Tripods, external flashes, memory cards, filters, and even some lenses are useful accessories for both photo and video. Some accessories (such as lenses, lights, and filters) may be required depending on the needs of the shoot whereas some accessories offer adequate protection to the camera equipment.

Common Accessories for Photo/Video

DSLR camera bag

The free DSLR camera bag that usually comes along with the DSLR camera may not be of the best quality, or may not offer adequate protection and storage. It does make sense to get a good quality DSLR camera bag with nice padded interiors and enough storage pockets that will safely keep your camera and accessories – USB drives, storage cards, and charger, etc. There’s also extra space to store lenses.

DSLR cleaning kit

DSLR cameras are expensive gadgets, so you should take care of it well, especially from dust. That is why you need a cleaning kit. A Professional Cleaning Kit comes with cleaning swabs, natural cleaning agent, special lens cleaning pen, brushes, micro fiber clothes, tissue papers.

• Camera strap
• Extra DSLR battery
• SD card
• DSLR Tripod Stands

Underwater Camera Cases & Housings

Water sports such as scuba diving and splashy activities are popular, which requires accessories such as waterproof camera bags and cases.

An underwater (uw) housing is a waterproof and pressure proof camera case for your camera that allows full control of the camera when diving. .

These cases protect the electronic circuits inside the camera, and are buoyant so that they float and can be easily retrieved. The bags are usually made of transparent plastic, and do not interfere with taking good videos and pictures, and will usually fit most models of cameras.

If you are a technical / deep diver (past 40 meters), you’ll want to check the depth rating on your housing (the deeper you go, more is the water pressure on the camera).

Tripods & Monopods

Camera accessories such as tripods are useful accessories for shooting photo/video, for the passionate traveler and storytellers.

There are occasions when you need the absolute steadiest hands for your camera and the lack of a sturdy camera mount (shaky hands) renders a shot or sequence unwatchable.

Any avid photographer will suggest you to invest in a sturdy tripod that can provide all the support you need when working with slow shutter speeds, long exposures, and close-up shots that would otherwise prove difficult to capture on your own.

Optical stabilization and shake reduction only gets you so far in this day and age.

A tripod is important when shooting in low light conditions, when taking self-portrait photos, when focused on a distant object, or for engaging in a steady FaceTime conversation.

Tripods essentially help steady your camera, affording you the time to make minute changes that could ultimately make or break your final image or video project.

The only time when you would probably not need a tripod is when you need to remain inconspicuous, such as Photojournalists or underwater photographers (over the years, they develop the skills of keeping steady and shooting quickly).

However, for others, the tripod is a must!

Tripods: Key to Low-Light Photography

• A Tripod increases the camera’s stability. Ensures sharper images
• Gives better low light images. Shooting a sunset, full moon, or cityscapes are three of the most popular low light shots. Any photographic shot that involves slowing down the camera’s shutter speed, requires a tripod.
• Without a tripod, nighttime images turn into a blurred mess.

A tripod is designed to support any camera – DSLR, smartphone, GoPro, perfect for travel and daily usage, for taking perfect photos, anytime and anywhere. It offers better stability for landscape, portrait and other styles of photography.

Tripods nowadays have flexible designs, are portable, have extendable legs, are lightweight and easy-to-store. Some have foldable designs and can conveniently fit inside a camera bag.

If you do not want to spend more, have a look at monopod. It is still a better option compared to hand-holding your video camera.

Manfrotto, Sachtler, Gitzo (from the same master brand, Vitec), Vinten are all popular brands that make a range of tripods & monopods.

Choose a tripod with a good ball-head mounting so that you can lock your camera and shoot from odd angles, yet maintain camera stability.

Vixari Tripod

Vixari Tripod is a flexible, portable tripod with compact design, extendable legs, remote shutter. Its lightweight, easy-to-store and can conveniently fit inside your bag. Its so small, it will easily fit into any backpack, purse, bag, or even a large pocket.The tripod includes a tilt head for your DSLR camera, both landscape and portrait modes, a Bluetooth remote shutter, a GoPro tripod mount adapter, and more. The legs extend up to 41 inches in height, but since their telescopic, you can also set them as short as you need.

Its also very versatile/flexible; you will never need a selfie stick again, or need to ask a stranger to take your picture.

Joby GorillaPod Camera Tripods

Take your mobile photography to the next level with the flexible Joby GorillaPod stand/tripod (features rubberized foot grips and wrap-able legs) for smartphones, action cameras, small tablets, compact cameras and more. This versatile tripod allows you to take better photos and smoother videos.

Place your iPhone easily and securely anywhere to awesome pictures and videos. This stand includes a GorillaPod and the GripTight mount for your phone. This grip fits all smartphones (iPhone, Android or Windows phone), with or without a case. The grip secures the device in places, even when it is turned sideways. It is easy to maneuver, tilt and rotate. Rubberized foot grips onto almost surface, easily wraps around trees and poles, or just get the balance you need on uneven surfaces.

ButterflyPhoto professional 72-inch Tripod

The ButterflyPhoto 72-inch Tripod works with almost all brands of Cameras & Camcorders. Kit Includes:
1) 72-Inch Full Size Tripod w/ Deluxe Tripod Carrying Case
2) ButterflyPhoto – ButterflyPhoto Micro Fiber Cleaning Cloth

Features of the ButterflyPhoto Professional 72-inch Tripod: Extends to 72 Inches, Tripod Has Special Carrying Handle, Professional Foam Grip, Self Leveling, Rubber Legtip, Built In Bubble Leveling, 3-Way Pan Head, 3-Section Leg, Quick leverlock, Rubber Legtip, Deluxe Soft Case.
Includes ButterflyPhoto Micro Fiber Cleaning Cloth – Safely Removes Fingerprints and Dust, Cleans Without Chemicals.

Manfrotto MKCOMPACTADV-BK Compact Advanced Tripod with 3-Way Head

The Manfrotto MKCOMPACTADV is a quality tripod that provides excellecent camera stabilization, Quick release, 3 Way Head for precised setup, Supports up to 6.6lbs.

Three-in-one Iphone Case

A unique three-in-one iPhone case that can be used as a bottle opener, lighter, and as a camera tripod. This hard case bottle opener is perfect for those who love Apple products (and alcohol).

It is made of high quality silicone. Being a case, it also protects your phone from scratches, shocks, accidental drops and collision.

Folding Portable Lightbox Studio

A portable studio allows you to take great photographs, as it provides a well-lit mini-environment, necessary to take great pictures. These come with built-in LEDs that help create a perfectly lit “micro-studio” environment to get great images.

These are foldable and you can take excellent pictures of products right at home, without having to invest in expensive white backgrounds, soft-boxes and camera lights. These let you shoot quality pics anytime, anywhere as it includes all the necessary equipment (light, backdrops and power).

These are perfect for Bloggers, DIY & Hobbyiest, Online Store Owners. In fact, anyone could benefit from these if you want to take good pictures at home.

Some mini studios come with black, white and gray backdrops to take great pics of food, craft projects, or your pet. You can also make your own backdrops (using paper or fabric)

On some mini studios, you can even control the brightness of the light as per your needs.

These act as a DIFFUSER as they help decrease the object’s shadow, and decrease the reflection of the studio light.

Memory Cards

SD card

When taking pictures and shooting videos, you will often run out of storage space (memory) that is why you will need SD card. SD cards are available in various capacities (storage space) and the prices of the SD card would depend on the capacity that you choose for your DSLR camera.

SanDisk Extreme PRO 256GB SD card: Supports transfers speeds of up to 95MBps. Great for 4k video recordings as well. It is water proof and shock proof.

Wifi Upload Memory Card

Most modern DSLR cameras come with in-built Wi-Fi. In case your camera doesn’t, you can buy a separate Wifi enabled SD card that will provide you the benefit of built-in Wi-Fi, allowing you to directly share media with smart phone or other gadgets.

These make your camera smarter and are a reasonably cheap upgrade; these let you do Wi-Fi Uploads from your Digital Camera.

Digital Backdrops

Backdrop paper, muslin backdrops, painted backdrops and other materials that can be rolled up or rolled out as needed, have long been a staple of studio photography. But they also take up room, and can get old and boring rather quickly, and will need to be ultimately replaced.

You could explore using Digital Backgrounds that show oceans, lakes, swimming pool, sunrise, sunset, jungles, and more. You can order these online, from your local store, photo supply stores, or commercial art supplies stores.

You can create your own digital photography backdrop using a computer, or you may nuy ready made backdrops; whether computer generated or muslin

Battery Life: Conservation Tips

The following are the more commonly used batteries in cameras:

• Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd)
• Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH)
• Lithium Ion

Some Batteries require conditioning, which means fully discharging and then fully charging a battery pack, especially when it is new.

It helps maintain the optimum performance of a battery pack, particularly for Ni-Cd and Ni-MH batteries.

In fact, most manufacturers and experts recommended doing it at least once a month for optimum performance and increased charge capacity.

Lithium Ion batteries do not require conditioning.

Most battery packs need to be fully charged and fully discharged up to five times to really bring them up to full capacity. Most experienced photographers are aware of this “cycling” process.

When you try charging for the first time, most cameras would say that the battery has been charged completely, if you keep it charging for ten to fifteen minutes. Most Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd) and Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) display this characteristic, whereas the fact is that these batteries never get charged completely the first time.

So you need to make it go through the conditioning process.

Just, remove the battery pack, let it cool down for about fifteen minutes or so and then repeat the charging procedure.

Most rechargeable batteries undergo self-discharging, when they are left unused for long periods of time. This is especially true of Ni-MH and Li-ion batteries.

It is best to remove the batteries when not in use. This is a good practice to follow, as it keeps your camera safe as well.

Battery Packs, Chargers, Belts, Power Stations

AC adapters are designed to supply your camcorder with continuous power but its a good practice to carry spare chargers and batteries so that you don’t miss out on capturing good footage and pictures.

You can either use rechargeable batteries or disposable batteries for your camera.

You will need an external charger to charge the batteries. These feature LED Light to indicate that charging is complete.

Battery Power Kits

Power Kits: Battery and Charger Kit for Cameras & Camcorders; includes batteries, charger/power supply, power cables.

Power Extension Cables: Checkout some heavy duty power cables and extenders for your video gear.

Battery Mounting Plates are useful for powering on-camera lights. Use these accessories to convert your professional camera to a V-Mount. A two-Pin DC-out connector allows an on-camera light to receive power from the on camera battery.

Power Strips Surge Protectors (Multiple outlets)

To connect the various equipment and to reduce clutter (and for surge protection), you can use multiple-outlet Power Strips.

You can also consider UPS Battery Backup, if you work with computers, digital equipment, lots of data and media files.

Multi-Port USB Charging Station Docks

Multi-Port USB charging station dock allows you to charge all your mobile gadgets (Smartphones and tablets) in one go.

The design is cleaner as all the USB slots are hidden under the lid, along with an integrated cord management system (leave your cables inside to keep things better organized).

Video-Specific Accessories

External Microphones / Headphones

Mics built in cameras have short-comings: they are designed for basic audio recording and will invariably capture more sounds than you really desire (noise and clicks as you press the various buttons).

Tie-clips and shotguns are external mics that help boost the sound quality of captured video.

• A personal microphone attaches to the speaker’s clothing
• A directional microphone sits on the top of the camcorder

When you are recording with an external microphone, you should always monitor what you are recording with the help of the headphones (once the external microphone is connected, the built-in microphone of the camcorder will not work).

Cables

Coming to cables, you will need them for a couple of purposes, and almost all the camcorders will be initially supplied with these cables.

AV cable – For viewing your video on a TV screen! Depending on the camcorder, you may also be able to record from a TV/VCR to a tape/disk within the camcorder.

USB Cable – For transferring still pictures and compressed email-type video clips to and from a computer.

More Accessories

• Remote shutter release: Even when your camera is mounted on the tripod, the simplest action like pushing the shutter button can still cause camera shake and prevent you from taking the sharpest images. This camera accessory works in a couple of ways – connected by a cable to the camera or using an infrared connection to activate the shutter.
• A good circular polarising filter: Important to cut down glare and reflections off shiny surfaces. If you are landscape photographer you will really benefit from a polariser (sky looks bluer, vegetation looks greener). Always remember to use a polarising filter that is equivalent or of higher quality to your lens. There is no point in putting bad glass in front of good glass.

These are some important digital camera accessories that you need to have in your camera bag. You need to choose which ones will serve your particular needs the best.

Cables & Cords . Batteries & Chargers . Blank Media . Films

Filters related Accessories . Flash Accessories . Lens & related Accessories

Light Boxes & Loupes . Light Meters & Accessories . Lighting

Cases & Bags, Straps & related Accessories . Rain Covers . Tripod & Monopod Accessories . Sandbags

Cleaners . Digital Picture Frame Screen Protector Foils . Viewfinders . Remote Controls . Digital Photo Viewers

The post Camera Accessories for Photography and Videography appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

Businesses are also using videos like never before to promote their products and services. So there’s a lot of opportunity in Video Production. You can get into wedding, corporate AV, products video, or shoot portfolios.

