Flash 101: On-Camera Flash

Lisa's note: Things have been a bit busy at the Jeff and Lisa household lately, which explains the lack of posting. Things should be back to normal soon though. To the new subscribers, hi! Welcome to Beyond Megapixels. Feel free to browse through the popular posts, and the rest of the archives. With that out of the way, enjoy Jeff's article on the basics of flash photography.
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There are two ways for you to use your flash: on-camera and off-camera. There are pros and cons for both and we’ll tackle the biggest ones here to get you started on flash photography. Before I forget, when you go through other websites you might wonder why they use the word strobes rather than flash. It’s the same thing so don’t get confused.

ON-CAMERA

In Part 1, we will be discussing On-Camera flash. When on-camera flash is mentioned, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is the tiny flash unit found in point-and-shoot cameras and entry-level DSLRs. What we’re referring to in this article are external flash units mounted on a camera's hot-shoe.

PROS

1. No red-eye. Since external flash units are about a half a foot away from your lens, the chances of red-eye happening are slim to none.

2. Portability and mobility. No don’t need to bring anything but your camera and flash unit. You also don’t need to move around to adjust the settings on your flash since it’s right there. You have flash capability in a moment’s notice.

3. Bounce your flash. Most external flash heads allow you to swivel it from left to right and up and down. This gives you the ability to bounce your flash to make the light hitting your subject softer and more flattering. Take note that if the surface of wall or ceiling you are bouncing from is not white then the light hitting your subject will have some tinge of the surface color

CC Photo by Okko Pyykko
4. ETTL metering. Electronic-Through-The-Lens or ETTL refers to how your camera meters a scene. It basically measures the light as it goes through your lens. Dedicated hot shoe flash units can make use of ETTL metering when it calculates how much flash is needed to properly expose your subject. This feature saves you a lot of time if you’re just starting out in flash photography since you don’t need to fiddle with the intensity of your flash.


5. Fill-flash mode. Fill-flash refers to the flash just giving off enough light to make sure there are no harsh shadows on your subjects. What happens is that your camera measures the ambient light and properly exposes for this while telling the flash to expose for the subject. Some manufacturers require you to activate fill-flash mode either in your camera or on the flash unit while some like Nikon and Canon automatically defaults to fill-flash when there’s enough light in the background.

6. Focus assist. Built in flash helps in auto-focusing (AF) by throwing off small bursts of light when ambient light is low to help the camera focus. This is really annoying and in my opinion could induce epilepsy. External flash units assist in auto-focusing by throwing off red light which is very faint and non-obtrusive. Below is a photo of the focus assist lamp on the Canon 430EX II.

CONS

1. Full-frontal light. The reason why on-camera flash photography looks so unnatural is that the light source is noticeably coming from the camera. This is not how we regularly see our surroundings unless you walk around with a flashlight attached to a helmet on your head. This problem is being slowly addressed by manufacturers by making complex algorithms to balance flash and ambient light. You can also try swiveling the flash head as mentioned above but that only works when you’re near something to bounce the light on which isn’t always the case.


CC Photo by trentroche
2. Shadows on the wall. As a rule of thumb, you should avoid using flash when the subject is near a wall since you will mostly likely end up with the subject’s shadow on it.


CC Photo by Beige Alert
3. Flash fall off. Flash fall off refers the situations wherein the subject was properly exposed by the flash but the background is completely dark. This is due to the simple fact that you cannot light the entire background with your flash unit.


CC Photo by Dawn Ashley
The most important thing to know when purchasing an external flash unit is that you need to make sure to buy one that works with your camera. A lot of bad things can happen if you place an incompatible unit on your camera’s hot shoe. If you're lucky then the only thing that could happen is that the flash will not fire but there have been incidents where either the flash or camera short-circuited. In our opinion, it’s better to buy one that’s the same brand as your camera.

Ready to take your flash photography to the next level? Stay tuned for part 2 when we discuss off-camera flash.

Related Reading:
How To Get Soft Diffused Light From Your Flash

Shooting with Slow Shutter Speed

With slow shutter speed (otherwise known as long exposure), the elements of time and motion are introduced into your photography. We're going to run down some quick suggestions and examples on some ways to get you started, but before that, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• The tripod is your friend, especially when shooting with slow shutter speeds.
• Long exposures create noise. Set your camera’s ISO to the lowest possible setting.
• Mind the light. You will not always be able to use long shutter speeds, especially if the light is too strong since you will lose detail in the highlights.


TRAFFIC LIGHT TRAILS

This is probably the most common use of extended exposure that you will see all over the place. Just find a busy street and shoot away. Get creative by finding roads that have interesting shapes and including other items like bridges in your composition.

CC Photo by anna pearson f/29 at 30 secs
Some wedding photographers like shooting couples in the middle of the road as traffic zooms past them on both sides. It makes for a dramatic urban shot.


WATER

By using slow shutter speeds, water crashing on the beach will have a mist-like appearance. Look for large rocks or other obstacles that water travels through to get a more pronounced effect. Look at the work of David Burdeny to see a master at work.


