Exposure Compensation

Exposure Compensation is a method for adjusting the exposure which is indicated by the internal photographic exposure meter in your camera. There are two common situations when you will want to use Exposure Compensation.

1. When the setting is a little dark or you have dark objects around the subject, the internal photographic exposure meter compensates for all the dark objects and reduces the shutter speed. With a slow shutter speed, you will most likely get a blurred image unless you are using a tripod. It is at this time that you want to compensate the exposure by dialing into the negative side.

2. You will also want to compensate in the opposite situation as well. When the setting is very well lit, you would dial into into the positive side of the exposure to get a slower shutter speed. A good example would be when you shoot in winter and have your subject around snow.

How do you use Exposure Compensation?

Check this video to compensate using the Canon XSi/450 D

Check out this video to compensate using  Nikon 300Ds

Image Credit: tibchris

How to use a Circular Polarizing Filter (CPF)

I was looking online on how to use a Circular Polarizing Filter (CPF) and I came across this good explanation:

For the level best polarization effect, the sun should be at a right angle to your subject. That means when you’re facing your subject ideally, either your left shoulder or your right shoulder will be pointing at the sun. The polarizer will still work if the sun is at less than 90′, but to a lesser degree. It also works well when the sun is directly overhead, though it won’t have much of an effect on the sky when the sun is that high.

Sometimes the polarizer effect will be subtle, and you won’t always notice a dramatic darkening of the sky, but if you look closely you may find bright reflections being reduced and/or eliminated on leaves, rocks, etc. If you’re not seeing any effect, then you can simply remove the polarizer and gain a stop or more in shutter speed if you need it.

The nice thing about a polarizer is that you see exactly what it going to do as you rotate it while looking through the viewfinder. It’s either doing something, or it isn’t. So you don’t really have to remember to have your subject 90′ off axis to the sun though you can use that knowledge to reposition yourself and/or the subject if you want to achieve the maximum polarization effect.

Image Credit: Beverly & Pack

Why are faster lenses sharper in the telephoto range?

Someone asked this question in a forum and here is a great answer that will be helpful to all of us!

“First off, lenses are designed for their specific maximum apertures. A 300mm f/4 is not a stopped down 300mm f/2.8. It was designed as a f/4 from its inception.

Virtually all lenses are sharpest at about two stops down from wide open. This is because lenses are designed for a range of apertures, and anything with any kind of range in its design must have compromises. The 300mm f/2.8, therefore, is sharpest at about f/5.6, and the 300mm f/4 at about f/8.

In theory, a lens could be designed with a single aperture and maximum sharpness at that aperture. Such a lens, however, would be severely limiting in its use. Mirror lenses have this drawback—this plus the fact that they are almost always use very poor glass to keep the price down.

Secondly, large aperture lenses require very primo front elements. These elements are the most critical elements in most lenses, and cannot tolerate aberations. After all, the light passes through these elements first, and, if distorted, remains distorted forever after. These elements are also the largest elements in the lenses. When grinding and polishing glass, the larger the diameter, the harder it is to prevent aberations from creeping in. Large aperture lenses means means super-precision grinding and polishing out to the very edges, which in turn means very high prices.

Take Canon’s 300mm “L” lenses as examples:
The EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM has a front element with an active area about 107mm in diameter and sells for about $4340 at B&H.
The EF 300mm f/4L IS USM has a front element with an active area about 75mm in diameter and sells for about $1269 at B&H.

A lot of effort goes into that 32mm difference.”

How to photograph fireworks

Last year, I had gone home for Diwali and as some of you might know, Diwali is the Indian festival of lights. We were invited to a friend’s place for a fireworks display and I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to try out some fireworks photography as I was quite new to this beautiful art. Not surprisingly, I found it really difficult to find the right composition, ISO, aperture and I was basically overwhelmed as I was trying to learn from the photos I was shooting while trying to get out of the way of people lighting up fireworks. Here are some of my learnings:

1. Use a tripod - This is one of the most important accessories you would need as you want the camera to be as steady as possible as you shoot fireworks. You want the only movement in the photograph to come from the fireworks itself.

2. Remote Release – Again, you do not want any shake on the camera. If you have access to a remote release cable, bring it along.

3. ISO – I tried many settings but some of the best shots I got were using ISO 100 and 200.

4. Aperture – That evening, I learned that using fast shutter speeds while shooting fireworks might give you a crisp picture but most times, that is not what you are looking for you. Slower shutter speeds will allow you to track the movement of the fireworks in the photographs and give a great story to the photograph and fill it up with beautiful light.

