Slashdot Mirror
Digital Photography Composition 101
Darren writes "With the 'Rise of the Digital Camera' I suspect we will also see the 'Rise of the Dodgy Digital Photo'. As digital cameras get in the hands of more and more snap happy photographers there will be more and more average images cluttering the PC's of the world. Already there must be millions of self portraits taken at arms length (complete with double chins), countless pictures of Aunt Mildred (cut off at the knees) and just as many out of focus shots of everyday objects in the living rooms of new digital camera owners too lazy to move from the couch. Its time to learn how to take good digital images before its too late! Digital Photography Composition Tips aims to teach the world a few basic guidelines for improving digital photographer's skills everywhere."
Most of the books I have found assume you are already a film photographer and only cover the difference between film and digital; the books about film photography are not always entirely relevant to digital photography. The books about digital photography seem to assume you can't even take an autofocused picture with flash without help -- that's about as far as they seem to cover.
I'm looking for something that explains what all the complicated settings on my digital camera (regarding white balance, metering, aperature, and so on) mean and do.
Any suggestions?
I dunno, some of the suggestions kind of reinforced the standard plain image thing. From the article:
Examples are an overhanging tree branch, a window frame, a door, arches, a fence, rows of trees, etc.
Replace "Examples" with "Cliches" and they've got a point. You need more than just a good framing job to make an image interesting - you need good overall composition (which yes, can be helped by good framing), subject, lighting, etc.
I have a friend who takes digital pics, and then when he downloads them at home he changes them at a whim. For example, he moves Fred from the left hand side of the picture to the right to fill in a blank space in a group photo for example, or moves an outcropping that doesn't "balance" the photo. This practice seems totally bizarre, I mean if you are willing to do that to your pictures, why not just download pictures of places off the net and doctor up a whole set of family pictures in exotic locations???
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
..is the now-infamous "me taking my own picture by standing in the bathroom facing the mirror with my new digital camera".
I've never seen one taken with an analog camera. Perhaps they love the new toy so much they have to record one of their first good times together?
Here's another website that I've been going to; it's got digital as well as traditional photography forums: Photo Takers Forum.
My problem is that I can't afford an SLR. I'm generally happy with my Fuji FinePix 3800, but it's very bad in low light (my camcorder is absolutely fantastic, however, but the resolution of the still frames pales in comparison). I've bought some filters and conversion lenses, and I'm really having a great time learing with it.
Sadly, it doesn't take a digital camera to make most people lazy. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to encourage my brother-in-law to take better pictures by using sarcasm ("nice use of backlighting, there!") to no avail. Quick tip to backlighters: use a flash! It brings out your subjects in the foreground!
My wife is the queen of "shaky-cam", no matter how many times I tell her to use the flash indoors. She'll come back from an event at my childs school, hand me the camera, and I end up throwing about 80% of the pictures away. I tried to teach her how to use manual settings to compensate, but she doesn't even want to try to learn.
Still, even "snapshotters" can make prints like a champ with simple editing software (I have to admit I often use Microsoft's Picture It Express 7.0 that came free with a Kodak picture CD - red eye removal, cropping to standard image sizes, basic color/brightness/contrast editing... and free). For example, the first thing in the article is composition - very often you can fix this with creative cropping. Doesn't always make up for poor photography to begin with, but you can fix an awful lot.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
There's also the Holga -- sorta like an analog version of the camera phone. All plastic camera, a single aperture, uses 120 film. It's low-tech, but sometimes low-tech is good -- especially because it forces you to concentrate on the composition as opposed to all the bells and whistles.
Some cool sites:
www.toycamera.com
http://www.digitalsucks.com
http://www.eyecaramba.com
http://www.metaincognita.com (Disclaimer: this is some of my own stuff)
Beware, though: the Holga is controversial. People don't like it because the photos tend to look similar. I'll agree with that. They're similar -- but sometimes they're pretty interesting.
Thanks, this seemed like it had been up before, but I couldn't find the earlier article.
I agree, the digital pictures aren't really about the quality, it's about the memories. I like to go through my albums, just to be reminded of the good times I've had with people. It doesn't matter if the subject isn't perfectly centered. Hell, I have a series of pictures that have my foot in them on purpose (I hold my leg up, and it appears at the bottom, like a puppet. It's a series of pictures chronicalling the "Travelling Foot").
Sometimes you shouldn't be serious about taking pictures.
