IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
(music playing)
| | 00:04 |
Hi, I'm Joseph Linaschke, photographic
storyteller and travel writer, educator,
| | 00:07 |
and the aperture expert.
I travel the world for my clients,
| | 00:10 |
shooting everything from portraits to
concerts, weddings to lifestyle, and
| | 00:13 |
commercial to corporate.
I teach photography workshops, and I also
| | 00:16 |
work with schools around the globe
helping to integrate photography into
| | 00:19 |
their curriculum, and teaching how to use
the camera as a learning tool.
| | 00:23 |
I also run the website
ApertureExpert.com, helping users
| | 00:26 |
worldwide get the most from Apple's
Aperture software.
| | 00:30 |
This course is all about helping you to
get the most out of your DSLR camera.
| | 00:34 |
If you bought a DSLR to get better photos
of your family your travels or anything else.
| | 00:38 |
But just know that you could still get
more out of that investment your going to
| | 00:41 |
love this course.
If you've never gotten the camera out of
| | 00:44 |
the fully automatic mode or are confused
or even intimidated by the array of
| | 00:47 |
buttons and dials on the camera, then
this course will show you how that DSLR
| | 00:50 |
works and how to get the most from it.
We'll talk both technical and creative in
| | 00:55 |
this course.
After all, the more comfortable you are
| | 00:57 |
with your gear, the easier it is for the
technology to get out of the way, and for
| | 01:00 |
the creativity to come forward.
We'll make sure you understand topics
| | 01:04 |
like what an aperture is, or how shutter
speed works.
| | 01:07 |
We're also going to have a look at flash
photography, and show you how to get the
| | 01:09 |
most from an on-camera flash, and even
give you a taste of more advanced
| | 01:12 |
lighting setups.
This course is broken into a series of
| | 01:16 |
bite-sized segments, so you can easily
repeat a lesson, skip the topics you
| | 01:19 |
already know, and especially pause to
pick up your camera and try out the new
| | 01:21 |
instructions every few minutes.
I hope you enjoy learning from these
| | 01:26 |
videos as much as we enjoyed making them.
And if you find yourself with any
| | 01:29 |
questions after this training, please
feel free to drop me a line at photojoseph.com.
| | 01:33 |
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|
|
1. Carry and Hold That DSLR Like a ProGetting started| 00:01 |
The first thing we'll talk about is how
to carry and handle your camera.
| | 00:04 |
Because let's face it, if you're carrying
your camera in a way that makes it hard
| | 00:07 |
to get to or generally inaccessible.
When you're ready to get a shot, the
| | 00:11 |
camera may not be ready for you.
So we want to make sure that that camera
| | 00:14 |
is always available and ready quickly
when you want to get that picture.
| | 00:18 |
So we're going to talk about a few things
here.
| | 00:19 |
We'll talk about how to actually
physically carry the camera on your body.
| | 00:23 |
We'll also talk about some tips on
keeping that camera ready so its
| | 00:26 |
available when you need it.
| | 00:28 |
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| Carrying the camera| 00:01 |
Let's take a look at the camera and a
standard camera strap.
| | 00:04 |
As you can see here I've got my camera
with just a plain old normal strap on it.
| | 00:08 |
There's a few different ways that we can
go about carrying this.
| | 00:10 |
Let's start with the wrong way.
You ever seen this before?
| | 00:16 |
I call this the tourist hold.
This is not the way to carry your camera.
| | 00:20 |
There's a lot of problems with this.
For one, it's just really uncomfortable.
| | 00:23 |
The weight of the camera on your neck
after a long day of shooting, is going to
| | 00:26 |
get very, very tiring.
As you're walking, it's going to be bouncing
| | 00:29 |
against you and that's terribly
uncomfortable and overall, you look like
| | 00:32 |
a tourist and let's face it, no one wants
to look like a tourist.
| | 00:36 |
So, let's get it off the neck.
And instead let's talk about putting it
| | 00:40 |
over the shoulder.
Now if I put it like this, I'm half-way there.
| | 00:44 |
But I still have something wrong.
Notice while it's over my shoulder that
| | 00:47 |
the lens is currently pointing out.
And as I'm walking around I can
| | 00:51 |
inadvertently bump this into a person or
a wall or anything else.
| | 00:55 |
So this isn't safe.
Now what I can do though, is simply turn
| | 00:58 |
this around the other direction, so that
the lens is pointing down towards the ground.
| | 01:03 |
Now, I've got a couple advantages here.
First of all, the lens is no longer
| | 01:06 |
pointing out, I can't bump into anything.
Second, the lens pointing down means that
| | 01:11 |
the lens is protected.
The actual glass element is kept safe.
| | 01:14 |
It's not going to bump into anything or get
scratched by anything.
| | 01:17 |
And finally, you'll notice that when I'm
ready to shoot, the grip is right here
| | 01:21 |
ready to go.
I can just reach down, grab it, pick up
| | 01:25 |
the camera, and shoot.
So it makes it a lot easier and a lot
| | 01:30 |
more accessible, if you carry it this
way.
| | 01:32 |
Now there's a couple of things to notice
about your camera strap.
| | 01:35 |
Some straps will have two sides to them,
they'll have the rubberized side, and
| | 01:38 |
then they'll have a slippery side here, a
smooth side.
| | 01:42 |
The rubberized slide is clearly there so
that it doesn't easily fall off of your arm.
| | 01:45 |
And that's great.
However if you're shooting up and down a
| | 01:48 |
lot, you may find that it gets caught on
your clothing.
| | 01:51 |
So what you can do is simply flip it
over, to the smooth side, now it's a bit
| | 01:54 |
easier to get up.
However, you'll notice also can fall of
| | 01:57 |
your arm a little bit more easily.
So you have to be a little bit careful
| | 02:00 |
with that.
What I find when I'm out shooting, is
| | 02:02 |
that I constantly am switching it back
and forth, to keep it wherever I want it.
| | 02:06 |
I'm going to walk around for a few minutes
without shooting, I'll keep it rubber
| | 02:08 |
side down.
If I'm going to be shooting a lot, I'll flip
| | 02:11 |
it over, and I'll just be aware of it and
constantly pulling it back up.
| | 02:15 |
It just depends on what your comfort
level is.
| | 02:17 |
Now there's another thing that we can do
with the strap like this.
| | 02:20 |
If we make the strap a little bit longer
here, you might be able to put this over
| | 02:22 |
your shoulders bandolier style.
So let me make this strap as long as it
| | 02:27 |
goes, and now, if I flip it over my body
like so, you'll see that I have it
| | 02:31 |
really, really secure.
There's a lot of advantages to this.
| | 02:37 |
First of all, noone can take this from
me.
| | 02:39 |
It's really difficult for someone to
steal the camera from me.
| | 02:42 |
So if I'm in an area where I'm not
feeling quite safe about my gear, this is
| | 02:45 |
a great way to carry it.
If the strap is long enough, and if you
| | 02:48 |
want to carry it like this, I encourage you
when you're buying a strap to test it out.
| | 02:52 |
If it's long enough you can actually
shoot this way as well.
| | 02:56 |
Now it may turn out that it's not quite
long enough to always shoot this way.
| | 03:00 |
You'll notice if I go horizontal with
this one, it does twist over a bit.
| | 03:03 |
It gets a little bit inconvenient.
And if that's the case, just carry it
| | 03:06 |
this way when your not shooting.
And then when your ready to shoot.
| | 03:09 |
Flip it back over.
And when your done.
| | 03:12 |
Put it back into place.
That way the camera is protected.
| | 03:15 |
Also, when your wearing it like this.
If you have a big coat on.
| | 03:18 |
If your in a cold weather area or out in
the rain.
| | 03:21 |
Having it like this will completely
protect the camera, you can easily pull
| | 03:24 |
your coat aside pull out the camera and
shoot.
| | 03:27 |
Now this is just one type of strap.
(audio playing) There is another strap that works
| | 03:30 |
really, really well if you like shooting
with this kind of bandelier style.
| | 03:34 |
(audio playing) And that's a strap like this
here, this particular one is made by a
| | 03:37 |
company called BlackRapid.
I'll start by just putting the strap on,
| | 03:41 |
and you notice here at the bottom of the
strap there's a hook.
| | 03:45 |
It slides along the strap itself.
if you grab another camera here, you'll
| | 03:50 |
notice that this camera has a bolt in the
bottom with a little eye hook in it.
| | 03:53 |
This attaches to the strap in a kind of a
quick release fashion.
| | 03:57 |
We can lock that on and then spin this to
lock it into place.
| | 04:01 |
And now this cannot fall off.
It can't fall off my shoulder.
| | 04:04 |
And the strap keeps the camera always
ready to go.
| | 04:07 |
You'll notice that it slides on along the
strap, meaning that the strap itself
| | 04:10 |
isn't sliding along my body.
So it's really safe and really comfortable.
| | 04:15 |
Also you'll notice there's a little clip
on here, so if I wanted to store it down
| | 04:18 |
here, can clip it into place.
Now as I'm walking around this isn't
| | 04:21 |
going to slide up the strap.
Finally another advantage of these straps
| | 04:25 |
are the pockets.
You'll see you have room for, for
| | 04:27 |
example, your cell phone.
And this particular model, even has an
| | 04:30 |
extra pocket that flips over, and I have
room for things like, memory cards,
| | 04:34 |
wallet, money, whatever you need to store
in there.
| | 04:39 |
So this is definitely taking it up to the
next level.
| | 04:41 |
I like to call this your first class
strap.
| | 04:43 |
It's a little bit more expensive, of
course, but if you're out shooting all
| | 04:46 |
the time, it's definitely worth it.
| | 04:49 |
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| Walking and shooting| 00:01 |
Let's say you're out for a day of
shooting.
| | 00:02 |
You're out carrying your camera, getting
some pictures on holiday or something
| | 00:05 |
like that.
And you might have a camera bag with you.
| | 00:09 |
Well, that's fine.
But here's a pretty common scenario.
| | 00:11 |
You have your camera bag, and you see
something you want to take a picture of.
| | 00:14 |
Okay, hold on.
I'll open the bag, take out the camera.
| | 00:19 |
Take off the lens cap, turn the camera
on, and, where'd my picture go.
| | 00:25 |
Right?
You just lost it.
| | 00:27 |
You lost the shot because the camera
wasn't ready.
| | 00:30 |
It was stored nice and safely in your
camera bag, but it wasn't ready for you
| | 00:33 |
to take a picture.
So here's the thing, if you're going to be
| | 00:36 |
out shooting, leave the camera turned on
first of all.
| | 00:39 |
Turn the camera on and leave it on.
All modern DSLRs will go to sleep after a
| | 00:42 |
few minutes, and then they'll wake up
instantly as soon as you touch the
| | 00:45 |
shutter button.
So you don't have to worry about turning
| | 00:48 |
it on or about losing batteries.
Also, leave the lens cap off.
| | 00:52 |
If you have to take the lens cap off
every time you want to take a picture,
| | 00:54 |
you're losing time.
You also have to figure out where to put it.
| | 00:57 |
It's just a bad idea.
Just leave it off.
| | 01:00 |
But now that it's off, how do I protect
my lens?
| | 01:02 |
I mean that's what the cap is for, right?
This is going to keep my lens safe, and
| | 01:05 |
obviously I don't want it to get
scratched up.
| | 01:07 |
Well here's another thing.
Most lenses come with one of these, a
| | 01:11 |
lens shade.
If it doesn't come with it, you can
| | 01:13 |
certainly buy one for your lens.
Now, what is this for?
| | 01:16 |
Well, what it's really designed for is to
keep light out of the lens, so if you're
| | 01:19 |
shooting with a bright light coming from
the side?
| | 01:23 |
The light's going to hit and refract in
the lens, and just going to put a glare
| | 01:25 |
on there.
So this protects it from that.
| | 01:28 |
But here's the other thing.
Let's put this lens shade on.SOUND and
| | 01:31 |
now with this lens shade on, not only is
it protecting it from the sun,SOUND
| | 01:34 |
it's also protecting it from bumps.
I don't have to worry about bumping my
| | 01:40 |
camera into something now, because the
lens shade is protecting the lens.
| | 01:44 |
I also don't have to worry about when I'm
carrying it, if I reach down to grab my
| | 01:46 |
lens, maybe I'm running, or something
happens and when I grab my camera, I
| | 01:49 |
don't have to worry about accidentally
putting my fingers on the lens itself.
| | 01:54 |
Because again the lens shade is in the
way.
| | 01:56 |
So this lens shade protects from the
light, and it protects from physical
| | 01:59 |
bumps, fingerprints and everything else.
So now I've got this camera that's ready
| | 02:03 |
to go.
It's turned on.
| | 02:05 |
It's on my shoulder.
The lens cap is off.
| | 02:07 |
And whenever I want to shoot, I can do it.
I'm ready to go in an instant.
| | 02:13 |
So that's a really important thing to
keep in mind when you're carrying your
| | 02:15 |
gear around.
It doesn't mean that you can't carry your
| | 02:18 |
bag as well.
Maybe have it over the other shoulder or
| | 02:20 |
over your back.
But don't have your camera in there if
| | 02:22 |
you're going to be out shooting for the day.
All you need to do is keep it on your
| | 02:26 |
shoulder, so it's ready to go.
Now there's one more thing to think about.
| | 02:29 |
A lot of people will tell you that you
should have a UV filter, or a skylight
| | 02:32 |
filter, over the front of your lens, and
there's arguments for and against it.
| | 02:36 |
Let me tell you what I think about it,
and you can make your own decision.
| | 02:40 |
First of all, if you put on a cheap UV
filter, maybe $20, $30 filter, you're
| | 02:43 |
going to find that it actually degrades your
image quality.
| | 02:47 |
In the two photo examples that are up on
the screen right now, you can see there's
| | 02:50 |
a shot with the filter and without.
And see those little reflections in the
| | 02:55 |
glass, the kind of secondary lights that
are showing up in the one with the filter?
| | 02:59 |
That's a reflection from that point of
light that's coming through the filter,
| | 03:02 |
through the lens, bouncing off of the
sensor in the camera and shooting back
| | 03:04 |
through the lens.
And reflecting, or glaring, on that same
| | 03:08 |
filter that you just put on.
So, it's actually hurting your picture.
| | 03:12 |
If you want a filter that is not going to do
that, you're going to spend at least $100 on it.
| | 03:16 |
So, now let's think about the cost of
your lens.
| | 03:19 |
Could you spend two, $300 on the lens?
Is it really worth putting a $100 filter
| | 03:23 |
on there?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
| | 03:26 |
You might be insuring your equipment
which might be a little bit easier to
| | 03:29 |
replace or repair if you do damage if you
have it insured.
| | 03:32 |
Frankly I'm of the mind that you don't
need a filter on there.
| | 03:35 |
I would much rather keep my lens shade
on, keep my fingers off of it, and just
| | 03:38 |
keep an eye on my gear.
That's how I work, but again its entirely
| | 03:43 |
up to you.
| | 03:44 |
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| Don't be a chimp| 00:00 |
Have you ever heard the term chimping?
Chimping in photography is when you take
| | 00:04 |
your camera, take a picture,SOUND, and
then look at the picture on the back.
| | 00:09 |
Now, why is that called chimping?
Let me show you.
| | 00:15 |
(audio playing) That's chimp bait.
Don't be a chimp.
| | 00:21 |
Now here's the thing.
Of course we want to be able to look at
| | 00:23 |
the back of our camera.
That's what this is there for, that's why
| | 00:25 |
we have the LCDs, we can check out the
shot that we just got.
| | 00:28 |
And it's great, so you can check your
composition, check your focus, check your
| | 00:31 |
exposure by looking at the histogram.
But if you look at every single shot that
| | 00:35 |
you take, here's what's also going to
happen.
| | 00:38 |
You're going to be down here, looking at the
picture and something really
| | 00:40 |
interesting's going to happen over there,
and you're going to miss the shot.
| | 00:44 |
So don't be a chimp, make sure you look
at a couple pictures, make sure that your
| | 00:47 |
settings are right, and then forget about
the LCD.
| | 00:50 |
Don't look at it, don't have it come on
automatically after every shot, just
| | 00:54 |
leave it dark, shoot your pictures, and
look at them later.
| | 00:58 |
Don't be a chimp.
| | 01:00 |
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| Do you see what I see?| 00:01 |
Many of us wear eyeglasses.
I wear them for long distance viewing,
| | 00:04 |
so, for example, when I'm driving.
And usually you think, I probably should
| | 00:07 |
wear them when I shoot.
And a lot of people wear glasses while
| | 00:10 |
they shoot, and that's fine.
But I tend to prefer not to.
| | 00:13 |
Because, you know, holding the, the
camera up to my face, it just keeps my
| | 00:15 |
eye a little bit farther away from the
viewfinder.
| | 00:17 |
It's a little bit harder to see
everything inside of it.
| | 00:20 |
So I prefer to shoot, without my glasses.
Now the problem with that, though, is
| | 00:24 |
that now, everything through the lens is
just a little bit out of focus.
| | 00:27 |
So I need to correct for that.
Well, fortunately, all DSLRs have a built
| | 00:31 |
in dioptic correction that you can dial
in for your particular type of vision.
| | 00:35 |
It's really easy to adjust.
All you have to is, well, first, find the dial.
| | 00:39 |
So, on this particular type of camera,
you'll find that it's hidden underneath
| | 00:42 |
the rubber.
(UNKNOWN) cup here.
| | 00:44 |
So you need to pull that off, and then
there's the dial right there.
| | 00:48 |
On other cameras, it's a little bit
easier to get to.
| | 00:51 |
So for example, here on this Nikon, it's
simply right here.
| | 00:54 |
So now how do you adjust it?
Well, there's two different things you
| | 00:57 |
can do.
You can just look through the viewfinder
| | 00:59 |
and touch the shutter button so that all
the lights on the side come on.
| | 01:03 |
And adjust this until you can see all
those lights clearly, and you'll find
| | 01:06 |
that that works quite well.
And it'll get you, you know I'd say maybe
| | 01:09 |
within 10% of perfect vision.
But if you want it to be really, really
| | 01:13 |
sharp, what you want to do is put the
camera on a tripod.
| | 01:16 |
And focus on something like a newspaper
print, you could tape a newspaper on the
| | 01:19 |
wall for example.
Focus it on there, and you're going to focus
| | 01:22 |
it automatically, so push the button
halfway on the camera, let it focus for you.
| | 01:27 |
And then without touching any other
buttons on the camera, put your eye up to
| | 01:30 |
it and very carefully adjust this little
knob here.
| | 01:33 |
You can adjust it with your thumb or your
finger, and get it just perfect so you
| | 01:36 |
can see everything absolutely perfectly
sharp.
| | 01:39 |
Now, this has been corrected for your
vision.
| | 01:42 |
You may want to go on there and put a
little mark on the camera just so you
| | 01:44 |
know exactly where it goes 'cuz these
have a tendency to get bumped a little
| | 01:47 |
bit easily.
But as long as you know where to put it
| | 01:50 |
back to it makes it really easy and any
time that you need to you can read just that.
| | 01:54 |
And then whenever you're looking through
the camera you'll no longer need your eye glasses.
| | 01:58 |
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|
|
2. Stabilizing the Camera: From Hands to Water Glasses to TripodsIntroduction| 00:01 |
Part of getting a sharp picture is of
course, focusing the camera correctly.
| | 00:04 |
However, the other part of it is holding
the camera steady.
| | 00:06 |
If you're trying to take a picture and
it's constantly moving, it's never going
| | 00:10 |
to be sharp.
So you need to make sure that you hold
| | 00:12 |
that camera as rock-solid as possible.
