Click'n Moms

You have probably heard me speak of them before, but if you are interested in learning more about your camera and join a HUGE forum. This is the one to join.

Click'n Moms is a fabulous forum that will help you not only learn your camera but also be comfortable taking photos and discussing your work. I highly recommend it. Click on the icon below to learn more information about it.

Enjoy!

Wednesday Word of the day! JPEG vs. RAW

Ok, a day late, I know, but I hope you will forgive me.

Since we talked a little about the different coloration you can do to photos last week, let's talk about image compression this week. As long as you haven't been living under a rock for the last couple of years you have probably heard of JPG or GIFs.

JPEGS - Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is the name of the committee that designed the standard image compression algorithm. JPEG was designed for compressing full color or grey scale digital images of natural scenes. It doesn't work so well with non-realistic images, such as cartoons however. JPEG does not handle the compression of black and white (1 bit-per-pixel) images or moving pictures.

The other choice often used is GIF. A graphic file format mainly used for Web graphic or small animated (GIF) files. Not good for photographs as it only contains a maximum of 256 colours.

Most cameras output directly to JPEG or RAW format. RAW files store the unprocessed image data at 12 bits per channel. Directly from the camera's imaging chip to its memory storage device. RAW image files must be processed with special software before they can be viewed or printed. These are normally in the form of a plug in for Photoshop or as a standalone product. . The advantage is that you have the ability to alter the white balance, exposure value, colour values, contrast, brightness and sharpness as you see fit before you convert this data into the standard JPEG or TIFF format. Professional digital photographers import RAW image data directly into photo-editing programs like Photoshop CS (which comes with a Camera Raw plug-in that works with most popular RAW formats.)

If you are serious about your photography, I would suggest shooting in RAW, it gives you so much more freedom and flexibility. Yes, it takes up more hard drive space, but hard drives are cheap! Especially when that perfect shot is just slightly off and you need to tweak something. RAW will save you most every time.

Wednesday Word of the day! - Sepia

I get this one a lot!

What is sepia?

Sepia. The (brownish) mono toned effect seen in images from the original 19th and early 20th Century cameras. This is now a special feature often found as a special image effect on some digicams and/or editing software. A lot of professional photographers offer tinted photographs, like sepia.

Sepia is similar to the black and white effect. Some of the higher end cameras can do this effect in camera. Look around in your menu.

Wednesday Word of the day! - Megapixels

How important are all those megapixels?

What are megapixels anyway? Digital cameras capture photographs on image sensors, rather than on film (ahh, the old days!).

The megapixel count is how many individual ‘dots’ are there on that image sensor, making up the photograph. 3 Megapixel cameras have 3 million dots on their sensors. 4 Megapixel cameras have 4 million dots . . . and so on.

You might assume then, that those extra million pixels will improve your digital photography. Not by much it won’t!I’ve shown the relative difference in size between image sensors below. The difference between a 3 and 4 megapixel camera isn’t all that much at all.

When you are making your digital camera comparison, don’t let the sales staff sell you on Megapixels alone! With a difference of only 1 million pixels you should look at what else the camera offers.

Other things to consider about the number of megapixels

Right, now we’ve got an understanding of pixels and sensor size, there are two things you should consider when making your digital camera comparison:

• How important is picture quality to you?
  
• How will you view your photographs, computer screen or print?

Picture quality:
This is determined by more than just the number of pixels. In fact, some cameras with a lot of megapixels produce worse pictures than cameras with fewer. The reason is twofold:

First, the more pixels crammed onto an image sensor, the smaller each individual pixel must be. The pixels are so small it’s difficult to accurately record the light hitting them. The results are what we call in digital photography ‘noise’ and ‘purple fringing’. (NB: Noise is a grainy effect to photographs, purple fringing is when light areas of the photograph bleed into the dark areas.)

Second, the quality of lenses. The best sensor in the world will be useless without a good lens to focus light onto it. At the same time, a lesser sensor, but with a good lens in front of it is capable of taking very good photographs.

How will you view your photographs?:

If you plan to use digital photography to take photographs that you will only ever view on screen, then you won’t need many pixels. A standard 15” monitor will be 1024 pixels wide, and 768 pixels high. The total is only 0.8 Megapixels. No point buying a 6 megapixel camera if you only need 0.8 of them!

Maybe someday you'll want to print them out

One day you may well decide to print the results of your digital photography. Most people do at some point, and therefore you’ll need to think carefully about the number of pixels when making your digital camera comparison.

The holy grail for printing is a resolution of 300 dots per inch. You will still get a good print from around 240 dots per inch though.

What does this mean for you in terms of megapixels? Have a look at the table below which shows how big a print you can realistically make:

Megapixels: (MP)	Quality prints up to this size:
minimum of 2MP	6” x 4”
minimum of 3MP	7” x 5”
minimum of 6MP	10” x 8”
minimum of 8MP	12” x 10”

Excerpt from Digital Photography tips.net

Wednesday Word of the day! ISO

What is ISO? ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor, the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain and vice versa. Lower # = less noise.

