IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:04 | Hi, I'm Derrick Story and welcome to
Getting Pro Results from a Compact Camera.
| | 00:09 | In this course, we'll go over
techniques to help you shoot professional quality
| | 00:12 | photographs with a compact camera or
what some fondly call the point-and-shoot.
| | 00:17 | We'll explore how to go beyond the
limits of compact camera lens by getting much
| | 00:21 | closer to your subject using Macro Mode
and by capturing a wider scene through a
| | 00:26 | panoramic technique that involves
stitching together multiple individual shots.
[ | | 00:31 | Next we will learn how to tame your
exposures by adjusting your ISO settings and
| | 00:35 | working with exposure lock.
| | 00:37 | Finally, we'll demystify the all too
often misunderstood flash with a couple of
| | 00:42 | tips that at a glance may seem
counterintuitive, but will ultimately enhance
| | 00:46 | your ability to apply
creative flash techniques on-the-fly.
| | 00:50 | I've been shooting with all sorts of
cameras for as long as I can remember.
| | 00:54 | I'm excited to get the chance to share
techniques that I've picked up over the years.
| | 00:59 | By the end of this course you will have
much better control over your compact camera.
| | 01:04 | So let's get started with getting
pro results from a compact camera.
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1. Getting the Most Out of the LensThe big picture| 00:00 | Compact cameras are great.
| | 00:02 | They are very small.
| | 00:03 | You can keep them in your pocket,
yet they take very big pictures.
| | 00:07 | Now the problem with them, if you
consider it a problem, is that the lens that
| | 00:11 | comes on these cameras,
that's the lens you have.
| | 00:14 | So it might not reach as far as you want.
| | 00:16 | It might not get as much of the
picture as you want, and if you haven't played
| | 00:20 | with the controls, you might not be
getting as close as you want and these are
| | 00:24 | three things that can change
the nature of your pictures.
| | 00:29 | So what were going to do it is,
you'll notice that I have three cameras.
| | 00:33 | We are going to play with two of these
and I'm going to show you some techniques
| | 00:37 | to get the most out of your cameras.
| | 00:40 | Now, we're going to be playing with some
buttons and menus here and what you see
| | 00:45 | on these cameras might be a little bit
different than how your camera looks. That's okay.
| | 00:51 | What I want to do is learn the
concepts and then refer to your owner's manual
| | 00:56 | and learn where those controls are
on your camera and then apply these
| | 01:00 | techniques to your photography.
| | 01:02 | What you'll find is that you'll
start getting professional results.
| | 01:06 | You'll start getting those telephoto
shots, those big shots, those very tight
| | 01:10 | shots with this little camera.
| | 01:12 | It's very exciting.
| | 01:13 | So let's get started.
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| Using sunglasses as a polarizer| 00:01 | So here's a fun tip for you.
| | 00:02 | It's a beautiful day like this.
| | 00:04 | You're walking around.
| | 00:05 | You have your shades on.
| | 00:07 | You have your compact camera with you.
| | 00:09 | You see a shot that you want to take
like this shot over here or maybe this shot
| | 00:13 | right behind me here.
| | 00:15 | So you align it up, you shoot it and
when you get home, it doesn't look the same.
| | 00:19 | Well, think about it.
| | 00:21 | When you are not walking around, you
had you shades on and the colors are
| | 00:25 | saturated, there was less
glare, everything looked great.
| | 00:29 | You took the shot and your camera didn't
have the same benefit that your eyes did.
| | 00:33 | So why not take off your sunglasses
and use them as a polarizing filter.
| | 00:38 | That way when you take the shot
you'll reduce glare and you'll have
| | 00:41 | more saturated colors.
| | 00:43 | All you have to do is just line it up,
just line this, get the lens of your
| | 00:47 | camera in the center of the lens
of your sunglasses and take a photo.
| | 00:51 | Now, if the shot doesn't look
exactly the way you want, the camera may be
| | 00:55 | compensating too much for the shades here.
| | 00:59 | So what you can do is use your
exposure compensation and just backed it off a
| | 01:03 | little bit a half a stop, -5, -.5 or -1
and then you'll get more that of sunglasses effect.
| | 01:12 | Either way when you're out shooting and
you have your shades on, remember they
| | 01:16 | can also be a useful filter.
| | 01:18 | Now if you have prescription glasses,
what you might want to do is borrow the
| | 01:22 | glasses from your friend that doesn't
have prescription glasses, because that
| | 01:26 | will make them more like a filter and
won't change the optics of the shot.
| | 01:31 | Either way this is a fun technique.
| | 01:33 | Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
| | 01:35 | Give it a try and see what you think.
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| Reviewing the sunglasses shots| 00:00 | So here we are.
| | 00:01 | We are back out of the field and at our
computer and I'm looking at the photos
| | 00:06 | here in Photoshop Elements 8, but
on the Mac side it has Adobe Bridge.
| | 00:12 | That's where we are actually
viewing the photos in here.
| | 00:14 | So I want to take a look at
these shots that we took, using the
| | 00:18 | sunglasses polarizer.
| | 00:20 | Now the shot here on my left, no
polarizer, and in fact the shot is just a
| | 00:26 | little overexposed and I think possibly
the camera was a little fooled by some of
| | 00:30 | these dark areas here or I just may
have screwed it up, which is very possible
| | 00:36 | when I'm taking pictures.
| | 00:37 | Now the camera on my right here
did have the sunglasses polarizer, and as
| | 00:42 | you may recall I talked about this in the field.
| | 00:44 | I actually decreased the exposure a
little bit, because sometimes when I use a
| | 00:48 | polarizer, I want a little bit more
saturation and so I'll decrease that
| | 00:53 | exposure, minus one-third or minus two-thirds.
| | 00:56 | So we actually have two things going on
here. We have the sunglasses polarizer,
| | 01:01 | and we have exposure compensation
and you'll notice a big difference.
| | 01:05 | This shot is definitely is more saturated.
I think the exposure is more pleasing.
| | 01:10 | We are seeing more detail.
| | 01:12 | Now one thing a polarizer does, it removes
kind of the shine that comes off objects.
| | 01:18 | See here that there is little shine
coming off this ice plant, and when it's
| | 01:21 | polarized, it's not reflecting as much
and that allows the color to come through
| | 01:27 | and that's one of the really
cool things that polarizers do.
| | 01:30 | You'll also notice that the polarize
shot here is a bit warmer and that is due
| | 01:35 | to the effect of the sunglasses.
| | 01:37 | Some sunglasses are a little warmer.
| | 01:39 | That means they have a little
bit more kind of yellow in the mix.
| | 01:42 | Other sunglasses are what we call cooler and
they have a little bit more blue in the mix.
| | 01:47 | Whatever the color tint of your
sunglasses is that's going to affect your shot.
| | 01:53 | So you've got to keep that in mind too,
and that may even affect which pair of
| | 01:57 | sunglasses you choose
when you go out in the field.
| | 01:59 | So either way this is a great technique.
| | 02:02 | Remember to keep the sun
over one shoulder or the other.
| | 02:05 | You get the strongest effect that way.
| | 02:08 | Also, remember that the
results will vary widely.
| | 02:11 | Sometimes there will be a big difference
between the two shots, and sometimes there
| | 02:14 | will be hardly any difference.
| | 02:15 | You're never really sure, but it is
worth trying when you want to use a
| | 02:19 | polarizer, you don't have polarizer
with you or you are using a compact camera,
| | 02:23 | but you do have sunglasses.
| | 02:26 | This is a tip to keep in your back
pocket, but don't keep your sunglasses in
| | 02:29 | your back pocket, because you may sit on them.