Now over this section, we're going to
| | 00:16 |
talk about a couple of different ways to
hold that camera steady.
| | 00:18 |
Both from how you physically hold the
camera when you're standing, also when
| | 00:21 |
you're sitting.
And then were going to introduce some other
| | 00:24 |
devices that you can use to help
stabalize the camera.
| | 00:27 |
From as advanced as a tripod, down to
simple things, like a water glass.
| | 00:30 |
So let's have a look at a few different
ways, to keep our camera rock solid,
| | 00:33 |
while we're taking our pictures.
| | 00:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Handheld shooting| 00:01 |
Part of holding your camera stable is
quite simply how you hold it in your hands.
| | 00:04 |
If I'm holding the camera like this.
You'll notice that I have a lot of just
| | 00:08 |
movement in here.
If I zoom the camera at all it's probably
| | 00:11 |
going to move the lens physically.
This just isn't very stable.
| | 00:15 |
So what I want to do is get my arms tucked
down in, and really stabilize the camera.
| | 00:19 |
The first thing you can do is instead of
holding your hand this way.
| | 00:23 |
Flip your hand the other direction so you
have a nice, solid, stable platform and
| | 00:26 |
rest thee lens on it.
By doing this you've just created a
| | 00:30 |
stable platform to rest the camera on.
Now bring that to your face and bring
| | 00:34 |
your other hand up and grip it.
To take your photo.
| | 00:38 |
By doing this you're bringing your arms
inside close to your body, keeping them
| | 00:42 |
nice, snug, and solid.
So you have a good solid grip on the camera.
| | 00:48 |
Another thing is, you're quite often
going to want to hold you camera vertically or
| | 00:51 |
in portrait mode.
The problem is when you do this your
| | 00:53 |
right arm goes back out again.
And now you've added that instability
| | 00:57 |
back in.
What you really want to do is once again
| | 00:59 |
bring that hand in close to your body.
But when you do this, this can become
| | 01:02 |
quite uncomfortable.
So here's a neat tip, instead of holding
| | 01:05 |
your camera the way you normally would.
Turn your hand sideways a bit, and then
| | 01:08 |
use your middle finger instead of your
index finger to press the shutter button.
| | 01:12 |
So instead of doing this, walk your hand
around, and hold it like this.
| | 01:19 |
That way you get that arm down for
stability, and you still have full
| | 01:22 |
control of the camera.
The second thing is, take a good solid stance.
| | 01:27 |
If I'm standing legs side by side, legs
close together, I'm not going to be very solid.
| | 01:32 |
But just like in martial arts, if you
just put a leg back a little bit, get a
| | 01:35 |
nice solid stance and then shoot,SOUND
you're going to find it-that you're much
| | 01:39 |
much more stable.
That's absolutely a critical thing to do.
| | 01:44 |
Get your arms in close, get a good
stance, and you're going to be getting much
| | 01:47 |
more stabalized shots.
Now there's a couple other things to
| | 01:50 |
think about when you're shooting.
One of them is your breath.
| | 01:53 |
If you're breathing fast and hard, like
you just came off of a run,SOUND you
| | 01:56 |
probably aren't going to be able to hold the
camera that steady.
| | 01:59 |
On the other hand if you hold your
breathSOUND and try and shoot, you're
| | 02:03 |
also not going to be that steady.
What happens to most people when you hold
| | 02:06 |
your breath, is very quickly you start to
shake a little bit.
| | 02:09 |
And that shake is going to get introduced
into the camera.
| | 02:11 |
So it's better off if you just take a
nice deep breath, and let it out
| | 02:15 |
slowly,SOUND while you're shooting.
And that nice smooth easy breathing, is
| | 02:20 |
going to give you that minimized motion that
you're looking for.
| | 02:23 |
Of course, nobody's a rock, everybody
moves a little bit, but what you want to do
| | 02:27 |
is move as little and as smoothly as
possible.
| | 02:30 |
The last thing I want to show you up here
is how you actually push the button.
| | 02:34 |
If I jam the button, I'm going to move the
camera when I shoot.
| | 02:38 |
So if I go like this, and I'm going to
exaggerate it a little bit.
| | 02:41 |
But if I go like this, 'cuz I'm pushing
the button hard, I am actually moving the camera.
| | 02:46 |
Even, realistically, if I just kind of
push it hard.
| | 02:50 |
(audio playing) It's too easy to move the camera.
So don't do that.
| | 02:53 |
Squeeze it gently, you don't need to jam
it, and you don't need to jam your finger
| | 02:56 |
down and then pop it right off right
away.
| | 02:59 |
Squeeze it down gently, it takes the
picture, and then gently let your finger
| | 03:02 |
back off again.
(audio playing) You shouldn't be able to see any
| | 03:06 |
movement at all.
If someone is watching you hands,
| | 03:10 |
watching the camera they shouldn't see it
move at when you take the picture.
| | 03:14 |
Now all this that I've just told you is
all well and good when you're holding a
| | 03:17 |
smaller camera like this.
Nice and easy to hold.
| | 03:20 |
But what if you get your hands on
something bigger and heavier.
| | 03:22 |
Sometimes these stances can get a little
bit tiring.
| | 03:24 |
So let me get a bigger camera for a
minute.
| | 03:31 |
So with this longer lens, and heavier
body, shooting all day long like this can
| | 03:34 |
tend to get a bit well, heavy.
And your arms might get tired and you
| | 03:37 |
might start to shake a little bit as
well.
| | 03:40 |
One of the things that you can do to
stabilize this, is find something else to
| | 03:42 |
rest it on.
And if you can't rest it on something,
| | 03:45 |
you can rest it on your own body.
Let me show you a couple of tips.
| | 03:48 |
This is one of my favorite ways to shoot
when I'm shooting with a long lens.
| | 03:51 |
Instead of just holding it like this,
I'll actually fold my arms over, kind of
| | 03:55 |
like a rifle hold, tuck them in.
(audio playing) and like so.
| | 04:00 |
And that way I find I can hold the camera
much more steady when I've got a big long
| | 04:03 |
lens on here.
And frankly this isn't even that big and
| | 04:06 |
that long of a lens.
Some lenses get even bigger and heavier
| | 04:09 |
than this.
And so having that kind of extra
| | 04:11 |
stability really helps.
Now of course you're not always going to be standing.
| | 04:15 |
Sometimes you want to sit down.
So, let me have a seat.
| | 04:18 |
And let's look at some other ways we can
shoot.
| | 04:24 |
If you sit like this and maybe put one
leg down for stability and prop a knee up.
| | 04:28 |
You can actually rest your camera on this
other knee.
| | 04:31 |
(audio playing) So, that's one great way to
shoot.
| | 04:35 |
Or maybe rest your arm up here, nestle it
in, kind of like we did when we were
| | 04:38 |
standing, but now we're down on the
ground.
| | 04:41 |
(audio playing) And again you have much more
stabilized way of sitting and shooting.
| | 04:45 |
Even if you just want to sit cross legged,
and put your elbows into your knees.
| | 04:49 |
This can add a lot of stability too and
this is something you can do almost anywhere.
| | 04:52 |
Just sit down very quickly stabilize and
shoot.
| | 04:55 |
And you'll find that you can get yourself
much more solid that you can when you're standing.
| | 05:00 |
So again overall its really important to
stabilize that camera.
| | 05:03 |
Hold it as solid as you possibly can
whether your using just your natural body.
| | 05:07 |
Or putting your arms into some funny
position or getting down on the ground.
| | 05:11 |
Get it totally solid.
| | 05:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Stabilized shooting| 00:01 |
Whenever you're shooting, you want to hold
your camera as steady as possible.
| | 00:04 |
So that means if you can set it down on
something.
| | 00:06 |
It's always going to be more solid than if
you're holding it.
| | 00:09 |
No matter how you hold the camera.
So let's talk about a few different ways
| | 00:12 |
that we can stabilize the camera.
Using both purchased items, and just
| | 00:15 |
everyday items around us.
So basically things ranging from very
| | 00:18 |
expensive to very free.
Let's start off with the plain old tabletop.
| | 00:22 |
You can always just set your camera down
on the table, and look at that.
| | 00:25 |
Perfectly solid.
So if this happens to work for you, if
| | 00:27 |
this is putting the camera where you want
it.
| | 00:30 |
This is a great place to set it down.
Then when you take a picture.
| | 00:33 |
(audio playing)
Even a night long exposure like that half
| | 00:35 |
second there, it's going to be totally
solid.
| | 00:38 |
But of course this doesn't always work,
sometimes you need to get it up a little
| | 00:41 |
bit higher.
A perfect example of this might be at a
| | 00:44 |
dinner table.
Let's say you're out a restaurant with
| | 00:46 |
friends and you want to get a nice photo of
the table.
| | 00:48 |
But the light's a little bit low and you
don't want to use the flash.
| | 00:51 |
Setting the camera down like this
probably isn't going to work.
| | 00:54 |
But what might work, is getting it just
up a little bit higher.
| | 00:57 |
A really common item that you'll find at
any dinner table, is a water glass.
| | 01:00 |
You can set the camera down on it, just
simply by resting it on there or even
| | 01:03 |
completely balancing it on there, if that
works.
| | 01:07 |
But just setting it on and holding it in
place, is going to give you a really nice,
| | 01:11 |
solid, stable platform to shoot from.
(audio playing) And that's going to give you that
| | 01:15 |
shot that you want, where the camera's
completely rock solid.
| | 01:18 |
But you can still do that long exposure.
Just don't make the mistake that I made
| | 01:21 |
once in a London restaurant.
Where I picked up a water glass that had
| | 01:24 |
just been filled, and turned it upside
down to use it as a stabilizing platform.
| | 01:28 |
Doesn't work.
Don't get the table wet, so watch out for
| | 01:30 |
full glasses.
Now there's a couple other things that we
| | 01:32 |
can do.
Maybe you want to get a little bit higher,
| | 01:34 |
you don't have a glass around, but you
have something like a pillow or a rolled
| | 01:38 |
up jacket.
You can set that down and rest the camera
| | 01:41 |
on there.
But there's two problems right away.
| | 01:44 |
First of all, the camera's not exactly
perfectly level, so we, you know, we're
| | 01:46 |
trying to get that right and you may not
be able to get it in place.
| | 01:50 |
And also you notice that when I push the
button, the camera's pretty unstable there.
| | 01:54 |
So I've succeeded in getting it up high,
but as long as I'm touching it, it's not
| | 01:57 |
exactly stable or level.
So two problems here.
| | 02:00 |
Let's hit these one at a time.
First of all, as far as leveling the
| | 02:03 |
camera goes.
Don't worry about getting it perfectly
| | 02:05 |
level on whatever you're using to
stabilize it.
| | 02:08 |
Remember that you can always rotate the
image in your computer software later on.
| | 02:11 |
So if it's a little bit crooked, you can
straighten it out later, so that's fine.
| | 02:15 |
What's more important is that the camera
is solid.
| | 02:17 |
But now the second problem.
I can't push the button while it's
| | 02:20 |
sitting here on this pillow because
that's just going to move the camera.
| | 02:23 |
And I've defeated the entire purpose of
setting it down on something.
| | 02:26 |
So here's a tip.
Put the camera into the self timer mode.
| | 02:29 |
So on this camera I'm going to go ahead and
slip this over to the self timer mode.
| | 02:33 |
It's been set to a 5 second self timer.
A lot of modern DSLRs will allow you to
| | 02:37 |
switch it from maybe 2, or 5 or 10 or
even 20 seconds long.
| | 02:41 |
In this case, it doesn't have to be more
than just a few seconds.
| | 02:43 |
I don't need to get into the picture.
I just need the camera to stop moving.
| | 02:47 |
So now it's in self timer mode.
I'll go ahead and push the button, it stabilizes.
| | 02:54 |
(audio playing)
And we get our photo.
| | 02:57 |
So now, the camera's been stabilized by
the pillow, if it's at a bit of an angle,
| | 03:00 |
that's okay we can fix that in the
computer.
| | 03:04 |
Now let's take a look at a couple of
other solutions.
| | 03:07 |
Over here I have something called a
Gorilla pod.
| | 03:10 |
This is a really convenient little tripod
like device that as you can see is quite
| | 03:13 |
small and very easy to fit in your camera
bag or your backpack or whatever you
| | 03:16 |
might have.
What this does is first of all allows me
| | 03:20 |
to move it out like so.
So it's like a basic normal tripod and I
| | 03:23 |
can bend it however I want to get the
shot perfectly level.
| | 03:27 |
But what makes this really interesting is
that these legs will wrap around and hold
| | 03:30 |
on to just about anything.
So for example, let's say that this
| | 03:34 |
surface here is the only thing I can find
to wrap my camera around.
| | 03:37 |
No problem.
Let's just put this on here.
| | 03:40 |
Wrap the legs around like so.
And just like that I've got my camera
| | 03:44 |
perfectly locked into place.
The gorilla pod is fantastic, and these
| | 03:48 |
come in a variety of sizes, depending on
the weight of the camera that you're
| | 03:51 |
going to put onto it.
Now, let's look at something a little bit
| | 03:53 |
more heavy-duty.
On here I have a little contraption I've
| | 03:57 |
put together.
This is a brace from a company called Calumet.
| | 04:01 |
And this clamp will clamp onto just about
anything.
| | 04:03 |
Any kind of a pole, or stick, or device
that will fit through here.
| | 04:07 |
This will clamp on to.
So imagine even a handrail you could slap
| | 04:09 |
this onto over a bridge or something like
that.
| | 04:12 |
On top of that, I've added a Manfrotto
ball head that allows me to have total
| | 04:15 |
flexibility of where I position the
camera.
| | 04:17 |
So let me show you how this works.
Here I have a pole.
| | 04:20 |
And again, this could be just about
anything.
| | 04:22 |
I simply attach this on to here.
Spin this around to lock it in place.
| | 04:28 |
And now, this is completely rock solid.
Now, this is a lot smaller and lighter
| | 04:32 |
weight than carrying around a massive
tripod.
| | 04:34 |
Of course, it's not quite as flexible as
a tripod.
| | 04:37 |
But it will do the job in a lot of
situations where a tripod wouldn't even fit.
| | 04:41 |
So, this is something that I really quite
recommend if you want to have that really,
| | 04:44 |
really stabilized shot, this is a great
little package to carry around with you.
| | 04:49 |
Now sometimes you do need the big guns,
you do need the tripod.
| | 04:52 |
Let's take a look at a tripod I have over
here.
| | 04:55 |
This is a pretty average size tripod.
They get bigger and they get smaller.
| | 04:58 |
But don't buy something too small.
If it's really lightweight and flimsy,
| | 05:01 |
it's not going to be that stable.
And since the whole point of a tripod is
| | 05:04 |
to keep the camera as solid as you can.
You don't want a really flimsy one.
| | 05:08 |
Now any tripod is going to move a little
bit.
| | 05:10 |
Even this one if you watch it when I tap
the camera it shakes a little bit.
| | 05:14 |
But then it stabilizes very, very quickly
within about a second or so.
| | 05:17 |
Kind of like on the pillow but the pillow
takes a lot longer to stabilize.
| | 05:20 |
You don't have all the flexibility that
you have with the tripod.
| | 05:23 |
So anyway with the tripod remember it's
not a solid rock it still does move a
| | 05:26 |
little bit.
So what that means, is if you are going to
| | 05:29 |
do a long exposure, instead of pushing
the button on the camera with your hand.
| | 05:33 |
You may want to use that self timer like we
did earlier, or use a cable release.
| | 05:37 |
Plug that in, and then you can control
the camera without actually having touch it.
| | 05:41 |
The other cool thing about a tripod like
this, is almost all of these will have a
| | 05:43 |
quick release head on them.
That allows you to quickly remove the
| | 05:47 |
camera, so you can shoot by hand.
Notice that there's a plate that's
| | 05:50 |
attached to the bottom of the camera.
And then when you want to attach it back on
| | 05:53 |
to the tripod, it just slaps into place
and you're good to go.
| | 05:58 |
So no matter what type of device you're
using.
| | 06:00 |
You want to stabilize that camera if you're
shooting anything longer than, I'd say
| | 06:03 |
maybe a 30th of a second or slower.
You want to have that really good
| | 06:07 |
stabilized shot.
Whether you're just setting it on the
| | 06:09 |
table, using a water glass or a pillow or
more advanced device, or even a full on
| | 06:12 |
tripod, just get that camera solid.
You'll be surprise that how much of a
| | 06:17 |
difference that can make in the sharpness
of your photos.
| | 06:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. P Is Not for PerfectIntroduction| 00:01 |
If you look at the Mode dial on the top
of your camera, you'll see a series of
| | 00:04 |
letters on here, and even a series of
icons.
| | 00:07 |
For example, you'll see M for Manual, A
for Aperture Priority, S for Shutter
| | 00:11 |
Priority, or even P.
Now, I'm here to tell you that P is not
| | 00:16 |
for perfect.
P is the program mode, the fully
| | 00:19 |
automatic mode.
On some cameras you'll see a green square mode.
| | 00:22 |
And I want to make sure that you get out of
these fully automatic mode.
| | 00:26 |
You bought a DSLR because you want to get
better pictures than what you got off of
| | 00:29 |
your point and shoot camera.
And if you're leaving your DSLR in fully automatic.
| | 00:33 |
Chances are the pictures aren't that much
better so in this section we're going to
| | 00:37 |
go through all these different modes
explain what they do and when to use them.
| | 00:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fully automatic| 00:01 |
Most of the SLR's have a Fully Automatic
mode perhaps a Green Square mode.
| | 00:05 |
But they'll also have a couple of icons
on there that are usually called Scene modes.
| | 00:10 |
On the Canon for example you'll see a
series of icons up at the top and they're
| | 00:13 |
on the dial itself.
So for here for example we have a
| | 00:16 |
Portrait mode, a Scenic mode, a flower,
and a Sports mode.
| | 00:21 |
If we take a look at the Nikon, you'll
see its very similar.
| | 00:25 |
If I switch the camera into the Scene
mode and then push the Info button on the back.
| | 00:30 |
I can now start to cycle through the
various modes.
| | 00:32 |
So again, there's a Landscape mode, a
Child mode for shooting kids, there's a
| | 00:37 |
Sports mode.
Closeup and so on.
| | 00:41 |
So a lot of the same modes you're going
to find across different DSLRs.
| | 00:43 |
Now, what are these for?
Well clearly, the intention of the
| | 00:46 |
manufacterer is that if you're going to
shoot closeups or portraits.
| | 00:50 |
Or perhaps night scenes or big scenic
pictures, by putting the camera in that
| | 00:53 |
mode the camera is going to kind of
optimize the Exposure settings.
| | 00:58 |
And everything else to get the best
possible picture.
| | 01:01 |
And that's fine if you need the camera to
be in Fully Automatic.
| | 01:04 |
But of course if you're watching this
video chances are you want to get beyond that.
| | 01:07 |
So what good are those modes?
Well there's really two places where
| | 01:11 |
these modes can be very, very useful as
you're learning how to use your camera.
| | 01:14 |
The first one is simply to see what the
camera does and then you can copy those settings.
| | 01:20 |
So let's say I'm doing a portrait
session, and I go ahead and set the
| | 01:23 |
camera into the Portrait mode.
Fire off a couple of shots, and then look
| | 01:26 |
at the LCD, and look at the settings that
the camera chose.
| | 01:30 |
What I might see is that it has a very
wide aperture giving me shallow depth of field.
| | 01:34 |
That would be something like an F4, or
F5.6, and it would have a relatively fast
| | 01:37 |
shutter speed.
