Are You Smarter Than Your Camera: Shoot in Manual Mode

Modern dSLRs are technological wonders. They are crammed with components, sensors, LCDs and advanced circuitry. They do everything but talk — and a few are working on that.

Despite all this technical wizardry, the average dSLR is fairly dumb. It cannot think. It knows nothing about art, composition or lighting effects. It doesn’t notice whether you are photographing a beautiful sunset or the local garbage dump. It does not see the difference and would not care if it did.

Yet, far too many dSLR owners allow this non-thinking, non-appreciative hunk of electronics to rule over their photographic endeavors. They believe the camera is smarter than they are.

The more I use my digital cameras, the more I find myself reverting to some sort of manual control. That does not mean I never shoot in a fully automatic mode — it’s just that more and more often I find that my knowledge and experience allows me make better decisions than my camera.

How do you develop this knowledge? It can start gradually, by occasionally experimenting with manual settings. If you always shoot fully automatic, in the program mode, try a few of these suggestions next time you are shooting.

Turn off auto focus.
Auto focus is useful and can be a lifesaver many situations. However, if you always let your dSLR select the focus you may be missing out on some great images. You might prefer part of your subject be out of focus. It’s an artistic decision and your camera cannot make that decision for you. In addition, no matter how fast camera makers design their AF systems, pre-focusing will always be faster. So try using manual focus when it is appropriate.

Switch out of the program mode
I am finding less and less use for the program mode when I shoot. Since I understand what type of image I am trying to capture and the camera can’t read my mind — I find I am far better at selecting the best combination of aperture and shutter speed to get what I want. Camera makers have gone to great lengths to add automatic modes like sports, night, portraiture and the like. The idea behind these modes is that you can set your camera to the appropriate setting and forget about it. Sometimes this works, but I find I get better results when I determine the optimal settings. Lately, I have been shooting almost exclusively in aperture priority. I set the f-Stop and the camera selects an appropriate shutter speed. Occasionally I will use shutter priority — especially if the light is shifty and I want to make sure I don’t fall below a certain speed. Sometimes I will use full manual — when I want to ignore the camera’s meter in order to get exactly the shot I have in mind.

Play around with exposure compensation
Most dSLRs offer some form of exposure adjustment, which will allow you to override the actual meter reading by a set number of stops. Much of the time, the default setting will be very close, but if you are attempting a special effect or the light is tricky, exposure compensation can be your best friend. Learn how to use it to your advantage.

Experiment with contrast
If your camera offers contrast adjustment, learn how this can improve your images in varying lighting conditions. If you are shooting outdoors at noon on a bright, cloudless day, normal contrast may make your images appear awful. See if toning down the contrast will soften the shadows and eliminate hot spots. If the light is weak and dull, can you improve the image by cranking in some additional contrast?

Vary your flash settings
It’s true. camera makers have created some wonderfully intelligent flash units. Even the built-in flashes can produce stunning results under the right conditions. But there are plenty of times when the flash should be overruled. Start with flash compensation. Try more or less compensation to see how the light changes. Experiment with different shutter speeds to see how that affects the tone of the background. If you have a separate flash unit, get a cord and try shooting with the flash off the camera. Experiment, experiment, experiment. You’ll get some duds, but you will also get some wonderful images. And you will never allow your camera to dictate how your flash should be used in the future.

I urge you to try all of these techniques when you get the chance. You might not use all these techniques every time, but make it a point to try at least one of these each time you head out with your dSLR. If you do, and you ware willing to learn from your successes and your failures, you will quickly see your photographic IQ surpassing that of your camera. When you are smarter than your camera, you will be well on the way to capturing some outstanding images.

This article originally appeared in Alphatracks; the weblog for Sony and Minolta SLR enthusiasts. You can read more articles by Tom Bonner at http://alphatracks.com

Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide, published by Wiley Publishing. A photographer for more than three decades, he offers photography and web design services to clients in the Charlotte, NC area.

