What is the “Aperture” and How It Affects the Depth of Field?

We are constantly bumping on this “Aperture” notion, especially when we are trying to buy a new lens. Well the main function of a camera lens it’s to collect light. But often we need to control the amount of light coming in: some times we need more and other times we need less. Well this is the job of the aperture (which in fact is an iris), to control the amount of light getting in ( the larger the diameter of the iris, the more light gets to the image sensor). Another fact that aperture controls is the Depth Of Field.

So the aperture is measured in F-stop : f/1.8, f/2.8, f/10, etc. The smaller the f number (value), the larger is the diameter of the iris, and the  bigger the  f number (value) the smaller is the diameter of the iris. You might ask “Why it’s so twisted?”. Well because the F Number is represented by the formula F/D (F= focal length, D= diameter of the iris). So as you can see the diameter of the lens varies at different focal lengths.This is because a 300mm lens needs an larger “hole” to collect the same amount of light as a 50mm lens with with the same aperture. In fact that’s the reason why those 300mm, 400mm, 600mm, are so huge, because they need a hole large enough to catch enough light. Also that’s why there aren’t  super telephoto lens like 600mm with small f/number, for example f/1.8 (first of all will have a microscopic depth of field, and second of all will be an enormous).

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Tags: Photography, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials

What is the “Shutter Speed” and When You Can Use It To Your Advantage?

As I promised a few posts back i would like to start talking about some basic aspects of the camera. Like Shutter Speed, Aperture, ISO, Camera Settings, etc.

Today I will talk about Shutter Speed. Here is a list o things you should know about this:

1. What is Shutter Speed?

As the name says, it’s the speed of the shutter is opening and closing. In fact it is measured in the time the shutter stays open (from 1/8000 of a second to 30 seconds and more in the bulb mode). So if you take your photo with 1/250th of a second the shutter stays open for 0,004  (1/250) seconds, or if you take it with 1/25 of a second the shutter stays open for quarter of a second. Read more…

Tags: Camera Basics, Gear, Photography, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials

Keep your photographs organized.

Since a few days I’ve talked about ways of backing up your photos, I think it appropriate to talk about organizing your photographs, since keeping your photos organized helps to find your well organized photos.

First of all it’s very useful to use a software that helps keeping you organized and even helps you finding your images much faster. Since there are dozens of software packages for this kind of job it all comes down to personal preference and a few very important features that would help you a lot, like:

• Organize by Category, Calendar Date, Keyword, etc.
• Let’s you assign rating and tag
• Thumbnail view
• RAW support (in case you work a lot with RAW images)
• Helps you backing up your photos easily
• Easy E-mail sharing

I have compiled a list of software packages for your organizational need.

For professional users (has a lot of professional features) :

• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe Bridge
• Apple Aperture (Mac users only)
• ACDSee Pro Photo Manager

For regular users (has all the feature you need for our every day family photos) :

• ACDSee Photo Manager
• Ulead Photo Explorer
• Corel Photo Album
• CompuPic
• Picasa (Free)

Although you have whatever software you need you still have to know some other things. To be more specific here is my work flow when I come from a shoot:

1. Soon after I pop in my memory card into the card reader I create a new folder named like this: ” Year-Month-Day-Specific Number A specific name” (The specific number refers to the case where i have a couple of different shoots). Here is an example, let’s say today I had two portrait sessions with John Doe and Jane Doe, I have two different folders named: “2008-12-20 (1) John Doe portrait session” and “2008-12-20 (2) Jane Doe portrait session”.
2. Copy the folder onto my external drive.
3. I review the photos and delete the worst of them (Blurry, test shots, etc).
4. I usually leave the default names of the photos.
5. I import the photos into Adobe Lightroom.
6. I tag and rate my photos (5* excellent, 4* good, 3*usable, and the rest receives 1*)
7. I back up the photos on a CD/DVD.
8. And after all of that I format my memory cards.

As you can see I am a little paranoid, having three different copies of the photos.

Bottom line is experiment, and use what is better for you and not time consuming. Happy organizing.