If I switched over to the Night Time
| | 01:40 |
mode, I might see it go the other way
around.
| | 01:43 |
I might see it go to a really small
aperture and a really long shutter speed.
| | 01:46 |
Depending on the mode, you will see
different settings in the camera.
| | 01:49 |
That way you can take a look at those and
go oh, okay.
| | 01:52 |
So if I'm going to shoot portraits, what I
want is kind of a wide aperture, a fast
| | 01:55 |
shutter speed great.
Now I know that, and now what I can do is
| | 01:58 |
choose to work in a different mode like
Aperture Priority.
| | 02:02 |
Set that setting myself, set the aperture
myself, and let the camera figure out the rest.
| | 02:06 |
And we'll go into those modes in a
moment, but I wanted you to know that you
| | 02:09 |
can use the Scene modes.
To quickly see how the camera would
| | 02:13 |
choose it, and then you can make the
choice yourself.
| | 02:16 |
The other place it's really handy is if
you're handing the camera to a stranger.
| | 02:19 |
You don't want to be out and about and
have your camera on some complicated
| | 02:22 |
manual mode.
And hand it to someone to get a picture
| | 02:24 |
of you and your loved one at the front of
the Eiffel Tower or something like that.
| | 02:28 |
And end up with a blurry or out of focus,
moving, icky picture.
| | 02:31 |
You want to make sure the picture's nice,
so you don't want to have to explain it
| | 02:34 |
to everyone.
Just switch that back into Fully Automatic.
| | 02:37 |
And hand it off.
And then when you get it back, get out of
| | 02:39 |
that Fully Automatic mode and take
advantage of some of the more advance
| | 02:43 |
features of your DSLR.
| | 02:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Aperture priority| 00:01 |
To switch the camera into Aperture
Priority Mode, is usually a dial on top
| | 00:04 |
of the DSLR.
So for example, on the Canon camera, we
| | 00:07 |
can simply switch it here, from the green
square, or wherever it might be, into the
| | 00:11 |
AV mode.
And AV stands for Aperture Valuation.
| | 00:18 |
On the Nikon, it's simply the letter A, A
for Aperture Priority.
| | 00:23 |
And on the Sony, it's also an A, again an
A for Aperture Priority.
| | 00:29 |
But what this means, is that you as the
photographer are going to choose the
| | 00:32 |
aperture for your picture, and the camera
is going to automatically choose the
| | 00:36 |
shutter speed to go along with it.
So let's talk about what an aperture
| | 00:41 |
actually is, and what happens to the
shutter speed when you change the aperture.
| | 00:44 |
If you look at this lens here, as you're
looking through it, as I start to rotate
| | 00:49 |
the aperture dial, you'll see that there
is a series of leaves inside of the lens
| | 00:53 |
that are closing down, those are called
the aperture leaves.
| | 01:00 |
As I open it back up, they get bigger and
bigger.
| | 01:02 |
Now, as you can imagine, when it's wide
open, a whole lot of light is coming
| | 01:05 |
through, the maximum amount of light
possible is coming through that lens.
| | 01:10 |
As I close it down, we restrict the
amount of light coming in, so less light
| | 01:14 |
is coming into the lens at once.
So first, let's talk about what happens
| | 01:18 |
to the shutter speed.
When the lens is wide open, when the
| | 01:21 |
aperture is at its biggest setting, as
much light as possible is coming in.
| | 01:26 |
So that means the shutter has to be open
for a less or a shorter amount of time.
| | 01:31 |
As we close the lens down, close down the
aperture to a smaller hole, less light's
| | 01:34 |
coming in at once, so to make it a proper
exposure, the shutter's going to have to be
| | 01:38 |
open for longer.
So if you want to have fast pictures, you
| | 01:43 |
generally want to have the lens wide open
at it's biggest apperture setting.
| | 01:48 |
That's going to give you the fastest
shutter speed.
| | 01:50 |
If you want to have a slower shutter speed
because, for example, lets say you want to
| | 01:53 |
have a motion blur in your photo, then
you're going to need to close the lens
| | 01:56 |
down a little bit to restrict the amount
of light coming in.
| | 02:00 |
So one of the other things that changes
when you change your aperture, is
| | 02:03 |
something called depth of field.
That is, how much is in focus.
| | 02:07 |
So with a very large aperture, you have a
very shallow depth of field.
| | 02:11 |
Now, shallow depth of fields means that,
if I'm photographing from here pointing
| | 02:14 |
this way.
Only a very narrow band of information is
| | 02:17 |
going to be in focus.
So, this is great if you're shooting a
| | 02:20 |
portrait, for example, and you want the
stuff behind the person you're shooting
| | 02:23 |
to be blurry.
If you have that large aperture, you
| | 02:26 |
going to have a shallow depth of field, and
that's going to give you that really nice
| | 02:28 |
pleasing view for a portrait.
However, if you're shooting something
| | 02:32 |
like a landscape and you want to have a
whole bunch of stuff to be in focus at
| | 02:35 |
once, you want to go the other way.
You want to stop the lens down, you have a
| | 02:39 |
smaller hole which is going to give you a
bigger depth of field.
| | 02:42 |
Now, how do you remember all this?
Because we're talking about aperture
| | 02:45 |
being bigger and smaller, and these
numbers, and what do these all mean.
| | 02:48 |
Well, first of all, let's talk about the
actual numbers.
| | 02:51 |
If you look at this lens again.
If I take it down to the smallest
| | 02:54 |
setting, at 1.8, that's the number 1.8 on
the lens.
| | 02:58 |
If we take a look at that, you'll see
that that is actually wide open.
| | 03:02 |
So the smallest number is giving me the
biggest hole.
| | 03:04 |
hold on a second.
How's that?
| | 03:06 |
Well, let's just verify this.
I'm going to take this lens now, and go the
| | 03:09 |
other direction, all the way down to f
22.
| | 03:12 |
And now, let's take a look at it again.
And as you can now see, we're looking at
| | 03:17 |
the smallest hole, or the smallest
aperture that this can make.
| | 03:20 |
So how come a bigger number makes for a
smaller hole, and a smaller number makes
| | 03:23 |
for bigger hole?
Well, it's actually a fraction.
| | 03:26 |
It's F over that number.
So here's the easiest way to remember this.
| | 03:31 |
If you want a small depth of field,
choose a small number.
| | 03:35 |
If you want a big depth of field, choose
a big number.
| | 03:38 |
So shallow or small depth of field is a
small number.
| | 03:42 |
Big broad depth of field is a big number.
That's the easiest way to remember that.
| | 03:46 |
And if you can keep that in your head,
that's all you have to know when it comes
| | 03:48 |
to shooting an Aperture Priority.
So now, let's talk about a couple of
| | 03:52 |
different scenarios where you might use a
particular aperture.
| | 03:55 |
What type of an environment you'd be in,
or what type of thing you might be shooting.
| | 03:58 |
So let's start with the settings.
A low number meaning wide open, is
| | 04:02 |
something like f 2 or f 2.8 of f 4 maybe.
Just depending on the lens that you have.
| | 04:07 |
As far as the when and why, generally
you're doing that if you have low light.
| | 04:11 |
Or if you just want to have really good
shallow depth of field.
| | 04:13 |
And so that's the result of that.
You get that nice shallow depth of field
| | 04:16 |
which is great for portraits or anywhere
you need a high shutter speed.
| | 04:21 |
If we go the other direction the high
number, or the stop down, giving us
| | 04:24 |
something like f 16 or 22 or 32.
Generally we have so much light that we
| | 04:29 |
need to restrict it, or we want that
really, really big depth of field for
| | 04:33 |
things like the scenic shots.
So once again depending on what aperture
| | 04:37 |
you chose will really depend on the scene
that you're shooting.
| | 04:41 |
Portraits generally you want to have that
shallow of the field, scenic you want to
| | 04:44 |
have a bigger depth of field.
Now of course there's no right answer and
| | 04:47 |
there's always somewhere in between.
So this is something you just have to
| | 04:50 |
play with and you get to know your lense
and your camera for the type of
| | 04:53 |
environment that you're shooting.
| | 04:55 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shutter priority| 00:00 |
To switch your camera into shutter
priority mode.
| | 00:03 |
You'll be looking at the dial on top of
your DSLR.
| | 00:06 |
On a Canon, it's actually under the
letters TV.
| | 00:09 |
It stands for Time Valuation.
It's a little bit odd, but that is what
| | 00:14 |
shutter priority is called on a Canon.
On a Nikon, it's simply S for Shutter priority.
| | 00:24 |
And on the Sony, it's also S.
I think on most DSLRs outside of Cannon.
| | 00:31 |
You're going to find that it says S for
shutter priority.
| | 00:33 |
So what does this actually mean?
Well, first of all, when you set the
| | 00:36 |
camera to shutter priority.
This means that you as the photographer
| | 00:40 |
gets to choose the shutter speed.
And the camera's going to choose the
| | 00:43 |
aperture automatically to give you a
proper exposure.
| | 00:45 |
So why would you want to choose the shutter
speed, and what is a shutter speed anyway?
| | 00:49 |
Well, let's talk about that first.
Let's talk about what a shutter speed
| | 00:52 |
actually is.
When you take a picture, there's a
| | 00:55 |
shutter that opens which lets light
through the lens and into the film plane,
| | 00:58 |
in the days of film.
But now to the digital sensor in the
| | 01:02 |
back, and then closes after preset amount
of time.
| | 01:05 |
Now that amount of time is very, very
short.
| | 01:08 |
Usually 100th, or maybe 200th of a
second.
| | 01:11 |
But sometimes when you have a longer
exposure, you'll have that shutter open
| | 01:13 |
for longer.
So let's take a look at what's actually
| | 01:16 |
happening, inside of the camera.
So this is about a one second exposure.
| | 01:24 |
The shutter's open for one whole second,
allowing light to come in for one long second.
| | 01:28 |
And that's a very long time and pretty
much anything you're shooting's going to be
| | 01:31 |
blurry during that time.
Unless you have the camera on a tripod.
| | 01:35 |
For most shooting you're going to be
shooting much longer than that.
| | 01:37 |
But I wanted to make it nice and long so
you could just see it through the camera there.
| | 01:40 |
Okay, so let's talk about why you would
use this.
| | 01:43 |
Let's say that you were shooting some
kind of action sequence.
| | 01:46 |
And you want to have a really frozen
motion.
| | 01:49 |
You want to have your sports person flying
through the air, frozen in mid-air.
| | 01:52 |
Well, then you want to make sure you have a
really high shutter speed.
| | 01:55 |
So by choosing shutter priority and
setting a shutter speed at maybe 2000th
| | 01:58 |
of a second.
You can freeze just about anything.
| | 02:02 |
But then let's go the other direction.
Maybe you want some blur in the picture.
| | 02:05 |
Again it could be action, right?
You could be shooting a car going down
| | 02:08 |
the road.
Let's say you want to show the car moving,
| | 02:10 |
but you want to have the background be
blurry.
| | 02:13 |
By tracking the car as it moves, with a
long shutter speed, maybe a 15th or a
| | 02:16 |
tenth of a second.
The background will actually be soft and streaky.
| | 02:21 |
You've probably seen that in some car ads
before.
| | 02:23 |
So it really just depends on what you're
trying to do.
| | 02:26 |
Now there are times where you have very
low light, that you absolutely need to
| | 02:29 |
have a long shutter speed.
And times when you're really bright
| | 02:32 |
light, when you have to have a high
shutter speed.
| | 02:34 |
But in other situations, like in sports
and action, you may want to control that,
| | 02:37 |
just to get whatever you want.
So let's talk about some of the actual
| | 02:41 |
settings, and the results that you get.
So a high shutter speed would be
| | 02:44 |
something like around 125th of a second
or higher.
| | 02:47 |
You're going to be able to work with that
when you have a lot of light.
| | 02:50 |
And you're not really working with a
tripod generally, because you don't need
| | 02:53 |
a tripod for that high of a shutter
speed.
| | 02:55 |
And generally what that's going to do, is
freeze your motion.
| | 02:58 |
If we go the other direction, to a low
shutter speed.
| | 03:01 |
About a 60th of a second or lower, that
generally means you're working in low light.
| | 03:06 |
You probably have a tripod, or you might
be using a flash.
| | 03:09 |
And chances are you're going to be blurring
your motion.
| | 03:12 |
Unless of course, everything in the scene
is rock solid and not moving.
| | 03:15 |
In which case, the exposure can be as
long as you want.
| | 03:18 |
So, it just depends on what you're
shooting.
| | 03:19 |
But by choosing the shutter priority
mode, you get to choose the shutter speed.
| | 03:23 |
And the camera automatically picks the
aperture for you.
| | 03:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Manual| 00:01 |
All DSLRs also have a Fully Manual mode.
This means that you are controlling both
| | 00:05 |
the Shutter speed and the aperture.
Now, why would you want to do this?
| | 00:08 |
Most of the time, you're going to be
shooting in one of the Semi Automatic modes.
| | 00:11 |
Either Aperture Priority, or Shutter
Priority.
| | 00:14 |
Full Manual, again, gives you full
control.
| | 00:16 |
And I can think of two situations where
you're likely to want to do this.
| | 00:19 |
One of them is in a studio setting, where
you have a completely controlled lighting setup.
| | 00:23 |
Nothing is going to change, and once
you've figured out the exact right exposure.
| | 00:27 |
You don't want your camera to change
because your light's not changing.
| | 00:30 |
And so, you want to leave it as is.
The second situation is when you're learning.
| | 00:34 |
Going into Fully Manual mode is actually
a great way to really, finally, truly
| | 00:38 |
understand what Aparture and Shutter
speed mean to your camera.
| | 00:42 |
By going out in your backyard and finding
a good exposure, and then adjusting the aperture.
| | 00:47 |
And adjusting the Shutter speed manually,
you will finally fully understand what
| | 00:50 |
those two settings do, and how they
interact off of each other.
| | 00:54 |
So to switch in the Full Manual mode, on
the Canon, simply rotate the dial to the
| | 00:58 |
M mode.
That's M for manual and then to adjust
| | 01:01 |
your Shutter speed you'll find it on the
dial that's just above the shutter.
| | 01:06 |
And you'll see that changes your Shutter
speed.
| | 01:09 |
To change your aperture you'll find
there's a large dial on the back of the
| | 01:12 |
camera and when you rotate that it
changes the aperture.
| | 01:15 |
The Nicon is very similar except for the
dials are reversed.
| | 01:20 |
First lets switch it into the Manual
mode.
| | 01:24 |
And then there's a dial just below the
shutter trigger, and I'm going to rotate that.
| | 01:28 |
It's going to change the aperture.
And there's another dial on the back,
| | 01:33 |
over your thumb, and that one is going to
change the Shutter speed.
| | 01:36 |
Again, pretty much the only time you're
going to use these modes, is when you're
| | 01:40 |
in a perfectly controlled lighting
situation Or you're just learning the
| | 01:43 |
basics of your camera.
But I do encourage you to check it out
| | 01:47 |
because it really can help you figure out
the difference between Aperture and
| | 01:51 |
Shutter speed.
And how they play with each other, and
| | 01:54 |
how they interact off of each other
depending on your setting.
| | 01:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| ISO (ASA)| 00:01 |
To explain ISO, it might be easier if I
step back in time a little bit, and talk
| | 00:04 |
about film.
For those of you that used to buy film,
| | 00:07 |
you'll recall that you had to buy it
based off of its speed, called the ISO,
| | 00:10 |
or even the ASA.
Typical film speeds would be 100, like
| | 00:15 |
this one here, or maybe 200, or 400, and
those were pretty common speeds you'd
| | 00:18 |
buy, like in a grocery store for example.
If you went to a specialty store, an
| | 00:24 |
actual photography store, you might be
able to buy film that was even higher
| | 00:27 |
speed, like 800, 1600, or even more than
that.
| | 00:31 |
So, what do all these numbers mean?
Well, if you're shooting in extreme light
| | 00:35 |
situations, like full on, outdoor sun,
you can shoot at ISO 100.
| | 00:39 |
ISO 100 is great because that gives you
the cleanest shot possible.
| | 00:44 |
Very, very like or basically no grain at
all.
| | 00:47 |
As you get into lower light situations,
you needed film that was more sensitive.
| | 00:51 |
So if you're shooting indoors for
example, you might shoot at iso 400 which
| | 00:55 |
is going to give you a more sensitive film,
but that film is going to give you a grain.
| | 01:00 |
You're going to see some texture in that
film that you really don't want in there.
| | 01:04 |
If you get into the higher speed films,
like 1600 or more, you're going to start to
| | 01:07 |
see a lot of grain.
But this is also extremely sensitive
| | 01:11 |
film, and you can shoot in very, very low
light.
| | 01:14 |
Even outdoors at night.
So that's where film ISO comes into play.
| | 01:18 |
In the world of digital, we no longer
have to buy film and decide what ISO to
| | 01:22 |
shoot for full 24 or 36 exposures.
Now we can set it on the camera we can
| | 01:27 |
change it from photo to photo.
So now lets take a look at how it affects
| | 01:30 |
the world of digital and a DSLR, and what
happens when you change the ISO, and how
| | 01:33 |
it actually changes the image.
First let's see how we actually make the
| | 01:38 |
change on a camera like a Canon, a Nikon
or a Sony.
| | 01:45 |
You're typically going to find a button
that's labeled ISO somewhere on the
| | 01:48 |
camera in here.
So for example, here on the Canon, if I
| | 01:51 |
tap the ISO button and then rotate the
finger dial here, you'll see that I can
| | 01:54 |
change it to settings like 400, 640 and
so on.
| | 01:58 |
And this one will go all the way up to
6400, and then into a High mode, which is
| | 02:01 |
actually even higher than 6400.
On the Nikon camera, it's basically the same.
| | 02:08 |
You have to find the ISO button.
It might be located on the back.
| | 02:11 |
Press and hold that, and then rotate
another dial.
| | 02:14 |
On this particular model, it's under your
thumb.
| | 02:15 |
And as I rotate the thumb dial, you'll
see that we're changing the ISO speed on there.
| | 02:22 |
On the Sony, it's just a little bit
different.
| | 02:25 |
On this particular Sony model, when I
press the ISO button, since there's no
| | 02:28 |
LCD on the top, we need to look at the
back of the camera.
| | 02:31 |
In here we can see the ISO settings that
we can choose from.
| | 02:35 |
Many of these cameras, you'll notice,
also have an auto setting.
| | 02:38 |
Auto ISO means that I don't have to think
about it at all.
| | 02:41 |
The camera is going to automatically
choose the optimal ISO setting for me.
| | 02:45 |
And by optimal, what that means, is it's
going to choose the lowest number possible,
| | 02:48 |
because that's going to give be the best
image quality.
| | 02:51 |
Now hold on a second, we're talking about
digital.
| | 02:53 |
Back in the days of film, we had to worry
about the film grain.
| | 02:56 |
But in digital, what do we have to worry
about?
| | 02:58 |
There's no more film grain.
Well it turns out, there's something very similar.
| | 03:01 |
It's called digital noise.
You might also hear that referred to as
| | 03:04 |
digital grain.
Now what we're seeing in there, is little
| | 03:06 |
specks of noise that show up on the
image, as we get into the really high ISO settings.
| | 03:11 |
Now, modern DSLRs are getting better and
better, and giving us an incredibly high
| | 03:15 |
quality image, even at the very high ISO
settings.
| | 03:18 |
Which means that we can shoot in even
lower light situations, than ever before possible.
| | 03:23 |
Modern DSLRs can actually shoot in
situations where film could never go.
| | 03:27 |
And still give you an image that's
totally usable.
| | 03:30 |
Now for your own shooting, you still
want to leave the ISO as low as possible.
| | 03:33 |
That might be a 200 or 400 setting.