CC Photo by roberto shabs f/36 at 13 secs

ZOOM BLUR

When using this technique, the motion blur is caused by the camera’s zoom function rather than the subject’s movement. Select a scene with a lot of colorful lights. Select a shutter speed of about 1 second or longer and set your zoom lens on its widest focal length. After you click on the shutter, zoom in to your lens’ longest focal length. It takes some practice to pull it off smoothly.


CC Photo by Sami Kainanen f/28 at 1 sec

PHOTOGRAPHER IN MOTION

In this style, the motion is caused by the photographer’s motion. Usual instances would be shots taken from inside a moving car.


CC Photo by cbamber85 f/2.6 at 1/15

PORTRAITS

Portraits and motion do not always go together but if done right then it can inject a sense of energy in your shots. Some creative examples in doing this would be taking a shot of your subject surrounded by moving people or a ballerina twirling.


CC Photo by Lili Vieira de Cervalho f/3.2 at 5/8 sec

MOVING CLOUDS

Most photographers focus on movement that is happening on the ground but taking photos of moving clouds can add a lot of emotion to a photo. If you plan on capturing clouds in motion during the day then one thing you will need to do this is a neutral density filter. Neutral density (ND) filters are basically just tinted filters that darken a scene. These are available in different grades depending on how dark they are. This is necessary since clouds are very bright and if you attempt to capture them with slow shutter speeds then you’ll most likely blow them out.


CC Photo by ctd2005 f/2.8 at 15 secs
Moving clouds are best captured just before or after a rain shower when the skies are moody. Places located in higher altitudes are also perfect for these kinds of shots since cloud movements appear much faster.

If you find that your foreground is being affected too much by the filter then try using graduated ND (GND) filter. GND filters are also tinted at the top but the tint slowly fades until the bottom part is clear. These are specifically designed to affect just the sky of a photo. To learn more about filters, watch out for our upcoming filter article coming out by next week.


ABSTRACT PHOTOS

Photography literally means drawing with light. This can be clearly seen when light trails are used to create abstract photos. There are a lot of different ways to achieve abstract effects but two things remain constant: select a long exposure and move the camera while the shot is being recorded.


CC Photo by Gaetan Lee f/3.4 at 10/13 sec
Have fun shooting this weekend!

Related Reading:
Going Manual: Learning Exposure Basics
Starlight Effect: Creative Use of Aperture
Tips on How to Take Tack Sharp Photos
Tripod Heads 101

Understanding Camera Exposure Modes

Shooting in full manual mode will always be the best way to get the most creative shot since you are in control of everything. But there are instances when you just do not have the time to fiddle around with the proper combination of ISO, aperture and shutter speed. On these occasions, you have to rely on your camera’s metering system to get you the correct exposure.

All light meters, including in-camera meters, are designed to give you a reading that will make the subject have the same tone as a 15% gray card. Manufacturers designed meters to give you an average reading on an average or neutral subject. This is very important to keep in mind when relying on your camera’s different metering modes.

There are also different types of exposure modes in modern day DSLRs that are called different names by different brands. For the purpose of this article, we will be concentrating on the three main exposure modes: evaluative/matrix, center-weighted, and spot metering.

EVALUATIVE / MATRIX MODE

Before the advent of digital cameras, pro photographers relied on light meters to get a scene’s proper exposure. What they do is meter for the scene’s highlights, midtones and shadows and get the average of the different readings. That’s a lot of work to get just one shot.

Your camera’s evaluative (Canon) or matrix (Nikon) mode does that same thing. It samples different areas of the scene and arrives at the average reading. The total number of areas or zones that are metered is dependent on how advanced your camera is. The Canon 400D samples 35 zones in a scene while the 1Ds Mark III samples 63 zones. It goes without saying that the more zones sampled, the more accurate the exposure will be.

The evaluative mode is best used for scenes that have no single subject or if the lighting in the scene is fairly even. Two examples that come to mind are street scenes and grass fields.

CC Photo by 18 s e c o n d s
CENTER-WEIGHTED

Center-weighted also samples the entire scene but the difference is that it puts more importance to the zones near the center of the scene. On most brands, 75% of the total exposure is taken from the center of the frame and 25% to the outer parts.



This exposure mode is best used for portraits where the face of the subject is occupies a large part of the viewfinder. This is because the average skin tone is pretty close to a 15% gray card which should get you a pretty precise reading.


CC Photo by e3000
SPOT METER

This setting gives you the most precise control among the different exposure modes. In this mode, the camera only meters around 3% of the entire scene. The reading is usually taken at the center focus point but other cameras give you the option to change this.

This mode is best for scenes that have very bright and dark areas which can easily fool your camera. What you do is look for an area that is somewhere in the middle of the brightest and darkest parts and use the spot metering mode to get a reading off that. The spot meter is also useful in shooting silhouettes. You simply meter for the bright background then everything that is darker than that will automatically turn into silhouettes.


CC Photo by kennymatic
Related Reading:
When To Use Exposure Compensation
Going Manual: Learning Exposure Basics

How to Use Lines to Enhace Your Photos

Composition is the not the only thing to consider in creating visually pleasing photographs. When you break down a photograph to its most basic elements, you will find that it is made up of lines, shapes, forms, textures, patterns and colors. These are called the elements of design. These elements are the building blocks of composition.

