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Post by Bailey on Mar 17, 2019 7:26:05 GMT
Index of Tips(click tip's button to go directly to the tip)
** Avoid Taking "Snapshots" **
While wandering around the Qingming Historical Area in Wuxi yesterday, we came across this "thing" outside one of the shops. Luckily for me, Mrs B said she wanted to go have a look in one of the nearby shops which gave me some extra time to figure out how to photograph it.
While I was thinking up different ideas, at least 10 people passed by and took just a straight on "snaphot" with their smartphones (left image). But like any good photography tutorial will tell you, if you see a crowd taking a photo of something all from the same spot you may as well save time and just google the spot and you will find a photo taken from the same spot. To create a unique image you need to find a different spot/angle to take the photo from which not many other people would have done.
So I decided to go to one side of the thing and take a photo from low down and angled up (right image).
IMHO the left image looks flat and not too interesting. The right image has more depth and the shot angle makes the "transformer" look more menacing and intimidating.
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Post by hmca on Mar 17, 2019 12:06:41 GMT
Great example of a basic photography recommendation. Thanks for posting. If your were interested, this would make a great series if you continued your post with other basic examples. The pictures could be a little smaller as I can't see the text and pictures together on my 27" screen.
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Post by Bailey on Mar 18, 2019 4:16:16 GMT
** Taking Photos From Waist Height **Thank you hmca. I have made the images in my previous post a little smaller as requested. I can see the images and text on my 15" laptop. I don't have other examples readily available as I have only my traveling laptop atm. The only photos I have on it are the ones I have taken on this current trip to China. On the right though, I have another photo from my Dancing In The Street thread. In situations like this I usually have my camera at about waist height. I was kneeling on one knee when I took this photo. Imo, this angle gives a more realistic view of the scene. Standing up, which I suspect most people would do, I would be pointing the camera downwards slightly which tends to introduce lens distortion which takes something away from the image and creates a slightly less realistic image. I try to keep my camera horizontal as much as possible. |
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Post by hmca on Mar 18, 2019 12:19:57 GMT
Thanks, Bailey. I like this new suggestion about shooting at waist height for street scenes as well.
Take your time adding to your thread. Perhaps it will inspire some other members to add some examples as well.
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Post by Bailey on Mar 19, 2019 0:29:28 GMT
** Taking Photos From Waist Height (part 2) **No problem hmca  A long time ago now a wedding photographer gave me the tip about shooting from about waist to chest height. He mentioned that it is especially important when photographing the bride and/or groom from close distances. It gives a more flattering and realistic look to the photo than when shooting from higher up. I usually apply the same concept when photographing any subject from relatively close distances. I try to set the camera (hand held or on tripod) about half way up the subject. I find this usually produces an image honouring the size and shape of the subject very closely. In my OP's photos I angled the camera up a bit to create an effect emphasizing the lower half and left leg. If the subject is a relatively large distance ayway then shooting from waist height or standing up doesn't make much difference. Perhaps this concept could be incorporated into one of the forum's endless challenges.
Members could find a scene where most people would probably take a photo from a given spot and then show how the portrayal of the scene can be dramatically affected by choosing a different shooting vantage point. This could also include shooting with various focal lengths. Different focal lengths "distort" scenes in various ways depending on what is in the scene.
Practising this concept will certainly give members plenty of practice in using their cameras and imagination. |
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Post by pontiac1940 on Mar 19, 2019 3:26:27 GMT
Bailey
Thanks for the recent tip posts and for the original transformer post.
Big message in the transformer post. Should encourage people to walk around and look at the scene or subject from different angles.
Clive
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Post by Bailey on Mar 20, 2019 22:46:52 GMT
** Using Portrait Orientation For Panoramas **
Another tip I can add is when taking photos to stitch together to make a panorama, take the photos in portrait orientation to maximise the number of pixels in the stitched output.
This will allow you to maximise the print size if you intend to print the final output.
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Post by Bailey on Mar 27, 2019 2:43:08 GMT
** Using Shutter Priority To Freeze Motion **I took this photo while on the bullet train from Wuxi to Shanghai 2 weeks ago. Screaming along at 300kmh life flashes past pretty quickly when looking out the window.
