Continued..

Now onto a camera.

Again, this comes down to what you want to photograph, what you're looking for in a camera, and the big one.. what you want to spend.

I wont go into the whole Digital SLR side of it all, but one thing I would suggest looking at would be a camera that has adjustable settings such as White balance, Shutter speed, Apature and or a full manual mode.

This will free up a whole new level of features for you and really give you something good to work with and build upon your skills.

The Sony DSC-H2, H5 and H7 are great examples of a camera that has adjustable settings. Olympus and Nikon also make great point and shoot (P & S) cameras with adjustable settings.

Like I said before, these are things that have worked for me and may not work that well for others. Like anything, I feel that a lot has to do with practice and nothing beats getting out there and taking the photos for yourself.. as many as you can!

This is really just touching on the whole thing, but if there is anything in particular that you want to know, maybe narrow it down even a tiny bit, because it's kind of hard to know what's relevant and what stuff you already know???

Is there a particular kind of shot that you're wanting to take? or any one thing that you're wanting more info on?? (Car shots, cameras, settings, night photos, photshop??)

Hope it's of some use to someone out there

Cheers,

Jonno

Great tips lads! :victory:

eVolUTIoN_182 wrote:

Thanks Jonno and Chris very helpfull.
Now I must say I am not a big fan of the flash with my camera. Its no SLR just a standard 10mp digi camera. However I have the problem whenever I turn the flash off the photo taken allways comes out blurry is there any way to fix it or any setting I should look out for?
Its a Samsung Digimax S1000 (I am pretty sure)
Thanks
Troy

No worries Troy!

Yes!!.. There are plenty of things you can do to reduce the blur in your photos!!

The great thing about the "point and shoot" cameras available these days, is the fact that they are slowly adopting some of the SLR functions, (such as manual adjustability) meaning you can get great results from your everyday camera!!

I've searched out the specs for the Digimax S1000 and from what I can tell, you should be able to try out the following, which will hopefully help you with your blurry photos.

- One of the great things about your camera is that is has multiple ISO settings, all the way from ISO 80- 1000. ISO can be explained as an exposure index or the level of sensitivity of the camera.

What does this mean and why is it good for you??.. This means you'll be able to capture sharper, brighter, more defined and less blurred pictures, in lower light conditions without a flash.

The higher the ISO, the more light will be drawn into your picture. Therefore, if you are somwhere where there is low light, depending on how much natural/ artificial light there is, it would be better for you to increase the ISO on your shot to something like 400, 800 or 1000. When adjusting this setting, you should be able to see the real time image on your screen actually becoming lighter and more defined.

This should allow you to take decent shots with reduced blur.

- Another great thing about your camera is the fact that it has a manual mode. Most people are a bit hesitant to use their point and shoot cameras in manual mode because the think its too muich work, or too tricky, or they are going to mess something up. This is not the case!!.. If you want to get some cool shots, then have a play with the manual mode on your camera!!

Manual mode on your camera is available by turning the mode wheel on the top to the letter "M" .. Within this mode, you will then be able to change the settings of your camera, in particular, White Balance, Shutter Speed, Apature and probably ISO as well.

Bear with me and I'll try to explain each one and what kind of settings you might like to try..

- White Balance - I suppose you can think of white balance as the actual base colour and hues that the camera is picking up, dependant on where you are taking photos. For instance, the "whiteness" of daylight is very different to that of your average indoor lights or incandescent bulbs, such as fluros.

The camera has settings to help adjust its colour balance to suit these conditions.. If you've got the camera on a daylight type settings, and your indoors in the evening with the lights on, your photos will probably come out with a yellowie warm kind of colour and you'll find that your not really capturing the real colours of all the objects around you.

To overcome this, try changing the white balance settings!!.. I think your camera has about 5 or 6 different ones, so next time your taking a photo, just stop and look at the actual colours, and if they dont look spot on, play around with the white balance and you should be able to see a difference in how realistic all the colours look!!

- Shutter Speed - As the name suggests, this function contols the speed at which the "shutter" closes, and captures your image.

When taking photos of something like a fast moving object, you would want to use a fast shutter speed, so you are able to capture a sharp, non blurred shot of your object. This is useful when taking photos at sporting events, or your kids running around etc..

In comparison though, if you set your camera to a "long" shutter speed, what will happen when you press the capture button is that the shutter in the camera is going to take longer to close and actually capture the image. For instance, a fast shutter speed for something like a sporting event may be 1/1500 which is saying that the shutter will close, and capture your image in 1/1500th's of a second ie; Very fast!

On the other hand, if you slow the shutter speed down to something like 3 seconds.. from the second you press the button, the camera is going to be capturing your image and drawing it all in, for a full 3 seconds before the shutter closes off completely, and processes your image. Obvioulsy if you are holding a camera in yoru hands, and your shutter speed is slightly slower than normal, you are going to get blurry photos if you dont use a flash. I'll give you some ideas a little further on to combat this!