-no broken link
You failed to read the last article "How to Break The Rules" which gives hints as to why and how to go against the standard guildlines.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
shutter lag is the term you're looking for. and yes, everything short of DSLRs that i've used, seems to suck to varying degrees at this.
;)
however, you can get VERY good at shooting action, even with lag. for a long time, my friend Pete was shooting semi-pro photos at rallies.. using only a coolpix 5000. he eventually made the switch to DSLR. if you look at some of his old stuff, he can pan perfectly in time with a car 50 feet away going 100mph.. of course, pete isn't your average digicam user either
apart from that, what is this article telling us about digital photography?
"Thus, by sheer accident of the technology, neophyte shutterbugs are finding out the secret of the pros: take as many pictures as possible - one of the bunch is bound to be a beauty!"
It depends on the definition of "a beauty". Fact is, if you shoot a lot of pictures they won't be any better if your initial composition sucks, you will only have a lot of ugly pictures. So the rule only applies to candids/snapshots that rely on capturing that one moment in time. If you take a photograph of a building/landscape this won't work.
So, more shots isn't equal to more good shots.
I'm not a professional nor even a good amateur photographer. However, using some common sense I've found that I can consistently come up with some excellent shots that are comparable to my hard core photography-obsessed friends.
#1. Its digital. Take a ton of shots. Take shots you don't think will turn out; take lots of the obvious shots. Shoot your camera with reckless abandon. It costs you ~nothing~. This technique was validated by a professional photographer friend later on...he claimed that at professional shoots you sometimes have a ratio of 10:1 or 100:1 of good vs bad shots, even with an optimum setup and years of experience on his side.
#2. Know the limitations of your camera. If you don't have an big zoom lense, don't expect long distance shots to turn out. Digital zoom is pretty useless. Most digital cameras have a good short-to-middle distance focal length. Anything beyond that and you're pushing beyond your camera's limits.
#3. Next best investment you can make to getting a good camera = tripod. Extend the exposures to get more clear pictures in low-light conditions, or dark coloured subject matter. Lots of shots I took at the time looked good in the LCD screen, but later turned out to be slightly blurred.
#4. Avoid use of the flash. Its a 'brute force' attempt to get good lighting. Work with your ISO setting and exposure levels first. (remember your tripod!). If you don't know about ISOs or exposure, who cares, just take the same pic 3-4 times with different levels...you learn.
5. Be brutal about your pics. Take 200, delete 190. Don't be the guy with the unending home movies... only keep and show the best of your best pics. You'll also get a good rep for taking good photos this way.
6. Learn the basic filters in Photoshop and touch up your digital pics if necessary. I prefer Photoshop sepia and B&W to the filters that come with the camera.
For hard core photographers this may all seem obvious, but for us beginners I found these 5 or 6 tips are what really made the difference for my pics. And they're easy to execute.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
I'm sure you're joking and trying to be funny, but unless you know a lot about photography and camera technology, reading the manual and learning what each of the functions the camera does will help move you beyond snapshots and into pictures that can be great.
For example, do you know the difference between spot, center weighted, and evaluative metering? Do you know which situations demand one or the other? Maybe you do, but maybe you don't, but if you read the manual chances are you'll have a better idea than if you just put everything on "green" and snap away.
Results will vary, of course, but I've taken some awesome low-light shots this way. For example, this one. This technique isn't limited to digital photography either (with the exception of the setting-the-ISO part).
Similar... my Fuji FinePix can do 2 quick pictures.
The problem is that if you have an SLR, digital or otherwise, you can manually focus, then click when ready. With most digital cameras, you click, it takes a second to autofocus, then it takes the pictures. Sports shots just suck. Also, with my camera, you can't use the flash (for obvious reasons) when you use the 2 shot setting.
The camera can do movies, but they generally turn out quite dark, although I can use my video editing software to brighten them up a bit.
So the biggest drawbacks, IMO, are low light use and the click-to-shutter time.
I still love my camera, though.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
1) Find 1939 article on "Leica photography composition tips"
2) Change "Leica" to "Digital"
3) ?????
4) Profit!
P. S. For best results, use Digital Kodak Verichrome Film and process in Digital-76 developer.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It takes longer than pure digital, it's more complicated, it requires detailed technical knowledge, there is exotic machinery that must be mastered, every tip in this article still works, and you end up with amazing digital images with the warmth and tone of film, much to the amazement and envy of professional photographers everywhere. What's not to like?
