Shubham Aneja: April 2020

Saturday, 11 April 2020

5 Secret Tips to Take Sharp Photos Using Any Camera | Become a photographer with Shubham Part-6

Select Maximum AF Points, 1,9,15,61 focus points

I make sure that I am making use of all the focus points, to minimize the use of ‘focus and recompose.’ Keeping all the focus points active ensures that you get to use the entire focusing area on the sensor. Whereas, reducing the active focus points makes you focus and recompose the frame, resulting in soft focus.

1-point AF

Assume you are taking a portrait, and in order to achieve crisp focus, you wish to focus on the eye of the subject. While using autofocus point selection, chances are, the camera might focus on the nose or the lips. The reason this happens is the camera does not know that you want to want to focus on the eye specifically.

Back Button focus technique

There are some situations when you try to focus on a subject and the camera takes some time before you can fully press the shutter release button. Alternatively, when you want to take photos in Burst Mode the camera misses focussing on a few shots. You can eliminate these issues and achieve accurate focus by using the back button focus method.

Use of Shutter Priority

The basic rule that I start with is using the shutter speed 1/2x of the focal length. For example, while shooting at 50mm, I ensure that I start shooting by using 1/100 sec (1/2×50 = 1/100). In the worst situations, I reduce the shutter speed by 1-2 stops if my lens supports Image Stabilization.
Using the Shutter Priority mode ensures that your camera is using a specific shutter speed that results in no or minimum shake in the image. If you wish to freeze the motion of a moving subject, you can dial a fast shutter speed like 1/2000 sec

Take backup shots

src: https://digital-photography-school.com/take-sharp-photos-using-any-camera/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feb-0119

Things to experiment all the times to get a perfect picture | Become a photographer with Shubham Part-5

White balance - To change the tone bw cool and hot

In sunlight, need to add cool color.

Metering

Decides the dimensions to consider for exposure compensation.

Flash compensation

How dark/light do you want.

Focus points

Points to focus

HDR mode

TO USE: Portraits in sunlight / Landscapes / Low-light and backlit scenes
NOT TO USE: Photos with movement/ High-contrast scenes: / Vivid colors

Picture control

You can always create your own custom picture controls

Active D-lightening

Helps in preserving the highlighting and shadows in the image.
The stronger the contrast of the light you are photographing with, the higher the Active D-Lighting setting you will need to use.

ISO - Aperture - Shutter speed.
- The basic rule that I start with is using the shutter speed 1/2x of the focal length. For example, while shooting at 50mm, I ensure that I start shooting by using 1/100 sec (1/2×50 = 1/100). In the worst situations, I reduce the shutter speed by 1-2 stops if my lens supports Image Stabilization.
Auto focus -

Single
Continuous

Flash mode

Red eye
Need ambient light to get the bright background
Rear curtain: If you want flash at the finishing moment, rather then at starting moment

Exposure compensation

How much dark or light photo you want
Depends on the color of the subject as well.

If the subject is having black suit then you may need a brighter exposure compensation to get the neutral image.

Always set the focus point to the closest eye of the subject

HDR photography and What is Auto bracketing | Become a photographer with Shubham Part-4

What is HDR photography

High Dynamic Range imaging
How HDR work
Instead of just taking one photo, HDR uses three photos, taken at different exposures. And combine all them together into a single photo.

Over exposed
Normal
Under exposed

When you should use HDR

Landscapes: Big landscape photos usually have a lot of contrast between the sky and land, which is difficult for your camera to deal with in just one photo. With HDR, you can capture the sky’s detail without making the land look too dark, and vice versa.
Portraits in sunlight: We all know that lighting is one of the most important aspects of a good photo, but too much lighting on someone’s face—like harsh sunlight—can cause dark shadows, bright glare, and other unflattering characteristics. HDR can even that all out and make your subject look better.
Low-light and backlit scenes (see above): If your photo is looking a little too dark—which often happens if your scene has too much backlight—HDR can brighten up the foreground without washing out the well-lit portions of your photo.