Occasions like birthday parties, house-warming, catch-up with old friends, holidays are also now the perfect occasions for capturing videos, and watch it with friends and families.

While every smartphone today can capture videos, how about editing it a bit, making it crisper, adding some captions and sharing it to friends?

And being able to create good videos can also help you in your career (those in the corporate world) and also for students:

• How about making a video resume?
• How abut making a video out of a PowerPoint presentation
• What if you’re at some location where you’re witness to some incident/accident? You can capture it even before the paparazzi covers it
• Students can shoot videos of their projects or crafts (from start to finish) and share it on YouTube
• Students in schools and colleges already have photography and filmmaking courses

With more experience and contacts, you can venture from making personal videos to professional videos as as well.

Here you will learn how to make your own videos, including tips and techniques for creating quality, professional-looking videos.

Video Creation Process

Video Production is basically the act of creating videos/movies/presentations using a video camera and editing software.

Depending on what you are shooting, there may be other factors to consider such as the story, lighting, artists, and so on. But any video creation process consists of a few mandatory steps.

The end-to-end process of creating a video can be broken down into various distinct steps: Buying your equipment, shooting/filming, capturing the footage (on computer), editing the video, and finally sharing the video.

Step 1: Get the right Video Equipment/Software

You will need the right equipment for creating videos (have listed them in another section).

Step 2: Shooting/Recording Your Video

Next is to shoot/record video using the video equipment.

Videos are usually marred by poor techniques such as shaky hand movements, excessive use of zoom-in and zoom-out, poor lighting, etc.

You can easily avoid most of these mistakes and create good videos, by learning basic video shooting skills (lighting, zooming, hand movement, etc.) that will help improve your video quality.

Step 3: Capturing Your Video on Computer

Next step is to take the video onto the computer to edit it.

You need a capture device such as a Firewire card to transfer the video to your computer. Most high end computers have a built-in capture card, else may need to buy it separately. A Firewire cable will then connect your video camera’s DV output port to your computer’s DV input port.

Step 4: Editing Your Video

Once you have the video on your computer, you can edit and polish it further using software. You can trim scenes, remove unwanted frames, add special effects, transitions and titles, add soundtrack, etc.

Once the final edit is done, you can create the final video that is ready to be shared.

These software can also convert the videos into a variety of other video formats.

Video Production Studio Setup (Equipment List)

Whether you are an enthusiast or a serious video producer, having suitable gear is also important. You will also find useful tips on buying (and using) video camera, video capture device, powerful computer, video editing software.

Creating a professional quality studio is less expensive today than ever before. Here’s what you need to create great videos.

• A good video camera
• Lavalier or tie-clip microphone (minimum visibility)

You want the captured audio to be good. The built-in mics (of a camera) are okay but for best results experts use a good external camera microphone. Depending on what you are recording you may require clip-on mics, hand held mic or boom mic, but the important thing is to have good mics.

You could use you cellphone camera as well (if you are on a tight budget), but then it may not capture the audio very well. That is why you need a camera which allows you to connect an external mic.

• Good lighting is important

You could easily setup a 3-Point lighting without investing in expensive gear. It’s possible using natural light and other simple tools available in most homes.

You need good professional lights, such as aluminum scoop lights or halogen lights. For best results, your lighting has to be good and that is where these come in handy. Whatever you shoot, just make sure you have several lights for the video production job.

• Camera L bracket: For mounting external flash for better lighting
• Tripod for stability (shakiness often results in bad videos).
• Computer with good configuration to efficiently edit and create your final video.

Computer is the heart of your video production system. It is where you will do things like editing, adding effects, adding soundtrack, etc. and come up with the final video.

It needs to have excellent configuration else it will take ages to do all the processing and rendering.

• Video capture card.

To be able to capture your video on the computer, you will need a capture card to transfer the video to your computer (Firewire gives you extremely fast transfer speeds than USB).

• Video Editing Software

For editing the videos you may use a free editing software, but I recommend you use a paid version.

Final Cut Pro (Mac) and Adobe Premiere (windows) have high end features and are used extensively by pros. On the other hand, if you are an amateur or intend to make home videos, Pinnacle Studio Plus or Roxio would be more suitable, considering your requirements and budget.

Read: Beginners Guide to video editing

From a long-term perspective and if you plan to create a lot of videos, you should invest in a better video camera and computer.

Video File Extensions, Formats: Simplified Guide

When working on a computer, all your information and data gets stored in files; depending on the application you use, the file extension varies.

Media files can be huge and the original format may not be practical to save, edit, or upload on websites.

That is why you compress these files for different purposes, which produces different video file formats (which also affects the overall quality of your video).

Though there are several types of video file formats and extensions, you can basically categorize those in two buckets: Container Formats & CODECs (Compression Formats).

Container Formats
Examples include: AVI, WMV, QUICKTIME (MOV), etc.

These store and interleave different types of data.

Compression Formats (CODECs)
Examples include: MPEG, MPEG-4, DV, etc.

• These files are much smaller
• Video is compressed using a special software program (known as CODEC)
• Easy to store and transmit

There are several file types out there, the more popular video file types include:

AVI – Audio video Interleave (.avi): Windows focused video format. It however has compatibility and synchronizing problems on other platforms.

Quicktime is popular because top entertainment and news sites use it exclusively on their web pages, and also because it can also be used on either a windows or a Macintosh computer. It is also cheaper to digitize video into the Quicktime format and put it on your website, compared to the mpeg format.

MPEG (Motion Pictures expert Group) files have better quality and are used on video games and other media that require high quality output. The disadvantage being their huge file sizes and you may need sophisticated hardware and software to convert plain videos into mpeg.

Flash Video (.flv)

The flash video format (.flv extension) is the file format used by Youtube for all its videos. This format works with the Adobe Flash Player!

Windows Media video (.wmv)

This is Microsoft’s proprietary video format, playable with Microsoft’s windows media player.

How to Create Videos That People Will Love and Share

The new YouTube Creator Playbook for Brands is packed with invaluable information for content creators and marketers. In this weeks Creator’s Tip, we take a look at section two, which guides brands on the fundamentals of content creation and marketing.

Apple is one company that produces great videos for its products. Having videos like that displaying your products or simply just advertising your business can make a big difference for making your videos look more processional. Now even you can create amazing videos with nice white as snow background and crystal clear quality images.

Here’s how to make your videos look more professional using some very simple, and also affordable, equipment. This video shows you how you can start making your own videos at home, and what you need to get a good professional video.

Things to Keep in Mind

Here are certain things to keep in mind, especially if the videos are going to be uploaded online.

1. The video needs to be short and to the point, to keep visitor attention
2. Needs to be smaller in size, for faster loading
3. Video needs to have a good storyline and proper wording
4. Need to be well-lit and properly shot
5. The audio quality needs to be good
6. Depending on the topic & purpose, you may also use a webcam or screen capture software
7. You Need to Promote them to get more eyeballs

Useful Video Resources: There are many useful links and video Resources online that you can refer to enhance your knowledge of video production.

Video Producer: How To Be One?

Video production involves the creation and editing of videos (television commercials, documentaries, movies). Here are the more popular role that people play in this industry.

Videographers

They are also known as video camera operators, and as the name suggests, they shoot videos/movies. Experienced Videographers are comfortable shooting in a variety of different genres.

As far as employment is concerned, video camera operators are required in TV stations, movie studios, and even news media to record newsworthy events.

Usually employers prefer candidates with both creativity and a strong technical knowledge of the industry (most prefer at least a bachelor’s degree). Extensive travel may be required as part of the job description.

Video Editors

Once the video footage has been captured, it needs to be edited, and that is where Video Editors come into picture. A video editor plays an important role in shaping up the final product, and needs to have a good understanding of the various editing tools available (in addition to film-making).

Most TV stations & movie studios hire video editors with good experience, creativity and preferably a bachelor’s degree.

Producer

A Video Producer can take up several types of assignments such as shooting corporate, wedding or music videos, producing video games, and even movies.

Lot of video producers work as freelancers.

Producers main responsibility is to help in getting a project executed. They help set up shoots in various locations, and in some cases may be required to keep a track of the expenses (to ensure the project finishes within the planned budget).

The producer is usually responsible to liaise with the various actors, arrange funding and manage the costs, and ensure the project is taken from conception to completion.

In some projects, they may also be required to be involved in the marketing and distribution processes.

They could also be referred by various names depending on the size of the project. So if it’s a big-scale movie, you will hear several terms such as executive producers, producers, co-producers, associate producers, writer-producers and so on.

On smaller projects, they may don multiple hats and could direct the assignment as well besides handling the project operations.

In case you want to become a movie producer, you usually have a couple of options:

• First is to produce the project yourself, that is pay from your own pocket
• Second is to find an interesting literary property and get exclusive rights to it, and then look for financiers to fund the project

Working for Media

Some of the biggest media giants serve millions of visitors through their network of broadcast, digital, mobile and publishing properties.

Such media and marketing companies employ experienced Video Producers to create top quality videos.

They create videos for live distribution and for on-demand video content for all their digital properties and platforms.

The post Video Production: Tips to Create Quality Videos appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

How Video Cameras Work

Modern day video cameras work using the following process (simplified):

• Light enters the lens and is converted into digital data by the image sensor (CCD sensor or CMOS sensor)
• Recorded audio is picked up by the microphone, converted into an electric signal and stored in the memory.
• The digital data is made into HD video by the image processor, compressed by the appropriate codec engine, and stored in the memory.
• Most consumer digital camcorders are often used hand-held and that is why they are equipped with high-performance image stabilizers as well.

A CCD – Charged Coupled Device is what captures an image on a camcorder. It converts light into electrical impulses from which the digital data is derived. If a video camera has only one CCD, that single CCD has to create the whole image.

If you are looking for a professional camcorder, go in for a video camera that has 3 CCDs – one for each of the primary colors, red, blue and green. These camcorders produce richer colors, but since it has 3 CCDs, the video camera will cost you more.

After the light hits the CCD, a video signal is generated. A special converter inside the camcorder converts that electrical information into digital signals made up of bytes of data.

Digital video cameras have special built-in electronics that enable the users to enhance and manipulate the video signal by adding effects.

Special electronics in the camcorder allow you to apply effects like electronic gain, black and white, sepia, fade, and so forth. Once the effects are applied, the processed video signal is then sent to tape.

Factors to Consider When Buying

Here are some factors to consider when buying a video camera.

• Good video and audio quality. For better sound quality, it is best to use a good external microphone.
• Features: Zoom. Improved image stabilization that ensures jerk-free videos even when you are travelling in a vehicle. Anti-shock mechanism: The better ones have an anti-shock mechanism; protects your camcorder and hard drive from accidental drops.
• Longer life batteries are desirable. Larger and brighter screens.
• Video cameras also come bundled with editing software that lets you add cool effects.

Zoom

You must consider Optical zoom over Digital zoom as Digital zoom distorts videos at higher resolutions.

Also, beginners tend to over-use Zoom because the tendency is more to look at the subject of the shot, rather than seeing how the shot is composed. If you are not watchful, you will not even realize that the zoom is constantly creeping in and out during your recordings.

The best way to improve your recordings is to refrain from using the zoom altogether.

If you avoid using zoom altogether, you will be forced to look at alternatives like finding an establishing shot, shooting some close-up shots and so on.

What is HD Video?

High-Definition image or video uses much higher resolution as opposed to standard definition, which means the images a lot sharper. The viewing experience is much better when the content is High-definition (or HD as it is also called). The lenses in these cameras also offer much more zoom, which means you can capture things up close and personal.

Accessories Required

When buying a video camera, it will be really nice to have the following: Case or Clip to Carry, Lens Cap, Extra Batteries or Recharge Accessories (wall chargers or the like), Extra Flash Memory Cards, and even a Tripod.

More Features

Although you can take nice pictures and videos by just sticking to the auto mode, learning the finer aspects does give you more control over the footage. Most of them can record impressive videos even in low light, and the sounds that get recorded are also getting better nowadays. Some of them are suitable for underwater use as well, and are resistant to sand and harsher conditions.

Learn to Use the Equipment

There’s a saying that “A Bad Workman Always Blames His Tools” and that is why its important that you shoot as often, so that you can learn from the pictures that you have taken.

Camera equipment can be expensive, particularly if you begin to take photography seriously as a career option. Therefore it is important to make sure that you get the right equipment for the job.

However, be careful of placing too much importance on the quality of the equipment, as you can end up spending thousands of dollars on equipment that is not going to make much difference, unless you have the kills to know for sure.

Best Pocket Video Cameras

Pocket video cameras (or mini camcorders) are small in size and portable (easily fits into your pocket), and are suitable for capturing quick videos on the go (or some cinematography or fly on the wall documentaries), without requiring any elaborate set up. These have a simple user interface which helps to record quick videos, and the ability for fast uploads to various sites without the fuss of going through your computer. Pocket camcorders also have flip-out USB ports (allows the camcorder to be directly connected to a computer).

However, they are not great for low light video situations. Image stabilization on pocket camcorders also works okay.

Some of these products come with several exciting features such as full motion digital video camera, a powerful still camera and some even boasts of having a MP3 player.

Best Waterproof Camcorders

If you love shooting videos and are a keen traveler as well, then don’t let a little water or sand prevent you from shooting a great video.

