goldengod

I’ve already covered before that I hate carrying things, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil. To avoid carrying both a tripod case and a camera bag, I never keep the three-legged beast in the bag it comes with. Instead, I’ll use the tripod bag to hold extra lenses and lighting equipment.

Suddenly, you’re carrying much wider variety of equipment, with a minimum of inconvenience. As for where your tripod goes, it’s up to you.

If I’m using it, I’ll carry my tripod resting on my shoulder with the camera attached. Otherwise, I’ll just hang it off the bag strap. It works excellently and gives me a lot more freedom in the photos I take. Remember to be more careful with the tripod case though, it’s not padded like your camera bag.

What do you think, good idea or bad idea?

The Wanderer by Adam Wolf

There’s nothing that ruins a good photo faster than cars and power lines in the background. Unless these are your main subject or closely related, they are distracting and ugly. I’m tired of drab backdrops; it’s time to fix things. I hope you’re wearing old jeans because we’re about to get dirtier than a hooker on Sunday.

How Low Can You Go?

I wasn’t kidding when I said you should be wearing old clothes. Take your shiny new digital SLR and get down in the dust with it. Shooting your subject from below will give you one of the best backgrounds available - the sky. This is best accomplished on a day that’s sunny, with a few clouds. I’ll take any kind of sky over a rusty Ford Taurus as your background.

Low is also not the only option, but it is the most fun. Getting above your subject and shooting down works as well. You can’t just walk circles around your model; sometimes you have to get creative with angles to have an adequate backdrop.

Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em

I guess we’re a few paltry decades beyond using magnesium flash powder, but you know what I mean. Shooting from below with the sky as a background introduces the problem of exposure. Your camera will want to expose at two dramatically different levels; one for your subject and another for the scenery.

Use a flash to help balance that out and narrow the tonal range to something that your camera can handle. Ideally, you should have an external off-camera flash for this, but the one built into your DSLR will work in a pinch. It just requires a bit more creativity. David Hobby’s recent post on balancing flash at twilight is highly recommended reading if you’re going to attempt this.

Use a Wider Lens

People only come in limited heights, so you’re going to have to put that shiny 70-200mm back in your camera bag. Unless you only want photos of your model’s forehead, of course.

Whipping out a 10mm isn’t necessary, but a lens on the wider end of things will give you a much better shot than a telephoto. Try using something in the 15-35mm range like Canon’s 17-40mm F/4L.

Oh the Drama!

Shooting from below is a very dramatic angle. The added distortion a wide angle lens provides can make people look imposing. It can also be used to convey a child’s sense of wonder.

Someone once said “The most boring photos in the world are taken from six feet high.” Every time I’m out taking photos, this echoes through my mind. I try to take as few photos standing normally as I can.

Another Way of Making it Work

Another sneaky trick to getting rid of tacky backgrounds is to heavily overexpose the shot. This is harder to do than simply getting on your knees, but it does make your photos look artistic. I’m not going to go into too much detail when someone else has already done the work. Go read Brian Auer’s excellent post on whether to expose for shadows or highlights.

Related Entries:

• The Best Models Money Can’t Buy
• How to Take Great Photos Under Pressure
• Getting Backgrounds Right at Digital Photography School

Creative Independence by Nattu

Read “How to Take Great Photos at High Noon - Part One“, just in case you missed it.

When I first started writing about taking photos at noon, I didn’t realize I would discover enough tips for two posts. When I started thinking about different ways to approach the harsh lighting conditions, the list just took off!

I was happy to see some readers post ideas that I hadn’t thought of, too. I may have to put together a part three comprised solely of reader suggestions.

Here are four more tips to put into use when you’re out taking photos in bright sunlight:

“I See a Little Silhouetto of a Man”

Embrace the rays of our mother sun! You can create light halos by getting down low and placing the sun directly behind a model’s head. Choose a subject with sharp, distinctive outline and expose for the sky behind them.