When You Shouldn’t Use HDR

Photos with movement (see above): If any of your subjects are moving (or might move), HDR increases the chance of a blurry photo. Remember, HDR takes three pictures, so if your subject moves between the first and second shot, your final picture won’t look very good.
High-contrast scenes: Some photos look better with stark contrast between the dark and light parts of the photo, like if you have a dark shadow or silhouette you want to highlight. HDR will make this less intense, resulting in a less interesting photo.
Vivid colors: If your scene is too dark or too light, HDR can bring some of the color back. However, if you’re dealing with colors that are already very vivid, HDR can wash them out.

Example:

Auto bracketing:

Works only in manual mode
Stable base or tripod is must
HDR vs Auto Bracketing

Same as HDR mode, just that you need to take 3 shots at yourself. In HDR, it takes all the three shots by itself.
Exposure bracketing gives you the number of images separately with each having a different exposure setting.
HDR takes all of those bracketed images and combines them into one.

Src:

Playing around with Built-in Flash of Camera | Become a photographer with Shubham Part-3

Flash compensation and Flash modes:

Note: In the “P” mode, we get 5 modes of flash

Fill flash
Red-eye reduction
Slow sync + Red eye
Slow sync
Rear-curtain + Slow Sync

The picture without flash (shutter speed was 2’’ to get the proper exposition)

Different modes of flash:

Default - Fill flash

The default flash mode fires the flash at the beginning of the shot. In other words, the flash is synced to go off at the beginning of the shot. But, not every flash mode fires this way.

Red eye

Just like the default one, only reduces the red eye effect by contracting the pupil.

Slow sync + Red eye

The slow sync flash prevents that black background. Using this flash mode, the camera fires the flash for just a short portion of the shot. When the flash fires, the subject is well-lit. But when the shutter stays open even after the flash has fired, the ambient light in the background is captured, similar to how you would capture a long exposure shot of just the background. Slow sync flash then, is essential for using the flash without overpowering the existing light. Of course, since it is used with a longer shutter speed, you’ll need a tripod to steady the shot.
With the selection, the camera will take a default shutter speed of 1’’ or so
The same picture with flash-control to manual ⅛ (mentioned below)

See, the background reflected more light in this case, since the shutter speed was 2’’. (We couldn’t change shutter speed manually, so we reduced the flash intensity, thus camera had to increase the shutter speed to maintain the exposure compensation.

Slow sync

Same as the previous one but without red-eye

Rear-curtain + Slow Sync

A rear curtain sync, then, by firing at the end of the exposure, helps to freeze motion at the conclusion of the shot, instead of the beginning. That means that added sharpness is given at the end of the shot, so the motion blur is behind the subject, giving the appearance that the subject is moving forward.
During most long exposures then, it’s necessary to switch to rear curtain sync mode (unless of course you’d like it to look like your subject is going backwards).
Default mode:
This mode:

We can always adjust the flash intensity from “Flash cntrl for built-in-flash” in menu->Custom Setting Menu -> Shooting/Display -> “Flash cntrl for build-in-flash”

Also by Flash-compensation in the “i” menu.

Src:

Basics of photography - Lesson-2 | Become a photographer with Shubham Part-1

White balance:

First understand the concept of color tone.

