Category Archives: Photography Tutorials

Nightscapes

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Night photography opens up a whole other world of photo possibilities and techniques, but there’s also quite a bit of room for error. Most of us probably struggle with shutter speed when taking evening shots because of the lack of light. You may end up with blurry, unfocused and discolored photos with several lens flares, but no matter who you are, a lot of night photography is trial and error with every new scene you shoot. And the key to it all? A tripod.

street lights at night

Without using a tripod or some type of stable object to set you camera on, getting a great, in focus and sharp image will be next to impossible. Although, as you get more comfortable taking night shots, you may realize that you want some parts of your photo to be blurred, for example. But if you’re trying to keep things sharp, save yourself some grief and also get a remote camera trigger or use a self-timer because even the slightest shake from pressing the shutter button will leave you with a blurred photo.

The photo I took above in Winter Park, FL was done with a tripod, but I wanted to capture the movement of the cars. This effect is pretty easy to achieve because the cars are already moving, so they leave a lovely trail of tail and head lights. Taking photos just after it rains will also allow you to pick up some great reflections and colors, which was the case in the above photo.

The next photo below could have easily been taken during the day, but at night you get the lights shining around the fountain giving it a quality and effect that makes this shot more interesting than in daylight.

Fountain in Winter Park, Florida

The below is a shot of a train passing by and I only had one chance to get this photo right. I left the shutter open for about 30 seconds to get this effect, but if I had a second chance, I would have liked to get more of the train and its shiny steel instead of this “ghost train” effect. One unexpected part of this photo was that my camera caught the red-lit railroad crossing gates that go up and down. That’s one of the benefits of night photography too, because your camera captures things that wouldn’t be possible during the day and that can make the difference between an ordinary scene and something really interesting.

train crossing at night

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Tutorial: Staying Focused with AI Servo

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The key to success with any photo is making sure the subject is in focus. With this in mind, I decided to do a little research on some of my autofocus settings and found an amazing little setting called AI Servo on my Canon DSLR.

I typically use the One Shot Autofocus setting on my camera, which allows you to press the shutter button halfway, focus on your subject and hold that focus at that moment until you press the shutter release the rest of the way. The only problem is if your subject moves, your focus will not compensate for that movement.

But with the AI Servo setting, it can adjust the focus based on your subject. The name is derived from the use of Artificial Intelligence used to predict the speed and distance of the moving subject. It greatly increases your chance of getting a sharp image when your target is moving.

So I thought, let’s test this bugger out, and who better to do it on than Bailey. I had her start in the same spot while I focused my camera on her face, and then called her to come toward me, at which point I would press the shutter button all the way. (I did not have my camera set to shutter priority, because I usually don’t and wanted to test this on settings I typically use, which is manual or aperture priority, ISO 200, and for this I used a 50 mm prime lens.)

I used the One Shot Autofocus for the above photo, and you can see that once I called B to come and I took the photo, she was out of focus.

Then I switched over to AI Servo (this being my first time) and did the same thing, focusing on her face, called her to come and quickly took the photo. Look how much more in focus it is. Granted, it’s not perfect, but this is a first try people!

On a technical note, in One Shot AF, the in-focus indicator blinks when the subject can’t be focused, but it lights up when focus has locked, as opposed to no in-focus indicator light appearing when the subject is being successfully tracked in AI Servo AF.

Labrador and a treat

Good job B. Here’s your reward…wait…wait…wait…OK, take it!

Labrador eating a treat

GULP.

I have more to learn with this setting, but it’s worth checking out in my opinion. Hope you enjoyed!

How to Reduce Noise in Photoshop [Tutorial]

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I’m going to show you a real easy way to remove the “noise” out of your digital photos, or in other words, the unwanted colored speckles you sometimes find on your photographs. These tend to be red, blue and green spots on your image and are commonly found in photos where there was not enough light.

Reduce Image Noise

I’m going to use the above photo I shot in New York of the city and the Brooklyn Bridge to show you how this can be corrected. It may not be very apparent in this photo looking at it here digitally, but when produced in a larger format or printed, the sky will appear to have red, green and black all speckled together in the sky. I did not mean for it to look this way, but because I shot this photo when it was very dark and without a tripod, I had to use a higher ISO (most likely 1600), which caused my image to produce a fair amount of noise.

The reason for this? In low light, there is not enough light for a proper exposure and the longer we allow the image sensor to collect the weak signal, the more background electrical noise it also collects.


Here’s how to correct it! In Adobe Photoshop, go to Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise

In the screenshot above, you’ll see a section of the photo has been blown up for us so we can tell what parts of the image will be removed. It’s evident here that there is a lot of noise in this night sky. You can play around with the settings, but the settings shown above are close to the ones I often use when correcting noise.

Continue reading this tutorial…

Shoot Like a Pro Using a Handheld Camera

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Lily Flower and Green Bug

The secret to taking beautiful photos isn’t always in the expensive equipment. Knowing how to use your camera and what settings to put it on can make all the difference. There are advantages to owning a Digital SLR, like image quality and control over shutter speed and aperture, but even today’s digital handheld camera can offer beautiful shots…if you know what you’re doing. (The shots in this post were taken with my Canon PowerShot SD940 IS Digital Elph)

Here are just a few simple rules you need to remember:

1. Keep your settings on Program (P) so you have more control over what your photo looks like
2. Set you ISO as low as possible to get photos with less noise (learn more about ISO from my previous post)
3. If you’re taking close up shots, switch over to macro mode (usually looks like a flower) which will allow you to get much closer
4. Set your camera pixels to shoot in Large mode and Fine; this will allow you to blow up your photos later without much distortion
5. Adjust your white balance depending on the type of scene you’re in, for example Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten Lighting (signified by a bulb usually) or if you’re not sure, just set it to Auto White Balance (AWB). This is an important setting to get accurate colors in your photo.
6. Avoid using FLASH…please! (sorry, but in my book it’s a last resort)

Caterpillar on birch tree
Creepin’ on a Birch Tree.

Buttercup flower and beeBottoms up!

P.S. I have to give my mom props for providing the beautiful flowers!

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Quickly Enhance Your Photos in Photoshop

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While using Layers, I’m going to show you a quick trick to making your photos appear a little more…lively, if you will. Because not every time will you get the perfect exposure, although getting pretty close will make your life a whole lot easier. This trick will allow you to quickly add contrast and brighten up those dull photos you’ve been hiding. Let’s start!

Take for example this photo of spicy hot wings and a glass of Shock Top and orange: (Yummmmmmm)

Hotwings and beer

It’s alright, but we can make it better. First let’s open the photo in Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements, and create a duplicate layer by clicking Control+J, or Command+J if you’re on a Mac. This will create a new layer that appears to look the same as the original. You can think of it as a “twin” layer that you can edit without actually affecting the original layer.

Creating a duplicate layer

Now, under the Layers tab in the right column, you’ll see a drop down that says “Normal.” We’re going to click that and select “Hard Light” because we are not normal….just kidding. We are going to use Hard Light because this is a quick and easy blending mode that will add a dramatic effect to our photo.

Using hard light blending mode

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