photography tips

Manual Mode in DSLR Camera is considered to be an out-of-this-world setting that many people never ever think of trying it. I have come across many people who own DSLR Camera for many years but never tried. Most popular reason being that it requires them to have technical know-how of Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO settings which has a steep learning curve.

If this reasoning rings a bell even for you, let us tackle it right here right now. You will see yourself playing  around with Manual Mode like never before within matter of few minutes.

I have used images of Canon Rebel T3i DSLR camera settings in this article. Most of the Canon DSLRs probably have very similar settings. If you are a Nikon DSLR owner, please read DSLR Basics: 8 Easy Steps to Learn Manual Mode for Nikon DSLR Cameras.

If you follow these steps exactly the way I describe, you will never have to switch back to Auto mode.

Want to learn photography? Download Beginner’s Guide to Photography.

Step 1: Pick up your Camera and Start the Timer

This is the most important step. If you are just reading it in your office, or a restaurant, or a coffee shop, then no matter what, you will never learn it. If you do not have access to camera right now, then stop it here. Go back home, pick up your camera and then follow the next steps.

Start the timer now. Let us see how much time you will take to understand the manual mode.

Step 2: Turn the Mode dial to point to M which means Manual Mode

Rotate the mode dial, which is usually at the top right hand side, to point to M . Some of the models may have the mode dial at the top left hand side.

How to photograph people jumping

by yah mewade

Photographing sharp images of people jumping isn’t as hard as it seems if you follow these few simple rules. In this tutorial I’ll show you my best tips for capturing jumps without the use of a flash.

Here is an example image shown below that I photographed a couple of months back of a friend jumping on a local beach. The only editing I’ve done is to crop the image for internet viewing. It really was this sharp straight out of the camera. Several were so sharp they almost looked superimposed!

So how did I take this shot? Firstly I sat on the ground so the jump seems much higher that it actually was. Your model will thank you for it later on.

Camera settings for one person jumps

When photographing one person jumping, I always set my DSLR camera to shutter priority. This allows me to concentrate on the speed of the shot and the camera adjusts other settings to suit. The shutter speed is the most important setting for capturing the person nice and sharp. I find a speed of 1/400th of a second works every time.

Camera settings for groups of people jumping 

When photographing two or more people jumping, I use aperture priority, yet still keep my attention on the shutter speed. Why aperture priority? There is no use photographing a group of jumpers if only one person is sharply focused. Hence I set my aperture to f/5.6 following the rules on aperture settings for portraits.

Here is my technique for groups

Set your camera to aperture priority and choose an aperture of f/5.6. Before the group starts jumping, press your shutter button half way down while looking through the viewfinder and you’ll notice camera settings listed along the edges of the screen light up. Take note especially of the shutter speed. If the shutter speed is 1/400th of a second or faster then you are ready to shoot. If not, up your ISO to a higher number. Personally I increase my ISO by 100 at a time and try again, adjusting from there until the shutter speed is showing as 1/400th of a second minimum.

Auto Focus

Keep the focal switch on the side of your lens on AF. Obviously you won’t have time to manually focus.

Focal Points

Personally I like to set a middle single focal point. This set up will ensure you can easily find the focal point and focus on the person as they start their jump. If you are not sure what I mean by focal points, then read this article on how to focus DSLR cameras.

Continuous Shooting

I set my camera to continuous shooting, also called burst mode on some DSLR cameras.  Continuous shooting will allow you to take several shots or more per second. Your camera will keep shooting, as long as your finger holds down the shutter button. Note, cameras do limit how many you can take in any one burst until it needs to clear its cache. So if you hold your finger down on the shutter and it suddenly stops shooting, this is perfectly normal. That is your camera telling you it needs to catch up!

Pre-focusing

If the person is jumping up and down in the same spot, what you can do is pre-focus before they leap. It’s important that they don’t change their distance from you when they jump. i.e don’t jump forward or back. For these types of shots, I sometimes press my shutter button half way down to pre-focus, then ask them to jump as I press the rest of the shutter and take several burst shots.

Should you move the camera up and down with the jumper?

Until you perfect the technique it’s best to keep your camera steady in one place. Therefore don’t zoom in too far that you cut the persons head off when they are at the top of their jump. Once you have perfected these camera settings and technique, you can then try panning up and down with the person to show motion in the background.