I hope that these tips help you when you are trying to learn how you could shoot fireworks and I would advice you to shoot as much as possible because you can study from every shot, even if its not what you wanted. Are there any tips you could offer to our other readers?

Photo by: Jule_Berlin

Finding Inspiration – Look at other people’s photographs

Whenever I feel I have plateaued or out of ideas for photos, I always turn to Flickr or DeviantArt to help me get inspired about photography again and give me some new ideas to try out.

Looking at photos that others have taken will give you ideas on what the photography medium can achieve. To get the most out of this exercise, try to look at work of different kinds of photographers and from different fields. You never know what could set off that brilliant idea.

When do you find a photograph that inspires you, you should bookmark them. There are various ways to do that – you could mark them on flickr, use Posterous.com or use Delicious.com. Personally, I find Posterous works best for me as it lets me save the image on the Posterous page as well as I can comment on what I actually found interesting about the picture. You can check out my page here – Digital Photography Guide.

How do you get inspired for new photo ideas?

Photo Credit: Adriano Agulló

How to clean the sensor for your DSLR

I have been looking for some information on how I could clean the sensor for my DSLR and I came across this really good article on various ways that you could clean the sensor. Dirt can mess up the sensors and not cleaning it the right way could have a permanent damage to the sensors which means expensive repairs bills!

The following article explains various ways such as using the sensor swab, brush or a blower. You can read the article here.

Photo by: FreeParking

What is Infrared Photography

Infrared (IR) Photography is the process of shooting pictures in the infrared spectrum rather than the regular visible light we can see. This spectrum of light is said to be in between the light we can see and the microwaves used by radars and microwave ovens. Many people confuse Infrared Photography with Thermal imaging. Thermal imaging systems are capable of detecting different wave lengths of IR energy.

IR photography involves blocking out almost all the light that is visible to the human eye and only letting in infrared light. Most DSLRs have a hot mirror filter placed in front of the sensor to block infrared light in order to prevent IR from ruining normal photographs.

Here are a couple of great articles on how to check if your DSLR can take Infrared photos and what accessories you need to take some IR photos – Instructables and Fotolia.

Photo by Matt and Kim Rudge

What is Boudoir Photography

Boudoir is a lady’s private room and Boudoir photography is a style of photography that involves women in sexual or sensual poses. Boudoir photography should not be confused with erotic photography as it focuses more on the aesthetic qualities of the woman. Boudoir Photography plays on the idea of teasing the subject rather than what is shown.

People choose Boudoir photography for many reasons such as wedding gifts, anniversary gifts, modeling portfolio or just for other personal reasons.

Photo by Marboston

What is Autobracketing or Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB)?

Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) or Autobracketing is feature on most DSLRs where the camera will take 3 or more successive shots using slightly different settings. This is done mainly for 2 reasons. First, you would use Autobracketing if you want to shoot using different settings and the choose the best of the lot or Second, you would use Autobracketing for HDR photopgraphy. Click here to learn more about HDR Photography.

The most common type of autobracketing used is exposure autobracketing or Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB). Using AEB, the camera is set to capture the same image several times with slightly different exposures, both over-exposed and under-exposed (lighter and darker) compared to your current exposure setting on the camera. Depending on make and model of your camera, the difference between each of the autobracketed shots could be anywhere up to two stops in each direction, in half-stop or one-third stop increments.

Each DSLR has a different way of selecting AEB, Nikon’s D70 has an accessible button on the back marked BKT while other DSLRs like Canon have an AEB setting in their menus.

Another common form of autobracketing is white balance autobracketing. This technique applies only to DSLRs, not to film cameras. This setting causes the DSLR to capture the same image several times and slightly changing the white balance settings, with both higher and lower color temperatures compared to the current setting on the camera.

Photo Credit: Breeze Systems

Digital Camera Flash Diffusers

There are times, when you are shooting in low light, that you will ‘HAVE’ to use the flash and most times, the light emitted from the flash will too much and it floods the picture.

In these cases, you can either reduce the intensity of your flash by changing the intensity value in the settings of your DSLR or if your DSLR does not have that option, you could use Camera Flash Diffusers to soften the flash.

You can either buy Camera Flash Diffusers from the store or you can make one at home that will be just as effective. Objects used to act as Flash Diffusers include old film cannisters (as shown in the image), paper cups, pieces of plain white paper or even a plastic food tub!

Click here to check out other Flash Diffusers.

(Image Courtesy: Natuurplaat)

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