Photography Updates

Do you think proper basics of Photography and Camera technology is a key to become a expert in photography?

 

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Travel Far Enough You See Yourself!” It is not just a mere quote. This means a lot. It is said that Travelling keeps you more healthy, reduces stress and enhances creativity. From a one day tripper to a hard traveller, Who doesn’t like travelling? When a Photographer, who is also interested in Travelling gets in, the scene changes. Apart from enjoying his eyes, he needs to keep his third eye (camera) wide open. That is which will make his moments to memories. Here are some essential Travel Photography Tips and Tricks that will help every Traveller or Photographer to improve himself. When it comes to Travel Photography Tips and Tricks, many small things will help you in a big way. Here are 10 Travel Photography Tips and Tricks that will help you transform yourself from your next trip.

 
1. Pre Trip Exploration

Exploring places is so much fun. But it is not that fun when you are lost in places, and you don’t reach your destination on time. By this, you may even miss the opportunity of clicking pics in good lighting. Hence it is very much important to have a prior study of the place. You can even calculate the kilometres and travel timings from one place to another. This will help you not to get lost in an elsewhere place. You can plan on what all places you can go for Photography and what all places you can sit & relax and enjoy yourself. You can search for hotels and motels situated at that place. We can even go through if they have good offers for the stay. This first point of the Travel Photography Tips and Tricks is the most important point that will help you save time, travel more and make you feel Paisa Vasool!

 
2. DONT MISS THE GOLDEN HOUR – Rise Early & Return Late

Nothing satisfies a Photographer more than a good picture taken in good lighting. Golden hours are always the best for Photography. The golden hour for Photography usually lasts from 6 a.m to 10 a.m & 3 p.m to 6 p.m. These are timings when the sun rises and sets respectively. Travel Photography Tips and Tricks. It is a very vital thing in this Travel Photography Tips and Tricks. Early morning shoots always make you think more and work more. If you want a shoot a place, but it is always crowded, You can try to shoot it early in the morning where the crowd will be comparatively less. In the evenings, usually, the backlight is more which will suit well for Peoples portraits. You can make use of this light to depict Peoples culture & tradition. A golden hour photo shoot can never be compared with a noon shoot where light is on the top. Hence rising early and returning late will help you capture more and travel more.

 
3. Talk to People

When it comes to Peoples portraits or depicting culture, You need to get on the streets rather than the usual Landmarks. To get on the streets, The first and foremost is to interact with people. Talking to people will help you in a great way. Try to get along one among them. Travel Photography Tips and TricksThis way, they will get more comfortable with you. Interact with them about their daily life and tell them about yourself. While travelling, You get to meet so many walks of people. Capturing them will be a one time experience, and it will be a great portfolio for you. While getting along with People more, They may suggest you more places which can be so good than what you planned. People belonging there are always more experienced with the places. Talking to people will help in building more self-confidence for your future travels and all endeavours. Travelling turns to be so much fun when you are Clicking and Talking to people.
 
 
4. Rule of Third

Professional Photographers will know about the rule of thirds. Rule of thirds is where the screen will be assumed with two horizontal lines and two verticle lines. The subject will be placed on one-third of the frame either left or right. The subject will be on the intersection points of the two horizontal and verticle lines. Rule of thirds can turn any boring photo into a pleasant one. Here are some examples of the rule of thirds. It doesn’t apply only to pictures with subjects. It can be followed for landscapes. But it is not that a picture should always follow the rule of thirds. There is another rule called break the rule of thirds about which we will be talking in our next point of The Travel Photography Tips and Tricks.

 
5. Experiment while Composing

Like I mentioned earlier, to make a picture better, the rule of thirds need not be followed every single time. Sometimes, experimenting with your camera will give more good results. We can never figure out which is going to be our best picture. Any random click can become your life’s most treasured one who is going to bring you so much name and fame. But this process happens only if you start experimenting rather than following traditional methods. It is completely normal to try so many different things. From my experience, if I had to share, I coloured eggs once, and I photographed it. It turned out to be so well. Isn’t it crazy? But sometimes these crazy thoughts will give you great pictures. So never stop experimenting with composition, lighting and basically all the Photography related terms. It helps you learn more and become a better Photographer.

 
6. Backup the Photos

We never know what will go wrong and when it will go wrong. So it is always safe to backup your picture while travelling. It is also good to have extra memory cards in case you run out of space. An extra battery will also help. Camera charger and Laptop are very much essential to copy the pictures and to save your memories instead of deleting them. Carrying a laptop can also help in editing your pictures and uploading them at that instant. Apart from this, You can also experiment with mobile photography and stay updated by posting on Instagram and Facebook. Backing up is always a safe game. Never skip this step to avoid heartbreaks. (Losing PICTURES – The pain is real!)


Apart from the above Travel Photography Tips and Tricks, it always good to carry a safety box along with you during the travel in case of emergency. Enjoy your trip and happy travelling.

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We often wonder as what Aperture value I should set, while taking a photo. Here are some really quick tips to help you there. These are of course not hard rule as photography is art and everything here boils down to your creative choice and imagination:

1. Lower F-number such as f/1.4, f/1.8, or f/2.8 produces shallow/narrow Depth of Field(DOF) and bigger F-numbers such as f/8, f/11, f/16 produces larger Depth of field.

2. To get candid portraiture shots, try to use minimum F-number you have got on your lens. This will give you a nice out of focus background (Bokeh). 

3. If you are doing a group/family shot, then try to go for somewhere between f/5 to f/9 by evaluating the light available and number of people in the shot. As shallow depth of field may throw people standing backward rows out of focus. 