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| Shooting macro| 00:00 | Compact cameras are great
at close-up photography.
| | 00:03 | Yet many people never take
advantage of this capability.
| | 00:06 | You don't need any accessories, because
everything is built right into the camera.
| | 00:10 | All you need to know is how to set it.
| | 00:13 | When we see a pretty object,
we tend to stand back too far.
| | 00:17 | Just by getting a little closer,
we can change the whole shot.
| | 00:20 | I want to show you some
examples of what I'm talking about.
| | 00:23 | So here we are and this is a lovely shot,
but it's taken at the distance that
| | 00:29 | I would take a people shot and we tend
to do that with inanimate objects also.
| | 00:33 | Now by changing my focus mode to macro,
I'm allowed to get even closer to that
| | 00:39 | shot than I am right here.
| | 00:41 | Now how does that work?
| | 00:42 | In normal focus-- and cameras are
different, they vary, but in normal focus
| | 00:46 | I can get maybe this close
before the camera stats to say you're too close,
| | 00:52 | I can't focus and it'll give me that
orange light instead of that green one that we want.
| | 00:57 | But when I switch to Macro
Mode, I can get much closer.
| | 01:00 | I get more magnification and this changes
the shot quite a bit as you'll see right here.
| | 01:06 | Here all I did was simply switch to
Macro Mode and get closer and the shot is a
| | 01:11 | whole different shot.
| | 01:12 | It's much more intimate.
| | 01:14 | Now there are a couple of things you have to
keep in mind when you're working in Macro Mode.
| | 01:18 | The shot here, I took from
this angle just like this.
| | 01:23 | So this part is pretty much in focus,
but what happens is as you go back this
| | 01:28 | falls out of focus and that's because
of the angle of the camera relative to
| | 01:33 | the subject itself.
| | 01:35 | If I change that angle so I am more
perpendicular to the subject, then all of
| | 01:40 | this will be in focus and that's
what happened on this shot here.
| | 01:44 | All of this is in focus, because I was
shooting it this way instead of like this.
| | 01:51 | Now once you get the shot that you
want, keep going. A my old photography
| | 01:56 | instructor used to say,
get close and then get closer.
| | 02:00 | So move in and as long as you're
getting that green light in Macro Mode then
| | 02:05 | that shot will be in focus.
| | 02:08 | And then get even closer, look at this.
| | 02:10 | So this might not be the shot that you
want, but you want that variety of shots
| | 02:15 | so that you can pick the
one that you want later on.
| | 02:18 | So how did you get all that?
| | 02:20 | I know you're all excited about this.
| | 02:21 | So how do you actually set up your camera?
| | 02:23 | Let me explain it to you.
| | 02:26 | First thing you do is you look for the
flower icon on the back of your camera or
| | 02:30 | in the menu settings.
| | 02:31 | This changes the lens setting from
normal to close-up as I was saying earlier.
| | 02:36 | Hold that camera as steady as
possible and gently squeeze the shutter when
| | 02:40 | you take a picture.
| | 02:42 | If you have a tripod, this is a great
time to set it up because it's handy for
| | 02:46 | this type of photography.
| | 02:48 | Now take lots of shots, because you're
going to have many that miss the mark.
| | 02:52 | But all you need is one great image and
if you mix in a few macro shots as part
| | 02:57 | of your next slideshow, I guarantee
you're going to get lots of oohs and ahs.
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| Shooting super-wide-angle panoramas| 00:07 | So I want to talk a little bit about
taking this nice little compact lens that
| | 00:11 | we have in our camera and
turn it into a super wide angle.
| | 00:15 | Now I'll tell you why I think this is important.
| | 00:17 | Have you ever had the experience
where you're somewhere like this?
| | 00:20 | You are in this big beautiful
expansive area. You are loving it.
| | 00:24 | You take a shot of it, you go
home and you show your friends.
| | 00:29 | They look at the shot and go,
| | 00:31 | "Eh." Well, the problem was that you're
showing them just a little slice of this
| | 00:36 | big beautiful scene.
| | 00:37 | What if you can capture it all?
| | 00:39 | Well, we have our hard time, because
our lens is usually aren't wide enough,
| | 00:43 | but there is this technique called panorama
mode that allows you to do that very thing.
| | 00:48 | Basically, what you do is you take a
number of shots and then stitch them
| | 00:51 | together on the computer and that makes
one big picture and it looks fabulous.
| | 00:57 | Now there are a couple of
ways to capture this scene.
| | 01:00 | There is one way holding it by hand.
| | 01:02 | And the way that I like to do that is
I start out by taking the picture of my hand
| | 01:07 | and then that way I know
that's the beginning of the panorama.
| | 01:11 | Now you can use a panorama scene mode.
| | 01:14 | Most cameras have that and
they'll help you to line the shots up.
| | 01:18 | So basically you go to Panorama scene
mode, take a shot of your hand, line up
| | 01:23 | the first shot, take the picture and
then you just rotate around and line up the
| | 01:29 | next shot and the next shot.
| | 01:31 | Now the way that I like to do this is
called using the human tripod mode where I
| | 01:36 | get everything nice and stable.
| | 01:37 | I get the horizon straight and then I
just rotate like this all the way through.
| | 01:45 | A lot of times you'll take three, four,
five, six shots and then we'll stitch
| | 01:49 | them together on the computer.
| | 01:50 | You'll see how that works
when we're back in the studio.
| | 01:53 | Now you notice that I have
a tripod here with me also.
| | 01:56 | When you use a tripod, you have even
better results, because the tripod keeps
| | 02:00 | everything nice and straight.
| | 02:02 | So I'm going to mount the camera on the tripod
and I'll show you how I'm going to do this.
[ | | 02:11 | So the first thing I want to do is make
sure my camera is straight on the tripod.
| | 02:14 | So I'll make sure that the horizon
line is nice and straight and you get that
| | 02:18 | adjusted the way that you want.
| | 02:21 | Once you do that, what I like to do is
just go ahead and pan through the scene
| | 02:25 | making sure that everything stays straight.
| | 02:28 | Once you're pretty satisfied that you
have your tripod set up correctly, then go
| | 02:32 | ahead and line up the first shot.
| | 02:34 | I'm going to do that right now.
| | 02:35 | Here is how I do it, if we
were shooting this scene.
| | 02:39 | I'd line up the first shot, take the
picture, and then now this is really easy.
| | 02:45 | You just rotate the tripod.
| | 02:47 | Make sure you have overlaps.
| | 02:49 | So if you're using Panorama scene
mode, that overlap guide will help you.
| | 02:53 | If you're not, make sure you have a 30% overlap
as you go through it and take all of your shots.
| | 03:02 | Now one thing about exposure. It's
usually better to have the sun behind you
| | 03:07 | at least when you first start doing
this, because the exposure is going to be
| | 03:10 | more even in the sky.
| | 03:13 | Now a tip that I have for you. If you
want to make sure that you have good
| | 03:17 | exposures through the scene is go
ahead and go into the Manual Exposure Mode.
| | 03:22 | On the camera, I can set that here on the top.
| | 03:25 | Take a manual exposure reading right
in the middle of the scene, lock it down
| | 03:30 | and then go through your
sequence just like this.
| | 03:34 | That way your exposure will be set and
the light meter won't adjust as you go
| | 03:38 | through the different parts of the scene.
| | 03:39 | So either way, whatever is most
comfortable for you, I'm going to show you how
| | 03:44 | these all look on the computer
screen when we get back to the studio.
| | 03:48 | The main thing to remember is though
that by doing Panorama modes, you can widen
| | 03:54 | your lens much broader than you ever could
| | 03:56 | just go into the wide setting here
and you can better capture the scene that
| | 04:01 | you felt when you were there in the first place.
| | 04:03 | It's really a terrific technique.
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| Stitching a panorama| 00:00 | Well, I am really excited about
what I am going to show you right now.
| | 00:03 | We're going to take the elements that we
shot out in the field, these individual
| | 00:08 | shots here, as part of our creating a
super wide lens for your compact camera.
| | 00:13 | We're going to put them
together into aone shot.
| | 00:16 | Now initially, if you first see the image
processws, it'll look something like this.
| | 00:21 | This is part of the panorama stitching
process but we're going to play with it a
| | 00:26 | little bit, and we're going to end up
with something that looks like this.
| | 00:30 | Wow! Isn't that crazy?
| | 00:32 | Now that is a super wide lens, isn't it?
| | 00:35 | Now one thing I didn't tell you
when we were out taking pictures.
| | 00:38 | Here are the individual
elements here by the way.
| | 00:41 | One thing that I didn't tell you is
that there is a way to make a super high
| | 00:45 | resolution image from a compact
camera too, because each of these shots are
| | 00:51 | these pixel dimensions and over 2 megabytes.
| | 00:55 | So you can imagine when we stitch
them together into one image.
| | 00:58 | Wow! That's a pretty high resolution image.
| | 01:01 | That's like something that goes from 10
mega pixels to, wow, a lot more than that.
| | 01:06 | So, not only is it making super wide.
| | 01:08 | It's super high resolution, and the
software that we're going to use is just fabulous.
| | 01:13 | Now I'm going to show you how to take
these pieces here to make this, using
| | 01:18 | the Photoshop Elements 8 actually,
and the reason why I'm using Elements is
| | 01:23 | because it works on Mac.
| | 01:25 | It works on Windows.
| | 01:26 | It works the same on both essentially,
and it's affordable, less than $100, and
| | 01:32 | it does all sorts of other great stuff.
| | 01:34 | Now you don't need to go buy Elements in
order to do this, especially if you have
| | 01:39 | a panorama scene mode on your camera.
