OK, what do I need to know.

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: Shannow
But she did a what with a what ?

An engineer should know the basics of exposure.

I need some of the basics on getting the most out of my camera.

It's a Powershot A520.

And in the not too distant past I learned to set it to fast (running man), and focus on something about as close as the spider I wanted to photograph, then point at target and click.

We had a talented undergrad at work recently, who could take great close-ups, detailed shots, moving scenes etc. (My stills are often moving shots)

Now....how do I take photographs rather than pictures ?

 

[moribundman]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Now....how do I take photographs rather than pictures ?


How does one compose a beautiful song or paint a masterpiece?

Get a 35mm film camera that allows you to set shutter speed and aperture. Learn about exposure, focus and depth of field. Most of all, learn to previsualize. All of that isn't easy with a digital compact camera, which is an automated ingenuity killer that by its nature can never be a match for technical skill and creativity.

 

[Shannow]

I asked for that.

 

[CivicFan]

Before you invest in a new camera (even though used SLR cameras can be had for as low as $35.00 on eBay), I would read a couple of books on photography. There is a DVD out there called 'Digital photography unleashed' that gives you pointers about DSLR photography but the basics are the same for SLR, DSLR or even point and shoot cameras.

You can compose good shots with any camera (even a cell phone camera).

 

[eljefino]

Photography is all about lighting and composition... point of view.

If you take a picture of a flower, get down low so the horizon is still in the pic. It'll be out of focus but still interesting.

If something is banal at noon (terrible time to photograph), go after it at dawn or dusk to get interesting shadows and textures. Or get it after rain when the sun just comes out.

If you have distracting elements, either reset the viewpoint (easy) or blow them out of focus, or have them so white or dark they don't matter anymore with use and abuse of lighting.

Have a zoom? Play with it. Go wide and get really close to stuff. For portraits etc go long; depth of focus decreases with telephoto lenses so the out of focus stuff will be really out of focus.

Digital is great; you can get immediate feedback. I can trick an all auto camera into doing what I want. usually you will find it will do a focus hold if you hold the shutter button halfway down-- focus on something in the middle then slide it off to the side.

The one disadvantage of point & shoots is terrible shutter lag between pushing the button and actually getting the pic. using "running man" forces the camera to take the picture even if it's not positively sure it'll be in focus. But usually those dummy modes all do the same stuff... it's either a fast shutter with wide aperture or slow with narrow.

 

[eljefino]

So I was out playing with my youngun and grabbed the following that plays by two of my abovementioned rules: Blow the background out of focus, and set the exposure way too high so it's just... not there. We were in the shade but I found a shooting position where the background was in sun.

If you play with your camera you can usually find exposure compensation which will let you make non-average pictures.

The new cameras have "face recognition", creepy. May make the below come out the way it came out, automatically.

 

[CivicFan]

Have you tried using flash in such instances? Sometimes the use of flash during daytime gives better results than just using a wider aperture for blurred background as you are able to use a higher shutter speed and lower ISO for the same aperture.

 

[moribundman]

Fill flash would not only have given a better exposure on the face, but it would have also cleaned up the colors in the foreground. For good natural light in a portrait, this situation with a low-contrast shadowy foreground and bright sunlit background wasn't an ideal situation anyway. Having the background detail blown out adds no needed information to the picture and is actually distracting, because the eye tends to go to the brightest area in a photograph. The bright area also cuts the kid's head in half. Furthermore, having the subject almost dead center doesn't help image composition. On a good note, the low viewpoint is appropriate, although I would have moved in closer on the subject and, as already mentioned, I would have composed the shot more off-center. The shallow depth of field works, and a nice moment was caught.

 

[eljefino]

yeah composition wasn't the best, could be improved by cropping the top off a bit. They eye does head for the brightness and if cropped to a lesser % of the frame it may not. But am using this as an example of trying to get a level horizon in the pic. Without a horizon it would appear to be looking down on my kid instead of more or less at his level. Plus I find a horizon helps define the space in which a photo exists.

When shooting fast moving stuff with today's high-res cameras it may pay to zoom out a bit and crop later.

Fill flash was not what I was looking for; if I used it it the pic would have gotten more boring as the foreground would be closer in lighting to the background. But I hate flash and try for natural light most of the time.

 

[eljefino]

color wasn't doing anything for me so I discarded it.

Played with "curves" to take the lightish background and blow it out to totally white. Now it blends with the white background that's default for this forum. Also pulled up the midtones making for nice flesh tones.

Cropped a bit to put the eyes on the upper 1/3 line.