Senin, 29 Oktober 2007

Halloween Photo Tips



Halloween is spooky, but taking Halloween pictures shouldn't be. From a jack-o'-lantern's scary stare to frighteningly fun costumes, this holiday offers unique picture-taking opportunities. Special effects in your Halloween photography can transform an everyday image into something truly haunting.

Create ghostly afterimages on your film by using a slow shutter speed and a bit of movement. You're going to need a tripod for this. Each lighting situation is different and you will need to use your camera's lightmeter, along with experimentation, to find the right shutter speed. A rule of thumb for the amount of motion is to have the subject stand still for 2/3 of the time of the exposure. The movement should take about 1/3 of the time. For example, for an 8 second exposure the subject should be still about 5 seconds and move to a second position for 3 seconds.

Try getting down low. Most of the light we see comes from overhead lighting or the sun. When we use lighting from beneath a subject it breaks expectations and creates a feeling of uneasiness. The heavy use of this technique in movies throughout the years has increased this connection between low lighting and a perceived danger. Hold a flashlight under your subject's face to cast odd shadows over their features.

Jack O' Lanterns
The light used to illuminate the outside of the pumpkin and that of the candles inside is actually a delicate balance. Ideally, your photographs will want is to capture the candles glow from within the pumpkin, but still be able to see the outside of the pumpkin it's self.

If you use a flash, you'll over light the surface of the pumpkin and drown out the light from the candles inside. First off, turn the flash on your camera off, you don't want it. To help avoid the light inside the pumpkin from being to faint, we use two or even three candles.

The best technique is to take your pictures around dusk, before it becomes totally dark. Be sure to use a fast film, ISO 400 or faster is best. Use high quality film such as Fuji Film. Wait until dark, illuminate the outside of the pumpkin with in-direct artificial light, i.e. a lamp and light the candle(s) inside the pumpkin.

Minggu, 28 Oktober 2007

What is Stock Photography?

by P Abbey

Today when it comes to finding the right kind of stock photography which you can then use as part of your advertising campaign or website design there are plenty of places where you can find the right ones for you. No longer are you restricted to finding an agency close to where you live to provide you with the photographs that you want a quick search of the internet will bring up a whole list of agencies around the world.

As you will soon discover once you start looking more closely at what these agencies have to offer they will all provide you with a system that makes it very easy for you to search and find what you want. Most will have their photographs divided up into various different categories and so if you know exactly what it is you are looking for within a matter of minutes you will find what it is you want. But if you are unsure they will also have search facilities available that allow you to search by selected keywords, types of image as well as what the options are in relation to the licences on the photographs.

When it comes to the licences that are placed on these photographs you will have to choose between either rights managed, released, non exclusive, exclusive and royalty free ones. With the rights managed images or photographs you will be required to pay the agency a fee which then entitles you to use them for a set period of time and for every time that you use them. Therefore if you are looking to use the same photograph in both a brochure as well as part of a print advertising campaign then you will be required to pay the agency 2 fees as this counts as you using the same photograph or image twice.

As for released images these are photographs which the owner of the image has signed a release and so making them available for licensing through which ever stock photograph agency has them. If you choose to use these kinds of images or photographs you need to make sure that they are released or you may have to end up trying to contact the owner of the image to see if they will release them to you.

The final kind of stock photography images that we are going to be looking at now are those known as Royalty Free ones. These are the kinds of images where you do not have to pay a usage charge every time that you choose to use them. Instead once you have paid the initial fee then you are licensed to be able to use them as many times as you want for as long as you want. But be warned unlike the other methods mentioned above with these you do not have sole and exclusive rights to use them and so they can still be used by others. Also it is important to note that although you hold a license to use these stock photographs you do not have the right to then sell them on to others.

P Abbey owns and operates Stock Photography

Selasa, 23 Oktober 2007

Get Paid for your Flickr Photos

Photo consumers are now browsing Flickr and contacting photographers and offering to pay usage fees. The amounts might not be huge, which is probably one of the reasons that the sales aren’t making headlines, but they are being handed over at the end of email offers and modest negotiations.

I noticed a discussion of this titled: How to Get Paid for your Flickr Photos over at Photopreneur.

