (A) really opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities. I actually find that I shoot in Aperture Priority Mode about 90% of the time. And don’t forget that the camera still sets the shutter speed automatically, so the camera still ensures that you get a nice even exposure. That is until next time when we discuss Shutter Priority Mode (S).

Until then, please feel free to comment, ask questions, and absolutely send or post some results!

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P-Mode, Let the camera be your guide

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

In the last post we introduced the 4 different exposure modes, Programmed Auto Mode (P), Aperture Priority Mode (A), Shutter Priority Mode (S), and Manual Mode (M). We also introduced the concepts of shutter and aperture. This time we will explore the first and simplest of the exposure modes, Programmed Auto Mode, or the P-Mode. Simplest from the photographer’s point of view as the camera makes all the decisions for you, but from the cameras point of view, there are many complex calculations going on under the hood of your camera.

As you know from our previous post, there are 2 items that are involved in creating proper exposure, shutter speed and aperture. The shutter speed controls the length of time that light is allowed to hit your film or digital sensor. Aperture controls the size of the opening of the shutter, or how much light is allowed to hit your film or digital camera during the amount of time that the shutter is open. These 2 values combine in a very fancy mathematical formula to create a value known as Exposure-value or EV.

Exposure-value (EV) is basically the unit that is used to measure exposure.  Similar to how we use Miles-per-hour to describe speed. When you are traveling, your speed is made up of how far you are going and how long it takes you to get there. We combine these 2 items to get your speed or Miles-per-hour. Same thing with EV. EV is made up of shutter-speed and aperture-size which combine to get your exposure measured in EV.

I don’t want to bore you with the actual formula for EV, nor is it really important for you to know the formula at this stage in the game. “Yay, Scott said we don’t need to know about EV”! Wait a min, hold the phone, I DIDN’T say that :) I said you didn’t need to know the actual formula, but you definitely need to know some things about EV, even while you are shooting in P-Mode. This is because even though the camera is making the exposure decisions for you, it is important for you to know why and how those decisions are being made.

So what do you need to understand about EV? We already know that EV is made up of shutter-speed and aperture-size. The important thing to always remember is that these 2 items are inversely proportional. (Scott, you’re using those fancy words again). I know, bear with me a moment. Shutter-speed and aperture-size are inversely proportional, what does this mean? This means that they are opposite of each other.

Let’s say we have a certain shutter-speed of 1/125 s, remember shutter speed is measured in seconds or fraction of a second, and an aperture value of f/4.0, recall that aperture is measured in “f-stops”. These 2 values combine to create an EV of 11. If we change either of these values we will end up with a different EV. Such as if we use a faster shutter speed of 1/250 s. This will allow light in for half the time of the previous setting of 1/125 s, and we’ll end up with an EV of 12.

But something interesting and unexpected happens if we now use a larger aperture value of f/2.8, this allows double the light in of our previous aperture setting of f/4.0 and we actually end up back at EV 11. This is because, as we mentioned before shutter-speed and aperture are inversely-proportional. If you make one bigger and the other smaller you’ll end up back at the same place. There are many different combinations of shutter and aperture that will produce the same EV. This is known as reciprocity.

Reciprocity is an odd concept to grasp, but makes sense if we relate it to something we know. Let me take you back to Kindergarten…no it’s not naptime, it’s math time! Yeah naps are more fun..let’s take addition:

2   +   2   =   4

Let’s say the first 2 is aperture, the second 2 is shutter-speed, and the 4 is our EV. If we increase the shutter-speed…we get a different EV result of 5:

2   +   3   =  5

However, if we change the aperture…we get back to the original EV result we started with of 4:

1    +   3  =   4

We can use several different values to combine and achieve the same result. Same thing with exposure, we can use several different aperture and shutter values to combine to get the same exposure. This is important because, as you recall from our last post, aperture and shutter also control 2 other things. Shutter-speed controls just how “frozen” the action is in your scene, and aperture controls your depth-of-field or how much of the scene is in focus. This allows us to have many options when it comes to exposure. Allow me to explain…