And that's going to give you a nice general
| | 03:37 |
set up for pretty much any shot you're
likely to take.
| | 03:40 |
And still give you a really good image
quality.
| | 03:42 |
If you do need to go to those higher ISOs
though.
| | 03:44 |
For example, you're in a really low light
situation, and you don't want to use the
| | 03:47 |
flash, you can certainly change the ISO
on your camera.
| | 03:50 |
So let's take a look at a chart and talk
a little bit about what the different
| | 03:53 |
settings are again, when you'd use them,
and then what the results are.
| | 03:56 |
If you're choosing a low setting, like
ISO 100, 200, 400.
| | 04:00 |
What that generally means is that you
have lots of light, for example you're
| | 04:03 |
outdoors, or you're using a flash, or you
have the camera on a tripod.
| | 04:08 |
Cuz if you do have one of these low ISO
settings and you're in a low light
| | 04:10 |
environment, you can have the same
picture taken, but with a longer exposure.
| | 04:15 |
In that case you're probably going to want
to put the camera on a tripod.
| | 04:18 |
And the result of this is going to be an
image with very low grain, or very low noise.
| | 04:23 |
If we go the other direction to the high
ISO we're talking 800, 1200, 1600 or
| | 04:26 |
above it generally means that your in a
low light situation, you probably don't
| | 04:30 |
have a flash and your probably shooting
hand held.
| | 04:34 |
The result of this of course is that your
going to get visible noise on your image.
| | 04:38 |
Again, the best DSLRs are going to give you
less and less noise in the image, but you
| | 04:42 |
are going to see more noise than you would
at a lower ISO setting.
| | 04:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Settings in the Real WorldIntroduction| 00:01 |
In this section, we're going to look at the
two most commonly used modes on your camera.
| | 00:05 |
Aperture Priority mode, and Shutter
Priority.
| | 00:07 |
With Aperture Priority, we can control
our aperture to control our depth of field.
| | 00:11 |
So we can make an object like this church
behind us, go more or less in and out of focus.
| | 00:15 |
And the camera's going to automatically
figure out the shutter speed for us.
| | 00:18 |
We'll also look at Shutter Priority mode,
where we can make the shutter longer or shorter.
| | 00:23 |
So we can make action blur or make it
freeze and see how the camera compensates
| | 00:26 |
for that.
We're also going to take a look at the
| | 00:28 |
Exposure Compensation dial and see how
that works in a real world situation.
| | 00:32 |
So let's get started.
| | 00:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing aperture| 00:00 |
When you're shooting in Aperture Priority
mode, you get to choose the Aperture and
| | 00:03 |
the camera figures everything else out.
So why would you want to choose your Aperture?
| | 00:07 |
Well remember that's what controls your
depth of field.
| | 00:10 |
So in an enviornment where we have our
model Jackie and this beautiful church in
| | 00:13 |
the background we may want to have
everything in focus or maybe not.
| | 00:18 |
So lets try a few different scenarios and
see what looks better.
| | 00:20 |
Let's start with F9.
Remember, a bigger number means more in focus.
| | 00:24 |
So we're going to go to F9, I'm going to get
down on the ground and kind of point up
| | 00:27 |
at Jackie and at the church, and let's
see what it looks like.
| | 00:31 |
(audio playing) Now as we can see here, in this
shot, there's a lot in focus.
| | 00:39 |
Jackie's in focus, and the church in the
background's pretty sharp as well.
| | 00:43 |
Now, that looks okay, but maybe I want a
little bit more separation so let's drop
| | 00:50 |
it down to about F2.8, and see how that
looks.
| | 00:56 |
Now as you can see, we have a lot more
separation between Jackie and the background.
| | 01:01 |
Now this particular lens here goes all
the way down to F1.2.
| | 01:04 |
Now I realize that most people aren't
going to have a lens like this.
| | 01:07 |
But I just want to show you what that
super-big aperture will give you.
| | 01:11 |
So let me take this all the way down to
1.2 and get one more shot.
| | 01:14 |
Now, as you can see, we have a really
shallow depth of field.
| | 01:19 |
The background is totally out of focus.
Now, again, you can't always do that,
| | 01:22 |
because your chances are you're not going to
always have a lens quite that fast.
| | 01:26 |
But here's another tip, if you do want to
get that really shallow depth of field,
| | 01:29 |
get closer.
So if I go to F2.8 or F4 and I get really
| | 01:32 |
close to Jackie and the background behind
her is even further away, it's going to be
| | 01:35 |
that much out of focus.
So you can always get that shallow depth
| | 01:40 |
of field look, no matter what lens you
have.
| | 01:42 |
Just get closer to the subject, go as
wide open as you can, that's the smallest
| | 01:49 |
number, and you will get that shallow
depth of field.
| | 01:56 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing shutter speed| 00:01 |
Shutter priority mode, allows you to
choose the shutter speed, and the camera
| | 00:04 |
figures out everything else.
So, if you wanted to, for example freeze
| | 00:07 |
action, or deliberately blur the action,
that's what shutter speed is used for.
| | 00:12 |
So we're going to do a couple different
shots here.
| | 00:14 |
First off I'm going to freeze the action of
our model here Jackie, who's going to be
| | 00:17 |
shaking her hair back and forth now.
We're going to use a high shutter speed to
| | 00:21 |
freeze the hair in midair.
In the second shot, we're going to do with a
| | 00:24 |
slower shutter speed, is I'm going to have
Jackie run across this plaza here.
| | 00:28 |
And I'm going to follow her with the camera,
tracking her, so that she's relatively
| | 00:32 |
sharp, but the background gets nicely
motion blurred.
| | 00:35 |
So let's start off with the high shutter
speed.
| | 00:37 |
I'm going to go ahead and set this to about
five hundredth of a second and let's see
| | 00:41 |
what we can get I'm going to get down nice
and low, and go for it Jackie (audio playing)
| | 00:49 |
All right, let's see what we got here.
Now, as you can see here, we have
| | 00:53 |
successfully frozen her hair through a
series of shots.
| | 00:56 |
And this is really cool.
We can really see that hair frozen, and
| | 00:59 |
it's just a really, really nice effect.
Right now, let's go the other direction.
| | 01:03 |
I'm going to take the shutter speed down to
about a fiftieth of a second.
| | 01:07 |
And this time she's going to run across the
plaza and I'm going to follow her while she runs.
| | 01:11 |
Go ahead on over there.
Go ahead.
| | 01:16 |
(audio playing) So now as you can see what we
have are some pretty cool shots of her
| | 01:21 |
running clearly there's motion in the
picture.
| | 01:26 |
We see background blurring by.
So it's not like she's just completely
| | 01:30 |
frozen in mid air.
It can be a really nice effect.
| | 01:33 |
This is also great if you're shooting
something like a race car.
| | 01:35 |
If you shoot a race car at a really high
shutter speed and completely freeze the action.
| | 01:39 |
You know what it looks like?
A car in a parking lot, and that's
| | 01:41 |
usually not pretty cool.
So what we want instead is to see that motion.
| | 01:45 |
Choose a slower shutter speed, and you'll
have to experiment to find the one that
| | 01:48 |
works for the shot you're getting.
Pan along with the action, and shot at a
| | 01:52 |
high burst rate like I just did here, and
you're going to get some really cool shots.
| | 01:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing ISO| 00:01 |
The ability to adjust your ISO on your
digital camera is one of the greatest
| | 00:04 |
things about digital.
Back in the days of film, we had to buy a
| | 00:07 |
roll of film for a specific ISO setting
like 200, 400, 800 or whatever, and then
| | 00:11 |
we were stuck with that ISO for the
duration of the film, so for 24 or 36 pictures.
| | 00:18 |
But now with digital, we can change it
whenever we want to and that's really convenient.
| | 00:21 |
So for example, here we are at the front
of this church and it's getting dark out.
| | 00:25 |
We're under the shadow, it's just really
dark in here.
| | 00:27 |
And if I try to shoot this at an ISO of
400, which is where I've been earlier
| | 00:30 |
today, it's probably not going to work.
Let's see what happens.
| | 00:34 |
(audio playing) And you could probably hear that.
It was a really long exposure, almost
| | 00:40 |
half a second long.
There's no way that I can handhold that,
| | 00:43 |
and as you can see from the photo, it's
just a bit blurry.
| | 00:46 |
It's just not possible so let's take the
ISO up a bit and see if we can make this
| | 00:49 |
a bit better.
I'm going to go ahead and bring this all
| | 00:51 |
the way up to twelve hundred ISO.
And let's see what this looks like.
| | 00:59 |
So there we were able to shoot it at an
eighth of a second which is a lot faster
| | 01:02 |
but still kind of boarder line for hand
holding it.
| | 01:05 |
So let's take it up even a little bit
farther and see how that works out.
| | 01:09 |
I'm going to take this all the way up to
3200 ISO, and now I was able to shoot
| | 01:15 |
that at a 15th of a second.
Now, that is hand-holdable if you
| | 01:21 |
concentrate on it.
Thirtieth of a second is usually the
| | 01:24 |
slowest but if you really know what
you're doing if you're really careful you
| | 01:27 |
can do a fifteenth.
So that's what the ISO gives you.
| | 01:30 |
Keep in mind as you raise that number you
are going to be introducing digital noise
| | 01:34 |
kind of like a grain pattern in to your
pictures.
| | 01:38 |
The new slr's are amazing at high
technology.
| | 01:43 |
The high ISO speed looks absolutely
incredible in the new DSLR.
| | 01:48 |
So you may find that you can shoot at
1600 or even higher without any problem,
| | 01:52 |
without noticing the grain in your
pictures.
| | 01:55 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Exposure Compensation dial| 00:00 |
The Exposure Compensation dial on your
camera allows you to compensate for the exposure.
| | 00:04 |
That the camera has figured out when it's
in one of the automatic or semi-automatic modes.
| | 00:09 |
So, for example, if you're shooting in
After priority, Shutter priority, or even
| | 00:12 |
in a fully auto mode.
And you take a picture and you look at it
| | 00:15 |
and you decide that it's too dark or too
light.
| | 00:18 |
Instead of having to switch over to
manual and try to figure out what the
| | 00:20 |
setting should be.
You can simply adjust the Exposure
| | 00:23 |
Compensation dial to make it a little bit
brighter or a little bit darker.
| | 00:27 |
And this can come in handy in a situation
like this.
| | 00:29 |
I have my model Jackie standing in front
of this church, and as you can see, we
| | 00:32 |
have a big bright sky behind us.
So what I'm going to do is frame the shot
| | 00:35 |
so that I get a lot of sky in the
picture, and that's going to confuse the meter.
| | 00:39 |
So let's take a look at what we get to
start.
| | 00:41 |
(audio playing) So as you can see, this photo's a
bit too dark.
| | 00:49 |
The sky being so bright has completely
confused the meter.
| | 00:52 |
I included so much of the sky that the
camera thought that, well, the sky was a
| | 00:55 |
prominent part of the photo, when in fact
it wasn't.
| | 00:58 |
And so the photo is dramatically
underexposed.
| | 01:00 |
It's too dark.
So I could recompose the picture, but
| | 01:03 |
that's not what I want to do.
I want to shoot it the way that I framed it.
| | 01:06 |
So now what I'll do is adjust the
Exposure Compensation dial and make it a
| | 01:09 |
little bit brighter.
I'll start by going one stop brighter and
| | 01:11 |
then I'll go to two stops and we'll see
what the difference is.
| | 01:14 |
(audio playing) So now as we compare these two
shots side by side, you can see that one
| | 01:20 |
is a little bit brighter.
And the other one is quite a bit brighter
| | 01:27 |
and actually looks like a good exposure.
So by simply adjusting the Compensation
| | 01:33 |
dial, I've managed to fix that photo.
Without having to go into manual mode,
| | 01:37 |
and mess around with figuring out what
the settings should have been.
| | 01:40 |
So the Aperture Compensation dial is a
really really handy tool.
| | 01:43 |
Just don't forget to set it back to zero
after you've made a shot like this.
| | 01:47 |
Or else the next shot you make will also
be over or under exposed.
| | 01:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Pushing Your ButtonsIntroduction| 00:01 |
Any modern DSLR has a bewildering array
of buttons on it.
| | 00:04 |
We'll take a look at a camera like this
Nikon here, there's buttons all across
| | 00:07 |
the top, all across the back, some on the
side and the front.
| | 00:11 |
And frankly, if you don't know what they
all do, then you're not getting the most
| | 00:14 |
out of your DSLR.
So throughout this chapter, what we're
| | 00:17 |
going to do is go through all the common
buttons that you'll find on pretty much
| | 00:20 |
any DSLR you might pick up.
Usually, they have the same names on
| | 00:25 |
them, like ISO or AFL, and things like
that.
| | 00:28 |
So, we're going to go through them find the
different buttons on a few different
| | 00:31 |
models and explain what they do.
| | 00:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Depth-of-field preview| 00:01 |
Depth of field is defined as how much is
in focus, the depth of what's in focus
| | 00:04 |
from the singular plane of focus.
So, for example, let's say you're
| | 00:08 |
shooting this direction and you're
focused right here.
| | 00:11 |
You have a shallow depth of field, just a
little bit is in focus.
| | 00:14 |
If you have a deeper or larger depth of
field than more is going to be in focus.
| | 00:17 |
But here's the thing.
How do you know, looking through the
| | 00:20 |
camera, how much is actually in focus.
As you're changing your aperture, which
| | 00:23 |
is what's going to affect your depth of
field, how do you really know what you're
| | 00:26 |
looking at?
Well all DSLRs have something called a
| | 00:30 |
depth of field preview button.
And what happens when you push that
| | 00:33 |
button is the aperture physically stops
down inside of the lens restricting the
| | 00:37 |
amount of light, but also changing the
depth of field.
| | 00:41 |
Now, when it does that, it does make it
harder to see things, because if the
| | 00:44 |
aperture goes down to a really really
small hole, not as much light's coming
| | 00:46 |
in, and therefore it's, you know kind of
harder to see what's in there.
| | 00:51 |
But if you look closely, you can see
what's in focus.
| | 00:54 |
So let me show you where the depth of
field button is, on a lot of cameras.
| | 01:01 |
On Cannon models you will separately find
it to the left of the lens just at the
| | 01:04 |
base and it's almost always unmarked.
So, on this camera it's this little
| | 01:08 |
button here.
So, while you are holding the camera if
| | 01:11 |
thumb will fall right on it and you can
point and push the data field preview
| | 01:15 |
button to stop that down.
On a Nikon camera it's on the other side,
| | 01:21 |
you'll see it's over here to the right of
the lens but again at the base and again
| | 01:25 |
it's also unmarked.
This might fall right under your pinkie
| | 01:29 |
or perhaps your ring finger.
So we just pick up the camera, and push
| | 01:33 |
that button to stop the lens down.
On the Sony camera you'll find it in the
| | 01:40 |
same place as the Nikon.
To the right of the lens just at the base
| | 01:43 |
and again unmarked.
Chances are in your DSLR it's either on
| | 01:47 |
the left or the right and again it's
probably an unmarked button.
| | 01:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Auto-exposure (AE) lock| 00:01 |
All cameras have a variety of auto
exposure modes, whether you're working in
| | 00:04 |
full program fully auto mode, or one of
the semi-auto modes like aperture
| | 00:07 |
priority or shutter priority, the camera
is doing a lot of the work for you.
| | 00:12 |
But here's the thing, often you'll find
yourself in a situation where the camera
| | 00:16 |
can't quite figure it out.
In most environments the camera does a
| | 00:19 |
really good job of metering accurately.
But in some extreme environments, it may not.
| | 00:23 |
And one of the most common examples, is
if you have a person standing in front of
| | 00:26 |
a brightly lit window.
They're back-lit, all of the sun's coming
| | 00:30 |
from behind, and because that's taking up
the majority of the photo, the camera
| | 00:33 |
wants to expose for the outdoors.
But that's not what you want.
| | 00:37 |
You want to expose for the indoors.
You want to expose for the person that's inside.
| | 00:41 |
This is where something called the auto
exposure lock button comes in handy.
| | 00:45 |
What you can do with the camera, is
simply point it at something else
| | 00:47 |
indoors, so any part of the indoor scene
that's lit the same way as the person.
| | 00:52 |
You point at them, and you push the
button halfway to meter, and then you
| | 00:56 |
push the Auto exposure lock button.
And then recompose the camera, while
| | 01:01 |
holding that button down, and that will
keep the exposure locked.
| | 01:04 |
Recompose, and shoot.
And that way, the camera stays metered
| | 01:09 |
for the indoors, while pointing at the
outdoors.
| | 01:12 |
So let's take a look at where the
autoexposure lock button is, on a few
| | 01:14 |
different cameras.
I've got a Nikon in my hand here, and you
| | 01:17 |
can see on the back.
There's a button that says both AEL for
| | 01:20 |
auto exposure lock.
And AFL for auto focus lock.
| | 01:24 |
So this camera has a dual function
button.
| | 01:26 |
Chances are if you go into the advanced
settings of the camera.
| | 01:29 |
You might be able to choose which
function it actually does, or it can do both.
| | 01:34 |
And that just depends on your camera
model.
| | 01:35 |
(audio playing) If you're working with a Canon,
you're going to find it as a little
| | 01:40 |
asterisk, this little asterisk symbol is
the auto exposure lock button.
| | 01:46 |
(audio playing) And here on the Sony we have an
AEL button here on the back so again auto
| | 01:50 |
exposure lock, and in this case it's a
dedicated button unlike on the Nikon that
| | 01:55 |
had both.
The Sony has just a single button for
| | 02:00 |
auto exposure lock.
Depending on your camera model, it may be
| | 02:04 |
in a slightly different location but
chances are it's going to be somewhere under
| | 02:07 |
your thumb on the back.
And it's going to say either AEL or have
| | 02:11 |
that star or asterisk on it telling you
it's the auto exposure light.
| | 02:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Autofocus modes| 00:01 |
All DSLRs have a variety of focusing
modes.
| | 00:04 |
There's of course your manual focus, and
then there's something called single
| | 00:07 |
focus, where the camera will focus and
lock, and as long as you keep your finger
| | 00:10 |
pressed halfway down on the button, it
won't refocus.
| | 00:14 |
And this is great if you're shooting
something that's not moving, for example
| | 00:17 |
a portrait, someone standing there.
You focus on them, the camera locks, and
| | 00:20 |
you take a picture.
And then there's the continuous focus
| | 00:23 |
modes, and these are great if you're
shooting any kind of moving action.
| | 00:26 |
Whether you're talking about a sports
game, or just your kid running through
| | 00:29 |
the yard, the continuous modes allow you
to track the focus of that subject as
| | 00:32 |
they move.
It actually get's a little bit more
| | 00:35 |
advanced than that.
There are a variety of continuous focus
| | 00:37 |
modes on different DSLRs.
Typically you'll find two different modes.
| | 00:42 |
Your particular camera may have more than
that, but I'm just going to cover the two
| | 00:45 |
primary modes that you're pretty much
assured to find on any DSLR today.
| | 00:49 |
The first is the standard continuous
focus where the camera is constantly
| | 00:52 |
trying to refocus on whatever the subject
is.
| | 00:55 |
Now, you might think you should just
leave it in that mode all the time
| | 00:57 |
because, why not?
The camera's just going to keep trying to
| | 01:00 |
focus on it.
