Short advice ..... to take better pics ....

When taking a pic :

@Always keep it as simple as possible ....

Dont worry about what others think ... ure a PHOTOGRAPHER .. !

In a lot of cases to get the good shot , u have to dive down on ur belly or lay on ur back , or climb a tree , and i smile when i find photographer friends unwilling to do that . Never worry about what ud look like while shooting , never think about what "others" will think or say . Cause when u do :

a) Ure not using all ur options ( ure missing a lot of good angles) .
b) Ure distracted , so u use only a small percent of ur creative power .
c) It just shows u dont have the confidence to apply ur ideas .

Just be confident , and do ur thing ! ....

The Creative Gap : From Chase's blog

Like a zillion other people , im a regular reader of Chase's blog , and like a zillion more , i just love his work .The other day i saw this rad post there bout what we call the "CREATIVE GAP " , and i just had to link to it . Heres a teaser :

Heres the question that started it all : "Your pictures are stunning. Mine are not. Not trying to oversimplify this, but how on earth do you do what you do with a camera? I desperately want to move my creativity forward, but it won't seem to budge."

Chases answer : The answer to the question above lies in what I call 'the creative gap.'
The term 'creative gap' is a way of describing the difference between what we as artists can visualize ourselves creating and what we actually create. Sometimes we nail it and the gap is nil. Other times, as you might imagine, there's a huge disparity and the gap is wide. Whether we lack vision, skills, timing, whatever - it can get frustrating to set out to create a masterpiece, and settling for a different kind of piece, if you know what I mean. You envision it like an Edward Weston, but what you get is more like an Edward Scissorhands.

The rest of the post and a great vid at

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2008/06/inspired-bychallenged-by-creative-gap.html

From Berts blog : Time to shoot ...

Was at Bert Stephani's blog a while ago , and loved his new post, a must read , heres a teaser :

" I get a lot of e-mails from people who like to find ways to become a better photographer. When I tell them that lots of practice is the key to improvement, many say “yeah, but I don’t have time for that”.

Bad news for those who seek an excuse for not improving , good news for someone who wants to grow as a photographer: EVERYONE HAS TIME TO PHOTOGRAPH !!!

Don’t panic if you don’t carry a camera or the situation doesn’t allow for photographing. Enter the concept of (what I call) ‘mental photography’, taking pictures in your head. When you see some nice light, a cool background or an exciting composition, try to imagine how to photograph it. It may sound like a silly idea but I just know that a lot of ‘mental photography’ allow me to develop some good reflexes. I have been doing certain actions, settings and technical solutions so many times in my fantasy that I don’t have to think about them anymore when actually shooting. It has become second nature. "

I LOVED THIS ... THE FULL POST AT http://bertstephani.com/blog/?p=75

Bouncing off some ideas : Getting creative with shallow DOF

When we talk about shallow depth of field photos , most of us immediately remember those beautiful portraits with the subjects face sharply in focus against a colorful blurry background . But today were applying a new use for shallow DOF , with the human element out of focus , and in focus will be "something" we will use for "story telling" . So lets get creative . Below are three pics I took that have the very same out of focus background with urs truly sitting in the same position each time . So basically I fixed the background just to show u how flexible this technique is . All were gonna be changing is the foreground and notice how different each pic becomes .

In this first composition I placed a watch in focus in the foreground . The immediate effect is the "Waiting" story . Time becomes the subject here . We start thinking of , "whats he waiting for" , or maybe it’s a "too late" scenario . That’s not the end of creativity though , if we were to place urs truly sleeping on a bed , we get the different story of " late to wake up " . If we were to place urs truly on a desk with a pencil and paper ud get the effect of " no time for this tough exam " . Go as creative as u want !

In this second piece here , is a tiny very unattractive consumer "point and shoot" cam in focus . Now the story is totally different than the previous pic . Now its more like " is he a photographer , maybe a beginner ? " . If I had maybe layed the cam on its back with it turned of it could maybe have sent the message of " no inspiration " . Wanna get creative ? Lets make urs truly hand someone some money " still in the background " , and the cam still in focus , now the story is " Cams are expensive " . Or maybe lets make the out of focus area in the pic someone posing for a portrait with urs truly shooting him with his pro cam , now the story becomes " this cam is as good as a pro cam " . See how rich this technique can get ?

