Photography Tips and Tricks!

[VicSkimmr]

Photography Tips and Tricks

Contents:
Intro
Beginners Tips
Intermediate Photography
Advanced Photography
Post Processing


Introduction

Everybody has been there. You put your blood, sweat and tears (not to mention hard earned money) into a really nice frog tank. You naturally want to share it with the community, with people who can truly appreciate all the work that went into it, but when you go to take pictures of it nothing you do seems to really show it off. It's frustrating, it's annoying. So here's a thread with some hints, tricks and techniques to try and help out.

First, a little about me. I'm not a professional, and I would never claim to be. I'm self-taught with no formal training, so if I say something stupid please correct me. I'm hardly perfect and I have a lot left to learn. I've gotten to where I am from reading, a lot, and by practicing... a lot. I do think I'm at the point where I can help new upcoming photographers though. The majority of my work can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonwithers/sets/

Photography is just one of the hobbies I picked up as a result of all my other hobbies. My primary focus is automotive work, but I also recently picked up macro photography a couple of years ago as a result of my reefkeeping hobby. It's just another expensive hobby in a long line of expensive hobbies.

So anyway, I'll be laying out this thread based on the table of contents above. To be continued...

[VicSkimmr]

Beginner's Tips

I understand that not everyone is interested in delving into the depths of photography, it's incredibly overwhelming and most people just want to be able to take a picture that comes out clear. The majority of the time it seems like everyone assumes that they need to go out and buy a newer camera, but that's rarely the case nowadays. If you've bought a digital camera in the past 5 years it should be more than capable of taking decent pictures. So, here's a list of things that you can try that don't cost any money (ok, not a lot of money).




1. Use a tripod.


I know I said this list wouldn't cost any money, but spending $20 here is invaluable. Your frog tank has very little light as far as the camera is concerned. What that means is that you're going to need a longer exposure in order for the camera to receive enough light to create the image. So if all your pictures look blurry, chances are you need to be using a tripod. They give the camera a solid surface so it doesn't move when taking the picture. This is absolutely the most important piece of equipment to have when taking pictures of frogs.




2. Minimum focus distance
How many times have you taken a picture to have it end up looking like this?


The background is in focus but what you're actually trying to take a picture of isn't. It's frustrating, right? The reason is because you're inside the camera's minimum focus distance.

Every camera has a minimum focus distance (MFD). What it means is that the camera has to be at least this distance away from the subject to be able to focus on it properly. If you're inside it, the camera will focus on the first thing it can, which is behind the subject. You'll need to open your camera's manual to find out what it is for your camera, but you should also know that as you zoom in the MFD will change, so be prepared to practice a bit to get used to it. The solution to this problem is, of course, to simply back up. Here I've backed up approximately a foot and now as you can see the subject (hole in the wood) is in focus.





3. Timer


A lot of cameras today have a built in timer feature. This is usually used for you to set the camera, hit the shutter release button and then run in front of the camera so you can take a picture of yourself, but it works even better in this application. If you're using a tripod, there's a good chance that just hitting the shutter release button will be enough to shake the camera, resulting in a blurry picture.

The timer feature is the solution to this issue. By setting a 2 second timer, you can press the shutter release button and step away from the tripod, reducing any chance of camera shake dramatically.




4. Clean your glass
What's the point of taking a picture if the tank is dirty? Do everything you can in preparation for taking the picture to give it the best chance of turning out good. If you're going to shoot through the glass, clean it first if possible. And that leads into the next tip




5. Shoot parallel to the glass
Always shoot parallel to glass. The more of an angle you shoot through it the more the picture will be distorted. If possible don't shoot through glass at all as it reduces the light being received by the camera, requiring a longer exposure.




6. Take lots of pictures
This is the last tip, and it's probably the best one. Nobody uses film any more, and digital pictures are free, so take lots and lots of pictures. Every one you take gives you a greater chance of coming up with something you're happy with. Take multiple shots of the same subject. My first photo rarely ever turns out to be the best, which is why I typically take 3 or 4 of each shot. Take pictures from different heights, from different distances from the subject. Straight on isn't always the best angle to shoot from. Take some from down low, some from up high, etc. Just go out and take a lot of pictures.

