Digital Photography Guide

Image by psd

Here’s a quick (and rather quirky/novel) tip for extending the life of your batteries in cold weather that we received via email this week:

“In cold temperatures batteries lose their power quickly so it’s a good idea to carry extra. In order to keep your spare[s] from draining in a cold camera bag, use an old trick for keeping warm in the cold. Put a hot foil-wrapped baked potato in your pocket. It will keep your spare batteries warm, give your trigger finger a place to warm up and after you’ve been out shooting in the cold for a while, you’ll have a nutritious snack.”

Thanks to Anne Williams for the tip!

Note: DPS will not be responsible for damage caused to the property of those introducing Baked Potatoes into their camera bags and advises against adding sour cream, butter or any other condiments to baked potatoes used in this way! :-)

A More Serious Note: another method that we know some DPS readers for warming their camera batteries is to keep a hand warmer in their pocket with their batteries.

Got a ‘quick tip’ to share? Stop by the Tutorials section of our Forum and leave your tip there. We’ll pick some of the best to feature here on the blog. Don’t forget to leave a link to your blog/flickr account/website etc so we can give you a little credit if we use it.

Winter’s here for many of us, and so is the common place for indoor sports. Basketball. Volleyball. Gymnastics. Sure, indoor sports are fun to participate in and watch, but let’s face it; Indoors sports aren’t the easiest of events to shoot for a photographer.

During my time as a high school basketball photographer, I spent significant time developing the skills to produce sharp, action packed, and exciting photos for the team. It was not uncommon to find myself in a gym with such low light that even 1600 ISO didn’t produce results. Like the time when district championships were held in the gym with the worst lighting in the county. Even the big photojournalists there were limited.

Here are some things to consider when photographing sports indoors:

1. Watch for action and movement. Sports like Basketball and Volleyball are consistently fast paced. Your job is not simply to capture the event, but also the connection between players. This takes some skill and anticipation.
2. Set your camera to a high ISO setting. Most recent SLR cameras will now allow you to shoot on 1000 ISO or even 1250 ISO. These options will reduce your concern for noticeable film grain (from ISO 1600). At the same time, your camera’s sensor will be more sensitive to what little available light you have.
3. Shoot with a fast shutter speed – at least TV/200 if you can. Once again, because you need to capture movement, a fast shutter speed will freeze the motion of the athletes, giving you a clear photo. [And if it comes down to it, settle for an underexposed image in camera. You can always adjust a sharp photo later].
4. Use a lens with the lowest aperture possible, say f4.0 to f2.8. Because you don’t have much available light, and you are working with a faster shutter speed, a wide aperture is your best friend in this setting. A wider aperture will increase the intensity of the light hitting your sensor, maximizing the available light.
5. Look for expression. Anger. Aggression. Rivalry. Teamwork. Excitement. Victory. You cannot successfully shoot any sport without watching, waiting, and capturing the emotions and relationships of the game. You will win at the end of the day if you have an emotional picture that isn’t completely sharp.
6. Shoot in RAW. The likelihood that you will achieve perfect coloring in camera is slim. Gym lighting is as notorious for green tinted lighting as it is for low lighting in general. Shooting in RAW will enable you to fix the colors in your post processing.

This photo was taken with a 2 megapixel Canon Powershot A60 at Cannon Beach, Oregon. I don't care what the readers think of this photo. I like it. I waited, concentrated and opened the shutter at just the right moment for this.

I know a lot of DPS readers are dreaming of and saving for that perfect digital camera - today Dan Dyer from Automatic Camera has a post for you with a good reminder.

All cameras have are essentially the same thing, a shutter that exposes light on a light-sensitive surface. Sure, there are differences in engineering tolerances and technical ranges and the latest technology. But Ansel Adams didn’t have today’s latest gadget. He had know-how, and practice.

The real difference between an average photo and an amazing photo, is the photographer, not the camera.

Here’s how you can make your camera amazing. It just takes a little bit of work.

1 Read your camera manual. If you don’t have it anymore, you can probably find it online. Learn every feature and aspect of the camera you have. It will take amazing pictures if you know how to use it properly.

2 Take your camera with you everywhere you go, and take lots of photos. Take photos of everything. Find something uninteresting and find a way to make it interesting. That is the essence of art.

3 Practice in manual mode. All cameras have a manual mode take a photo and change a single setting. Then change that one setting and take another photo. In my opinion this is the best way to understand the manipulation of light.

4 Make each photo count. One of the biggest downfalls of digital photography is the ability to take so many photos so easily for so little monetary investment. So we buy a cheap camera and snap away, hardly taking a thought to what is in the view finder. STOP! Think about your next photo, then take the time to make it amazing. You’ll start thinking like a photographer and your photos will improve ten fold.

5 Keep your best photos in a special place, discard the rest. Professional photographers take thousands of and show only their best to the client. Take photos for you, you are your own client. One day you’ll look back and be amazed at your work.

Now get to work.

One of the cool products that our friends at Photojojo have been selling recently is the Magnetic Photo Rope - a fun way to display your images.

The Magnetic Photo Rope concept is simply - it’s a metal cable/rope with a weight on the end of it which you hang on your wall and it comes with 8 small, but strong, magnets which allow you to hang a photo from the rope. The effect is quite cool - images appearing to hang off the rope.

The idea is simple and effective - it allows you to rotate and move around photos as you like - without having to stick pins through your images or have to get images in and out of frames.

The ropes come in five colors - Green, Blue, Red, Black and White. The are priced at $12 for one and are discounted when you buy more than one. Get a price and order the Magnetic Photo Rope here.

In this post Marc Silber shares his #1 tip for improving your photography.

You’ll hear this over and over from the photographers that I interview: Take your dang camera with you everywhere!

Cartier-Bresson took his camera with him EVERYwhere—to the cleaners, to the cafe, to the cinema…he always had his trusty Leica M2 with him. Yep, that’s why I got one many, many years ago, hoping the magic would rub off.

Ansel Adams got his famous Shot “Moon and Half Dome” on his way to happy hour. Yes, he pulled his Cadillac over at 4 PM and grabbed his Hasselblad and got that shot. Got back in his car and drove off to have some more fun. Ironic how photographers now line up in droves to try to get the same shot. Ansel loved to get shots of the moon, and was prepared to jump when he saw that shot.

In her new book At Work, Annie Leibovitz said about her early days:

“What mattered was photography. Being a photographer was my life. I took pictures all the time, and pretty much everything I photographed seemed interesting. Every single time I went out to take a picture was different. The circumstances were different. The place was different. The dynamics were different. Every single time. You never knew what was going to unfold.”

If you saw my last show you heard Chase Jarvis tell you to get off your bum and get out and get some shots!

So this is basic point: Take your camera around with you everywhere. In fact that’s your assignment for this coming weekend: Take your camera with you for one whole day (nope, sorry your iPhone doesn’t count for this, nice try.) I mean your camera, your point and shoot, your cool new DSLR, your granddad’s 4×5, whatever you’ve got. Take it with you for the whole day and shoot. In fact set it up the night before by the bed so you pick it up first thing and grab shots the whole day.

Then next day process them and pick out your best and send it to me. Tell me a bit of the story if you’d like and I’ll post the ones that really grab me, deal?

BTW, as one by-product of this exercise you’ll have to get over any sort of “stage fright” that accompanies having a camera with you all the time and getting shots! But if you’ve set out on this road you might as well face it, you’re not going to get the shots you miss!

There’s lots of ways to get me your shot, here’s a few easy ones, let me see what you’ve got!

email: marc@silberstudios.com

twitter: @marcsilber

FaceBook: Marc Silber