With a waterproof camcorder, you can easily shoot sharp & brilliant moving pictures and videos underwater.

You can shoot just about everything and even take still pictures, but primarily these are built for underwater video recording. You can even use it to shoot videos indoors, but don’t expect the highest quality videos.

Features of Waterproof Camcorders:

Diving down to a depth of 10 feet under water, these record videos, full HD and even still pictures. Usually, these video cameras work up to around 2 meters under water, the exact depth is specified by the manufacturer.

These are quite sturdy and some of these are shaped like a pistol, so just point and shoot. The design is such that you can use the control buttons using your thumb.

These even come with image stabilization. So basically, you get most of the standard features, and they do work as intended.

Most of them allow you to record 1080p full HD movies, more than 10 megapixel photos, and some also offer face chaser technology.

The inexpensive ones are quite okay to shoot quick videos but for shooting longer videos, some of them may not be quite convenient. Besides, the various options on inexpensive ones many not be very easy to select.

Polaroid XS100 Waterproof Sports Action Video Camera
The Polaroid XS100 (Waterproof up to 30’/10m) comes with Wide Angle Lens that provides 170 Degrees of Coverage, offers multiple video recording formats & multiple photo shooting modes, Full Helmet & Handlebar Mounts Included.

So the next time you go to the beach, or for sailing, or for camping and more, these hardy go-anywhere companions will let you shoot all the fun, without having to worry about the outside elements.

The post Video Cameras: Buying Guide, Reviews & Ratings appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

Along with her acting career, Tamannaah has also been successful in business, which has contributed to her impressive net worth.

Tamannaah’s sources of income are film compensation, brand endorsements, and stage performances. She is among India’s highest-paid actresses, and her net worth is a testament to her success in the entertainment industry.

One report estimates Tamannaah Bhatia’s net worth to be around Rs 110-120 crore. She earns roughly around Rs 10-12 crore annually, which means that her monthly income is around Rs 1 crore.

Another report suggests that Tamannaah charges around Rs 5 crore for a film and over Rs 60 lacs for an item song (which is expected to rise after the success of the Kavala song).

Apart from her acting career, Tamannaah has also invested in real estate and owns a luxurious sea-facing apartment. Here’s a report that says that Tamannaah paid almost twice the regular price for a sea-view apartment in Versova (Mumbai) and spent an additional Rs.2 crore on its interiors.

She is also a proud owner of a collection of super-expensive cars, including a sleek Land Rover Discovery Sport.

A picture of Tamannaah, wearing a massive diamond ring, had gone viral saying that it was the world’s 5th largest diamond worth Rs. 2 crore. However, Tamannaah later clarified that it was not a real diamond but a bottle-opener which was used for a photoshoot few years ago.

Tamannah Bhatia: Fitness

Tamannaah strictly follows the diet suggested by celebrity dietician, Pooja Makhija. She eats mostly simple, yet healthy food.

“Fitness is like brushing your teeth. You must include fitness in your daily life,” Tamannaah.

While Tamannaah may not the slimmest actress in India, she strives to have a healthy body by doing functional training, cardio, weight training, running and yoga,

Besides eating well and regularly working out, Tamannaah advises youngsters to follow a healthy lifestyle.

“If your lifestyle is not fit, then you can’t work properly. If your lifestyle is unhealthy, it will reflect on screen,” Tamannaah.

The post Tamannaah Bhatia: Lifestyle, Business and Net Worth appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

When it comes to photography or videography, lighting can be of various types: natural light, ambient light or studio light.

The advantage of studio light is that you can shoot any time of the day or night. Further, studio light basically includes a main light, a back light, and a fill light.

Types of Lighting

A basic understanding of the various kinds of light will help you get the best results while shooting.

Your lighting doesn’t have to be all hard, though at times it can give you a nice effect, but it should be used sparingly.

Basically, there are two kinds of light – Directional and Diffused.

Directional Lighting comes at you from one direction. This light is directed directly from the source on to the subject.

Diffused Lighting doesn’t fall directly on the subject. Clouds act like a diffusion filter that spreads the light from the sun everywhere creating soft light.

Diffused light is best for photo/video because it is soft and gives a nice glow to the pictures.

Unless you are going in for some sort of a dramatic effect, diffused light is something that most of us want.

There are a couple of ways to get diffused light – either Bounce the light or Filter it!

The simplest way is to take a lamp and point it towards the ceiling. The light that you get in this way is not pointed directly at the subject, and so the light is very soft on the face of the subject.

Using inexpensive lights is the easiest and low-budget way to do it. Just clip-them onto whatever is handy, point it towards the ceiling or wall, and you’ll get diffused light.

If you want to go for a professional light kit, gadgets exists that can help you to diffuse light to whatever extent you want to. A couple of options include:

• Reflective umbrellas that give you a moderate level of diffusion
• Use a Softbox for even softer looks; it gives excellent and high level of diffusion

Using Natural Light

The easiest way to light your video is to take advantage of natural light (the light that exists already). That way you don’t have to setup any lights at all.

Here are the steps you can follow in case you are shooting at home for best natural lighting:

• Brighten up the rooms
• Open blinds, curtains
• Open Doors
• Turn on Lamps

Placing the Subject

Once you do this, place the subject in such a way that it best lightens up their face. This usually means that the subject should be about 3/4th angle from the brightest source of light.

This is important because you don’t want to subject to be a silhouette, even though that can be used for a beautiful effect. If you take the video with the sun behind the camera, the face will be brightly lit, but when it is behinds the subject, you get a silhouette.

Before you begin shooting, here are some things that you should keep in mind. First thing to observe is from which direction the light is coming. Generally speaking the light should be coming from behind the camera and falling on the subject’s face. The pictures can look totally different even in the same room, if the direction of the light is different.

Lighting Equipment

Add-on Lights

Add-on Light is a battery-operated light that can either sit onto the camcorder’s accessory shoe (hot shoe) or to a bracket attached to the camcorder.

You should always arrange for your main supply of light and treat the portable light only as a back-up source.

Portable lamps can also be helpful while shooting outdoors. Using an add-on light, you can fill-in the shadows on a persons face when shooting in bright sunlight.

Camera light meter

Photographers know the importance of appropriate lighting when shooting pictures.

If the exposure is not set correctly, the image can get over or under exposed and the end result would not be good. That is why photographers want to be sure that the lighting is just about correct.

Though with experience, you know how a shot would come out, professionals also rely on devices that can give a fairly accurate reading of how bright a scene is.

That is where a light meter is a far more accurate and convenient way to determine this. It basically tells you if the amount of light reaching the camera will be enough to properly expose the image.

The reason you use a light meter is to make the whole process more efficient, faster, and it also improves your skills.

• You have more control over the look of your images
• By using your meter and testing your camera system, you can get an accurate representation of how your camera responds to light.
• A light meter also trains your eye to be better at judging different light levels.
• If you’re a pro photographer, it makes you faster on the set.
• By carrying your meter on a location scout, and measuring the light levels, you would know exactly how to plan your shoot.
• Just remember your light levels for a given scene, and you can come back weeks later to shoot additional shots at that same location for that scene to get a sense of continuity.
• By maintaining consistent light levels within a scene, post production becomes easier, quicker, and more affordable

The post Lighting for Photo / Video appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

The Bollywood movie Pathan, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham, was filmed in various locations across Europe, particularly in Russia, which was a key location for the film’s action sequences. The movie also had some scenes shot in Dubai.

Cadiz in Spain

The song Besharam Rang was shot in Cadiz in southwestern Spain, considered to be one of the oldest cities in Western Europe. Cadiz has an old town with cathedrals, cobbled streets and narrow alleys.

Mallorca in Spain

The movie was also filmed in Mallorca, a popular island in Spain with crystal clear waters. It is a popular tourist destination for tourists from all over the world.

Paris in France

Turkey and Italy

The film was also shot in some locations in Turkey and Italy.

Moscow in Russia

Pathaan is also filmed in Moscow. You can see the Kremlin, the river Moskva and the business district of Moscow in the movie.

Siberia in Russia

The chase scene between John Abraham and SRK was filmed at Lake Baikal in south-east Siberia. Lake Baikal is the deepest and the oldest lake in the world.

Dubai in UAE

Several fight scenes were filmed in the city of Dubai at locations such as Palm Jumeirah, Mall of Emirates, and Burj Khalifa. SRK also owns a residence in Dubai.

Mumbai in India

The film was also shot in Mumbai at places like Marine Drive, CSMT (CST) station, Fort, Gateway of India and Prithvi Theatre.

The post Filming Destinations of SRK’s ‘Pathaan’ Spans Europe to the Middle East appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

Portraits

This is how everybody starts, taking pictures of their friends and families, and those are portraits. You’ll enjoy this style if you find faces fascinating. You find the human face and the expressiveness of the eyes more captivating. When you go on vacation you are more likely to take photos of the locals, than the scenery.

Portrait photography can be formal and informal. Formal portraits are often taken in studio settings, where you can pre-plan and also take multiple photos using different controls. Informal portraits, on the other hand, are taken in the “spur-of the moment” where you may not get the opportunity to take multiple shots and at times require some luck as well.

It’s important to make the subjects comfortable if you want better pictures. This is important to get great photos, and most of the time it differentiates an amateur from a pro.

You also need to study the face of the subject. The angle you you will shoot from is important (considering scarring, acne breakouts, etc).

Try out variations; take multiple shots. Go for Close-ups, three-quarters, and full-lengths (the three main types of portrait shots).

Also, don’t be afraid to get closer to the subject, rather than just relying on the “zoom”. By going closer, you get to see more of the person, and helps take memorable portraits.

You can experiment with natural lighting but a good flash with a diffuser helps to break down any harsh lighting.

Lighting is important as a shadow in the wrong place can darken the face, or a band of light from the wrong direction could wash out an image, and so on. These are common challenges that you face, especially in black and white portraiture.

For more formal studio portraits, it’s best to have three light sources: two larger lights and one smaller back-light.

You will need to use the manual settings on your camera to create the perfect portrait.

Props such as toys, books, gadgets can be used, but they also help the subject to relax. You can take a few pictures using these props and once the subject feels comfortable, you can try more variations.

When outdoors, make sure that objects in the background don’t overshadow the subject. At all times, your background should accent or complement your subject, wherever the subject is located in the frame.

It is best to keep the background less cluttered. In case you can’t control that, lower the depth of field to blur the background objects, making for a soft, low-key portrait.

Choose a background that gives color to your subject rather than take it away. Finding a nice spot with a tree to sit on and mountains in the background can be a great portrait, but you will want to make sure the background is not too busy to distract from the subject. Make the subject seem apart of the picture rather than outside of it.

Here are some simple steps/techniques that you can implement to make the pictures much better.

• Composition
  You want to frame the picture such that the subject takes most of the picture. Anything else, in short, is just a distraction.
• Focus
  You need to keep the subject on focus, and everything else out-of-focus. For this, you need to reduce the depth of field which you can achieve by either moving-in close to the subject or using a lens with a larger aperture.
• Use Exposure Compensation
  To brighten up the subjects face, when using Aperture Priority mode, you can try using Exposure Compensation. Try dialling in up to +1 stop of positive Exposure Compensation.
• Aperture Advice
  Use a wide aperture (around f/2.8-f/5.6) to capture a shallow depth of field, so the background is blurred, and the focus is more on the subject. You do get specialist portrait lenses that tend to have wider maximum apertures (from f/1.4 to f/2.8) in order to blur backgrounds further.
• Shutter speed settings
  As a general rule, make sure the shutter speed is higher than your effective focal length (to ensure no blurring because of camera-shake). For example, at 200mm use a 1/250 sec shutter speed or faster.
• Increase your ISO
  In general, use a fast shutter speed to deal with all people movement related problems (including blinking). While in Aperture Priority mode and maintaining a wide aperture, to increase your shutter speed you can simply increase your ISO (from ISO100 to ISO400, say). In low light (indoors and outside), you may need to increase it to ISO800, 1600 or even 3200. But what about grain? Most experts feel that a little grain is usually better than a blurry, useless photo.
• Lens choice
  A wide-angle (around 18mm) lens will capture more depth of field compared to a telephoto lens (over 70mm). This is why telephoto lenses are favoured over wide-angle lenses for portraits, as they further knock backgrounds out of focus to make people more prominent in the scene.

Family Portrait Poses

Though everybody likes to be captured in a photo, not everybody looks their best when they are first clicked. You need to make them more comfortable to be able to get the best shot.

The same applies when shooting family portraits as well.

Not only you have to make them comfortable in front of the camera, you also need to get the right poses.

The best thing to do is to put yourself in their shoes, if you want to direct family portrait poses successfully.

There are many more things that you can do; here are some useful tips to get family poses right.

