How To Maximize Your Pocket Camera

How To Maximize Pocket Camera - is useful article to pocket camera users. If you want to change shutter speed and aperture setting to your pocket camera, how to do that? There are only two answers to do that:

1. Upgrade your camera
This is the most ideal answer, i.e buying a digital SLR camera, or at least an advance pocket camera called as prosumer camera. The two kind of cameras give you free manually setting of aperture, shutter speed, ISO and white balance, moreover DSLR camera could be changed its lens according to your requirement. If you have much money this answer is suitable for you. If you have no much money or you don't want to buy DSLR camera at the present time, you should try the next answer.

2. Maximize your pocket camera
Pocket camera is designed for daily photograph. It can give you information about photographic situation and kind of picture you need. Each mode of photography apply special setting to the camera.

Several pocket camera settings to maximize your pocket camera: 

• Adjust White Balance with available light. Improper white balance will produce tonal colors that do not match and sometimes bizarre. 

• Use the appropriate Scene mode. In each pocket cameras usually reserved several scenes to meet your shooting according to lighting situations and motion of an object being photographed.

• Use the Macro mode on an object that is close, without this mode, the object a short distance (less than 50 cm) will blur.

• Make sure the object gets enough light. The role of light is very important because you use low ISO. So get a light as bright as possible, if necessary use a flash or studio mini box.

• If you want to get shallow depth of field (blur background), apply 'spot focus metering' and 'Portrait mode'. The camera will set wide aperture.

• If you want to get deep depth of field (all focused), apply 'Landscape mode', and set 'multi focus metering' the camera will automatically set narrow aperture.

• If you want fast shutter speed, apply 'Sports mode'. The camera assumed that you want to freeze object movement. Its also applied to photograph children activity.

• If you want slow shutter speed, apply 'night mode'. Camera will automatically turn on flash and set high ISO that can make noise to the picture. Turn off flash and set ISO to 100 or 200. You should use tripod or other camera fixation to get sharp and clear pictures, and apply timer to reduce shake effect.

Resume of above settings shows in table below:

And additional tips is to avoid using digital zoom as it will add noise to your photos.

Why Golden Hour?

Why Golden Hour? As a continuation of previous post, this post will discuss why golden hour is very long-awaited by photographers. This is due, the sun gives an amazing light effects on each photo snap which make photographers more creative.

Here are some of the reasons photographers look for sunny golden hour:

Photo courtesy of http://365raysofsunshine.blogspot.com

Gorgeous warm light: It can just make your subjects glow.

Photo courtesy of http://aubreyrd.com

Silhouettes: Shoot into the sun and your subjects will be amazing silhouettes.

Photo courtesy of http://photoble.com

Lens flare: another possibility with shooting into the sun is lens flare which can add atmosphere to your shots when used in moderation.

Photo courtesy of http://www.digital-photography-school.com

Indoor photography: If you have a window or open doorway where the light get in through, you can make beautiful indoor photos too. So golden hour need not just be an outdoor thing.

Photo courtesy of http://instantfundas.com

Moody Clouds: The light in this time also hits the sky and landscape around your subject and they create mood and atmosphere in your shots.

Photo courtesy of http://xaxor.com

Black and White Possibilities: Monochromatic? Who's afraid! Just do it!

Photo courtesy of http://josiemarancosmetics.typepad.com

Rims of Light: It’s particularly good through hair, when you shoot with the sun behind your subject, you create rims of light around them which accentuate features.

Photo courtesy of http://lifecycl.es

Shadows: You can play with your subject's shadow by shooting at certain angles.


Do you have any experience with the golden hour in addition to what I mentioned above?

How to Get Golden Hour

Golden hour is the time which is very awaited by outdoor photographers, because it give the best lighting in a day. It is so called magic hour by pro-photographers, because it can give amazing effects of light on their photos.

The most important of photograph is light, and the photographers' favorite time of the day is Golden hour. Golden hour hour is the time at dawn to an hour after sunrise, and an hour before and after sunset. Those times gives us the best lighting for outdoor photography. Golden light come from side could inspire photographers to take landscape, portrait, silhouette, sunrise, or sunset photography, it enrich landscape textures and dimensions. See the different mount Bromo crater below, the first take at noon, and the other at golden hour. Which photo looks more beautiful?
 

Bromo crater at noon

Bromo crater at golden hour (Photographer: Jessy CE)

Sky gradation from blue to reddish, lighting comes from side solidify hills textures, reddish light makes warmer color of the landscape. These condition make more beautiful picture.

You can calculate exactly golden hour at your place with these software:

1. The Golden Hour, it is a site calculating when golden hour appears at your place. Just show your place on the map.
2. Twilight calculator, it looks like The Golden Hour.
3. Golden hour app for IOS or for Android.

Definitely, you have to wake-up early and never give-up to take photographs till evening.

Good luck!

Photograph A Dark Object

Photograph A Dark Object - Moreover if the object is dull dark color. It makes lens always moves to get focus picture. It's caused by lacking of light from the object.

Camera requires enough light to do focusing and metering. Focusing done when you half press shutter button, focusing motor lens will move the lens to get focused  shadow to camera sensor, while camera calculating aperture and shutter speed according to the light get in.

Dark object bounces a few light, thus sensor doesn't feel change of intensity when lens is moved. If focus is successfully found, low reflection of light will cause sensor arranging shutter speed very slow, sometimes more than 1 second.