Among the six elements, the most basic and powerful is the line. Different lines can provoke different feelings from your viewers so mastery over this topic is essential in controlling the emotional impact of your photo.

LEADING LINES

Like we discussed in our previous post, leading lines draw your viewer into the photo. It can help highlight the subject of your photo. When two or more lines head towards a common point in the photo then these become converging lines.

CC Photo by Jasmic

CURVILINEAR LINES

This is the most common type of line you will see in nature. Curvilinear lines are seen to be gentle and relaxing. When including curvilinear lines in your photo, try to frame it in such a way that it creates an “S” curve. The “S” curve is one of the most pleasing shapes in the visual arts.


CC Photo by Jekkyl

HORIZONTAL LINES

Horizontal lines are seen as stable and static. Unbroken horizontal lines tend to give the feeling of dullness. On landscape photography, this is the most dominant line because of the horizon.


CC Photo by Michale

VERTICAL LINES

Vertical lines evoke a feeling of strength, power and dominance. Tall and powerful objects are often photographed in portrait orientation to maximize the vertical lines in photo.


CC Photo by Mugley

DIAGONAL LINES

Diagonal lines give a sense of movement, speed and activity. Some photographers deliberately tilt their cameras to one side to make horizontal or static lines into diagonals to breathe a sense of action in an otherwise boring scene. In the photo below, the photographer tilted the camera to make the horizon into a diagonal. By doing, the sensation of speed was greatly exaggerated.


CC Photo by Jekkyl

Related Post:
5 Ways to Hold Your Viewer's Attention

5 Ways to Hold Your Viewer's Attention

One of the most important things your photo should have is an ability to hold your viewers attention. There are a lot of techniques that can be used to help you compose your shot so that people will spend more than a second looking at it. Besides keeping your viewers focused on your photo, the techniques below can also help emphasis your main subject.

There are many ways to hold your viewer's attention. Here are five that you can easily start off with:

1. VIGNETTE

A vignette is a gradual loss of light and picture quality towards the edge of the photo due to poor lens construction. Although it is considered a lens aberration, a vignette is helpful in drawing the viewer's attention towards the center of the photo. It also adds character to a photo since it makes it look like it was taken with an old camera.

CC Photo by australian overanalyzer
To add a vignette to an existing photo with Adobe Photoshop, refer to our previous article found here.

2. SHOOT THROUGH A FRAME

This is probably one of the oldest tricks in the book. You simply choose an object you can shoot through that frames your main subject.


CC Photo by Jakeliefer
3. LEADING LINES

Lines can also help draw your viewer in since the tendency of the eye is to follow the direction of prominent lines that it sees.


CC Photo by mugley
4. FILL THE FRAME

Don't be afraid to get close. Sometimes a few steps forward is all it takes to make a good picture great. If the subject is interesting then show your viewers why by filling your frame with it.


CC photo by Sukanto Debnath

5. BREAK A PATTERN

The human eye is always drawn to patterns and whatever breaks a pattern will automatically stand out. Place your subject against a pattern and see how much the subject stands out and how the surrounding pattern holds everything together.


CC Photo by stephcarter

Going Manual: Learning Exposure Basics

Exposure is probably the most dreaded subject in photography. We know a lot of photographers who have been shooting for years but still rely on their camera’s metering system to dictate a scene’s exposure. Cameras are getting more and more advanced which is why it works, but it will not work all the time. This is why even the most advanced DSLRs still have exposure compensation features.

With a few simple guidelines, you can start shooting in full manual and stop relying on your camera to meter for you. The most important rule I learned when I first started shooting in manual mode was the Sunny f/16 rule. However, we first have to start with what we mean by exposure.

At its most basic level, exposure is how much light you allow to reach your sensor. The amount of light is the result of the interaction of three factors: ISO, aperture opening and shutter speed.

ISO

ISO (International Standards Organization) also known as ASA (American Standards Association) is the rating scale used to determine how sensitive a film is in recording light. The same scale is used when referring to the sensitivity of a digital camera’s sensor. Depending on your camera, you can change your ISO setting between 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 and 6400. You can see that each number is double the preceding number and each step also represents a doubling of the film or sensor’s sensitivity to light.

A lower ISO number means that the film or sensor is less sensitive to light. This is the reason why most people bump up their ISO setting when shooting in low light since they need less time to expose for a shot. The problem is that your camera’s sensor loses its ability to record detail the higher the ISO is. This means that your photos will be less sharp and have more noise which is never a good thing.

APERTURE

Aperture refers to the opening inside the lens where light passes through. The size of the opening is measured in f-stops expressed as f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f22 and f/32. Starting from f/1 each step in the series represents a doubling of the amount of light reaching the camera’s sensor or what is called a full stop. Most DSLRs now give you the ability to select ½ or 1/3 stops so you might see more aperture values than those listed above but for the purpose of this article we will only focus on full stops.

CC Photo by Martini Captures ISO 200, 1/1250

SHUTTER SPEED

Shutter speeds represent how long the camera’s sensor is exposed to light and is measured in seconds. Shutter speeds run from 30, 15, 8, 4, 2, 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000, 1/8000. Again, each number is double than the preceding value and also represents double the amount of light reaching the sensor.