How to focus for landscapes

by  yash mewade

How do I focus for landscape photography and what exactly does it mean when someone says ‘focus one third into the scene’?

This is a question a beginner photographer asked me recently and to be honest it’s something I’d wrongly presumed everyone understood how to do.

When photographers shoot typical landscapes, they are generally wanting a wide angle image with as much focus as possible from front to back. This is when they often set a large aperture number, for example anywhere between f/11 and f/22, then focus one third into the scene before taking the shot. Ok, now what does that mean exactly!

For starters you need to set your camera to a single focal point and know how to switch between them. If you don’t understand how to do this, I suggest reading your camera manual or these tips on focal points.

To focus one third into the scene I look through my rear vision and choose one of the bottom focal points. Similar to the example image below.

Note: For the focal points to light up you need to press your shutter button half way down. Then you will be able to switch between points, choosing one that is roughly 1/3rd of the way up from the bottom of an image.

The depth of field extends roughly from 1/3 in front to 2/3 behind the focus point when shooting landscapes with this technique. Therefore in this example shown above, everything from the sand in the foreground to the end of the wharf and horizon is in focus.

What would happen if I focused on the horizon?

If I were to focus on the horizon, the incoming wave in the foreground and the shine of the sand would have appeared much softer and therefore not as sharp. Many photographers use this technique to their advantage when photographing country sceneries for example and they want foreground grass to appear blurred like the image shown below.

Remember, where you focus affects what areas of the landscape are seen in sharp focus, and what areas are blurred. For wide angle landscapes use the rule of focusing 1/3rd into the scene coupled with a high aperture f-number for sharp shots.

What does sharp focus really mean?

I recently had a beginner photographer say to me, ‘when I look at my images in full size, the trees on the mountains are never sharp, especially when I crop to the trees’. What this photographer meant was, the image isn’t properly focused because there is no details seen in the trees on the horizon. This is actually normal for DSLR cameras. They work very much like our eyes. Details are much more apparent on nearer objects than those much further away in distance.

Take the first photo on this page for example. With my own eyes I could see the ripples in the sand, but not the details of the trees on the far mountains. Therefore don’t expect your DSLR camera to show details either when cropping the image to the trees. It doesn’t mean the image isn’t sharply focused from front to back, it simply means just like your eyes, that is exactly how the camera saw this particular landscape.

Best aperture setting for portraits photography

Best aperture setting for portraits

by yash mewad

Here I share with you my aperture settings when photographing portraits. As a professional photographer I have gained much knowledge over the years on what aperture settings are best for specific situations.

Generally speaking when shooting portraits, photographers want to isolate the person and nicely blur the background. Unless you are shooting a holiday snapshot, the background is normally unimportant. Therefore that’s what I’ll focus on in this post.

Quick Formula Rules 

If I’m photographing one person I use the lowest aperture number my lens will allow, which is normally f/2.8. Note, not all lenses go that low, but good portrait lenses do!

When photographing two or three people, I change my camera’s aperture setting to f/4

Four or more people, I set f/5.6 aperture.

When photographing portraits, it’s important to make sure the people are sharp. Not everyone’s eyes will be nice and sharp if you are setting up a group shot with an aperture of f/2.8. Take this image below for example where I’ve taken a shot of two people on the lowest aperture my lens would go (f/2.8). Notice only one of the models faces are in sharp focus? This is because the blond haired model tilted her head somewhat back further in distance than the other. It wasn’t long before I noticed my error and adjusted my aperture to f/4 using the rules listed above.

Why not simply set a high aperture to start with?

The higher you set your aperture number, the more detail you’ll see in the photo. This isn’t always good for portrait photography. Wrinkles, pimples and other unwanted blemishes will suddenly appear multiplied. The secret to being a great portrait photographer is to hide such imperfections.

Personally I always aim for sharp eyes, but softness in other areas.  Take this photo that I shot of a teenage girl below for example.

For this image I set the lowest aperture my lens would allow. Notice her eyes are nice and sharp, yet there is also softness seen in her right shoulder and shoulder blade. Sharp, yet soft at the same time, with no harshness. The lower aperture number also knocked out the background by creating a nice blur, isolating the subject. This particular portrait was taken mid afternoon on a beach. We found a nice dark area with dense tree cover overhead. The background was created from the darkness of shrubs seen further in from where the girl was sitting.

