hh_clubs | The Shutterbug Society; Activity #3: Ask and Answer

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The Shutterbug Society; Activity #3: Ask and Answer

Activity: Ask and Answer
Points: 10 points participatioon
Dates: NOW until Thursday, July 1 at 22:00 PDT.

Details: Since this is a photography club and we have members of all skill levels, for this activity, you're going to have the opportunity to ask or answer photography questions you've always wondered!

FOR QUESTIONS: Be sure that it is a question of substance. Asking, "What's a camera?" will not get you points, but asking something of more substance, such as "What is the rule of thirds?" or "What's the difference between digital cameras and film cameras," will count towards points. If you are only planning on asking questions, you must ask THREE questions to get participation points.

FOR ANSWERS: If you know the answer to a question you see, feel free to respond! In order to get participation points, you must answer one question with at least five, complete sentences. It is encouraged that you post an example of what you're talking about, to make your answer totally clear.

Of course, feel free to go beyond the minimum! You may ask more than three questions or answer more than one, or any combination thereof.

If you have any questions for me, please respond to the thread below!

Shoot things, legally! Join The Shutterbug Society today!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

What are the benefits of colour filters? I've noticed that many professional photographers tend to use colouring filters in their images, and I'd like to know their benefits, and if there are any filters that are particularly good - any recommendations are great!

Eve//Slytherin

Can a hand-held digital camera take professional, high-quality images? I've seen a lot of people using them and lately they seem to have really improved the quality of these cameras, but I still wonder whether or not it can compete with say, the image quality of a digital SLR.

Eve//Slytherin

B/W or colour? Are there motifs or situations when one would work better than the other?

Isabella//Ravenclaw

When I try and work with shades the image often comes out as rather... flat, lack of contrast and drama. Does it have to do with my crappy camera (I use my iPhone one, I know, I'm sorry) or is there something else I can do to enhance it?

Isabella//Ravenclaw

Pointers when photographing a moving object?

Isabella//Ravenclaw

Panning.

Pretend you are going to shoot a car zooming past you. You need a slightly longer shutter speed on this.

Start by turning your back to the car approaching you, and plant your feet. Now, twist your torso back toward the car.

Look at the car through your camera and, as it approaches, press the button and follow the car's movement with your entire body.

The effect is that you'll briefly be moving your camera WITH the car, so the car becomes a still object (relative to the camera) while the background is the thing that is moving. The car will be more in focus, while the background will blue behind it.

In reality, you won't want to have your back to the approaching car; it should be more of an oblique angle. That was just to illustrate the technique.

Panning takes a lot of practice.

Use B&W when the color detracts from the image, or when another aspect -- such as texture -- is interesting.

Tree bark is a good example. It's all brown. But n B&W, you can pump up the contrast and get these amazing textures.

Use color when, well, the natural color is interesting.

Always try out an image as a B&W in photoshop, if you can. By playing with different images in both, you'll get an idea of what you like in B&W vs color.

Color filters will enhance or brighten the filter's color and dampen or darken the color on the other side of the color wheel. For example, a red filter will dampen the green, and pump up the red. So if you were taking a photo with no or little red in it, and too much green, the color filter will even them out. This is especially useful in B&W. A yellow filter, for example, will make clouds stand out against a blue sky, because it darkens the blue sky, while the white clouds stay white.

Also, different filters can create different moods. A blue filter can cool off a photo and make it seem murky or calm.

The best way is with a lens capable of a very narrow depth of field and a wide-open aperture. This is usually how macro images are done. The smaller the aperture, the deeper the depth of field, and vice versa. But mainly, this is handled in the lens, and if you are using a macro lens or extension tubes, you'll see this in action better thn it can be described. (Ideally, you'd set up a coin or something and play with the same image on all different aperture settings to get a feel for it.)

Another way is to use a center spot filter, which is a kind of a diffuser designed to do this specific thing. You can make a diffuser by spreading vaseline thickly around the edges of a UV or polarizing filter, making it lighter toward the center, but this is messy and hard to control. Typically, a center spot filter has a hole in the middle (http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/filter/filter-cspot-hoya-icon.jpg), and the filter radiates out from the hole with increasing blur to the edge. A diffusion filter may do the same, but with no hole /focus spot, or else with a more subtle one.

Yet another way is with a lensbaby (http://www.lensbaby.com/), which is a cheap lens (relatively) that creates extreme sweetspots of focus and extreme "fall away" or focus. You can bend them, too, which is fun -- it's like a lens on an old bellows, and you can bend them around to move the sweet spot and change the fall-away.

You can also do it in photoshop, using a layermask, described here:
http://www.photoshop911.com/tricks/focus_falloff/

Are you using ICC profiles?