Tags: Shooting in Manual Mode

Flash Photography – Move Your Flash Off-Camera

If you are looking for a way to dramatically improve your flash photos, you need to move your flash unit away from your camera. This means you will need an external flash unit and a means to hold and trigger it off the camera.

Why should you go to the trouble and expense of using a remote flash when your camera most likely has a perfectly good built-in flash? Almost all cameras that feature a built-in or pop-up flash unit place the flash directly over or just to one side of the lens. Any professional photographer will tell you that is the worst place for the flash to be. This article will explain how you can use a remote flash to improve portraits of people, but most of the following will apply to any subject.

Consider the list of problems created by having your the flash inline or near the lens. First off, this is where red-eye originates. If the flash is fired from an area in close proximity to the lens, the chances of your subject displaying red-eye is increased substantially . Some cameras offer a red-eye reduction mode and you can usually fix the problem by editing your images with software. Neither of these solutions is ideal, however. The best fix for red-eye is to move the flash away from the axis of the lens. The further the flash is from the lens, the less chance that people and animals in your photos will exhibit red-eye.

The second problem with direct, on-camera flash is the harsh shadows it creates behind your subject. If you are outdoors or in a very large open room, you might be able to avoid this problem. If your subject is near a wall or a large upright object, direct flash will cause a shadow to appear just behind their head. The closer they are to the wall, the harsher the shadow will appear. This is annoying for subjects with light colored hair, but it is deadly for photos of brunettes. The shadow tends to merge with the dark hair to create a horrendous blob on top of the person’s head. Once again, you can solve this problem with off-camera flash. If the flash unit is held high or to one side, you can cause any shadows to fall outside of the photo area.

Another short-coming of direct flash occurs when you are shooting someone with eye glasses. You fire that direct burst of light into the lenses of their glasses, which promptly reflect it right back to your camera. The result is a nice portrait of your subject with white streaks where there eyes should be. Moving the flash will allow you to aim it in such a way that the glasses show no reflections.

Direct flash can also cause your subject’s skin to reflect light, causing bright hot spots on their cheeks or forehead. The fix is the same as that for eyeglasses; move the flash.

Finally, direct flash can cause a “deer-in-the-headlights” look on your subject’s face. The flash wipes away all the natural shadows we are used to seeing on a person’s face and leaves everything looking flat. Lighting experts know that side lighting exaggerates texture, while frontal lighting minimizes texture. You might want to tone down the texture in someone’s face to a degree, but you don’t want so much head-on light that eyes, nose, mouth and facial features appear flat.

All of these problems can be eliminated by simply moving the flash so it is not inline with the lens. How you accomplish this will vary with the type and brand of camera you are using. The easiest way is to use a flash bracket, which mounts a remote flash high and off to one side of the lens. You can also simply hold your camera with your right hand, while directing a remote flash with your left hand. Both of these solutions assume your camera has a PC port or hot-shoe that will allow you to use a sync cord to fire a remote flash.

If you camera lacks a way to sync with a remote flash, your options are more limited. You may be able to use an optical sensor to trigger a remote flash when it senses the light from your built-in flash unit. Many cameras, however, fire a pre-flash beam before the actual exposure. This beam is used to calculate exposure and focus. If this is the case with your camera, a generic optical trigger will not work, because the pre-flash will trigger the remote unit too early to have any effect.

Should you discover that you camera doesn’t support remote flash in any way, then you won’t be able to take advantage of off-camera flash. You can attempt to minimize the effects of on-camera flash by moving your subjects away from walls and adding extra tungsten light to reduce shadows.

If your camera will support moving the flash off-camera, don’t hesitate to start using this technique. Once you see how much better your images look using remote flash, you will never go back to shooting with a built in or hot-shoe mounted flash.

Read more photography articles by Tom Bonner at Alphatracks.com, the weblog for Sony and Minolta SLR enthusiasts.

Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide, published by Wiley Publishing. A photographer for more than three decades, he offers photography and web design services to clients in the Charlotte, NC area.

