Photography Tips Guide

Archive for the ‘Digital SLR Cameras’ Category

A lot has changed since I first wrote about Microstock for Digital Photography Students here at DPS last year. I think it’s time for an update, a look at the changes which affect those getting started with microstock, and a few of the most important tips to help you be successful making money form your photos.

What’s Changed: Quality Requirements are Higher

Even in just one year, the quality requirements in microstock have risen. Quality affects both your acceptance rate and your sales rate. That means you have to submit higher quality photos to get them accepted, and they compete with more high quality photos for sales. That’s not to say that quality is the only factor as it’s not, but it is certainly one of the most important.

Quality also means many different things. It’s not just the technical quality of the photo (focus, exposure, etc) but also the composition, lighting style, and the professionalism of the subjects and setting. In the past few years it’s been possible to gather some friends in your living room with open curtains and all the lights turned on, and it would get accepted and sell. Today there are so many photos that are created with professional equipment, models and locations that it’s difficult to get started with simple, home-made photos. Can you see the difference?:

The reality is that the rising quality in microstock is making it more difficult to achieve success. This doesn’t mean it’s no longer possible for students and hobbyists to participate, but it does require some different strategies. You need to focus more on quality and less on quantity, particularly at the beginning. You also need to put more time and effort into analysis and planning your shoots. We’ll look at these topics in detail further down.

What’s Changed: More Agencies and More Services

In the past year more new microstock agencies have entered the market. Some have new and interesting twists on the standard microstock business model. Cutcaster, for example, offers photos priced with an algorithm which raises and lowers the price based on supply and demand. Vivozoom offer buyers a legal guarantee like high priced traditional stock photo agencies, and plan on never having much more than 1000 contributors.

Services and tools designed to make life easier for microstock photographers are also growing in number. PicNiche is a service which helps contributors find lucrative subjects to shoot based on keywords. There’s also a PicNiche toolbar which helps with uploading and monitoring earnings. iSyndica is a new company which distributes your photos to multiple agencies so you only have to upload once - a big bandwidth and time saver. LookStat provides contributors with analysis of their portfolio across multiple agencies and other analytics that help you sell more microstock.

What’s Changed: Less Sales but Same Money

Most microstock agencies have raised the prices over the past year which is great for contributing photographers. Some have lowered the commission rates too, but the net effect is positive. Most microstock photographers are finding that the number of times each photo sells is slightly lower than it was a year ago, and substantially lower than two years ago. However, thanks to higher prices, the total revenue is around the same level.

Most microstock photographers find that they need to continually upload lots of photos to increase their earnings. Uploading only a small number of photos each month will just maintain your earnings level, and not uploading anything will see your earnings drop. The number of photos required to increase earnings is different for each portfolio and is difficult to figure out with all the seasonal variations. Generally speaking, it will be a higher number for bigger portfolios.

And it’s not always the case. My own earnings have risen substantially this year despite not having uploaded any photos since January! I have no idea why. Everyone has different experiences.

Success Tip: Start Slow and Learn Fast

The abandonment rate of contributor account in microstock is very high. More than half of the people who register get frustrated and give up, losing all the time they’ve invested and the potential earnings they could have earned. There’s some easy things you can do to avoid this.

First, figure out if microstock is for you. You many not like shooting what sells and commercial styles, If you prefer shooting your own way or highly artistic styles, then think twice before starting with microstock. You may not be ready yet. Microstock is extremely difficult without a DSLR, and you really need to know how to use it well to avoid rejections and low sales. You also need a lot of time for the planning, producing, shooting, processing, uploading and submission of the photos. Then there’s the keywording & descriptions and managing model releases and property releases. In short, manage your expectations so you don’t get disappointed when you discover it’s actually hard work.

If you do decide to try selling your photos in the microstock market, start out slowly with a few of your best photos. Focus on the agencies that don’t require you to submit test photos first. Once you have some photos online with a few sales, use the feedback of what gets accepted and what sells to know which ones to use for the tests at the other agencies.

When building your portfolio, don’t get too excited and upload too fast. Look at what’s working well in your portfolio and repeat the successes. Find what the photos that don’t sell have in common and avoid repeating that. It’s true that you need a lot of photos to earn a lot of money in microstock, but it’s much easier to focus on increasing your quality before increasing your quantity.

