Digital Photography Guide

I was typing away the other day, putting the finishing touches on a short article, and not being the most careful typist, I accidentally wrote “dital” instead of “digital.” Of course, I was immediately notified of my mistake via a little red underline. A simple right-click of my error provided me with a number of spelling alternatives: detail, dial, tidal, vital, and so forth.

Essentially, my computer software was using the information available to it to make an educated guess as to what the right word should be. In some odd way, I was a bit disappointed that even with all the state-of-the-art technology and software innovations available, computers can still do little more than make an educated guess when performing tasks that have a variety of possible outcomes.

So I got thinking, how do these same limitations affect photography. Now that photography has become completely digital, every camera is installed with a small computer and processor. The computer is in charge of a number of key operations, but for today, we’ll just talk about one; how it controls your camera when in automatic mode.

When a camera is fully automated the computer is asked to control a number of extremely important tasks. It uses a combination of pre-installed data and real-time tests to generate an educated guess as how your photograph ought to be shot. For people who don’t care about learning how to use their camera, they accept these educated guesses as the best the camera can do, and if they want a better quality picture, they have to buy a better quality camera. This belief is, for the most part, untrue. While I do believe that a higher quality camera can produce higher quality results, I believe that any camera is capable of shooting a good picture as long as you can take control over how the photo is taken.

So, I’m going to make a statement that sounds simple, but really is something you need to believe if you want to improve your photographic skills:

You are smarter than your camera.

That’s it. That’s all you need to believe. Unfortunately, you’re going to need to prove it.

So what decisions should you make that your camera’s computer never should? The answer is actually quite simple. You need to control the most fundamental features that are the same now as they were fifty years ago: ISO, white balance (WB), aperture (Av), shutter speed (Tv), and focus. So I’m going to talk a bit about my thought process when setting these features manually. I don’t intend to teach you how to make the adjustments or what they are as there exists countless guides that do that already.

ISO & White Balance

These features derive from the properties of film emulsion. Every roll available has both a inherent white balance and ISO. Just be aware of how lucky you are that you can change these settings on the fly with a digital camera, and not have to buy a variety of film to accommodate every shooting scenario that may arise.

ISO : I love pure, bold color so I always aim for the lowest ISO possible. ISO is the first thing I set when entering into a shoot. I base my ISO on the shadows and dark areas of the scene, rather then the the ones that are heavily lit. All ISOs can expose well-lit subjects, but only high ISOs can expose dark areas. The second thing I look at is the speed of my lens. If I have a fast lens (i.e. f2.8) then I know I can push my ISO down a touch. I will also consider my subject. If my subject is static and I can shoot long exposures without risking motion blur then I’ll push my ISO lower, whereas fast-moving subjects require fast shutter speeds and often high ISOs.

WB : I ask myself: how many types of light are present? Which color of light is best to balance to? For instance, if I’m shooting outside then I’ll set my white balance to daylight (6000 degrees kelvin). If I’m shooting a home interior lit with daylight through open windows, and tungsten light from the interior fixtures, then I opt daylight and often use my flash to counteract the tungsten light. Sometimes I try to adjust all lighting so it’s the same color by using gels, swapping bulbs, etc. Other times it works nicely just to let all the different colors of light bee seen - like at crazy rock shows.

Aperture and Shutter Speed

Like a fine balance, each must compliment the other. You cannot change one without affecting the other. These are the yin and the yang of photography. The symbols Av and Tv are often used which stand for Aperture Value and Time Value.

Av : I start by looking at my available light and get an idea of what aperture range I’m looking at. Lots of light means a broader range of choice. Second, I’ll think about the shot itself and what depth of field I want. If I want lots of detail at all depths, then I’ll drop it down as low as f22. If I want a soft background, with a refined range of focus, then I’ll open it up to f2.8 or larger. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of choice, so the wider (lower number) the better. That’s why lenses with apertures like a fixed f2.8 are so expensive - because they’ll benefit you in low light. It’s also important to consider your subject - fast moving subjects will require lower apertures, so you can achieve faster shutter speeds.

Tv : The length of the exposure has huge bearing on the outcome of a shot. I start by looking at my subject and whether or not I want them sharp or blurred. Some subjects like city traffic benefit from long exposures, while others suffer. I try to stay at 1/60 of a second or faster when I’m shooting handheld, and use a tripod for slower exposures. Stillness varies from person to person, and image stabilizers will help. Fast subjects require fast shutter speeds.