Tags: Flash Photography, Flash Photography - Move Your Flash Off-Camera, Flash Photography improve

Digital Photos: how safe are they

How safe are your stored digital camera images? When you consider that the overwhelming majority of images recorded today are digital, losing thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of images is a nightmare scenario that few photographers want to contemplate. The danger of your entire image library being wiped out is real, however. If you shoot digital images, you need to consider the specter of data loss.

In the days of film, most people kept their negatives and slides in an old shoe box or something similar. While this might not be the best method for archival storage, the fact is that most old negatives are still perfectly usable, even more than half a century after they were processed. Heat, light and fungus can damage negatives, but in most cases, those old shoe boxes seem to have done a fine job of preserving old images.

In the digital world, things are very different. What we call a digital image is just an orderly collection of ones and zeros, stored on some form of digital medium. There is no physical image; it is all software. If the software should scramble those data bits, then the image is lost forever, unless you have a backup. What happens if your backup also fails? Like I said, most of us don’t want to think about that possibility.

Your backup is only as good as your storage media

Data corruption doesn’t sound all that terrible. You might think that minor corruption would only affect a few pixels here and there. If that were the case, someone with good Photoshop skills could restore the corrupted image. Such is not the case.

Several years ago I had a nearly full Compact Flash card go corrupt. It worked fine while I was shooting, but when I inserted the card into my reader, I was greeted with a “Card Unreadable” message.

Recovery software managed to copy the bad images off the card, but there wasn’t much hope for the data they contained. The images were super-imposed over one another, in much the same way as if you made a double exposure on a piece of film. In addition, there were weird bands of color shooting through the corrupt images. There was no hope of restoring those images. They were well past salvage.

Now imagine the same scenario on a huge hard drive with several terabytes of images. if the drive becomes corrupt, how many images could you stand to lose? You can backup your images, but If both the primary and backup sources fail at the same rate, where does that leave you?

Recently I digitized some negatives from the early sixties. The negatives were over forty years old, but still perfectly usable. I have some my parent’s negatives that are more than seven decades old. It is still possible to make decent prints from them. Will we be able to say that about digital?

Can digital survive as long as film?

I’m not advocating a return to film and I’m not going to be Chicken Little and start waiting for the sky to fall. On the other hand, I don’t want to be complacent and sit idly while my digital originals become so much silicon dust. Even with a rigorous backup plan, however, there is a chance that silent corruption could trash valuable, irreplaceable images.

Currently, there is no perfect solution

Unfortunately, technology hasn’t yet arrived to create a fool-proof solution to digital image storage.

External hard disks offer many advantages as a reserve backup. They are fast, easy to use and can be easily switched from one computer to another. Unfortunately, they are not bullet proof. Besides being susceptible to damage, hard drives can exhibit a condition know as silent corruption. This means data stored on the drive can deteriorate with no prior warning. If your primary storage and your backup suffer deterioration at the same rate…you have no backup.

CD and DVD storage are widely used for backup. Both mediums can suffer from “data rot,” a condition that slowly causes the disk to become unreadable. Even if only part of the data suffers from the malady, that is small consolation if some of your favorite images are affected.

Tape drives may be the best solution to long term backup, but they are expensive and time consuming to use. Tape can also physically rot, if exposed to heat and humidity.

Online storage is expensive, has a very slow transfer rate and requires giving others control of your data.

So how can you store your images for the future? The best bet seems to be to backup your image library to as many sources as you can. Write the same image to a backup hard drive, CD, tape and an online storage service. By spreading the risk across as many sources as possible, you decrease the chance of catastrophic failure destroying your entire library. Store copies of your most important images in another physical location to eliminate the possibility of losing your library to fire, flood or theft. Check your backups often so you can detect any form of corruption or data rot. Store your tapes, CDs and hard drives in cool, dark places to prevent physical rot from damaging them. Make high-resolution, physical prints of your best images.