The problem is, that when you focus on a
| | 01:03 |
static object in the continuous mode,
instead of the camera stopping and
| | 01:06 |
locking on that subject, it'll keep on
trying to focus, refocus on it, just in
| | 01:09 |
case the subject moves.
It's kind of like a boxer who's just ready
| | 01:14 |
to move in case he needs to.
It's just going back and forth a little bit.
| | 01:18 |
So you may not get that perfectly sharp
image of a static subject.
| | 01:22 |
So that's your continuous mode.
So if you are shooting continuous,
| | 01:25 |
action, then you do want to have it in
that continuous mode.
| | 01:28 |
The second mode is kind of a hybrid.
It's a continuous mode, often called a AI
| | 01:32 |
servo mode or something like that, that
will allow the camera to focus and lock
| | 01:36 |
but then if it detects movement, to
switch to continuous and start moving.
| | 01:41 |
And that can be great for your average,
everyday shooting, where you don't really
| | 01:44 |
know what's going to happen because
sometimes you have something that's
| | 01:46 |
standing still, and then suddenly your
kid takes off and the camera needs to
| | 01:49 |
switch modes automatically for you.
So for most shooting, that's the mode you
| | 01:53 |
want to be in.
But if you know that you're shooting
| | 01:56 |
action, I recommend you don't leave it
there.
| | 01:58 |
Because what happens is the camera will
focus and lock and only after it senses
| | 02:01 |
movement will it start to refocus.
So, if you know something's moving, save
| | 02:06 |
yourself half a second and just go ahead
and put it into that continuous auto
| | 02:09 |
focus mode so it's always trying to track
that object.
| | 02:12 |
So, let's take a look at a variety of
camera models and see where these focus
| | 02:15 |
modes are.
We'll start with the Cannon.
| | 02:21 |
And up on top of the camera, you'll see a
button that says AF and Drive.
| | 02:25 |
Drive is the Motor Drive function, but
what we're focusing on now is the AF, or
| | 02:29 |
the Auto Focus function.
When you push that button, you then have
| | 02:32 |
a couple different dials you can turn to
change the modes.
| | 02:35 |
In this case, it's the dial on top that
switches between one shot.
| | 02:38 |
Which is your single mode, AI Focus,
which is your continuously focusing mode,
| | 02:44 |
and then there's the AI Servo mode, which
is the hybrid mode or the intelligent mode.
| | 02:52 |
On the Nikon it's a little bit different.
You'll find a switch down here on the
| | 02:55 |
side of the camera that switches between
Auto Focus and Manual, but if we put it
| | 02:58 |
in the auto focus mode, you'll notice
that there is a button on the switch and
| | 03:01 |
that's the button that you press to
switch between the focusing modes.
| | 03:06 |
So, I'm going to go ahead and push that
button and then rotate the dial up on top
| | 03:09 |
of the camera to switch between the
different modes.
| | 03:12 |
So, here we have AF-S for single, AF-C
for continuous and then AF-A which is
| | 03:17 |
that hybrid, or automatic mode.
The Sony camera has the same functions.
| | 03:23 |
On here though you control it on the back
of the LCD.
| | 03:26 |
So if I push the button to wake it up,
and then push the FN for the function
| | 03:29 |
button, you'll see a variety of different
modes that we can switch between.
| | 03:34 |
So what you're looking for is one that
reads AF.
| | 03:37 |
In this case there's AFS.
And once you push the middle button to
| | 03:40 |
select that.
You can move between the AFS for single.
| | 03:43 |
AFA for automatic again.
Or the AFC for continuous.
| | 03:47 |
So again, pretty much any DSLR is going to
have a variety of focusing modes.
| | 03:51 |
From single to continuous some type of
intelligent mode.
| | 03:54 |
And then, of course, don't forget there's
always the manual mode.
| | 03:57 |
If you're ever in doubt about your focus,
and your subject isn't moving.
| | 04:00 |
Don't be afraid to switch it into manual
mode.
| | 04:02 |
It can be a great way to get to know your
camera a little bit more.
| | 04:04 |
Take a little bit a time with it and
maybe get a different picture.
| | 04:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Motor drive modes| 00:01 |
If you're just shooting a single photo,
like a portrait for example.
| | 00:04 |
You only want the camera to take one
picture when you push the button, click.
| | 00:08 |
If you're shooting some type of action,
for example sports, or race cars.
| | 00:11 |
You probably want the camera to shoot a
series of photos for as long as you hold
| | 00:14 |
the button down, click, click, click,
click, click.
| | 00:17 |
That's called the motor drive function,
and every camera has the ability to
| | 00:20 |
switch between single, and continuous
mode.
| | 00:23 |
Some have low and high speed continuous
modes.
| | 00:25 |
And some models even have advanced modes
like a slow speed mode, allowing you to
| | 00:28 |
shoot even quieter in an extremely slow
speed.
| | 00:31 |
So let's take a look at a couple of
different camera models and see where
| | 00:34 |
these buttons are.
I'll start with the Canon here.
| | 00:38 |
Now this is a more advanced Canon model
which does have one of these more
| | 00:40 |
advanced modes.
So I wanted you to see what this looks like.
| | 00:44 |
First of all, to change the motor drive
mode on this camera.
| | 00:47 |
We look for a button on the top that says
AF.drive, and in this case we're
| | 00:50 |
controlling the motor drive.
The AF is for the auto focus function, so
| | 00:53 |
this camera will control two different
functions from a single button.
| | 00:57 |
So I just push that button and rotate the
thumb dial on the back.
| | 01:01 |
To switch between single, continous high,
and continous low.
| | 01:05 |
So let's have a look at a different one.
Let's see, here's single.
| | 01:08 |
(audio playing)
And then if I switch it to continuous low.
| | 01:12 |
(audio playing)
And if I go to continuous high.
| | 01:14 |
(audio playing)
We see that it's shooting at a much
| | 01:20 |
higher frame rate.
This particular camera also has a silent mode.
| | 01:28 |
(audio playing)
And you can hear that it's much quieter
| | 01:33 |
than the other modes.
What's happening here is that when you
| | 01:37 |
push the button the mirror moves out of
the way, and the picture's made.
| | 01:41 |
But then as long as I had my finger down
on the button, the mirror stays up.
| | 01:45 |
It doesn't come back down until I take my
finger off the button.
| | 01:47 |
And when it does come down, it comes down
more slowly so it doesn't make as much noise.
| | 01:51 |
This is great if you're shooting in a
sensitive situation like a wedding, for example.
| | 01:59 |
On the Nikons, you'll find that the
continuous mode is controlled from a
| | 02:02 |
dial, usually found underneath the mode
dial.
| | 02:05 |
To move it, you push down a little
release button.
| | 02:07 |
And you'll see now, it says S for single.
And you move it to continuous low.
| | 02:12 |
(audio playing)
Or to continuous high.
| | 02:14 |
(audio playing)
(audio playing)
| | 02:17 |
The Sony has a really interesting
function on it.
| | 02:21 |
First of all, let's find the button.
It's up here at the top, you'll see a
| | 02:26 |
little clock that tells you Self timer
mode.
| | 02:28 |
Which, by the way, is where you usually
find the Self timer under the same drive mode.
| | 02:32 |
And it has a series of stacked rectangles
telling us that I can take multiple
| | 02:35 |
pictures with this mode.
So, if I wake up the camera here.
| | 02:39 |
(audio playing)
And push this button, you'll see that I
| | 02:42 |
can switch between Single shot, which
it's in now.
| | 02:45 |
(audio playing)
Or I can move to advanced low.
| | 02:48 |
(audio playing)
And then this one has another mode that
| | 02:50 |
is called Speed Priority control.
The difference here is on most cameras
| | 02:55 |
when you're in the high speed mode.
The camera is continuously trying to
| | 02:59 |
refocus between shots, so the camera of
course stays in focus.
| | 03:03 |
This particular model will allow you to
lock the focus off of the first exposure.
| | 03:07 |
And then shoot at an even higher frame
rate.
| | 03:10 |
This is great if you have something that
is moving by but you're keeping the same
| | 03:12 |
distance between you and the subject.
(audio playing)
| | 03:15 |
And as you can hear it shoots at a much
higher frame rate because of that.
| | 03:19 |
So regardless of which camera you're
working with, you're going to find that this
| | 03:22 |
button is on there somewhere.
Labeled perhaps drive or labeled with a
| | 03:26 |
series of little rectangles on it.
But find the function and check out the
| | 03:29 |
different modes that your camera has.
All DSLR's have them and there's a place
| | 03:34 |
and a time for each mode.
| | 03:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Metering modes| 00:00 |
All DSLRs have a variety of metering
modes.
| | 00:04 |
They also all have a particular mode
that's their most advanced, usually
| | 00:07 |
called Matrix or Evaluative or
Multi-Spot.
| | 00:10 |
Something like that.
What this mode does is it takes a
| | 00:13 |
metering from a variety of scenes inside
of the view that you're looking at.
| | 00:17 |
So for example, if this is my frame.
It might look at a couple different
| | 00:20 |
scenes or it might look at 10, or 20 or
30 or even more different scenes or
| | 00:24 |
different zones within that particular
frame.
| | 00:27 |
And it will then do a very intelligent
average of it.
| | 00:30 |
It will not just average them, but'll
actually look for things like spotlights,
| | 00:34 |
or really dark shadows.
That aren't part of the overall scene as
| | 00:37 |
a whole, and kind of remove those from
the equation.
| | 00:40 |
And do a, generally, really good job of
metering for your shot.
| | 00:44 |
For most uses, you can just leave the
camera in that mode, and you're going to be
| | 00:47 |
happy, probably 99 percent of the time.
However, there are times where you want
| | 00:51 |
to get out of that mode, and get into
something a little bit more advanced.
| | 00:54 |
There's a variety of modes on these
cameras, and it really just depends on
| | 00:57 |
the model that you own.
I'm just going to cover a couple of the most
| | 00:59 |
common, or a least the most useful modes
that you might find.
| | 01:03 |
Outside of that Matrix mode or Overall
Evaluative mode there's something called
| | 01:07 |
Center Weighting.
Which is going to put the predominant
| | 01:10 |
metering into the center of the scene
usually about 60% and then its going to
| | 01:13 |
put the rest of it for the whole outer
area.
| | 01:17 |
This is great if your shooting something
like a portrait.
| | 01:19 |
Where your putting the portrait right in
the middle of the frame at least for the
| | 01:22 |
metering part.
And then the rest of the scene is
| | 01:24 |
included, but not included quite as much
in the metering.
| | 01:27 |
The single most advanced one though that
you'll find is something called Spot Metering.
| | 01:31 |
What this will do is it will take the
metering off of a tiny, tiny, tiny little
| | 01:34 |
point in the middle of the frame.
Or, on the really advanced cameras, it
| | 01:38 |
will actually take the metering off of
whatever the focus point is.
| | 01:42 |
So if you manually move your focus point,
the meter will be taken off of that, and
| | 01:45 |
this is really good in extreme lighting
situations.
| | 01:49 |
Let's say you're shooting a concert, and
you have an overall really dark scene.
| | 01:52 |
Then a couple of bright spot lights, and
then of course your subject, the singer
| | 01:55 |
that you're trying to photograph.
If you put the Spot Meter right on them,
| | 01:59 |
right on their face, it's going to meter
perfectly for them.
| | 02:03 |
Doesn't matter what the rest of the scene
is whether its bright or dark or anything else.
| | 02:06 |
It will always meter perfectly for that
point and that's what Spot Metering will
| | 02:09 |
do for you.
So let's take a look at how to switch
| | 02:13 |
through these modes on a variety of
different camera models.
| | 02:19 |
What your looking for is an icon that
looks like this.
| | 02:22 |
You'll typically find a box with a circle
and maybe some kind of a curved lines
| | 02:25 |
around the circle.
That's pretty much the common icon or
| | 02:28 |
some variation of that.
You'll find on a camera to Switch
| | 02:31 |
Metering modes.
So in this case, when I push that button
| | 02:34 |
and then rotate the finger dial here,
you'll see that switches between the
| | 02:38 |
various modes.
The mode that has the most illustration
| | 02:42 |
on it, in this case the dot and then the
two half-circles around it, that's your
| | 02:45 |
most Advanced Metering mode.
As you continue to switch through these,
| | 02:49 |
you'll find a mode like this and that's
going to be your Center Rated mode.
| | 02:54 |
On this particular camera, the spot in
the middle means that it's a Spot mode.
| | 02:58 |
And if it has no icons at all, that's an
Overall Average mode.
| | 03:03 |
Let's take a look at another camera body.
On the Nikon, it's really clear.
| | 03:07 |
Right up here on top, there's this big
button that has this kind of Matrix look
| | 03:10 |
to it.
So if I push that button I can then
| | 03:13 |
rotate the dial to change the mode.
So again we go from Matrix, to Spot,
| | 03:18 |
Center Weighted, and then back to the
Matrix again.
| | 03:22 |
On the Sony once again we're looking for
the Function button.
| | 03:26 |
So just push the function button and then
flip through the various modes in here
| | 03:29 |
until you find your metering mode.
Select that and here you can choose Multi
| | 03:34 |
Segment, Center Weighted or Spot.
So, it really depends on what camera
| | 03:38 |
model you have to see which modes you're
going to find in there.
| | 03:41 |
Some models have three or four modes,
some have even more, some have less.
| | 03:46 |
So check yours out, and if you have a
hard time figuring out what those icons
| | 03:48 |
mean, you might want to check in the
manual for that one.
| | 03:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| White balance options| 00:01 |
White balance is one of these topics that
you probably don't really need to
| | 00:04 |
understand that well, but it can be fun
or just interesting to understand what's
| | 00:06 |
going on.
So first, a little bit of a description.
| | 00:10 |
Most visible light falls within a range
of about 2,000 degrees Kelvin up to maybe
| | 00:13 |
7 or 8,000 degrees Kelvin.
And this is the light that we'll see
| | 00:17 |
around us every day.
Daylight falls between 5,000 and 5,500
| | 00:21 |
degrees Kelvin.
But all you really need to know is that
| | 00:24 |
if your White Balance isn't set
correctly, you could end up with a scene
| | 00:27 |
like this, that's too warm, see it's kind
of yellow or orangish colored.
| | 00:32 |
Or if you go the other direction, it
looks too cold, like this and now
| | 00:34 |
everything looks blue.
Notice the white behind me has gone very
| | 00:38 |
blue and my skin tone's not right at all.
Most of the time, if we're shooting
| | 00:42 |
something, we want it to be corrected
White Balance, so it looks like this.
| | 00:46 |
Now, we have something, that is correctly
accurately white balanced.
| | 00:49 |
The white behind me actually looks white,
and my skin tones look natural.
| | 00:52 |
Again, you might want to make a creative
decision to go the other way, but for the
| | 00:55 |
most part, this is what we want.
Now, the good news is that modern DSLRs
| | 01:00 |
do a remarkable job of picking out the
right White Balance automatically.
| | 01:05 |
You set it to Auto White Balance, and it
figures it out.
| | 01:07 |
And the reason this is important is
because we're very rarely in a situation
| | 01:10 |
where the color temperature is exact and
consistent.
| | 01:13 |
Here in the studio, we're working with a
very particular White Balance.
| | 01:17 |
So, the video cameras or if I was going
to shoot with a still camera, would be
| | 01:20 |
set to a very specific locked White
Balance.
| | 01:23 |
But in the real world, you're more likely
dealing with a mixed light situation.
| | 01:26 |
You might have sunlight coming in from
outside, and then a couple of table lamps
| | 01:29 |
in the room.
Those different table lamps might be
| | 01:32 |
different temperatures.
A daylight balance bowl, which, isn't
| | 01:34 |
really daylight but it's kind of close to
it, it may be a Tungsten bowl.
| | 01:38 |
Or if you're shooting in fluorescent
lighting with overhead lights, those
| | 01:41 |
temperatures tend to change over time.
If you ever want to check this out, just
| | 01:44 |
look up in an office building at one
time, and notice that all the different
| | 01:47 |
bulbs up there are a little bit different
color.
| | 01:50 |
As they age, they change in color.
And so, this mixed lighting situation is
| | 01:53 |
kind of complicated, but again, the camera
does a great job of figuring it out.
| | 01:58 |
But if you do want to change the mode,
let me show you how to do that on a
| | 02:00 |
variety of cameras.
Let's start with the Canon.
| | 02:07 |
On Canon cameras, you're going to look for
something that says WB, for White
| | 02:10 |
Balance, and that's what you're going to
find on almost any camera.
| | 02:13 |
So, WB is White Balance, simply push that
button and then you'll see a variety of
| | 02:16 |
modes here.
On this particular model, it says AWB for
| | 02:20 |
Auto White balance.
And then, as I rotate through the modes,
| | 02:24 |
you can go to Sunlight, Shade, Cloud,
Incandescent, Fluorescent, and then
| | 02:28 |
there's Flash and a variety of other
modes in there.
| | 02:32 |
Let's take a look at a Nikon now.
The White Balance button on this model is
| | 02:36 |
found on the back.
But if I push that, I need to control
| | 02:38 |
something on the top of the camera.
Right now, you see it says, WB for White
| | 02:42 |
Balance, A for Automatic.
And as I switch through here, you'll see
| | 02:45 |
it switches through the different White
Balancing modes.
| | 02:49 |
On the Sony here, if I push the FN for
the function button on the back, I can
| | 02:52 |
rotate through the different modes and
find the White Balance, which is now set
| | 02:55 |
to Auto White Balance.
Then if I push that again, I can switch
| | 03:00 |
through them.
So here, we have Daylight, Shade, Cloudy,
| | 03:04 |
Incandescent, and so on.
So, all these different modes are built
| | 03:07 |
into there.
Let's take a look at on more camera, the
| | 03:10 |
Canon 60D.
Unfortunately, this camera doesn't have a
| | 03:13 |
dedicated WB or White Balance button, but
it's still easy enough to get to.
| | 03:18 |
Push the menu button on the back, and
you'll find the White Balance controls in here.
| | 03:22 |
Now, as I select this, what's nice about
this camera, is it actually tells me what
| | 03:24 |
the different temperatures are.
So, Sunlight, it says approximately 5,200
| | 03:28 |
degrees, Shades about 7,000 degrees.
So, you can see that that's actually a
| | 03:32 |
considerable difference.
Then you have Cloudy at 6,000, Tungsten
| | 03:36 |
about 3,200, White Flourescent Light
about 4,000, and so on.
| | 03:40 |
Now, a lot of these cameras have one more
advanced function that you might want to
| | 03:43 |
keep in mind, and that's the Custom White
Balance.
| | 03:47 |
You can choose the white balance by
photographing something that is supposed
| | 03:49 |
to be white, like a white piece of paper.
By just filling the frame with it, zoom
| | 03:53 |
in close, maybe even make it a little bit
out of focus, and under the light, you're
| | 03:56 |
going to shoot and just take a picture of
it.
| | 03:59 |
And then, in the Advanced Settings of the
camera, you can find that white picture
| | 04:02 |
and say, this is supposed to be white.
The camera will then meter a precise
| | 04:06 |
White Balance setting based off of that
image and save that as a Custom Setting
| | 04:09 |
and you can then dial that in.
And that's really good if you're in a
| | 04:13 |
very complex lighting situation that is
not going to change, you might find that
| | 04:16 |
that does a really good job of setting
your White Balance perfectly.
| | 04:20 |
Also, if you find that the Auto White
Balance just isn't working for whatever
| | 04:23 |
reason, that's a great way to correct for
it.
| | 04:26 |
Finally, you can also set the White
Balance completely manually by dialing in
| | 04:29 |
the temperature in Kelvin.