Try to avoid having your model wear baggy clothing, unless you are taking a photo of the Blob. Having your non-Blob wear a more form-fitting outfit will give them a more distinctive silhouette and add impact to the photo.

Filtration Systems

Get creative with your filters and use the light of high noon to achieve interesting effects. Polarizing filters will help give your photo a higher contrast and deeper blue in the skies. That’s not exactly revolutionary, I know, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

Try stacking two neutral density filters together to make long exposures at noon or use a graduated ND filter. Either can help reduce the harshness of he light at that time of day.

Clever Header about Reflected Light

Ran out of ideas on that one, but the point stands. Try to find a location with lots of reflective surfaces, ensuring that your subject has light coverage from different directions. Look for an intersections surrounded by glass skyscrapers. There’s a Flickr group for this style of photography run by the author of Unphotographable called No Flash Corner(s).

The Scarlet Speedster Saves the Day!

If you can’t make the sun darker, you can still make it appear darker by using your flash. Film or digital sensors perceive a much narrower range of light than our eyes do. This means that it doesn’t matter if it’s too bright, as long as everything is brightened to stay in the same tonal range.

Set your flash up at a perpendicular angle or opposite to the sun. Bounce it off an umbrella to illuminate your subject. The more poverty-stricken in the audience can use a large reflector, but it will limit the angles you can work with.

Working at noon is more restrictive and awkward than working at dawn, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to take a good photo. Implementing these suggestions and thinking about the quality of light are the ideas to focus on. Thinking creatively will turn any situation to your advantage and result in photos worth showing off.

Enjoyed reading this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed to keep up with the latest digital photography tips. Missed the first part? No worries, I kept it warm for you. Read “How to Take Great Photos at High Noon - Part One“.

The Sun Sets on Château de Chillon by Eric Hill

“How to Take Great Photos at High Noon - Part Two” is now available. Check it out!

Photographers are known to wax lyrical about the ‘golden hours’ at sunset and sunrise. What about those of us who sleep through half the morning and drink through half the evening? Taking photos in the bright afternoon sun is all we’ve got!

It’ s a common mistake to write off noon as a terrible time to take photos and it’s one I make frequently. Instead of giving up and hiding indoors, we need to turn the situation to our advantage. Here are four ways you can make high noon work for you and learn to take photos in bright sunlight:

Seek the Shade

We perceive the shade as being much darker than the sunlight in comparison, but the shade is still quite bright on a sunny day. The shadow of a large leafy tree is usually the best, but it’s important to keep an eye out for hot spots of light sneaking between the leaves. You should also be standing in the same quality shade as your model, so pick a large section of shade.

Diffuse the Situation

A proper diffusion apparatus might be a bit out of your budget, but you can make a pretty good DIY substitute out of a white sheet and some PVC pipe. Just have an assistant hold the large diffuser between the sun and your subject. Trying not to look embarrassed about using your ghetto sheet-frame is also recommended.

Increase Your Aperture by up to 3 Stops! Call Now!

If you’ve got a digital camera, it’s much better to underexpose a photo than to overexpose. Once the light hits the white value of the sensor, you can’t recover any detail from that portion of the photo. This can happen if you’re going the other way as well, but it’s much easier to recover an underexposed photo.

Switch your camera over to manual and bump the aperture up a stop or two to darken everything. You can also take Joseph’s advice and use the “Sunny 16″ rule. He wrote about it in his “Five Rules of Photography” post last week, try it out!

Look! Up in the Sky! …A Photographer?

No, I’m not recommending you fly around with your underwear on outside your pants. Unless you can actually fly. In which case, you can do whatever you’d like with your underwear. No, I’m talking about climbing on stuff! Getting up on nearby hills, hanging over balcony railings, standing on benches, or if all else fails, bring a ladder.

Getting up high will encourage your subject to look in an upward direction. This can dramatically cut down on the deeply shadowed eyes you see when it’s bright out. Make sure your model is looking away from the sun, so they won’t be squinting in the photo.