Even with these preventive measures, there is no way to ensure that your images will last forever. There is a chance that I still may be around in another forty years. If I am, I believe that most of my film negatives will still be usable. You have to wonder, however. How many of the digital images I shoot today will I be able to access in 2049?

Portions of this article originally appeared on Alphatracks.com, the Tom Bonner’s weblog for Sony and Minolta SLR enthusiasts.

Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide, published by Wiley Publishing. A photographer for more than three decades, he offers photography and web design services to clients in the Charlotte, NC area.

Tags: Digital Photos how safe are they, Protect your Digital Photos

Depth of Field to Improve Your Digital Photos

Depth of field is a photographic term that describes the area in a photograph that is in sharp focus. Although only a single plane in an image can be in true focus, various lenses and certain lens setting can create the appearance of a much wider area of focus. You can alter DOF by changing the aperture of the lens, the focal length of the lens or the distance to the subject.

A more academic approach to DOF would include discussion of things like circle of confusion and hyperfocal distance. For all practical purposes, however, you don’t have to know about these advanced topics to include DOF effects in your photos.

There is no “good” or “bad” depth of field. Depending on your subject and your artistic vision, you may choose to use a wide DOF for some images and a very narrow DOF for others. If you are shooting a portrait, you may want a shallow DOF, so only the person’s face is in sharp focus. If you are shooting a front three-quarter shot of a car, you may require a wide DOF, so everything from the grille to the rear bumper appears tack sharp.

There are three ways you can control depth of field:

1: You can move farther away or closer to your subject.

2: You can switch the lens focal length.

3: You can change the aperture of the lens to a larger or smaller opening.

Let’s look into these methods more closely.

Depth of field varies as you move closer or farther away from your subject. If you have ever shot closeups with a macro lens, you undoubtedly noticed that only your subject was in focus, while everything else was dramatically fuzzy. Because the lens was extremely close to the subject, the image exhibits very shallow DOF.

The same effect, although less pronounced, occurs when shooting any subject. The closer a lens of a particular focal length is to the subject, the less apparent depth of field you will see in the resulting photograph. Don’t expect to see a great difference in DOF unless you move the lens significantly. When you photograph something from afar, such as Big Ben or the Grand Canyon, chances are the entire subject will be in focus, because the subject was far away from the lens.

The second way to manage DOF is by changing lens focal length. Wide angle lenses tend to exaggerate the apparent depth of field, while telephoto lenses usually offer a shallow field of focus. The result is that almost everything will tend to appear in focus with a wide angle lens. In contrast, a telephoto will allow you to isolate your subject from the background and foreground.

As I indicated earlier, which focal length you choose will depend on what you are attempting to show in the photo. Suppose you are shooting a group of people seated around a table. Your goal will be to have everyone in focus, so a wideangle focal length will be the most appropriate choice.

On the other hand, maybe you are shooting a craftsman working in his crowded shop. You can use selective focus to isolate the man from the background. A long lens will display only the man in focus, while the rest of the image fades into a soft blur.

Many zoom lenses include both wide angle and telephoto settings. This means depth of field produced by a zoom lens will vary with the selected focal length.

The final way to control DOF is with lens aperture. Larger lens openings (smaller f-numbers) create shallower depth of field. Smaller lens openings create greater DOF. Think about what happens when you are trying to make out a sign that is too far away to read. Most people squint, causing their eye opening to be smaller and the sign to be more focused.

Your camera lens works exactly the same way. When you open the aperture to allow more light to pass through the lens, DOF becomes shallower. Stop the lens down to a smaller f/stop and DOF becomes more pronounced, causing more of the image to appear in focus.

Now that you understand the concept behind depth of field, consider how you can use this knowledge to improve your photographs. I’ve already discussed how you can select an appropriate focal length for a particular subject. But the available DOF options are much more complex. Great photographers learn how to manipulate DOF to create arresting photos.

