So lets get started.

1. Shutter Release

Pressing the shutter release fully will take a picture. The button can also be pressed half way (not completely down) which will tell the camera to auto focus and to take a meter reading to determine your settings. This half pressed feature is really important, here is why: when your taking a picture in auto mode the camera will guess what you want to focus on but its not always right. Lets say your taking a picture of a model in front and to the right of a tower, so the tower is in the middle. The camera will keep focusing on the tower as its big and in the middle but then leaving your model blurred. You can just point the camera at your model, then half press the shutter release button to focus on him/her and then while holding it half pressed you can move back to having your tower in the middle again. You will have kept the focus set to the model and if you release the button and try again it would focus back on the tower.

As a little side note. Nikon and Canon use a AF point system which means you can set where the camera will focus to within the camera without using the shutter release method.

2. Main Dial or Configuration selector

Depending on which option you have selected this cog dial will allow you to change the value of that option.

3. ISO

You can press this and then select an ISO that you need or set it to automatically select the ISO.

4. Power On/Off

If I have to explain this… Well you should know its the switch that activates the mini black hole that sucks in everything into your cameras memory card. Use with caution.

5. Mode Dial

Here you can select all the modes that are available for your camera. Starting from A-Dep we will work our way around (of course more detailed explanations will be available for each mode later).

A-Dep : Auto Depth of field - This mode allows the camera to automatically set the depth of field without any fuss. What is depth of field?

M : Manual Mode - Full manual mode giving you complete control over all the cameras functions!

AV : Aperture Priority Mode - Turns everything on Auto except Aperture and ISO.

TV : Shutter Priority Mode – Turns everything on Auto except Shutter speed and ISO.

P : Program Mode - When used will set all the settings automatically but then gives you the ability to change things depending on your situation. (maybe auto mode makes the image too light and you can adjust it within P mode)

Green Square : Full Auto Mode - All the configurable functions in the camera are under the cameras control and you can’t change anything.

Persons Head : Portrait Mode - Auto mode that will configure the camera for portraits

Island with Tree : Landscape Mode - Auto mode that will configure the camera for landscapes (including night scenes)

Flower : Macro Mode - Or also known as “close-up mode” is an auto mode that will configure the camera for really really close up shots.

Running guy : Sports Mode – Auto mode that will configure the camera for shooting Sports or moving objects.

Guy with a Star : Night Portrait Mode - Auto mode that will configure the camera for night portrait shots.

So we now know where some of the basic functions are for the Canon 450D which hopefully wont be all that different form Nikon’s or Sony DSLR’s. If your using a point and shoot camera however you might not have any of these options at all and if you do they could be hidden in some menu. Simply consult your manual for these modes and hopefully you have them.

In part two I will finish off the rest of the Canon 450D and then after that we can move on the more technical side of photography explain Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.

If I have made any mistakes please let me know!

For example a grainy black and white image of a building might make the image look old and used this can be achieved with the cheapest of cameras.

Their are many types of cameras these days so first I will list them and then brake them down afterwards:

Camera Phone
Point and Shoot
Bridge Camera
SLR – Single-lens Reflex
DSLR – Digital Single-lens Reflex

Camera Phone

Probably something you already own. This low featured camera is probably the most difficult to use creatively because you don’t have a whole lot of options. But times have changed and camera phones like the Iphone or anything Sony is bringing out are giving you more and more.

If you’re considering buying a new phone maybe you would like to consider the camera part as well. Its not the best starting point to photography at all but it can be useful when you need to shoot something but have left your real camera at home.

Prime example of the camera phones usefulness can be found here: Twitter and a classic picture

Point and Shoot

These cameras are just that “point and shoot” typically these are for the Auto mode users that don’t want to spend the money on a huge brick of a camera.

Now you can get great pictures from these cameras but there is a consistent number of throwaways. There is nothing wrong with that normally but it could mean missing important events.

Night shooting is not it’s strongest point either. If you’re in a concert you might find it just won’t give you anything good. Now the reason for this is because you’re likely using some degree of Auto mode where the camera guesses the settings it needs based on the environment. This can be tricky if you want to focus on one thing but the camera sets up on something else.

Again though times are changing and the newer and more expensive cameras give the user much more control. As a starting point this is probably the cheapest without getting into anything too Technical.

Bridge Cameras

These cameras are an awesome starting point for anyone budding photgrapher. As the name might suggest the Bridge camera, bridges the technological gap between point and shoots and DSLRS. They normally come fully featured like a DSLR but don’t have a removable lens. The downside is that they are not as powerful in quality and have issues in low light.

They do come with an Auto mode like most cameras so if you can brave the dials and buttons you can stick to Auto mode like and point and shoot then as you learn you can move on to the other settings.