I hope this helps! If anyone else has any other good beginner's tips to add, please feel free to share and we'll add them to the list.

Next will be intermediate photography, in which I'll delve into shutter speeds, aperture and film speed (ISO) and how they all inter-relate to each other.

[Whistly]

Great info I didn't have a clue about the MFD. I think I'll have to retake some photos of my frogs when they sit in their favourite spaces.

[VicSkimmr]

Thanks!

Do we lose the ability to edit posts after a certain time period?

[DonLisk]

Yes, after a certain amount of time or if another post is posted after the one you want to edit.

[VicSkimmr]

well crud, that's going to make things difficult

[UncleChester]

Hi Jason! I had been thinking about posting some photo tips as well, but had not got around to it (obviously!) so I think this is a terrific idea, and great work so far.

(As a small aside, I was wondering if the forum would have use for a photo sub section for equipment and technique discussions as well as a general area for gratuitous frog related photos? Your thread here would make a great first sticky. Just a thought, I don't know if it would be used enough.)


You solicited more advice, so I'll add my 2 cents worth:

1. Small table top tripods are also handy for confined areas around vivariums. If possible, test out your camera on a tripod to see if it's solid enough before you buy it.

When using a tripod and a long exposure- turn off your flash. The colour temperature of the flash and your vivarium lights are most likely not the same and you will end up with funky colour casts. This isn't necessarily bad, but worth noting (see attached pic- Hot&Cold for an example of mismatched lighting temperatures).

2. For macro focusing, lock the cameras focus then move the camera forward and back until the subject is in focus. If your camera has a manual focus setting, use it to set the focus near where you want, then move the camera forward and back to fine tune. If it only has auto focus, half press the shutter until it locks focus, then continue to half press the shutter while you move the camera forward and back until your subject is in focus. Practicing nailing the focus is well worth it as missed focus will make an enormous impact on picture quality.

3. An infrared or cable remote are good options as well. If using a DSLR/SLR, check your manual for something called "Mirror Lock-Up" (MLU), it's often integrated into the timer but you may need to enable it. This will cut down on vibrations/camera shake.

5. This depends on your point of view, but I think of it as perpendicular to the glass- the lens axis being the imaginary line that is perpendicular to the glass plane. At any rate, I agree to shoot 'head on' when possible (image attached). However this is *much* less important when there is air on the other side of the glass and not water (i.e. fish), so don't be shy about breaking this advice if needed.

Other glass shooting advice:
a. The closer the camera is to the glass, the less it will turn up.
b. The further away from the glass the frog is, the less in focus the glass will be.
c. Turn off your cameras built in flash when shooting head on at glass- it will reflect back and look icky.
d. Keep as much light off you and your camera as possible- you will turn up as reflections in the glass. Cover yourself with a black/dark sheet if necessary.
e. Build your vivarium with front opening doors so you don't have to worry about glass

6. In addition to taking lots of pictures- learn to delete the bad ones after you've figured out what's bad about them and how to improve!

7. Use reflectors. Typical vivarium lights come from directly above. Tape pieces of white paper all around your vivarium to bounce some light back from below. This will reflect light into the otherwise dark shadows. This isn't necessarily better depending on the look you are going for, but it is a cheap/free thing to experiment with. Cheap white pieces of paper work great as reflectors outside on wild frogs too.

8. I'll end with a compositional tip- animal portraits/pictures are often more engaging when taken at or near eye level. So give it a try, and definitely experiment with different shooting angles whatever you do. If photography isn't hard on your knees you aren't trying hard enough

Hope this is some help, keep up the good work

[VicSkimmr]

Yeah I'm actually going to cover quite a bit of your suggestions in the intermediate and advanced sections. Unfortunately I still need to take a few more pictures for illustration purposes before I can finish them.

I did mean to mention not using the flash in my beginner's tips though, drat. That's a good suggestion. And you're right, what I actually meant was shooting perpendicular to the glass

[VicSkimmr]

Intermediate Photography

In this section I'm going to cover the different functions at work every time you take a picture and how those functions affect each other. From here on out I'm going to assume that you have 1) a camera that allows you to manually adjust settings, and 2) aren't afraid to do a little reading. Bear with me, as this is somewhat complicated and difficult to explain.

We'll start with the basics. Every camera has a sensor that captures light and imprints it onto a photo. There are 3 main functions in every camera that control the amount of light that hits the sensor; shutter speed, aperture, and light sensitivity (ISO). I'll discuss each of them in detail.



Shutter Speed
We’ll start with the easy one, shutter speed. The shutter speed measures the time it takes for the shutter to open and close. Shutter speeds are measured as fractions of a second. So a shutter speed of 1/250 is much faster than 1/30. A faster shutter speed lets less light in, while a slower shutter speed lets more in. That’s all there is to it.



Aperture
The aperture on a camera controls the size of the shutter. The smaller you make the aperture, the less light is received by the sensor. It closes and opens based on a measurement known as an f-stop. The one thing you need to keep in mind about f-stops is that the higher the f-stop reading is, the smaller the aperture is.

Now, the reason the aperture exists is to provide a depth of field. As you close down the aperture (remember, higher f-stop), you get a larger depth of field, which means that more of your picture will be in focus. You can think of the depth of field as a piece of paper. The thickness of the paper represents the area which will be in focus in the picture. The paper can intersect your subject at any point, but it will always be perpendicular to you. Does that make sense? As you close down the aperture (higher f-stop), the paper gets thicker, which results in more of the image being in focus. Seen below are 3 pictures of a bromeliad in my tank taken with the kit lens at 55mm. The first is taken at f/5.6, which is the largest aperture size my lens was capable of. As you can see very little of the picture is in focus, because the depth of field is very shallow. The second was taken at f/10, and the third was taken at f/16.

f/5.6



f/10



f/16



The depth of field changes based on your distance from the subject and the level of zoom your camera is using, so you'll need to experiment. The more you zoom in, the shallower your depth of field gets, and the closer you get to the subject, your depth of field will also become shallower. That's why those of you with macro lenses know how hard it is to get a usable depth of field


ISO (film speed)
ISO measures the sensor's sensitivity to light. If you’ve ever used a film based camera you’ll remember this as film speed. It’s the same measurements here. ISO generally ranges from about 50 – 2,400 depending on your cameras capability. The lower the rating, the less sensitive the sensor is to light. The higher it is, the more sensitive, so the sensor needs less light to accurately expose a photograph. Theoretically speaking, a high ISO is always preferential because it allows you to shoot with less light available. The problem with using a high ISO is film grain. The higher the ISO setting you use, the more grain you introduce to each photograph, so you have to find a balance based on the amount of light available, and unfortunately there aren’t any rules of thumb set in stone as each camera has various amounts of grain introduced with each ISO setting.

Here's an example of a photograph comparing a low ISO (left) and a high ISO (right). Notice the extra amount of grain on the right. This image is not mine.















Now is where things get complicated. All 3 functions are inter-related. Changing one requires a change in the others. As you close down the aperture (remember, higher f-stop), less light is received by the camera’s sensor, which requires you to either slow down the shutter speed (increasing light received) or raise the ISO (making it so less light is necessary) in order to properly expose the photograph.

If you reduce the shutter speed (reducing light received by the sensor), you’ll need to either open the aperture more (allowing more light) or raise the ISO rating (making the sensor require less light). If you lower the shutter speed, the opposite is true.


I know this is very confusing and it really takes a while to wrap your head around all this information, but it really is crucial to understand and it's the first stepping stone to becoming a better photographer. Without knowing how your camera functions you're really just shooting in the dark. You can't understand why some of your pics turn out great and some don't.


Typically ISO is set as a constant based on your light available, so you really only have to worry about shutter speed and aperture. Luckily most cameras have advanced settings to help you take out some of the guesswork between them. They allow you to manually adjust one function and the camera then chooses the other in order to properly expose the picture. For Canon cameras the settings are TV (shutter speed priority) and AV (aperture priority). Refer to your camera's manual to figure out how to choose these settings.


For more detailed information, there are thousands of beginner photography guides on the internet that explain this, and you may find that reading those helps clear up anything I wasn't capable of explaining well.

[UncleChester]

Yeah I'm actually going to cover quite a bit of your suggestions in the intermediate and advanced sections. Unfortunately I still need to take a few more pictures for illustration purposes before I can finish them.

