Digital Camera World

Color Photography: using filters to get better tones Mar 29th 2013, 02:00 In the latest post in our series on understanding color photography, we take a look at camera filters and how you can use them to achieve perfect tones in-camera. This shot is spoilt by the glare reflecting off the surface of the postcards, which fooled the camera's meter into underexposure and desaturated all the colours. Many people imagine that camera filters are no longer necessary with digital cameras. After all, can't you do everything in Photoshop? Not quite. Some things are still easier to achieve with filters than with Photoshop, while other effects still can't be duplicated any other way. Warm-up filters are still useful, not because you can't warm images up in Photoshop, but because they often produce more natural-looking results and because it's at least as quick as trying to juggle the image's RGB values later. Don't all into the trap of taking any old shot and assuming you can make it perfect in Photoshop. Shooting things right is always preferable to trying to make them right later. This is the same setup, with the same lighting, shot immediately afterwards. Here, though, we've used a polarizing filter, carefully rotated until the glare is at a minimum. Quite an improvement, and impossible to achieve any other way. Using Polarizer filters in color photography Polarizing filters are a special case. Firstly, they can dramatically darken blue skies. Secondly, they cut down glare from reflective surfaces such as glass, plastic, and water, increasing saturation as a result. This is an effect you simply can't mimic later in Photoshop. Polarizer filters can be expensive, and if your camera's lens has a rotating front element they can be fiddly to use, too, because you'll have to re-adjust the orientation after the camera's focused. They also cut down the amount of light by 2-3 EV values, so you may need to increase the camera's ISO in poor lighting to avoid camera shake. There's no need to adjust the camera exposure since it'll compensate automatically. The only exception is where you want to preserve the depth of a blue sky. Here, rotate the filter so there's no darkening effect, lock the exposure, then turn the filter to darken the sky and shoot. PAGE 1: Using polarizing filters in color photography PAGE 2: Filter factors READ MORE Best graduated neutral density filters: 6 models tested and rated 7 cheap photo accessories you really need to own DIY Photography Hacks: make colour lighting gels from candy wrappers Grab £480 worth of Easter savings with Olympus (Advertising Feature) Mar 29th 2013, 00:01 Olympus is launching a £150 saving on its award-winning OM-D camera and extending its popular offer of free accessories worth up to £330 until Monday 1 April! For a limited time only over the Easter bank holiday weekend photographers can claim both offers and achieve incredible savings on Olympus’s latest gear. Starting on Friday 29 March, the new offer allows readers to claim a £150 savings on either the Olympus OM-D E-M5 body only or OM-D + 12-50mm lens kit. Launched last year, the flagship OM-D E-M5 brings the classic design of Olympus’s OM Series, introduced some 40 years ago, to the digital age. Among the OM-D’s signature features are its 1.44-million-dot electronic viewfinder, dust and splash proof construction, 3in tilt OLED touchscreen, 5 Axis Image Stabilisation and the world’s fastest autofocus system (as of February 2012 – Olympus in-house test). Combining these features from its E-system line of DSLR cameras with the needs of photographers who shoot with Olympus’s award-winning PEN Series, the OM-D is the camera our testing team called a “game changer”. Starting today, the previous Olympus OM-D kit price drops from £1149.99 to £999.99, and the body-only price falls to £849.99 from £999.99. Click here to learn more about the Olympus OM-D. The second offer available to readers sees Olympus extending its scheme of free accessories worth up to £330! From Friday 29 March to Monday 1 April 2013 you can claim either the M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8 Portrait lens worth £279.99 or an HLD-6 2-part battery grip worth £229.99 on redemption with an extra BLN-1 battery worth £59.99, whichever you choose. This Olympus accessory offer is available from selected stockists, including all Olympus Elite Centres. Click here for more information about the offers. Click the infographic below to find the Olympus stockist nearest you and to see the full terms and conditions of each offer. READ MORE 16 new cameras we’d like to see in 2013 10 common camera mistakes every photographer makes 99 common photography problems (and how to solve them) Emotional Images: how to add feeling with muted tones and harmonious color Mar 28th 2013, 03:00 Find out how to convey mood and make emotional images by using muted tones and harmonious color schemes. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to shoot on-trend emotional images without any fancy software. Color combinations "Seek the strongest color effect possible. The content is of no importance…" declared Henri Matisse, the daddy of modern art and leader of the Fauves – a radical group that used flamboyant color to express mood and emotion rather than as a means of realistic visual representation. If the great man were alive today he might well have applied this dictum to digital photography. By using a long telephoto or macro lens to isolate dynamic color combinations, you can create intriguing and arresting abstract compositions where color reigns supreme. Bright, artificial objects found in the home or outdoors make excellent 'dominant color' subjects – for the best results shoot from an unusual viewpoint and carefully frame your subject to conceal its identity. Take care when selecting your color combinations, though – in man-made urban environments, random contrasting colors often appear close together, which can give images a chaotic, jarring or even offensive feel. PAGE 1: Choosing your color combinations PAGE 2: Emotional images in low-key color PAGE 3: Using harmonious color schemes PAGE 4: Using the Monochrome palette PAGE 5: Diffusing flash for softer colors READ MORE 15 common photography questions from beginners (and how to solve them) 10 rules of photo composition (and why they work) 99 common photography questions (and how to solve them) Color Photography Explained: simple tips for making your brightest-ever images

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