Posted in Tutorials

Light painting, also known as light drawing is a photographic technique in which exposures are made usually at night or in a darkened room by moving a hand-held light source or by moving the camera. In many cases the light source itself does not have to appear in the image. The term light painting also encompasses images lit from outside the frame with hand-held light sources such as torches.

How to do it:
· You can either paint with light by moving your camera (also known as camera painting) or by using a tripod to steady your camera and painting with hand-held light sources. · Push your shutter speed up to about 15seconds, you can change this after your first test shot.
· Set your iso speed low if you want to minimize grainyness of your photo
· Its usually better to underexpose than overexpose so that your subject stands out from the background.
· Light painting is only restricted by your imagination and what you want to achieve

Posted in Tutorials

What is ISO?

In traditional (film) photography
ISO (or ASA) was the indication of how sensitive a film was to light. It was measured in numbers (you’ve probably seen them on films - 100, 200, 400, 800 etc). The lower the number the lower the sensitivity of the film and the finer the grain in the shots you’re taking.

In Digital Photography
ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography - the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds (for example an indoor sports event when you want to freeze the action in lower light) - however the cost is noisier shots. I’ll illustrate this below with two elargements of shots that I just took - the one on the left is taken at 50 ISO and the one of the right at 400 ISO.
100 ISO is generally accepted as ‘normal’ and will give you lovely crisp shots (little noise/grain).



Most people tend to keep their digital cameras in ‘Auto Mode’ where the camera selects the appropriate ISO setting depending upon the conditions you’re shooting in (it will try to keep it as low as possible) but most cameras also give you the opportunity to select your own ISO also.

When you do override your camera and choose a specific ISO you’ll notice that it impacts the aperture and shutter speed needed for a well exposed shot. For example - if you bumped your ISO up from 100 to 400 you’ll notice that you can shoot at higher shutter speeds and/or smaller apertures.

When choosing the ISO setting I generally ask myself the following four questions:

1. Light - Is the subject well lit?
2. Grain - Do I want a grainy shot or one without noise?
3. Tripod - Am I use a tripod?
4. Moving Subject - Is my subject moving or stationary?

If there is plenty of light, I want little grain, I’m using a tripod and my subject is stationary I will generally use a pretty low ISO rating.
However if it’s dark, I purposely want grain, I don’t have a tripod and/or my subject is moving I might consider increasing the ISO as it will enable me to shoot with a faster shutter speed and still expose the shot well.
Of course the trade off of this increase in ISO will be noisier shots.

Situations where you might need to push ISO to higher settings include:

* Indoor Sports Events - where your subject is moving fast yet you may have limited light available.
* Concerts - also low in light and often ‘no-flash’ zones
* Art Galleries, Churches etc- many galleries have rules against using a flash and of course being indoors are not well lit.
* Birthday Parties - blowing out the candles in a dark room can give you a nice moody shot which would be ruined by a bright flash. Increasing the ISO can help capture the scene.

ISO is an important aspect of digital photography to have an understanding of if you want to gain more control of your digital camera. Experiment with different settings and how they impact your images today.

Posted in Tutorials

Controlling the light you let in Shutter speed is measured in seconds. A typical shutter speed for photographs taken in sunlight is 1/125th of a second. In addition to its effect on exposure, shutter speed changes the way movement appears in the picture. Very short shutter speeds are used to freeze fast-moving subjects, such as taking surfing photographs (right). Very long shutter speeds are used to intentionally blur a moving subject for artistic effect, this usually requires the use of a tripod. A slower shutter speed is also useful in creating the effect of motion. This can be achieved by following your subject as you take the photo, creating a blurred background but keeping your subject in focus. (bottom right) Understanding shutter speed goes hand in hand with understanding aperture settings. How you set your shutter speed - the time you allow light onto your camera sensor. Will have an impact on your aperture - How much liight is being let in, so that your image is not too bright (overexposed) or too dark (underexposed).

F6.3 - 1/20sec - iso 200 F9 - 1/3200sec - iso 400 F6.3 - 1/20sec - iso 200

Posted in Tutorials

Aperture settings One of the most important things to understand with taking creative photographs is how to set your aperture and exposure to create the desired effect you want. In your camera's automatic mode, your aperture and exposure are set automatically. However you have the option in most digital cameras to set it manually. The aperture does 2 things: Firstly, because it controls the amount of light that enters the camera it follows that it controls how light or dark the image is. Secondly, and more interestingly, it controls the amount of the image that is in focus. This is known as ‘depth of field’. The size of the aperture is referred to in ‘f-stops’ or ‘f-numbers’. The smaller the f-number the larger the aperture and the larger the f-number the smaller the aperture. Thus at f2 the aperture is opened wider then at f9. The typical f-stops on a camera are: f1, f1.4, f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22 etc. Each f-number on the scale lets in twice as much or twice as less light then the next or previous number on the scale. So f1.4 lets in twice as much light as f2.8 and f16 lets in twice as less light then f11. The aperture also affects something called ‘depth of field’ – Depth of field is the amount of the image that is in focus. When you focus your lens on a subject, anything at that same distance will similarly be in focus. Things that are closer to or further from the camera lens will gradually - or drastically - be less sharp. Your camera's aperture controls how large of a zone is acceptably in focus. At large apertures depth of field will be ‘shallow’ so less of the background will be in focus and at smaller apertures depth of field will be ‘deep’ so more of the background will be in focus. >

F3.5 - 1/13sec - iso 100