Quick run down on those basic rules again

One person, use the lowest aperture setting your lens will allow.
Two or three people, set an aperture number f/4.
Four or more / group shots, set f/5.6 aperture.

Keep it simple and you’ll never have any problems photographing portraits!

Tips for selling stock photography

Firstly what is stock photography?

Stock photography (also called micro-stock or micro-payment photography) generally refers to images that are uploaded to an agency, so they can be added to a photo library for others to purchase. The photographer makes a commission per sale, anything between 25 cents and five dollars, or more depending on the agency. Stock photography is normally in reference to selling images on your own website or larger paying agencies such as Getty Images or Alamy. Whereas microstock or micro payment photography are subscription based agencies such as Shutterstock, Dreamstime, or istockphoto to name a few, where the photographer will receive a smaller profit over a longer time.

For example, I've made several hundred dollars from this photo of a water droplet shown below through Getty Images. They saw it on my flickr account and requested the image for their clientele and has now sold several times, giving myself anywhere between $60 and $150 profit each time. Keep in mind their clientele are normally magazine publishers and those willing to pay a higher price for republishing your images. Sales from these types of agencies are often few and far between but when they do happen they pay well.

Now lets look at an example of an image that sells well across all microstock agencies. Yes that's right, little Nemo (photographed in an aquarium) is a popular image selling almost daily on one microstock site or another. The difference being, with microstock agencies the photographer usually only makes between thirty cents to five dollars per sale. Buyers are offered subscriptions allowing them to download many images per month for very little cost. When someone from a microstock subsciption makes a purchase, the photographer usually gets as little as 25 cents (depending on other factors). However, these sales happen more often so as the photographer you reap the benefit over a longer period of time.

At this stage you are thinking gees that's not very much money! At first this may not seem like a lot, however it's important to keep in mind that a single photograph could possible sell thousands of times over, making you a very neat profit. Imagine getting 25 cents every time you press your cameras shutter button!

Is stock photography still worth it?

Reading forums and photography blogs, there seems to be a lot of negativity recently when it comes to stock photography. Photographers aren't getting as much profits as they were several years ago. So your next question might be, is stock photography still worth it or how much money do you make from stock photography? In my personal opinion it is definitely still worth your time and effort.

Here are the reasons why:

• Lets face it, how many images do you have sitting on a hard drive somewhere that no one looks at? Why not have them sitting on several stock sites with the potental of earning you extra residual income. I can tell you now, residual income is awesome! You upload the images once and reap the rewards for years.
  
• How many images do you have sitting on free photo galleries like flickr or 500px? Why not upload them to microstock websites instead and earn extra income. In my experience microstock communities are just as fun and friendly as flickr and 500px if you enjoy the social aspect of mixing with other photographers. I find this especially true with Dreamstime community.
  
• If you are new to stock photography you won't be comparing profits with those from several years ago. You'll be comparing them with going from zero dollars to a couple of hundred dollars or more per month across a dozen stock sites. In my experience if you have one thousand images on eight to twelve of the top microstock agencies you'll make roughly $500 per month. Now I don't know about you, but $6000 extra income per year for me means a new camera, a few professional lenses, a high quality photo printer with a years supply of inks and fine art papers. That sure beats uploading them to free photo galleries!
  

This image above is a great example of a photo that sat on my hard drive for years and now sells every few days. It was an image I'd forgotten about until looking through old photographs a few month ago. I also have several other images selling well from the same trip to the zoo. Stock photography doesn't necessarily mean professional shots set up with white backgrounds. Often the best sellers are those you shoot in every day activities. 

Stock photography tips

After submitting photographs to twelve different stock agencies, this is what I've learned so far about selling microstock.

• Submit your photographs to more than one stock agency. There is no reason to limit yourself to only one microstock site. They all have different customer bases who will be searching similar keywords. I find if an image sells well in one agency, it will also sell well in another. Imagine the sales I'd have lost if I limited myself to only one microstock site. Also photographs that are rejected by one agency, can be accepted and sold well by another. It doesn't take long to realize what each agency likes and doesn't like.
  
• There are many reasons why an agency may reject an image. Just because an agency rejected your photo, doesn't mean it was a bad image. Most agencies will give an explanation for the rejection. However don't take this personally or become disheartened. A good example of this is the water drop seen at the start of this page. It sells well on Getty Images for a high price, yet microstock sites like Dreamstime or Shutterstock who sell images much cheaper rejected the image when I submitted it. One said the image wasn't focussed enough on the droplet, the other said they already had enough of that specific subject in their database.
  