We have our camera in P-Mode, and press the shutter button down half-way to focus and measure the light in our scene. The camera decides it will use a shutter-speed of 1/250 s and an aperture value of f/4.0. This calculates to an EV of 12. So we know that in order for our photo to be properly exposed we need to have an EV of 12. However, I forgot to mention that we are  actually taking a portrait photo of a little kid and I want the background to be a nice blur, with a shallow depth-of-field. In order to do this, I want to use an aperture value of f/2.8. This will create a very nice shallow depth-of-field. But, by increasing the size of my aperture to f/2.8 I’m now allowing double the light of my previous aperture value of f/4.0 to obtain an EV of 11. This means our photo will be over-exposed because I need an EV of 12 for proper exposure. So in order to bring things back into balance I want to increase my shutter speed to 1/500 s. This will halve the time that the shutter is open and therefore bring me back to my proper EV of 12, while still retaining that beautiful blurring of the background which is so great for portrait shots.

When you’re in P-Mode not only does the camera have to think about all of these fancy exposure calculations and equivalents, but it also has to determine the type of scene that you are shooting. Today’s cameras are very sophisticated machines, with all kinds of sensors that can determine whether we are shooting  a portrait by a lake or a fast moving baseball player as he slides into home. Of course sometimes, the camera can be fooled or get confused and choose an aperture value or shutter-speed that may not be correct for the type of scene we are shooting.

This is where the other exposure modes come in…next time we tackle Aperture Priority Mode (A).

In the meantime, go out and try shooting many different types of scenes. Take a look at the aperture and shutter values that your camera chooses for the particular scene you are shooting. Did the photo turn out the way you were expecting? Did the camera choose values that make sense? What would you change about the photo, should it be sharper? Should there be more or less in focus? Should the action have been more “frozen”? Ask these questions each and every time you take a photo in P-Mode. If you continue with this logic you will quickly find that staying in happy P-Mode where the camera does all the thinking for you may not be the best choice, and that you want more control over the finished look of your photos.

Feel free to comment and post some of those results. Until next time…

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Why does my camera dial spell MAPS?

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

Ok, ok, so it doesn’t exactly spell MAPS, it spells PASM big difference :) But what do all those letters mean anyway?

That dial on your camera with all of those letters P, A, S and M are actually different exposure modes that you can use on your camera. These particular settings control how much of the decision for the exposure you want to use is left up to the camera. In other words, do you prefer to choose your own exposure settings, or would you like the camera to make all the decisions for you. You use the different exposure modes P, A, S, and M to tell the camera just how much of it’s brain it should use when setting proper exposure for your photo. For those who don’t know, exposure describes the light that is hitting your film or camera sensor (in digital cameras), used to create your image. Specifically, exposure describes the amount (brightness) of light hitting your film or digital sensor, and for how long that light is recorded by the film or sensor.

This is actually quite a large topic to discuss so let me tell you a bit about what’s to come. The next 4 blog posts will be related to just this topic. Today’s post is an introduction and overview of all 4 of the exposure modes, and then in subsequent posts I will explain each one in detail. Back to the content…

There are 2 terms you should know about before we continue as they are going to come up a lot in this discussion, shutter and aperture.

The shutter – is a very small opening in your camera that sits just in front of the film or digital sensor. It can open and close like a window. Most of the time the shutter is closed and does not allow any light to reach your film or digital sensor. However when the shutter release button is pressed on the camera, to take a picture, the shutter opens and allows light to strike the film or digital sensor for a pre-determined length of time which creates a photograph. This length of time is known as your shutter speed, and is usually measured in seconds or parts of a second. It can range anywhere from 1/8000 of a second to 60 seconds depending on the type of camera you use.

Aperture – refers to the size of the opening in the lens of your camera. This determines the amount of light that will be allowed  through your shutter and ultimately reach the film or digital sensor. You can almost think of aperture in terms of a water pipe. The larger the pipe, the more water that will flow through it. The larger the aperture setting used, the more light that will flow through your lens and shutter hitting your film or sensor. Aperture sizes are usually referred to as “f-stops” and range from f/1.2 to f/22 depending on the lens used on your camera.

