Technique...

[mkabi]

I just learned the "Rule of Thirds," which I really didn't know about till 2 of my friends were arguing about it 2 days ago. So out of curiosity, I decided to check it out now. I was surprised, cause I was framing my pictures and videos like that unconsciously.

I learned a lot of different types of techniques via youtube, especially with DigitalRev.
Long Exposure, Double Exposure, IR photography, Prism Photography, etc.

I'm sure given that many of the members here are professional photographers. I was hoping that you can share a technique or two with the forum? Unless you think that what you do is a trade secret.

 

[jdramirez]

Some people will hate this... but if I am shooting a fast moving target, I will shoot in the center of the frame using the most sensitive AF points and snap away... and then I crop after the fact. Seriously... I don't need all 24 megapixels to make a great print... so I sacrifice a bunch to get the shot I want.

 

[Don Haines]

Some people will hate this... but if I am shooting a fast moving target, I will shoot in the center of the frame using the most sensitive AF points and snap away... and then I crop after the fact. Seriously... I don't need all 24 megapixels to make a great print... so I sacrifice a bunch to get the shot I want.

I do the same... It is a lot easier to work on composition and framing at home than out in the action...

Another rule of thumb is for shutter speed... go faster than 1/focal length. For a 200mm lens you need to be faster than 1/200 of a second....for 50mm, faster than 1/50th of a second.... and so on...

Another tip... lean on things..... rest your camera against a tree, on a railing, on a door... anything to help steady it for long focal length shots... if you are on a tripod set the shutter to delay mode to eliminate camera shake.... everything that works for the way you shoot is good.

 

[jdramirez]

Some people will hate this... but if I am shooting a fast moving target, I will shoot in the center of the frame using the most sensitive AF points and snap away... and then I crop after the fact. Seriously... I don't need all 24 megapixels to make a great print... so I sacrifice a bunch to get the shot I want.

I do the same... It is a lot easier to work on composition and framing at home than out in the action...

Another rule of thumb is for shutter speed... go faster than 1/focal length. For a 200mm lens you need to be faster than 1/200 of a second....for 50mm, faster than 1/50th of a second.... and so on...

Another tip... lean on things..... rest your camera against a tree, on a railing, on a door... anything to help steady it for long focal length shots... if you are on a tripod set the shutter to delay mode to eliminate camera shake.... everything that works for the way you shoot is good.

To expand on yours... since you gave me a bit of inspiration... if you work in manual or aperture priority, think of the aperture and depth of field first. If you want a shallow depth of field, open up the aperture and vice versa. Think of that first before adjusting shutter speed and iso... but yes... get your shutter speed up to the 1/(focal length) at least.

Know where your gear is the sharpest, but don't be bound by it. If your lens is sharpest at f/8, but you want a shallow depth of field, around f/2.8... then go to f/2.8. If everyone took shots at f/8, it would be really boring because most images would look like really sharp camera phone images with practically everything in focus.

I am constantly leaning on things. Don't be afraid to use your own body as support. Put and elbow on the ground, or both elbows on your knees. That tends to be more stable. Also... press that view finder against your face. The red mark will go away... eventually.

I have a wired and a wireless shutter release... don't be afraid to get redundant accessories... because they have their place in your bag... and when you need to use a 2 body set up and one body is around yoru neck and the other is 100 feet across the stadium... you are going to be glad you had the wireless one.

 

[Famateur]

I was hoping that you can share a technique or two with the forum...

You might check out Mike Browne's YouTube channel. His teaching style is easy to digest and his videos cover all the basics and then some. If you start with his older videos and work your way up to the newest, the videos will build on one another and make more sense as you gain knowledge.

Other channels you might check out include those from Adorama and B&H Photo. You'll find everything from 5-minute videos on a particular technique to 1 1/2 hour workshops that go into great detail.

I hope this is helpful...

 

[mkabi]

I was hoping that you can share a technique or two with the forum...

You might check out Mike Browne's YouTube channel. His teaching style is easy to digest and his videos cover all the basics and then some. If you start with his older videos and work your way up to the newest, the videos will build on one another and make more sense as you gain knowledge.

Other channels you might check out include those from Adorama and B&H Photo. You'll find everything from 5-minute videos on a particular technique to 1 1/2 hour workshops that go into great detail.

I hope this is helpful...

Will look them up....

 

[mkabi]

Some people will hate this... but if I am shooting a fast moving target, I will shoot in the center of the frame using the most sensitive AF points and snap away... and then I crop after the fact. Seriously... I don't need all 24 megapixels to make a great print... so I sacrifice a bunch to get the shot I want.

I do the same... It is a lot easier to work on composition and framing at home than out in the action...

Another rule of thumb is for shutter speed... go faster than 1/focal length. For a 200mm lens you need to be faster than 1/200 of a second....for 50mm, faster than 1/50th of a second.... and so on...