Usually, that's useful if you want to do
| | 04:32 |
creative work.
For example, in the photos that you're
| | 04:35 |
seeing now, these were shot outdoors in
the fall, but I just felt that the
| | 04:37 |
colors, the yellows in the sky and on the
leaves just weren't quite enough.
| | 04:42 |
So, I dialed the temperature all the way
up to about 8 or 9,000 degrees kelvin and
| | 04:46 |
shot away.
And as you can see, the leaves look
| | 04:48 |
beautiful and warm, even though the
actual scene wasn't quite that warm.
| | 04:53 |
So, that's White Balance.
Again, not something you generally have
| | 04:56 |
to know but something that can be quite
useful and at times, just fun to play with.
| | 05:01 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Manually Controlling Your AutofocusIntroduction| 00:00 |
Autofocus on today's DSLRs is pretty
remarkable.
| | 00:04 |
It almost always gets what you want in
focus, exactly perfect, which is pretty
| | 00:07 |
good, right?
The thing is, the camera wants your
| | 00:10 |
object that it's going to focus on to be
right in the middle of the frame.
| | 00:13 |
Now to be fair, most modern DSLRs do a
pretty good job of finding things that
| | 00:16 |
aren't in the middle.
And focusing on those when it thinks that
| | 00:20 |
that's what you want to focus on.
Well, let's face it.
| | 00:22 |
Sometimes, the camera doesn't really
know.
| | 00:24 |
For example, if I want to focus on the
tree that's off to the left instead of
| | 00:27 |
the mountain in the front, the camera
probably isn't going to figure that out.
| | 00:31 |
There's a couple different ways we can
handle this.
| | 00:33 |
You can focus and recompose, which is a
pretty common practice.
| | 00:37 |
Where I point the camera at a subject,
and focus on that.
| | 00:39 |
Lock the focus, and then move the camera
and take the picture.
| | 00:43 |
But there are more advance ways that you
can do this as well.
| | 00:46 |
Throughout this chapter, we're going to
talk about the ways to take total control
| | 00:49 |
over the Autofocus in your camera.
| | 00:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Autofocus point selection control| 00:01 |
You may have noticed, looking through
your camera lens, that there's a variety
| | 00:04 |
of little dots or squares inside of the
field of view, and those light up to tell
| | 00:07 |
you what the camera has focused on.
The cool thing is that, you can actually
| | 00:12 |
control which one of those squares the
camera's going to use.
| | 00:15 |
In general, it's set to an automatic
mode.
| | 00:17 |
And the camera's going to try and figure it
out, and you might see a variety of
| | 00:20 |
squares light up, as you point at a
subject, and push the button down to
| | 00:23 |
focus on it.
However if you take control over that,
| | 00:26 |
you can manually move that square to
which ever one I want, and then that's
| | 00:29 |
the point that you can use to focus on.
So, let's take a look at a couple
| | 00:34 |
different camera models to see how we
take control over that.
| | 00:38 |
I'll start with this Canon here.
You notice that the Canon has a button on
| | 00:41 |
the back, that shows a box with a series
of dots and kind of a crossed grid pattern.
| | 00:46 |
If I push that button down, you'll see on
the top on the LCD display, a grid that
| | 00:49 |
mimics what you're look at through the
viewfinder.
| | 00:52 |
You can make this change while you're
looking at the LCD or while you're
| | 00:55 |
looking through the viewfinder.
And now as I roll my finger across the
| | 00:58 |
slider here, you'll notice that that
point is changing.
| | 01:01 |
Telling me which focus point the camera's
going to use.
| | 01:08 |
On this particular Cannon model, you have
the same function, but you also have a
| | 01:12 |
little multifunction controller here on
the back.
| | 01:15 |
This will do the exact same thing, but
instead of having to push a button and
| | 01:18 |
spin a dial, all I have to do is move
this left, right, up, or down.
| | 01:23 |
And also if I just push straight in on
it, it's going to choose a center point.
| | 01:26 |
So you can move it around using this
little fun wheel.
| | 01:28 |
This is a lot faster, if you're in a high
speed situation.
| | 01:36 |
Now let's take a look at the Nikon.
The Nikon is similar to the Cannon in
| | 01:38 |
that you push a dial and rotate the
button, but that's only to get it into
| | 01:41 |
that focus mode, from there, you actually
get to use the controller, like you have
| | 01:44 |
on the more advanced camera.
So it's two steps.
| | 01:49 |
There's a button here on the switch
between between AF and M.
| | 01:52 |
That's auto focus to manual.
And when I push that button, and then
| | 01:55 |
rotate the dial under my finger here,
you'll see the grid changing on the LCD.
| | 01:59 |
Right now, it's in the multi-focus point
mode.
| | 02:01 |
But if I rotate this, it goes down to a
slightly smaller multi focus point, all
| | 02:04 |
the way down to a single point mode.
Now that I'm in that single point mode, I
| | 02:09 |
can change which point is being used by
moving this little dial on the back.
| | 02:13 |
I simply push it left to right or up or
down, to move the point around the seam.
| | 02:17 |
So, let's see what this looks like
looking through the camera.
| | 02:21 |
As you can see, I have a scene, here,
where I have my model sitting off to the
| | 02:24 |
side of the scene.
Now, if I just push the button down to
| | 02:27 |
focus, It focuses on the middle of the
scene, which is not focusing on her.
| | 02:32 |
Though, one way to do this is the focus
and recompose.
| | 02:34 |
All right, so I can move the camera to her,
focus, focus locks, recompose the camera,
| | 02:40 |
and take the picture.
However, what I really want to do, is
| | 02:45 |
control that focus point or move it using
the little dial on the back.
| | 02:50 |
So, in this case let's go ahead and look
through the scene again.
| | 02:52 |
And without moving the camera, I'm going
to move the focus point.
| | 02:56 |
And now the focus point is pointing at
her, so when I press down the button half
| | 03:00 |
way it focuses on her, (audio playing) and I can
take the picture without having to recompose.
| | 03:05 |
This is fantastic way to shoot.
For something like this where it's
| | 03:09 |
static, it may seem like it's not really
that necessary.
| | 03:12 |
But imagine if your shooting any type of
action and you want that action to not be
| | 03:14 |
centered in the scene.
You might want to have the person running
| | 03:18 |
for example be off to the side of the
scene, and have the focus block on them
| | 03:20 |
and then you can track them and have that
focus point stay over them while you move.
| | 03:25 |
And that's what this focus point
controller is for.
| | 03:28 |
But I definitely encourage you to check
this out on your camera model you may
| | 03:30 |
need to look in the manual to see exactly
how it works.
| | 03:33 |
Once you have it down, get used to using
it because it is an incredibly,
| | 03:37 |
incredibly useful feature.
| | 03:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Manual autofocus| 00:00 |
There's an even more advanced control
that you can take over the focusing in
| | 00:03 |
your camera.
And this is something that's not
| | 00:06 |
available on all camera models.
So, if you don't find this on your camera
| | 00:10 |
model, it may simply not be there.
But I'm going to show you how to set it up,
| | 00:13 |
and of course explain what it does.
Now here's the basic idea.
| | 00:17 |
Normally when you take a picture, you
push down the shutter release halfway,
| | 00:21 |
and it focuses and meters.
And then you push the button the rest of
| | 00:25 |
the way, to take the picture.
But what if you could take the focusing
| | 00:28 |
away from this button, and put it
somewhere else?
| | 00:31 |
Now, why would you want to do that?
Well, here's the basic idea.
| | 00:34 |
On Canon cameras, you have something
called the AF on button.
| | 00:37 |
And again, on your camera, you'll have to
look and see if you have this on there.
| | 00:40 |
What I can do by pushing the AF on
button, is start the autofocus.
| | 00:44 |
But that's only half the story.
What I really want to do, is take
| | 00:47 |
focusing away from this function here.
So to focus the camera, I have to push
| | 00:51 |
this with my thumb and to meter and take
the picture I have to push this button up here.
| | 00:56 |
Now why would I want to separate that?
Let's think about a couple different
| | 01:00 |
scenarios here.
If I want to focus and recompose, we know
| | 01:02 |
that I have to put the camera into a
single focus mode, focus let the camera
| | 01:06 |
lock, recompose and push the button the
rest of the way.
| | 01:10 |
But then if I want to switch to a
continuous focusing mode, I have to find
| | 01:13 |
the mode on the camera and switch it and
then go back to shooting.
| | 01:17 |
So right there, we've already wasted time
switching modes, by keeping the focus
| | 01:21 |
here, what this means is that I can leave
the camera in continuous focus mode, all
| | 01:24 |
the time.
And when I want it to single focus, just
| | 01:28 |
focus and lock, all I have to do is push
this to focus, and then take my finger
| | 01:31 |
off the button, and the camera stops
focusing.
| | 01:35 |
I've just locked focus.
Now, I can recompose if I want to, I can
| | 01:38 |
push this button to meter and then take
the picture without having to worry about
| | 01:41 |
the camera trying to refocus, and without
having to worry about switching modes.
| | 01:47 |
Now to do this, you do have to get into
the custom functions on camera.
| | 01:49 |
So, let's take a look at how we get into
there on this particular model, the Canon 60D.
| | 01:57 |
First thing I do is press the menu
button, and you'll notice a row of icons
| | 01:59 |
across the top.
And you want to find the one that has the
| | 02:01 |
custom functions.
That's the C.Fn for custom function.
| | 02:05 |
And on this particular model we're going to
find it under custom function four.
| | 02:08 |
Operation/others.
And push on that.
| | 02:11 |
The first one that comers up, is the
control over these buttons here.
| | 02:15 |
In the default mode, you'll see it's set
to mode 0, is meter and AF start.
| | 02:19 |
That's autofocus start, utilizing the
shutter release button.
| | 02:22 |
And we can see that icon right here.
We also see that the AF on button is also
| | 02:26 |
doing metering and autofocus start.
But basically, this button and this
| | 02:30 |
button are doing the exact same thing.
And that's the default setting.
| | 02:34 |
But if we just go one step over by
selecting it, moving it over to setting
| | 02:38 |
one, you notice that now the shutter
button only has meter and start.
| | 02:42 |
And of course it's going to take a picture
as well.
| | 02:44 |
And then underneath that, you see the AF
on button has metering and auto-focus start.
| | 02:49 |
And this is where I wanted to be.
So when I push this AF on button, it will
| | 02:52 |
meter and focus, and then if I wanted to
stop focusing, I can just take my thumb
| | 02:55 |
off of that, and push the button on top
to take the picture.
| | 02:59 |
It is a little bit esoteric, and it is a
little bit extreme.
| | 03:02 |
And if you're not used to shooting this
way, it can be a little frustrating,
| | 03:05 |
because suddenly, you have two buttons to
push to take a picture, instead of one.
| | 03:09 |
But if you take a little bit of time
taking used to it, I think you'll find
| | 03:12 |
that it's an incredibly powerful
function.
| | 03:15 |
Personally, when I was first introduced
to it, I thought it was a bit weird, but
| | 03:17 |
once I got used to it, there was just no
going back for me.
| | 03:20 |
To me it is the absolute best way to
shoot.
| | 03:22 |
I never have to change my focus mode.
It's always set to continuous, and
| | 03:26 |
whenever I want that single focus, I just
put the button, let it focus, take off my
| | 03:30 |
thumb and it locks.
| | 03:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Flash LightsIntroduction| 00:01 |
This section is all about adding light to
your photos.
| | 00:04 |
We're going to start with a tiny little
on-camera flash that you see on this
| | 00:06 |
DSLR, and then we're going to move into
bigger on-camera flashes like this one here.
| | 00:11 |
We're also going to explore taking this
flash off of the camera and even adding
| | 00:14 |
multiple flashes.
We're also going to take a look at adding modifiers.
| | 00:18 |
As you can see behind me here I have a
whole bunch of different things that we
| | 00:21 |
can use to change the light to modify the
light for the photo.
| | 00:25 |
I think you'll find once you get into
this section that adding light is not as
| | 00:28 |
hard as it sounds and it can be a lot of
fun.
| | 00:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Size matters| 00:01 |
Before we start working with the lights,
and making some photos, there's a basic
| | 00:04 |
premise that I want to make sure you
understand.
| | 00:06 |
This is something simple and may seem
obvious, but until you hear it, you may
| | 00:09 |
not quite realize it.
So here's the basic idea, size matters.
| | 00:14 |
The bigger your light source, the better
the photo.
| | 00:17 |
And by better I mean it's going to have
softer shadows.
| | 00:19 |
You're not going to have really hard shadows
that we generally associate with being
| | 00:22 |
relatively unattractive.
So let's think about this.
| | 00:25 |
What's the biggest light source that
we've got?
| | 00:28 |
The sun, right?
1.5 million kilometers wide, it's a huge
| | 00:31 |
light source.
So you'd think well, that's big, it
| | 00:34 |
should give us nice soft light.
But anybody whose ever taken a photo out
| | 00:37 |
in full sun, out in the middle of the
day, no clouds in the sky, knows, that
| | 00:40 |
you get really hard shadows under the
face, and it's just not attractive.
| | 00:45 |
You're thinking that I thought that the
biggest light source gave me the softest light.
| | 00:49 |
Well here's the thing it's actually
relative size.
| | 00:53 |
That sun that's super huge is also super
far away.
| | 00:57 |
So if you hold up your thumb you can
cover the light, you can cover that sun
| | 00:59 |
with just the tip of your thumb.
So our light source, the sun, may be
| | 01:04 |
super super bright, but it's actually
really really small relative to
| | 01:08 |
everything else.
Which is why, when we shoot a subject
| | 01:11 |
like our model Jackie here, under the
full sun, we end up with really awful
| | 01:14 |
shadows under her face.
And that's never ever going to be attractive.
| | 01:18 |
So that's the problem with basic light.
We have to get it bigger.
| | 01:23 |
So how do we get the light bigger?
Well, let's think about small lights that
| | 01:27 |
we're going to be using today.
Here I have a standard on-camera strobe.
| | 01:33 |
As you can see, this light source is not
very big at all.
| | 01:36 |
Relative to the sun, it's actually a
little bit bigger, but here's the
| | 01:39 |
important thing, now think about this.
If I want to make the light on Jackie
| | 01:43 |
softer, do I take this light and move it
further away, or do I move it closer to her?
| | 01:49 |
I want to get it closer, right, because the
relative size gets bigger.
| | 01:53 |
If she's looking at it from there, this
appears smaller when it's here, than it
| | 01:56 |
does when it's here.
So your light source actually wants to
| | 02:00 |
get closer to the subject, to give you
that softer light.
| | 02:03 |
Now this can only get so big, right?
I can only put it about yeah close if I'm
| | 02:07 |
getting a nice tight portrait of her, and
that's still not going to be really soft
| | 02:10 |
light, but it will be better than being
back here.
| | 02:14 |
But what we really want to do is to start
modifying our light.
| | 02:17 |
Now there's lots of different ways that
we can do that, and here's a nice easy one.
| | 02:22 |
This is a big, huge diffuser.
You can see the light comes through here nicely.
| | 02:26 |
And so what I would do with this is shoot
the flash through the diffuser, in effect
| | 02:30 |
turning this huge surface here Into the
light source, this point is no longer the
| | 02:34 |
light source, this becomes the light
source.
| | 02:39 |
So if I photograph her like this, we're
going to have a much, much nicer image with
| | 02:43 |
mush softer shadows.
Going back to the outdoor idea, shooting
| | 02:47 |
in full sunlight, if you're shooting on a
cloudy or generally overcast day, then
| | 02:50 |
you're going to have better photos again.
Because the shadows, are not going to be as hard.
| | 02:56 |
Why not?
Because the clouds in the sky, act as a diffusor.
| | 03:00 |
Suddenly the entire sky, on a really
cloudy or overcast day, becomes one big
| | 03:04 |
huge soft box, one of these that's as big
as the entire sky.
| | 03:09 |
So now you have really nice soft light,
and very soft, or maybe even no shadows
| | 03:12 |
at all under your subject.
So again size matters, get this thing as
| | 03:17 |
big as you possibly can and that's going to
make all the difference in your photos.
| | 03:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The pop-up flash| 00:00 |
We all know that shooting with a tiny
little pop-up, on-camera flash like this
| | 00:03 |
is never going to be ideal.
But let's face it, sometimes that's what
| | 00:07 |
you've got.
So we need to make the best of what we do have.
| | 00:10 |
I'm going to take a few pictures here of our
model Jackie, using just this flash.
| | 00:14 |
And I'm going to make two different changes
to the photo that will make them better
| | 00:17 |
than what we're going to get when we start.
The first change will be totally free.
| | 00:21 |
And the second one is a very inexpensive
modifier that you can add on to your camera.
| | 00:24 |
So let's get started.
I'm putting the camera on the tripod,
| | 00:30 |
just to make sure that we have the exact
same shot for before and after here.
| | 00:34 |
Usually when you're shooting with a
flash, you don't need to worry about this.
| | 00:37 |
But that's the only reason it's here now.
So let's get our first shot here.
| | 00:40 |
I'm going to have you step just a tiny bit this
way for me.
| | 00:45 |
Thank you very much.
And.
| | 00:47 |
So we take a look at the shot, and as you
can see, there's a really hard shadow
| | 00:50 |
behind her head.
And the shadows under her chin are
| | 00:53 |
frankly not very attractive.
So, this is what we need to try and
| | 00:57 |
eliminate at least reduce with, the
technology that we have.
| | 01:01 |
So the first thing I'll do, which won't
cost any money at all, It's just simply,
| | 01:04 |
get closer.
As I said in the last section, getting
| | 01:07 |
the light source closer to the subject
makes it relatively larger.
| | 01:11 |
So by getting this closer, we're going to
make the light just a little bit softer.
| | 01:15 |
So, I'll step closer to Jackie, zoom out
a little bit, and.
| | 01:19 |
Now if we take a look at this photo, we
can see that the shadows are just a
| | 01:24 |
little bit softer.
The light's a little bit warmer as well.
| | 01:28 |
And the shadow on the background isn't
quite as harsh.
| | 01:32 |
Now let's modify the light itself and see
if we can make it even better.
| | 01:38 |
(audio playing) I have this little thing here
called a puffer.
| | 01:43 |
This is from a company called Gary Fong.
This little guy is a tiny little
| | 01:47 |
modifier, a little diffuser, that we
attach to the hot shoe of the camera.
| | 01:52 |
And then makes the light softer, because
it makes it bigger.
| | 01:55 |
If you look at the size difference
between the tiny little strobe here,
| | 01:58 |
versus this, this is clearly a lot
bigger.
| | 02:01 |
So, let's just attach this onto the
camera.
| | 02:06 |
And let's get another shot.
Now, if we look at this, we can see that
| | 02:11 |
the shadow behind her head is much, much
softer.
| | 02:15 |
The shadows on her face are a little bit
softer.
| | 02:17 |
And the overall light is quite a bit
warmer.
| | 02:19 |
When we look at the two side by side.
You can see there's a huge difference
| | 02:22 |
between the two shots made from this same
location.
| | 02:25 |
So this tiny little inexpensive modifier
will make a huge difference.
| | 02:28 |
Again, not having a big flash is not the
best thing in the world.
| | 02:32 |
But it's not the worst.
At least by having this little flash with
| | 02:35 |
a little modifier you can get something a
little bit better out of the photo.
| | 02:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Upgrading Your LightThe on-camera flash| 00:01 |
In the world of flash photography, it's
ideal to get the flash physically off the camera.
| | 00:07 |
But that's not always possible or
practical.
| | 00:09 |
Sometimes we just have to have it on
here.
| | 00:11 |
There's a joke in the world of
photography that the hot shoe is the
| | 00:13 |
single worst invention on the camera.