So if those letters don’t spell MAPS, or PASM or even PAMS, what do they stand for? Programmed Auto Mode (P), Aperture Priority Mode (A), Shutter Priority Mode (S), and Manual Mode (M). Let’s take a look at what each one does.

Programmed Auto Mode (P) – This is the full automatic exposure mode of the camera. Basically in this mode the camera makes all the decisions for you when it comes to exposure. The camera will automatically set the aperture and shutter speed for you in this mode. Not only that, it will decide which aperture and shutter speed will work best for the particular photo that you are shooting. This is the mode where most beginning and intermediate photographers live. It’s very easy to let the camera decide how your photo should be exposed. But not always the best choice as the camera is merely an electronic piece of equipment and lacks the creativity and artistic eye of a human being. One way to vastly improve your photos is to take a trip out of the P mode once in a while and make some of the exposure decisions yourself. I know it can be scary, but remember #4 from the last blog post, this is digital, it doesn’t cost us anything to play around and try new things. If it doesn’t turn out quite right you can always delete it before someone else sees, the camera won’t tattle on you, promise!

Now this is where the apprehension and panic will begin to set in for some of you. In fact, there may be a few of you out there who will come to this point and say “Scott, I’m perfectly happy living in P mode and letting the camera think for me” and actually not continue to read the rest of this post. First, everyone take a deep breath, count to 3, and RELAX. There is nothing to be worried about…even if P mode is your “happy place” to shoot photos, and I’m sure for some of you it is, I do request that you at least give me a chance and read through the rest of this post. It may just make you think twice about keeping that camera in P mode for the rest of it’s life. Do cameras even have lives? Well I suppose that’s a topic for another post, anyway moving forward…

Cactus with a shallow depth-of-field, large aperture

Cactus with a shallow depth-of-field, large aperture, 75mm, f/3.5, 1/500s, ISO 200

Aperture Priority Mode (A) – In aperture priority mode you set the aperture manually and the camera automatically calculates the optimal shutter speed for your photograph. This mode allows you to take some control over your exposure while still allowing the camera to make some decisions for you. Why would you want to do this you ask? Well we know from above that aperture controls the amount of light coming through your shutter, but what you may not know is that aperture also controls your Depth of Field or (DOF). Depth of Field refers to how much of your photo is in sharp focus. Take a look at this photo of the cactus. The cactus is perfectly sharp and in focus, but if you notice the flowers in the background they have a nice soft blur on them. This draws the viewers eye directly to the cactus which is the main subject of this photo. This shallow depth of field is controlled by your aperture. The larger the aperture the “more shallow” your depth of field will be. In other words the larger the aperture setting the smaller the area that will be in sharp focus in your photo. To achieve the results shown in the cactus photo, use a larger aperture. We’ll discuss aperture and depth of field a lot more in a future post.

Stuntman captured mid-fall, fast shutter speed

Stuntman captured mid-fall, fast shutter speed

Shutter Priority Mode (P) – This mode is the opposite of the A mode discussed above. In this mode you set the shutter speed manually, and the camera determines the optimal aperture setting. As we discussed before, the shutter controls the length of time that light will be allowed to strike your film or digital sensor. However, it also controls how “frozen” the subjects are in your photograph. For example, at a baseball game when a player is just about to slide into home plate and a photographer snaps the award winning shot perfectly freezing the moment when the players hand makes contact with the plate. Or when you take a photo of a beautiful waterfall and the water looks like beautiful creamy flows. The sense of movement in these photos are all controlled by the shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed, the more “frozen” and sharper, the action will be in your photo. Take a look at this photo of a stuntman captured in mid-fall. To freeze his motion a very fast shutter speed was used for this photo. We will discuss shutter speed more in depth in a future post.

Manual Mode (M) – For those who want the ultimate control over their exposure, this mode is for you! In this mode the camera does no thinking at all. Both aperture and shutter speed are set manually by the photographer, hence why the call it Manual Mode. This mode can seem a little daunting to use at first, but after you play around with it for a while you’ll get a very intuitive sense of which aperture and shutter speed to use for a particular situation. As they say necessity is the mother of invention, and when you don’t have the camera helping you out with exposure settings you pick up real fast what works and what doesn’t.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of exposure modes in this post, but I implore you to take a trip out of the P zone every once in a while. Please comment with your experiences and share some photos with us. Next time we’ll begin to look at the 4 exposure modes more in depth. Until then, go out and shoot some great photos, it’s the only way you’ll become a better photographer.

