Lord Thompson Manor Making Pictures

Author: Billy Baker
Although the age of digital cameras has made it easier than ever to get good photos, you still need good photographic techniques to get the best results. It is alright to just point, shoot, and hope for the best. You will often get some great shots this way. But you will get even better results with your digital SLR camera if you understand some photography techniques. This will help you go from getting just good shots to getting amazing shots. The added benefit is you are in control of the situation and can reproduce the results over and over again. With a digital SLR camera you can afford to experiment. If you don’t like the result, you can just delete it and start again.

Photography Lighting Techniques

Lighting can be either your best friend or worst enemy. Lighting techniques in photography are varied and can be easy or they can be difficult, it’s upt to you. It will depend on what you are shooting. Maybe you want to take photos of cityscapes at night or photos in full sunlight - for good results you will need to understand good photography lighting techniques. Once you understand the basics of photography lighting techniques you will transform your photos into works of art.

Indoor Lighting Photography Techniques

There are different types of lighting you can use for indoor shots. Try using natural lighting that comes from windows, ceiling lights, candles, log fires, and any other indoor lighting. Many photographers use this to give a natural feel to their work. Often, though, there may not be enough natural light indoors. If this is the case, take a tip from portrait photography lighting techniques. Portrait photographers use big lights to flood their subject for the best results. The good thing is you can experiment with the light you have indoors.

Try taking a photo of your subject in different parts of the room using different types of lighting. This will give you an idea of what works. Experiment with the early morning sun streaming through the window then try backlighting the same subject and see the different effects. Indoor lighting subjects include a whole host of techniques and methods. It will become a natural instinct the more you play around with different effects.

Black and White Photography Techniques

Black and white photography techniques can produce some really nice results. If you are using a digital SLR camera, you will most likely have the option to capture your photos in black and white mode. Don’t use this mode. Use full colour so you get the full depth of light and shade. Use a photo manipulation program like Adobe Photoshop to transform your image into black and white. This gives you the flexibility to manipulate the output which you would not have if you took the photo in black and white.

If you really want to experiment with your camera in black and white mode, try using side lighting. Side lighting will create shadows on ordinary objects and give them a different perspective. This is an effective black and white photography technique that has great results on objects that are highly textured. Experiment by changing the camera angle and different lighting techniques. Use side lighting to enhance your black and white landscapes, people and buildings.

Street Photography Techniques

Street photography can produce some amazing results. They are shots of day to day occurrences; outdoor shots taken as asnapshot in time. Standing still or squatting while you watch and listen is a good technique; focus on what is happening around you. See the world differently. There is nothing more interesting than a candid shot of a moment in time. Here are some street photography techniques that may help you when out on the street:

- Tune into your surroundings. Learn to sense moments of climax such as laughter or loud voices.

- Be relaxed and enjoy your surroundings.

- Use crowded places you can walk in and out of to get your candid street shots.

- Don’t be invasive of people’s personal space, try using a zoom lens. This will not always work and you can lose some of the emotion you are trying to capture.

- Learn to take photos without bringing the camera to your eye. Practice taking photos from any position.

There is so much to learn about photography and, the more you learn the more addictive photography becomes.

Article By: Michael Russell
In almost every industry there is a need to capture records and moments. Are you interested in taking better pictures or becoming a serious photographer? There are things you want to understand before you get too serious. The fundamentals of photography aren’t just mere rules, but are foundations which determine how your photos will turn out.

Photography is the process of making pictures by using light. Light is one of the most important aspects of this art, because it determines color, brightness and shutter speed. The distance from the lens to the focal point is called the focal length. These lengths are measured in millimeters and will help in your choice of lens in the future. Longer focal lengths allow greater magnifications. If you want to take a picture of an object that is 40 feet away then you will need a large focal length. 50mm lenses see things normally and can be considered the view from your eyes. If the focal length is above 50mm it is known as a telephoto lens, while a focal length less than 50mm is a wide angle lens.

Focal length divided by the diameter of the aperture is called an F stop. This has an impact on how much light reaches your negative. If you are dealing with digital then you won’t have a negative, but the same rules apply here. F stops range from 1.4 -22 and vary on cameras. The cameras that offer the highest ranges offer more flexibility and options. These are usually pro models. Lower numbers have wider apertures and produce more light.

