Photography Tips Guide

Posts Tagged ‘Digital Camera’

For sports enthusiasts, there’s nothing more exciting than sports people playing their favourite game. The sight of the field, rink or golf course initiates the thrill and anticipation. This, combined with digital photography, can provide some amazing photographic opportunities. However it’s not a matter of point the camera at the person diving for the ball or puck and snapping away. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

In digital photography sports can be quite challenging. The sports people do not present an easy task of being photographed because of the amount of high movement. However, you can indeed achieve great sports digital photography. Most excellent sports digital photography requires good planning and execution.

Here are some exclusive tips for gaining fantastic sports shots in your digital photography.

First things first; know your digital camera. I recommend taking note and practicing first all the settings that sports photography needed. You may find yourself going for the faster shutter speed, increased ISO and burst mode. Let’s take a look at all these things on your digital camera and see how they can be applied to give you sensational sports photos.

High shutter speeds:

As with all moving objects, in order to capture the “frozen in time” look in digital photography a fast shutter speed is required. The faster the movement the fast the shutter speed will need to be. In digital photography the general consensus is that the shutter speed needs to be faster than that of the subject. For example if you have a sliding puck across ice and there is a someone about to take a dive for it then its necessary to quickly mentally assess how fast that person might be traveling at. If they are traveling at approximately 50 kilometers (approx 32 miles) per hour then you may find a very fast shutter speed is needed for this digital photo.

A very fast shutter speed in digital photography may be anything from 500th of a second or higher. For high speed movement you may want to consider an even faster shutter speed of 1000th of a second or something in that range.

Keep in mind that in digital photography a fast shutter speed works to reduce some of the light which is why a higher ISO is often necessary. (I’ll talk about that in a minute.) Usually a if a ball, such as a baseball going at around 145 kilometers an hour (90.09 miles per hour) a shutter speed of around 1/4000 will get you that “suspended ball in mid air” type of photo. For physical movement, such as someone leaping to catch a football, a shutter speed of 1/500 or over is a good place to start.

Now this is all very well if your scene if well lit. But what if you are taking your digital photography shots indoors at night and the light is not quite enough to provide enough light? In most instances, an indoor stadium at night time will be well lit, but that doesn’t always ensure good digital photos. In sports photography we need to understand that we can only control the artistic value and input of our digital photo and the control of the camera. We can’t control the lighting on the scene being such a public event. In digital photography sports photos we must realize that it’s going to be a challenge to begin with. So here are something’s you can in your digital sports photography to increase the amount of light.

If you have a light tool on your digital camera such as a histogram you can get a good idea of what the light levels are like on your sensor. With this handy tool you can adjust the ISO at the time of your pictures taking.

Increase your ISO: A high ISO in digital photography simply means the sensitivity to light that your digital camera has. In a nutshell the more ISO you have increased the image to, the less light the sensor needs. In sports photography an ISO of 400 or higher can work really well. The downside to this is that it does increase noise. To combat this you can use noise reduction software in the post editing process such as Noise Ninja or increase the LAB mode in the post editing process. Don’t be afraid to try a few shots at 400, 800 and even as high as 1600.

Burst mode:

In most sports digital photography this will be one of the settings you will turn to. Burst mode is also known as ‘continuous shooting’. This ‘continuous’ shooting mode allows you to get a sequence of shoots in succession. You can increase your chances of getting that ideal “split second perfect shot” that you might not be able to get by pre-emption or in normal shooting. This also works so beautifully if your digital camera has a painfully long lag time. I’ve used this so many times to get around the high lag my Sony Cyber shot has got. Some cameras have 3 frames per second and some go up to 12 frames per second. You simply select this mode and hold your finger on the shutter button and it will fire off as many shots in 1 second as it can.

Okay so I’ve been talking about your digital camera and the setting’s used for ideal sports digital photography, so what about any external equipment? If you have been thinking about this you’re spot on. You can take as much time with your settings but there’s not much point if you can’t get close to the action. There’s no point having a picture with perfect lighting and perfect action if the players are like dots on a sheet of paper. You need a good telephoto lens if you can’t get close up. A telephoto lens brings you closer because of its long distance capability. It will get you closer to the action but will need a faster shutter speed.

