Learn The Latest Digital Photography Shooting Techniques, Camera Reviews, Digital Photography Products And Books.
Welcome to Digital Photography Secrets!
Discover all the latest digital photography advice, tips and help on learning digital photography or creating the most stunning and spectacular images. Along with digital camera reviews and video tutorials in our Digital Photography TV section, where you can just listen instead of read information on digital photography.
There is a section devoted to photo editing, as well we look at the best places on the planet to photograph with your digital camera.
And last but not least we have our Photographer's Corner where you get to hear from local photographers how they actually took shots.
So lots to get your teeth into!!
This Week's Articles...
Photographic Lighting Techniques
When you begin learning photography, especially digital photography, you’ll find a stronger need to master photography lighting techniques more than ever before. The secrets of photography are simply this: master lighting and artistic composition. That’s if you want to shrink it down to the best digital photography secrets you can learn.
Anyone who begins learning digital photography finds an array of questions begins to surface, “What digital camera is best?” “What lenses should I use?” “What lighting do I need most?” Well I can happily tell you it’s not necessarily what camera you use, its how you use it, and not how much gear you have, but whether you have control over your photo lighting techniques.
First let’s look at your F stop settings. Your f stop is a numerical value that the camera uses to measure light. This measurement may start around F 2.8 and goes to its maximum of F32….but you probably know this already, it’s just a matter of working the f stop to get tack sharp digital photos right?
Since learning digital photography depends on your understanding of f stop and shutter speed, lets take a closer look at what kinds of light leads to what kinds of f stop. Basically if you are taking shots with lots of action and you want to “freeze” that action, then you want a fast shutter. A fast shutter speed may be in the vicinity of 500th of a second right up to 2000th of a second. If you want to blur the motion, then use a lower shutter such as 125th of a second or lower. Heck, you can always use 30 seconds if you want to. Make sure you don’t over expose though.
Along
side our shutter speed, we want to get the best aperture….f stop.
Photography lighting techniques depend very much on your ability to control
light and use of aperture (f stop) and shutter speed together.
Judge the scene accordingly to tell you what aperture and shutter speed you need. For example I was commissioned to take some shots of some brand names guitars for a music company. I had very little lighting (dim fluorescent lighting). I was not able to use the flash because it would have overexposed my guitars and created too much directional light. I was after some classy macro shots anyhow.
I knew I’d have to work with around F22 and up to get the clarity and to make sure I had the right light, I would have to leave the shutter open for a bit longer than I had first intended. I placed the camera onto my tripod so I’d get no camera shake and set the shutter for 30 seconds. They came out really well and I’m pleased to say that the music company really loved them.
Learning digital photography doesn’t have to be hard. Get your head around mastering aperture and your shutter speed and you’ll find that your digital photography lighting techniques work really well, creating beautiful, clear photos for yours to enjoy for years.
Article by...
Amy Renfrey
Digital Photographer, Digital Photography Teacher & Author
www.SuccessfulDigitalPhotography.com
Its easy to make us your home page. Simply add this site to your bookmarks or Google Toolbar....
