Archive for 2012 (Page 10)

TTL stands for Through The Lens, and refers to the camera metering the exposure through the lens, rather than using an external light meter. The exposure meter reading is used by the camera when determining the aperture and/or shutter speed in any auto exposure mode.

Virtually all cameras made today use TTL metering. A TTL flash means that the output of the flash can be set automatically by the camera, based on the camera's TTL metering system.

TTL mode on flash speed light

Still Life Photography is a nice, relaxing form of photography. You can take your time, experiment, and don't have to worry about your subject getting bored, running away, or the light rapidly changing.

It has many uses, as well as creating nice photos for the sake of it. Still life photos can be sold via stock websites, and used to illustrate articles in magazines and on websites. Product photography is essentially a form of still life photography, so learning how to photograph still lifes can be useful if you want to take photos to illustrate ebay listings as well.

eneloop [FRONTPAGE + EXPLORED #1] by Matthias Rhomberg on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

There are two main types of light painting photography, both of which involve using small torches or lights. In one type you capture the light coming straight out of the torches, and draw the light in mid-air with the torches. With the other type you shine your torches on your subject, so that only certain parts of it are illuminated.

It is this second type of light painting photography that I will concentrate on this article. By using a small torch, such as an LED torch or maglite, you can paint light onto your subject.

This gives us quite precise control of which parts of our photo are bright, and which parts are in shadow. In case you didn't guess already, painting with light requires a dark room (or you can do it outside at night), and a slow shutter speed.

Post processing can be used to improve your portrait photos, and really give them that professional look. The following three techniques are relatively simple and easy to implement, but can make a big difference.

Diopter close-up lenses are small, thin lenses that you can screw on to the front of a standard lens like a filter. They allow the lens to focus much closer than normal, so you can get macro / close-up photos without a real macro lens.

I Love Rain (Explored #15, Front-Page) by Yogendra174 on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

They have a couple of main advantages:

• Can be used on cameras without interchangeable lenses, such as bridge cameras
• Much cheaper than a macro lens
• Small enough to carry in a pocket
• No light loss (unlike extension tubes)

Here are six tips to help you improve your photos:

Learning how to use layer masks is very important for performing more advanced, localized edits on photos. Thankfully they are very simple to use once you understand how they work. Masks are available in most image editing software, including Photoshop Elements, Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, and GIMP.

Layer masks can be used for creative composites of photos, blending photos together for exposure, blending images for panoramas, and applying effects selectively. For the purpose of this tutorial we'll look at using masks to blend exposure bracketed photos in a landscape photography context.

Commercial photography requires taking pictures that people want and finding ways to sell them. You can do this on a freelance basis where you shoot a lot of images and then sell them or you can shoot by assignment where you shoot specific subjects. No matter where you want to get started, you're going to need a strong commercial photography portfolio.

With digital photography we tend to take a lot of photos. If we want to look back at our photos, or find a specific photo / set of photos, it is important that we organize them correctly.

The more photos you take, the more difficult and longer it will take to organize your image collection. So rather than put off the job of organizing your photos, it is a good idea to start as soon as possible.

Urban Landscape Photography involves capturing the buildings and structures in our towns and cities. Because most of us live in towns or cities, it is a much closer subject to deal with than traveling out to the countryside for some traditional landscape photography.

Although photographing gray concrete buildings might not sound appealing compared to being out in the country, urban landscape photography can produce some fantastic photos.