Many fantastic sports digital photos are taken with an emphasis on a very fast shutter speed, an f stop of around the 2.8 mark to blur the background and focus in on the subject. You may find that if your sportsperson is visually separated from the background and you take the digital photograph with a telephoto lens you’ll have a more shallow depth of field which can give you a more powerful feeling in your digital photo. You can get away with a good optical zoom lens, but you’ll get far better digital sports shots with a proper telephoto.

So what about the artistic side of sports photography with your digital camera? Plenty!

Pre-emption and Emotion is the key to good art.

When taking sports photography you probably won’t find a more public display of human emotion. The emotions of a sports person range from intense anticipation to extreme disappointment or extreme exhilaration. Pre-empting when these emotions take place is they key to getting artistic and impressive sports photos. This comes with practicing your digital photography.

SO much pressure is placed on our athletes, expecting them to perform so we can enjoy the show and the investors can enjoy their returns. This is another reason why I say to get a telephoto lens so you can capture the emotions on their faces and their body language. It makes for superb photography. For ideas on ice hockey, have a look at some ice hockey images that are great study tools.

Don’t just look at these digital photos, you must study them. Take on the attitude that studying sports photography will improve your digital sports photos ten fold. You will have a style to emulate and copy to start with then eventually, when you become confident, you’ll start to adopt your own style.

Happy shooting,

Amy Renfrey

To study digital sports photography check these sites out: http://www.espn.com/ and http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ and http://cbs.sportsline.com/

Someday there will be an ‘e-bay” of photography where consumers and businesses, designers and art directors, agencies and photo buyers will all go to find and license image for their disparate needs.  A student will look for images to complete a homework assignment…and an Art Director for a major ad agency will find an image for a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal.  The student might pay twenty-five cents while the Art Director might pay $10,000.00.  The popularity of an image, in conjunction with the use, will determine the price that will be paid.  The best photographers will make more money than they ever have before…and photographers who are sound business people will find a way to make good money too.  Those of us who are less creative, less diligent and less motivated will fall further and further behind.  I guess that is one thing that won’t really change in the business of stock photography!  Those who “get it” will thrive…as they always have while those who remain stuck in the past will slowly (or quickly) fade away.

As professional photographers who sell their images to the advertising, design and editorial communities, many of us have lost sight, or perhaps have never seen the tremendous buying power of the “consumer”.  My eyes were opened to that when I began to sell my Animal Antics images…pictures of  funny animals in anthropomorphic poses and situations, as greeting cards.  Sure, I only make a few cents per card…but when the public is buying over a hundred thousand cards a month those pennies can really add up!

Even with sales like that most people who I talk to about my greeting cards have never seen the cards for sale!  So I conclude that sales of a hundred thousand cards-a-month represents only a small fraction of the total possible number of sales.  The potential income from selling images to the public, to the consumer, is staggering.  Especially if you consider that images, for the most part, are a universal language.

So how do we, the photographers, tap into that market?  Well, obviously greeting cards portraying funny animal pictures is one way to do that.  But that really isn’t a very efficient way to do it.  The internet is the way to do it…but perhaps not yet.  That above mentioned “e-bay” for photographs…or some similar mechanism to marry the elements of consumer, photographs and transactions, needs to come in to place.  The need is there…I bet the technology is too…the rest is simply a matter of time…and preparation. 

For me that means having a website that is reasonably functional in getting my images in front of the public…and having content that the public wants.  That content can be anything from pictures that consumers can download and print (and that they WANT to download and print), to images they can license for their small business or images they can use to spice up their social networking site.  I am attempting to offer such content to the consumer by linking up with Café Press for products such as coffee mugs, calendars, handbags, T-shirts and the like…to ImageKind for fine art prints, to the various stock photo agencies that license my photographs for more traditional advertising and promotional uses.  Currently I use Blend Images for ethnic lifestyle and conceptual imagery, Getty Images for most of my conceptual and business images, Corbis also for concept images, and Kimball Stock for the licensing of my anthropomorphic animal pictures.  I also continue to sell greeting cards through the Portal brand that is published and distributed by the Marian Heath greeting card company.

