Photography Tidbits

Why modify this digital camera setting? Experiments in exposure time can produce dramatic effects. For example: Take a photograph of a roaring waterfall in a well-lit area and adjust your digital camera’s exposure speed to take pictures as quickly as possible. In great lighting, and with some modern digital cameras, you may be able to see the individual drops of water falling!

Most higher-end digital cameras support a histogram feature that can be displayed before or after you take a photo. Though it looks like a complex chart, a histogram is merely a representation of an image’s brightness, and whether or not it has rich shadow and highlight areas. Without going into science or a lot of details, here’s how you can use your histogram while taking pictures. If the histogram is weighted towards the left side with vary little if any curvature near the right, your photo will most likely be underexposed (too dark). Use your exposure compensation tool to brighten the image. Consider a slower shutter speed to allow more light to enter the camera lens. Note that there are exceptions. Are you taking photos of fireworks in a night sky? Since most of the picture will be dark your histogram should naturally be weighted towards the left.

If you are out and about in everyday life with your camera and there is a picture that you absolutely cannot miss but you don’t have a tripod, what do you do? Obviously you can’t carry your tripod everywhere you go: Change the ISO film sensitivity to allow your digital camera to take pictures with shorter exposure times. This can result in grainier images, so you’ll need to experiment. Refer to your camera manual for details. Use your digital camera’s portrait mode to reduce camera shake. Set your camera to take a picture 2 or 10 seconds after holding and releasing the shutter button, and you’ll eliminate camera shake that would have normally resulted. Just remember to keep the camera as still as possible while waiting for the picture to be taken.

While sunrise and sunset photos are nice, unless the scene contains spectacular colors, huge clouds, or fast-rolling waves (at a beach), too many of these photos can be bland. Try to add a silhouette, such as: A person or people; An animal, such as a bird or a dog; A sailboat or other watercraft; Trees or shrubs; An expansive bridge To get certain subjects into your photo may require patience, but they help add depth and perspective to your photos.

If you have a good optical zoom, here is an experiment you can do while taking digital camera photographs. When taking pictures of homes, skyscrapers, cabins, etc., zoom in on individual pieces of architecture. Take a minute to really look at your subject, and you may be able to find individual engravings, sections of paneling, or dents and scars in the wood of a cabin that may result in interesting pictures. The trick to taking better photos is to really observe a subject and see it from all angles. Go downtown, find some office buildings, and really take a minute or two to study them. You may find engravings or sculptures on or around the buildings that you have never noticed before.

Looking for ways to take ‘aerial’ photography of a large city without taking a helicopter ride or paying to stand in a skyscraper’s observation deck? One place you may have not thought about is a garage. A large parking garage with a high vantage point can provide great locations from which to take photos from high above street level. However, don’t trespass, and don’t arouse suspicion! Bringing along a tripod or taking too long to frame a photo might raise the ire of security guards. Some places don’t allow you to take photos altogether, and even if you pay for a parking spot, you might be considered a trespasser or possibly a security threat. So just take a few quick hand-held photos and move on as to not attract attention.

While you should always try to take digital photos at nighttime that avoid the blurred results of ‘camera-shake’ due to long exposures with an unstable digital camera, realize that blur is not always undesirable. Some blurring can be used creatively, such as that created by cars driving on an interstate at nighttime. This effect is best performed if the roadway is next to a lit skyscraper or cityscape. Frame a photo containing the cityscape and roadway, and take an exposure of half a second or longer as necessary (use a tripod!). The skyscrapers should look clear and crisp, and the roadways will turn into streams of light.