- Apature - Think of the camera's apature in the same way as the pupil in your eye.. When it gets dark, your pupil dialates to let in more light. If you then go and step out into the sun, your pupil then contracts again.

The Apature function in your camera works in exactly the same way!!.. When you're taking photos outside, the Apature is going to be very small and likewise, when you're taking photo's in low light, you are going to want to "dialate" your Apature to let more light into your camera.

Now, when your camera is in auto mode, it does the best it can to match the correct Shutter speed, Apature, ISO and White balance to give you the best shot. Unfortunately though, these setting aren't always spot on and dont always produce the best photos for the situation you are in.

Now that you've got some idea of how your camera is thinking and how it all works, lets have a look at some setting you can try, in an attempt to get sharper shots!!

Firslty, there are two ways to get more light into an image without using a flash. One way is to lengthen the shutter speed, so it draws in more detail and mor elight into your image and the other main way is to increase the Apature of the shot, to let more light in. Increasing the ISO will also brighten the image you are going to take.

Now we know that with a long shutter, if you're not 100% perfectly still (which is impossible) and your subject is not perfectly still, your shots are going to blur. Therefore, one way around this might be to speed up the shutter to a quick speed, increase the apature so you are letting more light in and also bumping up the ISO to something like 400 or 800.

Hopefully by playing around with settings like that, you will be able to get the most out of your camera in low light conditions and also take some sharper shots!

Another thing I cant stress enough is the value of a Tripod!.. Yes, I know it's not convenient to lug around a tripod all the time, but if your taking still shots, so shots of an object that isnt moving, you will be amazed that by adjusting the settings similar to above, having your camera mounted on a tripod and also setting a 2 second timer on your camera.. your shots will be so clear!!.. Especially form a 10 MP camera!!

The reason for using a timer as opposed to just pressing down the button is that by pressing the button, you are bound to get some movement of the camera when you release it. By setting a timer, once you take your finger off, the camera will remain still and there will be no blur.. Unfortunately though, this is only useful when using a tripod..

I know this is a very, very, very long read, but I hope the info is useful and makes sense to you!!

..So go out and have fun taking some cool shots!!.. I Look forward to seeing how you go with it all!!! :victory:

Cheers!

Jonathan

I hope to see you on the next cruise [J] your pics all turned out good would like to see my lib in one of your photoshoots one day i swear she is a model in training lol. I wasn't able to attend the last cruise as it was my bro's b'day next cruise i will def be up for. :new_russi

wow.... well done J .... i was just browing through new threads, and skimmed through this one, and thought... 'hey, i wana go take photo's of my car and play with the settings now'    lol... now none of us have any excuses for blurry, poorly depicted, 'shabby' photo's 

Well J has covered enough stuff to get you out there and start shooting and that's the main thing. Photography is about a good eye and lots of practice. It's certainly not a mysterious form of magic or anything. Think back to your days of studying art at school. Things like composition, contrast and colour are what make a good picture, not the medium used.
I'll assume you're wanting to take photos of your car so here are some tips.
Location:
The background is very important, it shouldn't be distracting from the focal point (the car). You can use the lines of perspective in the background to keep the eye focused on the car and give depth or have parallel lines running adjacent to the car to flatten the background. Contrast the background with the car. If you've got a white car, don't use a white background, find a bright green coloured wall or something and shoot your white car in front of that.
Composition:
Traditionalists will refer to a photo's layout with the rule of thirds. That is the picture is divided into nine equal sections (think of naughts and crosses box). Points of focus are then positioned in the photo around the intersecting lines while backgrounds can be positioned with the horizontal or vertical lines in thirds.
When it comes to shooting cars I like to choose interesting angles. Seeing something from a different perspective is refreshing and can make for an interesting photo. Many point and shoot cameras have a very wide angle lens (10.5-20mm for example) this, combined with a cheap lens can often bring in barrel distortion (straight lines become curved) which give the effect of a fisheye lens. Although often considered a flaw of the lens (some expensive lenses do it too) use it to your advantage and create some interesting shots.
Colours:
Apart from the colour of the car and the background, colours can be changed by playing with the white balance (as J mentioned). Adjusting this sets the mood of the picture. There is no right or wrong for this either, it's how you want the photo to look. Generally a yellow/brown light will give the photo a warm feeling while blues give it a cold feeling. Flick through the WB mode, fire off a few shots and see what you like. I often take photos of cars and man made landscapes, i prefer the colder blues than warmer browns so each to their own.
The flash:
Most of the time i don't use a flash, i opt for longer exposure times. Flashes often drain colour and focus light. You can get around this by turning down your flash on your camera (if you have that function), stepping back from the object and zooming in. Flashes only have a limited range, or cover the flash with some rice paper or something similar. This dulls the focus of light.
Tripods:
Gold! Use them! It doesn't have to be a tripod as such, just rest your camera on something that doesn't move and is perfectly positioned. Set the camera's self timer (to avoid any additional shake when pressing the button) and step back from the camera. Much of my still photography is done with a tripod.
General hints:
Try things, turn your camera on an angle for a more interesting effect. Play with space, try close ups or cut our the edges of the car.
Shoot at sunset and have some nice light reflections on the car. Shooting in the middle of a bright day is not good. It washes away colour and detail. If you've missed the sun then find a nicely lit car park and position the car to get some nice light reflections. Be careful not to have unwanted object reflections on the car though.
WASH YOUR CAR! It's something people do forget to do.
Avoid Sonys. In my experience Sony have terrible colours in their digital cameras, particularly reds. Canon and Nikon are the world's biggest camera companies. They make excellent cameras, you're safe with their products. I've used Canon point and shoots before and they are excellent. (I currently use a Nikon D200 DSLR).
Photoshop:
I studied 4 years of photoshop during my time at university to be a designer and my photoshop advice is this: Use it to clean up the appearance of a photo (about 20 minutes max per photo for a beginner). If you need to spend 6 hours retouching a photo then you took a s**t shot. Get your camera and go back out there and take the damn photo again. Photoshop is the most amazing photo enhancement program and is the industry standard among professionals but it gets a bad name from amateurs creating nasty things in it. Basically, the better your photo, the less time needed to spend in Photoshop. I use photoshop to adjust shadows, light balance, contrast and a bit of colour. That's it. Sometimes i'll need it to remove some wally's head from the photo but my advice is don't waste hours using it.