Isolating a subject from the background, whether it is a flea or a battleship, always produces interesting subjects. Most photographers choose to shoot architectural subjects with a wide angle, because the wide focal length allows them to capture the whole building while standing close to it. To capitalize on shallow DOF, however, you could walk several blocks away and shoot with a telephoto, separating the building from other structures nearby.

Should the subject require many different elements to be in focus, you now know that you can achieve that result by either moving farther away, switching to a wide angle lens or selecting a smaller aperture. Naturally you can combine all these techniques to increase the DOF even further.

To understand more about depth of field, visit the basic photography area at Alphatracks.com to see photos and illustrations showing how DOF changes under different conditions.

Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide, published by Wiley Publishing. A photographer for more than three decades, he offers photography and web design services to clients in the Charlotte, NC area.

Tags: Depth of Field Digital Photos, Depth of Field to Improve Your Digital Photos

Depth Of Field: A Real Education In Photography

Many new photographers assume that the term automatic diaphragm refers to the automatic aperture adjustment offered by their dSLR.

In fact, the term auto diaphragm has nothing to do with automatic exposure. An automatic aperture is designed to remain at its maximum opening for focusing and composing, no matter which f/stop is selected. The lens only stops down to the desired aperture at the moment the shutter fires.

If you have ever used a camera with a manual diaphragm, you will understand why this is so important. A fully automatic diaphragm is a delight to use, particularly in dim light or when the lens is stopped down to maximize depth of field.

The term diaphragm is used to describe the system of blades that create the adjustable aperture. Many photographers use the terms aperture and diaphragm interchangeably. They are closely related, but the aperture is actual lens opening, while diaphragm is the collection of components that comprise the aperture assembly.

Turning the clock back to the early days of photography, you will find that early optics did not have adjustable apertures — at least not the adjustable openings you and I are used to. When the first adjustable diaphragms appeared, they allowed the photographer to change the lens opening to allow more or less light through the lens. The diaphragm contained a number of preset openings, which became known as f/stops or f/numbers. Smaller f/numbers actually indicate larger lens openings, while the smallest lens openings are represented with higher numerical f/stops. This system continues more or less today.

The thing that sets modern lenses apart from the older adjustable aperture lenses is that the older units use a completely manual diaphragm. As you change the lens opening from say f/4 to f/11, the amount of light passing through the lens is reduced accordingly. That regulates the exposure properly, but it causes problems for focusing and composing. A SLR is designed to show you exactly what the lens sees. If you reduce the lens opening in a manual diaphragm lens, the image in the view finder becomes dimmer. In low light conditions it may be impossible to see anything through the viewfinder. Even in bright sunlight, a lens stopped down to f/22 or smaller is difficult to see through.

Camera designers solved this problem by creating an automatic diaphragm. This design has been more or less standard on SLR cameras for the last fifty years. With an auto diaphragm, the aperture remains wide open, no matter which lens opening is selected. You may select an f/stop of f/16, but the lens will remain opened to it’s maximum aperture at all times. This provides the brightest possible image in the viewfinder.

When you actually fire the shutter, a mechanical or electrical devise rapidly stops the lens down to the chosen aperture, creating the proper exposure. You don’t see this happening, because at the same time the camera is stopping down the lens, the viewing mirror is swinging up. As the mirror moves up to allow light to reach the sensor, the viewfinder turns black for an instant. It is during that time that the auto diaphragm goes to work and stops the lens down. As soon as the exposure is made, the diaphragm springs wide open again, presenting you with a bright viewfinder when the mirror returns.

Of course if the selected f/stop corresponds to the lens maximum aperture, nothing happens; the lens cannot be stopped down, so it simply remains wide open.

Is this just some interesting photography trivia? Not at all. Even though all of your current lenses probably contain an automatic diaphragm, there are several reasons you should familiarize yourself with how a manual diaphragm works.

1: Many teleconverters and lens mount adapters do not offer an automatic diaphragm. Thus when you use these adapters, your modern new dSLR reverts to a manual diaphragm camera.

