Best Photo Lessons

Why you should "manual zoom" - even if you have a zoom lens.

2010-07-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

We all do it, even me ... using the zoom lens to match the space we have to shoot in rather than thinking about what we want the image to actually look like.

What we should be doing is using the focal length that gives us the image we want rather than what is convenient to shoot. What do I mean by that?

Pretty much every consumer camera comes with a zoom lens in the wide to telephoto style. Around the middle of zoom range will be a point where the picture would have the same look as what your eyes see. If you held a picture frame in front of your face - about one foot away if its a 4x6 frame (and about 2.5 to 3 feet if its an 8x10) what you see through the frame is what you'd see with lens at about mid point. (Exactly what point that is depends on the lens and camera combination.)

At the wide angle end, more stuff side to side and top to bottom is included than you would naturally see if you looked through a picture frame, which can distort things that are close up. But, it does help create a sense of place and brings the viewer into the picture.

At the telephoto end, you crop down and isolate your subject, which also slightly flattens the image - which is flattering for portraits. But, it doesn't give as much sense of place as the wide angle does and slightly distances the viewer.

Both ends of the telephoto lens - and points in between - are "the right choices" depending on what you're trying to say with your image.

So here's a couple of exercises.

Manual zoom: Take a picture of someone, start at the telephoto end, zoomed in as much as possible and framing their head and shoulders. You'll have to move yourself to get the right framing. Now zoom out just a touch and then move closer to get the same framing in the image. Now zoom in a little more and again move forward. Do this several times until you're at the most wide angle and probably standing just inches from your subject. Review the images and note how the person looks slightly different in each of the shots.

Choosing the look: Take a series of shots with the camera set to the widest point of the zoom. Just wonder around your house, or the park, or other place of your choice, only using that one setting for your lens. Now go to a middle point and repeat the exercise, doesn't have to be the same subject, just random photos - but you move back and forth to get the framing you want rather than zooming in or out. Now go to the most telephoto setting and repeat this process one more time.

When you review the images, see how you look at things and frame them differently - as well as how the subject of each photo relates to its surroundings based on how you set your zoom lens.

In the end you should have a better idea of whether you want to integrate your subject in its/his/hers surroundings, or isolate your subject, and which point in the zoom will give you the effect you want. This is much better control of your images than just zooming the lens to a convenient but perhaps inappropriate setting.

Ed Verosky - portrait, boudoir and editorial photographer

2010-07-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

Photographer Ed Verosky is a photographer you should check out and see what he's up to with his current projects. Working in portraiture, boudoir, glamour and editorial photography, he brings a unique artistic eye to his images. One of his projects you can see on the site is X-Reel - based on b-movie and stag films, he photographs in a gritty, film like style.

You can learn lots about photography and he current photography on his blog at that site.

To keep up on what Ed is doing, and get additional information not on his blog you should sign up for his newsletter at: www.veroskyphoto.com/signup.html

I recently bought his ebook 100% Reliable Flash Photography - and even though I've been doing photography for many year, I did pick up a some really good ideas. One thing you can apply is systematizing your flash photography - settle on one or two settings for your flash and always use it (or them), and you'll be better able to handle changing conditions. Ed has some great advice in this book on how to apply that idea. A great value for only $9.95.

I'm not affiliated so I don't get paid if you buy, I just think for $10 you shouldn't pass up this great deal.

Ed also has ebooks on boudoir and beauty photography - check his blog to learn more.

Asignment - get out and shoot

2010-04-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, you're probably very interested in photography and learning to become better at it. Of course there's lots of information at the site BestPhotoLessons.com - which you should devour - but you also have to "do" photography.

So your assignment: get out and shoot something, anything, anywhere, every week Or even every day) from now until you can't get out of your hospital bed and your family gathers around you.

Its a simple assignment. But hard to do. But, doing something you love to do - even when its "in the way of life" is important to us as humans.

"What you do today is important because you are trading one day of your life for it."

Don't know who said that, but it is profound.

Book Review - Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

2009-12-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

(click on image to purchase this item from amazon.com)

This book is a fantastic way to get more creative - not just about learning to draw but to see whatever you're creating in a more meaningful way. A big part of any creative enterprise, from drawing to photography to writing a screenplay, is to get at the feelings about the subject - not just create an accurate representation. This book taught me more in a few lessons that 20 years of reading dozens of other books and looking at art.

You don't have to a be "talented sketch artist" to get going on the exercises in this book - just a willingness to do the exercises. I'm a photographer, and can draw a little. But I'm nothing compared to most artists who use pencils and pens. However, I still got so much out of this book and doing the exercises and have been able to push my photography even further because of it. So, yeah, by now you've probably guessed I highly recommend this to anyone who is pursing a creative career or just a creative life.