| | 01:41 | If you have the scene mode, then
chances are very good that you have
| | 01:45 | stitching software too.
| | 01:46 | So just go to the software disk
that came with your camera and look for
| | 01:51 | that stitching software.
| | 01:52 | So you don't have to buy anything and there
are third-party applications that do this too.
| | 01:57 | So you have a couple of different ways to go.
| | 02:00 | I'm going to show you on Photoshop
Elements, because I really love this
| | 02:03 | merging technology.
| | 02:04 | I think it's very smart.
| | 02:06 | So let's get to it.
| | 02:07 | Let's make a panorama.
| | 02:09 | So first thing I'm going to do is I am going
to go over to Photoshop Elements right now.
| | 02:13 | Now the way you begin this process.
| | 02:15 | You just go up to File > New,
go to Photomerge Panorama.
| | 02:20 | You get this dialog box here, and
so we have to feed it the elements.
| | 02:25 | So here are our assets here.
| | 02:28 | That's what I like to say sometimes.
| | 02:29 | Let's do this right here. So, here we are.
| | 02:32 | Here are the pieces that are going
to be stitched together. I use Auto.
| | 02:37 | Auto has worked great for me and let
the software decide how to stitch it
| | 02:41 | together, and then I just click OK.
| | 02:44 | This is really easy but it's amazing.
| | 02:47 | So the first thing that's going to
happen is the software goes to work and it
| | 02:52 | aligns our pictures.
| | 02:53 | Now that's why we need to have
the overlap when we capture them.
| | 02:57 | So there is enough information, so
the software can piece these together.
| | 03:01 | So that's what it's doing right now.
| | 03:02 | It's reading those images.
| | 03:04 | It's finding those hooks where it can
hook up together, and then align it.
| | 03:08 | Now after it does that, it's actually
going to good blend and this is really
| | 03:13 | wonderful technology.
| | 03:14 | So you'll see that the sky will look
pretty continuous when it's done here and
| | 03:18 | that's that great blending technology.
| | 03:20 | You will not be able to see the
seams, because blending is so smart.
| | 03:26 | Now-- and it does take a few seconds
right and on your computer it could take
| | 03:30 | a little bit longer.
| | 03:31 | It could do be a little bit shorter.
| | 03:32 | It depends on how powerful your computer
is because this is pretty heavy stuff here.
| | 03:38 | This is what we end up with, and
actually what we have now are a number of
| | 03:42 | individual photographs that
have been stitched together.
| | 03:46 | You can see them right here. Look at that.
| | 03:47 | There is one, there is another, there
is another, and they've all been stitched
| | 03:52 | together right here.
| | 03:53 | These are actual layers.
| | 03:55 | So the first thing I am going to do is
I am going to go up to Layer and I am
| | 03:59 | going to go to Flatten Image.
| | 04:01 | This just makes this a single layer image.
| | 04:04 | So I can play with it a little bit
easier and not have to worry about layers.
| | 04:08 | If you want to work on those
individual layers, you can do that in Photoshop.
| | 04:12 | I like the way this looks right now
and then I am just going to make a little
| | 04:16 | adjustment right here.
| | 04:18 | I think what I want to do actually is
I am going to go to Enhance and I am going
| | 04:23 | to go to Adjust Lighting.
| | 04:24 | I'll just go to Levels.
| | 04:25 | I just want to make a minor Levels adjustment.
| | 04:28 | I just want to bring up and make these
blacks a little bit blacker, saturate the
| | 04:34 | midtones a little bit there. Good, all right.
| | 04:37 | I like the way that looks.
| | 04:39 | Okay, now the next thing we have to
solve is what are we going to do about
| | 04:43 | this stuff up here.
| | 04:44 | You could print it out this way and some
people like that look and that's great.
| | 04:50 | If you do, I am going to
warn you, this is a big shot.
| | 04:52 | Let's go down here and look. At 180 ppi,
which is very reasonable for printing,
| | 04:59 | here at 61 inches wide by 19 inches tall.
[ | | 05:05 | So you better have some big paper if you're
going to print this out at this resolution.
| | 05:10 | However, of course, you can always
print it at smaller resolutions too, and
| | 05:13 | actually we're going to
take care of that in a second.
| | 05:16 | So the first thing you could do to sort
of clean this up a little bit is just go
| | 05:20 | up here to Image and go to Crop right
here and you get a little cropping tool
| | 05:27 | and you just kind of do this and you do this.
| | 05:30 | That's pretty nice.
| | 05:32 | The edge here and you pull
out over here. abulous!
| | 05:36 | That looks great, really nice!
| | 05:39 | So even though we lost some
information as part of the stitching process,
| | 05:42 | we still have a pretty exciting image here.
| | 05:45 | If I were to hit Return, it would throw
away that other stuff and then I'd have
| | 05:49 | my master image here and on we go.
| | 05:53 | But I want to show you a different
way also and then you can pick the way
| | 05:56 | that you like best.
| | 05:57 | So that's the cropping way and that's
where you just basically take out the
| | 06:01 | meat of the image here.
| | 06:02 | So I just go up here and say Don't Crop.
| | 06:05 | Now the other one I want to show you is
called Free Transform and this is kind of neat.
| | 06:10 | We go up to Image > Transform > Free Transform.
| | 06:13 | Now before I do that, I am
going to give you a little tip.
| | 06:17 | You're going to need a little
elbowroom here, so you want to make your image
| | 06:20 | a little bit smaller.
| | 06:21 | So I'm going to do a Command+Minus on
the Mac, Ctrl+Minus on Windows to make the
| | 06:27 | image a little bit smaller.
| | 06:29 | Then I am going to drag this window back out.
| | 06:32 | I want this elbowroom here and
you'll see why in just a second.
| | 06:36 | So now let's go back up here.
| | 06:38 | Transform > Free Transform.
| | 06:40 | We get this little handles and this is
really a fun tool, like all I have to do
| | 06:44 | is just kind of pull and pull that up
there and I'll pull this out here just
| | 06:49 | little bit. Or I usually make two passes.
| | 06:53 | Like that, like that, and just sort of
fill up the frame here, just like that. Look at that.
| | 07:01 | That's kind of neat, isn't it?
| | 07:03 | It looks pretty good.
| | 07:04 | It doesn't really look distorted.
| | 07:05 | Sometimes it might look a little
distorted and you'd go with a straight crop.
| | 07:09 | If you like the way it looks when you
try this and you go with this. Either way,
| | 07:13 | you have some pretty good
alternatives and you just go ahead and apply it.
| | 07:17 | The computer does a little work because
you've actually moved some pixels around
| | 07:21 | and now we have our image.
| | 07:23 | Now this is a big image.
| | 07:25 | This is your master, and so when you
save it, you may want to save it as such.
| | 07:30 | Save it as your master.
| | 07:32 | Now this isn't the something that you
really want to send to people because it's
| | 07:36 | ginormous. Or publish on the web.
| | 07:38 | So you probably want to make a scaled down
version, so let's just do that real quick.
| | 07:43 | We're just going to go up to Image.
| | 07:45 | Now remember, you've already
saved it as your master image.
| | 07:48 | So now we're working with
something that's been saved.
| | 07:52 | So we're going to resize.
| | 07:53 | We're going to go to Image Size here.
| | 07:55 | We're going to make sure Resample
Image is checked and let's make it
| | 08:00 | something like 1200.
| | 08:02 | You may want to use Bicubic Sharper
for reduction or just leave it at Bicubic
| | 08:08 | and then sharpen later on to your own
taste, which is what I like to do. Click OK.
| | 08:14 | It only comes up small here
because we're still at 8.33%. Worry not.
| | 08:19 | I just hit Command+Plus or Ctrl+Plus.
| | 08:22 | Let me bring it back up. There we go.
| | 08:25 | There is our image there.
| | 08:27 | Now this is much more manageable.
| | 08:30 | Now we're at a 6x2 printing at 180
ppi and it's something that you can send
[ | | 08:38 | around the folks and it still looks great.
| | 08:40 | So this is really wonderful stuff.
| | 08:42 | I want to show you one other thing.
| | 08:44 | Let's go back to-- remember I was
talking about this is a high resolution
| | 08:49 | sort of image here.
| | 08:50 | So let's undo this Image Size
and let's bring it back down here.
| | 08:55 | I want to show you just
how high resolution it is.
| | 08:58 | All right, here we go.
| | 08:59 | So I'm just going to do Command+Plus.
| | 09:01 | So now we're at 12.5%, now
we're at 16%, now we're at 25%.
| | 09:07 | I'll hold down the Spacebar
and navigate around and look.
