Digital Background – Digital Photography

Gardens and flowers may be beautiful subjects but they are not without their difficulties, especially when you move in close. Photography at this end of the spectrum normally produces more failures than successes so here are some tips to improve your nature photography.

At some you should also consider pursuing a photography course online that would guide you step by step through the technical aspects of close-up photography. There many ways to approach this fascinating area of photography and many choices to make with camera equipment.

The useful thing about choosing a garden as subject material is that your photograph is always very close by. You can start in your own backyard. Particularly with close-up photography, as you can spend hours in a square yard and not exhaust the possibilities. When photographing flowers or groups of flowers keep the background simple, this helps to emphasize the subject. Isolate the subject against a single color or place a colored card behind the flower. This works well with close-ups as a deck of colored cards can be very small and not a burden to carry.

Hazy sunshine is well suited for photographing gardens in color; this provides a generous, soft shadowless light. However, break the rule and photograph under any condition, they will all yield different and exciting results.

Use a tripod and a fast shutter speed when taking close-ups, even the slightest breeze or movement can ruin the photograph. This is the single most difficult problem to manage with close-up photography. Again however, put the tripod aside and use movement /soft focus and blur to your advantage. This can provide a more emotional photograph as opposed to clinical. A respectable photography course online would provide the necessary camera function aspects of introducing freeze and blur into your images.

To exaggerate color, use a shallow depth-of-field to separate the subject from the background. This should be quite simple to achieve as depth is very limited in close-up by the very nature of this area in photography.

Spray your subject with water to give a fresh rain or dew drop appearance. Carry a spray bottle with a fine mist nozzle at all times. This can be very effective at setting a mood and water adds a sparkle to the photograph.

If the weather outside is too horrible to venture into, bring flowers into the studio for still life subjects and gain total control. A single bloom can make a wonderful color or black and white graphic photograph.

In addition to flowers, there is an infinite range of subject material in the garden. Grasses, weeds, wild flowers, leaves, seeds, insects, spider webs, and the list goes on and on. Next time you are looking for something to photograph, look more closely in your own back yard.

By choosing a dependable photography course online you can learn these techniques and gain valuable insight for best possible results with close-up photography and nature.

Roo du Jardin is a photographer who runs an informational website about photography courses online. Read some more photography tips, techniques and resources at Online Photography Courses blog.

The progress made in recent years by the printer manufactures allows professional photographers and amateur photographers alike to print high quality photos. Other than the savings to be made by printing your own photos, perhaps the biggest attraction is the endless possibilities to tweak and try different photo reproduction methods from black and white prints to advance superimposing, all from the comfort of your own home and all at your pace. Heavy weight professional photo paper such as A3 would of course cost more than your normal run-of-the-mill printer paper, therefore to get the best out of the paper follow out tips below.

5 Photography Tips For Printing Photos:

1. Profile Match – Quality paper should be offered with a settings profile file to match your specific printer model. Normally the profile file could be downloaded from the photo paper vendor website or from the retailer who sold you the paper. In rare cases where a profile isn’t available set your printer to the highest image quality settings.

2. Paper Match – Other than ensuring that the paper type such as Inkjet or Laser is the right paper, look the paper weight to ensure it will match your preferred reproduction work. Paper weight of 300gsm and above will normally be used for artistic prints and portraits, while the less heavy 250gsm to 300gsm paper will be used for enhancing image definition for photo prints. The paper should be compatible with your ink type be it UltraChrome, K1,DuraBrite, Lyson inks or any other pigment or dye based inks.

3. Page Setup – Before clicking ‘Print’ and sending your work down the printer on the professional paper, take the time to setup the page. In particular look to setup the page properties in terms of paper orientation and paper size. Once completed, head to ‘page preview’ option to see a visual representation of the image prior to printing.

4. Photo Handling – If the type of paper bought will not instantly dry, meaning the paper cannot instantly absorb the ink, safely place it aside to dry before storing the photo. When an image has been printed remove it from the printer’s tray so the next photo won’t stack on-top of it. Let the paper dry for a period of up to 24hrs before storing it. Of course if the paper you bought instantly dries up, you can skip this tip.

5. Photo Limits – Printing your own professionally looking photos must also be practical. If you will require a large amount of photo reproduction prints consider using a photo-kiosk or an online service. Start by naming your files, optimizing their size and finally saving the new files in another folder. Until you get the prints back, save the originals just in case.

Enjoy your project.

Joseph is the founder of Photo Paper Direct, an inkjet consumables store selling photo paper and Inkjet Ink Cartridges.

Digital Background

Ask most seasoned digital photographers and they will most certainly tell you that the hardest concept to snap that perfect shot is the lighting.

The first lighting mystery in every image is back lighting. Back lighting usually presents itself naturally in the form of the sun, sky, or bright lights.

With automation technology in digital cameras advanced an automatic internal light meter sets itself to adapt to the extra light. While sometimes beneficial the usual outcome is that the image subject is under exposed and becomes a silhouette. Avoid this at all costs.