The important thing to remember about taking photos at noon is that it’s not a waste of time. You simply need to analyze the quality of the light and approach it from a different direction. There’s no such thing as a bad time to take photos.

Enjoyed reading this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed to keep up with the latest digital photography tips. “How to Take Great Photos at High Noon - Part Two” is up now, so keep reading!

Storage Space by Andrew Ferguson

We’ve all heard this a dozen times - “Take you camera with you wherever you go.” And yet no matter how many times we hear it, we all still leave our cameras at home all the time. I’m not talking about situations where you specifically don’t want it (dinner with your wife, funerals, rock concerts) but situations where you could take it with you, but you forget or get lazy.

I’m trying to drive this message into my head as much as yours. I’ve missed a couple good photos lately and I’m determined not to let it happen again.

Take your camera with you on a whim. Better yet, switch around what equipment you take, too! Bringing some of your less-frequently used camera equipment means that you’ll either have more photographic possibilities or you get to  do crazy stunts to adapt in a weird situation. Either way, you’re going to get some good photos.

A perfect example of having more possibilities happened to me a couple weeks ago. I left my house at about 1am on Canada Day to grab a pita and decided at the last minute to take my camera. I decided to leave my faithful 50mm f/1.8 walkabout on, since I’d be going through the (comparatively) bright club district. Realizing that I hadn’t used my kit lens in months, I grabbed that and my tripod on my way out the door.

I know, pretty ridiculous considering I was only walking five blocks to get some food. But I’m really glad I took all of that equipment. I wound up spending two hours looking for interesting subjects on Granville St and snapped a few architecture shots on the way home.

The Granville street partiers I could have gotten with my 50mm, there’s no question. I didn’t need to take extra equipment for that. But the wide-angle shots of the Wall Centre and a church, which turned out far better, I would never have gotten.

Remember, photo opportunities are everywhere. Literally. The photo at the top of this post was something I walked past on my way work until one morning when I brought my camera with me. Suddenly, it became the subject for a photo that I’m reasonably proud of.

How often do you take your camera with you? Do you think it’s worth it?

Edit: Made some minor grammatical changes and reshuffled title. I normally don’t like doing this, but these errors were getting on my nerves. Apparently I was tired when I wrote this :P

Polaroid Girl
by Andrew Ferguson

A common gripe heard from photographers not being paid for their work is that they can’t afford to hire models. These hobbyists are full of great ideas, but can’t afford the expensive models they supposedly need to realize their dream.

This is a cop-out excuse at best. If you can’t afford to hire a model, then do the next best thing: Bribe your friends! They can be bribed for much less than it costs to hire the average model. Not that I’m saying that your friends are cheap or anything.

I have yet to hire a “real” model; I haven’t needed to. I have no shortage of friends who are willing to let me order them around and take photos if I ask nicely. Maybe I’m lucky, but I think that our friends are much more willing to help us out with our addiction hobby than we think.

What’s in it For Them?

Well, if you’re putting this into practice, you’re probably an amateur like me. That means fame and fortune are out. It depends on what they want, really. My friends are often just happy to have great portraits of themselves they can show off. I’ve had proposal from at least one friend who’s a professional makeup artist and she wanted to use the photos in her makeup portfolio. Everyone wins!

If you know someone who’d look perfect for one of your photo shoots, approach them with the full details. Be honest, tell them that you’d like them to be the model and ask what’d they’d like in return for their participation. Your friends might even do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Your friends that is, not mine. My friends are pretty evil. Think Gargamel.

#4121 by Wee Keat Chin

Highlighting an important photographic element such as lighting, composition, or subject matter can make your photo attract attention. One of the most commonly overlooked elements you can focus on is texture.

Trying to show someone how an object feels can be as difficult as describing the colour green to a blind woman. It doesn’t have to be: I’ve got five simple steps for you to use and make your textural photos really shine.

