We’re moving…
hello everyone, We are moving to a new blog site here: Photography tips, guide and diary of a serious/frustrated photographer
see you there.. 
Heart stopping sports action
When shooting sports photography, majority of the time you want to catch that instant moment in the action, and to do that is with a high shutter, peferably 1/640 of a second of faster, You can set it either in manual mode or in shutter priority mode.
Sometimes in action sport we want to add some panning or blurring effects to add the feeling of motion. Yes, we can do that too with the right enough slow shutter ,in this case you have to find the right mix cause there are factors that are in motion when you want these effects like the your distance from the action usually the closer or you can get away with a little faster speed than when you are far away.
Bottom line, It’s all about the shutter (^_^)
Quick tip: How to improve your photography instantly
So you learn all the basic operations, gudielines, composition, the aperture, shutter and ISO. So what next? obviously it’s to shoot.. and just keep on shooting.. It’s no big secret. never lose that shooting feeling you have when you first have your camera. I remember when I firs got my Nikon D40 I was shooting like crazy from the moment I wake up, at work and after work. The same thing happened when I upgraded from my Nikon D40 to a Nikon D80 but after a few months it went kinda slow(sad to say).
I realized this when I was researching on some photography related stuff for imporvement. Then it hit me! BAM! like a baseball hitting a bat. I’ve noticed that most of the pro’s today just shoot shoot and shoot even when they think they have enough they are still shooting. Makes sense right? It’s like training for sports, an athlete keeps on training even if they have mastered the sport.
I think it was He-man or GIJoe , saying something like “practicing makes perfect, and practicing helps it keep that way”
Photography Tip: Don’t cut off joints
I guess the title basically said everything. Don’t cut off joints. If you noticed MOST pictures or people. They don’t cut it (Of course rules are meant to be broken, but you should know the rules first) . The effect of it gives when you are cutting a joint in the picture is the subject looks like he/she’s being amputated.
Tips from the Pro: White Balance
White balance problems often happen when you shoot indoors under “artificial” light source. Of course, you don’t generally find out about them until you open the photos later on your computer and all the shots have either a yellowish, or greenish, or blueish color cast because these types of lights emit a different temperature than the sunlight
By default, your camera is set to Auto White Balance, which works pretty well outdoors, but generally doesn’t work worth a darn indoors.
The pros use three methods to avoid white balance problems when they shoot:
(1) Use the preset options, Today’s camera are equipped with preset settings to closely or to match the settings. Some Models of camera even have fine tuning for these settings. see your camera’s manual for more info.
(2) Use the custom settings, Aside from the presets, You might notice that there are “custom” settings. What these do is to calculate either from a picture or from a 18% neutral gray card. The advantage of this is you get very close to the actual color of the settings. The downside is when there’s a change or another light source is introduced (like maybe you went outside or a spotlight is turned on) you might have to measure again.
(3) Shoot in RAW, with this option you don’t have to worry about the color but the downside is it takes more time during post processing. (depends on your digital workflow)
well, that’s it for now. Will tell you more about color temperature next time..
Bounce Light
When I first got my sb600, I did not get a diffuser of any kind for it. What I did when I went shooting is I just rely on using bounce flash.
Before I continue, Let’s try to define what’s bounce flash is.. basically it pointing your light at a large surface thus making your light source larger (remember the larger the light source the softer the light)
How to do this? it’s really simple.. look for a large surface usually a ceiling then point your flash towards it.
So I tested it and the result is amazing, It look sooo natural.
^^ one of my earlier works when I was starting out.. If I’m not mistaken about 3 months since I got my first cam. I will try to update on a more recent picture though.. It doesn’t look like I’ve used a flash, it look natural and it’s evenly lit.
As nice as this is this is not a perfect technique. Here are limitations/things to beware of…
1. color cast – If the surface usually a the ceiling have a different color, most likely the picture will have a color like that surface.
2. “raccoon eyes” – this happens when you are too close to your subject and there is now way for the light to reach the eyes area.
3. height – usually the ceiling is used for bouncing the light but if the ceiling is too tall your flash will have a hard time and the light coming down is not not as strong.
4. outdoors – the technique is practically useless outdoors.