Any investment counselor will tell you that the first thing to do in investing is to diversify.  That is of particular importance in time of uncertainty…and I think these times qualify for that label. As photographers we need to follow that same advice.  How do we diversify? For me that means a multi-pronged approach.  I diversify in my content, in my target market, and in my distribution.

I create images for the traditional advertising, design, corporate and editorial markets.  Within those markets I create lifestyle images, business images, and conceptual images.  Here I am diversifying the content within the category of traditional stock photography.  Next, I create images for the consumer…that is images that in them selves are or can be product.  That means everything from photo imprinted coffee mugs to photos for checks, photos for screensavers…you get the picture.  I also, once a year, take a trip specifically to shoot travel images.  Again…further diversification of my content.

To diversify my distribution I utilize both those traditional “powerhouse” stock photo agencies like Getty and Corbis, and niche agencies like Blend Images (for ethnically diverse lifestyle and business imagery) and Kimball Stock (for funny animal pictures).  Further diversification of my distribution is achieved by selling greeting cards through Marian Heath greeting cards and hiring a licensing agent to sell and distribute other “consumer” images for such wide-ranging applications as vet reminder cards, gift books and even figurines and picture frames! 

And finally, I have my website which I am fine-tuning as a vehicle to make my photographs available to anyone who might be interested in them, and in guiding them to the appropriate distributor for their needs.  I believe that those of us who establish such websites now and learn from that process, will have a huge head-start when that new paradigm lands on us…as it surely will!  When that wave hits I want to be experiencing the thrill of riding it rather than the pain of being crushed beneath it.

USING SPARE CAMERA, PARE TIME TO MAKE EXTRA CASH

MY EXPERIENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY MAKING MONEY

There are a lot of articles which are talking about how to make money from your photograph and camera. The reason I am writing here is to give out my true experience of using photograph to make money. I hope this article has some practical help to those people who have interests to use their spare time and spare resource to generate some extra income. This article is not a sort of advertisement or course to teach you to get quick money. It is only a practical guide to the people who like to try some different things, of course, if you have some photography background and art talent, I am sure you will be very interested in my experience. If you invest some serious energy and time on what I did ( I am a lazy person), maybe you can make a good living though this.

This journey started when I got my first digital camera. It is first time for me to have so much passion to take photo. My first digital camera is SONY Cyber Shot 5M pix compact digital camera. I took a lot of photos and stored them in my hard drive. One day, when I clean my hard drive, I ask myself, how I can deal with so many photos. Some of them are actually pretty good, like professional photograph. I used Photoshop (an image process software package) to process some of them and decide to sell them to make some money. And I found a stock photo web (I will introduce it later) and uploaded them. After several weeks, my photos start to generate income for me. Several months later, the photograph becomes my major hobby. I spent a lot of money to buy Canon EOS 350D digital camera to take more photos.

You must ask what can I do if I haven’t got any digital camera? Do not worry, just use your existing resource, I believe got 35mm film camera on hand. These days, a multi-functioner which includes scanning function doe not cost you over 100 dollars. You can get one scan your hard copy and digitalize them. Or, you just buy a digital camera. Digital camera get cheap and cheap today. It will save you a lot developing cost and you can make any amount of practice. You must say I have no confidence to make good photos. I will say, I can do it, you can do it, everyone can do it. Your photos do not have to be perfect as a professional photographer did. And there are lot of references can help you to start take photo. For example Digital Photography Beginners Guides is a really good 4-parts e-book to teach you step by step.

You must ask what I can shoot. You can shoot everything eg. people, static things, animals, pets, flowers, architectures, abstract things and so on. My experience is take my camera to everywhere, thus, I can take photo any time. If you are specialized in some realm, it could be even better. There also some resources you can make reference such asNew Pet Photography EBook

Now, I will introduce the stock photo web I used for sell photos. If you search on search engine, there are a lot of stock photo website now. I tried some of them. I think this is the best one, which is FOTOLIA

There some reasons I choose FOTOLIA

1. It is absolutely free to register. After register, you can use your account to buy some photos and you can also sell your photos.

