It’s easy to photograph a silhouette—in fact, new photographers do it all the time. They just don’t always do it on purpose.
The easiest way to photograph a silhouette is simply to position yourself so that the subject you would like to silhouette is arranged against a bright background, such as the sky. Point the camera directly into the sky and slightly depress your camera’s shutter release—that locks in the exposure based on the bright sky. Then recompose your picture and shoot. What you’ll probably get is a grossly underexposed subject, since the exposure was based on the brighter sky. If your subject isn’t quite silhouetted, you can underexpose the image even more using the EV controls on your camera. You might also want to use your camera’s spot meter to lock the exposure on a bright piece of sky.
You may find that the subject is out of focus because the camera locked its focus on infinity when you pointed it at the sky. If that’s the case, check to see if your camera has a separate exposure lock button, and use it. If not, you may need to set the exposure manually (or use the EV control) or focus the camera manually instead. One way or the other, if your subject is too close to focus at infinity, you need to find a way to separate the exposure and focusing aspects of your camera.
There’s an old photographer’s saying: the best camera is the one you have with you. The day you’re faced with a photo op and your multi-megapixel wonder machine is stashed in your sock drawer at home, you’ll be thankful if there’s a cameraphone in your pocket a cellphone with a tiny, built-in lens that takes tiny, built-in pictures.
Of course, cameraphones don’t have all of the handy settings that you’ve come to adore on your digicam, but they can still take perfectly good shots. Here’s a look at the most common cameraphone settings and how they can help you take better pictures.
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Movie making probably wasn’t what you had in mind when you bought a digital still camera. Even so, most cameras offer this feature, and it can come in handy now and then. Movie mode lets you capture digital movies with QuickTime or AVI format videos (both kinds play on Windows and Apple computers) with sound included. You save the videos to your memory card right alongside your still pictures. Some cameras permit only 30 seconds of video per attempt; others let you keep recording until the memory card is full.
Most new cameras these days capture video with frame dimensions of 640 x 480big enough to fill a TV screen on playback. Once you’ve transferred a movie to your computer, you can play it, email it to people, post it on a Web page, or burn it to a DVD. Just keep these pointers in mind:
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A discussion of nature photography wouldn’t be complete without some underwater shooting tips. After all, every school kid knows that 70 percent of the earth’s surface is under water. Most people hesitate to take pictures underwater, with good reason: Water is the mortal enemy of digital cameras. Still, you can buy waterproof enclosures for many camera models, which opens up a whole new world of photographic possibilities.
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Twilight is a magic time for photographers. The setting sun bathes the landscape in a warm glow, providing a beautiful backdrop for portraits. Twilight’s an ideal time to shoot any type of picture. The result can be an incredibly striking image that makes your travel pictures the talk of the office. It’s a great technique when shooting somebody standing in front of illuminated monuments and buildings at night, sunsets over the ocean, and festive nighttime lighting.
Slow-synchro or Nighttime flash mode
This automatic mode synchronizes your flash with the very slow shutter. It may have a “stars and mountain” or “stars and person” icon. The camera opens the shutter long enough to compensate for the dim twilight lighting, capturing all of the rich, saturated colors. The flash, meanwhile, throttles down, emitting just enough light to illuminate the subject from the front.
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Your camera usually does a good job of exposing the sky during sunset, even in automatic mode. Keep the flash turned off and shoot at will. The biggest mistake people make when shooting sunsets has nothing to do with the skyit’s the ground that ruins the shots. Your eyes can make out much more detail in the shadowy ground than your camera will. Therefore, it’s not worth trying to split the frame in half, composing it with the sky above and the ground below. The bottom half of your photo will be just a murky black blob in the final image.
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Have you ever remarked to someone viewing your vacation pictures, “It sure looked a lot more impressive when I was standing there”? If you want to capture the breadth of a scene, you most likely won’t be able to fit all the grandeur into your camera’s viewfinder—even at the wide-angle setting.
Panorama mode is a clever alternative offered by camera makers to help you capture the grandeur of big landscapes. You work the magic by photographing a sequence of images, then “stitching” them together later on your computer. Panorama mode prepares the sequence of shots for easy assemblage. Cameras that have this option also include the corresponding software required to make seamless final images. If your camera didn’t come with stitching software, you can use Photoshop Elements, which is a terrific all-purpose image editor that costs less than $100.
Most panoramas require three to six images to achieve the full effect. When looking for good subjects, keep in mind that it’s easier to create a seamless image when your subject is evenly illuminated. That usually means that the sun is to your back or off one shoulder. Avoid shooting directly into the sun for any of the frames in the sequence, at least until you’re a little more experienced.
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Adding pictures of buildings and their interesting elements to your travel portfolio brings another dimension to your presentations. Point-and-shoot cameras aren’t ideal for architectural shooting, but if you follow these suggestions, you’ll be surprised by the results you can achieve.
You may have noticed a phenomenon called converging lines when taking pictures of large buildings. Instead of the structure standing straight and tall, the lines of the building slant inward so it looks like it’s falling backward. This effect becomes more pronounced the more you angle your camera upward to compose the shot. To some degree this is a natural effect that viewers accept. Even in real life, looking upward at a tall building creates converging lines. We don’t think about it much, but it can detract from your photos.
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Museums, aquariums and natural habitat parks provide opportunities for unusual shots. They also present some difficult challenges for the digital photographer, but nothing that can’t be overcome with a little ingenuity.
Before you get too excited at the prospect of shooting beautiful works of art in a museum, be sure to ask if it’s OK. Often you’ll discover that photography is allowed in some areas, but not in others. To avoid embarrassing confrontations, ask when you first enter the facility.
Even when you’re granted permission, you’ll probably be told that you can’t use a flash or set up a tripod. So here are a few tips to help you work around those constraints
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Make sure you pack a spare memory card and extra batteries when you hit the road with your digital camera. These compact picture-takers are perfect travel companions, but you don’t want to run out of storage space or juice halfway through your trip.
When you’re on the road, approach your travel photography the same way a director thinks about filming a movie scene. The first frame, often called the establishing shot, is of the point of interest itself, such as an old church. The second image is a nicely framed portrait, with an element of the structure included in the picture. If the subject warrants it, you might even want to move in very close for a third shot, or several follow-ups.
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