The shape that a small spot of light will take in a blurry area of a photograph usually depends on the shape of the lens’ aperture. Some lenses create bokeh that is completely round and others create bokeh that is polygonal. With a few simple craft supplies, you can create bokeh that is heart-shaped, star-shaped, [...]
Photography Tips & Tutorials
At one time or another, many photographers have aimed their camera at the moon in an effort to capture its mysterious beauty. Photographing the moon presents a challenge, however, because more than a few things need to be taken into consideration when planning a photograph of the moon. You will need to consider: the moon’s [...]
Shutter speed is the key to waterfall photography. With a slightly longer shutter speed than usual, moving water will appear silky smooth in a photograph. The longer shutter speed makes it necessary to use a tripod or to steady the camera in some other way. It is also recommended to use a timer or remote [...]
“A photograph is a portrait painted by the sun.” Anonymous The word photography means light writing. And that is what photography is- writing with light. There are many ways to manipulate the light that reaches your digital camera’s sensor, but the three main ways are through f-stops, shutter speed, and ISO. F-stops An f-stop is the [...]
Bracketing means taking more than one photo of the same scene at a variety of different settings. Sometimes it’s hard to see on the LCD screen if something is properly exposed or in focus so this allows you to later choose which mixture of settings turned out the way you wanted it to. Some cameras have [...]
Some cameras have two options for zooming: optical and digital. You may wonder what the difference is between the two and which is better to use. Optical Zoom Optical zoom uses the optics (lens) to enlarge the subject in the frame. Digital Zoom Digital zoom crops and enlarges the subject which reduces the quality of the [...]
It’s a common mistake for those new to photography to take a photo with the intention of cropping it later. They may do this because they don’t want to get closer to their subject or maybe just because they don’t know the disadvantages of cropping. Why to Avoid Cropping When composing photographs, it’s a good idea [...]
The rule of thirds is one of the main “rules” in art and photographic composition and stems from the theory that the human eye naturally gravitates to intersection points that occur when an image is split into thirds. I’d like to note that I’d rather define this compositional technique as a guideline rather than a [...]
Depth of field, or DoF, is the range of distances within the frame that are in focus. Depth of field is determined by the f-stop value. Some affordable lenses that allow for a shallow depth of field are the 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon and the EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens for Canon. Deep [...]
Positive space and negative space are terms that are commonly used in art and photography that have to do with composition. Positive space refers to the objects in the frame and negative space is the space between and around the objects in the frame. At first, it may seem like negative space isn’t that important [...]