Discover Digital Photography

Slit scan photography is where a photo is taken through a small slit, with either the slit moving across in front of the sensor / film, or the film moving across behind the sensor. It can produce some very interesting images, there is a long list of examples here: An Informal Catalogue of Slit-Scan Video Artworks and Research.

Some of these techniques can be very difficult to achieve, however a slit scan of an object rotating on a turntable is something you can do at home with a standard digital camera.

Read the rest of this entry »

Particularly for landscape photography, you can often come across a scene where the range of light is too great for your camera to capture. You end up having to choose between a properly exposed landscape and a blown-out white sky, or a properly exposed sky with a black silhouette of a landscape.

Photo with no filter - the landscape is exposed correctly, but the sky is too bright

One solution to this problem is graduated neutral density filters.

Photo taken with a graduated neutral density filter to darken the sky

These filters can be attached to the end of your camera's lens, with one half fully transparent, while the other half is darker. You position the filter so the darker half is over the area of the photo you want to reduce the exposure of (e.g. the sky).

Read the rest of this entry »

Carrying on from the previous Product Photography Tips article, in this article we'll look at how to photograph a product placed at an angle. Placing your product at an angle works well for flat narrow objects, e.g. mobile phones.

For the example I've used an old penknife, but as I said in the previous article, you should really use a clean, preferably new, product if you really want to showcase it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Following on from the previous article on Product Photography, in this article I'll share a few more tips.

The products I've used for the example photos in this article are rather old and worn, but you are best off photographing a product when it is new, or at least still in good condition. Generally you'll want the product to look it's best, so make sure it is clean, wipe any dust off, and check for any scratches or blemishes.

For more dynamic product photos, try lighting your product from one side. This brings out detail and texture of the product, as opposed to the rather flat lighting you can get if you light your product straight on.

Adding a light on the background can work well to emphasize your product:

For a light coming up from the 'horizon', like a sunrise behind your product (as in the photo above), you can do the following:

Read the rest of this entry »

The levels tool is similar to the curves tool, in that it allows you adjust the brightness / darkness and color of the tones in your photos. Levels is slightly simpler than curves in that it only allows you to adjust the black point, white point, and mid point, whereas curves will let you adjust those and any point in between.

For this article, I'll be using the levels tool in Photoshop CS5, but the levels tool in Photoshop Elements, Paintshop Pro, GIMP, etc. are all very similar.

If you want to follow along with the examples in this article, you can download the images used here: image-1.jpg image-2.jpg

Read the rest of this entry »

In this final part on the different types of digital camera that are available, I'll cover Medium format, Rangefinders, and Scanning backs. These tend to be quite niche products, as well as being expensive, so I'll only cover them quite briefly. And although they're not digital, I also wanted to add a note on film cameras, which is at the bottom of this article.

Finally we come to this special breed of compact cameras, that are essentially a MILC but without the ability to change lenses. These cameras feature larger sensors, as found in MILCs and DSLRs. Because of the much larger sensor size, these cameras tend to be quite expensive, sometimes even more expensive than a basic DSLR with lens.

The Fuji X100s large sensor compact camera

Read the rest of this entry »

Superzoom compacts

Although I have included them as 'compacts', superzoom cameras are not particularly compact, but you can probably fit one in a large jacket pocket. These cameras are similar to advanced compacts, except they feature zoom lenses that cover a massive range.

Sony HX100V Superzoom (center right) size compared to the Panasonic LX-5 advanced compact camera (center left), Casio EX-ZS10 basic compact camera (left), and the Canon Rebel T3 DSLR camera (right)

Modern superzooms can often have a zoom range between wide-angle, starting at around 24mm to 28mm, all the way up to around 500mm to 800mm super-telephoto. When you consider the size and weight (not to mention the cost) of lenses to cover the equivalent zoom range for a DSLR, Superzooms are definitely compact.

Read the rest of this entry »

Advanced compact cameras, sometimes known as 'bridge' cameras (as they are a bridge between basic compact cameras and more advanced DSLRs), are largely the same as basic compact cameras, but with some important differences.

Panasonic LX-5 advanced compact camera (center) size compared to the Casio EX-ZS10 basic compact camera (left), and the Canon Rebel T3 DSLR camera (right)

They usually retain the small size of most basic compacts, though they may be slightly larger, but still small enough to fit in most pockets. They usually have a slightly larger sensor than the most basic compacts, but still quite small compared to MILCs and DSLRs.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are a wide range of compact cameras with fixed (not interchangeable) lenses, they can broadly be classified into four groups - Basic, Advanced, Superzoom, and Large sensor compacts. I'll start by covering the basic compacts. I'll look at their quirks and how they compare to other cameras, what types of photography they're particularly good for, and what they're not so good for.

Read the rest of this entry »