Success Tip: Work Smart before Working Hard

Microstock is a very open market. You can see so much information about what’s selling, what’s not selling, who’s selling, where they’re selling it and why they’re selling it. Use this information to your advantage.

Analyze. Look at the data and find out what works. What subject, what style, what lighting, what composition, what keywords, what agencies, what models, what colors, what poses. Each insight you find with this analysis will save you lots of time creating photos which won’t sell. And keep in mind that reproducing the top selling photos is not a smart strategy. Unless your photos are substantially better, they won’t compete with high quality photos that already have a sales record behind them. Use your research not to imitate, but to find your own style and your own perspective.

Be business minded with your microstock activity. Look at what you’re spending on shoots and equipment, and record how much time you spend. If you find you’re spending more than you’re earning, or you’re not happy with how your profits relate to the time invested, you can adjust. You may change something to lower your costs, or look for ways to increase your revenue. You might even be happy to lose money if you’re learning or enjoying what you’re doing. But you’ll never know if you don’t do the math.

Lee Torrens blogs about microstock and his own experiences selling photos online at Microstock Diaries and via @microstock on Twitter. He reviews microstock agencies and services for microstock photographers, plus profiles the microstock superstars and analyzes what makes them so successful. If you’re interested in starting or improving your microstock photo career, head over and subscribe to Microstock Diaries.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Microstock Update - How the Market has Changed and What That Means For Digital Photography Students

Looking for a great Photo Printer? James Gapinski from Just Suppositions shares some tips on how to choose one.

Introduction:

Digital photo printers are not only convenient, but they can also save you money on reproduction costs in the long-run. In the short-run, however,you’ll need to spend a couple hundred dollars to get a decent printer, and it can take months for your photo reproduction savings to add up. In order to make sure this expensive purchase is well-worth it, you need to consider several factors when buying a new photo printer.

Types of Printers:

When comparing printers, you need to keep in mind that there are two basic types. The most common type is the ink jet photo printer; this type is useful if you plan on multi-purposing the printer for document usage. Ink jet photo printers can serve as holistic home printers, letting you print Web pages, text files, and other digital media alongside your photographs.

Dye sublimation printers, on the other hand, are designed only for photography reproduction, and these printers rarely work well when repurposed for printing text documents. Dye sublimation printers produce high-quality glossy prints, ideal for professional photographers. While these printers often create the best quality photos, they are much more expensive and therefore only recommended for people who plan on doing a lot of photo printing at home. For most photographers, lower cost ink jet printers will work just fine.

Resolution:

This is perhaps the most important consideration since a higher resolution will yield better-quality photographic prints. While virtually every printer branded as a “photo printer” will have good enough resolution for casual usage, professionals will want to look for a resolution of 4,800 x 1,200 dpi or even higher if you can afford it. The HP Photosmart D7560 Photo Printer (pictured above right) is a good option with an impressive 9,600 x 2,400 dpi resolution.

Printer Sizes:

Few buyers keep size in mind when making photo printer comparisons; however, size is very important. Smaller, ultra-portable machines may cost more, but they are perfect for on-the-go photographers. The Canon Stelphy Compact Photo Printer is a great small-sized option, as is the ultra-portable Polaroid PoGo Instant Mobile Printer (pictured right).

However, if the convenience of a compact unit is not important for your purposes, then you’ll want to actively look for comparably priced bulkier machines offering higher-quality photo printing. For example, the bulky Epson Artisan Multifunction Photo Printer offers higher resolution prints and document printing options for the same price as the aforementioned lower-resolution, yet ultra-portable, models.

Connectivity:

Make sure the printer you select is compatible with your digital storage devices. Some consumers mistakenly assume that all photo printers offer the same standard types of connectivity.

Some photo printers, like the extremely versatile Kodak ESP3 or the previously recommended HP Photosmart D7560, have built-in slots for SD cards, MMC cards, MiroDrives, and more. Others, like the previously mentioned Polaroid PoGo, will simply offer direct USB or connectivity. Lastly, some photo printers, like the Epson Artisan, do not feature any type of direct-from-camera printing; however, such models can still be useful if you already do a lot of photo editing on your computer and don’t mind spending a few minutes uploading your images before printing.