Get in Closer…. Closer….

Unless the textured subject is massive, you’re going to have to get cozy. Use a lens with a shorter minimum focusing distance to get that one step closer. Ignoring the rule of thirds and letting your subject fill the frame can convey the feeling of being right up against an object. A photo of cracked plaster or old denim can make it feel like your subject is right at the end of your nose.

Remember, we’re trying to convey the sense of touch using only visual imagery. Put your camera where your hands would be in relation to the texture, rather than from eye-level. It’s a subtle trick, but people can pick up on it.

Shoot with a Lower ISO & Higher Aperture

The more noise you have in your shots, the harder it’s going to be for people to make out the quality of textures. In order to highlight the roughness and feel of any texture, you want to make sure everything is as sharp as possible.

Increasing your aperture to at least f/7.1 at least will make a big difference. If you’re in a low light situation, don’t be afraid to bust out the tripod. You’ll get much better results with a 1/2 second exposure at f/8 ISO 100 than you will with a 1/120th exposure at f/2.8 ISO 400.

If you absolutely must have a fast shutter speed to capture the moment, then it’s time to unleash the lights.

Vertigo by Michelle Jones

Use Light to Your Advantage

If you have lights, any lights, use ‘em! A hard light, coming from the side, can bring out texture in the flattest things. The sharp light falloff will bring out all the little divots and raised scratches in flaking paint or coarse fabric. Strobist has two articles on the subject that I recommend: Textural Lighting for Detail Shots and Assignment: Munchies.

If you aren’t at the stage where you have your own lighting equipment, don’t worry about it. We all have access to the biggest, hardest light source of all: The Sun! So don’t be shy about carting that aging end table out into the yard. Sure you might look ridiculous, but you’ll get the shot! Just make sure to go out at sunset; the angle of the light will be better and your wife can’t con you into painting it while you’re out there.

Avoid Using Noise Reduction

Noise reduction algorithms smooth out the luminance and colour variation between nearby pixels. This is great when you’re shooting something that should be a uniform colour or gradient. Unfortunately, noise reduction will suck out a lot of the textural detail you’re trying to preserve. However, if you followed my earlier advice and shot the photo at your lowest ISO, you shouldn’t need to worry about this. If you have to clean the noise up, create a Photoshop mask to ensure you’re not applying the filter to your subject.

Flow Up by Pittsinger

Dodge the Highlights

This is a trick photographers have been using in the darkroom since time immemorial. By dodging the highlights, you can make the brights brighter without damaging the overall tone. Think of it like colourfast detergent for your photos.

Of course we don’t use detergent anymore, we use Photoshop. Used carefully, the dodge tool is an asset to any photographer. Be careful with the strength of this effect, I wouldn’t set it any higher than 3-8% unless you know what you’re doing. Heavy-handed use of the dodge tool can make a photo look over-processed and tacky.

Textural photos provide a unique challenge to photographers. It’s difficult to convey the feel of an object in a visual medium, which may be why this photographic element is so often overlooked. Not many photographers can highlight texture well, but the good ones stand out for miles.

Related Tutorials:

• How to Take Great Photos Under Pressure
• Wayne Gretzky’s Digital Photography Tips

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A Splash of Lime
by Taro Taylor

As promised, here’s my article on burst mode. As mentioned in the preceding post, this was inspired by some reader reactions to my recent post on taking photos under pressure.

Once again, I sincerely apologize to those two readers for not covering the basics first.

What is Burst Mode

Do you ever watch celebrities arrive on the red carpet at the Oscars? You know that constant insane clicking you hear when Jessica Alba’s top falls of? That’s dozens of paparazzi taking photos in burst mode… very frantically.

Burst mode, also known as continuous shooting mode, is where you take multiple photos in quick succession with the same settings. You line up your camera as if you were going to take a single photo, but by being in burst mode and holding down the shutter button, you can take multiple shots.

