Capturing movement in images is something that many photographers only think to do when they are photographing sports or other fast moving subjects.
While there is an obvious opportunity in sports photography to emphasize the movement of participants - almost every type of photography can benefit from the emphasis of movement in a shot - even when the movement is very small, slow and/or subtle.
Autumn is all about color and leaves. Red, orange and yellow suddenly becomes the predominant color of nature instead of the usual green. What you need to know is that red, orange and yellow are advancing colors. This means that if you look at different colored objects at a same distance from you, the objects that are colored red, orange and yellow will appear closer. This is the reason why photos of autumn landscapes look like they’re jumping right at you. Below are five tips you can use to help you get creative with autumn leaves.
It’s hard enough figuring out the photography. Professional quality cameras might be affordable these days but they’re still complex tools stuffed with strange features we’re sure we should be using, accessories that come with their own manuals and of course, editing software that demands a whole set of professional skills of its own.
Let’s establish a few ground rules for what we are going to be doing. First, this isn’t an ETTL, CLS, or any other kind of electronic exposure control in the flash unit. We are talking about manual settings. Manual is where the power is.
Sometimes people look at my images and think that the more unusual lighting effects are created in post, but it’s all done in-camera.
I did this with the Hummer shot to get the detail that was missing behind the axle stands that were retouched out in post. I also shot a separate exposure for the crash test dummy background in the Chevy Malibu shot.
“I’m upgrading to a digital SLR. What camera model and lens should I get?” We get asked this often, and our reply is always the same. It matters little what DSLR you have, so long as you’ve got great lenses. And when you’re starting out, there’s really no need to shell out thousands of dollars on lens (unless you have money that you simply must get rid of). We always, always recommend the 50mm. Some of the world’s best photographers have made careers for themselves with the 50mm.
The fourth time-based manipulation I frequently use is zooming through the exposure. And last month we pulled that technique out of our as.. bag of tricks during the “stone soup” shoot in NYC.
There has been some great articles and interest lately on long exposures so I thought I would put together a hodgepodge of techniques and then turn it over to DPS readers to see what they can come up with. I’ve broken this slow shutter shoot-out into 3 categories. When you submit your photograph, do it under one of these styles. I’ve thrown in a few of my own as examples into the article just to give you an idea. Get a tripod, set your cameras to shutter priority and fire away.
By now, most of you have read many times as I have walked through the process of balancing my flashes and ambient. I want to get past that.
Today, I want to accomplish two things:
1. To set you up with a way of quickly understanding and/or communicating how a given photo was balanced, and
We’ve mentioned in previous posts how in-camera metering can be very unreliable. It can meter the scene differently even if the subject and lighting do not change. In the series of photos below, I left the camera at evaluative mode and took three shots at different focal lengths. I shot in AV mode with the ISO at 400 at f/5.
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