General Boards > Off Topic

Photography tips and tricks

<< < (3/16) > >>

Myst:
Been a bit lax on posting here, sorry!

For those with D-SLR's that arent more familiar with the way they work, here's a little tip that will help compose some more creative shots.

This is for auto-mode (otherwise known as point and shoot!)

Most D-SLR's have a series of focal points in the viewfinder which are shown as a number of feint rectangles normally. When you depress the shutter release button half way, it tells the camera to focus on the scene in front of it and take a number of measurements to tell the camera what to do to get the best image. This includes telling it what shutter speed, ISO (how sensitive the light sensor is - or film speed for the old schoolers), white balance, f stop. This normally takes a little bit (tenths of a second - long time in photography terms) and when its done you will hear a beep from the camera and see the focal points flash red for the points that are in focus.

Now the creative bit. Say for example your subject is off to the side of the image, but you want it in the centre but keep the background in focus? Or you want to deliberately have an image that is focussed on the background with something in the foreground slightly out of focus?

When you half depress the shutter release and hear the camera beep and the focal points show red, the cameras focus and other settings are locked while you hold the button either half way or depress it fully. It will only re-take settings if you release and then re-press the shutter release. What this means is you can let the camera takes its settings on part of a scene, and while holding the shutter release half way, pan or tilt the camera to take in the image that you want.

By way of example... My D-Max is sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and the way i want to compose the image means that the camera can't focus on the car (might be in a spot where there is no focal point for example). I can centre the car in the viewfinder and half depress the shutter release, so the camera takes its settings based on the car and whatever in the background is on a focal point in the viewfinder. The camera beeps and the focal points and other settings lock in while the button is held down, and i can then pan the camera to have the car at the side of the image to take in the view behind it. I then press the shutter release fully and the camera takes the image...

It was this technique i used for the image attached. Where i wanted the fisherman in the final image wasnt under a focal point, so i took the metering off of him (using the central image point of the viewfinder only, so dead centre of the image over the fisherman), then panned the camera left and tilted up a little to get the final composition i wanted.

lino6:
So I got SWMBO a Tamron 150-600mm lens for our Canon camera for Christmas . Just need to get out and use it now. Might head up the river tomorrow and see if we can get some pics with it. She is not confident she will use it  :crybaby2: but hopefully once she starts using it she'll see the value in it.

 :occasion14:

Myst:
Good work lino6, everyone needs to start somewhere and build up their confidence!

Jimbo14:
Here's an image that I took last year.
Just thought that I would share some thing here on this thread also.

BMux:
Cool, what camera setup do you have?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page