The problem with it is, is that it puts
| | 00:18 |
the flash in exactly, the worst place,
centered over the lens, and quite close
| | 00:21 |
to it.
But again, sometimes we have to work with
| | 00:25 |
what we've got.
So in this section we're going to be talking
| | 00:27 |
about how to modify this flash, to get
even better photos than you get with it
| | 00:30 |
on here, pointing straight forward, as
you see now.
| | 00:34 |
Some of them will involve simply twisting
the flash head, and others will involve
| | 00:37 |
adding modifiers to it.
So let's get started.
| | 00:40 |
The first thing I'm going to do is just take
a picture straight on like this of our
| | 00:45 |
model and I'm going to shoot with the flash
pointing straight forward, the absolute
| | 00:50 |
worst way you could do it.
And then we'll take a look at that photo.
| | 00:55 |
If you could move just a littel bit htis
way.
| | 01:01 |
Okay, as we can see looking at this photo
it's well lit but the shadows under her
| | 01:05 |
chin are really, really strong and the
light on her face is just harsh.
| | 01:12 |
It's this kind of deer in a headlights
look, it's not really that attractive.
| | 01:20 |
So the first thing I want to do to modify
the flash is tilt it.
| | 01:23 |
Now, just tilting the flash in itself
doesn't necessarily do anything.
| | 01:27 |
What's happening is that we're bouncing
the light off of another surface.
| | 01:30 |
If the flash is pointing straight at her.
This is the light source, and it's
| | 01:34 |
shining straight into her eyes.
But if I can tilt the flash up like this.
| | 01:38 |
I can bounce it off of whatever's over my
head.
| | 01:40 |
If I'm outdoors, this isn't going to work.
But if I'm indoors, like we are here, and
| | 01:44 |
especially if you have a light-colored or
a white ceiling, this is going to bounce up
| | 01:47 |
to the ceiling, making the ceiling my
overall light source.
| | 01:52 |
Let's take a look at how this looks.
Now as we can see, the lighting is much
| | 02:01 |
much better.
We have a much softer shadow under her
| | 02:03 |
chin, and the overall lighting on her
face is not as direct and bright and harsh.
| | 02:08 |
So this looks a lot nicer.
Now, right now, I'm just bouncing off the
| | 02:11 |
ceiling, but depending on the
environment, you can bounce it other ways
| | 02:13 |
as well.
So for example I can turn it.
| | 02:16 |
And bounce it off the corner here giving
a light source that appears to be coming
| | 02:19 |
from off camera like so.
Let's try that.
| | 02:22 |
Now this is much better.
Now the shadow is not under her chin
| | 02:27 |
directly, its off to the side and its
much more natural.
| | 02:33 |
It looks like the light was never even
attached to the camera in the first place.
| | 02:36 |
Now, keep in mind.
If you are shooting in portrait mode.
| | 02:39 |
So, for example, if you've tilted the
camera like so.
| | 02:43 |
You can still modify the light in the
same way.
| | 02:44 |
Because it does rotate.
If you're bouncing off the ceiling,
| | 02:47 |
instead of pointing it out like so.
You simply twist it up.
| | 02:51 |
And again, you can still tilt it out that
way to do what we just did, bouncing it
| | 02:54 |
off of another corner.
So you can rotate the flash head, no
| | 02:56 |
matter what orientation you're holding
the camera in.
| | 03:00 |
Now, let's take a look at a couple of
different on-flash modifiers.
| | 03:03 |
I'm going to go ahead and put the camera
back into its original position here.
| | 03:06 |
(audio playing) And I have two different
modifiers, I'm going to work with.
| | 03:13 |
The first one is this little guy from
Gary Fong.
| | 03:16 |
You can see that it collapses down nice
and compact, but when it pops open, what
| | 03:20 |
I get is a nice big diffusion panel.
And in fact, if I attach the dome on top
| | 03:24 |
of it as well, suddenly I have this
really nice, big soft light source,
| | 03:28 |
instead of the tiny little flash head
here, and is directing light forward, and up.
| | 03:34 |
So I get the best of both worlds.
I get some light going at her face, to
| | 03:37 |
fill it in from the front and I have
light bouncing off of the ceiling.
| | 03:40 |
You can add or remove this dome depending
on what your ceiling is like, how high it
| | 03:43 |
is, or just what the quality of light
that your after.
| | 03:47 |
You can even get these in different
colors so you can change the color of the
| | 03:49 |
light bouncing off the ceiling.
So let's go ahead and add this on.
| | 03:58 |
Now, one of the really cool things about
this modifier is if I don't want to use
| | 04:04 |
it for a shot, I don't have to take it
off.
| | 04:10 |
I simply collapse it down, and it's as if
it's not even there.
| | 04:16 |
And then when I'm ready to use it, It
just pops up into place, and we're ready
| | 04:21 |
to go.
And of course we can add that dome on
| | 04:26 |
there as well.
For this shot, I'm going to leave it off.
| | 04:31 |
Let's go ahead and put this on the
camera.
| | 04:34 |
And get another shot.
As you can see here, you have that really
| | 04:41 |
nice soft light, on here face, and coming
down from the top.
| | 04:45 |
So overall it's a pretty nice light
source.
| | 04:47 |
Let's take a look at one more modifier.
This little device is called a flash
| | 04:55 |
bender, from a company called Rogue.
This is pretty cool for a couple of reasons.
| | 04:59 |
For one, it folds up really nice and
small.
| | 05:02 |
So this'll fit in basically any bag you
can throw it into.
| | 05:05 |
The other cool thing, is that these
pieces on the back bend, so you can
| | 05:08 |
literally bend the modifier into whatever
shape you want.
| | 05:11 |
So this does a couple of things.
When shooting a portrait like this, I can
| | 05:14 |
just go ahead and attach it, and it
attaches with a velcro strap.
| | 05:18 |
And now what I can do is shape this
however I like.
| | 05:23 |
I can just have it straight up like so,
but if I bend it in a little bit, it's
| | 05:27 |
going to catch the light coming up here, and
throw some light towards the subject.
| | 05:33 |
What I can also do, is turn it into a
snoot.
| | 05:38 |
Collapsing it down on itself.
(audio playing) So with this modifier on here
| | 05:43 |
directing the light in 1 very specific
point.
| | 05:47 |
This is the kind of thing you're more
likely to use when you take the flash off
| | 05:51 |
the camera.
But for on camera photography it works
| | 05:55 |
really well.
(audio playing) Just like this.
| | 05:59 |
Let's go ahead and get a shot this way,
and see what we're getting.
| | 06:02 |
(audio playing) I'll take a look at that shot,
and once again, as you can see, we have a
| | 06:08 |
much softer light than what we had with
no modifier at all.
| | 06:17 |
There's a variety of different modifiers
that you can get for your flash, this is
| | 06:19 |
just two of them.
I encourage you to check it out at your
| | 06:22 |
camera store, or online, and see what's
out there.
| | 06:24 |
There's tons of things you can add.
Some are very inexpensive, and some cost
| | 06:27 |
a fair amount of money, it just depends
on what you're after.
| | 06:30 |
So explore this space, modifying your
flash, while on camera, can make a huge
| | 06:34 |
difference, to just shooting with it
straight on.
| | 06:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The off-camera flash| 00:01 |
Getting the flash off of your camera is
absolutely the best thing that you can do.
| | 00:05 |
The good news is that it doesn't even
have to cost a lot of money.
| | 00:07 |
In fact, if you have one of the newer,
more modern DSLRs, you may find that your
| | 00:11 |
little built-in pop-up flash can act as a
master to another flash which is called
| | 00:14 |
the slave.
So you can then trigger that flash using
| | 00:18 |
this one.
And you can even choose whether you want
| | 00:21 |
this flash to fill in with light as well
or just be off completely.
| | 00:25 |
Now, one thing I want to point out, if you
do set it so that this flash doesn't
| | 00:28 |
illuminate the subject, you are still
going to see it flash.
| | 00:32 |
Don't be confused by that.
What that's doing is communicating to the
| | 00:34 |
other flash, so, it will fire, but it's
not going to show up in the picture.
| | 00:38 |
It fires just before the other flash
does.
| | 00:40 |
So let's try this out.
Here, I have a Nikon that has that
| | 00:43 |
capability built-in to it.
And I have a Nikon strobe set up over
| | 00:47 |
here on a light stand.
So I'm going to set this off to the side of
| | 00:52 |
our model, and stand in front of her, and
just fire off a quick shot.
| | 01:02 |
As we can see from this shot, clearly,
the light from the side, this one here,
| | 01:05 |
is firing.
However, the light from the camera
| | 01:08 |
pointing at her is not.
Now, to make this a better photo, I would
| | 01:11 |
want to modify the light a little bit,
make it a little bit softer, or maybe
| | 01:13 |
bounce it off of something.
But what I really wanted to illustrate
| | 01:17 |
here was to show you that this on-camera
flash, it's triggering that one, but is
| | 01:21 |
not in fact firing to illuminate the
subject.
| | 01:25 |
So now, let's move on to something else.
If you don't have one of the newer
| | 01:35 |
cameras that has this pop-up flash
control capability control built-in to
| | 01:37 |
it, it doesn't mean that you can't get
your flash off the camera.
| | 01:41 |
It just means that you have to add
another device to make that happen.
| | 01:44 |
There's a couple ways to do it.
The least expensive way is using a cable
| | 01:47 |
like this one.
This type of a cable will allow you to
| | 01:50 |
control the flash, in fully automatic
mode, even though it is not sitting on
| | 01:53 |
top of the camera.
It's still physically connected, but we
| | 01:58 |
can move it wherever we like, so let's
try this.
| | 02:02 |
I'm going to use my flash here, that already
has the flash bender attached, so I have
| | 02:04 |
this nice modifier.
And we'll simply attach this to the cable.
| | 02:11 |
Always make sure you lock it in place.
And I'm going to move the camera off flash,
| | 02:17 |
say, right about here.
Let's see how this looks.
| | 02:21 |
Now, if we look at this photo, you can
clearly see that the light is not coming
| | 02:26 |
from straight on, from the camera, but is
in fact off to the side.
| | 02:34 |
So it's a much more pleasing, more
natural look.
| | 02:37 |
But sometimes, the cable isn't quite long
enough, we can't get it far enough away
| | 02:40 |
or it just may not be convenient.
If you have this sitting here, someone
| | 02:44 |
could trip over the cable, and bring your
whole camera down.
| | 02:46 |
Probably not a good idea.
So there's a couple other things that we
| | 02:49 |
can do to go wireless.
Here's a couple different devices.
| | 02:54 |
This is an infrared transmitter.
This will allow me to trigger a flash or
| | 03:00 |
a series of flashes by mounting this on
top of the camera.
| | 03:08 |
The advantage of this is it's quite a bit
less expensive than the other devices I'm
| | 03:12 |
about to show you, but the disadvantage
is that it is line of sight.
| | 03:16 |
The flashes have to be able to see this
device.
| | 03:19 |
Now, it can bounce all over the room to
trigger it.
| | 03:22 |
The light beam coming from here can
bounce off the walls and ceiling and then
| | 03:24 |
trigger the flash.
So in an environment like this, this is
| | 03:28 |
going to work perfectly well.
However, if you find yourself outdoors or
| | 03:31 |
if you want to put the flash really far
away, this may not quite cut it.
| | 03:36 |
Another option are radio transmitters
like this.
| | 03:38 |
These are made by a company called
Phottix.
| | 03:40 |
There's other companies out there like
PocketWizard or RadioPoppers that make
| | 03:43 |
similar devices.
The idea here is that the flash is
| | 03:46 |
triggered by a radio signal, which means
you don't have to have line of sight.
| | 03:50 |
The other strobe can be way over there,
in another room, shining through a
| | 03:54 |
window, or pretty much anywhere you can
imagine.
| | 03:57 |
So, the radio slaves do cost quite a bit
more money, but they do pretty much
| | 04:00 |
guarantee that the flash is going to fire,
unlike a device like this, which means
| | 04:03 |
you have to be in a more controlled
environment.
| | 04:08 |
For today's example, I'm going to go ahead
and use this infrared transmitter,
| | 04:10 |
because it'll work just fine in this
environment.
| | 04:13 |
I'm going to modify my light using
umbrellas.
| | 04:17 |
There's a couple different ways that we
can work with umbrellas.
| | 04:22 |
Let me show you these.
Here, we have a standard photographer's
| | 04:26 |
umbrella, and as you can see, it's
completely white, and in fact it's a bit opaque.
| | 04:30 |
Light mounted here will shine through
this umbrella giving me a nice big soft
| | 04:33 |
surface here that's going to illuminate
my subject.
| | 04:37 |
Now, this is also going to spread out really
far, so it's going to fill the room with a
| | 04:41 |
big soft light.
You'll notice over here that I have
| | 04:44 |
something called adjusting clamp that
this umbrella is attached to.
| | 04:47 |
This clamp is incredibly versatile.
I can clamp this onto just about anything
| | 04:51 |
you can imagine here.
It's incredibly strong.
| | 04:53 |
All I have to do is mount it onto
something.
| | 04:55 |
And it's going to hold the flash and the
umbrella in place.
| | 04:59 |
And then the flash itself will be
attached to this and I can point it
| | 05:01 |
wherever I like.
Now, this is one way of working with an umbrella.
| | 05:06 |
This umbrella here, as you could see, is
already mounted on a light stand.
| | 05:16 |
And it also has a black cover over it.
This is actually the same umbrella that
| | 05:20 |
you just saw.
This cover can be removed, making it a
| | 05:23 |
shoot through umbrella, or if I put the
cover back on, it is now a reflective umbrella.
| | 05:28 |
This is going to give me a more
concentrated light source, but it's still
| | 05:32 |
going to be very nice and soft.
So, a couple different ways you can work
| | 05:36 |
with the exact same umbrella.
Let's go ahead and position this right
| | 05:41 |
about here.
Make sure my flash is on.
| | 05:44 |
And one of the other things you have to
keep in mind, if you are shooting
| | 05:46 |
infrared as I am now, remember what I
said about it being line of sight.
| | 05:50 |
So this device here has to be able to see
the front of the flash here.
| | 05:56 |
Now, this might work the way it is, but
it might not.
| | 05:58 |
So to be safe, what I want to do is make
sure that this infrared sensor is
| | 06:02 |
viewable from there.
So, all I need to do is turn this towards
| | 06:06 |
me, and then turn the flash head back
into the umbrella.
| | 06:10 |
Great.
So now this is all set up, it should be
| | 06:14 |
ready to shoot.
Let's give it a try.
| | 06:17 |
So now, this infrared transmitter is
going to shine on this light, which is going to
| | 06:25 |
shine into the umbrella, and then, back
onto our subject.
| | 06:34 |
Let's try it out.
As you can see, we get a really nice soft
| | 06:37 |
light, off camera, so it doesn't look
like it's shining right into her face.
| | 06:43 |
And overall, it's a really pleasing way
to light our subject.
| | 06:46 |
Of course, there's all kinds of other
things we can do with this umbrella,
| | 06:49 |
changing its position, making it higher
or lower, and so on.
| | 06:52 |
But this gives you an idea of what we can
do.
| | 06:54 |
There's one more modifier that I want to
show you.
| | 06:56 |
Let me get this umbrella out of the way.
We'll make sure that flash is turned off.
| | 07:00 |
And this other modifier is called the
orbis.
| | 07:02 |
As you can see, it looks like a big ring
flash, and a big ring flash is really expensive.
| | 07:04 |
So what this does instead of being a
dedicated ring flash is it's actually a
| | 07:11 |
modifier for an existing strobe, so let's
put this together.
| | 07:25 |
All I have to do is take my strobe and
attach it into here.
| | 07:31 |
And now, I can hold this wherever I like,
and it'll be a great modifier.
| | 07:35 |
But the idea is that I shoot through
this, giving me a really nice illuminated
| | 07:39 |
ring around the camera lens.
So let's try it out.
| | 07:43 |
I can get in nice and close to my
subject.
| | 07:45 |
And have an absolutely beautiful result.
As you can see in here.
| | 07:53 |
The light is really soft and even.
And I get a really nice round catch light
| | 07:57 |
into her eye, which is generally
considered a very pleasing type of the
| | 07:59 |
catch light.
And you don't have to just shoot through
| | 08:03 |
it, you can actually hold this wherever
you like and there's still a really cool modifier.
| | 08:07 |
For the next shot, I'll position the ring
just above the lens.
| | 08:11 |
Now, as you can see here, we still have
the round catch light in her eye.
| | 08:16 |
However, we also have a slightly
different positioning of the light, a
| | 08:20 |
little bit different shadow under her
chin and, overall, just a really
| | 08:24 |
interesting different way of looking at
the photo.
| | 08:30 |
So, whatever you're doing when you get
your flash off of the camera, whether
| | 08:33 |
you're bouncing it off of a wall or a
ceiling, or modifying it with a device
| | 08:35 |
like this, or an umbrella.
Any change like that is going to make a
| | 08:40 |
dramatic difference in the images.
So I encourage you to check out some of
| | 08:43 |
the different modifiers out there.
Some are incredibly cheap, some are even
| | 08:46 |
free, or you can make them at home, and
of course, some cost quite a bit of money.
| | 08:49 |
But there's a lot of different options
out there.
| | 08:51 |
Check them out and have some fun with it.
| | 08:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Off-camera multiple flash| 00:01 |
Working with multiple off-camera flashes
can really be a lot of fun.
| | 00:05 |
Now, this section is not here to teach
you how to do it, but just to show you a
| | 00:07 |
little bit of an introduction to what you
can achieve.
| | 00:11 |
So, to start, we're just going to go ahead
and take a picture with a single
| | 00:13 |
off-camera flash.
As you can see, I have my light here
| | 00:16 |
shining into the umbrella, reflecting
onto my model.
| | 00:19 |
And you also can see that I have a slight
gel on here.
| | 00:21 |
This is a half CTO, or half warming gel,
but it's going to make the light that hits
| | 00:25 |
my model, just a little bit warmer,
almost like we're working in sunset type
| | 00:28 |
of light.
So we're going to start with just this
| | 00:32 |
single light.
Let's see what it looks like.
| | 00:35 |
(audio playing) As we can see, we have a really
nice soft light shining on her face.
| | 00:43 |
It's clearly coming from off camera.
Because the shadow is not directly under
| | 00:46 |
her chin, but off to an angle.
And overall, it looks pretty good.
| | 00:50 |
But now, what I want to do is add a
secondary light.
| | 00:52 |
You may have noticed that I have another
light shining behind her that is
| | 00:55 |
currently turned off.
Let's take a look at this light.
| | 00:59 |
So what I have over here on this light,
are a couple of modifiers.
| | 01:01 |
First off I have this thing called a grid
spot.
| | 01:05 |
We notice that what this is, is a series
of tubes, almost like drinking straws,
| | 01:08 |
just stacked together, and what this will
do is focus the light almost like a laser
| | 01:11 |
beam, just shining straight forward.
Of course it is still going to spread a
| | 01:16 |
little bit, but this will give us a much
more focused direct light than without
| | 01:19 |
the modifier at all.
I also have on here a quarter CTO.
| | 01:23 |
Not quite as warm as the one that's on
the main light, but just giving a little
| | 01:26 |
bit of a warmth behind here.
Let's go ahead and put this back together.
| | 01:30 |
And now I'm going to position this light so
that it's right behind her head.
| | 01:34 |
Of course, I don't want to see the light
in the photograph, but what I want to have
| | 01:37 |
happen is this light to illuminate the
back of her head, giving it kind of an
| | 01:40 |
angelic glow behind her.