2: There are numerous manual aperture lenses still on the market. Some of these are new, special purpose lenses, while others are older (but still usable) optics. You need to understand just what using a manual diaphragm entails before investing in one.

3: Many new dSLR’s lack a proper depth of field preview option. When you stop a lens down, DOF grows wider, while opening the aperture up causes DOF to appear shallower. Since an automatic diaphragm lens is always wide open, you cannot see DOF in the viewfinder. Even if you have a lens that will stop down to f/32, you won’t see the effect in the viewfinder unless your camera allows you to switch to a manual diaphragm preview mode.

4: If you understand about how an automatic diaphragm works, you will understand why a DOF preview is worth having. This could influence your future camera buying decisions.

The automatic diaphragm, although it has been around for decades, is just as important to modern SLR cameras as auto focus, auto exposure and image stabilization. Understanding how it works and why it is needed is crucial to getting the most out of your dLSR.

Visit the basic photography area at Alphatracks.com to see photos and information detailing how the auto diaphragm operates.

Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR -A300/A350 Digital Field Guide, published by Wiley Publishing. A photographer for more than three decades, he offers photography and web design services to clients in the Charlotte, NC area.

Tags: depth of field, Depth of Field a Real Education, depth of field the basics, Understanding Depth of field

Camera ISO – The Foundation of Every Great Image

Understanding the role of ISO is crucial to getting the most out of your dSLR. If you are unsure of what ISO is or how to determine which ISO setting you should use, this article is for you. When you have finished reading this, you should have a solid understanding of ISO and it’s role in capturing great images.

The term ISO is derived from the International Organization for Standardization, a group that establishes standards for a wide variety of commercial enterprises, including the photographic industry.

ISO describes how sensitive a digital sensor is to light. Unlike film, which requires the entire roll to use the same sensitivity setting, the digital sensor in your dSLR can adjusted for each individual image. This allows you to tailor your sensor to fit both your subject and the lighting conditions.

On most dSLRs the lowest sensitivity starts at ISO 100. The ISO doubles each time the sensitivity is increased. Thus the ISO range would be 100, 200, 400, 800 and so on. Early dSLRs usually topped our at ISO 1600. The current crop of dSLRs may feature an ISO of 3200 or even 6400. If your camera features a high ISO of 3200, that means you can adjust your sensor through a range of five stops. Should your camera offer a ISO of 6400, you have a six stop range, assuming a low ISO of 100.

What are the advantages of shooting at a high ISO?

In dim light, you generally want to use a high ISO setting. There are several advantages to adjusting the sensor so it is more sensitive to light.

- It allows you to capture images in dim light.

- You can use a faster shutter speed to freeze motion

- By increasing the shutter speed, you can hand-hold long telephoto lenses with less worry of camera vibration.

- You can increase depth of field by stopping the lens down to a smaller aperture

Of course, most good things involve a trade off. The advantages of a high ISO setting comes at the expense of image quality. Unfortunately, the higher the ISO, the more visible noise you will see in the final photograph.

The problem of noise

Noise is a pattern of noticeable specs appearing throughout the image. Noise is often compared to film grain, but it is not the same thing, Fast films usually show more grain than slower emulsions, because to increase sensitivity, the individual grains of silver have to be larger. As these silver grains grow, they become more noticeable.

Digital sensors work differently. You can think of the individual pixels of the sensor as miniature solar collectors. To collect more light, the camera’s processor needs to amplify the electrical charge to each pixel. A higher charge creates more heat and digital interference, which translates into noise.

By turning down the power to the sensor, the heat and disturbance can be reduced to a degree that noise is more or less invisible. Thus by lowering the ISO you will typically will see less noise. At ISO 100, images will usually be noise free.

That is only part of the story, however. There are many other reasons to select a lower ISO, beyond noise reduction.

Why would you want to photograph at a lower ISO?

