Digicam Portraits

 

Here's a little shot taken outside with no flash. If the shadows under the face are little dark and you lose detail, theirs a quick trick to fix it. Flip the camera upside down and turn on the flash. Here's the result:

It's a little more washed out than I would like, but I brought out the detail hidden in the shadows. This trick is very effective inside with overhead lighting. If I had more time, I would have turned the flash down and reshot it. I had about 5 minutes to get head shots of two people.
There you go, a quick tip to get better pictures.

Make the sky dramatic

This is probably the hardest tip to remember and it works for silhouettes too. Dial the exposure compensation down on the camera. On most cameras you either have a button marked +/- or a menu item. Just dial down the exposure anywhere from a .5 to a 2.0 stops (that's f/stops for you techies). In this example I dialed down the exposure 1.7 stops.
Why do this? The camera is using it's built in light meter and there's so much bright area with very dark underneath that camera can't figure it out. It also doesn't "see" color the way the human eye does. So in the picture above, this is really what I saw and in the "normal exposure compensation" below, this is what the camera sees.
There's one more plus to this. If your pictures are coming out orange with normal compensation, you can dial down the exposure and take a dark image. You can later bring the light levels back up with software and see the image. This doesn't work every time but you might be able to save a few images that special moment.

Make the picture pop!

Digicams are designed to get the color to pop. They are designed for no post production. However if you learn to use the camera software for tweaks, or something like Picasa3. Your pictures will pop more.

Post production is now a significant part of a good photo. You might just adjust the contrast, or the adjust the light levels, but you can also change other items. Typically, I adjust the contrast and brightness to crisp up the picture. If I'm still not happy with the image, I may play with the color or vary the fill and shadows. Here's the original shot before post production. This picture was taken by our Art Photography Director while riding in the car.


Syracuse has a number of older buldings with these painted billboards. I hope to capture a number of them this spring. Sadly they are fading and being torn down or painted over with a single color.

Great Light at the breakfast table

The light is coming in dining room window at breakfast and it's just perfect. You grab the camera and snap a picture and it's too dark. You turn the flash on and try again. Poof! The pictures washed out with too much flash.
There is a solution: Set the camera to Sunrise/Sunset. What? I'm not taking a picture of the sunrise, but my cute toddler eating breakfast! You have to understand how the camera "thinks". What it does is think in terms of Aperture, Shutter and ISO.
These three work together to make or break the picture.

• Aperture: How big is the lens letting in the light.
• Shutter: How long is the picture exposed to the image.
• ISO: How much image processing needs to happen.

There is more to it. The aperture will affect the focus of the image (not so much in Digicams). The shutter has to be fast enough to freeze the picture or it will be blurry. The ISO has to right in conjunction with the shutter or the pictures turn dark and orangeish.
So how does the camera think? The camera manufacturer has logged many hours with professional photographers and how they would set the camera (film SLR) to take the picture. For the Sunset/Sunrise setting, the camera needs to capture the light on a wider dynamic range, light to dark tones. It will push the ISO up, turn off the flash and drag the shutter just an instant longer. This is how the pros did it for years and years.
Now you can shoot like a pro and not have to take years.

Digicam 101

This will be a series on how to get better pictures out of your digital point and shoot. This will pretty much work on all digital point and shoot cameras. The settings may be a little different, but the tips will be the same.
These all be labeled "Digicam101class" so they'll be easy to find later. I'll be using a Nikon Coolpix L6.