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Question:
I want to try taking sunset coastal shots. Any tips?
Answer:
It really depends on what type of coastline you will be photographing. Since you didn't specify what type of coastline my advice will be pretty non-specific (you can use these techniques on any coastline).
Quite often some of the best "sunset pictures" do not even include the Sun. You can use the swath of sunlight on the water and rocks or sand as your compositional elements. Turn the camera at 90 degrees to the sun, to photograph the coastline (works great on rocky shorelines) if you have a Yellow/Blue polarizer filter this is a great time to use it. Some of my best sunset shots have occurred after the sun has actually set, there is colour bouncing off the sky, and the quality of light is soft but still directional, this is a opportunity to use a longer shutter speed (greater than 1 second) to create soft looking water.
Question:
I was looking for tips on the Internet on multiple exposures. I recently got a camera that can do this and I've looked for tips and gotten some good and some bad ones. Question: If you adjust the speed of the film to the number of multiple exposures, then how do you measure exposure. Do you stop down to allow for this or shoot a balanced frame for all of exposures?
Answer:
I assume that you read my multiple exposure article http://www.garryblack.com/multitips.htm
Once you have adjusted the film speed to the number of exposures that you want to use, you then just meter and shoot without even thinking that you have done anything to the camera. In other words you don't do anything different than you normally would (over/under expose depending on the tone of your subject matter). The only thing that you might have to watch out for is; if it is sunny and you are using a fast film and doing quite a few multiple exposures, you may have to stop down (F16 or F22) just to get the shutter speed into a usable range for your camera.
I hope this helps you, if you have any further questions, just ask!
Question:
Hello. I am a high school art teacher with little photography experience. One of my students is very interested in capturing a reflection of a person in a store window. Any advice?
Answer:
It is really quite simple, as with all reflections they are at their best when bright sunlight is falling on the subject (a person in this case) and the reflection is falling on something which is in the shade (a store window). As for exposure, a general rule of thumb is to underexpose by 1/2 to 1 stop from what the camera's meter recommends, usually 1 stop works the best. This is because there will be a large portion of the window on which there won't be any reflections and this area should be black. The photographer should be standing at a 45-degree angle to the window in order to take the picture without getting themselves in the photo.
You need not only have bright sunlight to photograph reflections. If you can see a reflection in a window then you can photograph it, although the image will be somewhat muted in comparison to bright sunlight. Regarding exposure in any lighting condition other than bright sunlight, I would underexpose only by 1/2 a stop from the camera's recommended meter reading.
THIS IS A 2 PART QUESTION - ANSWER
Question:
I am just starting out in the freelance business. I have my first job photographing a party. It will be indoors with a lot of people to photograph. My questions are what brand & what speed do you suggest? And I need any Tips you can provide to me asap!
Answer:
Do you have a flash that has a movable head? (i.e. can you point it towards the ceiling)
Let me know as this will determine how you will shoot the party (hopefully you have one).
Follow up Question:
I do have a bounce flash that I used with my older camera. Although it kept leaving exactly half the picture shadowed and the other half perfect. So I have not used it lately, fear of messing up my photographs. So I will say I don't have one to use. Unless you have some input on that flash..:)
Answer:
I am not exactly sure what you mean by "leaving exactly half the picture shadowed and the other half perfect". It sounds as though you would get this result if you were taking a vertical shot and having the flash on the camera and bouncing it towards the ceiling. This would give you less angle coverage from the flash and may account for the shadow. Without seeing the pictures though it is almost impossible to tell what went wrong.
There are basically two techniques that you can you to photograph people at a party, wedding or conventions that will make the pictures look much better than just snapshots of them. What you DON'T want to do is have the flash sitting in the camera's hot shoe and directly facing your subjects. This will give you that snapshot quality to your pictures, it's fine in a pinch, but I don't think you will get many referrals to other clients.
The technical reason that you don't want to use this technique is that it creates harsh shadows and very bright specular highlights without any soft gradation between the two. What you want to achieve is a soft lighting effect. This is accomplished by either bouncing the light off a surface before it reaches your subject or by moving the flash off the camera and diffusing the light.