Hack a Canon

2009-08-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

http://lifehacker.com/387380/turn-your-point+and+shoot-into-a-super+camera

Well, I don't know if I'd call it a Super Camera, but this hack is pretty cool if you want to push your Canon point and shoot into a better camera. The Canon Hacker's Development Kit, aka CHDK, is a firmware enhancement you put on your camera's memory card and it does magic.

What does this do to it? You can get RAW files for better images, you can add Motion Detection for security or shooting lightening, etc. You can play games on your Canon P&S. Some of the tricks are really cool, like way higher shutter speeds such as 1/12,500 or faster - which is faster than my dSLR Canon 5D, or really really slow like 65 seconds - yes over a minute.

If you like to shoot videos and - like me - are disappointed with your P&S's short video capture time, this hack will be something you'll have to do.

There's quite a few scripts being developed for this hack to add even more new features. Someone even developed a game to play on your P&S.

NOTE: I have not tried this myself, so don't know how good or stable the hack is, but would love to hear from someone who's done it.

Lots of people coming by

2009-08-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, BestPhotoLessons.com had 139 people come to the site and viewed 350 pages.

I just compared the yearly stats and every year visitors just about doubles. We've almost had as many visitors so far this as we had last year.

It's really gratifying to see so many people using the site. Thanks to everyone who visits.

And if you would like to suggest more things you'd like to see here, by all means leave a comment or email us.

Wisdom by Andrew Zuckerman

2009-08-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous photos and essential wisdom from those who've experienced life and have made a difference, photographed and produced by New York photographer Andrew Zuckerman.

We should all take these lessons to heart - and for the photographers, be inspired both by the photography and scope of this book, which includes a DVD with the interviews.

The Trailer:

Also see the web site for the book if you want to learn more and see the "making of" - great for us photographers. www.wisdombook.org

Getting the perspective

2009-08-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

Pretty much every camera now has at least one zoom lens. But how do you make better use of the various lengths of the lens (or lenses if you have more than one lens)?

Try this, pick a subject preferably a person or person sized object. Set your lens to the longest it goes and move yourself until the subject pretty much fills the lens. Now, zoom out just a bit and move until the subject fills about the same amount of frame. Zoom out some more, and move again. Keep doing this until you've gone through the whole length of the zoom on your camera.

Now review the pictures and check out how each image looks.

Bathroom 100

2009-07-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

Learned this from the Tech Guy Podcast: Go into your bathroom, close the door and shoot 100 photos of the inside of your bathroom.

The first 30 are easy. Then you have to work at finding new things and new ways of seeing the very familiar. I'd never heard of this exercise before, but thought it sounded cool, so I did it.

Now, I recommend you do it - this is one of the better exercises I've done.

New Blog for the site - and "Depth of Field" vs "Sharpness"

2009-07-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

This is a new section for BestPhotoLessons.com - we're adding a blog to add some new content to the site in ways that may not need a full article or stand alone page. By all means, leave a comment or otherwise let us know if there's anything you'd like to see on the blog or on the site.

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Onto The Blog:

Might do a video of this - a viewer of our YouTube videos asked about sharpness of a lens and best aperture for that as opposed to depth-of-field. Great question.

As a rule, the highest sharpness of a lens is about 2 stops closed down from the maximum aperture - ie. if the maximum is f2.8, then f5.6 would be about as sharp as the lens will get (f2.8 --> f4 -->-f5.6 = two stops.)

Imagine you have a group of friends standing in front of you, about 7 feet away, and you want to shoot a picture of them. You're using the 24-75mm f2.8 lens that I have, and you set it all the way out at 75 mm to get a tighter image, and at f5.6 for "the maximum sharpness." In the group, the nearest person is 7 feet away, but the furthest is 10 feet away. You focus on the nearest person and take the shot.

However, when you later see the shot on your computer, the nearest person is very sharp. But, everyone behind her are all fuzzy. Hmmm. What happened?

At a distance of 7 feet with that lens and fstop, the total "depth" of the focus with that lens is only 8 inches. The near limit is 6' 7" and the far limit is 7' 6" - so your back person is now 2'6" out of the ideal focal range.

Being persistant - and doing a little research - you re-assemble your friends, and take the shot again. But, this time you set the camera to f16 and focus on someone in the middle - between the nearest and farthest people, about 8'3" from the lens. Now the near limit of focus is 6'10" which is closer than the near person, and the far limit is 10'6" which is just past the furthest person - the total depth of focus has increased to 3'9" (up from 8 inches before.)

Looking at the image on your computer you can see that the middle person is pretty much as clear as the front person was before, but now everyone is acceptably in focus and looking great.

Technnically the focus point is a little softer than at the lower f stop, but its so close you can't really tell without scientific instruments - and you've gotten the "out of focus" people back into the shot.

All of this, of course, changes with different focal lengths, different distances to the subject and so on. You can do some research online to find out more. If you really want to get technical, you can look up "Circle of Confusion."

I recently downloaded an iPhone app called PhotoCalc which gives you all these numbers, and a lot more information as well.

Hope this clears a few things up for those who need to know.