Tags: Backup, Photography, Tips & Tricks

4 Ways To Keep Your Photographs Safe and Backed Up.

Photo by chadh

The worst nightmare of a photographer worst than get his equipment stolen, it’s to lose his photographs. Being in digitized era the risks of losing you photographs and even documents, it’s higher than in the film era. There are a bunch of risks, from accidental deletion to hardware failure, file corruption and the list goes on.
Losing a photograph it’s worst than loosing something you created, which can be recreated the only thing you’re going to lose it’s time. But a photograph, you cannot go back in time and nail the exact same shot (I also consider that a photograph is unique, there aren’t two photos that loo the same even if there where shot at the same time).
So I will try to give you some advices on how to protect your precious photographs.

1. Always backup your photos on a DVD.

Every time you copy you photograph from your camera to your hard drive the first this you have to remember to do is to back  up onto a DVD or CD. There are so cheap compared to how much trouble can get you out from.

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Tags: Gear, Hardware, Tips & Tricks, Web

Tips & Tricks: How to take Sharp Photographs

Taking sharp photographs is the dream of every photographer. However taking crisp, clean images can be quite challenging.  I would like to share with you guys some tips on how to get razor sharp photographs, but before that let’s see what are the common causes for lack of sharpness:

Wrong focusing. The most common cause for blurry photos is not focusing right. Often happens to focus on the wrong part of the image, or using a very narrow depth of field, or taking the photo quick without checking if it is in focus, and all of this helps in throwing your subject out of focus and obtaining blurry photographs.

Low value of the shutter speed. This causes 2 sets pf problems: Camera shake and Subject movement. This two makes blurry photos because your shutter speed is too low to freeze the action.

Noise. Sometimes using high ISO values might get you results with lack of sharpness. Although since cameras evolve so quickly these days, higher ISO values might still get you very sharp images.

Here are 9 ways of improving your photographs sharpness:

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Tags: Camera Gear, Canon, DSLR, Editing, Lenses, Nikon, Photo Test, Photography, Photoshop, Tips & Tricks

Photoshop tutorial: Sharpen your photo using High Pass Filter

Many people asked me how come I have so sharp images. Well, beside the fact that I do my best to keep my shutter high and keep my camera steady, I retouch the photos in photoshop. You all might think  “Ohh, the unsharp mask”, but i have to tell you that you are wrong. The alternative method I use for sharpening is the High Pass Filter method. This method provides good sharpening while minimizing image degradation.

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Tags: Editing, Photography, Photoshop, Tips & Tricks

10 ways to protect your camera gear

If you own a DSLR you have probably spent a lot of money on the camera, lenses and other accessories. That is why protecting your gear must be a mission for you. Here are some tips on how to do that.

1. Invest in cleaning tools. Investing in proper and good quality cleaning tools it’s the first step into be more careful with your camera. It is a relatively cheap investment compared to the price of your gear. You can get rid off with paying just 15 to 40$. Don’t risk ruining your gear by cleaning it with the wrong set of tools. There are 2 set of tools: one for you camera exterior interior and lenses and one for you image sensor.
2. Cover your lenses. Covering you lenses with an UV filter it’s another way o protecting it from scratches, dust, smudgy hands, and even dropping, since  you don’t damage your front element of the lens but you will damage your UV filter which it’s way less expensive than your lens. An UV filter it’s about 10 to 100$ depending on your lens diameter and of the quality of the UV filter. But be aware that buying  a cheap filter might change the way your photographs come out that being in a negative way Read more…

Tags: Camera Gear, DSLR, Photography, Tips & Tricks

Take better Photographs tips.

Often happens that when we copy the brand new photographs from the camera on our PC and look at them we, see a lot of “very good photographs”, but when we show it to others we find that are quite not that good. That is because our photograph has a lot of visual and compositional mistakes and doesn’t tell a story ( being a wide subject I will talk more about the composition in another post ). This facts can make your photo very unappealing. We are often fooled by the fact that we know the whole story of a photo because we were there, but our viewer wasn’t there so he must understand from the little point of vie caught in your photo (We have a subjective look on our photos and might block us from seeing the mistakes). But it’s always a good idea to have a “fresh eye” so don’t be afraid to ask for opinions.

So here are some advices to follow that will improve your skills in taking better photographs:

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Tags: Composition, Photography, Tips & Tricks