• Find out some of the things they like doing together as a family and what they share in common.
• Try to capture the relationship these people have to on another.
• Group all of the grandchildren together rather than putting them with their respective parents.
• Adequate Clothing: When capturing (large) families, color coordinated clothing can help to identify each family. Make sure all of them are dressed for the occasion. For longevity purposes, suggest the family to avoid trendy clothing and accessories that might go out-of-date quickly.
• Choose Appropriate Background: Try to set your photograph against a background which adds information about the people. For example:
  1. If they love the beach, this maybe a great place to take the photograph.
  2. If they like being in nature, go to an area where they may be surrounded by trees.
  3. If the location is a family room, sometimes a good place to start is in a corner of the room which will create a pleasing setting for the family to fill, or
  4. Maybe they are a musical group and have a piano as a centerpiece of the room. This would be a good place to gather the family.

  Go ahead and be more creative.

• Getting the Right Placement: When setting up your family portrait poses, establish one or several ‘planes’ to help make your lighting simpler, as well as making it easier to include everyone within the camera’s range of focus.

  For example, a setting such as a gentle sloping hill or a staircase can provide a natural organization of planes.

  If you can arrange them in rows, give them some focal point, perhaps center front. Depending on the size of the family you can have one row of people sitting, and another row standing. Make sure the tallest is in back and that your camera is raised as high as possible so that everyone’s face is seen. You can elevate your self by standing on a hill, or a stair way.

  Take plenty of pictures because someone is surely going to keep their eyes closed or look away.

• Lighting
  Family portrait poses almost, always call for a full main light. Depending on the size of the family, you may need to add accent lights. These will help to add depth and perspective more easily.

  If you are shooting indoors, try to use as much natural lighting as possible, by opening curtains and letting in more light where necessary. This help give the colors of the portrait a more natural look.

  When shooting outdoors, diffused sunlight is great for providing overall illumination, and adding a portable flash can help with directional light as well as light into the eyes.

• Avoiding Red Eye: One photography portrait lighting tip that is most overlooked is avoiding red eye. Red eye is caused by the flash being to close to the axis of the lens.

  The ideal way to avoid red eye is to have the flash aimed upwards in the bounce mode or, if the ceiling is too high, off the camera, but connected to it by means of a short lead.

Dog Photography Tips

Take time to understand the Dog’s personality before you start taking pictures. In general, pre-photoshoot knowledge of a dog’s personality will enhance your dog photography.

If the dog feels uncomfortable, ask its owner/handler to join the picture. Use the opportunity to capture some heartwarming portraits.

Focus on the eyes if you want to capture Emotional Dog portraits. However, keep this at the end of the photoshoot as the dog is more likely to be relaxed by then.

Use a black background (cardboard, black painted surface) to take classic portraits. It creates the illusion of depth and makes the photos look like professional fine art prints.

Active dogs are unpredictable, which means you won’t be able to calmly compose a shot during your session. Instead of waiting for the perfect moment, take photos spontaneously.

Use Burst mode, or continuous shooting mode, to capture all kinds of angles and expressions, especially when the dog is running.

Wide-angle lenses (have small focal lengths) allow you to create wide compositions with more depth (often used by landscape photographers). You can use these lenses to create funny pictures of your pet.

Use manual focus to focus on certain parts of the face and take sharp portraits (when your dog is resting or calm).

A zoom lens will let you capture high-quality photos of the subject from a distance.

Landscapes

This is another area that interests photographers; they want to click good pictures of a landscape (while travelling or on holidays).

Landscape photographers are opposite to portrait photographers, they like the scenery more than the people. While the portrait person likes to interact with people, the landscaper feels comfortable being alone in the beauty of nature without any another person insight.

Because the landscape has to be clearly seen, wide angle lenses are commonly used (not available on most point and shoot cameras which makes them unsuitable for capturing good landscape pictures).

Macro

If you like going in the details, this type of photography is for you. Macro photography is for those who love the small things in life, and pay enough attention to the tiny details (insects, flowers).

The cameras & lenses that you use in this style of photography is basically mean to achieve one thing – help you get high magnification and still get clear pictures.

The closer you place your lens relative to the subject, the larger that subject will appear in the image.

You need a good macro lens for macro photography to take great pictures of small objects and insects.

The better lenses out there for this purpose provide good performance in extreme close-up (macro) situations, i.e. in the range down to 1:1 (life-size) at the image plane, and their telephoto focal lengths provide a longer, more convenient working distance.

The best part about some of these lenses is that they work equally well as general-purpose telephoto lens.

There are many who take pictures without a tripod, and rely purely on their breathing techniques for stabilization.

If you opt for a tripod, it will need certain specifications:

• Tripod legs should be capable of spreading nearly horizontally, so that the camera can go as low as possible.
• Tripod head should finely and precisely control the camera’s position (ball heads are more flexible and allow for a greater range of camera positions, compared to pan/tilt heads)

You may also consider using a remote switch or shutter release device to improve the sharpness and control over macro photos (because in this case you’re not pressing shutter button located on the camera, so the camera does not shake/move)

You may also consider using the self-timer mode on your camera to minimize camera shake (if you don’t have any of the above), but its still not the best option – To start the timer, you will need to press the shutter button, which may cause the composition to change.

We all know how important lighting is in photography. Here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to Macro Photography lighting.

• Back lighting can create silhouettes or halos around subjects – emphasizing shape.
• Front lighting ensures that shadows aren’t clearly visible, but illuminates everything that is visible.
• Side lighting casts distinctive shadows, enhancing surface texture, but often also concealing other details behind dark shadows.
• When natural lighting isn’t ideal (and using a flash isn’t an option), you may consider using a light reflector.
• Using a camera flash can also greatly improve the appearance of macro subjects.

Like most things in photography, these are not to be rigidly followed, and feel free to experiment.

Butterfly Photography

Butterflies belong to Macro world, which is fascinating – an unseen, unexplored world. We are not naturally equipped enough to cherish every minute details of the natural wonders around us. Macro photography is a tool, which opens up the door to this whole new world of unseen beauties of nature.

You’ll need a telephoto zoom lens with macro mode (use one that lets you switch between manual and auto focus). Use a Monopod (or Tripod) whenever possible and a cable release or the camera’s self timer to avoid camera shake.

You’ll need a camera with faster shutter speed to prevent blur associated with a fast-moving subject.

Preferably shoot early morning or in the evening. During these periods butterflies are often spotted sitting with their wings spread wide (in order to absorb heat from the sun).

Night/Low Light

You enjoy prowling around in the dark or are fascinated by the way night-time can change a city. That, or you really enjoy taking photos inside dim galleries and museums.

Action and Sports

This basically covers everything that moves, and not limited just to sports. Action photographers also enjoy photographing children and pets, who’re always on the move, don’t they.

Indoor

You are most inclined to pull out a camera when your small child is reaching for his favorite toy. You take photos of birthday parties, dinners, and other events that occur inside a house.

Spontaneous

You want to be able to react on a moment’s notice, and know that speed is essential to capturing the photo of a lifetime. You have a habit of waiting until the last moment to bring out the camera.

An important aspect of shooting sports or when doing street photography is to take the pictures in a stealthy manner. People usually are very concentrated and focused on the activities and it is best that they don’t realize that their photos are being taken. This is the best way to take some really candid photos.

Food Photography Tips

People are more likely to pick up cooking/recipes books that have the best photographs of the various meals.

Tips for taking great food photos

• Choose the proper angle. In food photography, in most cases, the view from the top looks better.
• For better results, take photos under natural light as far as possible. When working with direct sunlight, use a diffusor (or a thin white bed sheet) between the light source (window) and your table to improve quality of light.
• Minimize clutter, use certain props only if you want to tell a story.
• Choose props, backgrounds and tableware that have neutral color tones that will make the food stand out.

Real Estate Photography

Real estate photography requires learning how to compose a strong composition, learning about light quality, learning how to light room interiors, learning to manage highlights and shadows, learning to manage the color of various ambient light sources, choosing the right lighting accessories for the scene, using an umbrella over a light box, and so on.

You will need a digital camera with a wide angle lens. For full frame sensor cameras a lens around 16-35 is perfect and if you have a cropped APS sensor camera then a wide angle lens around 10-20 will work as well.

You need a good tripod and a cable release or wireless device to trigger your camera. I also recommend wireless triggers to fire the strobe/flashes.

Travel Photography

Travel Photography is one of the more popular subjects of photography, may be on par or even more popular than portrait photography. I mean, if you have got a new camera, you’ll either shoot portrait or travel photos such as of famous landmarks, architectural masterpieces, and culture.

Here are top tips to improve your travel photography skills:

• Click pictures that capture a sense of a ‘journey’, and for that you don’t have to go to a far flung location. It can be as simple as taking a trip to a neighboring town or city and recording what you find.
• Find a new viewpoint: You don’t have to take the same image as everyone else is taking, find a new take on a popular location and you will be really happy with the result.
  
• Record the journey: Whether you travel by train, car, plane, bike, or foot, record your journey as the journey can often be more interesting than the location itself, especially from a photographic perspective
• Pack Smart: Stick to one or two lenses on a trip. 24-70mm or a 50mm are great options; avoid the 500mm lens (unless you’re photographing nature).

You want your camera to go EVERYWHERE with you. Whether it’s hiking, biking, or jumping out of an airplane, the best digital SLR camera for you will be small and light.

Documenting your travel may not be a new concept, but not many people are aware of it. It is basically a way to remember your travels and the memories, by taking pictures at every place that you visit.

While many take tons of photos of holidays, there are some who keep a travel journal or a travel blog.

Then there are some who like to video-shoot the trip and later on turn it into a short movie.

Good to have wide range of lenses from wide-angles to tele-photo. But if you’re short of space, a 50mm one will be perfect; its quick and allows you to get close to the subject in addition to offering good shallow depth of the field

If you have space, carry a flash, reflector as well

When shooting the locals, you may apply basic portraiture techniques

Landscape Photography

Landscape Photography basically involves taking pictures of expanded perspective for vibrant landscapes, group shots and even interior spaces.

In this type of photography, the main subject is ‘nature’, and usually people are not included in the pictures.

Here’s how to improve your landscape photography skills.

Find something interesting in the foreground. You need a good foreground element to give the shot a nice depth, which is required for landscape photography.

This makes the viewer of the photograph feel that they are there, because they can see the depth of what is close and what is far away.

Landscape photography needs at least one good wide-angle lens (focal length of less than 50mm). Zoom lenses with focal length of 10-24mm, 35mm primes, 24m primes and so on are also considered to be wide-angle lenses. The heart of the wide-angle zone for landscape professionals is more like 14mm to 24mm.

For landscape purposes, we think of the wide-angle focal length range as 14mm to 35mm on a 35mm camera. Anything less will get into fisheye territory and anything more is pretty normal (doesn’t have a wide-angle feel.)

Wide-angle lenses offer a bigger Field of View (FOV), making them suitable for landscape photography.

Here are some more tips:

• When capturing backgrounds like sky and the horizon, experiment with different filters.
• Though a clear and bright day works best, true emotions of nature can also be captured on most rough and windy days. Heavy rain and thunder, winds and cloudy skies, fog and mist can actually provide good opportunities to capture some priceless moments.
• Lines and other shapes like curves, reflections, can give a lot of depth and scale to the image. For example, capturing a flying bird or moving cloud in the foreground, with a beautiful background will make the picture more alive and interesting.
• Use the Rule of thirds, it does help to capture a well-balanced and focused picture.

Fashion Photography

A fashion photographer can make a model or an actor into a celebrity, by bringing forth never seen before side of the subject’s personality and capturing it on the camera. Top fashion photographers can creatively enhance their beauty, presenting them on TV, Magazines and Internet, in a way in which they have never been seen before.

You need one or two good cameras, tripod and a lighting system. Depending on your lighting needs, you might have to look into a bounce-off flash or softboxes.

If you shoot primarily in natural/ambient light, a full frame DSLR will be required, especially if you have to start pushing up the ISO. While shooting with strobe lights, you can shoot base ISO all day long, and even a micro 4/3 camera can provide you with excellent images.

While the camera and lens choice are important, in fashion and commercial photography, other things like the lighting, the production (model, hair, makeup, wardrobe, etc.), and editing skills (retouching the photos) can make a bigger difference to the end result (if you want it to look spectacular).

Fashion includes jewelry and accessories as well. Sometimes a watch from a famous maker on the slender wrist of a beautiful woman is a good fashion shoot.

Photojournalism

Photojournalism is basically telling an accurate story of a current event, where you try to communicate through photography, similar to writing. So how do you improve in this style of photography? How to take pictures so that the viewer gets what you’re trying to communicate through the images?

The best thing about this style of photography is that you really have to rely on your photography skills, so no cropping of the images and no post-production later on. You have to get the shot right and also make sure that the image is communicating the story, even before it is written or broadcast. As a photojournalist your job is to record the truth in the most compelling way that communicates the reality of the scene.

The best way to understand more about the subject is to grab newspapers and quality magazines like Time, and the National Geographic, and look carefully at how the photographs in the stories are put together. You have to spend some time doing research. Study the articles and see how the photo in the news relates to what is being said. Communication is the key in photojournalism.

Being a news photographer means continually snapping away at the action as it is presented in front of you. Make sure the people’s faces are visible in your photos, because that will best reflect what they’re feeling at the scene of the action. This is the most essential element of a good journalistic photograph. To capture the emotions that you see with your own eyes, make sure you keep people’s faces in the shot so that even your viewers can see (& feel) those expressions.