One thing to note when you have a bridge camera: If you have a book that just talks about settings on a DSLR if you try and copy those settings you might have a different results. This is due to the fact that bridge cameras are typically fixed lens cameras. Bryan Peterson: Understanding Exposure does give a full yet brief explanation.

SLR – Single-lens Reflex

These are old school film cameras. The only reason why I mention them is that you can pick up the cameras and lenses on Ebay or as one of my friends often does, buys them from a car boot sale / garage sale really really cheaply.

They do have a disadvantage by not being digital and you will never get instant feed back but I have to be honest there is nothing more exciting that getting film developed and holding your own work in your hands.

Not something for a beginner really because film will cost you a lot of money. But if you mastered the bridge camera settings and read a few books these blasts from the past can be really inspirational.

If anything else having film will make you think 100% more about the picture your taking which will improve your eye for a photo.

DSLR – Digital Single-lens Reflex

DSLR range from 300 to 7000+ euros. Depending on what you want you can spend a huge amount of money. Lots of people say “photography as a hobby is way too expensive” and when looking at DSLR’s they are right! BUT once you get yourself kitted out with your gear (case camera lens and memory cards) the theory is you wont want to buy anything more for another 2 years (depending on wither you are one of those kids with your nose up against the shop window all the time).

These are the best cameras you can buy by far. But there is a difference between models and brands in this class. So do your research first!

As for a beginner it’s not just a dream to start with a DSLR. You still likely have an Auto mode! But I would say this: Don’t buy a DSLR unless you are serious about using the settings on it at some point. If you are not bothered about learning you can save yourself a lot of money buying a cheaper bridge camera.

Another note to remember: When I was looking for a new camera I had a lot of negative feed back on both Nikon and Canon cameras that I was considering. It seems there is a level of fanboy feelings about the two brands. Just stay objective and open minded and remember that all cameras and all lenses have a negative.

Nothing in photography is perfect… Some of us would not have it any other way!

It can be really useful when cropping in Photoshop saving you the hassle of opening the image in something like Lightroom just to crop.

- Open Photoshop (CS2 ,3 and 4)

- Make a new image 800×600 pixels (you could just open an existing photo)

- Press ‘Ctrl+R’ to display your rulers.

- Right click on the ruler and select ‘percent’

- Go to your actions tab and create a new action – Call it ‘Rule of Thirds’ and assign a hot key.

- Go to the menu ‘View\Delete guides’ (this removes any existing guides)

- Now you action is recording select the menu ‘View\New Guides’

- Leave it selected as ‘Vertical’ and type in ‘33%’ then click ‘Ok’

- Create another new guide ‘Vertical’ at ‘66%’

- Create two more ‘Horizontal’ guides (one at 33% and one at 66%)

- Stop the action from recording.

- Right click on the ruler and select pixels (or your preferred measurement)

That is it! Every time you use your hot key or just run the action it will clear the existing lines and create new ones. Because you made the lines in percent, when you crop or resize it will always redraw the correct rule of thirds grid

While doing a little bit of stumbling on the net I came accross this little gem written by Rosemary Horn at alternativephotography.com

She manages to expose a photo directly onto a leaf. I have to admit this idea is uber geek and AWESOME!

You guys really need to check this out. –>Click Here<–

I for one can’t wait for winder to fade and spring to come into affect. This for sure is something I will try

I have several steps I personally us, they might not be the most efficient but since I have some of the software already I don’t have to buy extra software. (I have not been able to find any decent all in one package)

Software:

• Image Ready CS
• VirtualDub

Step One

Download your images from the camera to a local drive. I found that since  these images are typically nothing to do with my normal work flow and I tend to manually move them instead of using lightroom or canons own management tool.

Step Two

Image Ready – Open Image Ready and select the menu File>Import>Folder as Frames

Step Three

When the one image is loaded you can resize it to a more reasonable resolution 800×600 for example (you can do this before hand by using Photoshop actions which is much quicker but explaining actions is for another post)

Step Four

In Image Ready select File>Save Optimized File As and then save the file as a “.gif”

Step Five

Open the .gif file in VirtualDub

Step Six

Select the menu Video>Compression and then select your preferred compression method. (note: I normally leave it uncompressed for later use but if you select Divx it will give you a frame rate error)

Step Seven

Select the menu File>Save as AVI and name your video

Step Eight

With your finished AVI you can bring it into any video editing software to add music and to add additional movies etc.

A while ago I attempted to make a time lapse video using the S5700 (sorry there is no post for that) but I hit quite a few road blocks in terms of the cameras speed and performance. In the end I had to abandon the experiment as it seemed impossible to get the effect I wanted.

But things have changed and I have a Canon 450D now which is a very powerful DSLR.

