Martin Virtual's List: photography

• F-stop matters somewhat less than is generally taught.
• Closeness to subject matters a lot
• Relative subject distance matters a lot
• Get lower to the ground.
• Choose a background lacking in specular highlights.
• Get a longer lens
• Buy a tilt-and-shift lens and use it wrong
• Buy a Lensbaby.
• Just reach for the "blur" brush in Photoshop
• you are seriously getting into the world of "fiction" photography
• be very careful that you don't represent the resulting photograph as being "nonfiction."

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• Catherine Karnow
• Catherine Karnow used tree branches to block direct sunlight as she shot this side-lit cyclist. The branches became a strong foreground element.
• natural frames
• eople engaged with the landscape
• don’t waste time; make the most of the equipment you have in your hands, find the best position to compose the shot, and start shooting.
• cold weather, or extreme conditions
• Try POV (point of view) shots
• ight is dynamic. Plan your photography around the light if possible. If you see a picture but the light is too harsh, wait an hour to see if conditions improve.
• it's important not to change your lenses outdoors

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• A dependable remedy is to compose with a compelling foreground element.
• To stop a racing car, or someone riding a bicycle, start with 1/1000 of a second.
• n 90 percent of cases, auto white balance, like autoexposure, produces great results.
• Show subjects your pictures to raise enthusiasm. The digital display screen has largely replaced the Polaroid print for this purpose
• Work your way into a situation. If you see something interesting, don’t be satisfied with just a wide shot. Don’t be shy—people are usually happy to show you what they do well.
• Dining is a big part of the travel experience
• Unusual perspectives and composition can make familiar subjects more fun.
• The sunny f/16 rule: If you are attempting to make a landscape photograph without a tripod, inverse the ISO in selecting your shutter speed. For instance, with a 200 ISO you would select 1/200 of a second at f/16.
• ind leading lines and use them to lead the eye into your picture. Leading lines are most effective as diagonals.
• Because the angle of view of the wide-angle lens is much greater
• it’s obviously the lens to use where there’s limited space or the subject is large.

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• a camera that can deliver high ISO, a tripod, or a fast lens.
• 18-55mm
• 18-105mm
• 10-22mm or a 12-24mm
• Lensbaby.

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• Look for focal points
• Timing is important
• Head to the Beach When Others Avoid it
• Exposure Bracketing
• I look at what the camera wants to expose the shot at and then over expose it by a stop or two
• Spot Metering
• Fill Flash
• UV Filters
• Polarizing Filters

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• Water
• see into the water differently, cutting out glare and even changing the colour of the water
• Rotating the filter you’ll see a blue sky change from a light pale blue color to a vibrant and deep blue color (depending upon where the sun is). A polarising filter can cut out a lot of the smoggy haze that is often in city shots.
• color of sky can change remarkably
• even those that you might not think reflect at all)
• Other Reflections
• change the exposure needed for a shot
• difference that you’ll need to account for is 1-2 stops
• I personally use Hoya filters
• imply rotating the front element of the filter
• colors and reflections in your shot change. Once you’ve got it to a point that you like simply take the shot.
• For the greatest impact try to keep the sun at 90° to you
• especially bright sunny days

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• hyperfocal distance is the point at which you should focus your lens to allow you to get maximum DOF
• everything from half the hyperfocal distance to infinity will be sharp
• f you simply focus on the subject itself, then only one-third of the area in front of that subject and two-thirds of the area behind it will be sharp.
• cheat that will work most of the time, is to focus one third of the way into the scene
• Before you start to shoot, you will need to go into your camera’s menu system and make sure that you are able to change individual focusing points. (See your user manual if you need hep on how to do this).
• f-stop to f11, which is the optimum f-stop to get maximum depth of field for landscape photography
• Focal length
• Circle of confusion
• Digital SLR = 0.02
• f11 or f13
• F-stop
• Once you have calculated this figure, you now know the distance from your tripod that you need to focus on to obtain maximum depth of field.
• you now need to identify an object which is that distance away from your tripod and set the focusing point on your camera on this object. Your camera will have a number of focusing points displayed on its LCD and you need to make active the focusing point that is covering this object.
• you will soon remember the different hyperfocal distances for the lenses and focal lengths that you normally shoot at
• Hyperfocal Distance Calculator for Digital SLR Cameras with a Focal Length Multiplier of 1.6

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• Avoid high contrast situations
• Stop down your aperture
• Avoid the extremes of your zoom lens
• Avoid super zoom lenses
• Filter -> Distort -> Lens Correction…
• Chromatic Aberration
• make sure you are viewing the image at a magnification of 100% or more.
• make sure you are editing the image in its original aspect ratio or else you’ll get weird results in some areas of the image. Correct first the aberrations and you can always crop later.