The bounce technique is the most common and practical. The mistake that most people make is that they leave the flash in the hot shoe of the camera. This works OK for horizontal shots but is terrible for verticals. What I use is a stroboframe arm; the flash sits on top part of the arm while the camera sits on the bottom part. If you want to take a vertical shot then all you do just move the arm holding the flash so that it is back on top again (rather on the side of the camera). You can bounce the flash off the ceiling, providing they are normal height ceilings. If you are in a room, church or whatever in which the ceiling height is very tall then you will need to bounce the light right at the flash. This is a technique used by News photographers all of the time, cut out a white piece of card board 12" x 12" then trim one side of the card board to the exact width of your flash. Attach this end to your flash using elastic bands, you can now use this "bounce card" instead of a ceiling. Notice that I said a white card board, this is because what ever the colour is that you are bouncing the light off of that light will pick up that colour. In other words if you bounce the light off a blue card or ceiling, the people will be illuminated by blue light and they will look blue.
The other technique is to create soft light is by modifying the light at the flash. This is achieved by placing the flash in a small soft box. The problem with this technique is that you need an assistant to hold and position the soft box, and soft boxes are very expensive. So I won't go into the details of this technique.
Hope this more or less answers your question, if you need more information just ask!
Question:
My name is Stephanie and I am in an Independent Study Photography class, and I was wondering if you have any tips for me on taking pictures at competitive swimming events.
Answer:
Let me start off by saying that I have never photographed a swim meet. However I am sure that it must be similar to other sporting events.
First you need to find a good location to position yourself for the race, you may be limited by the officials (which is always the case) as to where you can stand. But generally the areas that they have for photographers have pretty good vantage points. Basically there are two prime locations, one is to either side of the finish line, this by far is the best. The other is standing right in front of the winning swimmer's lane, you can get dramatic shots of them as they approach the finish line and hopefully they will jump when they realize that they have won, then you can capture their joy and jubilation. The trick with this second location is picking out who is going to win before the race starts.
You won't be able to take your first shot until the starter's pistol goes off, your camera going off first of all can cause a false start. (I did that once when photographing a 100m sprint race at an Olympic track and field final - I was warned if I did that again I'd get kicked out, I didn't do it again!)
As for most sporting events you'll want a bare minimum shutter speed of 1/500, faster if possible. So depending on the lighting conditions you need fast lenses and/or high speed film.
Hope these tips help,
Question:
This might be a simple question but I just can't seem to master the technique. Fast enough shutter speeds to stop action but in low light. I can't figure it out. I did read or what I thought I read was say you use 400 speed film, if you set your camera to 2 stops faster like 1000 (is that right?) then you can run a faster shutter speed. I might have misinterpreted this. My problem is I am just starting out and am photographing local small sports events and things of that nature and with the existing light of the high school gym the preset sports mode on my eos rebel xs set the shutter speed to low. If I was to use tv mode, shutter priority, then the aperture is too small to allow enough light to pass to the film plane. I can't afford the big aperture big dollar lenses right now and hope there is a way around this. At least a good enough way around it that the average person wont be able to tell the problems from looking at the picture. Hope you can help!
Answer:
You sort of have it figured out, but not exactly.
For low light and fast shutter speeds you need a fast film and also a fast lens. Most sports photographers use a F2.8 aperture lens for telephotos and F1.4 - F2. For shorter focal length lenses. These lenses are quite expensive, usually much more than an amateur would be willing to spend, which you have already figured out.
So the only option that you have is to go for high-speed film. To determine the speed of the film that you require, go to the gym (without film in the camera) and adjust the film speed setting manually higher and higher until you get a shutter speed of 1/250 or 1/500. When you get these shutter speeds look to see what the film speed is set at, this is the film speed that you will need. Lets say it is 1600 ISO, if you have 400 ISO film then you will have to "push" the film 2 stops. What this means is, you put the 400 ISO film in your camera and manually adjust the camera's film speed dial to 1600 ISO, shot the film at this setting. Then when you get the film processed, tell the lab that you pushed the film by 2 stops, they will adjust the processing times accordingly. There is a premium that you must pay for this service and not all photo labs offer it.
The standard for pushing high-speed film is usually one or two stops, beyond that you start getting into problems with contrast and grain.
You didn't mention if you were shooting black & white or colour - slides or prints. There are some 1600 ISO films that are available which are designed to be used in low light conditions and processed normally. Most of these films cans be pushed one stop to 3200 ISO. Just to ensure that you don't make a mistake with your films you should mark on the film cassette the speed at which you shot the film.
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