I was just reading a photographer today who said: get the subject bored. She suggested making them stand around, and give them a lot of directions -- move your feet, turn your shoulder, move your head to the right, eyes to me, etc. For about 3-4 minutes. This gets them over the "someone is taking a picture of me" and they relax, then you can shoot for a few minutes and they look more relaxed and not so anxious.

Was this meant to be directed at me or the person who asked the question? haha

Depends on what effect you want to do.

If you want to include motion blur to indicate that the subject is moving - then pan using ~marchenland's advice.

Other than that, use a fast shutter speed :)

I like GorillaCam for the iPhone. It has a grid and a level that helps you line up shots, and it saves in the background so you can keep shooting while it's saving.

Pay attention to lighting. The iPhone's shots are always dark.

Since you're not using a proper camera you could always try editing the image in photoshop. The easiest way is with brightness/contrast settings but if you want to get a little more advanced, levels and curves = amazing. You have a better control over how your photo looks.

It all comes down to what you're photographing! It's up to the photographer what they use. You can get away with a lot with black and white photography haha but just remember to always take your photos in colour - you can always change them to B&W later on!

You bet it can! I still use my digi cam all the time. It really comes down to the photographer. Having a good camera doesn't mean you're going to take better pictures than someone with an SLR. Photography is about talent, not so much about the gear you use!

Roller derby skaters zooming past a group of cheering children in crappy lighting, for an advertisement. If the kids were in focus, the skaters were BLURS (even though I had them skating in slo-mo), and it the skaters were in focus, the kids were non-existent.

I ended up having to do it as 2 shots and make a composite, which was okay for the ad campaign, but really sucks:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marchenland/3527408026/in/set-72157617978035425/

I don't have the equipment OR the skill for the shot I was trying to do.

Marchenland has covered colour filters, but I'd also like to pop my head in and say that UV filters, polarizing filters etc. are also FANTASTIC if you're photographing people with glasses on etc. it reduces glare :D

Golden hour, like

ayanamiii said -- one hour at sunset, one hour at sunrise. Also, right before a storm, here's a really amazing light quality that can be awesome.

Not necessarily disagreeing with the other commenters, but poorly made cameras or cheap lenses will take bad photos. I'm talking, REALLY cheap Korean knockoffs or something.

Holgas and toy cameras let in light which is seen as a fun thing now, but it was because they were cheap 2nd world / communist bloc cameras manufactured for people who didn't know better. I would imagine it sucked trying to take a photo of grandma and having her come out green because the camera was make out of cardboard!

Also, some cameras just perform better in certain situations. Some cameras, for example, are great in controlled, sunny situations, but as soon as you try to take a low-light photo, they struggle, can't focus, use up the battery, and give you a grainy, noisy image. Other cameras in the same situation might have the capability for low-light built in, whether its a setting that compensates, or a larger range of ISO speed.

http://www.dpreview.com/ is a great site for comparing the minute differences of different cameras! I mean, down to the pixel.

When people ask me what kind of camera they should get, I always ask them what they will be taking photos of, because if they say "Concerts," there are tons of cameras they will end up hating because of the low-light issues.

I typically shoot concerts hand-held at about 1/15th of a second, 1600 ISO, and no flash of course, relying on stage lighting. I find this gives me the best shots -- sharp enough and with enough light.

Examples:
Skinny Puppy - they use REALLY challenging lighting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marchenland/4083070237/in/set-72157622630618601/
Faith and the Muse: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marchenland/4522898098/in/set-72157623734275067/
Anguisette: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marchenland/4684236579/in/set-72157624236662208/

Maybe this?
http://www.wikihow.com/Scratch-Polaroid-Art

(http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu27/ColourNeighbourhood/gifs/?action=view&current=15f12rm-1.gif)

(http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu27/ColourNeighbourhood/gifs/?action=view&current=roy_mosskiss.gif)

thank you muffin !!

You, Nadine.

I print at my local Costco on a $60,000 Noritsu 3111, which gives really nice prints if I set them up with the right paper and printer profile info, and tell them not to color correct my shots. You often only get the good printer at the store if you act like you know what you're talking about - they don't waste it on snapshots, I've noticed.

I kind of fell down this particular rabbit hole because when I complained about the print quality, they gave me the info about where to get the ICC profiles for their printers, and it started me down a path toward much greater understanding of printer gamuts and such. I'd be loathe to try to explain it all here, because it's mostly pretty esoteric, with a lot of variation and steps where you have to "play with the values until you're happy with it," which is annoying in a tutorial.

I'm still struggling to find a printer that can handle a large variety of yellows with any aplomb at all, even WITH the right profile. I have a daffodil shot that is pretty much unprintable -- maybe if places would let me print TIFs, instead of forcing them to be JPEGS? I don't know.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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The Shutterbug Society; Activity #3: Ask and Answer

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Re: HOLY LINK TO EXAMPLE, BATMAN!

Re: HOLY LINK TO EXAMPLE, BATMAN!

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