4. If you are shooting a landscapes, then try for higher F-number such as f/9 to f/16 based on how much foreground, mid-ground and background you want in focus. Higher F-numbers would give you end to end sharpness (acceptable if not razor sharp). If possible try to stay away from highest F-numbers on your lens, as that might produce a softer image. 

5. If you are doing a street photos in night and you are going after star burst effect, then try to shoot at any F-number more than F/11 and above. 

6. And finally, every lens has a sweet spot, where it produces sharpest image. Its different for different lenses, but for most of the lenses its f/8 or f/9 ish. If you are not so keen on DOF and just want your images to be crisp while you are do running and gunning, you may stick to your lens's sweet spot. You may google to find the exact sweet spot for your lens and experiment from there to find really specific number just for your lens. 

7. There are countless number of scenarios you may encounter, which I did not mention here. I leave that to your creativity and knowledge of photography techniques. However most of usual situation should be covered by above guidelines.

Hope it helps you find the F-number you shoot next time.

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We often see candid photos from professional photographers with nice blurred background, separating subject from the background. It’s also called as "Bokeh". This technic is often used in Portraiture.

The question that would arise is, "How do I achieve out of focus background/Bokeh? Can I achieve this with my existing gear?"

Even before we go there, we need to understand the concept of Depth of Field (DOF), which is the distance in front and behind the subject we are photographing, in which things are acceptably sharp, if not tack sharp. 

The equation is, Lesser the DOF, more is the Bokeh/out of focus background, which means the goal is to achieve least DOF here. 

DOF highly depends on the Aperture of the lens. Bigger the aperture, i.e. lesser the F-number, shallower would be the DOF. This means, at smaller F-numbers, you should be able to achieve good blurred background. The kit lenses however usually could stop down only minimum of F3.5/F5.6, that’s why you don’t see the background going much blurred or out of focus, as for both Aperture numbers, the DOF is not that shallow. Using faster lenses, i.e. lenses which can stop down to lesser Aperture numbers, such as F1.8, F1.4 or F1.2 etc., could help produce out of focus background/Bokeh easily. However, that comes with huge cost, as these fast lenses tend to be very costly. F1.8 is still near to the budget of a kit lens, which could be good choice if you are after good Bokeh in the budget. Ex: 50mm f/1.8, 35mm f/1.8 or 85mm f/1.8  

What if I don’t have any of those? Can I still do something about it?

The answer would be, up to a certain extent "YES". The key here would be keeping Subject to Background distance more than the subject to Camera distance. As you go on increasing the Subject to Background distance more and more, you would see the background falling out of focus more and more for the same F-number. Rather than placing your subject right in front of a wall, you might want to have an open background. Angle is all it matters. Small change in angle to place your subject may give you huge separation between subject and the background. Next time you shoot, be aware of your background.

The DOF also depends on your lens's focal length. Let’s consider a kit lens 55-200mm. As you go on zooming in, keeping the aperture same let’s say f/6.3, you would see background at 200mm is much more out of focus than that at 55mm. Next time you shoot, try using the longest end of your lens and then step backward by your feet to get the required frame or composition. 

The last factor, but no way the least to affect DOF is the sensor size. However there is hardly anything you can do about it once you buy the camera. Bigger the sensor, lesser would be the DOF at the same F-number.

For example: at f/5.6 a Full Frame Sensor/FX Body camera (sensor size usually 36x24mm) would produce much shallower depth of field compared to a Crop Frame Sensor/DX Body camera (sensor size usually 1.5/1.6 smaller than Full Frame Sensor). However bigger the sensor, more is the cost. 

To sum it up, here is what affects DOF and so your Bokeh:

1) Sensor Size: Bigger the sensor, more the Bokeh.

2) Focal length: Bigger the Focal length, more the Bokeh.

3) Aperture setting: Bigger the Aperture i.e. smaller the Aperture number, more the Bokeh.

4) Distance: Subject to background distance should be more than subject to Camera distance. More the difference, more would be the Bokeh.

Point 1, 2 and 3 come with a cost but 4^th is certainly you can do with little wiser choice of background and subject placement with your existing gears.

Try it out next time you shoot and let me know your experience.

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1. A great camera will not make a great photograph unless its operated by a great photographer.

2. Beginners are absolutely capable of making great photographs if they have passion.

3. Read your camera manual several times. The answers to most of your early questions are in there.

4. Take pictures of things that you know or care about.

5. Don’t try to learn everything all at once. You don’t have to become an expert photographer, post-processor and printer all in the same week.

6. If youve got less than a year under your belt don’t spend too much time fretting over your portfolio. It will change and when youve got more experience.

7. Don’t get hung up on things like workflow. Spend most of your time looking for light, learning to see and making photographs that matter.

8. Study the work of the true photographic masters. I am talking about people like Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, Paul Strand, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Edward Weston NOT the cool kids who have lots of likes on Facebook or Flickr.

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You need to understand power triangle. ISO, Shutter, Aperture these are the elements of heart of Photography. These points makes the difference between your regular power shot cameras and DSLR. Coming to the tips and tricks, it depends on what is your area of focus with DSLR. Like Portrait, landscape, candid .. etc. read less

If I join your Photography Classes in January so is there any problem for me or not? And what is Fashion Photography/ Photography Class's Fees for 1 Year? read less

These are some of the basic topics that you should learn to improve your photography significantly:

• Exposure Triangle: Know the relation between Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.
• Composition: Learn the rules of what to include in your photographs.
• Lighting: Learn to see the light.
• Digital Potential: How to improve your photographs after you have clicked them.
• Equipment & Lenses: Which equipment to use depending on the situation.
• Photo Critique: By seeing what can improve the pictures, your future photography will become better.

By learning these topics and putting these to practice your photography will certainly improve a lot. 

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