Daylight or natural light at 12 PM Noon: 5600 k

Temp of a light bulb is 2700 K, if you set your camera White Balance settings to 2700k, your picture become clear white

From:

To:

In portrait photography, skin tone of the subject can be considered as standard white balance

You may have noticed that sometimes your images, look very orange
Light from a candle, or from the sun during sunrise/sunset, is very warm, and contains a lot of red/orange wavelengths; whereas light from a fluorescent strip is much cooler, containing a lot of blue wavelengths.
This coloured light is reflected off of surfaces, but our brain in clever enough to recognise this and automatically counter the effect, meaning that we still see a white surface as a white surface.
However, your camera is not that intelligent, and unless told otherwise, will record the orange or blue tones giving the colour cast to your images.
The ‘auto’ feature (auto WB or AWB) will attempt to predict the colour of the light by detecting the predominant colour of the scene and then countering it, however it may not necessarily make a correct decision, leaving you with inaccurate colours.
Settings:

Daylight – To be used on clear sunny days. Bright sunlight, on a clear day is as near to neutral light that we generally get
Cloudy – To be used when shooting on a cloudy day. Adds warm tones to daylight images.
Shade – To be used if shooting in the shade, as shaded areas generally produce cooler, bluer images, so need warming up.
Tungsten – Used for shooting indoors, under incandescent light bulbs, or under street lights, to cool down the yellow tones.
Fluorescent – Compensates for the green/blue tones of fluorescent light strips when shooting indoors.
Flash – the flash will add a cool blue cast to the image, so used to add some warmth

Active d-lighting:

Helps in preserving the highlighting and shadows in the image.
If you’re facing a high-contrast situation, with bright highlights and dark shadows, it can be challenging to work out how to expose for a balanced image.
The stronger the contrast of the light you are photographing with, the higher the Active D-Lighting setting you will need to use.
Modes:

Auto
Extra high
High

Normal
Low
Off

When to use:

Imagine a stadium with the sun on one side, casting half the pitch in bright light and the other half in shadow.
Landscape with high sunlight/ high intensity of shadow.

Off vs High

Src:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaQvmoV4Kc4

Picture control:

Description:

Many people pick up their camera and only worry about the shutter speed, aperture and ISO when it comes to creating a photo. But getting a properly exposed photo is just part of the equation, there’s a whole other aspect that needs to be addressed as well; how the photo will be edited.
Even if you shoot RAW and plan on processing your image afterwards, don’t think that there aren’t benefits to using Picture Controls directly in-camera. Picture Controls can benefit even RAW shooters.
What does picture control controls?

Sharpening
Clarity
Contrast
Saturation
As well as adding a Custom Curve

In detail:

Flat: Starting with Flat, notice there’s very little contrast, and the saturation is quite low as well. This is a popular profile for video shooters who later want to color grade their footage.
Neutral, which attempts to deliver images that are close to the original scene’s color and gradation
Portrait uses the same base as the Neutral profile but helps skin tones look more lifelike. Even without people in the scene, Portrait helps bring up shadow detail while providing a bit more pop in color.
Standard is a popular choice because it makes for well-balanced images that have a little bit more punch to them.
Vivid is great when you really want to put emphasis on your subject’s contrast and saturation.
Landscape produces a more intense file than Standard, but is slightly toned down when compared with Vivid.
And obviously Monochrome creates a black and white version of your photo.

When to use and when not to use:

For example if you are taking vacation pictures of scenery, architecture, street photography and family portraits all together then it's better to shoot with standard and then tweak in post processing. But if you go out to shoot landscapes only (say sunrise); then set it to that to reduce your post processing work. (Or if you are doing indoor shoots of birthdays, events with people shots; set in advance in portrait. If shooting objects and want to capture colors faithfully then standard / faithful etc).
My experience is even when I pre-election a setting; I still tweak during post processing based on what / how exactly I want to convey my photo and there is some individual taste/ creativity always. It is just that you get a good start. Pre-select a setting; take some shots (or select and apply in post processing) and see if you are liking the results so you will know what works best for you.
If you are pro photographer, you can always choose standard and then just edit the picture afterwards in lightroom or photoshop.

Know more about their actual values:

https://nikonpc.com/

Src:

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-techniques/the-importance-of-picture-controls.html

Built-in Controls

Standard
Neutral
Vivid
Monochrome
Portrait
Landscape
Flat (Did not see in Nikon D5300)