Digital Photography

Report on three different Video Editing Software

There are many lighting setups that give you a different effects. When choosing how many lights to use in a scene you need to first look at the subject. You need to chose what it is you are trying to portray in a photo. If you are going for a professional photo that you would use for a work place you would want to take a photo with equal lighting.  Incandescent, Fluorescent, Studio Strobe and LED are some of the types of bulbs that are used in the light stands. Most cameras have a built in LED light that the user can use. Large camera such as the Cannon 750D can connect to an external flash and can fire the flash from a remote place this gives the ability to use multiple flashes in one shot. In the below shot you can see the effect of multiple lights give to the highlights in the shots.  Another way you can produce a similar effect is by using a reflector which can be used to bounce light of one source to another. You can see below a shot, the light that is set up to the r

High Dynamic Range other wise known as HDR, is a process that is applied to the image by the camera to compensate for colour loss, it gives an image a higher Dynamic range. Below you can see the effect in practise, The picture on the left shows how a camera usually captures an image and the image on the right shows a picture with HRD enabled.  The way HDR works is by combining three or more photos, one with normal exposure, one over exposed image and one under exposed image. Depending on the lighting of the area it can make an image look more blown out. HDR is very useful in low light areas. If the camera is unable to take a normally exposed image it will instead combine the images to create an effect of normal lighting. Before taking a photo with HDR enabled you have to remove any movement from the shot otherwise the image will come out blurry and you will get a ghosting effect. Some advanced forms of HDR are able to to combat the effect of ghosting. To take a good H

When you press the shutter release button the shutter is lifted and light is allowed into the camera and hits the sensor. This is the way it worked in traditional camera's aswell but instead of a sensor the light would be projected onto film. There are two types of sensors CCD (Charged coupled device) and CMOS (Complementary metal oxide semiconductor). Both sensors measure light and convert the analog signal into a digital signal which is then saved to the camera's SD card. Advantages of CCD over CMOS: CCD sensors create high-quality, low noise images.  CCD sensors give greater sensitivity and fidelity. CCD have 100 times more power over CMOS sensors. CCD require a specialized assembly line to be made. Advantages of CMOS over CCD: CMOS sensors are more susceptible to noise. CMOS have a lower light sensitivity compared to CCD. CMOS consume a lower amount of power compared to CCD. CMOS sensors are easy to manufacture and are therefore cheaper to be made

There are a few ways that Macro Photography can be defined, Micro-Photography, Macro-Photography and Close up photography. Micro-Photography and Macro-photography usually refer to the same thing. Companies such a Nikon use the term macro and micro on the same lense, whereas Cannon calls them macro lenses. Below is a screen grab from Nikons own site which show them using both terms. What does the terms macro/micro refer to? The term Macro means big and the term Micro means small. If the item you are taking a picture of is small and you want it to come out as larger in the picture, then you are taking a macro shot of a micro subject. Macro photography is generally done with a dedicated lense which you change out on your DSLR camera (Such as the nikon lense shown above). Below is an example of the detail that you can achieve from a macro lense. The photo below is an example of a close up photograph which could have been taken with a regular lense or a macro lense fro

RAW vs JPEG is a question that is asked by every photographer. There are lots of reasons as to why RAW is superior to JPEG and vise versa. In basic terms JPEG is better due to its ease of use, and RAW is better for its extra options.  For new photographers Jpeg is easier to use because as soon as you take the picture it is processed within the camera. This means that once the images are uploaded to the computer you can then upload the images to Facebook. Where as with a RAW file you have to use a photo editing software such as Photoshop, Gimp or Paint.net to output the image to a usable format.  With Jpeg the settings your camera will set the color temperature and exposure, the camera will also process the image to add blacks, contrast, brightness, noise reduction and sharpening. The file will then be saved as a compressed Jpeg file. With Raw file instead of all the settings being defined at the time of capture, picture settings can be changed when the file is imported int

There are a few rules that have to be considered when it comes to the Composition of a shot. You have to think about the Simplicity of the shot, the Rule of thirds, lines, balance, framing and avoiding mergers. When it come to taking a shot you have to consider what it is in the shot you are focusing on. Taking a shot of a something basic such as a daisy allow the viewer to only focus on the one item. This shows a simplistic composition. Below is an image that shows the rule of thirds. The image is divided into three equal parts both horizontally and vertically. You can see in the image a butterfly along the vertical line. Lines make the viewer look into the picture more. Horizontal lines give a calming look to the image and the diagonal lines on the tracks give a dynamic look to the image. Balance gives an impression of equality to the image Framing gives a look through something to focus on the item. It's important to avoid mergers in photography

Exposure in Photography is determined by the Shutter Speed, the aperture of the lens, the sensitivity of the ISO and the lighting of the scene. In this post I'm going to talk about the Lighting of the Scene. Great cinematography is all about preparation, and few aspects of the craft require as much preparation as lighting. You can arrange the lights in such a way as to leave darkness between the area illuminated by the backlight and the area illuminated by the fill light, depending on how moody you want the shot to be. This tends to work very well, although even the moodiest films tend to avoid leaving dark shadows on the faces of female talent. The film still shown above is from “Schindler’s List” and is a good example of this technique. You should light your film or video shot by shot. This means that when you relocate the camera to shoot a different angle, the lights must be moved as well to ensure the subject is always lit correctly. This is partl

Exposure in Photography is determined by the Shutter Speed, the aperture of the lens, the sensitivity of the ISO and the lighting of the scene. In this post I'm going to talk about ISO. In very basic terms, ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light, while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera. The lower the number the lower the sensitivity of the film and the finer the grain in the shots you’re taking. The component within your camera that can change sensitivity is called “image sensor” or simply “sensor”. It is the most important (and most expensive) part of a camera. Traditionally in film ISO refers to the sensitivity of the film but with digital photography it refers to the sensitivity of the sensor.  Film Sensor Take a look at the image below a higher ISO gives a grainier image and a lower ISO gives clear image. Higher ISO settings a

Exposure in Photography is determined by the Shutter Speed, the aperture of the lens, the sensitivity of the ISO and the lighting of the scene. In this post I'm going to talk about Aperture. Simpy put Aperture is ‘the opening in the lens.’ When you press the shutter release button on the camera the the whole opens to the desired opening (also called f stops). The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light. Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also – this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in – very handy to keep in mind). There are a number of results of changing the aperture of your shots that you’ll want to keep in mind as you consider your setting but the most noticeable one will be the depth of field that your shot will have. For example in the photo below the guitar is in focus and the backg

Exposure in Photography is determined by the Shutter Speed, the aperture of the lens, the sensitivity of the ISO and the lighting of the scene. In this post I'm going to talk about Shutter Speed. Shutter speed refers to how fast the shutter on the camera fires in order to capture the picture. The shutter is like a curtain in front of the sensor that opens when the user presses the button which allows light into the sensor. With a faster shutter speed you can freeze the pinwheel as if its not moving, with a slower shutter speed you can get a smooth effect on the pinwheel. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second. For example a shutter speed of 1/10 means a tenth of a second. Most modern camera's are able to take pictures up to 1/4000th of a second. Shutter speed is set differently on every camera but there is always an auto option for general photography. In order to customize the shutter speed you need to set the camera into manual mode. from there yo