CC Photo by Martini Captures ISO 100, 1/1000

Here are some rules of thumb regarding shutter speed. To take sharp photos, your shutter speed must be equal to or more than the reciprocal of your focal length for non moving subjects. So if you’re shooting at 50mm, your shutter speed must be at least 1/60. To freeze movement in your photos, you must be shooting at least at 1/500.

THE SUNNY F/16 RULE

The Sunny f/16 rule is a method developed to correctly expose a photo without using a light meter. It states that in a clear sunny day, you can set your aperture to f/16 and your shutter speed as the reciprocal of your ISO.

Let’s say you’re in a park in a clear day and you want to take a photo using this rule. The first thing you have to do is to set your aperture to f/16. You then need to check your ISO setting. If you are on ISO 100 then your shutter speed should be set to 1/125. If you’re at ISO 200 then your shutter speed should be at 1/250. Note that not all ISO settings will correspond to an exact reciprocal when selecting your shutter speed so just select the nearest one.

If the scene is slightly overcast then open up your aperture one stop to f/11. If it’s overcast, open up two stops to f/8. If it’s deeply overcast, open up three stops to f/5.6. I know that the terms sunny and overcast are very relative so how do you know what aperture setting to use? The first thing you should check is the shadow detail in the scene. If the shadows are very distinct then it’s considered sunny. If the edges of the shadows are soft then it’s slightly overcast. If the shadows are barely visible then it’s overcast. If there are no shadows then it’s deeply overcast. You can also refer to the chart below.

USING THE SUNNY F/16 RULE CREATIVELY

Now that you’re familiar with the basics of the rule you can start getting creative with it. Let’s say you want to take a photo of a bee in a slightly overcast setting using ISO 100 but you want to use an aperture setting of f/4.5 to eliminate the messy background. Using the basic rule, you start at f/11 with a shutter speed of 1/100. Since f/4.5 is approximately three stops lower than f/11, you have to compensate for the increase of light reaching your sensor using your shutter speed or you will get an over exposed shot.

Opening the aperture by three stops is equal to increasing the shutter speed by three stops since going from one level to the next in the aperture and shutter speed scales correspond to the same amount of light being lost or gained. On a slightly overcast day using f/4.5 you can set your shutter speed to 1/800 at ISO 100 to get a properly exposed shot.


CC Photo by Beyond Megapixels 105mm at ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/800
You can also start your computations with the shutter speed. Let’s say you want to take a photo of a dog on the beach and you want to freeze all movement in the scene. You check the light conditions and decide that it’s sunny and you are at ISO 80. Again, starting with the basic rule, you set your aperture to f/16 with a shutter speed of 1/60. Since you want to eliminate any motion blur you decide to use a shutter speed of 1/1250. Since 1/1250 is about four stops higher than 1/60, you need to compensate for the loss of light by setting your aperture to f/4.5.


CC Photo by Gungnir 76mm at ISO 80, f/4.5, 1/1250
There is an ongoing debate today on how use the Sunny f/16 rule. Some say that the subject must be facing the light for it to work. Some say that you can still get a properly exposed shot even if the subject is lit from the side. What I think is that like all the rules in photography, the Sunny f/16 is just a starting point to studying light and how to properly judge the exposure of a scene without being dependent on your camera. With enough practice, you’ll be able to judge a scene’s proper exposure before you even raise the camera to your eye.

Related Posts:
Starlight Effect: Creative Use of Aperture
When to Use Exposure Compensation

Tip for DSLR Beginners: Get a 50mm Lens

"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.


A BIT OF HISTORY

If you bought a 35mm camera during the 70s or 80s then chances are, it came with a 50mm lens. Even Leica rangefinders were bundled with 50mm lenses. The reason for this is that the 50mm perspective approximates that of the human eye, which is also the reason it is called a "normal" lens. Below is a photo of our Canon AE-1 with its 50mm FD f/1.4 lens (taken with our $20 light box and macro studio).

As time went by, the 50mm was replaced with consumer model zoom lenses like the 18-55mm as the starter optic for 35mm cameras and eventually the DSLR. This shift was a marketing strategy employed by camera manufacturers to entice more people into buying their camera. Their selling point was that zoom lenses made taking photos easier since you can change your focal length without moving from your spot. Little did beginners know that image quality was the real price they were paying for the convenience of not walking a few steps to recompose their shot.


THE 50mm TODAY

There is renewed interest in the 50mm lens mainly due to the its price and its speed. With the price of around $80.00, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II is one of the cheapest lens available in the market today followed by Nikon's 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor for about $100.00. You can see that f/1.8 is the maximum aperture of these entry level lenses. It only gets better from here, you can get variants of these lenses at f/1.4 and f/1.2. Canon even makes a 50mm lens at f/1.0 which is the fastest interchangeable lens today. Most pros also say that the 50mm is the sharpest lens ever made because it has been around so long that lens manufacturers have already perfected the process of producing them.

One important note to remember, if you are using a DSLR with a cropped sensor then the 50mm lens' focal length will change. For those using a 40D, Digital Rebel series, D40 or a D80 which uses an APS-C sensor with a crop factor of 1.6x then a 50mm lens will effectively become an 80mm lens. If you want to have the same perspective as those using a full frame sensor then you can purchase a 28mm or 35mm lens which is close enough to a full frame 50mm.