Shutter speeds are the length of the exposure or how long the shutter stays open. Once again this is a very important part of how light will be recorded. Shorter shutter speeds are needed for photos taken in bright sunlight, while longer shutter speeds are needed for night photos. Shutter speeds usually can be kept at around 1/250 of a second and will need to be adjusted accordingly. When deciding to take night photos you will need a tripod. Tripods are made in different sizes and vary in quality. A very sturdy tripod will be needed that can support your camera.

The resolution is digital cameras is measured in pixels. Although not found on film cameras, there is no need to worry because the image quality will be the same or greater. Digital cameras can be found with at least 12 megapixels today, but pixels that high would be on Pro models. Never buy a camera based on its pixel count, because that isn’t the deciding factor on the quality. Quality is determined by lens, sensor size, pixel count and quality of the camera itself.

Understanding these basic fundamentals will allow you to make better choices when taking photos in the future. When in doubt simply turn on your camera and take many pictures. Practice may not make perfect, but in photography the time you put into it will show. Just remember that when there isn’t enough light adjust your camera, which is the rule of thumb.

Author: Michael Russell
The word photography means “writing with light”. Light is essential to making photographs and you must understand how to use it in order to make your pictures as interesting as possible. There are two basic types of light: natural and artificial. The first comes from the sun, the other from man-made sources.

Natural light generally refers to daylight, although moonlight qualifies too. For photographers, light during the day can vary. There might be a bright or hazy sun that causes shadows. Or it could be heavy and overcast. Daylight also exists in the shade, where subjects are shielded from the direct rays of the sun. Daylight exists indoors, too so not all natural light shots are taken outdoors.

Artificial light is illumination produced by man. It may be an ordinary light bulb, a fluorescent tube, a bright photoflood, a tungsten halogen lamp, an electronic flash, or many other types. Since these types of illumination can be used outdoors, too, not all photographs shot with artificial light are taken indoors.

Photographers also talk about ambient light, existing light and available light. Regardless of the term, this is light - whether natural or artificial- that is already present in the subject area. A photographer who shoots by ambient, existing, or available does not provide any of his own illumination.

Just as there are types of light, there are types of lighting that have special significance for photographers. For instance, directional lighting, such as that provided by the sun, flash, or tungsten halogen bulbs in reflectors, is more precisely described as being front lighting, side lighting, or back lighting.

Front lighting is the most basic for photographers, although not the most appealing. A long-standing rule that says to put the sun at your back so it shines on the front of your subjects was established for good reasons. Early films and camera lenses were not as fast as those in use today; they required considerable light to make an exposure. Old time camera and film manufacturers knew that bright and direct sunlight on the subject would provide an adequate image on the film, so they recommended it. Also, a subject illuminated directly from the front shows every detail because it is uniformly lighted.

Front lighting is still popular today, but many photographers find it unsatisfactory for portraits and other subjects. The reason is that front-lighted subjects appear ‘flat’ because there are no shadows to give a feeling of depth. For this reason, front lighting is commonly referred to as flat lighting. Another disadvantage of front lighting is that people often squint because the sun is shining directly in their eyes.

Photographers have found that changing their camera angle or the position of the subject so that the main illumination is from the side gives more depth and interest to many of their pictures. This is especially true when shooting close-ups of objects. Side lighting can illuminate the left side or the right side of the subject, depending on your preference.

Backlighting refers to situations where the main source of illumination is behind the subject, shining in the direction of the camera. Backlighting requires careful exposure readings so that the front of the subject will be properly exposed. If a reading is made of the backlight itself, the subject will be underexposed and appear as a silhouette. With portraits outdoors, backlighting allows your subject to have a natural expression without squinting because bright light is not shining on his face or into his eyes.

When strong directional light comes from both sides, the technique is known as cross lighting. It is normally used in studio situations with flash or tungsten studio lights, not under daylight conditions.

By: Angela Hamm
Digital Photography is one of the best ways to take your own photos as well as make a little money taking other peoples photos. You just need to know what you can do and how it’s done. That way you will be on the way to making some really great digital photos that no one will see coming.

The Basics
There are a few things that you will need if you are going to take digital photography seriously. These things will also help you to take the best photos that you can and make you money if you decide that you want to go that way.

A Good Camera- This is the most important thing that you will need in order to take some good photos. These cameras are available at a good price and you can get many that are of good quality. Be prepared to spend $200-$1000 for a good digital camera. You might even spend more for a really great one if you want to.