Underwater Photography

Underwater photography is a popular theme and a lot of people want to takr pictures underwater when on vacation or when indulging in water sport activities.

Here are a couple of things that you need to keep in mind.

First thing is to get the white balancing right, which plays an important factor in underwater photography.

Second part is to factor in lighting, as you are likely to have less light when under water. It means you will have to use a slower shutter speed, which is likely to have its own challenges. It might introduce blur or it might raise the ISO which will introduce noise.

So you will need to factor in these things, when shooting pictures with the waterproof camera case on.

Forensic Photography

Crime scene photography is a vital part of ‘evidence collection’ at the crime scene, as it documents the appearance and location of victims, footprints, bloodstain patterns, and other physical evidence and produces a permanent, visual record.

A forensic photographer (also known as crime scene photographer or an evidence photographer) takes detailed photographs that records the crime scene and the physical evidence within the crime scene, as accurately as possible.

It involves photographing possible evidence in the scene or incident, such as tyre marks, blood spatters, fingerprints, foot prints, bullet holes, shell casings, body of the deceased including injury marks.

Planned/Studio

No photo you take is without some form of preparation. Whether it’s a child’s portrait, or that of a model, or a still life of your favorite flower, you like to get everything set up so that the light, color and mood are just right.

Photography Tips

Best time to shoot:

• The golden hour – shortly after sunrise or before sunset
• Avoid harsh, direct light as much as you can.
• Cloudy day – pleasant glow helps take well-lit photos.
• Hold a reflector to cast an even amount of light on the subject, and to get rid of shadows.
• Shoot from unusual angles, experiment with new angles.
• Keep spare batteries and memory cards

Read: More photography tips

Focus on Your Interests

Although people are the most popular subject in photography (everyone wants to be clicked), portrait photography, even though lucrative, may not suit everybody. If you like to be outdoors (in the wild) or if you don’t enjoy talking a lot, taking pictures of people may not suit you.

If travelling is a concern, you may focus on street photography, which involves taking candid (or even posed) photos of people in the street.

If you have access to a huge park nearby, you may also focus on macro photography, which involves capturing insects, birds, flowers, if that interests you.

If you wish to take pictures of wildlife then you’ll have to wait for the right time of the year. You can go to a wildlife park, but even then you have to wait for the subject to come into view. Birds will always be available, but the type of birds will vary. Elk and Deer are more visible when they come out to mate and eat.

Landscape photography requires you to go on vacation to some new place.

As you can see, its a combination of your interests, and choosing the right subject.

These are the more popular styles/genres of photography, you may choose to focus on a particular type, and also buy photo gear keeping that in mind.

The post Photography Styles: Various Types & Genres appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

Introduction

Buying top-of-the-line camcorder does not necessarily mean that you automatically get great videos. I am sure even you would have experience this if you have bought yourself a camcorder. When you watch the videos later, you realize that it could have been shot a lot better.

You may eventually figure out on your own how to deal with these issues regarding lighting, zooming, etc. But I think it is better to learn some basic video shooting skills before you begin using your camcorder so that you can start capturing great videos right from the beginning.

While lighting is definitely one of the most important things, when it comes to taking pictures or shooting videos, there are some other obvious things too, that you should keep in mind when using your camera — How to set up the camera, how to make sure the shot’s in focus, how to not sound flat on camera, etc.

Before shooting These are all tricky questions that can stop you from creating your next piece of content. You have the idea, but you just need to know how to do it yourself in the best way possible. So let’s jump in!

Most of these tips will instantly make your videos better and don’t require money, doesn’t require buying extra gear.

Video Shooting Tips

Let us take a look at some basic tips on how to shoot good video.

Check the Background

Before you start shooting, check the background to see if anything can be improved. You don’t need a studio environment, but you can always remove anything that’s distracting, or rearrange certain things, or open the curtains, so that the overall shot is improved.

Most of this applies to photography as well.

In case, you’re planning to shoot a lot of solo videos, do consider creating a permanent space for you shooting sessions where you can control the light so that all your videos get a more consistent look.

Use Zooming-In Sparingly

This is one of the feature you would be tempted to use a lot the moment you have a camcorder. It is fun to use but the fact is that it does not quite come out well in your final video.

Lots of zooming is actually very distractive while watching the video. So better watch out. Even if you want to do it, you need to do it slowly; it looks much better than a quicker one.

Keep it Steady

To ensure smoothness in your videos, you need to be steady while shooting your videos.
Too much shaking or vibration of your hands does not reflect well on the videos.

If you want to do it like the pros, go in for a tripod. Even otherwise, try to keep your hands steady – no shaking or jerks.

Check The Sound

If you are serious about videos, check this out! You will need to have a microphone attached to your camcorder. Having a Mic attached to your camcorder results in better audio quality during video shoots.

Ask everybody on the set to Shut Up when the shot is being taken!

Charge your Batteries

Don’t forget to carry your battery charger, and you also need to carry extra batteries. This is the most common mistake that lot of us do when going for outdoor shoots. You don’t want the battery to die down just when your creative juices are flowing full on.

Capture the Location/Landmark

Let the audience know where you are by capturing important landmarks, monuments. The pros do this all the time! They will zoom in on the landmark in one shot and then cut to the next scene, indicating that the next scene is near or related to the landmark.

Bring in Variations

Shoot from different angles; approach your subject from all angles. Don’t limit your shots to just one angle.

Involve the people you are shooting. Make them smile or talk. It is also important that you capture some candid moments of the people you are shooting.
All these variations will make your final video much more lively and interesting to watch.

Keep the Shots Simple & Short

If you intend to show your videos to others, it is important to understand that people in general tend to get bored looking at the same shot for long. Hence use different shots for variety, as well make them as short clips. The audience will find it much more interesting.

Proper Lighting is Important

This is an easy concept to remember and at the same time the most important, since poor lighting really spoils a video shoot.

You should always shoot with the light source on the subject and not on the camcorder. The light source should be coming from behind you. If your camera has a backlight feature, use it to compensate for excessive bright light!

Learn from The Movies

Observe and Learn! You will be surprised to know how much you can learn about shooting video from the movies. So the next time you are watching a movie, try to look at the way the scene has been shot and how the shots move from one to the next.

Reflect Back In The Video

Another trick is to use the start of the video as the current situation and reflect back into the details.

For example, if you see “the making of any successful movie”, the video will start with the director & producer talking about their success and then the video will go back to show the actual shooting, the challenges faced, etc.

Shooting for Online Video

Online video has become popular because it is very easy to share it with others, and also because it is very easy to promote your products and services.

There are many who want to learn about making videos so that they can upload instructional videos on the internet. And they really don’t want to spend a lot of money on digital cameras. In fact, most of them use only their webcam to record most of their videos.

You need to remember that online video is highly compressed in low resolution, and we watch them on computer screens that can be much smaller compared to televisions.

So when shooting for the internet, you need to have a different approach as opposed to shooting for television.

In general, keep an eye on the following:

• You should favor close ups
• Keep the video short
• Make sure the audio is clear and understandable

Gear for Shooting Video

You can always shoot with your smartphone, or the camera and setup that you already have. But in case you decide to spend on gear, you should consider getting the following:

DSLR, Wide lens (like a 24mm), Tripod, Microphone Audio recorder, External monitor, Daylight-balanced key lights.

How to Shoot Sports

When shooting sports or action, it is important to hold your camera steady.

If you want to shoot with the zoom focused on a distant player or object, you will need to use a tripod/monopod to get a better shot.

Don’t be tempted to get too close to the scene. Stick to safe, wide shot and let the action pass by.

Zooming, and the need to pan from left or right, becomes a necessity while shooting sports because of the constant action. If you intend to shoot a ball-game, a better option is to frame on the centre of the action with the zoom lens but not to zoom-in and out constantly. Adjust the pan and tilt-head of your tripod, to ensure it supports smooth panning shots. That way, you can just concentrate on the action.

Hand-holding the camcorder makes more sense at times as it gives you the flexibility to take dramatic shots.

For instance, if you are shooting from a moving boat, hand-holding makes more sense. Just use any part of the boat as a body-prop to get stability.

Similarly, you can take dramatic shots of bikes or snowboarders by taking hand-help shots.

I recommend that you practice holding the camcorder steadily in a range of different poses!

Filming Children – How to Video-Shoot Kids

As a parent, you can get tremendous satisfaction video shooting your children, especially the way they grow up. Right from the moment they crawl to the moment they are ready to run on their feet, you can cherish all those captured moments later in your life.

Here are some suggestions to film kids, capture their playing sessions, and those innocent moments, which you can treasure later in your life.

It is really important to let the kids be themselves. The more they are occupied, the less they will feel imposed upon by the presence of the video camcorder.

Engage your kids in some activities or games that will provide them with a distraction. Painting, drawing, building block, are some of the activities to engage them.

It is best to capture your shots while they are on their own.

Remain close enough, but not too close to be able to record every word. And once they have been distracted, do not impose yourself on them. Just take a break and let them settle down. You can try again after some time.

To make your video even more interesting, prompt your kids to talk about whatever their thoughts are at that time.

If you are lucky, they will reveal their thoughts! Just ensure that there are no extraneous noises – such as people talking or traffic noise.

It may be worth investing in a good external microphone, unless the rooms in your house are indeed very quiet.

How to Shoot Close Up

If you are learning how to shoot close up shots, it is better to try it with still objects rather than people. This is because not many people feel comfortable about close-ups. They become too conscious and may not give you the correct pose.

But since you have to learn how to take close up shots, you need to take the opportunity to get in close whenever and wherever you can!

The best and the only way to get a good close-up shot is to get in close to the subject!

So, make sure you have zoomed out fully to the lens widest setting (to avoid focusing problems).

Next step is to move in close. Manually control the focus to the point where the camcorder is virtually touching the subject.

You need to be fully zoomed-out when shooting big close-up shots to maintain stability while recording. It is more difficult to get a steady shot if your camcorder is fully zoomed in while hand-holding.

How to Shoot Panning Shot

A panning shot is one in which you move your camera or camcorder from left to right or vice versa. The term is derived from the word “panorama”, which means a wide view.

You can use panning shots for Shooting a beautiful landscape, Shooting a busy scene or street, Shooting the motion of an aircraft as it takes off at an airport, Shooting Sporting actions and more.

Here are some tips on how to use the correct panning techniques.

As with zooms, you need to give 2-3 seconds still shot at the beginning and at the end. This will give the viewers time to appreciate the panning scene.

After pressing the Record button, hold on for 2-3 seconds. Now perform the planned camera move. If you have a tripod, use it.

Once at the end of the desired shot, hold it steady for another 2-3 seconds. Now you can stop recording.

Pan with the Action: Sporting actions are perfect for making use of zooms, in addition to a definite need to pan left or right with the action.

Make sure your tripod is setup correctly to capture all the action.

Set up your tripod’s pan and tilt head such that it can support smooth panning shots. That way, you will be able to remain focused on the action while following it smoothly.

The post How to Shoot Video Like a Pro: Top 10 Tips to Capture Video Better appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

Wedding Photography: Where Fashion Meets Photography

Wedding photographers around the world have raised the bar in wedding photography and cinematography by taking breath-taking pictures, stylized cinematography, slick editing and Avant Garde coffee-table books.

With powerful equipment becoming cheaper (reasonably), more and more photographers are investing in high-end cameras for better results.

Most Wedding videos nowadays are made similar to how movies are made!

In this style of photography, photographers with experience in fashion, lifestyle and editorial photography bring their expertise to the wedding space to get those perfect shots, making the bride and groom look like stars.

These photographers ensure the entire wedding experience is brought to life with a cinematic touch. With the talent and and precision of master craftsmen, aided by cutting edge equipment & technology, the current crop of photographers/cinematographers have revolutionized wedding photography and cinematography.

There’s also lot of money in weddings, which have promoted many from the film business to dive into the wedding business; the great thing about that is they get their film-making experience to weddings.

Most pre-wedding films and portfolios have romance and dream-like quality that world cinema is made of.

On most wedding films, scriptwriters, art directors, fashion photographers, cinematographers and editors are utilized to ensure a concept-rich & highly creative product is made.

Wedding Photography Etiquette: Dos & Don’ts

Here are dos & don’ts for photographers to ensure they don’t intrude during those important functions, and for clients to ensure they get what they want without appearing as control freaks.

When to Take Pictures

There’s no right time, in fact, as wedding photographers, you’re expected to cover every moment and every function. Here’s an effective way to make sure you don’t miss out on the important things.

Check beforehand with the client about the start and end time for the various functions and the venues for every function. Your photo/video team has to reach there well in advance, so that you can capture the décor without getting disturbed (advantage of reaching early), make sure you capture the couple entering the venue and moving out of the venue, make sure your team covers the function adequately.

Check with the couple beforehand to know when they can spare some time so that only the couple can be clicked in various poses. Make sure during reception, you also take some pictures only of the couple in various poses, without any distractions.

Proper Instructions to the Photo/Video Team

As a client, its also important to give clear instructions to the photo/video right in the beginning.

