I have a lot to learn when it comes to nature photography. On a recent short trip to Georgia, I went out in the morning to catch some of the very late-blooming foliage. The colors are nice, but I would rate this photo, the best of the lot, as background noise.
Why do these blasted digital cameras seem to ruin sunsets so consistently? Honestly, I would love to give you some wonderful answer to this problem, but this is something with which I have struggled much and still do not have a good answer. At best, I can give you my hunch.
When I shoot sunsets with my film camera (with slide film), I seem to always come away with stunning colors. I shot sunsets about every other day for two or three weeks with my digital camera and came away with a few "well, that's nice" photos. Am I the only one having trouble with this? I have heard answers suggesting white balance issues, changing the speed and aperture, and so forth, but nothing seems to really solve it for me.
I have spent the last few days trying to hunt down a shop which processes slides, and it has turned out to be a confusing and lengthy adventure. I expected as much. On top of that, I am trying to find a projector to actually view them, once I have them ready to view. Neither is very easy.
Why would I even bother with slides? Too 1970s for you? Well, for one, the quality still far surpasses digital cameras. And two (the real reason), I have a lot of slides and I actually want to view them instead of leaving them stored forever, lost to all memory.
Since the couple did not seem too particular about the photography of the wedding, I decided to pretend as if they were. In other words, I wanted to put the highest expectations on myself, in an effort to force me to stretch my photographic ability and help me learn something in the process. That is exactly what happened.
After the day was over and I had a little time to think through the experience, the biggest problem I had was too shallow a depth of field. The effect was great in a way: the background was nice and blurred and the depth of field really drew the attention to one person the in the photo. The problem was that only one person was in focus, rarely even two.
This is what I not-so-affectionately call the "digital wait". It is mainly a problem with "point and shoot" (aka "compact") cameras. It is dreadfully annoying and, more often than not, makes us miss the shot we really wanted to take.
The explanation is quite simple, but what to do about it is not. Basically, the problem is that the camera is thinking. And evidentally, not fast enough, eh. So, what do we do about it?
Continue reading "Why Does My Camera Wait Before Taking the Picture?" »
I have tried all kinds of close ups, and none of them were really worth much. What is the problem? What was I doing wrong? The flowers were not crisp. The rocks were dull. Just about everything lacked the detail that makes this kind of shot so compelling and breathtaking.
Well, I sure hope this is not just some excuse, but I really think the solution to all my bad close up photos is my lenses. My lenses are not really made for this. I have a 50mm f/1.4 with a closest focusing distance of 1.5ft (0.45m), and an 85mm f/1.8 with a closest focusing distance of 3ft (0.85m). I think that is my problem. I just cannot get close enough.
I have run into a nasty problem the past few weeks: printing my digital photos. They just do not look the same as they did on my computer. Usually, they go from vibrant to dull. It is always some problem with color.
I recently took a couple photos of my newborn son—I have taken much more than a couple, obviously—which I wanted to print out for the grandparents. I had already spent a good amount of time on my computer adjusting the color and contrast to get the photos just were I wanted them, especially for the supple skin tones on my little boy's face.
Why did I switch to digital? You would almost never hear this question actually asked in publiic anymore. It is just an assumption that everybody would switch. Yes, there are many good reasons to do so, but for me, it was fiercely practical.
In a sentence, film and processing in China are unreliable. In one of the copy cat capitals of the world, you never really know what is real and what is fake in China, including that Kodak or Fuji roll of film on the shelves. Most people ask, "How can film be fake? Film is film." Not true. Film is specific chemicals at specific amounts on specific "papers", and trickster Chinese film makers cut costs on chemicals. Though most people have never thought about the effects of these chemicals, they would still very easily notice the difference if they compared photographs taken with genuine and fake films. The color is washed out, giving them a bluish or gray tint, and often grainy.
But that is not all! The processing stinks too! Somehow, even the most beautiful photos turn awful in Chinese processing. My guess is the same. They cut costs by using a below standard amount of chemicals, thus leaving your photos abou the same as bad film.
I received another photo from a friend to evaluate here. Here are his comments on his photo:
This was a 9 second exposure using my tripod. I was originally intending to get the cars on the outside road shooting from inside my complex, but when I saw a car coming down the driveway from inside our complex I quickly hit the shutter release. I was using a wider aperture so as to get stuff in the background more in focus, and in that sense it worked although do you think it would have been better if I had left it out of focus? Anyways, I really liked the way the taillights have a sweeping fiery pattern.
I had a little accident...as you can see. I was in a park trying to shoot some early morning exercise, which is so common in China. In this park, on this day, you had a choice of dancing, aerobics, chess (definitely an anaerobic sport), or badminton.
I was keeping my eye on a couple of badminton folks, trying to slowly move into a decent photo position, when they hit their birdie (or shuttlecock if you so choose) into a small tree. It was not too high up, and I thought my extra height might help. So, I decided to do my good deed for the day.
My budding photographer friend sent another photo my way for a bit of critique. Here are his original comments on the photo:
The school slaughtered a pig for us, and some of us roasted the meat over bonfires. Several kids set sticks on fire and began swinging them around, so the slower shutter speed was cool for the shot. For some reason it doesn't look as sharp on the computer as it did on the camera's LCD, but I still like it. I wish I could have got one of the kids in the picture clearer, but oh well.
A friend and fellow photo experimenter, just bought a Nikon D40, which is a serious upgrade from my loaner all-manal Vivitar. He and I were already sending e-mails back and forth with photos and comments on each other's photos. So, since I was already writing far too much for an e-mail, we decided to just move that information here to benefit all.
Quick Answer: "Film Safe" is a lie!
Here is the perfect example to explain a photographic tip that will hopefully save many of you from the five years of torturous distortion I had to endure with my own photographs.
You will need to imagine the inside of your camera as you load your film for this. The particular section of film (Kodak 35mm EliteChrome 100) shown at left, was half way out of the metal film container after finishing a previous shoot, but itself was still an unexposed (no picture taken) section of film when I passed it through a "Film Safe" x-ray machine. In other words, it does not matter whether you have taken a photograph with your film yet or not:
