Tripods – An Essential tool for any photographer

The first thing you should buy after you purchase a camera is a Tripod. You may not use one every time you shoot, but there will be times when you just can’t do without one.

Sharper pictures, especially in low light. You or your camera can sometimes decide to use a slow shutter speed in order to capture a picture. This happens most often when there is little available and a flash can not be used. Typical situations are: nighttime, sunset, sunrise, inside a Museum or Church. If you don’t use a Tripod or something else to stabilize the camera, the pictures will appear blurry. This happens because your body moves just a tiny bit every time your heart beats. When your body moves, so does the camera. To isolate your camera from your heart, use a Tripod.

Getting yourself in the picture. Most cameras have a timer function. This timer is designed to let you press the shutter release and then race in front of the camera so you can get in a picture with the rest of your friends. The only problem is focusing the camera before you have to do your mad dash. With a Tripod, you point the camera, press the shutter release and then run. Ten seconds later you have a picture that includes you!

Taking a number of pictures from the same point. There are many times when it makes sense to take a number of pictures from the same point in space.

• Exposure Bracketing. This is when you take multiple pictures of the same subject with different exposures. This is done to make sure that at least one of your pictures turns out OK


• Time Lapse: You want to show the same subject at different times of the day.


• Panorama: You take a number of pictures of a landscape, with each one using a different angle. Useful when you want to capture a mountain range or something that doesn’t fit in the usual 8x10 print.
  

So, like that green credit card, Tripods, Don’t leave home without one!

For a great selection of Tripods, go to Keith's Cameras.

How to Choose a Camera

Choosing a camera is a tricky undertaking. Digital Cameras today cost significantly more than the 35mm or APS film cameras of yesteryear. A good digital camera will cost at least $100 and can cost as much as a new car. Nobody can afford to throw that much money at something without getting something great in return.

The first step in finding a great camera is to decide what you want to use the camera for. Some of the usual reasons are:

• Social picture taking. You want to take pictures of friends and family at social events such as parties or Holidays.
• Preserving and Sharing Memories. The first steps of a baby, a prom date, ...
• Landscapes: You want to capture things you find beautiful such as: sunsets, scenery, landscapes, flowers, ...
• Portrait. You want to take great pictures of people, great enough to blow up and show others.
• Product Photograph. You want to take pictures of things to sell them, such as on Ebay.
  

Memories and Social event cameras.

If you are taking pictures for social events, or to preserve memories, you can easily use a compact Digital Camera such as the Pentax Optio series or the Fuji FinePix series. These cameras are “Point and Shoot” which means that you don’t need to understand much to take a great picture.
If you need to conserve money, pick the camera that just enough Mega Pixels to meet your current and future needs. A 3 Mega Pixel Camera will produce very good 5x7 pictures. If you want an 8x10 to give to family, you should hold out for a 5 to 6 Mega Pixel Camera. If you want to make bigger pictures, you’ll need to move up to a 9 Mega Pixel camera.

Landscapes.
If you are out to capture the beauty found in nature, you’ll need more than a point and shoot camera. You’ll need:

• A good zoom lens. The zoom lens should be at least a “optical” 5X lens. This means that the telephoto setting of the lens should put you 5 times closer to the subject than the wide angle setting. This makes it much easier to “compose” your picture without moving about or hiking great distances. If you are willing to invest in the future, you should consider a SLR or DSLR which has interchangeable lenses. Interchangeable lenses have much better optics and are more flexible. A DSLR “system” (camera and a few lenses) will cost two to five times more than a camera with a fixed lens.
• 5 or more Mega Pixels. If you just want a 8x10 print, you can get by with a 5 Mega Pixel camera. If you want a 16x20 inch print or bigger, you’ll need a minimum of 9 Mega Pixels.
• Creative controls: These controls on a camera tell the camera what type of picture you are taking: Outside daylight, portrait, snow scape, beach picture, etc.. This helps the camera adjust it’s calculation of the exposure needed to get a great picture. The most powerful mode of all is the “Manual” mode, which forces you to set the parameters of the camera to get a great shot. The Manual mode should only be used by advanced amateurs.
• Macro lens capability. If you want to take close up pictures of flowers or insects, this is a must. If small things don’t interest you, skip this feature.
• A “Hot Shoe”. A Hot Shoe is a place to attach an external flash on a camera, usually on the top of the camera. If you are going to be very serious about macro type pictures, you may need a “macro flash” which will require a camera with a Hot Shoe. A Hot Shoe is also very useful if you need to take portraits.
  

Portraits.
A good portrait is one that shows the soul of the subjects. To see the soul accurately, you need to get close to your subjects. A camera with a lens that allows you to fill the viewfinder with a face at 4 feet is perfect. In addition, the camera should have:

• Close up zoom lens (35mm to 135mm in 35mm camera equivalent). The zoom lens allows you to compose the picture without moving around.
• Great Auto focus capability. The camera must be able to focus in both bright light and low light. The camera should also have the ability to allow you to specify the focus point. Most cameras allow you to pick one of 6 possible focus points.
• A Spot Exposure mode. A spot exposure mode calculates the exposure based on the light hitting a small “spot” in the center of the viewfinder. Most exposures are calculated based on the overall light hitting the viewfinder. This can cause problems when the background of a picture has more light hitting it or coming from it than the person you are taking a picture of.
• Built in flash, used only for emergencies.
• Hot Shoe for external flash. An external flash unit can reduce or even eliminate “Red Eye”
• Fully Manual mode for exposure. If you work with big external flash units, there is no “automatic flash”, you have to use a flash meter to measure the light, and set your camera accordingly.
• 6 Mega Pixels or more in resolution. If you want magazine quality, you’ll need 10 Mega Pixels or more.
• Lens filters. Your lens should allow you to attach lens filters to it. A lens filter can give you a great deal of control over the colors in a picture, the softness of the focus, as well as many other things.
• PC flash connector. This isn’t actually required, but can certainly is handy when connecting to external flash units (i.e. big umbrella flash units)
• Image Stabilization if possible. This is not a real requirement, but ...
  
  

Product Photography
Product photography can cover a very broad range, from web based displays to Fashion Magazine spreads. This sections be limited to Web based displays (i.e. Ebay, pictures on this site, ...).
A good camera for web based product pictures would have:

• 2 or more Mega Pixels
• Zoom lens. 3 X optical at a minimum.
• Macro lens capability. You’ll need this to get close to the small products you photograph.
• Small built in flash.

Tips on Flash Photography

Derived from the Photo Marketing Association editorial bank

by Alfred DeBat

A digital camera’s built-in flash unit is a useful tool for better photographs. However, photographers should learn when to use flash, and when not to. If you have been relying only upon the camera’s automatic flash function, here are a few things to know.

First, read the camera instruction book and learn how to turn off the flash, and how to employ the “force-flash” function (makes the camera’s flash operate in bright light). Usually, both functions are displayed on LCD menus as a “lightning bolt” (force-flash) and lightning in a circle crossed with a line (off).

Flash will sometimes ruin a picture if a photo is being made through glass, such as photographing a painting under glass in a museum, or taking a photo through a bus window. Generally, it would be better to make a longer exposure without flash, if you can steady the camera or use a tripod.

If you want to take a moody, atmospheric photo in fog or at dusk, turn the flash off to retain the look of the fading evening light. Often these pictorial effects are quite beautiful, particularly at or just after sunset.

Remember that most built-in flash units have a very short effective range, usually a maximum of from 8 feet to 15 feet. That means subjects farther away will be badly underexposed. One way to get around this shortcoming is to purchase a stronger auxiliary flash unit that can be attached to the camera. Frequently, more expensive cameras have a “hot shoe” flash contact at the top of the camera so that a supplementary flash unit can be attached — camera manufacturers often offer special integrated flash units.