In the third and last pic here , we have a bunch of pills in focus . So the story is " addiction " maybe or "sickness" , maybe or "depression" . Now lets get creative , give me a bunch of weights in the background and a couple of dumbbells and a gym suit , and now the story is " steroids " . Make me sit on a dinner table and eat something in the background and the story is " food supplements " …

There, ! Ive bounced off some ideas for u . Go crazy ! .

Full Frame Sensors continuing the sensor discussion

I was at this forum and saw this post about full frame sensors , and thought since were discussing sensors id summarize this pretty long ( yet informative ) post for all u guys .

Heres the question that started the thread :

@ hi there. i'm trying to understand why people are so crazy about full frame. the biggest advantage of it that i see is the ability to get wider.

conversely, i know that the edges of a lens are where it performs the worst optically, so if you can eliminate that area, it seems beneficial to me.

And those were the replies :

@ Well, a bigger sensor means bigger photosites, so lower noise for the same resolution and/or higher resolution. It also means you can use older lenses the way they were designed - a 50mm acts like a 50mm, not a 75mm.

@ Shallower depth of field. A full frame sensor is capable of the equivalent of one and a half stops (for a given field of view) shallower DOF compared to a crop sensor.

@ For me, I want the larger file sizes to work with, and the ability to use my wide-angle lenses to their fullest potential.

@ If you can't perceive what a 12-24 lens gets you with a crop sensor cam, then you don't need or want full frame. Super wide is super wide, whatever the camera. I've shot stuff with the Sigma 12-24 on 35mm film that gets you places where no crop sensor camera can even go near.

@ Some of the more dramatic landscapes require a wide angle. If you ever need to stitch an image for creative reasons, the FF sensor gives you more image to use, so you need to stitch less.

@ FF is a step towards medium format without the hefty price tag of film or a digital back.

@ the biggest advantage of the FF is the fact that you get shallower depth of fields with your wide apertures. for example on a medium format@80mm f4 possibly gives you similar DOF as you would get 50mm@2.8 on a D3. You probably go to f1.4 on your D200 to get the same DOF.

@ Until the smaller sensors - like the 4/3 system - can produce very low noise images at high ISO's like the the full frame (35mm size) sensors from Canon and Nikon - they will always be relegated to consumer cameras and will never be taken seriously by professionals.

@ For me, in order of importance, why I LOVE full-frame.
1. Lower noise than same generation cropped sensor.
2. Shallower DOF.
3. Same angle of view as 35mm film.

And ofcourse , last but not least , the comment which i LOVED THE MOST , and for me was the MOST EDUCATED, MOST INFORMATIVE --->

@ Chicks love FF!

I couldnt stop after reading that one , i laughed for a pretty long while ! hehehehe ...

SENSORS continuation ..

Every place has to have this photographer whos always out there , keen on spreading the knowledge and making sure the photo " illeteracy" (if i may ) , becomes less and less each day . Over here , it Mr Tony Marcel , whom i cant thank enough for his newsletters and emails . The piece down here is from an email he sent to u where he literally summarized photography in general . Enjoy . Its pretty long but its worth it .

Sensor types

Fujifilm's SuperCCDs use a honeycomb layout for photodiodes and the color-filter layer.

Start shopping for a digital SLR and you quickly find yourself entangled in a rat's nest of claims about sensor types and sizes, not to mention an entire alphabet of acronyms. Here's a breakdown of the basic sensor types.

CCD (charged-coupled device)
Currently the most common type of digital SLR sensor. Almost every dSLR manufacturer offers at least one CCD-based model.
Pros: Traditionally, the highest image quality, pixel for pixel. Current sensors include innovative chip architectures designed to enhance dynamic range or speed.
Cons: Most expensive. Most power-hungry.

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The CMOS sensor used in Canon's Digital Rebel XT.

CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor)
Initial implementations took advantage of CMOS' on-chip electronics to make cheap but noisy sensors. Stripping off the extra circuits increased each pixel's light-collecting area, thereby boosting sensitivity and quality to surpass that of many CCDs.
Pros: Theoretically, lower production cost. Uses less power than CCD.
Cons: CMOS sensors tend to be bigger than their CCD equivalents, resulting in larger cameras.

The bottom line on sensor types
Ignore the theoretical claims and judge the cameras, not the sensor types. We've seen great photos--and crummy ones, too--from digital SLRs with every technology.

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Sensor sizes

Nearly all digital SLR sensors are much bigger--and consequently much more expensive--than the thumbnail-size imagers in point-and-shoot digicams. Current digital SLR models use these sensor sizes.