Fill Flash to the rescue. A fill flash will “fill” in where light is needed.

Diffused Lighting is another lighting option.

Sometimes any light is more light then you want on your image. While inconvenient sometimes the subject is what has to move. Pick a different day, a different location, or a different time of day. Another possibility would be to include a prop in the shoot that alters the light, perhaps an umbrella or a tree. Clouds can also sometimes come at the perfect time to help shade your subject.

So isn’t artificial lighting the answer to most lighting issues?

First you have the camera’s built in flash. While handy they can sometimes leave you with the ‘red eye’ effect. This is because the flash is to close to the lens. This direct light is also usually quite harsh on the subject. Moving the flash away from the lens will soften the light but you would have to purchase an off camera flash.

In short, make the most of your pictures to attain the best possible picture and then become acquainted and knowledgeable with a great photo enhancing software package.

Because sometimes you only have one moment to capture the image.

Robert Cooper. Robert Cooper is a computer networking consultant and has been in the electronics field for 25 years. As an author he specializes in digital camera reviews and digital photography tips. He frequently writes about Canon digital cameras, Nikon digital cameras, the latest, greatest digital point-n-shoot cameras while also providing interesting analysis of digital storage and digital camera accessories. For further information please visit http://www.onlinedigitalcamerareviews.com where you can also find the latest digital camera reviews and articles on digital photography tips and courses.

Digital Background

Having a really nice DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera is quite a nice feeling. The fact is that you can now go out and practically capture images from wherever you go, this might at first not seem like such a great deal, but once the penny drops and the realisation kicks in exposing the possibilities it will be like stepping through a doorway to a whole new experience. I treat my digital camera like my best friend and take it absolutely everywhere I go, that includes even just a short journey. You never what opportunity is going to arise in the form of a great picture and there is nothing worse than sitting there thinking it would have made a great picture if I had my camera…

There should be no restrictions, it might even be dull and raining, but what a great chance to capture a picture of a rainbow or if really lucky a bolt of lightning, it really is a question of seeing opportunity everywhere. Most people start out by taking their digital camera on holiday, but if you start looking for a picture rather than just taking shots of what comes your way.

Instead of ending up with some nice holiday pictures you will come back with great holiday album that is jam packed with so many interesting and appealing pictures. If you see a tall building that you are allowed to go to the top of then this is a great place to start. Things look so different when up high.

Native flowers and plants are another great photograph opportunity as these will more than likely not be seen growing wild in your home country. Animals running on the beach or shaking water off of themselves after getting out of the sea, it is a question of knowing what is going to happen in some instances that goes into the making of a great shot. Sunsets and sunrises go without saying, but try and think of something that would look good in the foreground, palm trees, boats, horse rider, etc.

It is an ideal place to practise panning techniques when on holiday as a lot of the birds near a coastline tend to ride the sea thermals giving a great chance to photograph bids in flight, not only that but seagulls tend to be an easy bird to follow with a lens while flying.

There are many, many more holiday ideas, but without going into massive detail it would be difficult to cover and give ideas to cover every taste and type of location, but needless to say that you will find some great pictures no matter where you go on holiday.

Ok, back home now and time to start using some of those manual settings that are on each DSLR digital camera. The first basic setting is the ISO button, which in easy to understand terms works something like this. If it is a bright day with plenty of sunlight you will get better results by setting your ISO to a low setting of around 100, but if it is a little dull you will want to use between 200 and 400 and then so on up the scale depending on the light available, but be warned, the higher the ISO that you use the grainier the picture will appear.

When taking pictures of the moon you will probably be better off with a 70-300mm lens or a 2 times converter on your normal lens and an ISO setting between 100 and 400, this is because the moon is in fact a lot brighter than most people think.

Most new cameras come with an aperture priority setting or F-number, which is normally indicated by the letter A on a thumb dial on top of the camera along with other various priority and subject style settings. You should also be able to change or alter the F-number manually. The smaller the F-number then the foreground and background of the subject will be blurred, while the higher the F-number means that you should also have the background and foreground in focus.

You cannot check this outcome in the viewfinder, but by taking the picture and viewing in the LCD screen you should be able to see which way that you need to adjust to make the picture better. It is worth practising this as it will help when out and about using manual settings.

There should be many other settings that you can use and experiment with on your DSLR digital camera, but the ones covered here tend to be the most important. It is well worth your time in familiarising yourself with these as it will also start to give you a much better understanding about taking better photographs and how to use your camera.

Photography is not just a great hobby and interest that people can enjoy and share with each other, it can be seriously relaxing and in some cases therapeutic. Expressing the many aspects of some great photography is myphotographblog.com.

A blog that allows visitors to explore the many boundaries and wonders of modern day photography with some amazing photographs and links for added enjoyment. So whether you are a professional or a complete novice to photography make your way over to myphotographblog.com and be truly inspired.

Clive Anderson

Digital Background