- While fast shutter speeds are great for stopping movement, sometimes you might want to display motion in your photos. Selecting a low ISO will allow you to slow down the shutter and display the appearance of action.

- When you want to use selective focus, you can use a fast lens opened to it’s maximum aperture.This will reduce depth of field to a minimum, allowing you to isolate your subject from the surroundings. To be able to shoot wide open in bright light, you will need to lower the ISO.

- When taking pictures at night, you might want everything but your illuminated subject to look dark. A high ISO can actually cause dimly lighted scenes to look like they were taken in daylight, ruining your efforts at night photography. Reducing the ISO will make your night scenes look like they were actually taken after dark.

Most dSLR cameras will attempt to automatically select the best ISO for a given situation. In most cases, however, manually selecting the ISO will yield superior images. The ISO setting represents a compromise between maximum image quality and maximum light sensitively. These attributes are polar opposites, and your camera cannot determine which attribute should receive priority in a given situation.

Which ISO should you use? For the best image quality, restrict the ISO to 100 or 200. If conditions dictate, you can sacrifice some image quality and turn the ISO up to 400 or possibly 800. You should reserve the highest ISO settings for those times when you are willing to accept a noisy image because it would be difficult or impossible to capture a photo at a lower sensitivity rating.

Full frame cameras usually offer better High ISO performance

One final thing you should be aware of. Full frame dSLRs will usually offer better image quality at higher sensitivity settings than one with a smaller APS-C sensor. That is because for a given megapixel rating, the individual pixels on a full frame sensor will be larger. larger pixels collect more light, so they will need less amplification to record at a particular ISO setting.

That doesn’t mean that a full frame camera is immune to noise problems, or that a camera with a APS-C sensor cannot produce very high quality images. All things being equal, however, you can crank the ISO up higher on a FF sensor with less fear of producing a noisy image.

Visit the basic photography area at Alphatracks.com for more free digital photography articles.

Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR -A300/A350 Digital Field Guide, published by Wiley Publishing. A photographer for more than three decades, he offers photography and web design services to clients in the Charlotte, NC area.

Tags: Camera ISO - The Foundation of Every Great Image, Camera ISO understanding

Collecting Vintage Photo Albums

Collecting Vintage Photo Albums. by Instantinlaw

When you think of looking through someone’s old photo album do you think of how boring it will be to have to look at someone else’s kids, or the trip to Disney World they took in the 1970’s? That’s what I thought before I had the chance to look through an old photo album of someone’s trip to India way back in 1938! First, I want to let you know a little bit about myself and how I became interested in collecting vintage photography.

One day I found an old photograph at a local flea market from around 1900 of a train wreck. It was so cool seeing all the men wearing bolo hats and looking on at the pile of twisted metal that I just had to have it. Little did I know that that one image would get me started on a collection of photographs that has since blossomed to include; Photo Albums, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Negatives, 35mm Slides, Stereoviews, and a whole host of photographic mediums.

Back to the photo album of the trip to India. I was not so hot on photo albums back when I first started collecting photos but my whole perception changed when I opened that photo album. The very first image was of 2 men and 2 women at an opulent 1930s bar with the bar tender standing on. The men and women were all decked out in 1930s attire, the women in gorgeous gowns and the men in tuxedos. They were all turned towards and toasting the camera with martinis in hand, and the caption read “The night before our trip to India 1938″. The image reminded me of The Shining when Jack Nicholson was in the barroom full of ghosts how cool is that?

I discovered page after page of interesting photos, and I discovered that the album was telling a great story. The second page started the trip with a cool image from the deck of the steamship. The photographer was looking down at a dock full of people wishing a happy Bo voyage. As the album progressed there were some more images of New Jersey from the ship as it steamed towards India, and other images of the deck of the ship, but that’s not the interesting part of this story, I’ll get to that shortly.

Those people visited many areas in and around India but when they got to Bombay with old two wheeled carts being pulled by the native population, a snake charmer, a Swami, the hotel where they were staying, and all kinds of other people and places, things started to really get interesting. As I turned the pages I could see that the album layout was well thought out and was telling a story.