Four Thirds
The specified sensor size for the Four Thirds format, an open digital SLR standard created by Olympus and Kodak.
Dimensions: 17.3mm by 13mm
Example cameras: All Olympus, Panasonic dSLRs

APS
A loose term for imagers that are approximately the size of the APS-C or APS-H film formats. Most digital SLRs use this size.
Dimensions: Varies, APS-C (ranges from about 14mm by 21mm to 16mm by 24mm), APS-H (28.7mmx19.1mm).
Example cameras: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi, Nikon D80, Sony Alpha DSLR-A350, Canon EOS-1D Mark III

35mm-film format
Often called full-frame, to indicate that the sensor is the same size as a standard frame on a roll of 35mm film. Sensors this big are very expensive to build, but they eliminate the so-called focal-length magnification factor (see page 4 for more on this).
Dimensions: 24mm by 36mm
Example cameras: EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS 5D, Nikon D3

This image shows the actual sizes of the sensors used in digital cameras, from the tiny chips in compact cameras to the large, 35mm-film-size sensors in some high-end digital SLRs.

Geek note
Larger sensors are the secret to why 10 megapixels from a digital SLR beat 10 megapixels from a consumer digicam. To spread the same number of pixels over a larger sensor area, the pixels (technically, photosites containing diodes) must be bigger. These bigger photosites gather more light, so they produce less-noisy images, capture greater dynamic range, and perform much better at high ISO settings.

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So what sensor resolution do I need?

The short answer
Any current dSLR has sufficient resolution to handle Web or newspaper reproduction. For magazines and large print sizes (16x20 inches and greater), especially where you'll be cropping for detail, 8 megapixels is a good starting point. Fine-art landscape photographers and others seeking maximum detail should consider 10-megapixel-plus digital SLRs.

The long answer
Do the math. For example, let's say you're making an 8x10-inch print on an inkjet printer.
Step 1: Figure out the required output resolution.
Our inkjet printer produces best results at a resolution of 240 pixels per inch or greater.

Step 2: Multiply the required output resolution by the linear dimensions of your final print.
8 inches x 240 pixels per inch = 1,920 pixels required for the vertical dimension
10 inches x 240 pixels per inch = 2,400 pixels required for the horizontal dimension

Step 3: Multiply vertical by horizontal.
1,920 x 2,400 = 4,608,000, or 4.6 megapixels, is our minimum required resolution.

Step 4: Accommodate some overhead for cropping.
If you think you'll usually crop out about 30 percent of a photo, add 30 percent more pixels to the minimum required resolution.
4.6 megapixels x 1.3 = 5.9 megapixels

Keep in mind:
The math outlined above isn't written in stone; you can usually get good large prints even when you scale an image's resolution up in a program such as Photoshop.

What about dust?

Every time you change the lens, you run the risk of dust getting on the sensor, which at best can result in bad pixels you'll need to retouch out of your photos and at worst can muck up your camera's insides. Unless you shoot in very dusty, sandy, or otherwise particulate-heavy environments, and if you take reasonable care when you swap lenses, dust shouldn't be a huge worry; most cameras include a combination of antidust technologies, such as vibrating the sensor on startup to dislodge particles. If you are partial to shooting around dirt and sand, then you may want to search for discussions about the efficacy of various systems. Some sites, such as Chasseur d'Images, ran comparative tests in 2007 and concluded that Olympus had the only decent performance in this area. However, a year (or more) is a long time in a camera product cycle, and the results may have changed with subsequent generations of cameras.

HDRI IMAGING

Photo by Stuck in Customs


Hay u all , its been a while since ive posted.. Sorry for that .... So anyways the other day , we were at the CCC meeting discussing some photos when the subject of HDRI ( high dynamic range imaging ) came up ., and i thought lets make a post bout that .

So heres the basic wikipedia definition :

high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) : is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques.

So heres a summary on the technique in a very simplified way and im posting a link for a HDRI forum in case u guys want more details :

1) The trick is , in a busy scene , there is no universal perfect exposure , there will always be a part which is darker( underexposed) and a part which is brighter ( overexposed) .

2) U set ur cam on ur tripod and prepare to take like 4 to 6 pictures of the same scene, but with a different exposure setting each time ( underexposed , overexposed ) .

3) Using a computer program , u combine the different pics , to obtain a universal perfect exposure for every subject in the scene ( some programs will do this part for u and even adjust the tonalities) .

Thats as basic as it gets .

The link to the forum .

Photo by Stuck in Customs