Backgrounds- For your digital photography adventure, you might want to try some of the digital backgrounds that are available to you. These can be purchased or made with you computer. You can also look around you and find some really good natural backgrounds for your photography such as trees and grass that might be in your area. You might find some things in the area that are really beautiful and that will enhance your photos.

Good Software- Every digital photography studio should have some good software. This might be something that you got from the internet for a reduced price or something that you got from a computer store that may have cost a little more. It’s really up to you and how much you want to spend on the digital photography that you might take of others or your own family and friends. The software will enable you to change the photo in many ways. Some of this is with the colors and with the lighting. You will also be able to add effects in that you may not be able to in the traditional environment. With a little practice and some fun, you will be able to make everyone look great and maybe make some fun photos while you are at it.

These are all things that you will need in order to have a good experience with your digital photography and with the customers or people that you plan to take photos of. Take a little time to find out what you have and what you want to do with your digital photography. That way you will be able to get the most out of it as well as have the most fun doing it.

By: Sharon Cutajar
The choice between digital or film cameras is an extremely personal choice. Digital technology has made photography cheaper in the long run and easier than ever before.

There is an instant gratification with using a digital camera to take photographs. You can shoot the image, review, and know immediately what needs to be changed. This can be a lifesaver with landscape photography; imagine being in a once in a lifetime location or having an especially delicate light. If you have made a mistake with film photography, you may not discover it until the roll has been developed. With digital, you know instantly.

Digital cameras are also useful if you are a beginner. If you can identify a problem with your photograph instantly, you can then go ahead and correct it, or at least try to. With film there must be a development stage, and by then, you may have forgotten what settings you used, and what the problem was.

Also the developing is cheaper and easier, provided you have a computer and printer. Images can be downloaded, emailed and adjusted on programmes such as Adobe Photoshop in an instant. They can be printed cheaply in a professional or online lab, or you can print them at home on photo paper. There is no need to print every image, just the best of the bunch.

The downside to digital?

Firstly there is the issue of preservation; there are many tales of hard drives crashing or being stolen, or of CDs that held thousands of images being damaged. Unlike film, where there is the negative to rely on, digital images are intangible and most of the time, stored on computers.

The answer to this is to always create back ups of your work. Another good idea is to upload them onto an online server or photo sharing site - this means that if all your computers broke and you sat on all of your CDs, a copy of the images still exist in cyber space.

With a digital camera you have to be careful that you do not spend so much time editing an image, or deleting unsuitable ones that you forget to actually spend time taking a good picture. It is always worth keeping images you think are poor at the time and take a good look at them on a full screen monitor as you cannot always see the small details on the camera’s LCD screen.

Another important point with digital cameras is that there is a ‘magnification’ factor. This means that if you use a film lens with a digital camera, you may not necessarily get the image you expect. This is because digital SLRs have a smaller sensor than that of a 35mm film camera negative (which is 24×36mm). So using a film lens which covers the 24 x 36mm format on a digital SLR which has a 15 x 22mm sensor effectively makes the image slightly cropped, or appears longer in focal length (more of a telephoto look!).

Different brands have different multiplication factors. With a Nikon, you need to multiply the lens length, which is written on the lens (we will learn more about this later) by 1.5, with a Canon it is multiplied by1.6. You can check online or with the manufacturer of your camera to see what you need to multiply your lens length by.

This is more of a problem with wide-angle lenses for digital cameras, as a 28mm wide angle becomes smaller once the multiplication sum has been done. There are new, made for digital lenses being released to address the wide angle issue, but for now, they are expensive to purchase.

When it comes to film cameras, there are still those that prefer the look of film images to digital. This is a personal preference, although film purists say they love to zoom into an image and see the grains of silver as opposed to a mush of pixels!

With a film camera, there is the excitement of receiving a set of prints back and seeing how well you did. If you have a manual SLR camera, which does not require heavy rechargeable batteries, there is the benefit of not having to carry spare power sources, as digital photographers have to do. You can easily go to a local store and buy standard fit batteries for your film SLR camera.

Memory cards, which digital photographers must buy to store their images on, can become corrupt without notice, which means that their images are irretrievable. There is unlikely to be this problem with film, although developing labs do make mistakes and develop a roll badly.

Also, when you are choosing a roll of film, you must pick an ISO rating (more on this later). If you have a roll that has 36 frames and the weather conditions suddenly change, you cannot just swap the film over to a more suitable type - you have to finish the entire roll first.