Flash can be used in bright sunlight to eliminate shadows on subjects’ faces. This technique is called “fill-flash” (it “fills” in the shadows) and requires the force-flash setting. Fill-flash cannot only be used when subjects are in the shade, but also in bright sunlight when people squint. Here you place the subjects with their backs to the sun and employ fill-flash for their faces. If you get it just right, the sun becomes a backlight halo for the subjects’ hair.

Some cameras have a night photography flash setting (usually a symbol of moon and stars, plus a flash — check your instruction book). With this setting, the camera takes a long exposure of the night scene (you may need a tripod) plus a flash exposure. The idea is to have a person in the foreground of the scene illuminated by the flash (who also will stand still for the ongoing long exposure). For example, you can take a night flash photo of your wife with the illuminated Eiffel Tower behind her for a memorable picture of Paris.

The same setting can be used creatively by slightly jiggling the camera immediately after the flash. Since the flash freezes a sharp image, moving the camera during the long exposure makes the night lights dance around your subject.

Great Action Pictures

From the PMA editorial bank

If you're getting tired of taking photographs of the same old boring subjects, why not head on out to where the action is? The real action. You need not spend thousands of dollars traveling to Maui for the International Surfing Championships or to Spain for the Running of the Bulls. There's plenty of exciting action going on just moments from your front door.

If you doubt that, check with your local Chamber of Commerce or State Tourism Department. Scan the entertainment section of daily and neighborhood newspapers. Tune in to regional radio and television broadcasts. There you'll find news of upcoming fairs, races, rodeos, sports activities, rallies, and other events-everything from barrel racing and high school diving competitions to baseball, football, and hockey games ... from offshore sailing regattas to a neighborhood game of stick hockey. Not surprisingly, many people are hesitant to try photographing moving subjects. Decades of slow film and slower lenses once restricted photographers to shooting stone-faced subjects standing beneath the mid-day sun on a hot summer's day in August.

Ahh, how times have changed! Today's newer equipment and more sensitive films allow you to use faster shutter speeds to get proper exposures. And fast shutter speeds "freeze" fast action, providing you the opportunity to capture on film some things your parents could only dream about. Here are a few other tips for getting in on the action.If your camera features an adjustable shutter speed, set it for 1/250 second for shooting subjects such as joggers, bicyclers, and cars traveling slower than 25 miles an hour. For subjects such as runners, sports activities, and cars traveling up to 50 miles an hour, use a shutter speed of 1/500 second.

For really fast-moving subjects such as airplanes, motorcycles, and auto racers, use 1/1,000 second or faster.If your camera features an automatically adjustable shutter speed, use a fast film of ISO 400 to 1000 to ensure the camera's ability to select a fast shutter speed for the proper exposure. If you find yourself shooting a slow film or if your camera has a limited shutter-speed range, try shooting moving subjects as they come toward you rather than going from one side to the other. Autofocusing cameras are especially useful in conditions like this.

For a more creative approach to capturing fast action, especially when shooting something like a car race, try using a slower shutter speed of around 1/60 second and panning with the action. Simply move the camera from one side to the other, keeping the subject "frozen" in one spot in the viewfinder at all times. In the middle of your pan, snap the picture. The results: a sharp subject standing out against a dramatically motion-blurred background.

When freezing fast action indoors (like at a hockey game or a party), use electronic flash. The short duration of the electronic flash will accomplish the same thing as a fast shutter speed, resulting in perfectly motionless subjects. Just be sure to check the flash manual or the unit, itself, to see that the subject is within the maximum flash range for your film speed and flash combination. The faster the film (or the higher its ISO rating), the greater the flash range.When forced to shoot a slow film indoors without electronic flash, try to anticipate the "peak of action. That's the precise moment when a moving object stops moving in one direction and begins moving in another. It's the pinnacle of a basketball player's jump shot or the moment a race car veers to make a turn through a tight chicane. To capture the shot at just the right moment, pre-focus your camera where you anticipate the peak of action will occur and be ready fire.It takes split-second timing and plenty of practice to do it right, but peak-of-action shots are some of the most exciting and spectacular of all action photos