• Do you want more candid photos?
• Do you want more of the getting ready / makeup part
• Are you expecting any special guest during the wedding, whose entry you want captured, and so on. Dress Code

Most professional photographers send their photo/video team with Jackets or t-shirts bearing their company’s logo. This is a great way to showcase your brand, but then it works only if you’re a well-known brand and your crew is big (its common to have a crew size of 6 to 10 for most weddings, so its good to have some sort of dress code for your crew).

It also helps in identifying your team, just in case the client wants you to take some important pictures/videos at the spur of the moment.

Know the Important People

Its important to know who the important people, which means, besides the couple, you should at least know who their immediate family is, and their close friends.

In one of my friend’s wedding, there were about 10 people in the wedding photo/video team, and one of the videographers was busy shooting the proceedings, when an elderly man requested him to get aside.

But the videographer stayed put.

The elderly man requested again, which irritated the videographer who threatened to shut down the camera and walk off if he was asked to move from there. The elderly person turned out to be the bride’s father and the bride was very upset that somebody misbehaved with her dad.

So its important to know who’re the important people, and in general, it always helps to be polite with people.

Wedding Video Production: How to Shoot

Weddings, in general, is serious business nowadays. Every aspect associated with a wedding is taken care of by professionals.

The ceremony, moments and celebrations associated with a marriage can go on for more than a day, so as a Video-maker you need to ensure that you shoot a faithful documentary of the events as they unfold.

Here are some suggestions/tips to help you to take a professional approach to wedding video production and photography.

Chronological Record of the Event: The most common approach is to make a chronological record of the event. You shoot it as a documentary, telling a story and interpreting what you see.

Shooting the Ceremony: The most suitable position from which to shoot the wedding ceremony is usually from behind the priest’s left shoulder. You get a good view of the couple’s faces. You may just want to check with the priest to confirm if he is ok with your position.

Capture Diverse Moments: Don’t just stick to capturing the evening reception and the celebrations. Grab shots of the post-ceremony socializing and conversations as well. It could be outside the venue, but does not matter. You will get lots of candid and interesting snippets of video. The video footage will give you plenty of diverse moments when you sit down for editing!

Use Microphone: Consider the use of an external microphone. You will need to capture the sound associated with all the formal moments, including the ceremony. The camcorders built-in microphone will not give you the best results, with all the background noise being captured.

Dealing with the Photographer: Besides you, the photographer will also be capturing those precious moments. At times, you can’t do much since the photographer will get in your way. Try to include him in the action and create another point of interest.

Mix Shooting Styles: Every wedding will have key formal events together with less formal or lighter moments!

So you just cannot stick to shooting from a tripod all the time!

For the formal, staged moments, consider the use of a tripod. If you have to get closer to people or between places to capture the lighter moments, it is best to shoot hand-held.

Make the Couple Comfortable: Besides capturing the formal moments, you will also have to capture some informal moments, close-ups or candid shots of the couple.

Utilize the time when they are getting ready for the wedding, to ask some questions about their would-be. Add a little humour to your conversation. Make them comfortable. It will all add to the quality of your final video.

Tips for creating compelling, professional contemporary Weddings Videos

• Each wedding film is hand-crafted with narrative, says a story.
• Its shot using professional cameras (and even helicam depending on the venue)
• Uses live audio and classy soundtracks

Besides capturing the various events, they also film the bride and groom getting ready for the various events, and capture behind-the-scene moments at their respective homes & functions.

Their photo and cinema team at the venue cover everything from the beautiful decor and ambiance, to the guests & families of the bride/groom, including their candid moments. Unlike traditional videos, contemporary wedding films are much more compelling, and will make you look back and relive those special moments.

Studios have access to some of the best talents (photographers, cinematographers, video editors) from the industry, who work in creating the wedding videos.

Script for Filming a Wedding

Want your wedding to stand out? You need a script for filming the Wedding.

Here are some questions that you need to ask before covering a wedding.

• Question to the couple: What is your special love story, explain in detail.
• Question: Describe each other, Likes & Dislikes about each other
• Question: If your love story had a theme, or was a movie title, what would it be? (Few words max)
• Question: Any special requests you’ll have for us to cover (Particular events, speeches etc)
• Question: Any music preferences (If none we will select the perfect music for you)

Here’s a rough idea/outline of how the montage would play out in the final edit.

– The film opens with a few montage shots of the Location with a VO saying something like “Location, the city of love, where romance is always in the air, and where soulmates become one” (we will work on the final VO during the edit).

-Then comes : ‘…’ presents, The love story of a lifetime…

– Next, we do a fast cut reveal of the bride like the heroine in Bollywood films. We use the VO given to us by her friends and family where they describe her. It will go something like” She is sweet, she is mad, i love her smile, she is emotional, she is the nicest person i know….” etc. This we will get short bytes from everyone.

– We do the same with the Groom. A slow reveal with a similar VO.

– We start the narrative by inter-cutting their story with each other. Of how they fell in love, their long distance etc in a very cute manner. We will be showing them most of the times, not overlapping it with shots.

– We move on to a final 30-40 second pre-wedding montage of them.

Then we do the usual wedding scene with a few bytes in the middle.

– We end the movie with both of them, describing what they think their wedding life is going to be like. Something like, “This is what i have been waiting for all my life” or “Today marks the happiest day of my life”, etc.

A lot of this depends on what kind of bytes we can get off them. But this is the basic structure of the montage. Please share your feedback.

Every wedding celebration, irrespective of what religion or culture it is associated with, will have its key formal moments, as well as some lighter moments. So try mixing your shooting style to get a diverse footage. At the same time, it is one of the biggest moments in a couple’s life. So as a video-maker, make sure you approach it in a professional manner. With the above suggestions, you should be able to pull it through, and give the couple’s something worth remembering for the rest of their life.

Wedding Video Packages & Deliverables

Here are the things that gets delivered after a wedding film is shot, and how the changes are handled.

• Around 2000 to 3000 color-corrected photos (depending on the number of functions in the wedding, around 10,000 photos could be shot)
• Some may even upload the pictures on sites like Picassa to share it with friends/relatives
• Some may create a website exclusively for the client and upload the pictures and videos (the highlight video) on the site
• The client may choose a few hundred photos to be printed on a coffee table book (charged extra) Videos

Depending on the deal, separate videos of every function may be delivered, or just one Video crush covering all the events (1 to 2 hour duration) could be delivered.

A montage or highlight video (4-5 min) having the best moments from all the functions that can be shared with friends or uploaded on any website.

Along with the final edited film, the original footage of all the events may also be delivered to the client on an external hard drive.

Besides the main wedding video, as a client, you can have several shorter videos & montages of specific events and dances, which can require editing work, and for which the videographer is likely to charge more.

There are many who also provide a package that includes photography and videos. This can be beneficial to you, as the team is likely to be well coordinated and complement each other.

The disadvantage of this arrangement is that it doesn’t let you hire a more economic photographer or videographer separately. However, if the difference is not much, its best to opt for a package and then get a good deal on the various deliverable.

As a consumer of these services, you need to understand that wedding videography is a competitive market, so you can expect to get good deals, and also deals that match your budget.

So it’s in your best interest to ask for several quotations and then do the comparisons; you should also request for samples of work and get feedback from other users. Turn to friends and family for referrals, and previously hired, wedding videographers.

Wedding Photos & Videos: Handling Client Queries

Here are some typical examples of the various changes (and feedback) that most clients provide once their wedding videos and photos are delivered.

• Require more footage of the bride, groom, performances, décor, food
• Footage from all functions such as pre-wedding, Sangeet, party, wedding.
• Missing bytes that they had provided for the videos
• Need more reactions for the performances.
• Providing better music (at various places in the edit).
• Changes in the video if there are lots of abrupt cuts.

The post Wedding Videography & Photography: Latest Trends appeared first on Bollywood Presents.

Introduction

Have you recently got yourself a digital camera?

Armed with a good camera and little bit of skills, you can take great pictures, something that was once the realm of only professionals until a few years back.

Understanding Camera Settings & Important Concepts

Most pros are able to shoot great pictures because they are able to focus the attention on the subject and at the same time have complete control of the background. They also pay a lot of attention to correct exposure and focus.

Difference situations will require different shutter speed and aperture. For instance, if you want to shoot drops of water hitting the water surface, then it will require faster shutter speed compared to shooting a model indoors, which requires slow shutter speed.

Exposure

In digital photography, exposure refers to the amount of light that falls on your cameras image sensor, when you take a photograph.

Exposure value refers to the different combinations of your camera’s shutter speed and relative aperture (that gives the same exposure).

The Exposure Triangle

Here are the three key elements that affect your exposure, and work together to create a perfectly exposed image:

1. ISO Sensitivity
2. Shutter Speed, and
3. Aperture (f-stop).

In photography, this is known as the exposure triangle.

Underexposure vs Overexposure

Having the incorrect exposure could result in the photos being either:

• Under-exposed or
• Over-exposed

Note: You can enhance a good photo further using a photo editing program such as Photoshop, but if your original image is not exposed correctly (either underexposed or overexposed), you cannot do much to the picture using any photo editing program.

ISO Settings

The ISO settings on your camera determines how sensitive is your cameras sensor to light, and the grain or noise in your photos. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light, while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera.

Its a standard for measuring light sensitivity nowadays.

ISO stands for International Standards Organization.

The normal range for most cameras is from ISO 100 to about 1600. Some digital camera however can go as low as 25 or as large as 6400.

Here’s what you need to know about your Camera’s Image Sensors Sensitivity:

1. Lower ISO number means the camera’s image sensor is less sensitive to light, higher number means its more sensitive to light.
2. At lower ISOs, the image looks darker but smoother (less noise/grain). At higher ISOs, the images are brighter and more grainy (more light is used to expose your image).
3. High sensitivity settings are generally used when the available light is less and where you are unable to use flash photography (at night or in dark theaters)
4. Low sensitivity settings are generally used for outdoor photography (on well lit days) and in studios where you can using lights or use flash photography.

Note: ISO along with shutter speed and aperture, all work together to create the perfect exposure. So, if you change your ISO Settings and you still want to keep your exposure consistent, you’ll need to adjust either your shutter speed, your aperture, or both.

Shutter Speed

Shutter is a shutting mechanism similar to a window shade, and is placed either behind the camera lens or is built into the middle of the lens, next to the aperture.

When you take a picture, the shutter opens briefly and allows you to control the amount of time for which the light passing through the lens remains in contact with the digital image sensor.

It is activated by the camera’s release button.

In photography, shutter speed is the length of time for which the digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light, when a camera’s shutter is open when taking a photograph. Experienced photographers often use shutter speeds to convey or freeze motion.

Shutter speed determines the exposure time or duration of the light reaching the film or image sensor, whereas Aperture determines the amount of light passing in.

The usual range of speeds is: 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000 sec.

One thing to note is that, as the number of the denominator becomes larger, the shutter speed actually increases. And as a result less light is allowed to pass through, which leads to decreased exposure.

Aperture & F-Stop

Understanding camera aperture is crucial as it controls the amount of light reaching the digital image sensor and has a great impact on the quality of the image.

When taking pictures, there are some settings on the camera that control how your end result is going to be.

And one of them is the Aperture!

I’m sure you would have realized by now that strong or weak lighting conditions can make your photos look far from perfect.

And that is why you need to set the aperture to let the right amount of light pass in.

The aperture is basically an adjustable hole created by a diaphragm in the lens, which allows light to pass in and form the image.

It works more or less similar to the iris of the eye, and can be adjusted in size. You can use it to make the image brighter or dimmer.

And how do you use it?

• When it is too bright, reduce the aperture so that less light comes in through the lens
• If the light is poor, enlarging it to let more light pass in through the lens

• Aperture is measured in f-stops
• You need to adjustment the diaphragm by setting the f-stop
• Each stop represents a factor of two in the amount of light admitted

Aperture & F-Stop Correlation

A larger aperture means a smaller f-stop setting.

So, the larger the value of the f-stop, it means the smaller the opening of the aperture!

It is so because an f-stop is the ratio of the focal length of the lens to the diameter of its opening. Note that the diameter is in the denominator and that answers your question!

F-Stop Readings

The lenses are calibrated with the following apertures: 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 64.

Each step represents a halving of the amount of light that comes through the lens.

Aperture along with the shutter speed setting directly affects the total exposure of an image, and also how much of the image is in focus.

A concept to understand here is that of Fast Lens.

It basically means the speed of the lens and is determined by the maximum amount of light the lens is capable of passing through, which is indicated by the smallest f-stop value.

When a lens is capable of passing through more light than other lenses of the same focal length, then the lens is viewed as fast (make fast italic).

So fast lenses usually means having a maximum f-stop value of 1.0 to 2.8!

Cool Tip
The larger the aperture, the faster is the lens. The reason being a lens with maximum aperture lets more light in and therefore you can use faster shutter speeds, even when there might not be much light around.

What is Reciprocity?

Reciprocity is nothing but the relationship between aperture and shutter speed.

You need to remember that the doubling or halving of the speed settings compliments the aperture f-stop settings, in terms of the exposure given to the image.

It means that the following combination of shutter speed & Aperture settings will give the same exposure of the image:

• 1/30 of a second at f/11
• 1/60 of a second at f/8
• 1/125 of a second at f/5.6

All the above would give the same exposure.