| | 09:09 | You can start just like checking out
all the stuff that's going on here. Wow!
| | 09:13 | There are people in this shot.
| | 09:15 | Let's go a little bit higher.
| | 09:16 | Let's go up to 50%, and you can start seeing.
| | 09:20 | Look at all this detail here.
| | 09:21 | This is really crazy and you
will see no seams, believe me.
| | 09:27 | This is amazing technology.
| | 09:29 | So I am going to go to back, back out here.
| | 09:32 | So we have successfully converted
our little compact camera into a super
| | 09:37 | wide-angle lens camera and a super
high resolution camera at the same time,
| | 09:43 | just by taking a series of shots and then
stitching them together using simple software.
| | 09:49 | This is wonderful stuff and I
highly encourage you to give it a try.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shooting telephoto shots| 00:00 | Well, I am going to show you a technique
right now that you don't do in the field,
| | 00:03 | that you actually do in the computer.
| | 00:06 | And it's extending the length of your
telephoto lens, so you have better reach,
| | 00:10 | and doing so in a way where
you don't lose any image quality.
| | 00:13 | That's really pretty cool.
| | 00:16 | So what are we dealing with here?
| | 00:18 | Well, here are my little Canon S90, my
telephoto lens tops out to 22.5 mm and
| | 00:28 | in regular photo talk,
that's 105 millimeter lens.
| | 00:31 | So it's nice aperture but it
doesn't have tremendous reach.
| | 00:34 | As you can see, I shot this
shot of the hydrangea at 22.5.
| | 00:38 | So I racked it out as far as I could go.
| | 00:42 | There was a fence between me and this
flower and I couldn't get any closer and
| | 00:47 | of course, I didn't
have a more powerful lens.
| | 00:50 | But I want a closer shot.
| | 00:52 | I don't like this brown stuff up here.
| | 00:54 | This is wasted information and
I don't like this brown thing down here.
| | 00:59 | So what I want to do is get closer
without losing any quality and we're going to
| | 01:04 | do that in our image editor.
| | 01:05 | I am going to use Photoshop Elements.
| | 01:07 | However, this works in just
about any image editor on the planet.
| | 01:12 | So we'll go ahead and let's just open with
Photoshop Elements right here. So here we are.
| | 01:19 | I am going to hit Command+Minus and
this is going to give us a little breathing
| | 01:22 | room here by reducing the size.
| | 01:24 | Now I am going to use the
cropping tool to do this.
| | 01:27 | So I'm going to up to Image and
Crop and right away we get our little
| | 01:33 | cropping frame here.
| | 01:35 | I want to print this on 5x7 paper.
| | 01:38 | So I want to make sure I have enough
resolution after I crop and I want to
| | 01:41 | make sure the proportions are right, so that
it prints perfectly on a 5x7 sheet of paper.
| | 01:47 | So I'm going to go up to
Aspect Ratio here and choose 5x7.
| | 01:52 | Now, no matter how I move things
it stays within that aspect ratio.
| | 01:56 | If I move it down a little bit, so
that I get rid of the yucky brown stuff up
| | 02:01 | here, get rid of all of this black stuff
here, avoid this yucky brown stuff down here,
[00:02:07.8]
to sort of position it the
way that I want, and I hit Return.
| | 02:11 | I'm going to hit Command+Plus.
| | 02:12 | We're going to make it little bit bigger,
and you'll see that I now have a 5x7
| | 02:19 | cropped image here
and I have it at 339 ppi.
[ | | 02:24 | What does that mean?
| | 02:25 | Well, if I were to make a print, then
I'd need at least 150 ppi as sort of my
| | 02:32 | minimum and most people top out at 300.
If they feel like they don't need anymore than that.
| | 02:37 | So here I am at 5x7 with 339.
I have plenty of resolution.
| | 02:42 | So I have gotten closer and I've
extended my lens of my little compact and
| | 02:47 | I haven't given up anything at all.
| | 02:49 | Now if you're curious about
how far could I push this.
| | 02:53 | Could I make an 8x10, an
8x11, could I make a 13x19?
| | 02:58 | Here is how you check it.
| | 03:00 | Go up to Image, go to
Resize, go to Image Size.
| | 03:04 | You get this dialog box and this
is on most applications, most image
| | 03:09 | editor applications.
| | 03:10 | Make sure Resample is unchecked
because we don't want to add pixels and
| | 03:15 | we don't want to take away pixels; we just want
to see what we can do with the pixels we have.
| | 03:19 | So the Resample stays unchecked, and go
okay, how big of a print could I make at 300?
| | 03:26 | I could make a little bigger print
not huge. How about 240? I can make a 9x7.
[ | | 03:35 | How about at a minimum 150 pixels per inch?
| | 03:40 | I could go on when those big
sheets of paper. I can make 11x15.
| | 03:45 | So this is where you get to see what you can do.
| | 03:48 | You can also do this right
here, just hit 5, here we go.
| | 03:53 | Now I can hit OK or I can just hit Cancel.
| | 03:56 | It doesn't make any difference
because we haven't really changed anything.
| | 03:59 | We're just seeing what we can do.
| | 04:00 | This is a little aid to help us.
| | 04:03 | So for my 5x7, let's go ahead and enter 5
here or I could enter 7 here. Either way.
| | 04:08 | That's about the same and I just click OK.
| | 04:11 | So we know we can make a 5x7.
| | 04:13 | Now I just want to show you one other
thing real quick, and if you're going to
| | 04:17 | print or a lot of times if you're
really working with the telephoto of your
| | 04:23 | compact camera zoom lens, you might
want to do a little sharpening when you're
| | 04:28 | all done with the process.
| | 04:29 | So let's take this up to 50%. A lot of
times that's where I like to be at either
| | 04:35 | 50% or 100% when I do sharpening.
| | 04:37 | We just go up to Enhance, go to Unsharp Mask.
| | 04:41 | Take this down to 50% here.
| | 04:44 | Just move this around so we get some
leaves, because that's really what we
| | 04:48 | want to sharpen up.
| | 04:49 | These are my standard settings here
where I start. Radius of 0.8 and Threshold 2,
| | 04:53 | and then I just move this
slider to I get what I want.
| | 04:57 | So we'll bring it up, and
things look nice and crisp there.
| | 05:03 | You can tell what you've done
by unchecking the Preview box.
| | 05:06 | Here is how it looks before;
| | 05:07 | here is how it looks now.
| | 05:10 | We are in great shape.
| | 05:12 | I'll go ahead and take it back
down so it fits in the frame.
| | 05:14 | Command+Minus or Ctrl+Minus on
Windows machine and there we are.
| | 05:20 | Now this is much different
than what we started with.
| | 05:24 | Yet we can make a very nice print.
| | 05:26 | We haven't given up
any image quality at all.
| | 05:30 | We've extended our telephoto lens.
| | 05:32 | The thing that you have to remember
when you're in the field, and this is crucial,
| | 05:36 | make sure you shoot at your
camera's highest resolution at large.
| | 05:41 | Don't shoot at medium.
| | 05:42 | Don't shoot at small.
| | 05:44 | If you shoot it raw, then you are
fine, because raw will always capture
| | 05:48 | at largest resolution.
| | 05:49 | Shoot at your highest resolution, and
then that way you have as much information
| | 05:54 | as possible to work with
when you are on your computer.
| | 05:57 | You can do this intelligent cropping.
| | 05:59 | You can extend the length of your lens,
and you don't give up anything but a few
| | 06:04 | pixels that you probably don't
need anyway. Terrific stuff.
| | 06:08 | Give it a try.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Secrets of the Exposure SystemExposure secrets| 00:00 | When you turn on your camera, it makes
all sorts of exposure decisions for you,
| | 00:05 | which is great if you're in
ordinary light on an average day.
| | 00:09 | But what if you're indoors? What if
you want do something different such as
| | 00:12 | turn off the flash?
| | 00:13 | What do you do then?
| | 00:14 | Well, I have three things I want to show you:
| | 00:17 | ISO control, exposure lock, and scene modes.
| | 00:21 | By mastering those three techniques,
you can better adapt your camera to
| | 00:26 | different lighting scenes, and that's
exactly what we're going to do right now
| | 00:29 | so let's get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding ISO| 00:00 | ISO controls how
sensitive your camera is to light.
| | 00:04 | So when you're outdoors and there are
lots of light that ISO setting can be low.
| | 00:07 | It can be around 100, no problem at all.
| | 00:11 | Once you move into lower light, such as
moving indoors or the ambient light is less,
| | 00:15 | then you are going to want to
raise that ISO up a little bit more to make
| | 00:20 | your camera more sensitive to that lower light.