I used shutter priority at 1/3200s with ISO set to 400 to enable an aperture of f4 which gave me good DOF since the subjects were a fair distance away. I used burst mode in the hope of getting at least some keepers. This pair of operating cooling towers is one of them.
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Post by pontiac1940 on Mar 27, 2019 12:56:13 GMT
" Screaming along at 300kmh" Oh wow.
Yes, you've stopped the action with that shutter speed.
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Post by Bailey on Mar 28, 2019 0:52:26 GMT
I took some test shots of railing and foliage that were only about 3-4m from the train at 1/4000s, the fastest shutter speed on my camera, and it wasn't fast enough to freeze them. Although you could make out the railing on the camera's lcd screen, there was significant motion blur. But for anything from about 20m+ away, 1/3200s was fast enough.
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Post by Bailey on Mar 30, 2019 3:12:44 GMT
** Avoid Cutting Limbs At Joints When Cropping/Composing **An image in this Weekly Challenge thread reminded me of another tip the wedding photographer I mentioned earlier gave me. When photographing people close up you should never compose or crop a photo so that any of the limbs are "chopped" off at the joint - knees, elbows, neck/shoulders etc. The image that reminded me of this tip was chopped off at the shoulders making the person look like a headless chook running around, but maybe that's just me and my imagination  . |
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Post by Bailey on Apr 17, 2019 1:06:15 GMT
** One Use of Bounce Flash - To Eliminate Shadows **
One benefit of using bounce flash to create a much larger light source than your flash gun is that it can help eliminate ugly looking shadows.
The lighting in the room was casting an ugly looking and distracting shadow from the phone onto the wall. I didn't want the shadow in my shot.
So I bounced the flash from the ceiling. Some of the light reflected from the ceiling (which was now my key light source) went behind the phone onto the wall thus eliminating the shadow.
Other options, which I didn't have time for, included taking my flash off camera and placing it roughly side on to the phone in order to light up the front of the phone and the wall behind it.
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Post by Bailey on Jun 17, 2019 0:30:33 GMT
** Using Portrait Orientation For Panoramas (part 2) **Another tip I can add is when taking photos to stitch together to make a panorama, take the photos in portrait orientation to maximise the number of pixels in the stitched output. This will allow you to maximise the print size if you intend to print the final output. I should elaborate a bit on this tip. In addition to an overall higher pixel count stitched image, because in portrait orientation the view finder's longer edge is now vertical, the vertical resolution (ppi) will be higher, which is good if making prints. Using portrait orientation also allows you the option of using a longer focal length to set up the same vertical FOV which results in potentially achieving a higher level of details especially in distant elements in the scene. |
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Post by Bailey on Jun 24, 2019 8:01:15 GMT
** Controlling Depth Of Field (DOF) **
I sometimes see/hear comments like "great depth of field" or "you nailed the depth of field".
Comments like these usually lead to me to suspect the person making them has little or no understanding of how to control DOF and whether you even have much control depending on how a photo is taken.
For example, photos taken with most smart phone cameras, which have a very short focal length, will inevitably have a DOF extending from very close to the camera phone to infinity because of the very short focal length. In this example comments like the above don't mean anything to me because you have very little control over DOF on a camera phone.
DOF is determined by the aperture, focal length and subject distance from the camera.
1. For a given focal length and subject distance from the camera the smaller the aperture (increasing fstop number) the larger the DOF.
2. For a given aperture and focal length, the greater the subject distance from the camera the larger the DOF.
3. For a given aperture and distance from the camera, the longer the focal length the shorter the DOF.
For anyone interested in getting a feel for what the DOF (depth of field) is for a particular situation and camera setup when photographing close subjects, this is one practical exercise you could try.
1. Mount your camera on a tripod.
2. Set up a long or short ruler or tape measure horizontally so that the start of the ruler/tape is nearest the camera and the end farthest from the camera. Make sure the numbers graduations on the ruler/tape are legible in your viewfinder or lcd screen on your camera.
Take several photos at various configurations of the above to get a feel for what the actual DOF is for your particular setup.
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