Manual Focus

Auto focus is very fast and often quite reliable. That being said, sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. Be prepared to make adjustments at a moment notice.

MF : If my lens is struggling to find contrast in a shot, or focuses on the wrong thing, then it goes straight to manual. Most digital SLRs will even give you a audible or visual cue when you’re manually focused correctly. I try to avoid focusing on my subject center frame, and often try to manually keep my focus while reframing in accordance with the rule of thirds. Trusting my auto focus has ruined more shots than I can count. If you eyesight is a tad out, then make sure to set your diopter accordingly. Learn to trust your eyes.

Photography is a subjective medium. Your personal tastes should influence your shots, and there’s no better way to achieve this than by taking control of your camera. Learn how to use your camera quickly and effectively, but also learn how to study the world around you using a photographer’s eye. Soon, you’ll be able to walk into a room and say “if I were shooting in here, I’d be shooting at 400 ISO, tungsten white balance, f4, at 1/60 of a second.” When that day comes, you might also notice that people start finding you strange. Don’t worry, there will always be another photography-loving soul nearby who will understand.

Tags: Manual, Manual Controls

I was typing away the other day, putting the finishing touches on a short article, and not being the most careful typist, I accidentally wrote “dital” instead of “digital.” Of course, I was immediately notified of my mistake via a little red underline. A simple right-click of my error provided me with a number of spelling alternatives: detail, dial, tidal, vital, and so forth.

Essentially, my computer software was using the information available to it to make an educated guess as to what the right word should be. In some odd way, I was a bit disappointed that even with all the state-of-the-art technology and software innovations available, computers can still do little more than make an educated guess when performing tasks that have a variety of possible outcomes.

So I got thinking, how do these same limitations affect photography. Now that photography has become completely digital, every camera is installed with a small computer and processor. The computer is in charge of a number of key operations, but for today, we’ll just talk about one; how it controls your camera when in automatic mode.

When a camera is fully automated the computer is asked to control a number of extremely important tasks. It uses a combination of pre-installed data and real-time tests to generate an educated guess as how your photograph ought to be shot. For people who don’t care about learning how to use their camera, they accept these educated guesses as the best the camera can do, and if they want a better quality picture, they have to buy a better quality camera. This belief is, for the most part, untrue. While I do believe that a higher quality camera can produce higher quality results, I believe that any camera is capable of shooting a good picture as long as you can take control over how the photo is taken.

So, I’m going to make a statement that sounds simple, but really is something you need to believe if you want to improve your photographic skills:

You are smarter than your camera.

That’s it. That’s all you need to believe. Unfortunately, you’re going to need to prove it.

So what decisions should you make that your camera’s computer never should? The answer is actually quite simple. You need to control the most fundamental features that are the same now as they were fifty years ago: ISO, white balance (WB), aperture (Av), shutter speed (Tv), and focus. So I’m going to talk a bit about my thought process when setting these features manually. I don’t intend to teach you how to make the adjustments or what they are as there exists countless guides that do that already.

ISO & White Balance

These features derive from the properties of film emulsion. Every roll available has both a inherent white balance and ISO. Just be aware of how lucky you are that you can change these settings on the fly with a digital camera, and not have to buy a variety of film to accommodate every shooting scenario that may arise.

ISO : I love pure, bold color so I always aim for the lowest ISO possible. ISO is the first thing I set when entering into a shoot. I base my ISO on the shadows and dark areas of the scene, rather then the the ones that are heavily lit. All ISOs can expose well-lit subjects, but only high ISOs can expose dark areas. The second thing I look at is the speed of my lens. If I have a fast lens (i.e. f2.8) then I know I can push my ISO down a touch. I will also consider my subject. If my subject is static and I can shoot long exposures without risking motion blur then I’ll push my ISO lower, whereas fast-moving subjects require fast shutter speeds and often high ISOs.

WB : I ask myself: how many types of light are present? Which color of light is best to balance to? For instance, if I’m shooting outside then I’ll set my white balance to daylight (6000 degrees kelvin). If I’m shooting a home interior lit with daylight through open windows, and tungsten light from the interior fixtures, then I opt daylight and often use my flash to counteract the tungsten light. Sometimes I try to adjust all lighting so it’s the same color by using gels, swapping bulbs, etc. Other times it works nicely just to let all the different colors of light bee seen - like at crazy rock shows.