Does Your Digital Camera have it?

The short answer is “Probably.” Most consumer digital cameras and all digital SLR cameras released in the past few years have at least some burst capability. It’s not guaranteed, but odds are it’s there. The newer and nicer your camera, the more likely it’s going to be able to do a faster burst and for longer. Look for a symbol of rectangles overlapping each other, somewhere in your user interface.

Why You Should use Burst Mode

• More Shots to Choose From - Everyone’s taken a shot where it would’ve been better if it was just a quarter-second later. That distracting child would have run out of the frame or the famous cyclist wouldn’t have a fencepost sticking out of his head.
• Better Action Shots - When you shoot in burst mode, you have more frames to choose from. I often find that with camera shake, one of my three shots in burst is noticeably sharper.
• Composite Motion Shots - You can use these bursts of a complicated action being performed to make a great composite shot. That’s where you layer a bunch of photos together, so that you can see the skater perform the beginning, middle, and end of their trick.

Sedona Rain by Jason Regan

Why You Shouldn’t Use Burst Mode

• It’s a Waste of Space - You burn through the space on your CompactFlash card incredibly fast. I’ve got a two gig card that holds about 200 photos in RAW mode. If I’m taking 3-5 shots of each setup, that cuts my total number of potential different setups down to 40. That’s a massive jump. You’ll need bigger digital memory cards or to download them more often.
• Your Batteries Don’t Last - Just the same as you burn through space on your CF card, you’ll burn through your battery life noticeable faster. It’s not as dramatic a difference as with the memory cards, but it’s still noticeable and you should take it into account.
• You’re More Likely to “Shoot & Pray” - People who shoot in burst mode have a marked tendency towards frantically snapping shots and hoping one of them comes out. There is less planning or waiting involved. While this can sometimes result in a stunning photo, more often than not you just get a lot of mediocrity. If you can’t control that desire, this can be a big drawback.

My Personal Preferences

• Always Shoot in Burst Mode - It’s my default setting! I never set my camera to single-frame. My camera gets set to use the timer every once in a while for night shooting, but otherwise its burst all the way!
• Use Military Bursts - “Whoa whoa whoa, when you said ’shooting’ I thought you meant photography!” No, I haven’t snapped; I am still talking about photography. Most semi-auto rifles have a “burst mode” that will fire in 2, 3, or 4 shot bursts. A 3 shot burst is the most common and is usually the most efficient. I shoot in bursts of 3 frames before refocusing/reframing and firing off another burst. It works great!

That sums up what I do with regards to burst mode and why I do it. If you’re looking for another opinion on the subject, blogging legend Darren Rowse has something to say on using continuous shooting mode over at Digital Photography School.

At the end of the day though, everybody has their own preferred method. I’d really encourage anyone who hasn’t yet to give burst mode a try; you might surprise yourself.

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Restrain by Bob Lee

One of the hardest things for beginning digital photographers to learn is the art of taking good photos in stressful situations. The next time you’re out using your digital cameras, remember these helpful tips. I guarantee they’ll improve the quality of your photos. These rules can be applied to weddings, photojournalism, sports photography, and way more.

Experiment with these tips. Try different combinations of them and see what works best for you. Some people implement all of these strategies to get them through the shoot. Others need only two or three of these tips to walk away looking smokingly good at their jobs. It really varies from person to person.

Please keep arms and legs inside the blog at all times. Ready? Okay, here we go:

• Triple-check all of your photography gear and digital camera settings - This is the most basic tip for any photo assignment. It should probably even go without saying. But you know what? We can all think of at least one situation where we forgot to check our digital camera settings and risked blowing some great photos. Hell, I’d be hard pressed to think of *only* one situation where that happened to me.
• Think about the bigger picture - The temptation to forget yourself and frantically snap shots of whatever looks interesting can be dangerous. Try to keep in mind who your audience is and what your editor/client will want to see. If you can keep that focus, you’ll be comin’ home with that 180-lb prize photograph tied across the front of your scooter Land Rover.
• Don’t pet the sweaty things - The more you worry about something, the bigger a problem it will become. If it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal. Put it out of your mind and focus on the things that are important. Don’t get mired in the molehills, keep your eyes on the mountains.