A DEFINITE GO-TO LENS

We have other lenses, but we find that our 50mm 1.8 is still our go-to lens. It's plastic and it doesn't look like much, but it's fantastic for portraits (it doesn't enlarge subjects' noses the way wide angle lenses do), but it's still wide enough to be handy when we're out walking. The 1.8 offers a gorgeous bokeh, and faster shutter speeds. The images are clean and sharp. And the best thing about it is that it's cheap, and works splendidly with available light.


Related Reading:
Lens 101
Tips on How to Take Better Portraits
How to Create Bokeh in Your Photos

In other news, there's a new poll up on the sidebar. As always, we'd love it if you could participate. We'll share all the poll results with you guys next week. Have a great weekend!

How to Make a Light Box and Macro Studio for Under $20

Ever wondered how pros take photos of random objects and make them look crisp and clean? The answer to that is a light box or what is sometimes referred to as a light tent. A light box is just simply a cube which is made out of a white translucent material. The object that is being photographed is placed inside and lighting is added to either the sides or the top of box. The walls of the light box acts as a diffuser which softens the intensity of the light and at the same time scatters it which greatly lessens glare.

Light boxes are commercially available for about $40 to $90 depending on the size. But here at Beyond Megapixels, we're all about saving money because A.) we don't have any, and B.) you're better off spending your money on something that you cannot build yourself like say, a 70-200mm f2.8, but we digress. We made our own. All in all, we spent less than $20 for the entire set up, INCLUDING the lights.

Things We Used:
1. Large cardboard box - $2.00
2. Tape
3. Tracing Paper - $1.00 or less
We used Japanese Paper. I'm not sure of the availability in your location or if it's called the same thing, but if you don't know what that is, you can always use tracing paper. You can even use tissue, if all else fails.
4. 500 watts halogen work light - $9.00
5. 300 watts halogen work light - $6.00
Most people who use halogen for their light boxes use this.
6. White poster board - $1.00 or less

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

1. Draw a square on three sides of the box. The margin should be about an inch or two away from the sides of the box.

2. Cut out the what you drew with a cutter. These windows are where your light is going to enter the box.

3. Cover the windows with tracing paper which will act as your diffuser.

4. Attach the poster board at the bottom of the box. Make sure you only tape it at the top part of your box so the paper will curve downwards towards the bottom. This will be your seamless white backdrop.

5. Put your work lights on both sides of the box. One can act as your main light and the other as your fill light.

We decided to use halogen because it is the cheapest work light that is strong enough to imitate strobes. Don't get anything less than 500 watts for your main light. It's better to have a light source that is too strong than one that is too weak. If you find that your lights are to strong then simply move the lamp farther from the box.

Halogen light is very yellow so you need to do a custom white balance reading inside the light box to eliminate any color casts. If you do not have an 18% gray card to do a white balance reading then you can shoot RAW and fix your WB during the conversion process or simply remove the color cast in Photoshop if you're shooting JPG. You can find instructions for doing that here.

Our gray card inside the light box

Below is a comparison of a photo taken with a 400D's auto white balance and a custom white balance setting using a gray card.

Camera set on Auto White Balance

Camera using custom white balance from a gray card

HOW A LIGHT BOX WORKS

The light box's main purpose is to wrap your subject in diffused light. Since all the sides are white, everything around the subject acts as a reflector. Since the light is completely in your control, you can dictate which part of the subject is lit, where the shadows will be, and how distinct or soft your shadows are. You will also get more detail, better depth, more defined textures and better color saturation. You can see this with the series of photos below.

Shot inside the light box using our living room's fluorescent light. The light is already pretty good because of the the light box.
50mm at ISO 100, f/13, 13secs

Shot with fluorescent light and fill-flash
50mm at ISO 100, f/13, 6secs

Shot using the two halogen work lamps. The elephants are lit from front to back and the texture of the wood really comes out. It also shows better contrast and the subject just leaps out of the background.
50mm at ISO 100, f/13, 1/15

Lisa's Notes:
1. Halogen gets very hot easily so don't let it touch the sides of your light box. I hear tracing paper is highly flammable. Be mindful of the heat and try your best not to burn the house down.
2. Use a tripod so you can shoot at ISO 100 and not worry about camera shake.
3. Save on electricity by composing your shot before turning on the lights.
4. With a little ingenuity and enough will, you should be able to build a similar setup for the same amount, or even less. Share your light box stories with us on the comments section, or shoot us an email. We'd love to hear from you.
5. On an unrelated note, there's a new poll up on the sidebar that's closing in a couple of days. Do pop in and join. Cheers!

Related Reading:
Removing Color Casts

How to Create High-Contrast Black and White Images

In Photoshop CS3, making black and white photos is easier than ever. This tutorial is not limited to converting color photos to monochrome but how to make them pop by adding contrast and a vignette.

(Lisa's note: It's always best to shoot in color and convert to BW during post-processing. You tend to lose detail when shooting BW straight out of the camera, and the images most often end up looking soupy.)