I hope you realize the importance of aperture and shutter speeds in shooting pictures.

It allows you to control the exposure over a wide range of lighting conditions, as well as to control the depth of field of the image.

Most photographers use the speed setting of the shutter to record motion, either as frozen or blurred, to give a sense of action.

In general:

• Shutter speed can have a dramatic impact on the appearance of moving objects
• Images taken with a lower shutter speed invoke a visual sense of movement
• Slow shutter speed combined with panning the camera can achieve a motion blur for moving objects

Cool Tip

• Slow shutter speed gives blurred motion
• High shutter speed gives frozen motion

Depth of Field (DOF)

Depth of Field: Here’s an important concept in Photography, and how understanding it can help you take better pictures.

Depth of Field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.

Basically, it means how much of the subject will be in sharp focus.

As a general rule, most photographers use a wide depth for landscape photography that makes the photo appear sharp and clear, whereas for portrait photography they usually focus on the eyes with a shallow depth.

Here are the things that determine the depth of field:

• Aperture Value: The DOF is directly dependent on the f-number. The smaller the f-number, the smaller will be your DOF. The larger your f-number, the larger will be the depth of field.
• Focal Length: The focal length is inversely dependent on the DOF. So the longer your focal length, the smaller is your DOF, and the shorter your focal length, the deeper is your DOF.
• Distance of the Subject: If the subject is very close to you, the DOF will be shallower. The further you are away from your subject the deeper the DOF will be.
• Cropping an image and enlarging it to the original size will decrease the original depth of field.

Manual Focus

Auto focusing abilities is a standard on cameras nowadays. However, you can also use manual focus for some forms of photography.

With auto-focusing, when the depth of field is very limited, the camera wastes a lot of time trying to get the right focus. This is because the amount of the image that is in crisp clear focus is very small. That’s why is hard for the auto-focus on the camera to zero in on the exact spot that is most important in the image.

And if at all, the camera does settle on one focal area, most of the time its not the area you are most interested in capturing.

This means, you could lose some important shots (the insect or bird may not wait for long in one specific position)!

That is why experienced photographers chose to use “Manually focusing”, especially for macro photography.

It works best when you are trying to take a close up, especially of an insect or flower.

More Tips to get sharp images by manual focusing:

1. Make sure you have turned your lenses auto focus off. Once you have done this, practice adjusting your focus by twisting or turning your focal ring at the front of your lens until what you want to focus on appears sharp in your viewfinder.
2. Find something small to focus on but don’t adjust the focal ring. Instead, move your body and the camera closer or further away from the subject until it appears sharp. This keeps it simple and allows you to pay more attention to your subject and less attention to your lens.
3. Use the pre-focus technique by zeroing in on the spot I expect my subject to appear and when it does, adjusting how close the camera is to the subject to fine tune the results.
4. When using bellows, you can move the bellows closer or further away from the subject to achieve proper focus as well.
5. Use a focusing screen or magnifier on your viewfinder to magnify what it is you looking at. This magnifies what you are seeing through the viewfinder, and is great for those who have poor eyesight and find it difficult to see tiny subjects sharply.
6. Use live viewing on your camera if you have it. The LCD screen on the back of your camera is larger than your viewfinder and can help you to identify the sharpest part of your image more clearly than just looking through your viewfinder. However, keep in mind that using this feature drains your battery power much faster.

White Balance

White Balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo.

The light sources used for photography contain a mixture of all colors, and can vary considerably from one light source to another.

These light sources can be given a “color temperature” which describes their color value and is measured in units called Kelvin (K). This temperature scale measures the relative intensity of red to blue light.

Few points to remember about the color and temperature:

• Warmer light tends to cast orange-red tint across the image and has a lower temperature
• Neutral or balanced light which is in the middle ranges has little impact on the image’s color values because of its white qualities
• Cooler light such as outdoor daylight is a lot bluer in appearance and has a high temperature

White objects in these different lighting conditions objectively look more blue (in daylight), more red (in incandescent lighting), or more green (in fluorescent lighting).

Our brain is equipped to adjust for different color temperatures so that white almost always looks white, no matter what color light we are seeing it in.

For instance, a white car during a sunset objectively looks quite orange, but if someone asks you what color the car is, you would reply with certainty that the car is white.

Cameras are equipped with a white balance setting which allows you to specify exactly what the color temperature of the scene is.

In most cases, your camera can automatically adjust to conditions by sampling the color content of the surrounding light.

Some photographers want to capture the colors that they want to see. So you can play around with the white balance to get warmer colors when shooting portraits. After all, photography is also about trying new things and not just capturing as-is pictures.

Rule of Thirds

When it comes to composition, using the rule of thirds is the most popular rule to follow.

The “rule of thirds” is basically a guideline used to compose aesthetically pleasing images.

Here, you split the scene in 9 equal parts, and the points where the lines intersect is where the points of interest in the photograph should ideally be located.

So if you’re shooting a picture of a man/woman running, beginners may shoot with the subject in the center. But the rule of thirds says that you should break the image up into thirds (split into 9 sections: 3 across and 3 down) and pay special attention to the key points of areas.

Because it is human nature to be naturally drawn to these key areas of an image, it seems naturally appealing when images focus on key elements placed on these key focal areas.

The idea is to bring balance to an image by utilizing one or more of these key focal points to highlight the important elements in your photo. For best results, you should use one or more of the key focal areas (instead of focusing only on one).

Here are few more examples of how to use the rule of thirds in photography.

The rule of thirds is definitely a key fundamental in Photography, and the positioning of your subject within these “thirds” does make the images look better.

But then, these are guidelines and you can definitely tamper with them, to get better results. In other cases, this rule may not apply at all because the whole image is the focal point. For example, in macro photography, you get the best images when you fill the entire frame with the subject.

However, its best to get the hang of this rule of thirds, before you think about breaking the rule.

Fill the Frame

Filling the Frame is one of the several composition techniques, used in photography, for a better impact.

You may mix it with other rules to get better pictures.

Filling the Frame means to get close to the subject you’re shooting, and cut out the rest – so no distracting background stuff, no noise or distraction.

You just fill the entire image with that of your main subject!

This technique is especially useful in macro photography where you see a flower or an insect occupying the entire frame.

You may use this technique for any type of photography, but in macro photography, usually the subjects are vary small, so this method really helps add punch to the images.

Check out these images and see for yourself how it makes the picture better.

You may fill your frame and blend it with the rule of thirds, leading lines, patterns and symmetry, and more.

Leading Lines in Photography

In photography, a leading line can be any line, man made or found in nature that is utilized to draw the attention towards the subject (sometimes even away from the subject). They are like visual roadways that guide the viewer’s eye through the frame.

This compositional technique can stand on its own to create dramatic images, or you may pair it with other rules (rule of thirds) to take your photography to the next level. It can have some dramatic effects when it leads a viewer into your image or even out of the image.

Lines can be found everywhere, and they come in all shapes, sizes & colors. They and can be straight, diagonal or even curvy.

However, its important that you use this technique to work in favor of your subject and not against it.

Using leading lines, the viewer’s eye is attracted to lines that lead directly to the principle subject in the image.

Bokeh Effect Explained

Bokeh basically means “blurred” (in Japanese).

You get this effect (out of focus blur) on the photo when your lens is set to a shallow depth of field.

You can do it using your camera or using software such as Adobe Photoshop.

Here’s a video that shows how to capture this effect (with a defocused background) using your DSLR camera and a shallow depth of field.

Want even more variety? Why not use a Bokeh Kit?
It’s actually an entirely new way of harnessing night-time light. The Bokeh Kit turns those out of focus light into various shapes, depending on which one you place over your lens.

You get several shapes; just place one of those into the slot in the filter over your digital or film SLR lens, and shoot.

Some Bokeh kits also let you make your own designs. You’ll need to go through the specs to check for compatibility though.

Perspective in Photography

As a photographer, you can decide how your image/subjects will be perceived by the viewers.

This is similar to how a writer tells a story — it could be from the perspective of the writer, or one of the other characters in the story or from someone completely different.

Also Known As Forced Perspective Photography, it is about creating an optical illusion to make an object appear closer that it actually is.

For example, want to picture a monster biting off your friend’s head? You can do that by using a toy monster and using some creativity. Just place the toy monster close to the camera, and make your friend stand at a considerable distance. Now look into the lens of the camera, focus on the head, and click ― you now have introduced forced perspective, the picture will look like as if your friend’s head is being bitten off by a monster.

Basically, you’re making the viewers believe that some objects are smaller or larger than they really are (creating optical illusions) thus giving an entirely new dimension to your picture.

Its all about creativity and introducing things that will create dimension and depth in the picture. The camera lens, on its own, only views things as flat (lacking in depth).

By merging subjects and backgrounds, introducing things, you can play with the placing of subjects to create depth.

Here are few things to consider:

Play around with the Distance – Pay attention to the distance between the two objects to make it look more natural and to ensure both the subjects are clearly visible, you have to focus on the foreground and ensure the background does not blur.

Go Against Gravity – With this technique, you can definitely defy gravity, and have your subjects flying or crawling in space. Get your subjects to lie on the ground/road and pose, make sure the picture/object drawn or painted on the ground is in alignment, make sure the horizon is lined perfectly. With the right placements, the results can be amazing & look seemingly unbelievable.

Lighting is Important – Lighting is important to ensure the optical illusion looks natural. Make use of tripod stand to avoid shaky shoots.

You Need to Time It Right – Timing is important, if you want to create a perfect illusion.

Here are some of the popular types of perspectives used in photography:

• Linear Perspective
• Rectilinear Perspective
• Vanishing Point Perspective
• Height Perspective
• Overlap Perspective
• Dwindling Size Perspective
• Volume Perspective
• Atmospheric Perspective

Perspective can differ from person to person, so here are some questions that you should ask yourself:

• Do you want the viewer of the image to look into the face of the subject?
• Do you want them to feel that the subject is lying down, or above them or below them?
• Do you want them to see the side-view of the subject, and so on?

How to Photograph a Silhouette

A silhouette is a darker image of a subject against a brighter background. Here are top silhouette photography tips that you can implement right away.

Here are some useful Tips that will help you take great silhouettes:

1. The best time to shoot silhouettes is in the beginning or end of the day, when the sun is low in the sky.
2. Turn off the Flash as you need very little light in front of your subject.
3. You need to turn off Active D-Lighting or Auto Lighting Optimizer. These features adjust the contrast in your picture in order to pull maximum detail from the shadows. Turn it Off
4. Focus manually or focus on the edge of the subject (where the contrast between subject and background is greatest). You may need to use a smaller aperture for greater depth of field.

Camera Focus Settings & Modes

Understanding the various camera focus settings and modes can help you shoot in varied conditions and get sharp photos.

Focusing means moving the lens in and out until you get the sharpest possible image of the subject on the digital image sensor.

Here are some Focus Settings found on cameras that will help you to easily and reliably focus on a specific subject or scene.

• Fixed Focus: As the name suggests, it is fixed, you cannot change it. It is found on the least expensive cameras, almost all camera phones, and one-time-use cameras.

• Autofocus is available on most beginner point-and-shoot / compact cameras.

The camera does the focusing for you, and usually it is depicted by the square brackets or circles in the viewfinder.

Manual Focus: Want more control over the focus? You’ll need a camera with manual focus.

And that means using a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. These cameras allow you to have complete control over the focus.

Here are some of the more common focus modes available in most cameras.

Depending on what you intend to shoot, you select one of these and click.

• Landscape Mode: For photographing landscapes
• Marco Focus Mode: For taking close-up images
• One-Shot Mode: You press the button halfway to lock the focus. If the subject moves, you’ll likely get an out-of-focus picture
• Continuous / Servo Mode: Similar to the One-Shot mode, however the camera will continue to focus on the moving subject. This is great for sports and nature photography.
• Predictive Focus Mode: Still not very common and found only in some high-end digital SLR cameras. It tracks and analyses the subject’s movement and tries to predict where it will move to. Great for sports and nature photography!
• Focus Bracketing: Found only in certain cameras. It takes one picture at the specified focus setting, and then clicks two more shots with focus set behind and in front of the calculated distance. You can then select the sharpest image.

Various Photography Styles

There are various styles of photography.

• Wedding
• Photojournalism
• Portrait
• Pets
• Stock
• Sports

Top Digital Photography Tips for Beginners

So how can you make the best of your digital camera?

Here are some obvious ones that you may be aware of:

Sunlight: You need to be careful of the bright and overhead sunlight; always try to shoot with the sun behind you.

When shooting at night, to avoid blurred pictures, ensure that you keep the camera steady and set the shutter speed slower to let enough light in.

Here are some more really useful tips that will help you to improve your photography skills right away.

• Positioning the Camera
  

  The way you hold your digital camera to shoot your subject can make a huge difference between a good photo and an amazing one.

  Practice holding the camera close to the body. Most amateur photographers tend to hold the camera while stretching their arms forward (away from the torso), and even bend their body forward. This reduces stability and can reduce the image sharpness.

  Keep the camera close to your body in order to maintain maximum stability and get sharper pictures.

