Camera Lounge

There is a useful article over at Digital Photography School with tips on how to take better pictures with your camera phone. This is something I myself have dabbled in and I often snap away with my mobile phone when I don’t have my clunky SLR to hand

Top Tips

• Make sure your subject is well lit
• Get close
• Keep it steady
• Edit images later
• Don’t throw away mistakes
• Avoid using the zoom
• Experiment with white balance
• Take loads of shots and experiment
• Follow rules of composition, and then break them!
• Keep your lens clean
• Observe camera phone etiquette
• Rename your images
• Use the highest reslolution on your camera

Although I agree with the point about editing the images later, personally I have had some good success using the black and white setting on my K750i. Ultimatley, it is all about experimentation and although it can be a bit hit and miss at times, it’s all good fun!

VisitDigital Photography School for more information.

I found this cool DIY project via Lifehacker

For less than $10 you can build a mini studio for macro photography! You just need a cardboard box and some tissue paper, and two sheets of poster board – black and white.

I’ll be giving it a go for some product type shots this weekend I think!

There is a useful article by Steve Johnson over at Nikonians about how to shoot sports scenes like a professional.

Camera Settings

• Continuous servo autofocus
• Lock the center focus sensor
• Center-weighted metering
• Aperture priority (usually wide open)
• Possibly some negative exposure value (EV) to avoid blowing out white jerseys. Hopefully not more than -1.0.

Worth a look if you are interested in trying this sort of thing. I thought sports photography was all about shutter priority, so it was useful to see some tips pointing more towards shooting with the lens wide open and using a slighlty negative exposure to prevent the highlights blowing out.

Via Nikonians

What is ISO all about? Well, in short, ISO refers to photographic film’s sensitivity to light. Film with a low sensitivity to light (lower ISO speed rating) requires a longer exposure, and is called slow film, wherease film with a high sensitivity (higher ISO speed rating) to light can shoot the same scene with a shorter exposure and is called fast film.

These principles also apply to digital photography. You can control the ISO settings on your camera and change it shot by shot if you so desire, which is a huge advantage over the more expensive alternative with film as you would potentially have to waste film to change the setting!

When would you choose a slow speed? (low ISO rating)

• when there is plenty of available light, either from flash or sunlight
• when you are using fast shutter speeds
• when you require a sharp, non grainy image

When would you choose a fast speed? (high ISO rating)

• when there is little available light in the evening, indoors, or night photography
• when you are using slow shutter speeds
• when you require a softer, grainy image

Low ISO speeds

• 50, 100, 200

High ISO speeds

• 400, 600, 1800

As a general rule, if you are shooting outside on a bright sunny day an ISO of 50 to 200 should be appropriate. If you are shooting in lower light conditions, indoors or in the evening, a faster ISO such as 400 or higher will be appropriate in order to get the right exposure and to avoid camera shake from a slower shutter speed.
Try it at home!

Don’t take my word for it! Try the following at home:

Evening

1. Shoot an image indoors at night with the lowest ISO setting your camera has
2. Shoot the same image with the highest ISO setting your camera has

Note what happens to the shutter speed at the time, and also note how the images differ in quality when you view the files on your computer.

Feel free to leave a comment with your findings!

High Dynamic Range or HDR for short, is a technique that allows you to overlay two images to gain the maximum dynamic range in the image. You must have two or more registered images (i.e., shot using a tripod to ensure no movement of the subject), that have been taken at different F stops. By combining the images using the HDR technique you achieve an image that has the range of shadows and highlights from both the registered shots.

Not sure if that makes ANY SENSE what so ever!!! For a far better explanation, click here for a Wikipedia definition

There are a number of Software products on the market to help you create HDR images, and Adobe CS2 has this feature built in. If you have Adobe CS2, here is a great tutorial on HDR. Although it does look a bit wordy to begin with, the tutorial is excellent.

Good luck with your HDR images! I’m off to try this myself too!

Drop Shots is a new photo sharing site that is free to join and at first glance looks quite promising, with a simple layout and clean interface.

According to the online tour, you simply ‘Drag-n-Drop your pictures into the Dropbox… and you’re done!’

• SIMPLE: drag your photo’s and vidoes from ANY location on your computer into the DropBox.
• FAST: DropBox compresses media and uploads 100X faster
• AUTOMATIC: Instantly compresses, encodes and converts from nearly any format.

You can then share your images automatically with friends and family and is immediatley made ready for you to post to a blog.

Two levels of membership exist, with the free entry level account providing:

• Free DropShots user page
• Free DropBox media uploader
• Up to 500 Photos
• Up to 10 Videos
• 2-Minute Videos

$4.95 per month will buy you a ‘Star User Account’ which will give you:

• Free DropShots user page
• Free DropBox media uploader
• Unlimited Photos
• Unlimited Videos
• 5-Minute Videos
• Higher Quality Videos
• Password Protection
• NO Ads!
• Premium Customer Support
• A Next to Your Username
• Help Support DropShots

Camera Lounge will look to create an account and provide a proper review soon! In the meantime, if anyone else has had some experience with DropShots, please leave a comment and let us know your experience with it.

In 1984, Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every resident in Oxford, Iowa. Two decades later, he has returned to repeat the project again and is creating a unique portrait of heartland America.

The residents of Oxford were not asked to pose in any particular way – Peter simply photographed them as they presented themselves to him. On his return 21 years later, some of the original residents had died and some had moved away, but a suprising amount were still there living in Oxford.

This is a remarkable project visually with some touching prose from the residents alongside their portraits. Certainly worth a visit.

The Seeds of Change Photography Competition, in association with The Observer Food Monthly, are looking for images that ‘brilliantly capture a memory, an emotion, a story’. The theme is ‘FEED YOUR IMAGINATION’.

Submit your photograph in one of three categories:

• Food and people
• Food for thought
• Food, glorious food

Entries must be received by the 30th June – so not much time left!

First prize is £10,000 so worth the effort we’d say!

For more information visit The Observer

Good luck!

Panasonic are offering the chance to win a holiday in New York, as well as a host of other camera related prizes in their Amatuer Photo of the Year competition.

Categories for entry are:

• Nature and the Environment
• Travel
• People
• Motion and Speed
• Abstract Photography

You can enter up to six images, and the closing date for entries is October 31st 2006

Well worth having a go we think, and take a look at the galleries for some inspiration!

For more information visit Panasonic Photo Award

Camera Bits is making available a public beta of the soon-to-be-released Photo Mechanic version 4.4.3.1

Photo Mechanic is a photo browser that allows you to perform super fast sorting, editing, and tagging of your images.

Download available here