Aperture and Shutter Speed

Like a fine balance, each must compliment the other. You cannot change one without affecting the other. These are the yin and the yang of photography. The symbols Av and Tv are often used which stand for Aperture Value and Time Value.

Av : I start by looking at my available light and get an idea of what aperture range I’m looking at. Lots of light means a broader range of choice. Second, I’ll think about the shot itself and what depth of field I want. If I want lots of detail at all depths, then I’ll drop it down as low as f22. If I want a soft background, with a refined range of focus, then I’ll open it up to f2.8 or larger. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of choice, so the wider (lower number) the better. That’s why lenses with apertures like a fixed f2.8 are so expensive - because they’ll benefit you in low light. It’s also important to consider your subject - fast moving subjects will require lower apertures, so you can achieve faster shutter speeds.

Tv : The length of the exposure has huge bearing on the outcome of a shot. I start by looking at my subject and whether or not I want them sharp or blurred. Some subjects like city traffic benefit from long exposures, while others suffer. I try to stay at 1/60 of a second or faster when I’m shooting handheld, and use a tripod for slower exposures. Stillness varies from person to person, and image stabilizers will help. Fast subjects require fast shutter speeds.

Manual Focus

Auto focus is very fast and often quite reliable. That being said, sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. Be prepared to make adjustments at a moment notice.

MF : If my lens is struggling to find contrast in a shot, or focuses on the wrong thing, then it goes straight to manual. Most digital SLRs will even give you a audible or visual cue when you’re manually focused correctly. I try to avoid focusing on my subject center frame, and often try to manually keep my focus while reframing in accordance with the rule of thirds. Trusting my auto focus has ruined more shots than I can count. If you eyesight is a tad out, then make sure to set your diopter accordingly. Learn to trust your eyes.

Photography is a subjective medium. Your personal tastes should influence your shots, and there’s no better way to achieve this than by taking control of your camera. Learn how to use your camera quickly and effectively, but also learn how to study the world around you using a photographer’s eye. Soon, you’ll be able to walk into a room and say “if I were shooting in here, I’d be shooting at 400 ISO, tungsten white balance, f4, at 1/60 of a second.” When that day comes, you might also notice that people start finding you strange. Don’t worry, there will always be another photography-loving soul nearby who will understand.

Lighting can be the difference between a good shot and a great one.

Walk into most professional photographer’s studios and you’ll be confronted with truckloads of lighting equipment. To the average hobby photographer it’s enough to make your mind boggle - and for your stomach to turn as you think about the cost of it all.

Most of us can’t afford a full lighting rig - however what if there was a way to experiment with the type of lighting gear that pro photographers use without spending too much money? What if you could make it yourself.

In this post I’ve found 10 DIY Flash and Lighting Hacks that put some of these lighting techniques within the grasp of the rest of us. Some are more involved than others but all are fun and will provide you with some new lighting gear to experiment with.

1. Multi-Super-SB-Ring Light

What can you make with six speedlight flashes, a coffee can and a little spare time?

You get a multi-super-sb-ring-light! (pictured left).

You could probably also blind a small village if you’re not careful!

Find out what it is, how to make one and what the results are like here.

This one looks like a lot of fun to play with - even if it’s just for the challenge of it and the looks you’d get when you pull it out next time you do a shoot..

2. Poor Mans Ring Flash

All you need for this one (pictured left) is a used milk bottle/jug and some scissors.

The result is that you’ll have a Poor Mans Ring Flash.

A ring flash is one that fits around the lens - it creates a wonderfully unique lighting effect. They will usually lighten your wallet by a couple of hundred dollars.

It’s so simple that I whipped one up for myself today in 5 minutes.

It worked out pretty good too - not bad for the cost of a couple of liters of milk!

If you want to experiment with other methods of making DIY ring flashes you also might want to check out this post for another method. This one is a little more involved, but I think will probably get better results.

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3. Inexpensive Light Tent

Have you ever wanted to replicate the crisp clean product images that you see in catalogs with the products seemingly floating on a white background?

If you do - you need some kind of light tent/light box.

As usual, light boxes can cost you quite a bit - but thanks to DPS reader Jeffrey Bail you might be able to achieve the results without having to spend much at all.

In our Inexpensive Light Tent tutorial Jeffrey shows you how to turn a box, fabric, tape, glue board and light into a great little light tent.