The basic idea of time lapse is this, you take a series of images of a scene thats moving and put them together to make an animation or video. You can do this by using the continuous shooting mode which when you hold your shutter release button it will not stop taking photos until you let go.

You will find it better to use a remote of some kind if you are using a Canon or Nikon. You can also get them with timers on them so you can take an image every 20 seconds or every 2 hours. In the Fuji S5700’s case there is no remote at all available for it so a trick I have learned is to get a rubber band and some paper and used the band over the shutter release button so it pushed the paper into the button.

Unfortunately to get a really good time lapse you need a fast camera that can take 3 or more frames in a second. If you imagine taking a time lapse of a street crossing. When a person starts to cross the road you would start shooting. But with a camera thats slow, by the time you have taken the second image the person will be either out of the frame or at least a great distance to where they started. This is not smooth and can cause an effect called “blip”. Where people or objects are only seen for a frame or two when in motion. This was the core issue with the Fuji S5700 as it takes 1.4 frames per second and if something was fast moving it would blip. In the other hand the Canon 450D can take 3.5 frames per second which is perfect.

The next thing to remember is too “drag your shutter”. This was at first a difficult concept for me to understand so I hope I can explain it.

To obtain a perfect exposure you must configure three settings in the camera: ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture. Your photo is a product of a balance of the 3 values. To drag your shutter you need to slow the shutter speed down and use the aperture and ISO to compensate for the large amount of light that would come through (assuming your taking a time lapse during the day). So if you where to take an image with a F3.5, Shutter of 1/250 and ISO 200 you would need to lower the shutter speed, close the aperture and lower the ISO. I would then use F22.8, 1/3 shutter and ISO 100.

The effect is that anything that moves into or across the frame will have a motion blur effect and when you make your final time lapse the motion will look smooth and effective.

One final thing before I show you the demo I made. Using the Canon 450D as an example – If you set the camera to the highest quality you will get about 10 shots before you have filled the buffer and then the camera will slow down the picture taking process. Lower the quality and you wont have that issue and the camera will continue to take images uninterpreted.

Canon 450D Time Lapse Test from The Laddie on Vimeo.

This was taken at f22.8, 1/3 sec. and ISO 100 – 64 frames

In my next post I will look into how I make this into a video.

He pulled together a list of 60 photoshop actions for photo touch-ups. Everything from Cross processing to color and skin corrections.

Even if your totally new to photoshop this is a very good place to start.

60 Photoshop Actions for Photo Touch-Ups and Enhancements

I was still feeling the effects of a bout of ‘flu yesterday, but after watching Andreas Feiningers Video on Youtube, I fancied having a go at a similar macro type shot.

If you’d like to recreate the look too, you’ll need an old baking tray, some sand (or pebbles), something to brush the sand, a subject (in my case a piece of potpourri), a printed out back-drop (it’s a strange colour in my set because my printer was running out of ink) and a tripod:

I used my camera in macro mode, with a large aperture (f3.5) to reduce the depth of field – I specifically wanted the background out of focus. I wasn’t worried about the white-balance because I knew I’d be converting to black and white.

In Photoshop Elements I stripped out the colour, played with the levels, then applied a Gaussian blur to the foreground and background, masking out the subject.

Next time I’ll try and get more texture into the sand, try a different background, and play around with light more.

Here’s my first go:

Cheers, Rob.

Joe talks about his career, what inspires him, and how he keeps his enthusiasm in an ever more competitive arena.

A versatile Photographer, shooting from the top of the Empire State Buildings Radio Antennae, the deserts of Africa, and using the worlds largest Polaroid Camera to record the heroes of 9/11, this is a man well worth listening to. Enjoy.

Check out Joe’s Blog, and his main website.

If you fancy watching more videos with photographers, check out these interviews.

Cheers, Rob.

It can be fun to break out of this habit and look at things from a different angle, and this can often produce some unusual images. I’m talking about kneeling down, lying on the floor, pointing the camera up, down, at angles, etc, anything that we would normally not see on a photowalk.

Of course to capture these types of photographs, you’ve constantly got to be scanning your environment – that’s where the “Look Up, Look Down… etc” bit comes in. As you’re walking along, try and constantly be searching for unusual angles, shapes and subjects.

When you find something that catches your eye, obviously use different focal lengths, change your physical distance from your subject. Maybe try shooting at from below, pointing up, or the opposite. Look for interesting vantage points that will give you an unusual perspective.

Don’t worry about getting to close – make your subject abstract.

Turn the camera on it’s side to really confuse your viewers.

When you’ve finished, and are walking to the next location, look over your shoulder and see if you’ve missed an angle, or come back later (maybe when the light’s different) to get a fresh view.

Any subject can be shot an infinite number of ways, so just remember -

“Look up, look down, look all around!”

Cheers, Rob.