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• cameras measure reflected as opposed to incident light, they   are unable to assess the absolute brightness of their subject
• result in an image whose   average brightness is placed in the midtones.
• Fortunately, underexposure is usually more forgiving than   overexposure (although this compromises your   signal to noise ratio)
• Some clipping is usually ok in regions   such as specular reflections on water or metal, when the sun is   included in the frame or when other bright sources of light are   present
• Contrast is a measure of the difference in   brightness between light and dark areas in a scene
• Broad   histograms reflect a scene with significant contrast, whereas narrow   histograms reflect less contrast and may appear flat or dull.

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• am not suggesting these items are just as good as the expensive purpose-built ones, just that they provide surprisingly good results and are very inexpensive.
• system of 3 hot-lights (2 on a tripod) ranging from 200watts to 500watts each
• Large diffusers for the hot-lights about 120x135cm with stands
• Large very portable reflectors about 130x150cm of silver and white
• selection of external Perspex flash diffusers similar to a "Sto-fen Omnibounce" or other similar items
• an external flash unit
• also the quality of light
• inexpensive bright yellow 500watt high-power halogen lights
• free-standing pair of lights on top of an adjustable tripod
• light they throw is very yellow and usually not desirable for colour photography
• replacement globes available for these lights that are tinted blue to cancel out the warm colour temperature of the light
• range from about 200watts to 500watts
• get very, very hot! Be careful with them and do read the safety and handling instructions. Make sure you don't put them too close to anything, and give room for air to circulate around them
• o get some material (and old white bed sheet is ideal) and hang it up in front of the light to diffuse it or behind the light to reflect it (far enough away to not be a fire hazard)
• somewhere like Ikea and get a cheap clothes rail
• can have light shined through them, reflected off them, or you could use heavier material (curtain backing material is ideal because it is light-proof) and use them like "barn doors" to prevent light from going where you don't want it.
• different coloured material
• windshield sun shade designed for cars
• but you can get different colours instead of silver
• uction caps or hooks
• off-cuts of translucent white Perspex lying around
• designed specifically to diffuse light as it is most often used in illuminated signs and so on.
• to ask about their Perspex off-cuts
• jig-saw and heat gun
• measure up your flash and then make some mock-ups out of paper or card and try them on the flash unit
• ittle tabs cut and bent in them that prevent the diffuser from slipping too far down the flash head
• used some felt tape that I had lying around that was bought from an automotive store

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• Rule of Thirds
• Balancing Elements
• Leading Lines
• Symmetry and Patterns
• Viewpoint
• Background
• Create Depth
• Framing
• Cropping
• Experimentation

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• Hands can be one of the hardest parts of posing
• f you’re still feeling a little stumped ask your subject to take 30 seconds and try grabbing or moving their hands in as many positions as they can.
• Make it a little game
• cience of practice
• angles
• show off a great pair of eyes
• tudy catalogs, editorials, ads and other photographers you admire.
• Sometimes you’ve got to get downright silly and really break them out of their shell
• Learning to recognize what makes a person unique and draw that forth will go a long way toward helping you pose for effortlessness.

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• Ask Questions
• other photographers
• their own work
• their subjects
• their cameras
• someone with the same camera as you and ask them how they use it
• ‘what if’?
• come up with solutions
• ‘Turn Questions into Quests’
• eep a record of the questions
• Find another photographer to buddy up with when you go out on shoots
• disconnected ideas together
• lateral thinking skills.
• Edward De Bono
• Get in the frame of mind where you regularly do this
• I find that it’s often when I take this ‘playful’ approach to life that I’m at my most creative and make all kinds of discoveries.
• Learn to ignore such statements and follow your intuition and hunches and you might just find yourself doing something that ‘has never been done before’ that people wish HAD been done before
• rarely sit still and are always pushing forward and taking the initiative.
• great photographic opportunities to come to them – but instead they actively search for them
• photography isn’t a fast paced medium
• Set aside a few hours this week to go and sit quietly in a pace in your town or city and watch the world go by. Don’t set yourself an agenda – just watch and when you see something worth photographing take the shot.

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• If you stop down more you get sharper results, but if you stop down too far, diffraction gives you softer results
• flat subjects, the sharpest aperture is usually f/8
• To use your depth of field scales, focus on the farthest thing you want sharp
• Note the distance on the scale. Focus on the nearest thing, and note its distance on the scale.
• Turn the focus ring until each distance is equally far from the center index, and you'll see that each distance lies next to the same aperture number on different sides of the scale.
• For   Nikon, Canon, Leica, Pentax and most 35mm cameras:
• Just use a tripod and choose the smallest aperture you have if you  need depth of field. Avoid apertures smaller than f/8 or  f/11 on digital cameras

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• What is the light like in
• unusual and creative light sources do you have around the house that could be used in creating interesting and unusual portraits
• Take a look at your favourite photographs – where is the light in relation to the subject and the photographer?
• mood has been created by the light in the photograph
• Afternoon Light
• Diffuse Light
• Direct Light
• Backlight/Side Light
• Dappled Light

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