I did mean to mention not using the flash in my beginner's tips though, drat. That's a good suggestion. And you're right, what I actually meant was shooting perpendicular to the glass

The film/sensor is parallel to the glass though

[UncleChester]

Hi there, nice work again. This here is my only objection (and I admit to being picky):

... Theoretically speaking, a high ISO is always preferential because it allows you to shoot with less light available....[/IMG]

Noise issues aside, sometimes it is desirable to have less sensitivity, for example when you want a long shutter to show the effects of movement (e.g. water fall in a vivarium-pretty ghetto pic attached but you can see the waters movement in the fountain part) and you don't want to stop down the lens any more (or can't) and you don't have or want to use ND filters.

It's also handy to have a lower ISO when balancing flash and sunlight for wild froggies. Lower sensitivity will also help you shoot at a wider aperture in full sunlight for an out of focus background, but this has never come up for me as an issue when photographing frogs or other small critters outside, except when balancing with a flash a being limited by the sync speeds.

[VicSkimmr]

All good points I hadn't thought about wanting to do a long exposure for a waterfall.

I'm trying to keep my pointers specifically related to frogs and frog tanks, otherwise this thread would turn into a novel

[UncleChester]

All good points I hadn't thought about wanting to do a long exposure for a waterfall.

I'm trying to keep my pointers specifically related to frogs and frog tanks, otherwise this thread would turn into a novel

That's why my example was from a vivarium .

Outdoor frog photography does happen around here too and a fill flash can be a dandy thing, so don't neglect those who like to get their feet wet photographing frogs (and not because of a leaky tank!).

[VicSkimmr]

I've covered the basics, which is what I really wanted to get done, so I figure people can make new posts covering specifics if they want (macro photography maybe, flashes, proper lighting, focus stacking, post processing, specific techniques, stuff like that). Otherwise I'll add stuff whenever I can get to it.


If anybody has any requests for subjects, post up and I'm sure someone here can cover it. We've got plenty of good photographers on this site.

You could also post a picture if you're having a difficult time figuring out what you're doing wrong and I'm sure we can collectively help diagnose the problem.

[DonLisk]

Well now I am just going to have to pull out the manual and see if my new Nikon can change some of these settings.
I know ISO is in there but don't think aperture and shutter speed are.

Thanks for the great instruction. I'll be bookmarking this thread for plenty of help :-)

[VicSkimmr]

I decided to try diffusing the light on the vivarium for a couple of frogs pics today, I think it turned out pretty well All I did was slip a sheet of regular white paper under the light before taking the pic. The un-diffused pic is on the left, the diffused is on the right. I like that it distributes the highlights on the frog better, showing off more detail and reducing the harshness.

[UncleChester]

Nice. I like the specular highlights that turn up on the otherwise black patch on the frogs back in the diffused example and that the highlight on its nose isn't so harsh.

Just make sure you don't leave your paper too close to the light unattended! Parchment paper (the usual cooking kind) is a more heat resistant option. Also note that most household diffusion options will change the colour temperature of the light. Easily correctable if you are using only one light source (your cameras auto-white balance will usually compensate) but can be noticeable if you are combining sources. "White" paper sometimes has blue in it to appear "more white" and can cool the light off, parchment paper (mine anyways) warms up the colour temp (mine takes a 5500K source down to about 4800K).

[VicSkimmr]

Hmm, I might have to give parchment paper a shot as a long-term solution. For this I just temporarily slipped a sheet under the light, but parchment paper might let enough light through that I could just keep it under the lights.

It didn't have much of an effect on white balance, but pretty much every pic I take needs some type of white balance adjustment.

[UncleChester]

Parchment paper (mine at least) still eats up about 1.5 stops of light. Probably enough to impact your vivarium if left on long term. By comparison my standard laser printer paper (75 g/m^2 density) eats up about 3 stops of light, so definitely better in terms of letting more light through and I find it diffuses the light sufficiently most of the time. Plus, since I bought a roll for photographic purposes I tried using it when cooking messy things like chicken wings. Cleanup is now a breeze.

[VicSkimmr]

I wonder if the frogs would come out more from the light being diffused? I don't have any really light greedy plants, so it may still be fine even with losing 1.5 stops of light.