Review Digital Camera World 10-23-2013

Digital Camera World

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Pictures of autumn: how to shoot Fall colors and textures in close-up Oct 22nd 2013, 23:01, by jmeyer Autumn photography is full of wonderful colors and textures, and one way to emphasize them in stunning detail is to shoot them close-up. In this tutorial we show you how to shoot amazing macro pictures of autumn. As autumn sets in, the cool colors of summer foliage are replaced with eye-catching yellows, reds and russet tones. Morning dew coats everything in fine droplets that sparkle in the early sunlight. Insects become lethargic and easier to approach, and late-flowering plants display their blooms. In northern climes, the first frosts add another layer of interest to leaves and berries, while in woodlands weirdly shaped fungi are emerging. There's no better time to delve into the miniature world, so arm yourself with these core skills and start exploring. To get started, you'll need the right tools for the job. Many zoom lenses boast a macro setting, which is useful, but these are usually less than half life-size magnification. For true autumn macro photography – sometimes referred to as 1:1 or life-size – there are two main options: a dedicated macro lens in the range of 50 to 200mm or extension tubes, inexpensive glassless rings that fit between the camera and lens to allow closer focusing. If you don't already own a macro lens, extension tubes are a cheap and effective way to get into close-ups. A longer focal-length lens – either a dedicated macro or telephoto plus extension tubes – enables you to isolate the subject from its surroundings by setting a wide aperture to create a diffused background. This helps to remove competing elements in the frame, and focus attention where you want it most. A longer lens also has advantages when tackling skittish insects such as butterflies and dragonflies: it means you can obtain frame-filling shots from further away. An issue for some macro work is getting the entire subject in sharp focus. The answer lies partly in the correct positioning of the camera. The idea here is to align the camera so the sensor and the subject are parallel, and therefore in the same plane of focus. A tripod is essential to allow small adjustments to be made and to focus accurately. Obviously this relies on having a static subject, but this is usually the case for most macro work. Sharper images The other principal factor that effects image sharpness is the aperture setting. As the f/stop number increases, the lens opening (aperture) decreases, which has the effect of increasing depth of field. This is great for increasing the amount of the subject that comes into focus, but it will also make the background more defined. This can be helpful when you want everything in the frame to be as sharp as possible. But in other cases, where you are trying to isolate the subject, it can lead to a distracting background. Experiment with different aperture settings, and check the results back home to see what gives the best results. An alternative approach is to deliberately shoot at wide apertures to minimize depth of field and create a softer look to your images. By selectively focusing on just one element within the picture, the viewer's eye will naturally be drawn to this main focal point of the shot. Set the lens to its maximum aperture, such as f/4, and focus on a specific part of the subject with everything else blurred. It helps to manually focus the lens for greater control and to avoid the lens from hunting (searching for focus), which can be a problem when using autofocus for macro work. PAGE 1: Ideas for macro pictures of autumn PAGE 2: How to add quality to your pictures of autumn PAGE 3: Create abstract pictures of autumn PAGE 4: 4 ways to improve your macro pictures of autumn READ MORE Macro nature photography: tips for taking pin-sharp pictures of flowers and insects What is a macro lens: magnification and minimum focusing distance explained Dull day photography: what (and how) to shoot when the sun isn’t shining Fall color: how to photograph autumn leaves and seasonal textures 10 common landscape photography mistakes every photographer makes Food photography tips: 10 ingredients for delicious images Oct 22nd 2013, 12:49, by jmeyer Food photography is perhaps the fastest-growing genre of photography, thanks to the rise blogging, smartphones and television shows like the Great British Bake Off and Masterchef. But getting the right look in your pictures of food is no easy task. There’s more to food photography than simply snapping your plate, and below we’ve rounded up 10 essential food photography tips to help your images look more professional. Food photography tips: 01 Use natural light Natural light can be lovely for food shots but you need lots of it to bring out colour and contrast. Try shooting next to a large window or consider taking your dishes outside to photograph them. Food photography tips: 02 Better flash A flashgun can supply all the light you need, but it's prone to producing 'specular highlights' (unwanted small, very bright spots). Try bouncing the flash off a sheet of white card instead of firing it directly at the food. Food photography tips: 03 Composition It's usually best to be minimal with composition but a couple of props, such as quality crockery or fine cutlery, can add to the shot. Use them sparingly and choose items that suit the mood you're aiming to convey. Food photography tips: 04 Go geometric Strong geometric shapes work well, so keep this in mind when cutting food and arranging it together on the plate prior to shooting. Food photography tips: 05 Add garnish Blandly coloured food, such as bowls of pasta, can look particularly unappetising. An easy way to liven up less visually interesting dishes is to simply add some colourful garnish. Food photography tips: 06 Picture Styles Alandscape Picture Style accentuates blues and greens, while a standard Picture Style emphasises reds and yellows. Therefore, to get the best out of your subjects, ensure you choose the style that best suits the colours that you are looking to enhance. Food photography tips: 07 White Balance Different manual White Balance settings, such as Daylight, Cloudy, Shade and Tungsten, can add trendy colour casts to make