Photography Tips (Page 25)

A selective color photo is one where part of the image is in color, while the rest of the image is black & white (or heavily desaturated). Selective color photos work very well to draw the viewer's attention to the part of the image that is in color.

Highway Insomnia by Nrbelex on flickr (licensed CC-BY-SA)

Auto bracketing is a feature found on most cameras that allows you to take multiple photos in quick succession with a single parameter changed between each shot. Normally auto bracketing refers to exposure bracketing, but it can also be used for white balance bracketing.

In this article we'll look at both exposure bracketing and white balance, what they do, and when they can be useful.

A good way to create a strong photo is to make sure that the photo has focus. I don't mean 'focus' as in the photo should be in focus (though that is normally a good idea!), but rather that there is a clear message or theme to the photo.

A good photo should convey a concept or feeling that ideally can be summed up in one word. Though an image may have several different single words that can be used to describe it. For example, the photo below could be described as 'relaxing', 'serene', 'calm'.

Chillin' in Mono Lake by *~Dawn~* on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

Different light sources produce light with different colors. For example, fluorescent lighting often has a green tinge, while tungsten lighting is a warm amber. Our eyes don't tend to notice the color of light too much, as they automatically correct for any color casts to a certain degree.

But a camera records what it sees, and this is where setting the correct white balance becomes important. If your camera is set to daylight color white balance, then you shoot under tungsten lighting, you'll find the resulting images have a strong orange color cast.

Photo lit with a standard indoor energy saving CFL bulb and white balance set to daylight

When you set the correct white balance setting on the camera, it modifies the camera's color response. It works in much the same way as using the curves tool in Photoshop to adjust color. The white balance setting determines the overall balance of colors in an image, to result in an image with a neutral color cast.

In today's portrait photography photo tip we are going to wrap up our discussions of the three light set with a quick review and an example of how to build a three light set - with no lights! Just because you don't have any studio lights, doesn't mean you can't shoot quality images.

Here is a quick review... Most good portrait photography requires three lights.

When you're away on vacation, you want to take great photos to record your trip and the interesting places you visited. But if you're planning on visiting a famous location, how do you avoid your photos coming out like everyone else's vacation photos?

Well, having your photos of a famous landmark look unlike anyone else's photos of the same location is going to be very difficult, and perhaps not such a great idea anyway. Even if you do get a different photo, will it be any good? Instead, why not aim to have your photos looking like the best existing photos of that location?

Grand Canyon Copyright by Moyan Brenn on flickr (licensed CC-BY-ND)

On the vast majority, if not all cameras, when you press down the shutter button, the camera will just take a single photo. However, you can change this behavior by using the camera's drive mode setting.

The drive mode lets you change the rate at which the photos are taken. In this article we'll look at the different drive mode settings, and when you are likely to find them useful.

There are many 'rules' of photography (I prefer to think of them as guidelines) that we can follow in the effort for outstanding photos. But sometimes not following the rules can result in a more interesting and engaging photograph.

Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't bother learning the 'rules' of photography, or that you should ignore them completely. Rather, once you have learned the rules, and how they work, you will then know when to make a conscious decision to break a rule.

• Bad: Breaking a rule because you don't know any better.
• Good: Breaking a rule because you want (or don't want) to achieve a certain effect.

With that out of the way, let's look at some examples of where breaking the rules can work well.

Unless you only shoot under bright daylight, then you'll probably have had the problem at least once in a while where an image comes out slightly blurred from camera shake. This happens when there is not enough light for the camera to use a fast shutter speed.

The slower the shutter speed the camera has to use, the more likely it is that any small movements of the camera will be recorded, resulting in a blurry photo. The longer the focal length of the lens, the larger any small movement will be magnified. So longer lenses require faster shutter speeds than shorter lenses.

In this article I want to look at three methods of stabilizing lenses / cameras. These three methods all allow you to shoot at a slower shutter speed, but without getting blurring from camera shake. The three methods are a tripod, in-lens image stabilization, and in-camera image stabilization (also known as sensor stabilization).

Calibrating your monitor is something that many people overlook. However, it is actually quite important. Most monitors will not display your photos (or anyone elses) correctly with their standard settings. Normally the screen is either too dark or too bright, but their can be color problems too.