Marketing the Flickr Way
But to increase the chances of making a sale, you have to market. Like anywhere, it’s not enough to put your goods on offer — however good your photos might be — and hope that photography-lovers with bucketloads of money spot them. You have to let people know they’re there.

On Flickr, that doesn’t mean spending vast sums on pay-per-click advertising.

It means investing time in networking.

Minggu, 21 Oktober 2007

The Best Rated Digital Camera Buyers Guide

by Jack Landry
Just like with normal film cameras, there are different types of digital cameras which you can buy. What exactly you buy though depends entirely on your preference. Finding the best rated digital camera will involve some degree of knowledge about digital photography, as well as an understanding of what it is that you plan on doing with your camera. A simple digital camera buyers guide may not provide you with the whole picture, no pun intended.

If you’re only a family-holiday kind of photographer you might want to stay away from the more expensive professional cameras. Whereas if you’re a budding photographer who has only now seen the light through the lens, so to speak, you might want to go in for something that’s not top of the line in terms of equipment, but something that will instead help you in your endeavors.

If you’re a professional photographer then you probably don’t need my input into which type of cameras you should get. On the other hand, the budding, novice photographer might find it interesting to know that when they get to a stage where they feel comfortable enough with their photography skills, they can then move on to the top of the range professional cameras.

What I tried to do here though is to give you some insight into the different types of cameras available. It’s up to you to take it from there and do more research into the various different makes of cameras and their pros and their cons.

Before you wonder why I’m not giving you any detailed specifications on any of the existing cameras, it’s for the very simple reason that by the time you’re reading this, the cameras I’m talking to you about might not be the best on the market. Technology is a forever changing thing and what’s new today, will almost definitely be old hat three days from now.

Phone Cameras

With the advent of new technology and the ability to make small micro-chips and things even smaller to a macro level, we’re now faced with the ability to use these macro-chips just about anywhere we want to. This is the reason why we now have the ability to take reasonably good photographs from our mobile phones.

If you look anywhere these days you won’t be surprised to see many people with their phones out and snapping merrily away. To illustrate my point let me give you a small snapshot if you will, of something that happened to me not too long ago. There I was at a friend’s wedding, snapping merrily away on my digital SLR camera – I was the designated photographer – doing my utmost best to remain inconspicuous and blend in with the background.

I wanted to get as many candid shots as I could that the happy couple could laugh over and treasure for a long time. It was during my efforts at attaining this state of photographic perfection that I came across a scene that was hilarious as much as it was thought provoking in its own way.

While the newly married couple had taken to the dance floor for their first dance as man and wife, the guests had gathered around to admire their grace. This though, was not the moment that remains in my memory as a candid camera moment.

No, it wasn’t the picture of the happily dancing couple, but instead the picture that caught my eye was that of their friends and relatives all more or less huddled together as close as they could get to the best view point of the dance floor. It was nighttime, and only the floor was softly lit, so in that dim gloom it was amusing to see so many blue screens all held up in their owners’ hands pointed all in the same direction, towards the couple.

Just about everybody with a camera phone was out there snapping merrily away, some even taking videos. This might seem normal and not even remotely funny – especially if you do the same thing yourself, but to me it was a sign of the times.

And what was amazing was that no one even noticed this highly unnatural phenomenon of over a dozen people all with phones in their hands and all looking into the their screens, instead of the dancing couple.

Compact

I still remember the first compact camera I had. My dad gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday, and I have to say that it was the pride and joy of my life – for exactly five months. After that I have no idea what happened to it, and frankly I have to say at that time I wasn’t really all that bothered about it either.

The joys of photography still hadn’t caught my attention and there were more interesting things for me to do at the time. However, it must also be said that when I finally did gain more than an average interest in photography, the first camera that I went out and bought was a compact.

And a more worthwhile purchase I have never made. Since for all intents and purposes I was very much an amateur in the photography field (my first camera at age fourteen notwithstanding), I was able to experiment and fiddle around as much as I wanted to.

And since at that time I wasn’t yet into the expenses of positive films, and since negative film rolls were generally inexpensive, I was able to pretty much do what I wanted. The only restriction that I had, if at all, was the cost of developing the film, which I solved by creating my own darkroom and developing the negatives myself.

However that may be, you’ll be glad to know that the compact camera is probably the best camera for when you’re starting out.