2. It is very easy to register. There are a lot of stock photo web site require you to provide photo ID. FOTOLIA does not require your photo ID. So, you can get instant access to your account after register. This point actually attracts me to give up the others, because I am a person who does not like to give my photo ID to someone I don’t know over Internet.

3. The photograph approval is very fast comparing others. If you have tried other stock photo web you will find FOTOLIA is really fast.

4. And your photograph are very easy to get approval. This is really important to us. Because we are not professional. Only if our photograph to meet commercial requirement, FOTOLIA will accept.

5. FOTOLIA has good marketing, therefore, your photograph will be sell very fast. The speed level is much higher than the others.

6. There are millions photos in stock and millions user to use FOTOLIA

7. The payment method is flexible. You can choose FOTOLIA to pay check to you. But, what I like is FOTOLIA does accept PayPal. If you have a PayPal account, it is very convenient to receive your payment. Many other stock photo webs do not recognize PayPal.

8. FOTOLIA assigns a unique link to each photo you uploaded. It is very convenient to promote your work.

9. You do not have to do promotion, because FOTOLIA has very good marketing online. However, you can still do marketing by yourself to dramatically increase your sell.

Statistic shows, generally speaking, each photo can make one dollar profit per year. You must say: what, you got be joking, one dollar a year. Please do not ignore this one dollar. If you take, to say, 10 photos a day, ( I believe you can. Usually, if I go somewhere for travel, I usually take at least 3 roll films. After getting digital camera, the amount I take is much more than before during one trip. If you go somewhere average two weeks. You take, to say, 3 rolls: 24×3=72 or 36×3=108, or 140 digital photos) one year, your will take 3650 photos, they will generate at least 3650 dollars. FOTOLIA also allow you to sell extensive license of your photo. It will make much more profit for you. And the most important is that your sales will not stop there. Your photos will be sold again and again. So, if you continue to upload photos for several years, you can imagine that, what will happen? Assume you upload same amount of photos per year. This will not increase your workload. The profit of the first year is 3650 dollars. In second year, you will get 7300 dollars in cash. In third year you will get paid over 10,000 dollars extra income. And it will be over again and again, never stops. Go to FOTOLIA to register and get free account now and start sell your photos.

Digital photography at its best

We have arrived at an era when digital media is more commonplace.  It has become more cost effective, the results are pleasing, and the ease of sharing, viewing and archiving make it convenient for many users.  History has shown that multimedia has gone through a continual  evolution in regard to the use of formats and storage media.  Many of us may confront issues regarding how we want to deal with photography.  Should we consider the use of our own digital camera?  The answer will depend on your views about how such a change would impact your life.  Surely the consideration of owning a digital camera represents a collection of new challenges.  This article will present an overview of some of the issues that are involved.

What is required?

The camera itself represents a substantial outlay of money, however it is not the only outlay that will be required.  Fortunately, digital cameras are cost competitive with film cameras that may be used for most general purposes.  The collection of features in a given camera will affect its price.  A simple way of comparing digital cameras is by the number of Megapixels that show in an image frame.  If you choose a one Megapixel camera, you will find that full-frame images will be slightly larger than the viewing area of a monitor screen that is set for a resolution (or screen area) of 800 X 600 pixels.

Another major determinant of adaptability is the zoom capability.  The zoom range that is most significant to the user is the range of “optical zoom.”  Digital zoom range is generally of less significance, as the user can deal with these settings while using an image modifying program after the image file is in the computer.  Other features that may be of importance is whether you have viewing capability on the camera for seeing the image in a digital screen viewer before taking a picture as well as a digital screen that can show a selected image frame after the picture is taken.  Provision for taking flash pictures may be an important consideration.  Also, it is beneficial to have a display screen that shows how many pictures can be taken before the flash card is full.