This problem could be solved with a couple ways:

1. Apply setting manually:

• Find bright object that same distance with the dark object.
• Set exposure mode to P, do focusing until camera calculate exposure successfully. Read the value.
• Shift exposure mode to M, and set aperture, shutter speed and ISO with the value.
• Set lens to manual focus.
• Take photos from different angles.

2. If there is no manual setting, however AE-lock and AF-lock are available:

• Put bright object parallel distance to dark object.
• Apply AE and AF locks.
• Do focusing and metering to bright object.
• Take photos with AE & AF lock applied to the dark object at the different scenes to get best picture.

3. If there is no manual setting, AE-lock, nor AF-lock:

• Put bright object parallel distance to dark object.
• Do focusing and metering to bright object.
• Hold half press shutter button.
• Direct camera to the dark object, and take the picture.
• Repeat these ways with different scene program to get best picture.

Hopefully become useful tips.

Night Shot Tips

Night Shot Tips is continuation of Low Light Photography tips posting. This posting is talking about setting your camera before you photograph your night moments. Night give us volunteer lighting comes from spot light, vehicle beam, or many others. It could be an artistic picture if we know how to catch the nice moments.

Some camera equipped with 'Night Mode', however sometimes it doesn't give satisfaction. The causes are:

• 'Night Mode' sets higher ISO, so it makes higher noise.
• Wide aperture will make shallow DoF that blooming circular light.
• Shutter speed too fast, so moving light recorded in short time.

So it's required manual settings appropriate to the condition your photo object. The  way setting are:

• Set ISO at 100 or 200 to reduce noise.
• Set aperture at f/8 or higher to get deeper Depth of Field (DoF) and perform star effect of lamp light.
• The shutter speed is set according to the shooting early, typically ranging from 2 seconds or slower according to you need.

 

Another setting is applying 'P Mode', take one picture, see camera setting of the picture. Shift to 'M Mode' set shutter speed with calculating: 1 stop aperture wider is compensated by 1 stop shutter slower.

Additional tips:

• Try to take photograph at 15 to 20 minutes before sunset or 15 to 20 minutes after sunrise.
• You should equip with tripod or hold the camera on the fixed place.
• Apply timer or shutter release (wired or wireless) to avoid shaking camera while shooting.
• When human will be performed in the foreground, apply slow-sync flash.

Tips for Beginner Photographer

Tips for Beginner Photographer - This post is suitable for novices in the world of photography
 

1. Do not be hurried buy expensive photography equipments
My experience says, it's very possible you can make good photographs by pocket camera. More and more you make photographs, you increasingly understand photography technique. So not always during learning photography, you must apply expensive camera and its accessories.

2. Consider buy tripod
Cheap tripod but competent steady should you consider, especially if your hands have tremor habit. Your photographs would more glorious if you apply timer feature or shutter release when you use tripod.

3. Bring your camera every where you go
Good moments could suddenly come every where you are, if you always bring your camera and hurry up taking the moment, nothing to loose, more than anything else when you volunteer bring tripod. If you have a camera-phone, you can take some photographs as notes of the moment you recorded by your camera.

4. Make a list moments would you record
If you can not bring your camera, at least you are carrying notebook or cellular phone to record the place you want to take the photographs. Do not forget to record important thing of photography, such as lighting etc., so you can come back there at the good time.

5. Do not overlook "normal" object in photography
You may not see anything interesting and worth photographed in the living room or backyard, but at least try to look around with a new perspective. You might be able to find the  light spectrum or some wildflowers in your backyard, it is often a simple object can create a good photograph.

6. Enjoy the process of learning photography
The most interesting thing to learn a hobby like photography, there is not enough words to learn it. A lot of inspiration could be found around you. Look at all of this using the eye of a photographer and you will find photo opportunities that you did not realize before.

7. Take advantage of a free online resource to learn photography
Learn photographs produced by professional photographers through sites such as flickr, or websites that share information on photographic techniques, where can you find inspiration and tips on photography. If you are interested in learning about post-processing and still no budget to buy software like Adobe Photoshop, try using free software like GIMP.

8. Continue to test the camera settings
Your pocket camera has a feature that can be far more flexible than you know now. Read the user guide or manual to help interpret the symbols contained in the camera settings. Try photographing a subject using different settings, see and learn, and choose which one best results you like. When to re-review the photos on the computer, look at EXIF data of each photo to see the back camera settings do you use when shooting.

9. Learn the basic rules
As we know, a lot of information about the world of photography spread over the Internet. Start reading a couple articles about the photographic composition. Be open to opinions from more experienced photographers about photography techniques they use. You certainly need to know and understand the basic rules before breaking them, don't you?

10. Take photographs routinely
Try to photograph something every day, if you can not do that, then make sure you practice on a regular basis so you do not forget what you have learned before. The best way to do this is to give yourself a photographic challenge each week.

11. Do not be afraid to experiment
If you use a digital camera, perform continuous testing and most likely you'll find something you like, and of course you will learn a lot through this learning process.

Good luck!

Don't Use Digital Zoom of Your Pocket Digital Camera

Digital Zoom of Pocket Camera - There is a feature in pocket camera that you should not use it: Digital Zoom.

Pocket camera usually equipped with Zoom feature. There are two kind of zooming: Optical zoom and Digital Zoom.

• Optical zoom yield by optical glass movement inside the camera. It works such as binocular.

• Digital zoom yield by enlarged interpolating cropped image. this feature will loss image details to enlarge it, so the yield is semi blur photos. See the difference at pictures below.

Tips to reduce noise is avoiding digital zoom feature. If you want to enlarge the image, it's better you come closer your pocket camera to the object.
The question is, "Why digital zoom feature attached to pocket camera?"