| | 00:24 | Now when you're indoors, there are a
couple different ways that you can deal
| | 00:27 | with that low light.
| | 00:29 | You could raise the ISO up, as we are
talking, or you could turn on the flash
| | 00:34 | and take flash shots, and
that's what most people normally do.
| | 00:38 | The problem with flash all of
the time is that light is harsh.
| | 00:42 | You know what that shot looks like. Very
bright on the subject, very dark on the background.
| | 00:47 | The other problem is that it can
reflect in mirrors and glass and that's
| | 00:51 | unwanted aspect of the shot.
| | 00:54 | So sometimes it would be nice to
turn off that flash and just go with the
| | 00:58 | existing light and that's
where ISO becomes really important.
| | 01:02 | Now newer cameras shoot better
at higher ISO than older cameras.
| | 01:08 | So how do you know what is
the best way for you to go?
| | 01:11 | For instance, if you have an older
camera and you're not quite sure how high you
| | 01:17 | can go with the ISO,
what I recommend you do is test it.
| | 01:21 | Set it up in a shot like this, make
sure you turn off the flash, set it at 100,
| | 01:26 | take a shot, and go all the way through
your ISO settings, maybe all the way up
| | 01:31 | to 3200 even if you have it.
| | 01:33 | Then look at those shots
on the computer afterwards.
| | 01:36 | Now what you're balancing there is
sensitivity to low light with image quality.
| | 01:44 | So when you get that ISO up way high,
up around 1600, you are going to have
| | 01:50 | something that we call image noise or grain.
| | 01:52 | The higher you go on ISO, the more
you're going to compromise that image
| | 01:56 | quality, yet you have the
ability to shoot in low light.
| | 02:00 | So you can see this trade-off.
| | 02:01 | So what you have to do when you're
looking at those shots is find what is the
| | 02:06 | sweet spot for you, where are you happy
between the balance of image quality and
| | 02:11 | sensitivity to ambient light.
| | 02:13 | Once you know that, remember it.
| | 02:16 | Now that we have talked about how set up
your camera, let's actually take some pictures.
| | 02:20 | So the flash is off and the next thing
I am going to do is set it to ISO 400,
| | 02:26 | and we are picking 400 because it's a nice
high ISO that most cameras can do. There we go.
| | 02:31 | We are set on 400 right there.
| | 02:35 | Now the thing is when you're working
at a higher ISO and low light, you are
| | 02:40 | still going to have a fairly slow shutter speed.
| | 02:43 | So the thing that you want to keep in
mind is that you want the hold the camera
| | 02:46 | very steady during the shot.
| | 02:48 | Brace yourself if you can, squeeze
that shutter, and then take the picture.
| | 02:54 | By doing so, you are going to help
eliminate something that we call camera
| | 02:57 | shake, which is actually moving the
camera during the exposure, and that will
| | 03:01 | give you blurry shots.
| | 03:03 | And of course, then you have
defeated the whole purpose of doing this
| | 03:06 | technique in the first place.
| | 03:08 | Now another way to get around camera
shake is to actually put the camera on some
| | 03:13 | sort of stable surface.
| | 03:15 | It can be a tripod if you happen to
have one with you or it can be just a
| | 03:20 | tabletop or anything like that.
| | 03:21 | What we are going to do for this trick is that
we are actually going to turn on the self timer.
| | 03:28 | Now the reason why I am going to turn
on the self timer is because we want to
| | 03:32 | eliminate camera shake.
| | 03:33 | You notice here, if I just move the camera
a little bit, see how we get that motion.
| | 03:38 | That's going to cause camera blur.
| | 03:39 | If I turn on the self timer and step
back, it will give the camera a chance to
| | 03:44 | settle down when it makes the exposure.
| | 03:47 | Now usually the Self Timer
button is right here on the back.
| | 03:50 | I am just going to turn it on
right here, and I am going to hit OK.
| | 03:56 | Now we know we are in Self Timer Mode
because we can see the icon here, and
| | 04:00 | what's going to happen now is that
when I press the shutter there is actually
| | 04:04 | going to be a delay, in our case five
seconds, before the picture is taken.
| | 04:08 | That gives the camera a
chance to settle down here.
| | 04:12 | So we are going to go
head and do that right now.
| | 04:20 | So you notice how things were much
more stable when the shot was taken.
| | 04:25 | Now this isn't always practical.
There are going to be times when you just can't
| | 04:29 | find a surface to set the camera on or
you don't have a tripod with you, but you
| | 04:34 | do want to remember this technique.
| | 04:36 | The nice thing about it is that if
you can't steady the camera and use self timer,
| | 04:40 | you can even lower that ISO back down
to 100 or so, because the camera is so stable.
| | 04:47 | So generally speaking the ISO goes up
more when your handholding right and
| | 04:52 | you're trying to steady the camera and you
want the camera as sensitive as possible.
| | 04:58 | And when you have a stable surface
such as a tripod you can lower the ISO
| | 05:03 | back down as long as the camera stays stable,
and then remember to use the self timer.
| | 05:10 | There are still a couple
of things I want to cover.
| | 05:12 | One of them is Auto ISO.
| | 05:14 | I get this question a lot. Can I use Auto
ISO instead of playing with all these settings?
| | 05:19 | Well that depends on the range
of Auto ISO that your camera uses.
| | 05:24 | For example, if its going from 100 to
3200 and you've done your tests, and
| | 05:29 | you are only comfortable up to 400, then
I would say no, Auto ISO is not for you.
| | 05:35 | However if your camera does Auto ISO
up to an area, up to that setting that
| | 05:40 | you're okay with through your testing,
then it's not a bad way to go because you
| | 05:44 | don't have to play with the
ISO settings all the time.
| | 05:47 | Now the other thing I want to mention
is that when you're done with all of this
| | 05:51 | and you've done all this fancy
shooting that we've been talking about,
| | 05:55 | set everything back to its default mode.
| | 05:58 | So set ISO back to whatever it is that you
normally keep it at, ISO 100 for example.
| | 06:05 | Turn the flash back to auto, because
that's where your default setting is.
| | 06:10 | And finally make sure
that the self timer is off.
| | 06:14 | That can be the most embarrassing one,
because if you are shooting -- if you
| | 06:19 | forget the self timer is on, you go
to take a shot, nothing will happen.
| | 06:22 | You'd be figuring around with your camera.
| | 06:24 | By the time you turn it around to look
and see what's going on, it will take a
| | 06:28 | picture of you and that's very embarrassing.
| | 06:30 | So make sure that the self timer is off.
| | 06:33 | Now I am going to take a take a few
more shots here, and then what we are
| | 06:36 | going to do is we are going to go to
the computer and we're going to take a
| | 06:39 | look at what we've done and review
them, and then you'll see what I've been
| | 06:44 | talking about with these different settings,
and I think they will come to life even more.
| | 06:48 | So let's go take a look.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing images with different ISOs| 00:00 | So when we were in the studio,
we talked a lot about turning off the flash and
| | 00:04 | working in with existing light.
| | 00:06 | So what does that mean in
terms of working your camera?
| | 00:08 | Chances are it means you're going to
have to raise the ISO setting and what are
| | 00:13 | the ramifications of that.
| | 00:14 | So that's why I want to show you here.
I have examples, so you can see exactly
| | 00:18 | what you are getting into
when you turn off the flash.
| | 00:21 | But first I want to compare an existing
light shot here, such as this one shot
| | 00:26 | at ISO 400 with a flash shot to show
you the reason why we would even consider
| | 00:31 | this in the first place.
| | 00:32 | Here's the 400 shot right here and you
notice there is still even at ISO 400
| | 00:36 | lots of subtle detail.
The shading is really beautiful.
| | 00:41 | The flash shot is just blown out.
| | 00:43 | Again, I am not saying turn the flash
off all the time, but sometimes it's
| | 00:48 | really worth it to turn it off
and work with these ISO settings.
| | 00:51 | So this is why we're looking at right now
why I am even asking you to consider this.
| | 00:56 | So if you do that then you have to
sort of learn what the limits are for your
| | 01:00 | camera, and that's what I am
going to show you right now.
| | 01:03 | So we're going to look at a series
of shots captured with the Canon S90.
| | 01:08 | Now this is camera that does
well for a compact at high ISO.
| | 01:12 | So your mileage will definitely vary,
but still relatively speaking you will be
| | 01:17 | able to see the differences.
| | 01:18 | We have shots from 100 through 3200 here.
| | 01:21 | Let's magnify them.
| | 01:22 | There is 100, 200, and 400.
| | 01:28 | At 400, we can really see
image noise coming into play.
| | 01:34 | These artifacts here, some loss of detail.