And since nowadays you’re more likely to go for the compact digital camera, your life just got considerably easier, and your photography just became considerably more enhanced. You know that you don’t have the expenses of processing to contend with, and with the ease of digital, if you’re still very much a novice then you can learn your way quickly and easily through photography 101.

SLR – Single Lens Reflex

These are the cameras that professionals go for, but don’t limit yourself thinking that only professionals can use these properly. There’s no such thing; anyone can use them as long as they can point and shoot.

Things get slightly more complicated as you go further in depth into photography, but don’t let that stop you. If you’re interested in photography at all and are considering taking it up seriously as a hobby or a profession, then I would suggest that you shop around and find the right digital SLR for you.

Start as you mean to go on and you should be fine. Admittedly you might be stuck on the auto meter button for a while, but you will eventually get over that problem and will find yourself using the many functions offered to you by the digital SLR, with ease.

Are you looking for information about the best rated digital camera or a digital camera buyers guide? If you want to learn some amazing digital photography secrets that the gurus won't tell you, then visit http://www.digital-photo-secrets.info for more information.

Jumat, 12 Oktober 2007

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T200 Spec Sheet

Specs Table Manufacturer Sony Model Cyber-shot DSC-T200 Specs Type Point-and-Shoot Low Price 0.00 Price 400.00 Length 3.68 Width 0.80 Height 2.33

Sony DSC-T200 Digital Camera Review

The follow up to the high specification Sony DSC T100 digital camera, the T200 offers a larger 3.5in LCD touch screen, faster fps, backtrack key on the menu and a slightly larger 31Mb internal memory. Sony DSC T200 SpecificationSensor: CCD - 8.1MpImage Size: 3264 x 2448 pixelsLens: 35-175mm f/3.5-4.4 (5x zoom) Focus: 9 Area Multi-Point AF, 5 Step Manual Pre-set, Face Detection Exposure: Program

Rabu, 10 Oktober 2007

Popular Digital Cameras for 2007

With the shopping season quickly approaching you’ll start to see more lists like these soon. Here are the cameras they chose:

[Click on the images to learn more from Amazon]

Sony Cybershot DSC-T200
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T200

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3

Canon PowerShot G9
Canon PowerShot G9

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18

Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Canon PowerShot SD850 IS

Sony Cybershot DSCW80
Sony Cybershot DSCW80

Canon PowerShot Pro Series S5 IS
Canon PowerShot Pro Series S5 IS

Fujifilm Finepix F50fd
Fujifilm Finepix F50fd

Canon PowerShot SD750
Canon PowerShot SD750

Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Canon PowerShot SD850 IS

DigtalCameraReview recently published a Most Popular Digital Cameras of September 2007.
There you have it. Ten digital cameras you probably can’t go wrong purchasing.

Minggu, 07 Oktober 2007

Existing Light Photography


Untitled
Originally uploaded by RickBlythe.
Here is a photo I took last night at a bar. All I had with me was my ultra-compact Casio Exilim EX-Z750. This is a coaster sitting on a metal table under a light (no flash used). I really like how the coaster seems to float in mid-air.

The first thing I did is get out of AUTO mode and selected a best-shot mode for nighttime photos. This slowed my shutter way down. No flash either. At these slow shutter speeds however you need to brace the camera against a sturdy object. In this case I used a nearby wall as I was pointing the camera almost straight down.

[Click the photo for a larger version]

Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 7.9 mm
Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire, auto mode

Orientation: Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution: 72 dpi
Y-Resolution: 72 dpi
Software: ACD Systems Digital Imaging
Date and Time: 2007:10:06 23:37:36
YCbCr Positioning: Centered
Exposure Program: Manual
Date and Time (Original): 2007:10:06 21:52:42
Date and Time (Digitized): 2007:10:06 21:52:42
Compressed Bits per Pixel: 275/54 bits
Maximum Lens Aperture: 30/10
Light Source: Tungsten (incandescent light)
Sub-Second Time: 109
Color Space: sRGB
Exposure Mode: Manual
White Balance: Manual
Digital Zoom Ratio: 0/0
Focal Length In 35mm Film: 38
Gain Control: High gain up
Saturation: Low saturation
Compression: JPEG
Image Width: 900 pixels
Image Height: 675 pixels