Note that the flash card can be removed from the camera and replaced with a spare flash card, just as you would do with film cartridges.  One difference is that the flash card is not light sensitive and its location in the camera is not in the light path that is used for taking pictures, so no precautions are needed before opening the slot where the flash card is installed.  Closing the slot involves a mechanism that slides the card into position and makes contact to the “pads.”  Opening the slot works in the opposite fashion and ejects the card just far enough that it can be grasped with fingers for removal.

You will find that savings will accrue when you don’t have to pay for film or standard film photo processing.

Camera accessories that are often selected at the time of purchase can include things like a spare “flash (memory) card,” batteries, battery charger, carrying case, etc.  Recognize that your total outlay will be dependent on whether a given accessory is included in the camera’s price.  A flash card has a thin substrate that contains a bunch of memory elements.  It is slightly more than an inch on each side, and less than an eighth of an inch thick.  It has a few plated copper “pads” on the substrate that provide connection points for applying power to it and for transferring signal data in and out of it.  It is convenient to make these accessory selections at this time, as you are already at the location where they have the items and know which ones will fit your camera.  However, accessories can be bought at any time from a reputable camera store.

You must consider the means for copying image frames from the flash card in the camera.  If you copy these files to your own computer, there should be enough accessories and software bundled with the camera to provide for these needs.

The most common type of interfacing connection between camera and computer is a USB cable that mates with the camera at one end and with the computer at the other end.  If your computer does not have a USB port available, perhaps the easiest way to add one or two of them is to use a USB card that gets installed in a PCI slot within your computer.  This requires that your computer have and available PCI slot.  If your operating system is Windows 98 or newer, chances are that Windows will “see” the new hardware and install the required driver for it when the computer boots after the USB card is installed.

The software for transferring image frames from the camera’s flash card to your computer must be installed and the user must learn how to operate it.

There are so-called flash card readers which can be used to transfer data in or out of a flash card.  The reader has the ability to accept dowloads from the flash card by removing it from a camera and placing it in the card reader.  A reader will often serve as a writer if you have need for that, and a media device that can “read” from a flash card.

Another form of media used with some digital cameras is a floppy disk that inserts into the camera and is removed with images in JPG format.  If this is the media used in a one Mpixel camera, you could get five shots on one disk, and may find that an indicator of how many remaining frames may be taken on a partially filled disk may not be important.  This represents a very easy way to transfer image data to a computer.

Minimum system requirements for all new devices and software must be considered if everything is to work properly.

Other means of transferring image frames exist.  To do so in conjunction with your computer, an external device can be purchased that will accept the flash card and will provide the ability to gather and retain the image files that can be copied to any available computer.

Another option is to take the flash card to a photo processor and have them provide the image files on a disk.  Of course, this involves processing cost, but may not be as expensive as you expect.

Recent trends in battery selection for devices like digital cameras favor the NiMH, or Nickel-Metal Hydride type.  They are more tolerant to many kinds discharge-recharge cycles, and will last for more recharge cycles than the Nickel-Cadmium types.  They may give better service if a special charger is used with them.  Some digital cameras use a custom battery and others use a few cells of standard size, like AA or AAA.   Some users prefer to have two sets of them that are never mixed with members from the other set.  One caution – don’t expect them to retain their charge as long as Alkaline or NiCad batteries.  You may prefer that the batteries be of the standard AA or AAA configuration for a few reasons, one of which is that they are less expensive when buying as a spare or as a replacement than a custom battery.  Also, you may be able to put in standard alkaline cells in an emergency.

Two forms of batery chargers are available, one for restoring charge when the batter(y) (ies) (is) (are) out of the camera, and one for replenishing charge when the batteries are in the camera, as the drain can be substantial when using the LCD viewer or when downloading pictures.

Some differences in technique are required, as the digital image data is captured in a manner that is different from a film camera.  Most digital cameras have a shutter that will make settings of focus and contrast when the shutter button is half-way down, and this process may add a delay to the time before the shutter operates.