Compared to the 100, you notice a big difference.
| | 01:40 | Now this is looking at it highly magnified.
| | 01:43 | Of course when you make a print,
it's going to be harder to tell.
| | 01:46 | So we are being hypercritical here, but
we're trying to understand our camera.
| | 01:50 | All right so let's get rid of these and let's
look at the second batch here, 800 through 3200.
| | 02:00 | Let's bring this up here.
| | 02:03 | Come-on, there we go, sometimes you
have to wrestle these things a little bit.
| | 02:09 | And here we go right here.
| | 02:12 | So 800, we're definitely seeing
image noise. 1600, very strong.
| | 02:17 | And 3200, I would say the image is unusable.
| | 02:21 | So now what I would have to
decide is where is my comfort zone.
| | 02:25 | Well, I would say I'm definitely
comfortable up to 800 and in certain
| | 02:30 | instances, if that was worth it,
I would go to 1600, but never 3200.
| | 02:35 | It just doesn't seem to be worth it to me.
| | 02:38 | So then I know that about
this particular camera, the S90.
| | 02:43 | Now if I was shooting with a different
camera I'd want to do the same test,
| | 02:46 | so I would know the limits there.
| | 02:49 | So that's the point of this.
| | 02:50 | So now I know what I'm in an existing
light situation, if I need to I can raise
| | 02:54 | that ISO up to 800, and still be
pretty comfortable with the shot.
| | 02:59 | Now if you don't raise
that ISO up, what happens?
| | 03:02 | Well, let's take a look here at what happens.
| | 03:05 | Here is camera shake and let's compare
it to a really sharp shot and that would
| | 03:10 | give us the good feel.
| | 03:12 | So if you don't raise that ISO up,
if you keep it low, but you do turn off
| | 03:17 | the flash, then you're going to have
a hard time taking a sharp shot while
| | 03:22 | you are holding the camera.
| | 03:23 | Now you could put on the tripod and
use the self-timer, that's one way around it,
| | 03:27 | or you could turn the flashback on.
| | 03:29 | But really the thing to do is raise the
ISO and raise it up to 400 or whatever.
| | 03:36 | Now here's what camera shake looks like.
| | 03:37 | You can see that it's just a soft and
there's tremendous loss of detail and if
| | 03:42 | we magnify this, you can really
see what we are talking about here.
| | 03:46 | Look at the difference.
| | 03:49 | And this is strictly from camera movement,
because your shutter speed was too slow.
| | 03:55 | So here's the thing to keep in mind.
| | 03:57 | If you want to try this, if you
want to work without the flash, which I
| | 04:02 | recommend in certain situations, learn
your camera's limitations, learn how high
| | 04:07 | you can push the ISO and be comfortable.
| | 04:09 | Obviously learn how to turn off and on
your flash and then keep that camera
| | 04:13 | steady either by holding it very
steady or raising the ISO or put it on a tripod,
| | 04:18 | and then test, get to know your camera.
| | 04:20 | The thing is if you get all of this out
of the way first, then when you're in a
| | 04:24 | situation where you can really take
advantage of it, you're ready to go, and
| | 04:28 | that's really what we want here.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using exposure lock| 00:00 | So when you are out in normal
daylight like this, your camera's exposure
| | 00:05 | system does a pretty good job of
measuring all the different elements and
| | 00:08 | giving you a good shot.
| | 00:10 | But when you are in extreme conditions,
when you have very dark and very light
| | 00:15 | in the same shot, your camera has to choose.
| | 00:18 | And a lot of times it will choose the
other thing, the thing that you don't want.
| | 00:23 | For example, here we have Samara
standing back here in the in the shade.
| | 00:27 | Now she is in the shade and we
have a very bright background.
| | 00:31 | If I were to take just a shot, as it
is right now let the camera do all the work,
[00:00:35.6 8]
she would be very dark, but the
background will be perfectly exposed.
| | 00:40 | So fortunately we have
something called Exposure Lock.
| | 00:44 | And what that allows us to do is
measure the thing that we want exposed
| | 00:49 | properly, take the shot, and then it lets
everything else go the way that it wants.
| | 00:54 | Now here's how it works.
| | 00:56 | All you basically have to do is line up
your shot, hold the shutter down halfway
| | 01:01 | on the area that you want exposed
properly, and then you recompose.
| | 01:05 | I am going to do this right now
with Samara and show you how this works.
| | 01:09 | You are ready Samara?
| | 01:10 | Samara: I am ready.
| | 01:11 | Okay, so what I am going to do is I
am going to line up the shot right now.
| | 01:16 | Now what I'm going to do is I am
actually going to point the camera down at her feet,
| | 01:20 | because that's the area where
the exposure is more what I want and plus
| | 01:25 | her feet are in basically the same
focus area that the rest of her is.
| | 01:29 | So I am going to lock it down halfway there.
I am going to press that shutter halfway.
| | 01:33 | Now I am going to recompose and get
the composition the way that I want.
| | 01:38 | I have got it all lined up.
| | 01:39 | Okay, give me a nice smile, Samara.
| | 01:41 | I am going to take that shot.
| | 01:44 | Now just for comparison purposes,
because we are going to look at these shots on
| | 01:48 | the computer afterwards, I am going to
take another shot without Exposure Lock,
| | 01:52 | and you'd be able to see the difference.
| | 01:54 | All right here we go. Now you can smile.
| | 01:57 | It might not make any difference, but
you can smile anyway. There you go.
| | 02:02 | Excellent!
| | 02:05 | So another technique we could
use is we could use fill flash.
| | 02:08 | And if I could turn on the flash, and
it would balance Samara out with the
| | 02:12 | background pretty well.
| | 02:14 | The problem is that the flashes on these
little cameras are only good for about 8 feet or so.
| | 02:19 | So she is off in the distance or you
don't want to work with flash at that
| | 02:23 | particular moment, I think
Exposure Lock is a better way to go.
| | 02:27 | It's fast, it's quick, and once
you practice it a little bit,
| | 02:30 | it's actually quite easy.
| | 02:31 | So give it a try and then we'll go
look at the differences in the studio.
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| Reviewing the exposure lock shots| 00:00 | So you may recall when we were out in
the field and we're talking about being
| | 00:03 | able to locking the exposure on
a particular area in the scene.
| | 00:08 | So I have an extreme example for you here.
| | 00:11 | You might recall these
shots that we took of Samara.
| | 00:13 | She was standing in the shade of a tree,
and we had a nice bright background.
| | 00:18 | So the original shot where we didn't
do anything, the camera exposed for the
| | 00:23 | background, and that's a
very logical thing to do.
| | 00:25 | It is the dominant lighting of the
scene and I had no idea really that we
| | 00:30 | wanted a picture of Samara too.
| | 00:33 | Now on the second shot I actually
pointed the camera down near her feet and
| | 00:38 | locked in the exposure using Exposure
Lock, pressed the shutter halfway, and
| | 00:43 | that also allowed me to lock
in the focus on her right here.
| | 00:47 | And this is the shot we got.
| | 00:48 | So now we have Samara properly exposed,
but the background is way blown out,
| | 00:54 | and this is what you're
dealing with in contrast-y situations.
| | 00:58 | Unless you use supplemental lighting,
such as a flash or reflectors, you have to
| | 01:02 | pick one or the other.
| | 01:04 | What Exposure Lock allows you to do is
you get to decide what you are picking
| | 01:08 | and not the camera, and I think that's
what's important about this technique.