Another tip... lean on things..... rest your camera against a tree, on a railing, on a door... anything to help steady it for long focal length shots... if you are on a tripod set the shutter to delay mode to eliminate camera shake.... everything that works for the way you shoot is good.

To expand on yours... since you gave me a bit of inspiration... if you work in manual or aperture priority, think of the aperture and depth of field first. If you want a shallow depth of field, open up the aperture and vice versa. Think of that first before adjusting shutter speed and iso... but yes... get your shutter speed up to the 1/(focal length) at least.

Know where your gear is the sharpest, but don't be bound by it. If your lens is sharpest at f/8, but you want a shallow depth of field, around f/2.8... then go to f/2.8. If everyone took shots at f/8, it would be really boring because most images would look like really sharp camera phone images with practically everything in focus.

I am constantly leaning on things. Don't be afraid to use your own body as support. Put and elbow on the ground, or both elbows on your knees. That tends to be more stable. Also... press that view finder against your face. The red mark will go away... eventually.

I have a wired and a wireless shutter release... don't be afraid to get redundant accessories... because they have their place in your bag... and when you need to use a 2 body set up and one body is around yoru neck and the other is 100 feet across the stadium... you are going to be glad you had the wireless one.

Speaking of which, I do a lot of video, and manual focusing is a big thing for me...
Bokeh and/or follow focus is cool and everything, but it requires a lot of time and concentration when using MF. My point is f/4 (or is it f/8?) and above, will make everything in focus if you're on the run.

 

[Menace]

If you are addicted to bokeh - check out the "Brenizer Method".

 

[paul13walnut5]

Speaking of which, I do a lot of video, and manual focusing is a big thing for me...
Bokeh and/or follow focus is cool and everything, but it requires a lot of time and concentration when using MF. My point is f/4 (or is it f/8?) and above, will make everything in focus if you're on the run.

No it wont.

If you have an UWA lens set to hyperfocal distance & f8 with no very close subjects then yeah, possibly everything will appear acceptably sharp. But your video will be a collection of wide angle shots.

If you use a longer focal length then f8 won't get you all that far in terms of safe focus zone.

If you shoot in low light, then f8 won't get you a lot of EV.

Back to square one I'm afraid.

 

[mkabi]

Speaking of which, I do a lot of video, and manual focusing is a big thing for me...
Bokeh and/or follow focus is cool and everything, but it requires a lot of time and concentration when using MF. My point is f/4 (or is it f/8?) and above, will make everything in focus if you're on the run.

No it wont.

If you have an UWA lens set to hyperfocal distance & f8 with no very close subjects then yeah, possibly everything will appear acceptably sharp. But your video will be a collection of wide angle shots.

If you use a longer focal length then f8 won't get you all that far in terms of safe focus zone.

If you shoot in low light, then f8 won't get you a lot of EV.

Back to square one I'm afraid.

Fair enough, yes... most would be a collection of wide angle shots. And, bare in mind that every lens has a minimum distance before it becomes blurry as you get closer.

But then again, this is if you're in a hurry and no one is willing to wait for focusing and you can only get whatever they allow you to shoot. For example, a friend of mine asked me to do a behind the scenes of their photoshoot. I had a maximum of 30 min. and all the footage I can get within that 30 min., I had the 24-70mm at whatever distance at f/8 and above...

 

[mkabi]

Just so that I am clear. Technique supersedes technology in this case... you can have whatever body (brand is not an issue), whatever lens, whatever light... and even if you know this technique... its about how creative you get with it.

For example...

Long Exposure
Cool Long Exposure Photography Ideas

IR photography
How to do Digital Infrared Photography

Double Exposure
How to do cool Double Exposure Portraits

Flash Photography?
How to: Flash Photography - Bikini Powder Girl

Light Painting Photography
How to do Light Painting

Sorry, I'm not a digitalrev fanboy or employee.... I just saw these over other people providing similar videos on youtube.

 

[Actionpix]

When doing action photography try 10/focal length as shutter speed. The trick is taking minimum 3 shots in burst. When you are tracking a movement mostly up and down movement is not wanted. Up and down means up and down. With no movement in the up turn and no movement in the down turn. Every movement has two stop points. Taking 3 pictures creates a good change of hitting a stop point. Having one good shot is luck. Taking 3 shots is math. (But this realy is a secret.)

 

[mackguyver]

I like to point people to http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/ to learn their way around most of the concepts of photography.

The hardest thing but most valuable thing to learn is using focal length for perspective instead of just framing. It's not a natural concept, but one you realize how to use it, it adds a whole new dimension to your photography. It's simple in theory - wide angles make everything look further apart and telephotos compress. Unfortunately it's hard to actually visualize it. The thing that helps most is looking at a subject and deciding how big or small you want objects in the background to be. For example, if you are shooting a building with a fountain and want the fountain to be big with the building off in the distance, use a wide angle (like a 24mm) lens and get close to the fountain. On the other hand, if you want the building to look bigger (maybe towering over the fountain), then you'd step back and switch to a telephoto lens (like a 200m) to achieve that effect. A normal lens (like a 50mm) would balance the two.