Slow burst speed is not a problem with the firmware or the lens/focus hardware, it is a simple I/O problem. Do the math here. If your digital camera could take 5 fast shots of 4 megapixels each, where would it put the data? It can't get it through that slow CF or SD interface that fast, so it has to buffer it somewhere. What the expensive cameras have that the cheap ones lack is RAM for the buffer so that it can store the shots while waiting to push them off to the storage device.
WinGIMP once carried a story about a high school digital photography class that made use of the GIMP to, among other things, fix basic errors.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
I've got a coolpix 5400. I chose nikon for a digital camera because all my film equipment is nikon, and, more specifically, I can use my SB-25 -- it's a serious flash* and because it's about 150% of the size of the coolpix, it looks totally funny when mounted. But, it is bright (138 ft at 35mm setting, ISO100) and is less prone to redeye (because it's so far away from the lens), so I'm pleased with the combo.
My only complaint is that nikon doesn't do a good job of communicating with the flash, which is why I bought it (argh!). My n90 will tell the flash the zoom setting and it will adjust the light ouput angle accordingly; the 5400 is far more advanced, but the combo doesn't do that. I guess it's a marketing thing to sell newer flashes or pro cameras.
(*as serious as nikon gets; pros tend to use third-party flashes that are larger, don't overheat with constant use, and recycle faster)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Reminds me of watching a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit special. The photographer that got the cover used a bag of disposable 35mm point and click camera's. It was all about proportion, shading, framing, and other aspects of composition combined with getting lucky with the photons that happened to be hitting the film at the moment he pressed the button.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Here is a site that I started to frequent often. It has a load of small articles on taking pictures, everything from lighting, to composition, to types of photographs. Fodor's Focus on Photography Enjoy!
...the higher-end cameras can even be printed at sizes up to 20x30...
Hehe, yea, the only prob with that is the costs you get into of framing a pic that big... Sheesh.
I got a Canon Digital Rebel a few months ago and had this shot printed at 20x30 on canvas by photoaccess.com. Seeing that I had never printed a 20x30 shot before, I was rather shocked when I went into the local framing store to discover that a decent frame would cost at least $200, and most of the nicer looking ones at $350+.
I just ended up building a frame to stretch the canvas around and hanging it bare. Still looks nice though.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Sure, it needs to be learned. But the effect is not all bad - actually it works both ways. I am an avid amateur photographer who has swapped his SLR's for digital SLR's. All digital now and loving it. Here's the compensating effects:
- I shoot ten times more so the chance of great pics is ten times higher. I actually produce a lot more good shots now.
- Four letters: PS CS. Photoshop CS allows you to take raw images that are terribly underexposed, and push them to get excellent exposures. Also, skin blemishes, things that you just did not notice in th epicture, etc: all vanish with Photoshop.
Andyes, the printing press alloed bad writers to write, and the same will happen here - but the net effect will be a hack of a lot more great photos worldwide.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
Lots of agreement to lots of previous posts...my $0.02:
Back in the day I shot lots of black and white with my Canon F1. The B&W file was cheap (bulk loaded) and I could develop it myself. The great thing about B&W is that it teaches you composition. No pretty flowers to distract the eye...you look for shadows and highlights, an emotion, some action.
I always always figured that 10% of my pics were good enough to print, the rest was junk.
My brother in law just got a fancy Canon Digital SLR (his mom came into some $$ and bought it for him). He's a nice guy, but doesn't know a THING about photography. I'm always explaining f-stops, and shutter speed, and lighting conditions, depth of field, etc. He needs to learn the basics...and at least in the digital realm, he can do it cheaply.
A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.
Lead the eye. One of the basic objectives of a good photograph is to keep the viewer looking at the picture. Using lines to lead the eye works well to draw attention to parts of the picture. Fences, roads, coastlines all create interest as well as leading the eye around the picture. Conversely, lines going out of the picture will lead the viewer outside of the picture, and make them feel less interested in it.
Frames, as discussed in the article also help to create interest for much the same reason, because they also try and stop the eye from leaving the image.
Here'a a digital photo course using the GIMP published under the Creative Commons license. You might find it interesting.
I think that one of the best things to come out of the widespread adoption of digital photography is the fact that it has become so much easier for people to (inadvertantly in most cases) document their lives.