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| Using scene modes| 00:01 | A lot of photos you take probably
fall into certain types of scenes.
| | 00:05 | Landscape shots when you are on
vacation, photos at the beach, a sporting event,
| | 00:10 | indoor photos at parties.
| | 00:12 | Wouldn't it be nice if you
could tell your camera,
| | 00:14 | "Hey! I am about to take some landscape
photos, set yourself accordingly?"
| | 00:18 | Well, scene modes allow you to do just that.
| | 00:21 | I have my Olympus here hooked up to
the smart board, so we can go through some
| | 00:25 | of those important ones together.
| | 00:26 | I am going to start with landscape.
| | 00:30 | Now landscape is basically
short for aperture priority mode.
| | 00:34 | What do I mean by that?
| | 00:36 | Well, in landscape mode what the
camera does is it sets that aperture down a
| | 00:40 | little bit and gives
you greater depth of field.
| | 00:43 | So that the plants in the foreground and the
mountains in the background are all in focus.
| | 00:48 | It also sets the white balance
perfect for this type of shooting.
| | 00:52 | So instead of having to think about
all that stuff, all you have to do is put
| | 00:55 | your camera in Landscape
Mode and start taking photos.
| | 00:59 | The next scene mode I want to talk
about is Night Portrait and this is very
| | 01:03 | handy in urban settings, parties, so
forth, when you want to have more of the
| | 01:08 | ambient scene along with
the flash of the subject.
| | 01:12 | What the camera does is it slows
down the shutter, so it can capture more
| | 01:16 | of that ambient light.
| | 01:17 | Now the thing you have to remember is
to hold the camera very steady when you
| | 01:20 | are using this scene mode.
| | 01:21 | Let's go down to Sport.
| | 01:25 | Sport is another very handy scene mode.
| | 01:28 | However, before we get into that I have
to caution you, your camera is not going
| | 01:32 | to capture Olympic type shots, all
right. Compacts are not designed for that.
| | 01:36 | They are too slow for the most part.
| | 01:39 | But there's a lot of fast moving
objects in the world and when you are going
| | 01:42 | to shoot a fast-moving object, whether
it be a little kid, a pet, sports, whatever,
| | 01:48 | this is the mode to use.
| | 01:50 | It speeds up the shutter, puts you in
burst mode and it's a very handy shortcut
| | 01:54 | for fast-moving objects.
| | 01:56 | Also I want to talk a little
bit here about indoor photography.
| | 02:00 | I am going to bounce back up and
we can see there is all sorts of scene
| | 02:04 | modes in here and there are lots to
play with, but again we are just focusing
| | 02:08 | on the key ones right now.
| | 02:10 | Indoor is a little
different than Night Portrait.
| | 02:12 | In that, it mainly keys off the flash.
| | 02:15 | So in other words, the camera is
using the flash to illuminate the scene.
| | 02:19 | It may get some of the background. It may not.
| | 02:22 | But the advantage is you don't
have to worry about holding the camera
| | 02:26 | as steady during these shots.
| | 02:28 | So Indoor is nice when you just want
to shoot a party or something, not worry
| | 02:33 | about a lot of techniques. Just fire away.
| | 02:35 | It's a very good scene mode.
| | 02:37 | Now I also want to show you Beach & Snow.
| | 02:40 | We got to work down here through
all these other cool scene modes
| | 02:43 | that would be fun to play with.
| | 02:45 | Now Beach & Snow is terrific.
| | 02:47 | Your camera is not really
calibrated for very bright scenes.
| | 02:50 | It tends to underexpose and make
them grey, whereas Beach & Snow tells the
| | 02:55 | camera, hey, I am in a very bright
scene, keep it bright, keep it white, and
| | 02:59 | that's its main use.
| | 03:01 | The advantage is you don't have to
think about Auto Exposure being off.
| | 03:07 | You don't have to think about
Exposure Compensation, do I go plus or minus.
| | 03:11 | Just put it in Beach Mode for any bright
scene and it will record it much better.
| | 03:16 | So these are the five scene modes that
cover most of the situations you encounter.
| | 03:21 | They are helpful when you want to
customize your camera, but don't really have
| | 03:24 | the time to play with the number of settings.
| | 03:26 | If you don't know where the scene
modes are on your camera, just check your
| | 03:30 | owner's manual, but make sure you
give them a try. They are really helpful.
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|
|
3. Taking Control of the Flash Flash intro| 00:00 | When people ask me, what's the one thing
I can do to take better pictures with my camera?
| | 00:05 | I answer, learn how to work the flash.
| | 00:08 | Knowing when to turn on your flash and
when to leave it off can change the look
| | 00:13 | of your images in a dramatic way.
| | 00:14 | I am going to show you a few basic
flash techniques that you can use with
| | 00:18 | your compact camera.
| | 00:20 | Some of these work in conjunction with
other techniques that we've discussed,
| | 00:23 | such as changing your ISO settings.
| | 00:26 | You will quickly see how mastering
your flash will change your photography
| | 00:30 | with a compact.
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| Using the flash outdoors (fill flash)| 00:00 | When you're in outdoors like this,
let's say at a birthday party or a
| | 00:04 | wedding and you are taking pictures, you
don't always have control over all the elements.
| | 00:08 | The sun could be here, your people
could be here, and the lighting just might
| | 00:12 | not be what you want.
| | 00:13 | For example, let's take a
look at lovely Samara here.
| | 00:17 | She is pretty cute, isn't she?
| | 00:19 | Now look at how the light
is coming in from the side.
| | 00:23 | So one side is illuminated,
but the other side is in shadow.
| | 00:27 | The camera is actually going to
accentuate that and not only is it going
| | 00:31 | to accentuate that.
| | 00:32 | When light comes in from the side,
it makes texture look more visible.
| | 00:36 | It makes the nose stick out.
| | 00:38 | It's going to be everything
that's Samara doesn't want.
| | 00:40 | Fortunately, we have a way to
counteract that and that's called fill flash.
| | 00:45 | When we turn on the flash, I am
going to go to my Flash menu right here.
| | 00:48 | I am going to just choose
Flash On, just like this.
| | 00:52 | It brings light in from the front, and
that is a much more flattering light.
| | 00:56 | The only thing you have to remember is
that you want to be within 8 feet or less
| | 01:01 | because that's the range of the flash.
| | 01:03 | Anything beyond that, the flash
is not going to help you with.
| | 01:06 | So let show you how I would take
this picture with the flash on.
| | 01:11 | So now all I have to do is just take the shot.
| | 01:13 | So I am just going to line
it up right here, fire it off.
| | 01:18 | Now keep in mind, the closer that
you get, the stronger the effect.
| | 01:22 | But I think you really like what you
see because the portraits will be very
| | 01:26 | evenly illuminated. It's a very flattering look.
| | 01:29 | I'll show you before and afters in the studio
so you can really get a feel for how this is.
| | 01:34 | In fact, I think it's so effective
you could just leave your flash on all day
| | 01:37 | while you are taking these shots,
but if you do remember to bring an extra battery.
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| Reviewing the fill flash shots| 00:00 | Well, here are the shots from our fill
flash shoot with Samara and there is
| | 00:05 | quite a difference, as you can tell right away.
| | 00:07 | So the one here is when the flash is
in Auto Mode, which means it doesn't
| | 00:12 | go off because there is lots of light,
and that's the way the flash works obviously.
| | 00:16 | When there is lots of light, it doesn't go off,
and when the lights go down, it does go on.
| | 00:21 | So we are in very bright light here,
and obviously the flash is not going to go on,
| | 00:24 | and here's a kind of shot that we
can expect in that sort of lighting.
| | 00:29 | We have a harsh light
coming in from the side here.
| | 00:31 | It's very bright and we are in
shadow over here and then we have another
| | 00:36 | shadow created by the knit cap here.
| | 00:39 | The other thing that we have is we
have more skin texture than we do in the
| | 00:43 | fill flash shot, because light coming
from the side enhances texture, and you can
| | 00:47 | really see that down here.
| | 00:49 | Now, all we did over here was turn on
the fill flash. We just went to our Flash menu,
| | 00:54 | and went to Flash On, and
you can see quite a difference.
| | 00:57 | We are more balanced here on the two sides.
| | 01:00 | We have less texture.
| | 01:02 | The skin is smoother.
| | 01:03 | And we have a nice little twinkle in
the eye, complete with a catch light
| | 01:08 | from the flash itself.
| | 01:09 | So I am not saying that one is better
than the other, but they are certainly
| | 01:13 | different, and in certain situations,
I know you are going to prefer one
| | 01:16 | style to the other.
| | 01:18 | Now, one other note, you notice that the
background is pretty much the same on both shots.
| | 01:23 | That's because the
camera can really handle that.
| | 01:25 | It understands the difference between the
background and what's within flash range.
| | 01:30 | Anything within range, about 8 feet or so,
is going to get illumination from the flash.
| | 01:34 | Everything else just goes
the way it would before.
| | 01:37 | So you don't have to worry about the
background. Just really focus on what's
| | 01:41 | in flash range, make your decision on
the spot, make sure you practice first,
| | 01:45 | and then go from there.