Depending on your camera’s make and model will play a HUGE roll in how high you can go and still remain “safe”. When I started out with my Canon Digital Rebel, I couldn’t even think about going over 400ISO without grain. My 50D worked well up to about 800ISO.

Play with your camera and find your “max”.

There are of course instances when you will have no choice but to go above what you are happy with. Indoor sporting events, a wedding perhaps, maybe even a dim clients home.

Because ISO is part of the triangle of light, changing your ISO greatly effects the two other key points, as will adjusting any or all of the points Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.

Let’s setup a mental situation with poor light. Your local high school has asked you to shoot the Championship Basketball game Friday night. You know that the lighting is pretty poor and there is going to be a ton of quick moving action. Let’s determine which point of the triangle will be most important to us. I’m going to go with shutter speed. We are not going to want Jim Three Pointers to be blurry as he take that game winning shot. We want to capture that moment in time. Let’s bump the shutter speed to 1/500, maybe even 1/1000. You haven’t touched your aperture yet, it’s set at f/7 and your ISO is at 100 (haven’t touch that yet either). Shoot. WAY to underexposed. Remember that we want to leave ISO as our last ditch ever, so lets bump the Aperture down a whole lot. We can take that down to f/4 or even f/2.8 Wow! What a difference. MUCH more light coming in to the camera but still not perfectly exposed. Last resort, ISO…bump the ISO from 100 to 400. HUGE difference. Now shoot away!!

If you are in a low light situation that does not require a super fast shutter speed, get yourself a tripod! I know, its yet ANOTHER piece of equipment that you just don’t feel like lugging around, but you will be so thankful you did! Situation: Maternity session, clients home little light coming through the small itty bitty windows on a dark, stormy day. That small bit of light is hitting mom’s belly just right. Camera settings: Shutter Speed: 1/125 Aperture: f2.8 ISO: 200. You need just a bit more light coming into your camera. First thought, bump the ISO to 400 or higher, say a prayer and hope for no noise. IF you had your trusty tripod, you could easily break the hand held shutter speed rule (remember never put your shutter speed less than your aperture length or you risk some nasty shake blur). Hook that bad boy up to your tripod and you can drop the shutter speed down to 1/30 without any shake (as long as mom-to-be is a good listener and can sit still) ISO remains at a safe no-noise level.

The only way to get the hang of these tips and tricks is to get out the camera and play. Eat, Sleep, Breathe the triangle. When you get on location, take a big deep breath, review your surroundings, set your camera settings, check your settings, check ‘em again and start shooting, making adjustments as you go.

Aperture, Shutter Speed ISO. Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO. Just keep saying it, out loud if you have to. You’ll be shooting manual in no time…with PERFECT exposure!

Taken from PropInsanity

iPhone Contest! - Woodlands fStop

Alright, I just was playing with my iPhone and I had a great idea. Since we all are on these things all of the time, why not have a contest with a photo from here! I know you all have cameras on your phone. It doesn't have to be an iphone, so that doesn't get you off the hook. And we all know that the quality on these things are not great. But you will be amazed at the things that people can do.

So get out there and shoot! You have until Feb 1. I will come up with some small gift for the winner. But in the mean time, I want to see some new participants. Get your friends involved, or maybe even your hubby. When you have your favorite one or two, send them to me. Hey, if you get two friends to send them in, let me know and I will give you your next webinar FREE.

And please, no shooting while driving. That is just bad safety.

Here is a funny one from Caden. That is a cereal puff in his nose. :)

Wednesday Word of the day! - Shutter Speed

Let's discuss shutter speed today.

Most think of needing to know about shutter speed when taking photos of action. If you are just starting out, the mode with the man running is tweaking your shutter speed, it is called the Action Mode. When taking a photo of a moving subject, changing the shutter speed can change the look of an image and help the look of the photo.

Using a fast shutter speed, tiny fraction, will freeze the action (1/1000). If a slow shutter speed, big fraction, is selected, movement is captured (1/2).

Here are suggested shutter speeds for photographing a variety of subjects.

SUGGESTED SHUTTER SPEEDS
TO FREEZE ACTION*	TO CAPTURE MOTION**
Children - 1/250 - 1/1000 seconds	Amusement park rides: +/- one second
Moving water/waterfalls: 1/1000 seconds or more	Moving water/waterfalls: 4 or more seconds
Sporting event: 1/500 - 1/2000 seconds	Fireworks: 1/2 - 4 seconds
Birds in flight: 1/1000th a second and above	Moving cars at night: 8-10 seconds
	Night photography - one or more seconds

* The closer action is to your digital camera, the faster the shutter speed is needed.

To help prevent images from becoming blurred, set the shutter speed faster than the focal length. For example, a zoom lens set at 200mm requires a shutter speed of at least 1/200 second to avoid a blurred image.

** Tripod or other camera support is recommended whenever using slow shutter speeds. Also use the self-timer or remote to trigger the shutter to prevent camera movement.