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5 Ways to Improve Your Photos

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Everybody wants to take better photos right? Here is a list of 5 easy things that you can do to improve your photography.

1. Rotate that camera! Most beginners always hold their camera horizontally or in what photographers call a “landscape” format. You’d be amazed at how much better your composition can be with certain subjects if you simply rotate your camera to a vertical, or “portrait” format. The position you hold your camera in should reflect the subject matter that you are photographing. Nature shot on a lake landscape format is best, 20′ cactus in the desert use portrait. Alternatively, you could hold the camera still and get a body builder to come and rotate you, just dont’ have any loose change in your pocket.

2. Fill the frame. Photos are small by nature and people want to see the greatest detail possible when looking at one. Get as close to your subject as you can, whether this means zooming in closer or actually moving closer to your subject (your legs do work when composing a photo, I promise). This will give your audience a clearly defined central point of interest in your photo. You’ll know your at the right distance when your subject looks just a little too close in your viewfinder, then take the shot, you’ll be amazed at the results and the detail.

3. Speaking of viewfinders, use it! Now it’s true that not all cameras today have a viewfinder, but if yours does this is one of the best ways to improve the composition of your photos. The viewfinder allows you to better visualize how the composition of the final photo will come out. Plus it helps you to steady your camera as you are now using your head to add extra support and your arms are tucked close to your body.  As opposed to holding it at arms length away from you while trying to compose a shot in a tiny, dim, LCD screen.

4. Take more photos. Remember when you owned a film camera and you only had 24 shots? 36 if you splurged. And then you had to pay $6.00 and wait 2 days to see if those photos that you took looked good or even came out? Now we have digital and it’s a whole new world. You can snap away all you like and it doesn’t cost you a dime. Feel free to experiment. Not sure which is the best angle to make a particular shot look it’s best, try them all. Not sure if you should shoot in front of the tree or the swing, why not shoot both. The more you shoot, the better the chance that you will get that “perfect” shot. This is where those large capacity memory cards come in handy.

5. Look before you click. Take a moment to look around the background of your photo before you click the shutter. Check to see if there is anything unsightly in the background that may detract from your photo. Things like garbage cans, litter, someone getting arrested in handcuffs, anything that would take away from the center of interest, your subject. This is something you have to conciously keep in mind when taking a photo as your mind tends to focus on your subject, rather than the entire photo as a whole. And, while we’re at it, please make sure your subjects aren’t sprouting trees from their heads :)

Happy imaging and feel free to share your results with everyone.

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Photographing Fireworks

Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Dengrove Studios - Fireworks over building - f/11, 1/3s, ISO 1600

Dengrove Studios - Fireworks over building - f/11, 1/3s, ISO 1600

With the 4th of July upon us, I figured I would touch on a topic appropriate to the occasion. Who doesn’t love Fireworks? Well maybe there are some who don’t like the loud noise, but you have to admit they sure are beautiful and mesmerizing.

So mesmerizing in fact, that anywhere you see people watching fireworks you also see plenty of people photographing fireworks. Unfortunately, for various reasons most of those fireworks photos never come out the way people hoped they would. They may be too blurry, or too dark, or just not have the same sense of awe that they had when they were bursting above your head. So what can we do about it?

I present to you some excellent tips to make this 4th of July the one where you capture your best fireworks photos ever! Ok, maybe not the best ever, but certainly better than last year :)

The first tip I have is to TURN THE FLASH OFF! I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been at a night event of some sort (fireworks, a ball game) where people are taking photos and all you see is *FLASH* *FLASH* *FLASH*, come on, you guys who are guilty of this know who you are, don’t deny it. Maybe it’s because you didn’t realize you had the flash on, perhaps it’s because it’s easier just to leave the flash on, or maybe you never learned how to use all the buttons on that shiny new camera you bought? Don’t worry about it, whatever the reason I won’t tell on you, because I know after reading this you’re going to make sure to turn that flash off next time you’re photographing those beautiful bursts in the sky and you’ll be well on your way to making those photos better.

