Camera Technique Forum

Why your exposure meter is sometimes wrong.

Simon.fairclough — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:40:20 GMT

I like to think that I am a bit smarter than my camera, so I try to use the little grey cells rather than a grey card for every shot. I have never thought a grey card was much help with exposure, after all, the things I photograph are mostly not grey or average in colour (grass is I understand a good average 18% grey if you take out the green channel), but the interesting parts of the image lay above or below that reading. A good photog will add a bit of exposure comp if his subject is white ...

Face recognition

josieann — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:40:50 GMT

I took photos at a party with indoor setting and face recognition. Shots of people across the room, say 6 or 8 feet away were out of focus. Was this a misuse of the face recognition focusing? I hate to admit it, but I just found the three exposure choices button hidden with the erase button, so hadn't ever used face recognition before. I'm going to Peru--Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley etc.--next week. Is there anything special I should do to prepare? I've not used filters on the G7 so don't ...

How to create a fun effect....?

Siegfried — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:10:52 GMT

I saw this on dpr and thought you might be interested to discuss this technique. It does not seem to work correctly....see this link for more detail:- http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=31533956 Who can tell us how to do this great effect? I know the answer but thought its a great to challenge you .... Best Siegfried

Off camera flash for close-ups

Simon.fairclough — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:01:01 GMT

There are many ways to get your flash gun/strobe off of your camera. You can use a cable or a optical slave cell these are cheap or a radio wireless trigger expensive. In the shot below I have used a old Nikon strobe a SB-26 that has an inbuilt optical slave cell. This slave cell fires the strobe when it sees a flash from another flashgun/strobe, so it can be triggered by the built-in flash of your DSLR. This is how the picture was made. I had the DSLR flash set to manual and 1/125th power, ...

how to....

Herman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:31:17 GMT

Did someone try similar techniques for presenting your printed pictures?

http://www.breathingcolor.com/bc/catalog/index.php?cPath=601
http://www.clearstarcorp.com/clearshield.asp

Herman

Posterization after processing

P-J — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:15:58 GMT

Hello, I have noticed posterization--usually in the skies--in few of my photos after creating a vignette. Most often I create the vignette using the rectangular marquee tool with feathering set at 250 px (I set this on or near the border of the photo, then Select>Inverse, Edit>Fill>Black>Blending Mode:Normal>Opacity: 100%. I then create a new layer, change the Blending Mode on the new layer to Overlay and adjust opacity as seems best. (I know a vignette can be ...

Settings for photographing snow scenes with G7

josieann — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:43:13 GMT

I'm spending Christmas in Yosemite National Park, staying in the valley with stream, falls, surrounding mountains, etc. I'll also be shooting in dark interiors (19th C rustic hotel with dark wood walls, beams and ceiling). What settings should I try?

Also, if I set the G7 to bracket, does it take three shots automatically, or just how does that work? I can't quite figure it out from Sigfried's book.

Picture of the Week is up again!!!!

Siegfried — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:26:40 GMT

Dear All This is really awesome, its something we enjoyed a lot doing, (for the new readers), until I were just overloaded to much. Pius and some of the other guys started discussing the POW again and well....it is up again. Please support Pius and his team and lets make it a lot of fun, its summer the outside is screaming at us, lets play.... Best Siegfried

Best refs for learning photojournalism (Have G7)

josieann — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:18:59 GMT

I want to get better at photgraphing people, e.g. those I see when traveling. With my G7 in my purse, I'm always ready to shoot and get some good results, but are there good references or books that would help me improve?

Who Prints for you?

Simon.fairclough — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:45:23 GMT

As I have yet to get a really good photo printer, I get my "snaps done" at Boots the Chemist and more recently at PhotoBox. They give ok results as long as you know that they will try and turn your night shots in to day shots and will throw lots of sharpening in to it. If I have need for anything large or diffrent I will talk to a lab and pay a bit more. So the question is what do you do and where? Have you any top tips do you find printing at home easy, better, cheaper?

Fishy Eye

Simon.fairclough — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:57:50 GMT

Can you guess how this shot was made?
And no I wasn't hanging by my feet from a hot airballoon.

Advicd for a novice

russt — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:29:28 GMT

Hi all I am an absolute novice and have always used a digital point and shoot,i have owned a Olympus E410 for a year but rarely used it due to not having the know how.anyway i am going to give it a go if anyone can help. 1. I am going to take pics of a party indoors at a social club i need to know the best settings to use with a flash so the pics dont come out dark and grainy like the did when i last tried i only used the auto settings, 2. Whats the best settings for outdoor use in ...

New technique to expose....

Siegfried — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:41:02 GMT

When you use the normal ESP or the Evaluative type exposure measurement on your camera then the camera will expose in such a way that one will not have clipping on the highlights. As you know when the camera clip then the picture info will go either white or black depending if its highlight or dark area clipping. In one of the exposure articles I wrote I said one should take a exposure reading pointing the cam up, then straight forward and last pointing down a little (Example was a stadion). ...

The advantage of bounce flash

swandy — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:05:58 GMT

We all hear about the advantages of using a bounce flash instead of the ones that are built into our P&S and DSLR cameras. Well, Max got a new haircut for Valentine's Day and he agreed to pose for a photo session for his "daddy". (The last three pictures are from this "session".) Camera was the Olympus E510, FL50 Flash (with an Omni Bounce flash deflector), the older version of the 40-150 (just because it focuses a little faster). Pictures were taken in our living ...

ND filter

Herman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:40:56 GMT

I bought an ND filter factor 8 (neutral density) and wanted to test it. Since it was sunny I did ad the polarizer filter also so I could make slow speed pictures to catch movement. Some test examples. diafragma 22 iso 100fixed.