Conclusion:

While there are several factors to consider when choosing the best photo printer, taking time to diligently consider your options will lead to a better long-term investment. Whether you’re looking for pro-quality, easy portability, or fast connectivity, there is a printer out there that will fit your needs. Now that you know what features to look for, go get that new printer and take your at-home photography reproduction to the next level.

About the Author: James Gapinski is a writer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Many of James’ past and current projects involve photography and the arts, including recent grant research at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and guest writer contributions to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Art City blog. James’ blog, Just Suppositions, contains links to many of his past written and photographic works.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Photo Printers: Choosing the Best One for Your Needs

How many times have you taken a photo and regreted that you used the on camera flash? The result is glaring highlights, shiny foreheads, and beady eyes, from the powerful direct hit of the small built-in flash. In this post René Edde shares some tips on how to avoid this.

There are a few ways that you can soften up that flash and make it look more natural, even the tiny little built-in flash on a compact point and shoot camera. If you soften your on camera flash, or bounce it off the ceiling, you will take away the harsh hard-edged shadows.

1. Create a Bounce Card

A technique used by press photographers for years. Take a small white index card, tape or rubber band it below the flash so that it bounces the flash onto the ceiling and fills the room. This can be a bit more tricky with the small little on camera built in flash and may require some McGuyver like duct tape technique. But the result is worth the work. You get a nice even fill to the light. How you create the card will depend on how your flash is built into your camera.

See the two photos (above and below). A white post-it note is a good way to create a bounce card on the go. You can see that I cut and modify one for the compact Canon G9 (above) or for my Canon 430EX Speedlite (below), just stick it on the front and go.

2. Make a Tissue Soft “Box”

Simply take a piece of tissue and put it over the flash on your camera. If you prepare this in advance you can neatly tape it in place, but you can always turn this option into a grab and go technique. Grab a tissue or thin paper napkin and hold it over the flash, point and shoot. It works best if you use a double layer tissue or fold it in two. This softens the light of your flash in your photos, even though the light is still direct.

There are more expensive tools that you can buy to soften your flash. For your SLR add-on flash, I highly recommend the Gary Fong flash diffuser systems.

With any of these techniques you may need to play around with the settings on your camera a bit. In essence you may need to trick your camera into the right exposure. With all of the automatic functions of cameras these days, you need to learn how to out smart the auto functions.

?It could be as simple as fidgeting with the exposure modes or overexposing the photo by a half to a full stop. This is going to vary based upon the camera and the model that you have. Try different techniques in the same scene and see what works best for your camera.

Think of these techniques as making a little lampshade for your camera flash. Try either of them or fiddle around with techniques of your own. The key is to spread out and diffuse the light and to bounce it off of something more broad than your camera flash (like an entire ceiling).

Just remember if you have a ceiling that isn’t white, or use a paper or card that isn’t white, that color will effect the color of the light and will tint your entire photo.

Recommended Reading: 7 Strategies for Avoiding Flash Blow Out

René Edde is a freelance photojournalist based in Chicago, IL. When René isn’t shooting on assignment for newspapers or working with local and international non-profits on documentary stories, you can find her teaching English to Tibetan monks in Nepal. You can see more of René’s work at her website and her adventures on her blog.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

How to Soften Up Harsh Flash Lighting

There are two key marquee selection tools in Photoshop: the rectangular and elliptical marquee tools and they share a toolbar position. Here are some things you may not know about these tools.

1. Squares and Circles

The rectangular and elliptical marquee tools can be used to draw perfect squares and circles. When you click and drag the marquee, hold the Shift key to constrain the shape to a circle or square.

2. A Circle is a Square? No Thank You!

Try and draw a circle or ellipse in a fixed position on an image and you may be confused about just where the shape starts. A circle or ellipse is drawn as if it were placed inside a square or rectangle shape so you start drawing the shape from a corner of its square or rectangular container. All this makes it very hard to position a shape accurately. To make things easier you can draw your shapes from the center outwards by holding the Alt key (Option on the Mac), as you drag on the marquee tool. Add the Shift key to constrain the ellipsis to a circle.

3. Right Shape, Wrong Place?

What do you do when you’ve drawn a perfect shape but in the wrong place on the image? Don’t let go the mouse! Instead, hold the Spacebar and you can now move the shape into the desired position. Let go the Spacebar and then let go the left mouse button fix the marquee in position.