When looking through a viewer, it is desirable to have a digital screen in the eyepiece viewer.  One reason this is important is to ensure that certain types of scenes will retain the color elements correctly.  A user should be aware that many digital cameras can do poorly with scenes such as sunrises if they point the camera at the foreground slightly below the horizon and in line with the sun before pressing the shutter.  This may result in an image that shows none of the color or brightness of the sky.  However, if you use the shutter button to pre-focus (and pre-contrast) on the sky, and hold the shutter button half-way down as your re-direct the camera toward the preferred framing direction, you will see if the colorful features in the sky will be retained in the picture.  If you have a 2 Mpixel or 4 Mpixel camera, you don’t need to point the camera in the preferred framing direction, as you can obtain a reasonably wide-angle result and unnecessary piture content can be removed later by cropping.

Generally speaking, a digital camera will use a shutter speed that is faster than a film camera, which relieves the user from having to steady the digital camera as much to avoid blurred pictures.  The implications are that telephoto work can be done with a digital camera without a tripod if the user is steady, the camera has considerable zoom capability, and the scene is well lit.  This is an interesting result that can be obtained without an expensive and heavy detachable lens, which would be required on a film camera.  Also, many digital cameras have an autoexposure feature that tends to make a setting of fast shutter and fast f-stop.  Thus, an amateur photographer can do a respectable job with telephoto photography, where the narrow-angle view may be the only manual adjustment needed for point-and-shoot pictures.  Because the fast shutter speed makes the camera more tolerant of slight motion while taking a picture, some have come to regard this effect as a virtual “stabilizer.”  In more expensive cameras, many will have a feature called “image blur reduction.”  This is especially useful when taking telephoto pictures.  Read the instruction manual for the camera to set up this feature.  It may require that you press the shutter button halfway and hold it for a second or longer for this feature to become operational prior to operating the shutter.

Some of the better digital cameras do can an excellent job of taking close-ups, as their focus range may include four inches to infinity.

With the digital viewer on the back of the camera, you can have some assurance that a satisfactory photo has been obtained.  However, it has limited resolution and limited ability to show a good display in sunlight.  You can delete images from the flash card that you don’t want and free up memory for additional frames to be shot on the same flash card.

For most purposes, a user will be satisfied with images in the JPG format.  With a 2 Mpixel camera, each frame will require about 0.5 MB of file space.  Thus a 32 MB flash card will serve to retain up to 64 image frames.

Until this came along photography used to be a hassle to even the most dedicated in the trade. But now, it has breathed new life into photography showing the power of one moment captured in time.

Digital photography utilizes digital technology to make images of subjects and does not need chemical based processing. The images can be captured, displayed, stored, transmitted, manipulated and recorded with the aid of a computer.

Since the first commercially available digital camera in 1990 and the first consumer camera with liquid crystal display on the back in 1995 this camera has brought speed, accuracy, enhanced imaging and many moments of happiness for both professional photographers as well as amateurs alike.

From the linear array type of cameras at the highest end to the simple web cams at the lowest end, these devices offer many advantages to a photographer. Immediate image review, deletion, lighting and composition management are among the main plus points. Conservation of storage space and manipulation of the end product are additional advantages.

There are a few disadvantages to overcome when using digital photography. The cameras are entirely dependent on an electrical supply. Color print film possesses a bigger dynamic range than digital sensors in general. Salvaging burnt out highlights are difficult with digital cameras and image noise manifests as multicolored speckles.

In today’s fast moving world digital photography has become a necessity for professional news photographers wanting the acceptable image quality. This has also given the amateur snapshot takers the ability to send images by e-mail from anywhere in the world. It is possible to view images of world events as they happen as was amply demonstrated at the presidential inauguration and the long drawn out hotel siege in Mumbai recently. Astronomers and other technicians use digital photography on a daily basis.

After the initial cost in acquiring a digital camera the operating cost of photographing through this method is cheap in the long run. This is a major factor for users of digital photography to keep using it and embrace all innovations in the field that is bound to follow with time. I for one, am keeping my digital camera close to me at all times as it may very well bag that elusive shot that I have been hankering after for many years.