5. distance – since you are pointing your flash up, side or even behind the effective range of your flash might be shortened
well that’s what I can think of right now, If I forget to mention anything please do tell me
tips and tricks for bouncing:
1. Shoot 4-6ft from your subject, This prevents the raccoon eyes mentioned earlier.
2. If your subject is more than 9~10 ft away you might want to tilt your flash head a little forward, This helps direct a little flash more towards your subject that is a little far away.
well, what more can I say but try it for yourself and enjoy shooting..
Photoshoot 06-11-2010; Theme:Human Animal
I needed a shoot for a photo contest in my photography club, the theme was “animals”. I have a pretty good idea on what people might shoot but I’ve been surprised many times before. So I contacted some of my friends, Maybe I can find pets or animals that are not usually found in the area and I was thinking of putting a model with it instead of shooting the animal alone.
So I chatted with a friend of mine and we were sharing ideas. What came to my mind was “human animals” the one I thought is close ups of people with an animal pattern painted w/ light or paint an got some back up ideas along the way… just in case….
Everything was set, the models, make up artist, gears, location… everything! Although the other model fail to wake up on time, we still went ahead with the plan. I did not really get the chance to shoot the idea I wanted but the back up plan just as smooth as it is.
We had access to a Husky (which is not common in a tropical country). My plan now was to put cheetah spot to my model then hold the husky. Kinda ironic cat and dog, right? well anyways this is one of the shot I made
for the lighting I used a 300w light on 1/2 power, for this set I used an 17″ beauty dish. set around 5 ft away from the model at 1/125″ @ f/8, iso 100 then in photoshop I just did a little adjustment on the curve.
This was the first time I was shooting with an animal, The dog was hard to control and position. but I got a few good ones (haven’t worked on it yet)
10 things about light
In photography it’s all about light. So as we master and sharpen our skills we dig deeper to a force that defines what photography is all about.
#10 light has color – this is where color temperature comes in white balance.
#9 backlight(light coming from behind your subject) can be used as a diffused lighitng
#8 shadows create depth – this what gives the image that three dimension feel.
#7 front lighting softens texture – this is great for portraits to help smooth the skin more
#6 light falls off, basically what I’m saying here is the “inverse square law” here where the distance of the light doubles the power of the weakens by the same amount e.g. when light from 4 ft reaches 8ft the intensity of the light of 8 is cut in halves. ( will make a more in depth post soon)
#5 the further the light the more light falls off,
#4 bouncing light creates diffusion, I love this technique, bouncing light off a large surface, if done right you get that natural light feeling but be warned this technique has some limitations
#3 diffusion scatters thus therefore creating soft light
#2 the closer and the light source the softer the light is and vice versa
#1 the broader the light source (large) the softer the light is an vice versa
Shooting flowers
Flowers, What can we say about them? They are pretty, colorful and an easy subject but there are some simple Photography techniques that can put the AWE in AWSOME.
technique 1: change angle, by change the perspective of how you view the flower you can show a different side that most people miss. So instead of shooting looking down at the flowers why don’t you try to get down and dirty and shoot it from the bug’s point of view
technique 2: blur out the background, use an wide opening aperture to isolate your subject,using this simple photographic technique removes the unwanted distracting objects from the background and thus giving more impact to your image.
Well that’s it for now, will leave some examples.. enjoy and happy shooting..
Golden Rule of Landscape Photography
Recently I met two fantastic landscape photographer and saw their works, and it was very beautiful and they were talking I remembered about a golden rule of landscape photography. I think they also mentioned about it.
As a landscape photographer, you can only shoot two times a day: (1) dawn. You can shoot about 15 to 30 minutes before sunrise, and then from 30 minutes to an hour. The only other time you can shoot is: (2) dusk. You can shoot from 15 to 30 minutes before sunset, and up to 30 minutes afterward. It is also called the Magic Hour and this is not limited to landscape photography but for landscape photographers this could separate from a good and great pictures
Okay, there’s more to it than that. These are the only times of day when you get the soft, warm light and soft shadows that give professional quality lighting for landscapes.The quality for short, it’s just..ugh.. awsome… if only I can find words to describe it.
I’m doing mostly portraits now but ever since that. I’ve been itching to do some landscaping..