Here's a photo of a BMW i took at a car show. I didn't use the flash, i didn't have any control over the background (people walking by) but i used the car's bulbus front and the stage lighting to create the focus in the photo. The rule of thirds is present (the car roughly takes up the bottom two thirds of the picture) but most importantly, the background kept moving so i used a tripod and a delayed exposure to give the foreground (the car) sharp lines and contrast it with the background (blury) so the car 'pops out' of the picture. In photoshop the main change was to make the picture a bit more blue (bluish whites look clean and cool, brownish white look dirty and warm) to give a bit more class to the Bimmer.
Well, enough waffling. Go out and take some photos.
Cheers
Matt.

XXB4XX wrote:

Peeps, some really good tips in here, well done, [J] and whiterx,
this is why I let [J] take photo's of my car

your car needs more 22's, white vinyl interior and pink paint.


oh and VTAK.

then, it'll be photo worthy.

XXB4XX wrote:

what about some Hektic chrome vault series rims or HP's cuzzzz??

theres a set for sale on the forum, im suprised you havent snapped them up yet brendan

XXB4XX wrote:

I made my offer after I posted in here.. (not joking either, not about posting or the amount im offering)

haha yea i went back to the forum and saw you made an offer.. had a little chuckle to myself..

:offtopic: on a side note thought ure dragons were lookink okay tonight even without matt cooper..

sorry guys ill take my useless blather somewhere else.. good job on the tutorial J and matt..
cheers,
theo.

Good work frosty!

Brightness/Contrast etc should be used sparingly and those are great tips for too dark images..

Photochopping is all about selections..  using the marque tool, the polygonal lasso and the magic wand to select parts of the image and then apply brushes or filters..  Learn selecting/deselecting/select none and you'll get a good start..  Then copy'npaste, Free-Transform and layer opacity / merge visible etc and you'll be ruling!


My best photo tips: (some require manual mode)

Most important.. Frame correctly..  don't include bullshlt surroundings..  Especially watch the HEADROOM..  No need for 50% of the photo to be sky or worse, ugly ceiling..

Zoom in only if you have to... If you can get closer do so, stay as zoomed-out (wide) as possible!  (it lets in more light)

To have a sharp subject and a blurry background, zoom in from far away...

If the subject matter is not exactly in the centre of frame, try half-holding the shutter button and then continue holding half-pressed whilst 're-framing'.. Then depress fully...  This is useful for both focus and exposure!

Use the Exposure correction setting to brighten up dark subjects in bright places..  (+1)

Use self-timer at night...  with the flash OFF so you don't shake the camera just by pushing the button.. Put the camera on a wall/beanie/the ground (or a tripod!)..

Remember ISO - It can brighten up your photo!!  Bright Sun = Lowest ISO, Darkness = Highest ISO..  Just use the lowest you can without the photo becoming dark..

Try "fill flash" if there is any light behind the subject (ie. usually in backlit situations—so that it doesn't look like flash at all) it often does crazy things to your night shots!

(not my photo)_