Bob's Photography Lesson #2

Bob's Photography Lesson #2
In Camera Work
Adjustments



In my last lesson, I showed you some initial camera settings that many people found useful.  But you are probably wondering how to further improve your pictures.  You may have pictures that are too bright, too dark, or the wrong color.  Or maybe the wrong thing is in focus.  Let's look at some of the higher level controls that I didn't discuss in the last lesson.  Most cameras should have the controls I am discussion here.  Since many cameras are different, consult your camera manual to find out how your camera handles these controls, or go to StevesDigicams.com and see if they have a review of your camera if you can't find your manual.


White Balance

You took a picture indoors, but it is too yellow or green.  You can fix this in post processing, but that is something I will discuss in a later lesson.  In the menu of your camera, there should be a control for white balance.  A simple camera might give you the options of Outdoor, Tungsten, Flash, and Auto.  A more complex camera will give you settings for florescent light, cloudy day, and a custom setting, and possibly others. 

The outdoor setting is, of course, for outdoor shots.  Some cameras will give you sunny and cloudy day settings.  Sunlight has a slightly different color than light filtered by clouds, so the different settings compensate for this.

You flash will have a different color than sunlight, so you are given a flash setting to use.  If you are indoors and not using the flash, then you have to see what kind of light you are under.  The typical incandescent light gives off a yellow cast, so you need the tungsten setting.  Most fluorescent lights give off a greenish cast, and that is corrected by the fluorescent setting.

The picture on the left was taken under tungsten light, and has a yellow cast to it.  The picture on the right was taken with a flash, and is almost perfect, but you can see a slight bluish cast to it.

Sometimes, you will be under multiple light sources, and won't know which to use.  The custom setting comes in handy here.  When you select the custom white balance, you need something white to use for a reference.  I keep a sheet of computer printer paper in my camera bag for this.  Place the white paper where your picture is going to be taken, and when the camera wants you to do the “calibration” shot, point your camera at the paper.

Of course, the easiest way to go is to use the auto setting.  I tend to use it the most because I often forget to change my white balance setting when moving from place to place.  On both of my cameras, it usually works well.  So there is no harm in using the auto setting, but now you know what to do when the auto setting doesn't work.  As you use your camera, you will find out where the auto setting isn't adequate, and will be able to choose the white balance setting you need to fix the problem.


More on Focusing

Say you don't want your subject right in the middle of the picture, so you compose the picture with your subject down in one corner and shoot.  But, now the subject is out of focus, and the background is in perfect focus.  That is because your focus area is usually right in the middle of the range finder.  Some cameras allow you to change you focus point.  Newer cameras have what they call face recognition, and will automatically move the focus point to a face in the picture.  But, what if you don't have these features, or your subject isn't a face?

Assuming your focus point is in the middle of the picture, place your subject in the middle of the picture and press the shutter button half way.  Watch for you “in focus” indication.  If you have good focus on your subject, continue holding the shutter half way and move the camera until your composition is right.  Then press the shutter the rest of the way.  When in doubt, take a second picture.

A lot of cameras have manual focus.  I find that the less expensive the camera, the harder the manual focus is to use.  With my Konica Z-10, I find the best thing to do is zoom all the way in on my focus point and set my manual focus.  Then I zoom back until I have the right framing and take the picture.  With my eyesight going bad in my old age, I tend to depend on auto focus most of the time.  But for fast sports photography, auto focus takes time to actuate, and one can miss the shot.  So, manual focusing on the point you think the action will occur can save quite a bit of shutter lag time, allowing you to get the shot you want.


Exposure Compensation

Is the picture too bright or too dark?  Look in your camera manual for the exposure compensation controls.  You usually get plus or minus 2 stops in 1/3 stop increments of exposure compensation.  There should also be a similar control for your flash.  My Konica camera give me plus or minus 2 stops in 1/3 increments, but my Sony camera just has 3 settings, high, normal, and low.  If you take a picture and preview it, and find that it is too dark, you need to change your compensation to the plus side.  If it is too bright, change your compensation to the minus side.  If you are using flash, change the flash compensation instead of the exposure compensation.  With practice, you will know how much to change the compensation, and even when to change it without having to review a picture.

This is an example of  bracketing.  Bracketed exposures are a series of exposures that have progressively different exposure values.  Traditionally, bracketing is done in 1 stop increments, but I prefer 1/3 stop increments.  The left picture was at +1/3, the middle one was at 0, and the one on the right was at -1/3.

For shooting macro with a flash, you may have to lower you flash compensation.  For very close macro, with my Sony, I used to tape a piece of white computer printer paper over the flash to further reduce the light it put out.  This worked very well with the Sony, but the flash on my Konica is just too powerful, and I have to do all my close macro work with a tripod and existing light. 

Metering Mode

Another way to help get your subject in the right light is to change your metering mode.  The normal light metering mode is called center weighted metering.  The metering pattern for this is different from camera to camera, but imagine an oval in your viewfinder, with the edges about halfway between the center and the edges of the picture.  You camera is doing it's best to read the light within that oval, while ignoring the light around the edges of the picture.

But, you are trying to take a picture of the cat in the window on a sunny day, and the cat keeps coming out too dark.  This is because the cat is back light, and the camera is reading the light coming into the window more than it is reading the cat.  For this, most cameras have a spot meter.  In spot meter mode, you camera will usually show a small circle right in the middle of the viewfinder.  Point this at the subject and press the shutter button half way to meter your subject.  This pretty much works the same way center focusing does, if you want to have your subject in a corner of the picture, continue holding the shutter button half way and compose you shot before pressing the button all the way.

If I had used  center weighted metering for this picture, the bright sky would have made my subject too dark.  With the spot meter, I got a near perfect exposure of the subject, although the sky was washed out.

Some cameras have multi segment metering, where the light is metered from the entire picture.  This can be used for complex lighting situations.


Fill Flash

Another way to deal with a back light situation is to use fill flash.  Your camera may have a normal and fill flash settings, or you may need to use the flash compensation to get the best picture, usually (but not always) giving the flash a minus compensation setting.  Sometimes fill flash and spot metering need to be used together.  Reviewing your first shot and practice will help you decide which settings to use.  Fill flash is fun to experiment with, and with a digital camera, you can always delete anything that comes out horribly.  (or save it for future reference)

Fill flash has many uses.  The wind was blowing this rose around.  In the evening light, I couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action.

Switching to fill flash allowed the camera to use a higher shutter speed, stopping the action.


Well, that should be enough for you to digest in this lesson.  One added thing to remember, something I often forget, is to return you camera to it's “normal” settings after using the above settings.  Hopefully, I have given you lots to experiment with and that you will find yourself getting better pictures once you have mastered these controls.