Picture taking 101
Fri, 05/13/2011 - 10:32am
Does anyone have any advice for taking pictures with a digital camera in dark lighting like in a club or outside that don't turn out blurry or dark or super blown out looking from the flash. I know it's possible because I see them but all my pics are either blurry or totally over lit when I use a flash? I'm a total beginner and I don't know much about taking pictures but I'd like to learn. Thanks.
Sun, 05/15/2011 - 9:40am
#2
Wow. Thanks Herb. I'd love to
Wow. Thanks Herb. I'd love to hang and discuss this. In the mean time can you explain some of these terms for me and what they do?
1. ISO
2. W. Balance
3. Exposure
Thanks.
MMM
Mon, 05/16/2011 - 1:09am
#3
Matt--Below is my attempt at
Matt--Below is my attempt at covering the basic elements that go into controlling how your photos will look, but a lot depends on the capabilities of your camera and how you've been doing things so far. Reading the stuff I've written in combination with the tons of other stuff out there on the web--and the user's manual for your camera--will probably help.
For the sake of discussing this it is easier to look back at what things were like before digital cameras, to the prehistoric days of film photography.
When you bought a roll of film you had a choice of what the ISO would be. ISO is a standardized rating system for specifying how sensitive film is to light. A lower ISO, say ISO 100, is less sensitive to light, and higher ISO, say ISO 800 is more sensitive. So, with a higher ISO you could shoot in darker lighting because the film was more sensitive. Why wouldn't you always use the highest ISO possible?
Because the tradeoff is that film with higher ISO gives you more grain--the pictures have a rougher quality to them. Some people like the grainier look, but generally a photo taken with ISO 100 film can give you smoother and more appealing gradations in tones.
Since with film the ISO was fixed, there were basically only two tools at your disposal for controlling how the light hit the film. The two options were the aperture, and shutter speed. The aperture is the size of the opening of the lens, which you can set to be larger or smaller in order let in more or less light. The shutter speed controls the amount of time light is allowed to hit the film. But more than just determining how much light hits your picture, these two tools give you significant degrees of control over the appearance of your picture. Aperture allows you to control depth of field--meaning the range of what will be in focus in the shot. Fast shutter speeds allow you to freeze things in motion--like the shots of a ball in mid air, while with a slow shutter speed moving objects will appear blurry, like those shots you sometimes see of streaks of light from the taillights of cars. In digital photography aperture and shutter speed are just as important as with film, and if you want to get beyond the auto settings on your camera, then getting some control of their use is where to start.
By the way, regarding exposure, I'm sure you've heard the terms underexposed and overexposed. An image that is underexposed basically is too dark and an image that is overexposed is too light. Exposure means how the light reflected from the actual image is captured by the camera on film or digital sensor. All these things we're discussing--aperture, shutter speed and ISO affect the exposure. There may be some idea of getting a "correct" exposure, i.e. getting the photo to look as close as possible--in terms of light and dark-- to the real thing you're shooting. But eventually you realize that exposure is an interpretation and is subject to your decisions and control over how you want the picture to look.
When digital cameras came along they stuck with ISO as a standard measurement, even though the images were no longer captured on film. Now we no longer have to stick with the same ISO from shot to shot, so that can be a third means of controlling exposure if you want. Sometimes a situation comes along where you need much more light sensitivity and you can change the ISO anytime. But there are similar tradeoffs in the digital world. Higher ISO gives you a "noisier" image--very similar to the grain that you used to get with film.
White balance lets you set the camera optimally for specific types of lighting (i.e. sunlight, incandescent light, fluorescent light, etc). The "temperature" of the white will vary from sort of blue-ish to yellow-ish depending on the source of your lighting. I wouldn't worry about this too much at first. The average white balance setting on your camera should do a good job.
I think this is too much info for a message board. Am I making any sense?
Mon, 05/16/2011 - 9:02am
#4
Super great Herb. Thank you
Super great Herb. Thank you so much!
Mon, 05/16/2011 - 2:28pm
#5
Yeah, Herb, that was pretty
Yeah, Herb, that was pretty awesome.
Matt-Taking performance photos is way trickier than it seems, as far as I'm concerned. Lighting is usually very dim and not only that can vary inch by inch from blazing to black. While there may be some simple things you can do to improve things--depending on your camera and how you have it set--in the long run if you are shooting based on one of the camera's auto modes, you will probably need to learn how to use the manual settings and experiment with those. Because lighting for performances is usually so wacky, the camera's meter often comes up with some sort of average reading that doesn't really give you an exposure that you want--although it's possible to take the metered reading as a starting point and then tweak it from there in the manual settings.
Basically you are trying to balance out your use of shutter speed, aperture, and iso (and, if necessary, flash) to get the best possible image--which usually means getting enough light. However there are tradeoffs whereby pushing the limits of those settings will cost you in other ways. For example, slowing down the shutter speed will give you a brighter exposure, but can cause blurriness. Cranking up the iso will give you better sensitivity but also give you more digital noise. I try not to use flash when possible because it overrides the natural look of the stage, but sometimes you need it. It's helpful if your camera allows you to set the intensity of the flash.
In any event, one way of looking at this is to say: get the best camera you can afford, one known for having good quality at high iso speeds. Then it's a matter of trial and error. I'm still trying to get good at this myself and it's taken a while. Obviously Lippe and others on the scene also have a lot of experience with this. This is the type of thing that would be easier to go over in person, so if you think it would be helpful, sometime I'm sure we could find a way to do that.