Open your photo in Photoshop and press CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-B to enter the Black and White conversion window. You can also select Image from the main menu and go into Adjustments. Once the window opens, you are given 6 colors that will affect how your photo is converted. There is no fixed rule on what amounts you place in the different colors since it depends on your picture. For the photo that I used as an example, I selected 103% for Red to lighten the man’s face. I lessened the Yellows and Greens to darken the background to make the subject more prominent in the photo.




If you are not that familiar with black and white conversions, just move the color sliders left and right to see how each color affects your photo.

Next, we will apply Curves to the photo to increase contrast. This is a very important step for me since I find low contrast mono photos soupy. If you want your photo to have that dreamy effect then you can skip this step but for the most part, good black and white photos should have all the gradations from almost white to almost black. Press CTRL-M to bring out the Curves dialog box. For this photo I used the setting in the photo below.


Again, there is no hard rule in applying Curves since it will depend on the photo. Just make sure that you do not clip your highlights and lose detail on your shadow areas.

Next, we’re going to add a vignette to the photo to make the subject pop out more. Select the Rectangular Marquee tool by pressing M. Make a selection on your photo about 1 inch away from the edges. Right click on the photo and select Feather. For a 500x750 pixel photo, I select a value of 75 for Feather. This will make the edge of the vignette softer and more natural.



Right click on the photo again and pick Select Inverse from the pop-up menu. You will see that the selection will then highlight the borders of your photo. Right click again on the photo and select Layer via Copy. This will save the selection as another Layer. On the layer menu, change the blending mode to Multiply on your new layer. This will darken the edge of your photo completing the vignette effect. If the effect is too dark then you can lower the layers Opacity to lessen the effect. Click on Image on the main menu and select Flatten Image to merge your two layers.


Adding a vignette will sometimes darken the whole photo including the area that was not selected. If this happens, simply pull up the Curves dialog again by pressing CTRL-M and just pull up the midtones until the photo looks brighter.


The first photo below is the black and white conversion without the contrast adjustment and vignette. The second photo is the black and white conversion with both the contrast adjustment and the vignette. This is all, of course, subject to one's taste and aesthetics.

Not-so-Weekly Linkies: Photography Must-Reads, Part III

Things to read over the weekend:

• The SLR Camera: Then and Now
• 25 Ways to Jump Start Photography Inspiration
• Photography Niches You Never Considered
• The CentralPark.com Photo Contest
• Big and Tasty Food Photography Tips Roundup
• How to Hold Your Digital Camera, The Ultimate Guide
  

Have a great one!

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Weekly Linkies: Photography Must-Reads
Weekly Linkies: Photography Must-Reads, Part II

Starlight Effect: Creative Use of Aperture

Ever wondered how photographers make sources of light in photos appear like they’re twinkling? What most pros do is attach a starlight filter which automatically makes points of light flare. You can even twist the filter to adjust the effect much like a polarizer.

If you don’t want to spend money on something that you won’t end up using everyday, then you can emulate this effect just by adjusting your aperture to a very small opening like f/22 and you’ll get the same effect.



The first photo above was taken at F/4 while the second was taken at F/22. You can see the difference in the sun’s reflection in the upper right hand side. The effect will be more pronounced if the background was darker.

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Lens 101

Tips on How to Take Better Portraits

Although portraiture is probably the most popular field in photography, it is still one of the trickiest to do well. The difficulty lies in that a lot of factors have to come together to make a great portrait such as lighting, location and the how well you can capture the personality of the subject. This post will not instantly turn you to a great portrait photographer but instead, it will focus on the basic principles to help you on your way.

What is the best lens to use for portraits?
Pros often use lenses that have a focal length between 85mm to 100mm. There are two main reasons why 85mm to 100mm are often called portrait lenses.

1. Using a short telephoto lens lets you stand around 10 feet away from your subject and still be able to fill the frame with their face. If you use a wider angle lens, you’ll end up having to stand very near your subject and no one feels comfortable with a camera lenses inches away from their face. On the other hand, using a focal length longer than 100mm will take you to far away from your subject that you’ll have a hard time interacting with them.



2. Using a wide angle lens will distort your subject’s facial features. If you take a close-up shot with a wide angle lens, your subject’s nose will look larger and their ears will look smaller. This is what we call the clown effect.

Are prime lenses better than zoom lenses for portraits?
There are both pros and cons for using either of the two types of lenses so it will be up to you to decide. Prime lenses will always be sharper than zoom lenses which is especially important in portraiture but you will need to move around a lot if you want to frame your shot differently and you can end up missing some great shots.

(Lisa's note: I'd recommend a 50mm lens. It's prime, cheap, and a must-have if you can't spring for an 85mm or 100mm lens.)

What aperture is best suited for portraits?
If you are shooting against a plain background then the rule of thumb is to use f/11 which will give you great sharpness and depth of field. You can use your lowest aperture setting such as f/2.8 to throw everything but your subject out of focus.

What should you focus on?
Unless you are trying to emphasis a specific feature on your subject, always focus on their eyes. Even if the rest of the photo is slightly blurry, as long as the eyes are tack sharp, the photo will still look great.