shots look more dynamic. Food photography tips: 08 Selective focus A small depth of field, where only a small part of the dish is in focus, can work really well. Use a macro or long telephoto lens at a wide aperture for best results. Food photography tips: 09 Bump up the colour For real colour impact, increase the saturation setting in a Custom Picture Style, or do this after the event in a program such as Digital Photo Professional or Photoshop Elements. Food photography tips: 10 Hot shots If food is supposed to look hot, it should be steaming. Get everything set up first so that you're ready to shoot food straight from the oven. READ MORE Food photography made easy: professional tips you can easily digest Still life photography: how to light your crafting photos Photo Ideas: fine art food photography Still life photography: depth of field mastered in 8 steps 10 rules of photo composition (and why they work) Shooting raw format photos: 8 questions every beginner wants answered Oct 22nd 2013, 10:15, by jmeyer Shooting raw format photos means fewer pictures on your card and more time spent editing your images. So why do nearly all pros do it? Below find answers to 8 common questions every beginner has about shooting raw format. 01 Is raw a good thing, as in sushi, or a bad thing, as in sewerage? Read on as we explain the pros and cons. Essentially, raw is a file format and is generally the one digital alternative you get to shooting in JPEG. Being able to choose a raw format shooting option is one of the advantages of using a digital SLR or a top-of-the-range compact. 02 So what's its advantage over the universally popular JPEG? The raw file, as its name suggests, stores the data from your camera's sensor in a raw, unprocessed state. This presents a number of advantages in terms of flexibility and image quality. Some like to think of raw files as the digital equivalent of the old-fashioned film negative. This modern "negative" stores lots of information that can then be accessed by careful craftsmanship in the "digital darkroom" – a computer loaded with a suitable editing program. A raw file gives you all the raw data, so you can tweak settings at a later date without affecting image quality. Sharpness settings, contrast, white balance and even exposure are some of the key things that you can alter when you get back home to the computer. SEE MORE: How much can you REALLY recover in raw? 03 Isn't that cheating? Shouldn't you get those settings right when you take the picture? Some old-timers might argue that, but the beauty of the digital process is that you have so much more control over your results. Thanks to the raw format, you can tweak the colour, brightness and shadow detail, and all in a non-destructive way. Because it is possible, a good photographer should take full advantage of the facility. It's not just for rescuing less successful shots – in fact, it's the scope to fine-tune contrast, colour and more that is the real appeal of the raw format. 04 Does raw bring anything else to the party? Yes. It captures more information than a JPEG. JPEGs are eight-bit files – offering values from 00000000 to 11111111 for each of the three primary colours (red, green and blue). For those who don't speak fluent binary code, this means a JPEG provides 256 separate values for each colour channel. This impressively offers a gamut of 16.7 million colours for each pixel in the picture (256x256x256). However, a digital SLR can detect much more detail than this… 05 How much more? Digital SLRs are typically either 12-bit or 14-bit devices – offering around 4,000 or 16,000 brightness levels per channel. This translates into a maximum of 68.7 billion or four trillion different colours. That may sound like overkill, but recording all of these in a raw file enables you to make serious alterations to contrast, exposure and colour balance during the editing process without nasty side effects such as posterisation. Top-end editing programs can use 16-bit processing to ensure you retain all the available data throughout the editing process. 06 Do all editing programs support raw? Most offer at least some form of raw support. Many of the programs supplied with your camera will enable you to process raw files, and recent versions of popular photo editing software such as Serif PhotoPlus, Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Corel PaintShop Pro have full support for raw files. However, raw is not a standardised file format. Each manufacturer uses its own proprietary system for encoding the data. Plus, with each new version of a camera released, new code changes are introduced. This means that editing programs need to be constantly updated to support the raw files of the latest cameras. 07 That sounds mad! Why is this the case? It can be infuriating, certainly. Updates for the editing program can take a while to become available when new cameras appear and Adobe, infamously, does not offer updates for old versions of Photoshop (so you have to update the whole program, rather than simply downloading a free replacement plug-in if you are not using the latest version of its market-leading software). Adobe has tried to encourage the industry to switch to DNG – an open-source raw standard, but only a few manufacturers have embraced this. 08 Should I use the raw format all the time? Generally, you should use the raw format whenever possible. There are disadvantages, though. For starters, the files take up more room on your memory card and computer than a JPEG. This means they're going to take longer to record to your memory card in the first place. This has a knock-on effect as to the maximum number of files you can take in continuous shooting mode before the buffer is full and the camera temporarily freezes. In raw, some DSLRs will hit this barrier after just three or four shots. So sports and action photographers tend to shoot in JPEG, which enables them to shoot longer rapid-fire sequences, minimising the risk of missing the best shot. READ MORE Raw images: 10 tips every beginner must know before ditching JPEG The best way to save a raw file How to rescue a raw file in Adobe Camera Raw Best photo editing tips for beginners: 18 quick fixes to common image problems Raw processing: can you avoid the computer entirely?

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