The following articles are general camera guides to the settings of your camera for better images.
Beginners Guide – Top Ten Tips to Improve Your Photography
Getting The Image Right In The Camera
Camera Vibrations and Image Sharpness
Raw Image Files and Processing
Camera Focus Mode Settings for Quality Images
Camera Light Metering Mode Settings For Quality Images
Mid Range of Tones
The histogram on your camera is the most important camera control or tool to ensure that you capture a full range of tones in the image. When you look at the histogram it essentially represents the number of stops of exposure which the camera is capturing.
The far left side of the histogram represents full black and the far right side indicates full white. The difference from left to right indicates the dynamic range of the camera, depending on the camera the difference may be 5 EV (5 stops) or 6, 7 or 8 EV depending on the capability of the camera in capturing the full range of tones. The correct exposure is when all of the histogram graph is contained within the far left and far right limits of the histogram.
The histogram at the left indicates that the full range of tones has been captured with the majority of the tones in the middle. It does not matter how high it is as long as it is not touching the left side or the right side and also that none of the tones have extended beyond those limits and have been cut off.
If the graph is touching the left side it shows that areas in the image are conpletely black and and you will not be able to fix these areas of the image in post processing, thus some of the dark tone detail will be lost.
Dark Tones
If the graph is touching the right side of the histogram it shows that areas in the image are conpletely white, blown out and and you will not be able to fix these areas of the image in post processing, thus some of the blown out detail will be lost.
If pixels are completely black or completely wthite the piuxels can be lightened or darkened, but the detail represented can never be recovered.
The histogram on the left is the histogram representing a dark night scene where most of the content of the histogram is close to the lleft side representing black, but note the none of the black detail has been lost or cut off on the left side. To see the actual image of this histogram click here.
In the Dark tone histogram above it can be seen that most of the tonal values are on the left side of the histogram, however this is to be expected as the image was a dark night scene with only a small amount of city lights in the background. In this image some of the tones on the left may have been cut off and consequently there may be a small amount of blown highlights in the city lights.
Light Tones
In the last histogram it represenst a scene with quite a lot of light tones in the image, however from the histogram we see that there are no tones cut off on the left side and although there nis a lot of tonal content close to the right side there are no tones cut off.
A good exposure needs a large range od tonal values, fully spread acrass the histogram with none of the tones touching either side of the histogram.
The general theory behind a perfect digital file is to expose to the right of the histogram, but to ensiure that no tones are cut off at the right side. Even if your end result is a dark looking image it may be better to expose to the right and then darken the image later in post processing.
There are many things you can do to improve your photography. In the following article we will sumarise the ten main thing you can implement to make your images stand out.
The shutter speed can have a huge bearing on the quality of an image. A slow speed will create blur resulting in an unsharp image. A fast shutter speed will freeze action and help obtain sharp images.
Sometimes the photographer may intentionally create blur to give a creative impact to the image.
The aperture setting determines how much light the lens lets through to the sensor and this determines the correct exposure.
The aperture also determines the depth of field and which parts of the image will be in focus.
The ISO setting determines the sensitivity and needs to be set depending on the amount of light available. In bright light use a lower ISO setting and in duller light use a higher ISO.
Get close to the subject to fill the viewfinder frame completely up with the subject.
The camera will have auto focus points in the viewfinder, make sure the focus is on the main subject. With people photography ensure that the eyes are in focus.
Do not try to get too much in the picture. The simpler the composition the more impact the final image will have.
Watch for any distractions in the background, keep the background simple so that the main subject will stand out against the background.
Generally the composition of the image will look much better if the main subject is not in the centre of the images, keep the main subject to one side.
The use of a tripod nor monopod will assist in qeeping the camera steady. Also use a remoter shutter trigger if possible.
One thing needs to be stressed, is to take your camera everywhere you go. If you do not have your camera you will not get any images. If you normally use a Digital SLR get a smaller camera so you can carry it around easily when not using the DSLR.
Natural Bridge Falls
The movement of water can help to create interesting images. In order to capture images such as these it is essential to use a tripod, as shutter speeds close to 1 second or greater will be required. Generally a shutter speed of 1/8 of a second will start to blur the moving water, but with a tripod any shutter speeds up to 1/2 minute can be tried. Sometimes it is useful if a neutral density filter is used so that longer shutter speeds can be used.
Waterfalls are great to capture the movement of water, also fast flowing streams aroud rocks also can form interesting images.
As well as a tripod some sort of cable release shgould also be used to avoid any blur of the image due to movement of the camera when operating the shutter.
There are further details on tripods and remote camera controls on articles as follows.
Q1, Building, Observation Deck, Surfers Paradise, Queensland
Photoshop is a great software package, but the secret to obtaining stunning images is to get everything right in the camera and after you have acheived that, then work on the image in Photoshop. Most of the work in getting a good image happens before the Photoshop stage. We have other articles on Workflow after capture.
Keep your camera in good condition and keep it clean. Keeping your camera clean applies to the external parts of the camera and the internal parts. All the external lens surface need to be kept clean and most importantly, the lens glass surfaces. A large blower is very suitable for this. Take care when changing lenses. When removing a lens, hold the camera so that the lens opening faces downwards, use a blower to give a few puffs to clean any dust from inside the camera. Also many DSLR cameras now have self cleaning sensors, set the camera so that it will self clean on start up and shut down. Dust on the sensor is the bane of all photographers.
I have done several previous articles on shutter speeds as follows:
As from the above articles there are many ways to obtain different effects with different shutter speeds. Extra care needs to be taken when using slow shutter speeds, see the article on Long Exposures and the use of tripods and monopods.