What is the best light to use?
Some people will disagree but we prefer working with available light when taking portraits. It just looks better. Position your subject beside a window that is not exposed to direct sunlight to get soft and diffused light. If the light is too strong then you can try using sheer window curtains to act as a diffuser.

If you’re outside and light is too harsh then you can move your subject under a shade to avoid getting unpleasant shadows on their face. You can tell if the light is just right when your subject doesn’t have to squint to look at you or in your general direction.

Aside from the basics that we’ve discussed, the most important thing in portraiture is your connection with the subject. Your subject has to be comfortable enough with you so that the expressions you get are natural and not posed. You need to be able to talk to people, and connect. You have to be observant enough to notice their little quirks that make them unique and find a way to include it in your photo. These are some of the things that separate a portrait from a regular snapshot.

That, and shooting from a higher vantage point every now and then. Shooting from above is flattering for most people. It makes subjects look thinner, and hey, who doesn't love that.

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Portraits: The Other Use of Macro Lenses

When to Use Exposure Compensation

Exposure compensation is the deliberate lightening or darkening of a photograph. Most DSLRs can adjust a photo's exposure within the range of -2EV to +2EV. For example, if you set the camera's exposure compensation to -1EV then you, in effect, are underexposing the shot by 1 stop and vice versa. Depending on your camera, you can set the exposure value (EV) by 1/2 or 1/3 increments.

The Purpose of Exposure Compensation
Most of the time, when you take a picture and the subject is predominantly bright, the camera will tend to underexpose it. The reason for this is that the camera will try to make whatever subject it meters, whether it's predominantly bright or dark, a middle shade of gray. To do this, the camera will make the scene either too dark if the subject is bright or too light if the subject is dark.

This is where exposure compensation comes in. Let's say you are taking a tightly cropped photo of a bride and her wedding dress. Since the photo will be predominantly bright with the bride's white dress, the end result will be a photo that is slightly underexposed. In order for you to properly show the bride's dress to be white, you will need to set your exposure compensation to overexpose by selecting a positive EV. It's also the same when taking photos of subjects that are primarily dark colored. The camera will be fooled into making the whole scene lighter so a negative EV will have to be added to render the scene more accurately.

The photo below was taken in RAW format so the EV could be changed during post processing. During the shoot, the little girl's face was the area where the camera metered the exposure. Since she has fair skin, the camera rendered it a little darker than it actually was.



This was the result when an exposure compensation of +1 was added. The tone of the skin was rendered more accurately by overexposing the photo.



There is no exact science of how much exposure compensation to use for any particular scene. It will always depend on the quality of light and of course, personal preference. Just check your camera's histogram to make sure that you're not blowing the highlights or making everything too dark when modifying a scene's exposure.

Shoot from the Hip

If you've been taking pictures for a long time then you've probably experienced burnout - you keep taking pictures of the same things and framing it the same way and basically feel like your creative tank is running on fumes. When this sort of thing happens, I've found the best way to see things differently is shooting from the hip. Just press the shutter without looking through the viewfinder or the LCD.



Leave the camera at aperture mode with the widest aperture selected. Make sure that the audible tone of the auto-focus feature is turned on so you know once the camera has focused properly. Then just walk around and point your camera in the general direction of an interesting subject and shoot away. You'll be surprised at how many good photographs you'll produce.



One of our favorites on Flickr is davydubbit who started a whole series on shooting from the hip. He started experimenting when he got interested in Lomo cameras. He used this technique to find alternative ways of framing his shots.



Give it a go and share your work with us if you like. Have fun!

How to Fix Washed Out Skies in Landscape Photos

More often than not, the sky will always be brighter than the ground when you take landscape photos. Even if you adjust your camera's exposure compensation, the sky will almost always end up looking washed out.

The easiest way to avoid this problem is by purchasing a Graduated Neutral Density (GND) Filter. This filter has a dark tint at the top that slowly fades until the filter is clear at the bottom. This effectively darkens the sky while retaining the brightness of the objects in the lower half of your frame. But if you don't have a GND filter then you can use Photoshop to fix your washed out skies.

The photo below was taken just after 1PM. The light was so intense that it made the sky look lighter than it was. We can apply a gradient filter to this photo to bring back some of the darker hues in the sky.


Open your photo in Photoshop and press the letter D to make your foreground color Black. On the Layers Pallete, click on Create New Adjustment and select Gradient.


On the Gradient Fill window, click on the first drop down arrow and select the second type of gradient fill.


Still on the Gradient Fill window, make sure the the Reverse and Align with Layer are selected then click OK.


On the Layers Palette, select Overlay as the blend mode for the adjustment layer.


Go back to the Gradient Fill window by double-clicking on the gradient adjustment layer on the Layer Palette window. Once there, click inside the first box that is labeled Gradient to pull up the Gradient Editor. Inside this window, you can adjust how fast your gradient fill transitions between black and transparent by moving the white box left or right. The more the box is moved left, the faster the gradient fill turns from black to transparent affecting less of the picture. Using this slider lets you have more control so that only your sky is darkened by the fill. Once done, click on OK.


Below is the photo before and after adding the gradient fill.