In the example, the first example would emphasize the fountain - which would be great if it was a beautiful fountain. If the fountain was boring and the building beautiful, you'd want to emphasize the building, and finally, if they are both great, you'd use a normal lens.

Being able to use focal length perspective to emphasize subject is one of the most important skills you can have for commercial work.

 

[AcutancePhotography]

When doing action photography try 10/focal length as shutter speed.

I think you got that backwards.

If the FL is 100mm, the "traditional" rule is 1/f for shutter speed. In this case it would be 1/100

Using your formula of 10/f with the same lens it would be 10/100 or 1/10th second. Unless you are going for a lot of blur, I don't think that is good for action shots.

Perhaps you meant 1/10f. In the example of a 100mm lens that would result in a 1/1000th second which may be too fast for action shots where freezing is not desired.


Being a shaky guy, I tend to shoot hand held at 1/2f as my slowest shutter speed.

 

[mkabi]

When doing action photography try 10/focal length as shutter speed.

I think you got that backwards.

If the FL is 100mm, the "traditional" rule is 1/f for shutter speed. In this case it would be 1/100

Using your formula of 10/f with the same lens it would be 10/100 or 1/10th second. Unless you are going for a lot of blur, I don't think that is good for action shots.

Perhaps you meant 1/10f. In the example of a 100mm lens that would result in a 1/1000th second which may be too fast for action shots where freezing is not desired.


Being a shaky guy, I tend to shoot hand held at 1/2f as my slowest shutter speed.

I think he wants the blur???
Its more artistic, if you can keep the subject sharp but all other actions like the swing of a kick during a game of soccer to be left blurry? You can do this in post too...

Some times you just have to experiment and see what comes out of it.

 

[Grumbaki]

A technique advice would actually to get a compass in you eye.

Not litterally but I strongly advocate learning to
- read/evaluate the distance between you and subjects
- know what distance you need for full body, torso, shoulder and head portrait
- know the DoF at the widest aperture for those situations

This is mainly for prime work but my output and keeper rate improved greatly with that.

Also I was a strong Av advocate but forcing myself to go full M (not focus, I'm not masochistic) improved creativity in the shoots but voluntarly over/under exposing some shoots or some boring part of the frame.

Next for me to learn is BBF.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Grumbaki
Not hard to learn back button focus, it has been said before, just set up the cfn then stick with it for a week, after that you will probably know if you get on with it or not. I found it was best to use single shot with beep on until you program the brain to BBF no beep you forgot to focus. Also be aware that you can trip the shutter whilst OOF with BBF.

Cheers Graham.

A technique advice would actually to get a compass in you eye.

Not litterally but I strongly advocate learning to
- read/evaluate the distance between you and subjects
- know what distance you need for full body, torso, shoulder and head portrait
- know the DoF at the widest aperture for those situations

This is mainly for prime work but my output and keeper rate improved greatly with that.

Also I was a strong Av advocate but forcing myself to go full M (not focus, I'm not masochistic) improved creativity in the shoots but voluntarly over/under exposing some shoots or some boring part of the frame.

Next for me to learn is BBF.

 

[Marsu42]

I just learned the "Rule of Thirds," which I really didn't know about till 2 of my friends were arguing about it 2 days ago. So out of curiosity, I decided to check it out now. I was surprised, cause I was framing my pictures and videos like that unconsciously.

Rule of thirds can indeed result in pleasing composition - often I also find myself framing for this or the golden ratio.

However, afaik there is absolutely no evidence that you *need* to use any rules, or 2:3 framing for that matter. That's because if you think the other way around - "what makes great pictures great pictures?" - they all follow *some* composition rule, but simply because there are so many "rules" that are supposed to result in a good picture. The rules are nice to know and try if you're clueless about some scene, but I wouldn't let myself get too distracted with them or you'll simply produce boring stock shots.

 

[J.R.]

I know I am going to sound like a pedant but there are too many people with poor posture while taking photos.

I see this all the time while attending photowalks. People tend to shoot like overgrown bats with elbows away from their bodies. Bad posture results in too many OOF shots that people can possibly imagine.

My system is simple, elbows tucked in, balance body against anything that is available (if possible) and don't breathe while taking a shot.

 

[J.R.]

Rule of thirds can indeed result in pleasing composition - often I also find myself framing for this or the golden ratio.

I find that I usually try to frame for the rule of the thirds but when I'm lazy in composition, I find myself cropping for the rule of the thirds

There is no problem breaking this rule but it should be done only if there is good reason to do so.