Camera vibration can also have a major effect on the ultimate sharpness of the image.
Selecting the correct aperture can be critical to get the subject matter in the zone of focus. This is where selective focus can be used to make the main subject sharp but blur out the background.
Correct exposure of the image determines whether the image is too dark or too light. If the exposure is not set correctly then the camera may not be able to cope with the dynamic range of the scene, if this happens some of the tonal information of the scene may not be captured by the camera.
The ISO setting of the camera will have a bearing on the quality of light captured by the camera. Some cameras will have an Auto ISO setting so that the camera will automatically set the ISO depending on the lighting available. Higher ISO settings will give more noise in the image, so use a low ISO setting as possible.
Different light sources will create color casts in the image and the color temperature setting or white balance setting in the camera settings may need to be adjusted to suit the light source illuminating the scene. In most case this can be set to Auto.
As discussed above, different aperture settings can allow the photographer to focus specifically on a certain part of the scene and throw other parts of the scene out of focus.
It is best to frame the image precisely, as cropping after the exposure is taken will cause a loss of resolution in the image and give a lesser quality image.
Modern Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras have mechanical components for both the shutter and the mirror mechanism. These mechanical components can have a significent effect on the sharpness of any image due to the vibrations within the camera causing the camera to move. The mirror slap vibrations in particular will cause a degradation in the image sharpness which may be increased by using lenses of a longer focal length. A longer lens will effectively magnify the camera movement and shorter focal length lenses wioll have less effect on the loss of sharpness.
The effect of the loss of sharpness can be measured by photographing a resolution chart to determine the sharpness at various shutter speeds. In general any loss of sharpness effect is not noticable when lense of 50mm or shorter are used. However with lenses longer than 50mm, some image degradion will commence. At a focal length of 100mm the mirror slap degradation will commence and get worse as the focal length is increased.
High shutter speeds can be used to help reduce the effect of mirror slap. In general a shutter speed of 1/250 second or greater will reduce the effect of the image degradation. Also with shorter speeds when taking long exposures, the exposures should be kept longer than 2 seconds to reduce this effect.
There are several methods that a photographer can use to help reduce the effect of mirror slap.
If using a lens longer than 50mm, try to use a shutter speed of 1/250 second or greater and your images will be significantly sharper. Also use the mirror lock up where ever possible.
Slow shutter speeds can be used when you wish to gain a sense if movement or blurring of the image. In the image of the train above, the shutter speed was several seconds long, allowing the lights of the train to move across the image.
It is very advisable when using slow shutter speeds to give some support to the camera. For shutter speeds down to around 1/8 second a monopod can be used to stabilise the camera but with slower shutter speeds it is much better to use a tripod and some type of cable or remote release to ensure there is no camera movement.
In general most Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras offer several options to record the image files. In general these formats are TIFF, JPG or RAW files.
The RAW image format files are unprocessed files retaining the original data from the camera sensor. The RAW file images are normally processed after the event into a JPG or TIFF format. Many cameras use different formats for their RAW file images. They are sometimes referred to as the digital negatives, as they are comparable to a negative in the world of film, the RAW file is the original data from the sensor, in an analogy that the film negative is the original of the scene captured on film.
The Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) is an uncompressed, common format used for images. The format is a useful archive storage format due to its lossless characteristics. Files can be saved and resaved without loosing data. TIFF files are generally very large files compared to other formats but offer a high quality for permanent storage.
The JPG file format is a compressed format, with a trade off between the file size and the amount of compression applied to the file which can be adjusted by the user. The problem with the JPG format is that once the file is compressed some of the data is lost from the file forever and can never be recovered. This is one of the most common formats used by digital cameras for storage of images. However remember that once a JPG file is saved with any compression, some of the original data is lost and this happens every time a JPG file is saved. JPG files are very economical in terms of storage space.
In order get the premium quality from your images, we regard it as preferable to take all images in RAW format, save a copy of the RAW images as archives and then process the RAW images on computer.
There are several reasons for this approach as follows:
You always have the original image to work on later if required, bearing in mind that raw processing software improves all the time and you may have the opportunity to go back to old raw images at some future point in time and reprocess them to acheive better quality.
The RAW image files will facilitate better processing to fix any issues with the files such as white balance issues, sharpening, contrast adjustments, improving dynamic range of the image etc.
A poorly exposed JPG image can be very difficult to rectify after it is taken. However, a RAW file with problems is far easier to rectify and improve with the RAW processing software.
Sometimes images can be effective by blurring the subject with movement.
In the image below of the amusement park, the image was taken using a tripod, but also using a long exposure to blur the image. This exposure was of several seconds to blur the amusement ride. A slow shutter speeds can be used when you wish to gain a sense if movement or blurring of the image. In the image of the amusement park below, the shutter speed was several seconds long, allowing the lights of the wheel to move around the image.
It is very advisable when using slow shutter speeds to give some support to the camera.
Amusement Park
Ferris Wheel
The image of the ferris wheel above was given a long shutter speed to allow the movement of the ferris wheel to be captured. A tripod was used to steady the camera.
Kite Surfing
Any image of a moving subject will require a high shutter speed to avoid blurring of the subject. The kite surfer above was moving very fast and required good long lens technique and a very high shutter speed to avoid movement of the subject.
When long lenses are used, high shutter speeds will also be required to avoid camera shake which becomes difficult to avoid. For subjects such as this a shutter speed in excess of 1/1000 of a second would be required. In order to acheive high shutter speeds requires the use of high ISO and also large apertures.
Many modern cameras will offer fast shutter speeds of up to 1/8,000 second and this will give a great advantage in capturing fast moving subjects.