What's valuable about this is that the quantity of pictures has increased - and this includes all the crappy candids that capture the moment, instead of the scene. And it's the moment that matters in candids, not necessarily the anal-retentiveness of making sure that the best shot possible is taken.
This being said, the better a photographer knows the fundamentals of photography and the ins and outs of the camera, the better the pictures will be, but when a person starts fiddling with the camera at the expense of the moment, the spontenaity simply goes away and that moment is lost.
*shrug* some of my most valuable pictures are ones taken on a crappy camera, that aren't totally in focus, and that are plain bad pictures. But to me, and to my friends that identify with the moment that was captured, and to my son who will grow up and learn something about me from the pictures that he would never see if the pictures (crappy though they be) didn't exist....none of that matters.
Not always the case. I have worked with photographers that would take 100+ shots of a fairly simple subject and have only mediocre results. On the other hand, I was proud to work with another photographer that more often than not would take ONE SHOT only, and come back with spectacular photo's. I remember particularly on one occasion he was asked to take some nautical photos - ship setting out on it's maiden voyage and not returning for over a year, by the shipbuilder's who's staff photog was in hospital. This guy borrowed my Hasselblad, first time he'd used it but this was a RUSH. Took one film and no lightmeter or other accessories, from a hired helicopter he took 10 shots on the 12 shot film roll. All perfectly exposed, in difficult conditions, all perfect shots. Whole thing took 2 hours, studio - location - studio. The man was an absolute genius.
I started out with a Pentax K-1000, taking photos for Journalism in High School and developing my own B&W film.
I still have the K-1000, but I got rid of my Kodak Color Lab a while back. Chemicals are expensive...if I don't take any photos for a year, I have to buy all new chemicals (certainly a major cost problem). Film (I mean good film) really costs. Photoshop is so much easier/cheaper than having to buy new filters/equipment.
In the digital darkroom there is no real cost for film, and not much trade off for Color vs. B&W, so all of your pictures can be taken in color and changed via Gimp/Photoshop to set the "mood".
I currently own (and use as my primary camera) a Canon Powershot A70. You don't need a SLR to take good photos, if you're just taking photos of a skyline, trees, etc...you can still get good results with a well built snapshot camera.
The things to remember are the following:
Learn the limitations of your camera. Know how to get the best photos using the manual settings. A good start is generally setting the ISO Rating to ISO 50, set a fast shutter speed and a higher aperture. Set the highest resolution and quality setting. Turn off the flash unless it's absolutely necessary (your subjects will look "dead" otherwise) and don't get too carried away with zoom (digital or otherwise)...
Now, why am I using a snapshot camera and not an SLR??? Some people want you to belive that because they spent $1000 on their camera, they somehow take better photos than those of us spending $300 for a camera. Despite what others would have you belive, you can still take bad photos with an SLR and you can certainly take great photos with a snapshot camera.
Don't belive that good photos can be taken with "cheap" cameras...Look at this site...where all of the photos have been taken with an Aptek PenCam (earlier shots were taken with the $30 PenCam VGA)...
I don't know which country you live in, but I believe in the modern world those are not considered dirty pictures, and non suitable for work, if spending your work time on the web is allowed in the first place.
In my city, we have a reproduction of the Michaelangelo's David at the door of the City Hall, and he is nude there.
I believe in most places, it would be more troublesome to be caught all day slashdotting than watching some [wannabe] artistic pics, nude or not.
I just do what we used to do at the TV station: I carry a piece of 96 bright laserjet paper with me. Put it down, aim the camera at it (from an angle...no shadows please) and hit the auto white balance button. No issues.
The coffee filter idea doesn't work quite so hot, since they aren't really white either. But that 96 (or brighter) paper almost GLOWS, even in low light.
Oh, and today at the arena, I was having trouble getting a good balance because of smoke from pyrotechnics. So I zoomed in on the abdomen of a woman in a white shirt. Look at the shots I took after that, there's a noticable difference in the color histogram.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I use /yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd - Description/Description - ImageNumber.jpg
The image number is important if you post the photos anywhere. You can quickly find the one someone mentions even if you've retitled it over the years.
It also means you can dump photos from a few dates, usually of a similar subject, into one directory (/FlowerPics, for instance) without two Flower 02.jpg pictures colliding.
As for the photos themselves, I was thinking of storing keywords in the exif info and writing a perl script to throw all the index info into a database so I can start pulling out all similar photos even if their name isn't all-inclusive.