  At times, you simply need to modify its angle for capturing some really creative shots. Try moving your camera in relation to the subject to see what works best; experiment a little with your composition by zooming in and zooming out.

• Know how your camera works.
  

  Learn in detail how your CAMERA WORKS. Learn to adjust the exposure settings, change lens setting, use the camera’s built-in flash, turn off the auto-sharpening feature, navigating the Menu, etc.

  Some photography techniques require you to use specific exposure mode or lens setting. So know your camera well.

• Get closer to the subject
  

  Need a close up? Try to get closer to the subject, instead of using the ‘zoom’ features. By now, you may have realized that zooming reduces the image quality a bit (unless you’re using professional gear). So use your legs to zoom instead.

• Optical Zoom Versus Digital Zoom
  

  Optical Zoom is a “real zoom,” meaning the image is brought closer to the capture mechanism using the lens optics.

  Digital Zoom is a “fake zoom,” meaning the zoom is “interpolated” or guessed by electronics. Its not as clear as a real zoom.

  So if possible, buy a camera with higher optical zoom.

• Use of Sun light
  

  If you have spent some time with the camera, I’m sure you would have figured by now, that it is best to shoot with the sun behind you. Natural sun light offers the best lighting to help you shoot pictures with vivid colors and deeper details, so you need to learn how to exploit the sunlight to your advantage. You also need to be careful of the bright and overhead sunlight (considered harsh) as they can display harsh shadows and also wash out details from the face.

• About the Background
  Background elements behind your subject could very well make or mar the results of your photos. For this reason, you should know how to evaluate the clutter and other disturbing elements behind your subject. Avoid capturing photos with a competing or busy background. Look for any objects that take the attention away from your subject, and remove them before taking photographs.

   

• How to Use Flash
  It is important to experiment with Flash as you can achieve some great results by using it properly. You need to learn how to maintain the proper distance from your subject. Usually, if you get too far from your subject, you might end up with dark pictures. On the contrary, if you get too close, you might get overexposed flash photos.

   

• Shooting at Night
  One can get some spectacular shots at night, even with the flash turned-off. For that you need to ensure that the shutter speed is slower, so that enough light can get in. It is also very important to stay steady else you will end up with blurred pictures. I am sure you would have already experienced this blurring effect. For best results, it is best to place your camera on a tripod and set its shot timer to avoid any camera movement.

   

• Shooting in Cloudy Conditions
  

  Though sunlight is important for good photos, you can also capture some breathtaking pictures in overcast conditions. You need to be careful enough to wrap your camera in some plastic bag, to prevent it from getting wet. Make a hole that is big enough for the lens to poke through, so that you can take photos. The key to taking good pictures in cloudy conditions is to make colors pop up, in contrast to the cloudy sky.

• Using Photo-Editing Software
  

  Try to get it right with your camera in the first place. Even though Photoshop is a great tool, avoid saying “I’ll fix it in Photoshop.”

  Having said the above, photo editing plays an important role in digital photography – you can do lots of things to your photo after it has been shot. Image editors allows you to fix bad color, crop pictures, or remove defects such as “red eyes” found in many flash photos, or even get rid of certain objects from the photo. Its definitely worth your time developing skills on image editing program in order to be an all-around photographer.

• Become a life-long student
  

  Learn the rules, fundamentals, concepts and principals of photography thoroughly so you know when and how to break them effectively.

  Professional photographers usually have the best camera, better lenses, several accessories, lights, and more.
  However, more than the kit, its important to learn how to use them, and to know what you need, for your style of photography. And that comes through practice and experience.

  Practice makes perfect so shoot as much as you can, its also a lot cheaper nowadays (compared to films). Don’t just spray and pray – get it right in the camera.

  Photography, like any other art form, is a journey. You should always be looking to improve, learn new things and try new things. You always remain a student of photography because technology changes so fast. So commit to lifelong learning and keep up with all the changes.

Here are more tips for budding photographers:

1. Lighting plays an important role in photography so you need to check the lighting of the area. You also need to decide which angle to shoot from (for better lighting) and to get the best picture.
2. You should also observe well. For example, if you find a spider, you should go close and checkout if you can see a spider web as well. A spider web can make a great picture (because of its pattern).So you eye is the best tool for finding the right subject for photography.
3. Also, most people and animals do things that will never happen again. That’s why you must have ready access to your camera and also know what settings to use to quickly capture the photo.
4. There is no such thing as the perfect photo. Every photographer will pick holes in their own work, especially the best of them. The perfect photo is only in your mind and is more likely to be the idea of the next shot you take. You must take lots of pictures; even the worst photographer can get lucky if they stack the odds!
5. Taking photographs is a personal process. It’s an exploration of your own picture of you versus my picture of you. You’ve got to treat it as an extended discussion between photographer and subject. It kind of helps if you like people, too.
6. Never think that the camera is the most important thing. The camera is a tool. It’s the environment, the atmosphere and the collaboration that will get you the shot. So find a camera that you are comfortable with and enjoying using and stick to that.
7. You need to experiment and take risks. There is no right and wrong. So be brave and go for it. Experiment; take inspiration from other people by all means, but never copy.
8. The lens is just a window you’re looking through. The more you can imagine that, the better. It will break down the barriers between you and your subject. Everyone, no matters how famous they are, gets nervous in front of the camera. Everyone. So learning to smile with your eyes and communicate with them as if the camera isn’t there is a great help.

Here are some more things that you should do, to improve your photography:

• Read the Instruction Manual Carefully: This will help you better understand your camera, and its features.
• Keep Practicing: Use your camera regularly to develop your photography skills. Click different kinds of pictures, try out all its features. Experiment with lighting, shutter speed and so on.
• Checkout Forums, blogs and Websites: This will help you gain insight into the creative world of photography.
• Keep practicing, keep clicking!

There are so many books and magazines on digital photography that will help you get to the next level. You have to keep practicing, try out newer things, both while taking pictures as well as in photo-editing. The more you experiment, the sooner you will get better at photography.

Black and White Photography Tips

Black and White photos look classy and once in a while it feels good to see pictures in black and white. It takes you back in time when things seemed to be so relaxed and you can spot that in the pictures too.

Here are some tips for black and white photography.

1. Shoot in RAW
Also make sure that you shoot in RAW than any other format, if you want to have more control when editing on the computer. It also captures your color data in case you need it later.

Why not JPEG? You can shoot in JPEG, no problem with that, but jpeg compresses and discards some data so you will not have lot of control in post production.

2. Study Black And White Pictures
Check out some good pictures in black and white to see the details, to study the composition and get an idea of how lighting is used.

3. Use Rich Textures
To make your pictures livelier, use patterns, textures and detailed scenes when shooting the pictures.

4. Use of Contrast
Overcast conditions are suitable for shoot black white outdoor shots (a bit subjective as some may prefer the glow that is available on brighter days)

But since you don’t have color, experimenting with side lighting can provide you with shadows to help you get contrast. This will help to bring the tonal differences in your photos.

5. Use a Polarizer
If you have to shoot on brighter days a polarizer will help to cut the reflections of the sun’s light, which can be distracting in the overall composition especially when black and white photography is concerned.

6. Use Long Exposures
Long Exposures gives superb black and white photos. Try it out.

7. Shoot in Low ISO
You also need to shoot with the lowest possible ISO to ensure that the noise (grain) created by ISO does not become very obvious.

Low ISO Could Be Impractical: Though shooting in low ISO is preferred it may not be practical, especially for events like weddings. Experienced photographers feel that a High ISO makes the image feel more like film.

8. Check Your Results in LCD
Shoot several variations – color as well as black and white and check the results in your LCD.

9. Get a Good Photo Editing Software
If you have a good editing software program like Photoshop, you can easily make black and white photos using software programs. In addition you can edit several features to make your photos look better.

10. Learn to Use Software
You can also fix problems caused by bad lighting and do several other enhancements using software such as PhotoShop or Lightroom. To make your images look the best, you can even use techniques such as image manipulation to get sharp images.

Photo Editing: Software and techniques to improve your images

Cameras nowadays take good quality pictures yet sometimes you wish you could enhance the image that you have captured.

Experienced photographers also take the help of photo editing software to touch up & color correct their images. Those awesome images that they put up on their portfolio and websites is not taken straight from the camera; it goes through a photo editing software.

Besides, with the advent of smart phones with better cameras and built-in photo editing apps, editing pictures have become easier than ever before.

The good thing is that their many digital photo editing software that gives you the ability to modify and edit the photos to get the perfect image you want.

A photo editing software comes with complete set of tools that can be used for enhancing pictures.

While Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard when it comes to photo editing, there are other digital photography software such as GIMP, Picasa, Kodak EasyShare Freeware that you can use to edit photos.

Adobe Photoshop is a software standard for many professional photographers & graphic artists. It comes with powerful tools that can do basic to advanced image manipulation efficiently, with outstanding results.

Most Photographers use Photoshop to touch-up their photos, before it goes out for printing or publishing. It is widely used for web designs, advertisements, posters, photography, desktop publishing, and many other graphic works. It’s one of the most popular products of Adobe Systems, which itself is a leader in developing graphic applications.

However, Photoshop is not free (GIMP is a good, free alternative).

How to Create a WEBP image File

WEBP is a modern image format developed by Google to address the limitations of older image formats like JPEG and PNG. The primary goal is to provide a format that offers high-quality images while keeping file sizes impressively small.

WEBP’s development was driven by the need for faster web page loading times and improved user experiences. As internet speeds and mobile device usage surged, it became evident that traditional image formats were becoming bottlenecks in delivering content efficiently.

Google’s WEBP Converter, Online Image Editors and editing software such as GIMP are few tools that you can use to create WEBP files.

The compression quality setting determines how much data is retained in the final WEBP file. Higher quality settings preserve more image details but result in larger file sizes, while lower quality settings reduce file size at the expense of some image details.

So, experiment with different compression settings.

How to Create GIF Files

GIFs are now an integral part of modern online communication. These visual snippets, often conveying emotions, reactions, and humor, have found their way into social media, messaging platforms, and even professional content creation.

GIFs, short for Graphics Interchange Format, are basically image files capable of capturing moments in time and presenting them as animations that play on a continuous loop.

Remember, the quality of your source material (video or image) directly impacts the final GIF.

Creating GIFs doesn’t require specialized software or technical expertise. You can choose from a range of free tools available online to create GIFs from videos and image sequences.

When creating the GIFs, you can adjust the GIF’s parameters to suit your preferences:

• Frame Rate: This determines how many frames are shown per second. A standard frame rate is around 24-30 frames per second.
• Duration: Decide how long your GIF should play. Keep in mind that shorter GIFs are often more impactful.
• Size: Specify the dimensions of your GIF. Common sizes for social media are 480×270 or 640×360 pixels.
• Looping: Set whether the GIF should loop continuously.

Embracing experimentation and refining your style is the key to creating GIFs that inspire and entertain audiences.

How to remove the background of a photo

Removing the background from a photo involves isolating the main subject (usually a person, pet, monument) and removing the other unwanted elements or surroundings.

There are several reasons why you may want to remove the background of a photo.

• E-commerce entrepreneur need pictures of products they sell online
• College Student need images for their projects
• Graphic Designers need to work with images to create logos and illustrations
• Social Media marketers use images to create visually engaging posts and collages.
• There are many who spend considerable time editing images
• Even in your own collection of personal photos, you will find many photos in which removing the background can greatly enhance its visual appeal.

In each of these cases, removing backgrounds of the images opens up a world of creative possibilities.

The good thing is that the process of removing backgrounds from photos can be easily done using editing software or online tools.

How to remove Red-Eye from photos

Good photos can get marred by an annoying phenomenon known as red-eye. Red Eye is a glowing red (or sometimes yellow eyes) that you see in the captured image, which can be distracting, and in some cases, make the subject look demonic and diminish the overall quality of the photo.

It occurs when the flash of a camera illuminates the subject’s eyes and causes a reflection of light off the retina to bounce back into the lens.

It’s a common occurrence in flash photography, especially when shooting in low-light environments or when the subject is very close proximity to the camera. Compact cameras, where the flash is located near the lens, are particularly susceptible to red-eye.

Factors such as the color of the subject’s eyes, the direction of the flash, and the intensity of the flash can also influence the severity of red-eye. For example, people with lighter-colored eyes tend to be more prone to red-eye, while those with darker-colored eyes may exhibit less noticeable or even no red-eye at all.

You can use software to remove red-eye from photos. Just choose the red-eye removal feature and click on the red-eye areas in your photo, the software will automatically make the necessary adjustments to remove the red-eye effect. You can also use online websites for to red-eye removal.

Here are some techniques to minimize the occurrence of red-eye:

• Try using indirect or bounced flash techniques such as bouncing the flash off a ceiling or wall, which helps diffuse the light and reduces the intensity of direct reflection from the eyes.
• By increasing the ambient lighting in the environment, you can minimize the need for a powerful flash and decrease the chances of red-eye occurring.
• Many cameras have a built-in red-eye reduction mode that can help prevent or minimize red-eye.
• Changing the angle from which you capture your photos can help minimize the red-eye effect.
• Whenever possible, take advantage of natural lighting for your photography.

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