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| Turning the flash off indoors| 00:00 | Just as it might seem illogical to turn
on the flash outdoors in broad daylight,
| | 00:05 | you might also wonder why you'd want to
turn off the flash when you're indoors.
| | 00:08 | There is a good reason, because
natural light further is often with more
| | 00:12 | realistic than flash shots.
| | 00:14 | When you're photographing a
family sitting around the fireplace or
| | 00:17 | gathered around some birthday candles,
a brilliant blast of flash is going to
| | 00:21 | ruin the mood of the photo.
| | 00:23 | There is a place for flash indoors but
there's also a time to turn it off and
| | 00:28 | the adept photographer knows both techniques.
| | 00:31 | So let me show you some
examples of what I am talking about.
| | 00:35 | This first shot here, this is an
adorable shot and is going to be a wonderful no
| | 00:39 | matter what, but I really feel like
that turning off the flash would give a
| | 00:44 | better mood to the shot
and feel even more natural.
| | 00:47 | So in this case, I know grandma is
going to love the shot, but I think everyone
| | 00:51 | else would love the shot with the flash off.
| | 00:53 | So there is the prime example where I
think flash kills the mood a little bit.
| | 00:59 | Now on this next shot, here's a good example
of what happens when you turn the flash off.
| | 01:03 | This is nothing but light
coming in from a window.
| | 01:06 | There's no reflectors, nothing else.
| | 01:08 | The only thing that I did was I warmed
up the scene a little bit by changing my
| | 01:13 | White Balance from Auto to Cloudy.
| | 01:16 | By doing that, that is like a warming
filter, because light coming in from the
| | 01:20 | window is cool and sometimes
skin tones get a little clammy.
| | 01:24 | So that's one thing to keep in mind when
you're shooting these natural white photos.
| | 01:29 | Now this shot, this is a wonderful shot,
and this is again probably I wanted to
| | 01:33 | shoot the boys having a great time, so
I turned off the flash because if I have
| | 01:38 | the flash on, I'm afraid I would've
attracted the attention of other people,
| | 01:42 | possibly the security guards, possibly
asking me to leave or at least put my
| | 01:46 | camera away, but by having the flash off,
I was able to take as many pictures as
| | 01:51 | I wanted and at the same time
better capture the mood of the scene.
| | 01:57 | Now turning the flash off isn't only for people.
| | 02:00 | It could be for inanimate objects also.
| | 02:03 | In this case, I feel like having the flash
off allowed me to capture the whole scene.
| | 02:08 | If the flash had been on, I'm afraid
the front car would have been too hot,
| | 02:12 | overexposed, and that airplane in
the back corner would have been dark.
| | 02:16 | So this is a case where turning the
flash off just gives me a nice even
| | 02:20 | rendering of the scene.
| | 02:23 | Finally there's the killer shot here.
The boys blowing out the birthday candles.
| | 02:28 | This is -- of all the shots, I like this
one the best, because we have the glow of
| | 02:33 | the candles coming up on their face,
we have the light above their head, and
| | 02:38 | we have them blowing up the candles,
and it's just like you are standing there.
| | 02:42 | And that's the one thing when the flash is on,
| | 02:44 | it doesn't feel like
you're standing there always.
| | 02:46 | It feels like it's a photograph.
| | 02:48 | Here it feels like you get to participate.
| | 02:50 | Now again I've changed the white balance.
| | 02:53 | This time I changed it to Tungsten,
because of that light above their head and
| | 02:58 | because of the candles.
| | 03:00 | Now let me show you how to do this
because you want to be ready when
| | 03:03 | the opportunity presents itself.
| | 03:05 | The first thing you do is go to your
Flash Settings menu and choose Flash Off.
| | 03:10 | Now on every camera I've ever seen,
it's a lightning bolt with a line through it,
| | 03:14 | and it just looks like this.
| | 03:17 | So that's what you want to
look for. Make that setting.
| | 03:20 | Now while you're making adjustments, you
play want to raise your ISO settings to
| | 03:23 | 400 to make the camera more
sensitive to the ambient light.
| | 03:27 | If your camera does a good job with high
ISO settings, you might want to go higher.
| | 03:32 | For instance, the shot of the boys
was at ISO 1600 with that Canon S90.
| | 03:38 | Now when you take the shot, hold
the camera as steady as possible to
| | 03:42 | avoid camera shake.
| | 03:43 | You might want to adjust that white
balance as I mentioned before to either
| | 03:48 | tungsten, if you're using tungsten
lighting or to cloudy, if you're using light
| | 03:52 | coming in from a window.
| | 03:55 | So flash off isn't for every
situation but for some shots it's great.
| | 03:59 | Practice ahead of time and be
ready when opportunity presents itself.
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| Turning the flash off at twilight| 00:01 | Well, here we are in beautiful twilight
scene and believe it or not, this is a
| | 00:04 | great time to take a portrait.
| | 00:06 | You'll need your flash on.
| | 00:08 | Now the problem that a lot of people
have when they try to take this sort of
| | 00:12 | shot where we have our subject in this
beautiful background here is they use
| | 00:16 | just a regular flash mode.
| | 00:18 | And the shutter fires too fast to
capture all the colors in the sky.
| | 00:23 | But if we were to slow that shutter
down, we could have both the color and
| | 00:28 | a beautifully exposed subject.
| | 00:30 | The way we do that is we use a special
scene mode called Night Portrait, or a
| | 00:35 | special flash mode called Slow Synchro.
| | 00:38 | Your camera will have one of these two.
| | 00:39 | All you have to do is find them, either
in the scene modes or in your flash modes.
| | 00:44 | Once you do that then, you just steady
the camera, because remember that shutter's
| | 00:49 | staying open longer, so
we don't want camera shake.
| | 00:51 | And you have to remind your
subject to stand still too.
| | 00:55 | So we don't have movement with your subject.
| | 00:57 | Once you do that, you are ready to go.
| | 01:00 | Now make sure that you're within flash range,
so that the flash can reach your subject.
| | 01:04 | Hi Samara! You are ready for a portrait?
| | 01:05 | Samara: I am ready.
| | 01:06 | All right, a nice little smile.
| | 01:10 | So what's happening right now is the camera
is balancing both the background and Samara.
| | 01:15 | It's a very dramatic shot.
| | 01:18 | You are going to absolutely love
it when you see it in the studio.
| | 01:21 | I am going to show you how these work.
| | 01:23 | It's a homerun portrait and I
encourage you to give it a try.
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| Reviewing the twilight shots| 00:00 | Well, here we are at
the final shoot of the day.
| | 00:03 | The sun is setting in the west, and
before we ride off into that sunset,
| | 00:07 | I want to show you these
twilight portraits of Samara.
| | 00:10 | Now let's start with what happens when
you actually don't turn on the flash.
| | 00:15 | These are flash shots here, but here,
we don't have that flash on and as we see
| | 00:19 | the camera exposes for the background,
but under exposes our subject and that's
| | 00:24 | generally what we don't want.
| | 00:26 | So we do want to turn the
flash on. We want both, right.
| | 00:30 | But as our background gets darker, it's
harder for a regular flash setting to capture it.
| | 00:35 | So that's when we move to Slow
Synchro or we move to Night Portrait.
| | 00:40 | That slows the shutter down and
that allows the camera to capture the
| | 00:44 | background, and then the flash
illuminates our subject, and here we have a nice
| | 00:48 | combination of Samara and background.
| | 00:50 | You see that again here
and then moving over to here.
| | 00:54 | Now I have just one tip for you
around this and that is if you want that
| | 00:59 | background even darker, you can control
that by using your exposure compensation scale.
| | 01:05 | We've talked about this before.
| | 01:07 | But to darken that background, if you
go to -1, that will make a little bit darker,
| | 01:10 | and if you go to -2,
that will make it even darker.
| | 01:14 | Now that won't affect your subject,
because your subject is being illuminated by flash.
| | 01:18 | Exposure compensation
controls the background.
| | 01:22 | So that's what you want to keep in
mind while you're shooting these shots.
| | 01:25 | Just remember, as the background
lighting goes down, you want to move from
| | 01:29 | regular flash to either Slow Synchro
or Night Portrait, and then that way you
| | 01:34 | will be able to have both
your subject and your background.
| | 01:37 | I think it's a very pretty
shot and I hope you give it a try.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:01 | As you've seen looking at the various
shots we have captured, you can shoot like
| | 00:05 | a pro with a compact camera.
| | 00:07 | You just have to learn a few
basic techniques and camera controls.
| | 00:10 | Chances are some of these
techniques may interest you more than others.
| | 00:14 | Maybe you're intrigued by macro
photography and want to get nice and close, or
| | 00:18 | maybe you like taking low light
shots at night or by candlelight.
| | 00:21 | You want the ability to take high
ISO shots that don't have a lot of
| | 00:24 | digital noise in them.
| | 00:26 | If you get hooked on a specific
technique, make sure your next camera is well
| | 00:30 | equipped for that type of photography.
| | 00:33 | The key is to take these techniques,
try them with your equipment, and then be
| | 00:37 | ready when the opportunity for
a great shot presents itself.
| | 00:41 | So now it's your turn.
| | 00:42 | Go out there and take some pictures.
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