Now, some of you may be saying, “but Scott…I’m taking photos at night time, and the flash makes things brighter and light up, so shouldn’t I use it when taking pictures of fireworks, since they are shot at night time”? Allow me to explain… the effective distance of a standard pocket-sized digital camera’s flash is about 10-15 ft depending on your exposure settings (aperture and ISO). Basically what this means is that when you take a photo in the dark with your pocket-sized digital camera it will only light up objects and people that are 10-15ft away. Most fireworks shell bursts occur between 300 and 1200 ft up in the air. As you can see your camera flash, which can only reach a couple of yards at best won’t do anything for a burst of light in the sky (or at a pitcher throwing a ball while you’re sitting way up in the stands for that matter).

Once you’ve turned your camera flash off it is extremely important that you follow my next tip, or your fireworks photos are guaranteed to come out blurry if shooting with your camera in a full auto mode. You must find a way to steady your camera. The absolute best way to do this is to use a tripod. However, some of you may not have tripod’s available, so then what do you do? Leave the camera at home and don’t shoot the fireworks? Of course not! Find useful objects nearby that can help you. If you’re in a park for example, find a nice bench with a bit of an angle, or a trash can, or lamp post, that you can rest your camera on while you shoot. This will help to steady the camera and will undoubtedly sharpen those fireworks photos right up.

For those intermediate readers that have ventured beyond the “automatic” mode on your camera, I have some tips for you as well. For those that are happy with the camera making the decisions, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. When photographing fireworks you want to use a slow shutter speed. You may think that you want to use a fast shutter speed as fireworks seem to burst in an instant, but in reality it is the long trails of light that give fireworks their awe. These trails of light are around for a bit of time after the initial burst of the shell. This is why if you want to capture the full beauty of fireworks you must use a slow shutter speed, so that you can get all those gorgeous light trails in the photo as well. I recommend a shutter speed anywhere from 1/2 second to 4 seconds. You should experiment a little bit to find the shutter speed that works best for the types of fireworks they are shooting at your display. Incidentally, this is why it’s important to turn the flash off on your camera. When the flash is on it typically sets your shutter speed much higher than 1/2 second, usually a minimum of 1/30 – 1/60 of a second. This is much to fast to adequately capture the beautiful light trails of the fireworks.

Don’t forget your aperture while shooting fireworks. Ideally your aperture should be set anywhere from f/8 to f/16. Why do you want to use such a small aperture while shooting at night? Typically at night we would want use a large aperture to let more light into our camera for a better exposure, but now when shooting fireworks. Here’s why, the light from fireworks are actually quite bright, even though they only last a few seconds at most. In addition, as I mentioned before fireworks bursts can occur quite high in the sky, nearly at infinity distance. With that type of range you want to have the greatest depth of field possible. In other words, you want the greatest amount of focus you can get in the scene. Choosing a small aperture of f/8 to f/16 will allow you to have a very large depth of field. Combined with a tripod or other steadying technique I talked about those fireworks are guaranteed to be crystal clear and perfectly sharp.

Now I know there are some of you out there who would love to take better fireworks photos, and follow my advice, but feel it seems like a lot of work. Good photography often is, but there is a shortcut… most digital cameras today come with a “fireworks” mode. By setting the camera to “fireworks” mode the camera will automatically turn off the flash, set your aperture to a the right range, and the shutter to a slow speed all with the touch of a single button. You’ll still need to find a way to steady the camera though. For more information you should check your cameras user guide. You remember the user guide, it’s that thick book that came with your camera that you’re probably using to balancing your table leg :) Well replace it with a stack of napkins and take it out and learn a bit about your camera.

I would like to wish everyone a great 4th of July, stay cool, stay safe, and have a hamburger for me. Most importantly though, go take some amazing photos of those fireworks tonight! Feel free to comment on this post, ask questions, and share some links to some of the photos you have taken.

Dengrove Studios - Multicolor Fireworks Bursts - f/8, 1/2s, ISO 100

Dengrove Studios - Multicolor Fireworks Bursts - f/8, 1/2s, ISO 100

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