4. Right Shape, wrong Rotation?

When you want to create a rotated shape such as a rectangle, square or ellipse, first create your shape using the marquee tool and ignore the rotation issue. Now let go the mouse button and choose Select > Transform Selection. The shape now shows a set of transform handles that you can use to rotate it. Hold the Ctrl key (Command on the Mac) and you can drag on a corner of the shape to distort it. Press Enter or Return to commit the transformation and remove the handles. You can now continue to work with the marquee selection.

5. Exact Size Selection

If you want to make a selection that is an exact size, from the Style dropdown list choose Fixed Size. Type the pixel width and height into the boxes and click on the image and a selection exactly the desired size will appear on it. Use Fixed Ratio to make a selection at a fixed ratio like 1:1 shown here.

Next time you need to make a selection on an image using the marquee tool remember that there’s a lot more to it than might meet the eye.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Five Secrets of the Marquee Tools in Photoshop

Claims. Claims. Claims. This time Olympus promotes the E-620 as the “world’s smallest and lightest digital SLR to incorporate an image stabilizing mechanism.”

The camera’s Four Thirds system offers not only a small and light camera but means that extras like additional system lenses, battery holder and underwater housings are also smaller and lighter. The camera weighs just 475 grams (without battery). Light.

In the company’s current five model array the Olympus E-620 sits squarely in the middle.

Olympus E-620 Features

Using an internal stabilizer, the camera promises image compensation for up to 4EV steps - or four halving levels of shutter speed. There are four modes: off or on, plus correction of horizontal and vertical instability.

Supporting the turret-mounted optical viewfinder the rear Live View 6.9 cm LCD screen swivels 180 degrees laterally and 270 degrees vertically.

The Live View MOS sensor has 12.3 megapixels, while the maximum image size of 4032×3024 pixels gives a 34×26cm print, Images can be saved in RAW, JPEG or RAW+JPEG.

The seven point AF system can be monitored both in the optical finder and the LCD screen. It’s active for single shots or continuous shooting. Plus manual focus.

49 zone exposure ESP metering is backed up by center-weighted and spot modes. The latter can be varied to accommodate highlight or shadow readings - a useful hangover from the company’s film SLRs.

Exposure modes include auto, Program AE, shutter or aperture priority plus manual. You can shoot in continuous mode at 4 fps and for as long as the shutter button is pressed. Shutter speed range runs from 60 seconds to 1/4000 second plus Bulb. Flash sync is set at 1/180 second or 1/4000 with an Olympus Super FP flash unit.

Face detection: the camera can detect up to eight faces, optimizing focus and exposure; this can even be applied post-exposure during image playback.

The E-620’s dust reduction system operates when the camera is switched on and at the moment you operate Live View and pixel mapping functions.

On board flash covers any lens up to 14mm (28mm SLR equivalent) and can sync with first and second shutter firing for streak effects. Intensity is variable by three f stops up or down. The system can also be synchronized with Olympus’ external wireless control flash units.

ISO range runs from 100 to 3200. In tests I found the top sensitivity level with surprisingly little noise in the image. The examples shown here were shot (top to bottom) at ISO 200, 800 and 3200.

If you’re into multiple exposures the E-620 can line up a second shot to match the previous one, then lets you save the pair as one image. You can choose from half or full exposure for each while up to three stored RAW format images can be merged into one.

A useful function and one that will appeal to dedicated photographers is the lightbox function: it gives you an LCD display of two images side by side.

Another nicety: the replay and erase buttons are illuminated for night work. However, in an otherwise well-featured camera you could wonder why there is no movie capture.

Like many other Olympus models the E-620’s Art Filters selection is very useful if you want to push the envelope in rendering unusual versions of otherwise staid subjects. Serious photographers may avoid them while fiddlers will love the collection. The array: Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pale Light & Color, Light , Grainy Film (pictured above), Pin Hole.

The camera provides a slot for CompactFlash, xD-Picture Card and Microdrive media.

I found the camera very easy to use but it may be a little too basic for the more experienced. Picture quality was accurate with excellent colour saturation and resolution.

Olympus E-620 Specifications

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Olympus E-620 DSLR Review