  As a photographer you can also learn a great deal from rejections. For example, this image of a bird below was rejected by a couple of agencies who all gave the same reason. Looking at the photo in a smaller size it looks perfectly focussed and sharp. However, when viewing the bird photo in it's full resolution it's clear to see the eye is hazy and the focus is on the birds body, not its eye. Lesson being, eyes need to be in sharp focus. I also learned that I should view photos in their full resolution before submitting them.
  
  
  
  
  
  If you have any doubt about sharpness seen in the photo, I suggest resizing the image to the lowest resolution accepted by the microstock agency. In other words, don't submit the full resolution. Minimising file sizes also increases sharpness. I've had images that were initially rejected due to sharpness, I resized them to smaller resolutions and then successfully resubmitted.
  
• Check your photographs in their full size for noise. Noise refers to grainy or pixilated area's found within some photos. Any images that contain noise are usually rejected by stock agencies. The best way to stop noise from appearing within your photographs, is to set your digital SLR camera to its lowest ISO. However, sometimes this is not possible depending on the lighting situation.
  
  So how do you get grainy photos accepted by stock agencies? First you need to minimise the grain by using software such as Definehttp://www.niksoftware.com/nikcollection/usa/dfine.html which is part of the Nik collection. There are many other similar software available.
  
  If you own Photoshop you can also use the blur tool to rub over grainy areas which minimises the chance of stock agencies rejecting the image.
  
  As with sharpness, resizing images to a smaller size also helps with noise reduction seen in the photo.
  
• If you are submitting insect or flower images, use their scientific name as well when adding keywords to help increase sales.
  
• Don't crop photographs too tight (if at all) so there is some space for buyers to add text if needed. Often publishers who purchase your images, will want to use them for posters or full page advertising. Therefore, they need space for words and quotes. I've found images with space, are more easily accepted by stock agencies and sell better than those cropped tightly.
  
• Don't upload too many photographs of the same theme, otherwise they may be rejected. For example, just because an acency has accepted one of your highrise buildings, it doesn't mean they want another seven from different angles.
  
• Most agencies have enough photographs of flowers and pets. It's always best to check out their list of 'wants' and 'don't wants'. Each agency will differ in the types of photo's they need and don't need.
  
• The more photographs you submit, the more money you make. Those that submit 400 photographs, make more money than those who submit 50. If you intend on making a living from stock photography, then you should be treating it like a full time job.

photographyTips for manual mode camera settings

Tips for manual mode camera settings

How to use your digital SLR camera in full manual settings?

Using your DSLR camera in fully manual mode (M on the top dial), isn't as hard as it first seems. Whether you own a Canon, Nikon, or any other SLR camera brand, using manual mode works basically the same.

Advantages of fully manual

• Manual mode allows you to set both your aperture and shutter speed separately, without the camera automatically changing the other to suit. With this in mind, you can be more creative with your shots. For example, you can photograph a beach landscape keeping the aperture high (for example f/22) so everything is in focus, yet at the same time set a slow shutter speed to create dreamy, slow motion waves.
  
  
  
  Example of photograph taken in fully manual settings
  Digital SLR Camera: Canon EOS 400D / Rebel XTi
  DSLR Lens: Canon EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
  Exposure: 0.2 sec (1/5)
  Aperture: f/22
  Focal Length: 85 mm
  ISO Speed: 100
  Exposure Program: Manual
  Flash: Flash did not fire
  Why this shot worked
  For this beach landscape, I wanted the whole scene from the sand in the foreground, to the island and boat in the background to be fully in focus. I also intended for the ocean waves to have a slow motion dreamy look and feel to them. For this to be achieved, the camera needed to be set on a high aperture f/22, and a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/5th of a second. If I had set the camera to aperture priority, then the shutter speed would have been automatically created for me, or conversely if I'd set shutter priority, the camera would have automatically set the aperture to suit. Therefore, setting the camera on manual mode, allowed me to fully choose both the aperture and the shutter speed.
• Manual mode gives you full control over your exposure. If you are finding a lot of your photographs are either underexposed (too dark) or overexposed (too light) then working in fully manual mode will help you to better understand and correct these exposure problems. Personally, I've found tweaking exposure results in photographs that are much more colorful than those taken in other modes. 

Sanchi Trip