Photography Masterclass

If you have a Canon T1i or any other DSLR camera, there basic techniques may be useful when you learn your way in digital photography.

If you have a dark situation, use the exposure compensation and dial it to +2. It will make your subject much brighter. In the opposite situation, dial it to -1 and your photo will be a bit darker.

The same way you can control your flash output power. There are situations when too much flash can make your models flat. In this case, go to the menu and dial the flash compensation to -2.

If you want [...] Continue Reading…

Rick Sammon shares very useful tips that help you make better photographs. Tips like:

Learn how to see the light, the light quality, the shadows and highlights learn how to use the exposure compensation to set the correct exposure;
Try to create a sense of depth and dimention in your images (choose the right composition);
Take a hike/walk when on location to find the best angle, view;
Always look down, up and back;
Aim at telling the whole story by taking wide angle shots, medium shots, vertical and horizontal shots (shoot closer and look for details);
Frame your photo;
Beware of background, it can break your [...] Continue Reading…

These simple tips allow you to dramatically enchance your landscape photos.

First of all you definetely need a good tripod to eliminate any camera shaking.
Then it is important to lock up the mirrow in your camera body. When it flips off it causes movement of the body. So you set in the menu Mirrow Lock and then you press the shutter twice. The first time it lifts the mirrow up and the next press actually makes the shot.
Using lens filters outdoors cannot be underestimated. The sky is usually too bright and your digital camera’s dinamic range covers only five stops. [...] Continue Reading…

This video tutorial explains how you can get good results from photographing at night. City’s best images are made at night but it is a real challenge when there is not enough light. If you have a DSLR camera, you can change a few settings and achieve nice looking photo images even at night. First of all if you leave your camera in the Auto mode, the results will probably be dissappointing. There two main rules to avoid too dark photos:

increase the exposure (open the lens by setting the smallest f number and use longer shutter speed)
have your camera [...] Continue Reading…

This video shows how you can do a business portrait on location. If you have two flash kit, one flash can be equipped with a softbox, positioned quite close to the subject. The other flash is simply a bare bulb, lighting from behind. A reflector is directed to that bulb to send some light back to the model. All setup needs to be fixed before actual clients arrive so that you save their your your time.

This tutorial shows how to use a very narrow softbox, called strip box to create glamourous images of your models in a studio steup. Stip boxes, being slim, can direct the light the way you want. A panel reflector is also used to fill in the shadows, and the model is photographed on the white background, close to the wall.

If you experiment with your hand by placing it in front of a strip box, you will notice how the shadows and light are changing when you are moving your head to and from the center of the strip box. [...] Continue Reading…

This video lesson shows what the right histogram should look like in a perfect exposure setting. You do not want the date in your historgam to extend to either boundary (to have no clipping on the left or right). The general rule is to shift the histogram to the right a bit (as close to the highlights as possible but without going over). You will see a series of photographs illustrating how exposure is related to the histogram.

Adam Bonilla explains and shows how you should adjust your lighting setup according to your model’s face and figure. Some photographers prefer using just one steup that they have learnt and it may not suit every model.

Models’ faces are different, some have more oval or wider faces and you need to take this into consideration. He shows one model with an oval face for whom he chooses top lighting, so called a butterfly scheme.

If you need to separate your blond model from the background in post processing, the only way to do it is using dark background in your [...] Continue Reading…

Computer programs and cameras are able to draw histograms of an image. What is a histogram and how you can read it.

This video shows what it is by hand drawing a histogram. Basicall it is a bar graph. We have values from 0 (complete black) to 255 (complete white). The height of each small bar represents the number of pixels of the same gray level. If the histogram is moved to the left side, it means there are more dark tones in the image. If it is moved to the right side, there are more light tones.

In this tutorial you will rearn the basics of using a vanishing point filter in Photoshop. See how to setup a perspective grid and clone in 3D space, also place graphics in a perspectively correct environment. A new logo will be placed on a side of the truck.