• Talk to another photographer - You’d be surprised how much insight having a chat with another photographer can offer. Sometimes having someone else look at the logistics of your upcoming shoot can make all the difference. Without the blinders stress inflicts, they will often see things that you’ve missed. They don’t necessarily have to be a more experienced photographer, but it definitely helps.
• Always be professional - Remember the old US Marine axiom, “Slow is fast. Fast is slow.” The more you try and hurry, the more you’ll panic and lose your cool. If you’re calm and in control the whole time, it will pay immense dividends when you need to pose a group of people or get someone to help you. If you maintain the air of a professional, people will treat you like one and listen when you speak.
• Practice, practice, practice - Not used to dealing with stressful shoots? Assign yourself some! Do a photoshoot with minimal camera gear, use just ten exposures, or finish in less than fifteen minutes. How you practice working under pressure doesn’t even have to be related to photography. Dealing with stressful situations is the same, across all boundaries. Shadow a day-trader for a couple hours, play some hoops with $50 riding on it, or try explaining to your wife where you’ve been all night without lying. Anything can work, as long as it makes you sweat!
• Get your ’safe’ shots in the can first - There’s a big temptation to try something new and exciting on the fly when shooting on location. But if it doesn’t pan out, you *need* something to fall back on. Take the some standard photos and common poses first. This gives you something to fall back on. Having that safety net will take a lot of weight off your back. Then you can step back, take a deep breath, and let your creativity run wild for the rest of your time!

Emy & Teh by S. Affandi

Personally, I’m still struggling with not screwing up when stressed out myself. I’m a lot better than I used to be, but I still have a tendency to get flustered when working in a high pressure situation. The research that I’ve done for this post is going to keep me focused. I’ve started implementing some of these gradually over the last few months and I’ve already started to see a difference.

Got a great tip that I’ve missed? For gods sakes man, tell me! Don’t be shy, tell us your secrets for taking high pressure photos and we will love you for it.

I took some time to quiz my friend and fellow photographer Brian Larter on the subject. He’s a professional photographer in Halifax and he has considerable experience shooting protests and weddings. Here’s what Brian had to share with you guys:

When it comes to high stress photography situations like weddings, journalism and sports, it’s best to use your camera in burst mode. A fast burst of shots gives you greater potential to capture that “perfect” moment.

Ways to achieve a fast burst are: shoot with a higher ISO than normal. Using 200 or 400 ISO outdoors will allow you to use higher shutter speeds.

When it comes to stressful moments, always prepare for them beforehand. For a wedding, meet with the couple and explore the venue before the big day. Keep in mind that most churches don’t allow flash photography, so ask first.

For sports, always check the weather and location before the day of the event. If you’re shooting a protest, find out the path it will take. Walk it a day or two before and take note of potential places to shoot from like mail boxes and ledges.

From the Pulpit
by Danny Hammontree

I’m mildly embarrassed that I didn’t think of telling people to shoot in burst mode. I have a bit of an excuse though; I always shoot in burst mode. I can’t imagine taking my photos any other way. I would’ve missed most of my best photos if I hadn’t been shooting in burst mode. It’s one of the simplest ways to prepare for any eventuality.

Now this is going to sound pessimistic, but something will go wrong on one of your photoshoots. It’s only a matter of time. Just remember; it ain’t the end of the world. Like the athletes you’re taking photos of, you’ve gotta get back up and keep firing away. The mark of the consummate professional is not that they never make mistakes, but how well they recover from those mistakes.

Suddenly I have an inexplicable urge to go listen to “Under Pressure.” Hmm…

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