Lighting Technicques

Most lighting techniques can be learned simply through observation. Anybody can take great photographs if they spend some time before working out the lighting. It is often times the main element that differentiates an interesting photograph and an amateur picture.

Especially if you are headed somewhere with different sights and nature, your photographs may be an inspiration to others who have never been there. - Learn about the types of lighting and its effects. Start by familiarizing yourself with the dramatic effects of the morning light, late afternoon and the dazzling romantic evening light. Avoid mid-day light as it tends to be too bright and results in overexposed pictures.

- When taking a close up of an object such as a flower, avoid placing the object on the center of the frame. This important tool is essential to both amateurs and professionals alike. It is used to help you capture objects at a perfect distance; the right shot at the right time.

- Take lots of photographs of the same object. Experiment with exposure settings and angles. - Practice is the key to taking good photographs. Take a closer look on the details of each photograph, as well as the photograph as a whole. Take part in amateur programs or exhibitions. Anybody can shoot great, professional looking photo's with a good understanding of lighting. Majority of striking photos depend on manipulating the lighting on your subjects. Because photos are a two dimensional medium, people tend to notice pictures that have a three dimensional feel to them.

- Easiest days to shoot photos are on cloudy or even foggy days where the light is filtered through and soft, creating a nice even light without being too harsh.

- Aim for "Golden Hour" sunlight. The sunlight during this time is soft, angled to provide 3 dimensional lighting, and has a special golden color that makes photos look great.

Tips for Indoor/Artificial Lighting, Professional photographers rarely place their light source directly facing the front of their subjects. They usually use what is called a 3 point lighting set-up. Two lights are shining at the subject from the side (one "main" light shining at 2/3 from the side of the subject's face, the second "fill" light is a softer light that fills in any harsh shadow on the last 1/3 of the subject's face). One light from the back to give the subject backlighting to separate them from the background.

You manipulate lighting set up mostly either:

1) Increase the distance from the light source and your subject to make the light softer (decrease distance if you want your light to be brighter)

2) Placing opaque filter (a sheet of wax paper or something similar) in front of the light source. This softens and diffuses any harsh light.

Taking Photo at Night

 As one of the main problems of taking photos at night is the lack of light this can cause changes to how the image is captured by the camera. Due to insufficient light the colours become more subdued and neutral while colour tones change. For example, you can widen the aperture which enables more light into the camera. You can also increase the amount of light by slowing down the shutter speed however, this makes the camera more sensitive to shaking which creates blurry images. Therefore, it is recommended that you use a tripod to steady the camera while taking pictures at night or in settings with low lighting. With modern cameras you can adjust the ISO setting. This means the shutter speeds are longer enabling the camera to catch movements in the dark more effectively. Below are some tips that any amateur photographer can use to master night photography.

You should also bring a good case for your camera as moisture during the night can easily permeate to your camera. The best camera to use for night work is actually the one with the manual exposure settings, preferably an SLR (single lens reflex). Exposures, One important thing that an amateur must remember in conducting night photography is the fact that longer exposures are needed for black and white photos compared to ordinary lighting. Use of flash, With insufficient light from the moon, most photographers will supplement the light with a hand-held flashes, a technique known as painting with light. Other more sophisticated ones may also use movie lights and torches as additional lights.

There is digital photography technique for night and low-light photography. Use your digital camera's built-in features to capture dramatic photos in dark or low-light conditions. Before you start shooting night photos, here are the some most important things to remember:

-          Disable your flash, Bring out breathtaking detail in low-light conditions by using a long exposure (the time your camera takes to collect light). Select Flash from the capture menu, then select Flash off. Press Menu/Ok.

-          Use a tripod, Long exposures require you to hold your camera perfectly still to avoid blurring. A tripod really helps. You can avoid touching the camera altogether by using the timer. The key to getting a successful night shot like this is wide aperture, low ISO, and a slow shutter speed.

-          Aperture, If your camera has manual settings, you can widen the aperture to allow more light to come through the camera lens which is vital at night when there isn't much light to begin with. Select either the Av (Aperture priority) or M (Manual) shooting mode on your camera to adjust aperture.

-          ISO,  A camera's ISO number dictates its sensitivity to light. A higher ISO (a "fast" ISO) will make your camera more light-sensitive, but will add more grain (or "noise") to your photo. If your camera allows you to adjust ISO, set it low (somewhere around 50 or 100) for sharp detail in low-light. This setting will increase exposure time slightly, but will produce a much richer photo.

-          Shutter speed, The shutter speed in this shot was at least a few seconds-pretty slow in camera terms. Select either the Tv (Shutter priority) or M (Manual) shooting mode on your camera to adjust shutter speed. Several HP digital cameras feature a Night Scenery shooting mode. This automatically disables the flash and uses a long exposure time.

Take a Picture of Moving Object

 If you are new to taking photos of Moving Object, lets cover some general photography tips:

    Learn and understand your camera settings. Even simple digital cameras have an array of settings to adjust from lighting, shutter speed and mode. Take a household object of your choice and take a picture of that same object multiple times, each time change the camera mode, turn the flash off or change the shutter speed.    Take pictures of moving objects, if you live by a busy road try panning shots (hold the camera and follow the vehicle as it crosses your path horizontally).  Take your camera everywhere!     Edit your photos, if you have a good photo editing program you should try to learn the basics such as how to adjust the lighting or make quick changes - you won't need anything to advanced but you'll find that touched up photos can make a simple photo even more extraordinary.

Still photography freezes a scene. You have probably experienced shooting blurry photos usually as a result of wrong camera settings or the object moving while you were taking the photo. Such blurriness is not something you would like to see in a photo but if controlled some blurriness can actually be used to capture and convey the feeling of motion in a still photo.

Shutter speed is what determines if a photo is frozen or blurry. The faster the shutter the more frozen the photo is. The slower the shutter the more motion is captured in the photo in the form of blurriness. Open the shutter for too long and the photo will be completely blurred.

There are two ways to capture motion: to blur the moving object while keeping the background in focus or to blur the background while keeping the object in focus:

Blurring the object, Blurring a moving object captures its motion. If you freeze such a scene with high shutter speed the viewer can not tell if the car is moving or if it is parked. However if you use a slower shutter speed the moving car is blurred and the feeling of motion conveyed.

Blurring the background (panning), Consider the same car from the above example. Another way to convey its motion is by blurring the background while keeping the car in focus. The concept is simple: set the camera to a slower shutter speed. Pan the camera in a way that it follows the car. The car stays still at the same spot in the photo. Then shoot the photo as you continue panning the camera to keep it aligned with the moving car. What is the right shutter speed needed to capture motion? If the object is very fast 1/50 of a second can be all that you need.

It is very important to keep the camera steady when taking photos using slower shutter speeds. Photos that capture motion are impressive. Start with experimenting blurring the moving object.