As I carefully turned the pages, I turned to a page with one of the women all decked out in a Pith helmet, Safari pants and shirt, and holding a big gun. I stopped in my tracks and had to take a second look. She was standing over a rather large dead tiger, and with one foot resting on it in triumphant victory! There were native Indians and elephants moving around in the background and the whole image had an air of excitement. Now I don’t condone the killing of animals just for the pleasure of doing it, but that image conjured images of Teddy Roosevelt charging off on some great Safari of his own, and represented the values of another far off time.

I was hooked. I asked the dealer how much he wanted for the album and after some good natured haggling we came to a price and I bought it. I have since found other very interesting photo albums filled with images of people and far off places, but that album will always be one of my favorites. If you want to start a collection of photo album stories for yourself, a good place to start looking would be at your local flea markets. I have found that they are the best place to find fresh to the market images and albums.

Happy hunting!

Bill writes a blog on collecting vintage photography, and has been collecting photos for 5 years. Bill also sells vintage photographs via his website http://www.photonutz.com

Tags: Collecting Vintage Photo Albums, Collecting Vintage Photos, photo albums, vintage photo albums

Megapixels: The Truth About them & Your CCD Sensor Size

Your camera CCD sensor size and the number of megapixels by ziv haparnas

The digital cameras megapixels madness is very similar to the personal computer Mhz madness back in the 90s. The number of pixels a camera uses to produce a digital photo is just one element in determining the photo quality. Another important element that is usually forgotten is the sensor size. Here is why.

Digital cameras use an electronic sensor (also known as a CCD) in order to capture a digital photo. This sensor replaces the old film rolls used by traditional cameras. The electronic sensor is built from small light sensors also known as pixels. When you take a photo the camera opens the shutter for a certain amount of time. During that time light hits each individual pixel. The amount of light that hits each pixel determines its intensity (also known as the pixel value). A digital photo is comprised of many pixels each with its own pixel value.

There is a direct relationship between the size of the CCD the digital camera uses, the number of megapixels it supports and the size of each pixel. For a fixed CCD size the more pixels the CCD supports the smaller each pixel is. On the other hand for a CCD with a fixed number of pixels, the larger the CCD the bigger each pixel is.

So why should you care about the pixel size? There are many reasons to care about the pixel size as it plays an important role in the overall quality of your digital photos. One reason that is very easy to understand is sensitivity to light. Assume that you are taking a photo with the shutter opened for a fixed amount of time. During that time light hits each pixel. The larger a pixel is the more light energy that it accumulates during that period of time. The result is that with larger pixels you could take photos in darker scenarios than with smaller pixels. Also – with larger pixels the amount of noise in each pixel value is reduced.

For example if you have two digital cameras both having the same number of pixels but one is using a larger CCD sensor – the camera with the larger CCD will be able to take digital photos that are sharper and with less noise. It will also be able to take digital photos in scenes that are too dark for the other camera. Higher light sensitivity also allows more flexibility with both shutter speed and aperture settings.

High end cameras like digital SLR use larger CCD than point and shoot digital pocket cameras. Why is that? The main reason is simple: cost. It costs more to manufacture a larger CCD (for reasons such as yield and other specific manufacturing processes issues). The CCD size also influences other optical attributes of the camera – for example the aperture needed in a specific scene changes as the CCD size changes. The depth of field is directly influenced by such aperture changes.

In conclusion, when buying a digital camera always remember not to get fixated on the number of pixels. Although this number is important it is not a standalone feature. If you plan to take digital photos in extreme conditions, if you do care about depth of field, aperture settings, shutter speeds and light sensitivity than you should also check the size of the CDD the camera uses among other optical parameters of the camera.

Ziv Haparnas writes about science and technology. More information on digital photo printing and photography is available on printrates.com – a site about digital prints

Tags: megapixels how important, the truth megapixels