4. Party Bouncer Card

Another cool DIY Hack is this Party Bouncer Card (pictured left) which is so simple yet promises to be so useful and effective.

This one is for those of you with a camera which doesn’t have the capability for an off camera flash.

It allows you to bounce some light off the ceiling while also diffusing the light going forward - this will enable you to get a less harsh flash effect that many flashes leave images with. I like this one as it pushes the light out from your flash in two directions which can lead to a more even light rather than just diffusing it - a little more sophisticated.

Another quick DIY on diffusing a flash is to put a little translucent magic tape over a flash (or a piece of white tissue paper can do it too).

Any of these methods will decrease the amount of light getting out from the flash onto your subject - hopefully resulting in a more subtle light and a less blown out image.

5. Turkey Pan Beauty Dish

Beauty dishes are wonderful pieces of photographic equipment to experiment with - but they can be very expensive.

Not any more (at lest if you use this DIY trick).

In this hack learn how to use a simple Turkey Pan to get some pretty amazing beauty dish results! The comparison examples in this tutorial between the turkey pan version and the real thing are pretty convincing.

I must remember to add Turkey Pans to this week’s shopping list.

Check out this tutorial here.

6. DIY Ghetto Flash Extender

I’d not heard of this type of device before - but since I found this tutorial I’ve discovered a number of photographers who for one reason or another want to be able to extend the reach of their flash.

This is particularly useful for wildlife photographers who want to supplement natural light in tricky lighting with fill flash. Of course sometimes it’s difficult to get close to that animal and a normal flash would have no impact.

Enter the Flash Extender (one popular one is the ‘better beamer’).

Want to make one for yourself? This tutorial for the DIY Ghetto Flash Extender will tell you how.

7. Disposable Camera Flash Slave

Lately I’ve had more and more questions from readers about how to set up shots with multiple flash units to light a subject from more than one angle.

It’s not difficult to do if you have the budget to buy yourself an extra speedlight flash or two (or more) but if you don’t have the budget is there a way?

In this tutorial and author shows you how to use a disposable camera to act as a remote slave flash.

OK - this tutorial isn’t for anyone looking for a quick simple solution - but it is a challenge that I’m sure some of you will be up for!

8. Flash Mounted DIY Softbox

Another way that professional photographers diffuse the light that comes from a flash and gets a nice subtle and even light on their subject is to use a softbox

A softbox sits over a light (it’s a big box with white walls) which ensures the light is spread out evenly.

This DIY Softbox tutorial is great - it requires card, a white sheet (silk if you can), velcro, scissors, glue and the template that the tutorial provides you with.

The results look pretty good - but if you want more DIY softboxes the same site also has another tutorial for an alternative softbox.

Again - this one looks pretty good.

9. Flash Bouncers

There are a lot of DIY flash diffuser hacks and tutorials around but this one from our friend Chris at DSLRBlog is pretty cool.

It costs £1, takes 5 minutes, requires craft foam, a little elastic and some scissors.

The tutorial even includes a template for you to print out on your printer and then cut out - what more do you need?

Even the technologically challenge could make this one (speaking of myself of course).

Nice work from Chris with that one.

Another similar Flash Bouncer/Diffuser can be found over at DPReview here. This one is foam also.

Lastly - another card/paper version of the flash bouncer.

10. Full Budget DIY Lighting Studio

It’s time for one last DIY lighting hack - this one attempts to bring it all together with a full DIY Budget Studio setup.

The author of it takes up the challenge of creating a full studio lighting system for under $75.

It includes lights, reflectors, diffusers and flash diffusers - all using items that you could pick up at hardware and craft stores.

It also shows you a few test shots at the end of the tutorial that compare different lighting options.

You will need your own flash unit to use the flash diffusers on - but the rest is all included in the tutorial.

I particularly light the suggestions around globes for the lights. I know a couple of DPS forum members have had similar success with these sorts of lights.

11. UPDATE: The Fring - a DIY Flash Ring

I saw this one recently and I think it makes a worthy addition to this post.

It is a DIY Fibre-Optic flash extension for your DSLR’s popup flash!

It uses the light from your camera’s flash to light your subject using fibre optics arranged around your lens to give a more even light.

Of course it’s not the easiest to make (there are 37 steps) but it’s an ingenious idea and the example images taken with the setup are pretty cool considering it cost just a few dollars to make.

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Tags: DIY, Flash, Hacks, lighting