How to Create Bokeh in Your Photos

Bokeh is a photographic term used to describe a lens effect wherein the background of the photo is out of focus. This effect is used to blur out distracting backgrounds and give emphasis to the the primary subject of the photo.

There are two ways to get bokeh when taking pictures. The first is by using a very large aperture to get a shallow depth of field. You can set your camera's aperture to f/5 or below. This will effectively throw everything behind your subject out of focus. The photo below was taken with an aperture setting of f/2.5.

You can also blur out the background of your photo by using a long telephoto lens. There is no hard rule on how long your lens should be but the longer its reach, the more pronounced the bokeh is going to be.

Below are two pictures wherein you can see the effect of using a telephoto lens. Both shots where taken with an aperture setting of f/22 so we can isolate the effect of the focal length on the photos' bokeh. The first shot was taken at 55mm and the second at 250mm. You can see that at 55mm, the background still retains a lot of detail while at 250mm the leaves in the background were completely blurred out.

Combining the two techniques of using a wide aperture setting and long focal length will give you a more intense bokeh effect.

There are many ways in which you can use Photoshop to blur out the background of your photos. Here's one way to do it using Layer Masks.

First, open your photo and right-click on the Background Layer in the Layers Pallete. Select Duplicate Layer from the pop-up menu and click on OK.Once you have a duplicate of your background layer, you need to click on Add Layer Mask at the bottom of the Layers Pallete.Still on the Layers Pallete, you need to click on the thumbnail of your photo in the Background Copy layer.After that, select Filter from the menu. Go to Blur then click on Gaussian Blur.The slide at the bottom of the Gaussian Blur menu controls the intensity of the blur you are applying to the photo. You will see that it will blur the entire photo including the main subject but this will be corrected this later. In the example, we selected a Radius of 1.9. Click on OK. You now need to select the mask from your Background Copy layer. You can do this by clicking on the white rectangle on the right of the Background Copy thumbnail in the Layers Pallete.Now select the Paint Bucket Tool from the tool bar. Press "X" on your keyboard to make the foreground color black and click on any part of your photo. You will see that the blur you added a while ago will disappear. You then need to select the Brush Tool from the tool bar and press "X" again on your keyboard to make the foreground color white.What you will now do is to paint on the parts of the photo you want blurred. You can adjust the size of the brush by pressing on "[" key to make it smaller or "]" key to make it bigger.Let me know how it works for you.

How To Clean Your Camera's Sensor

Slap on a telephoto lens, and take a shot of a plain white surface using a small aperture like f/16 at +1 stop over exposure, open the image in Photoshop, and apply Auto Levels. At 100% magnification, you should be able to see all the dirt sitting on top of your sensor.

Sensor cleaning is a tricky task because you can end up causing more harm if you don't know what you're doing. With that being said, we advise that you bring in your camera to a service center if you aren't comfortable with cleaning the sensor yourself. We would also like to issue this disclaimer (the same one Thom Hogan uses) on our behalf: When you work on your own camera, you do so at your own risk. We will try to provide accurate, useful information that reflects how we work, but we cannot be held liable for what you do with that information. Use the procedures listed here at your own risk.

Before you open up your camera, make sure that you are in a clean environment to prevent more dirt from landing on your sensor. Put your camera on a flat table where it won't move around. We recommend that you mount it on your tripod and tilt it forward a bit so that gravity can help you dislodge dirt once you start cleaning. Remove the lens and raise the shutter curtain to get access to your sensor. (You might need to refer to your manual on how to do this for your specific camera.)

Like cleaning lenses, your first line of attack should be air. Use a blower like Giotto's Rocket Blower to shake dust off your sensor. Avoid using compressed air as some of these are powerful enough to cause some damage to your sensor. Some compressed air cleaners leave a film of moisture if it's not held at an appropriate angle making your problem worse. Try doing some test shots after using a blower to see if the problem is still there.

If it is, you will need to resort to brushes. Don't use just any kind of brush. You need one specifically designed not to leave any scratch marks. Try getting Brush-Off for this. It is electrically conductive which helps lift dust off. Again, do some test shots to check whether it worked.If the dirt is still there, you will need to move on to Sensor Swabs. Sensor Swabs come in different sizes for different camera models. Make sure you purchase the correct one for your gear.

Apply a few drops of cleaning fluid on the swab and gently swipe it across the sensor in one continuous movement using one side only. Reverse the swab then swipe it across the opposite direction. Each side of the swab is made for only one pass. If you reuse a side then you're just swirling dirt around your sensor. You can find pictures on these steps and more detailed instructions here.

It bears mentioning again that if you're not comfortable doing this on your own, have a service center do it for you. It's going to be cheaper that way. The sensor is the single most fragile, and most expensive part of your camera body.

As always, prevention is the best cure. Here are some tips to avoid getting dirt on your sensor.

• Always try to find a non-windy place to change your lenses in. If you're shooting outdoors then go in your car to change your lens.
• Make sure that your camera is turned off before removing your lens. Your sensor is charged with static electricity when it is running and that acts like a dust magnet.
• Point the camera body down when changing lenses.
• Give your camera a few minutes to acclimatize before turning it on when moving between areas of different temperature to avoid condensation from forming inside. If the temperature change is extreme then keep your camera in a zip lock or