Review Digital Camera World 11-07-2013

Digital Camera World

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Fine art photography: how to shoot – and print – an elegant portrait at home Nov 7th 2013, 00:01, by jmeyer Learn how to create a stylish piece of home art. Our fine art photography tutorial shows you how to shoot, edit and produce a high-quality print of a timeless black and white portrait. We're going to take you through the entire process of creating a fine art photography portrait in black and white, from the shoot to editing stage to producing a high-quality print. We'll be editing the image in Photoshop Elements and printing our image on fine art matt paper, using an A3+ photo printer. For our model shoot we're going to use a simple home setup and a studio flash light. If you don't have one of these you can use a flashgun, or even natural light and a reflector – if you're using a reflector you may need to increase the ISO or open the aperture more than we suggest in our tutorial to get a good exposure. If you're using flash or studio lights you'll need to set your shutter speed to 1/60 sec to sync with the lights, and balance the aperture setting with the strength of your flash. SEE MORE: Fine art photography: what you need to shoot amazing photo projects at home Set up to shoot and print fine art photography at home 01 Model and styling We're going to shoot a vintage style sepia-toned monochrome portrait, so we've accessorised our model with vintage clothes, props and styled their hair and make up. You could go for a similar style, or a Hollywood starlet look (in which case straight mono will look better than sepia), or stick with a straightforward portrait. We're using a plain white wall for our backdrop.   02 Shoot tethered We're using Canon's EOS Utility to shoot tethered to a computer, but other methods will be similar. Set your camera up on a tripod and connect the camera and computer using the USB cable supplied with your DSLR. Set your camera to Manual mode, then open EOS Utility and select the Camera Settings/Remote Shooting option – you can now control your camera settings via the shooting panel. Set the shutter speed to 1/60 sec and the ISO to 100, and balance the flash and aperture to get an even exposure. We've also set the Picture Style to Monochrome, so that we have a better idea of how image will look when edited.   03 Lighting setup We used a single studio flash light for our shoot, which we positioned to the side of our model to create a soft shadow on one side of her face. We connected the flash to our camera using the supplied cable, set the flash to a low power and set our aperture to f/11 to ensure all of our model was sharp. If you don't have a studio flash light you can use a flashgun, or just natural light and a reflector. You'll need to fire off a few test shots to determine the optimum flash and aperture settings – the beauty of shooting tethered to a computer is that you can see the results on a large screen instantly. SEE MORE: Photography lighting – how to take control of everything from natural light to off-camera flash   04 Paper and ink For the best results, stick to your printer manufacturer's proprietary papers and inks. Manufacturers create ICC profile settings for their consumables, and although third-party inks can be cheaper you're likely to find that your print colours won't be accurate. Professional printers aren't cheap to run, so be prepared to pay to get top quality. A standard A4 home printer will typically use four separate ink cartridges.   05 Framing Adding a frame can greatly enhance your printed image, as well as keeping it protected – we found some stylish but inexpensive frames that suited our retro theme in a high street shop. We mounted our print onto the backing card first, using an aerosol adhesive so our image remains flat in the frame – if you're doing this make sure you use an adhesive designed for use with photos, such as Photo Mount. Think about whether you want to include a mount around the image, and also if you want to include glass – while glass protects the print, it also reduces the intensity of the image's colours, and creates reflections. PAGE 1: Set up to shoot and print fine art photography at home PAGE 2: How to edit your fine art photography PAGE 3: How to print your fine art photography READ MORE Fine art landscape photography: pro camera skills for stunning scenic pictures Fine art nude photography: tips, techniques and free pdf guide Black and white photography – what you need to know to make perfect mono pictures 14 portrait photography tips you’ll never want to forget Studio Lighting – 4 seriously simple lighting techniques to try at home Break the rules of photography: 4 clever effects from using 'wrong' exposures Nov 6th 2013, 12:25, by jmeyer Once you know the rules of photography, you'll be able to use them in creative ways – particularly when it comes to exposure. But breaking the rules of photography doesn't merely mean getting the exposure wrong. It means deliberately choosing to expose 'imperfectly' to create a specific effect. Things that might spoil most photographs can add a new dimension in certain situations. Over-exposing a low-contrast subject and background can add delicacy and an ethereal quality to portraits, for example, while under-exposing can give a shot a dramatic, moody feel to interiors, portraits and many other subjects. Four ways to play with exposure and break the rules of photography All images by Ben Brain Effect 1 Contre Jour Shooting into the light, otherwise known as 'contre jour', is one of the more challenging situations to work in. The bright light of the sun will confuse your reading, clump the histogram to the far right and throw your highlight clipping alert into a blinking frenzy. However, it can also be a great way to add depth and emotion to your shots. In these conditions the best solution is switch to manual mode and use your camera's LCD screen and highlight alerts to make sure you've got detail where you want it, but don't be afraid to let some areas burn out completely. A winning shot doesn't always need detail in the deepest shadows and brightest highlights. SEE MORE: Digital camera effects from A-Z   Effect 2 Shake down Using a slow shutter speed is a great way to capture the swirling motion of water. Usually when using a slow shutter speed you'd expect to mount your camera on a tripod so that the static parts of the scene remain sharp. In this shot we were experimenting with slow shutter speeds but using the camera handheld and moving it sightly during the exposure. It might break some conventions of wisdom, but the impressive results show that challenging conventional wisdom can work too! You'll need to be prepared to experiment as there's a element of trial and error.   Effect 3 Low key Much of the shadow areas of this image have gone to pure black, and the histogram is clumped to the left – this was our intention as it's a great way to create a moody atmosphere. SEE MORE: 44 essential digital camera tips and tricks   Effect 4 High key Through a cunning combination of lighting and exposure it's possible to create beautiful high-key images. The trick is work on the limits of the histogram without blowing out the highlights. There's a big difference between a high-key image and an over-exposed one, so be careful to make sure you always have just a little detail or tone to your whitest areas, such as the delicate details in the lace of our model's top in the example here. This effect is easiest to achieve if you have a low contrast in tones between the subject and background. READ MORE 10 common exposure problems every photographer faces (and how to fix them) What is exposure compensation: free photography cheat sheet Exposure bracketing: how to capture fine detail in shadows and highlights How to use a camera: exposure modes made simple

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