I need to make sure I position it just
| | 01:44 |
so, that's pointing right at the back of
her head, and of course when I'm taking
| | 01:47 |
the picture, I'll make sure that I don't
see this.
| | 01:51 |
You may have noticed that I'm working
with the radio trigger here, instead of
| | 01:53 |
the light trigger that I was working with
before.
| | 01:56 |
This radio trigger means that I don't
have to be in line of sight.
| | 01:58 |
I can put these flashes anywhere, and
since I may not have direct view of my
| | 02:01 |
original camera, I wanted to make sure
that these fired, so I went ahead and put
| | 02:04 |
radio triggers on here.
Now, some radio triggers will allow you
| | 02:08 |
to work in fully automatic mode, and
some, like these, will only work in manual.
| | 02:12 |
And that's fine.
So this flash is currently set to about 1
| | 02:15 |
64th power, and the main light is set to
about 1 16th.
| | 02:18 |
I'll just turn this on and we're ready to
go.
| | 02:19 |
Once again, making sure that I don't see
my light behind her head, and here we go.
| | 02:25 |
So now, as you can see, the light behind
her is illuminating the back of her head,
| | 02:32 |
giving us this really nice glow through
her hair.
| | 02:41 |
As we can see looking at the photo, there
is a nice shadow under her chin.
| | 02:44 |
It's not too harsh but I would like to
fill it a little bit.
| | 02:47 |
It's a little bit darker than I really
want.
| | 02:49 |
So, what I want to do is add another
light to it, but may be I don't have a
| | 02:51 |
third light or you can still fill in
light using things called reflectors.
| | 02:56 |
So, here hanging on my light stand I have
a nice, very versatile reflector.
| | 03:00 |
You see this side is gold.
The other side is white.
| | 03:03 |
And in fact, on reflectors like this,
they'll open up and I can flip it around,
| | 03:06 |
it's reversible, it has silver on another
side, and then black on one.
| | 03:12 |
The black will allow me to block light if
I want to keep it from hitting something
| | 03:14 |
that I don't want the light spilling
onto.
| | 03:16 |
If I take it off entirely, this becomes a
really nice diffuser.
| | 03:20 |
But for now I'm just going to use it as a
gold reflector.
| | 03:23 |
Since I already have yellowish light
coming off the front and the back I want
| | 03:26 |
to fill it in with a little bit of gold
light underneath.
| | 03:30 |
I could use a light stand or an assitant
or I can just do it all myself.
| | 03:34 |
I'll just position it under her chin and
we can see the light nicely reflecting
| | 03:39 |
under there andSOUND we get the shot.
As you can see, I filled in the shadow
| | 03:45 |
quite nicely there.
There's still a shadow, which is good.
| | 03:47 |
I wanted to find the edge of her chin,
but the shadow is not quite as dark.
| | 03:51 |
Overall, it looks a lot better.
Now in this example, we use just two
| | 03:54 |
lights and a reflector.
But when you get into off-camera
| | 03:56 |
multiple-light flash, you can have as
many lights as you want.
| | 03:59 |
You can have two, four, ten, twenty, you
can have a ton of these lights all over
| | 04:02 |
the place, and do some really interesting
and complex things.
| | 04:05 |
So I encourage you to check it out, go
online look around for other examples of
| | 04:09 |
off camera flash with multiple lights and
you'll find some amazing, amazing things
| | 04:12 |
out there.
| | 04:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Changing Your Point of ViewIntroduction| 00:01 |
There are three basic concepts that I
want you to keep in your mind, when
| | 00:03 |
you're out shooting.
Perspective, angle, and detail.
| | 00:08 |
These are three ideas that will improve
your photography dramatically.
| | 00:11 |
And what we're going to do today, over the
next few videos, is explore these three
| | 00:15 |
ideas in detail.
Now as you can see, we're going to be
| | 00:18 |
shooting in a garden that's, well,
frankly, not that interesting.
| | 00:21 |
There's some nice details out here, but
we're going to have to look for them.
| | 00:24 |
So by using these three ideas of
perspective, angle, and detail, we're
| | 00:27 |
going to find some really interesting
photographs out here in this otherwise
| | 00:31 |
pretty ordinary garden.
| | 00:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Perspective| 00:01 |
Perspective is quite simply how we see
the world.
| | 00:03 |
Another way to say, this point of view.
The point of view or perspective which
| | 00:07 |
you look at the world, look at the
objects around you.
| | 00:10 |
You make a huge difference in how they
appear in your photograph.
| | 00:13 |
So let's take a simple example here of a
little birdhouse.
| | 00:15 |
It's a beautiful birdhouse and I want to
take a picutre of it.
| | 00:18 |
So let's start by taking just a plain old
picture not changing my perspective at all.
| | 00:21 |
Now, as we can see here, it's really not
that interesting.
| | 00:28 |
It's kind of cluttered with the
background, and the angle of view, or the
| | 00:31 |
perspective, is basically the way that
everybody sees the world all the time.
| | 00:36 |
So what we want to do is change our
perspective to make this a bit more interesting.
| | 00:39 |
The easiest way to do that is to simply
drop down.
| | 00:42 |
So let's try it again.
Now by dropping down to the ground we
| | 00:50 |
have shifted our perspective.
And the photograph is much much more interesting.
| | 00:54 |
The idea is quite simple.
Everybody sees the world from here.
| | 00:58 |
Right around this height is where we see
the world everyday of our lives as we're
| | 01:01 |
walking around.
By simply changing the perspective by
| | 01:04 |
getting low, or even getting high.
You can make a much more dramatic
| | 01:08 |
difference in your photographs.
Let's take a look at another example.
| | 01:14 |
In the last shot we had a reasonably
interesting object that was rendered
| | 01:17 |
boring by looking at it from a normal
perspective.
| | 01:20 |
By changing perspective we made it more
interesting.
| | 01:23 |
In this example, we're going to find a
relatively boring object.
| | 01:26 |
And make it more interesting by once
again changing the perspective.
| | 01:30 |
As you can see here, we have a stack of
wood.
| | 01:32 |
Not the most exciting thing in the world.
Let's take a picture of it.
| | 01:35 |
Now, as you can see, it really is not an
interesting photo at all.
| | 01:36 |
But by simply changing our perspective,
we're going to make this much more interesting.
| | 01:38 |
What I'm going to do is focus straight on
to the wood.
| | 01:39 |
I'm going to make sure I fill the frame
with it.
| | 01:45 |
And get a bit of a wide angle on there as
well, so let's try this again.
| | 01:54 |
(audio playing) Now as you can see, this is a
much more interesting photo.
| | 02:03 |
There's a lot of really interesting
texture, great shadow play, and the photo
| | 02:06 |
is just much more dynamic.
So a tiny little change in perspective
| | 02:10 |
has made a huge difference.
Now, the next example I want to talk
| | 02:13 |
about is framing.
Utilyzing real world objects to frame
| | 02:16 |
your photos just like you would frame a
picture hanging on your wall.
| | 02:19 |
Let's have a look.
(audio playing) Another part of perspective is framing.
| | 02:24 |
Again, it's how we see the world.
You can just look at an object, or you
| | 02:29 |
can look at an object through another
object and sometimes that framing can
| | 02:33 |
really make a big difference.
For example the photograph that I just
| | 02:38 |
made of these buildings through here is a
nice enough picture.
| | 02:41 |
But it doesn't really tell the whole
story of the environment of the scene
| | 02:44 |
we're in.
If we take a few more steps forward and
| | 02:47 |
take a look at the archway.
If I utilize that archway in the shot,
| | 02:51 |
utilizing it as a frame the picture might
be a lot more interesting.
| | 02:56 |
Let's try it out.
Now, by photographing this scene through
| | 03:00 |
the archway.
We've done a better job of telling the
| | 03:03 |
story of the environment.
The photograph made inside the arch of
| | 03:07 |
just the buildings was okay.
But by photographing it from out here, we
| | 03:10 |
can see more of the environment that
we're in.
| | 03:13 |
Now, these frames that you're looking for
can be naturally occurring.
| | 03:16 |
They can be things like tree branches for
example, or man made arches like this,
| | 03:19 |
for example.
So whatever you're looking for, find a
| | 03:21 |
frame to put into your photo and it can
really make a big difference in how good
| | 03:24 |
your photo looks.
Now let's take all these ideas of
| | 03:28 |
perspective, and put them together.
I want to photograph that green door over there.
| | 03:33 |
But instead of just walking up to it and
taking a picture.
| | 03:35 |
I want to find a different perspective.
I want to frame it with some other
| | 03:38 |
objects in the scene.
As you can see here, we have this
| | 03:40 |
interesting barn behind us.
So let's see what we can get by shooting
| | 03:43 |
through the barn.
Now, right away one of the problems I had
| | 03:47 |
is the barn is pretty tall so I need to
up higher, once again changing my perspective.
| | 03:54 |
I need to get the camera up nice and
high.
| | 03:56 |
Now I can't just shoot it from here, I'm
going to have to get the camera up quite high.
| | 04:00 |
So if you have a camera that has a live
view mode, you can turn that on and
| | 04:03 |
that'll help you shooting in environments
like this quite a bit.
| | 04:07 |
In fact, if you have a camera with a flip
out LCD, it'll be even better.
| | 04:10 |
(audio playing)
| | 04:15 |
So as we can see, that photo's actually
pretty good but I want to get even higher
| | 04:18 |
if I can.
Now, I just happen to have a ladder
| | 04:20 |
sitting here.
So let's try this.
| | 04:22 |
From here we can see that the angle and
the perspective is even better, up high
| | 04:31 |
like this, it's a really nice shot.
Now don't forget just because your
| | 04:40 |
looking through something looking through
a frame doesn't mean you have to focus
| | 04:43 |
only on what's on the other side of the
frame.
| | 04:45 |
It might be interesting to focus on the
frame itself, let's try that too.
| | 04:48 |
As you can see that's also an interesting
shot.
| | 04:52 |
So once again changing your perspecive,
changing your point of view is critical
| | 04:57 |
in photography.
If every photograph that you make is from
| | 05:00 |
the exact same place standing up at full
height.
| | 05:03 |
Would the way that the whole world sees
the world, it's not going to be that interesting.
| | 05:07 |
Change your perspective, get down low,
get up high look for things to shoot
| | 05:10 |
through naturally frame your photos and
your going to find your photography looks
| | 05:14 |
much, much more interesting.
| | 05:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Angle| 00:01 |
Now that we've talked about perspective
it's time to move on to angle.
| | 00:04 |
Now perspective and angle can seem quite
similar, and they are, but there are some
| | 00:07 |
subtle differences that are quite
important.
| | 00:09 |
We're going to start by photographing this
pink rose right here.
| | 00:12 |
I'm going to start with a plain old straight
on photo, and as you'll see very quickly
| | 00:15 |
it's not going to be very good.
I will then change my perspective to make
| | 00:19 |
the photo better.
And then I'm going to change the angle to
| | 00:22 |
improve it even more.
So let's start with the basic straight-on shot.
| | 00:26 |
(audio playing) So as you can see here, we have a
lot of clutter in the background.
| | 00:29 |
The flower is nicely separated but we see
some buildings in the background, and the
| | 00:33 |
chair that's in there, we're not really
sure if that's part of the photo or not.
| | 00:39 |
So we really want to get a better
perspective to start with.
| | 00:42 |
So let's change that to begin with.
(audio playing) Okay that's a lot better, but I
| | 00:52 |
still want to make this even more
interesting by changing the angle.
| | 00:56 |
Now, perspective is really about where
the camera is, high or low, are you
| | 00:59 |
shooting through a frame or not.
Whereas angle is more about the camera.
| | 01:03 |
How are you pointing it down at the
subject, or up at the subject.
| | 01:06 |
What is your angle of attack, what is
your angle of view, on the object?
| | 01:09 |
So here I'm going to get a little bit
closer, I'm going to point down a little bit
| | 01:12 |
at this rose.
And make sure that the background is
| | 01:15 |
really quite interesting in there.
(audio playing) And in fact, if you look now,
| | 01:19 |
you'll see that that white chair in the
background is part of the scene.
| | 01:24 |
It's nicely out of focus, kind of off to
the side.
| | 01:27 |
But if I change the angle just a tiny bit
more, we can make that a little bit more
| | 01:30 |
part of the photo and put the rose
against that.
| | 01:33 |
And let's see how that looks.
(audio playing) So once again, with a subtle
| | 01:37 |
change of the angle, we have changed the
photo dramatically.
| | 01:43 |
Now one may or may not be better than the
other, but by experimenting with your
| | 01:46 |
angle and your perspective together, you
can make some much more interesting photographs.
| | 01:51 |
So now let's have a look at an even more
extreme version of changing the angle.
| | 01:55 |
This little flower here, tiny little
flower, I'm going to photograph it from
| | 01:57 |
above and from below, and change the
angle dramatically, and let's see what we
| | 02:00 |
get by doing that.
So for this little rose here we're going to
| | 02:05 |
get a nice photograph to start with at a
decent perspective by just getting down
| | 02:08 |
straight on at it, but get down its
angle.
| | 02:11 |
Right, it's down here nice and low so
we're going to get down to its level and I'm
| | 02:14 |
going to photograph it straight on.
We'll start with that and see where we
| | 02:16 |
can go from there.
(audio playing) Now, as you can see, that's a
| | 02:20 |
perfectly nice photograph of this little
rose.
| | 02:26 |
But we can do better than that.
Let's start by changing the angle
| | 02:29 |
dramatically by going straight above it.
So what I'll do is get up on top of it
| | 02:33 |
here, and shoot straight down.
(audio playing) And as you can see now, this is a
| | 02:39 |
much more interesting photograph.
This is not how people normally look at a flower.
| | 02:45 |
So, already we've made it a lot more
interesting.
| | 02:48 |
Now let's go the other way and get down
below it and look up.
| | 03:02 |
(audio playing) So, looking at it from this
angle, it's pretty good.
| | 03:04 |
But there's one more thing that we can
change about it.
| | 03:06 |
We talked about the camera changing angle
by tilting it down or tilting it up.
| | 03:10 |
But we can also literally rotate the
camera and put the camera at a whole
| | 03:12 |
different angle itself.
This can add some really interesting
| | 03:15 |
dynamism, or tension, into the
photograph.
| | 03:18 |
So let's photograph this same flower
again, but by simply angling the camera a
| | 03:20 |
little bit, like this.
(audio playing) Now if we compare the two side by
| | 03:25 |
side, you can see that there is a lot
more tension and action going on in this photo.
| | 03:33 |
So simply rotating your camera a little
bit like that can make quite a big difference.
| | 03:37 |
So we've talked about perspective and
about angle.
| | 03:40 |
The next thing that we're going to focus
on is detail.
| | 03:42 |
Detail can mean looking for a subtle
detail on the object that you're
| | 03:44 |
photographing and getting up close to it.
Or, even stepping back and looking for a
| | 03:48 |
broader view of that detail.
So lets have a look at that.
| | 03:55 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Detail| 00:00 |
Now let's talk about details.
In a scene like this you can see that we
| | 00:04 |
have a, a pretty nice photo to begin
with.
| | 00:06 |
We have this beautiful green door, we
have the orange pumpkin on here, these
| | 00:09 |
red posts in the front of it, and the
whole thing looks quite nice.
| | 00:12 |
But if we just photograph the whole
scene.
| | 00:15 |
It's going to be okay, but it's not going
to be a great photograph.
| | 00:18 |
What I want to do is actually focus on
individual details.
| | 00:21 |
Now we're going to do this two different
ways.
| | 00:22 |
First, I want to get a shot of a
particular detail up nice and close.
| | 00:26 |
And that's going to be this brass doorknob
right here.
| | 00:28 |
And then I'm going to photograph the red
post in front up close, but we're going to
| | 00:31 |
make sure we include the green door in
the background, so you can see the rest
| | 00:34 |
of the story.
So lets start with the brass handle here.
| | 00:38 |
By getting up nice and close like this,
and filling the frame with it.
| | 00:42 |
I can really tell the story of the door
knob, and we can see this door knob in
| | 00:46 |
all of detail.
The detail of the paint around it and so
| | 00:50 |
on, and it really makes for quite a nice
photograph.
| | 00:55 |
Now let's get back over here to this red
post.
| | 00:57 |
I'm going to get down nice and low, and fill
the frame with the red post, but I want to
| | 01:02 |
be sure that I include the green door in
the background.
| | 01:08 |
So now as you can see, we have this
really nice photograph of the red post,
| | 01:10 |
but we're also showing the door in the
background, so we see the whole story here.
| | 01:15 |
So once again we have this beautiful
scene but by focusing on a particular
| | 01:17 |
detail we're doing a better job of
telling the story.
| | 01:20 |
Now let's take a look at another example,
where we're going to find what appears to be
| | 01:24 |
nothing of interest at all.
But by finding a really nice detail in
| | 01:28 |
there, we'll actually be able to make a
nice photo.
| | 01:32 |
Sometimes in an environment like this,
it's not immediately obvious that there's
| | 01:34 |
anything really interesting to
photograph.
| | 01:37 |
So again by looking for those details, we
can find something that might actually
| | 01:40 |
make a nice photo.
So for example, at first glance this is
| | 01:43 |
not really that attractive, there's not
much here to shot.
| | 01:46 |
But if we look closely and look for a
subtle detail, we might find something
| | 01:49 |
worth photographing.
So for example, these little flowers here
| | 01:52 |
are actually quite pretty.
So if I get really nice and close to em,
| | 01:56 |
and make sure that the background is well
out of focus.
| | 02:01 |
What I can end up with is actually a
pretty nice photo.
| | 02:03 |
These little flowers here, have lots of
beautiful detail to em, and by getting
| | 02:06 |
close to them and photographing them,
with nice depth of field, shallow depth
| | 02:08 |
of field, so the background goes out of
focus.
| | 02:12 |
We end up with something really quite
nice.
| | 02:14 |
Now let's take a look at one more
example, where we're going to put
| | 02:16 |
everything together into one final shot.
There's one more little detail that I
| | 02:21 |
want to focus on here in this garden.
As you can see, these rocks down here
| | 02:26 |
have some nice texture, and even some
nice colors to them.
| | 02:29 |
So, let's get a nice, close-up, detailed
photograph of these rocks.
| | 02:35 |
I'll start by getting in nice and close,
filling the frame, and what we end up
| | 02:38 |
with is well, it's a pretty decent
photograph of this rock in here.
| | 02:43 |
We can definitely see the color and the
texture in here, but the overall photo
| | 02:45 |
isn't all that interesting.
So now what I want to do is put together
| | 02:49 |
everything that we've learned here about
perspective, angle and detail, and just
| | 02:52 |
by shifting my position a little bit, we
can make a much more interesting photograph.
| | 02:57 |
I also want to take advantage of this
horizontal line on the rock and introduce
| | 03:00 |
that as a graphical element in the
photograph.
| | 03:03 |
So I'm going to change my position, change
my perspective here and get a bit of a
| | 03:07 |
different angle, and photograph that
again.
| | 03:11 |
(audio playing)
So as we can see here, we now have a much
| | 03:14 |
more interesting photograph.
The horizontal line of the rock has added
| | 03:18 |
a really nice graphical element to the
photo.
| | 03:21 |
So keep all these things in mind when
you're out shooting.
| | 03:24 |
Perspective, angle and detail, three very
important ideas that if you keep in your
| | 03:28 |
head while your out shooting will
dramatically improve your photography.
| | 03:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Buying New GearLenses and bodies and tech, oh my!| 00:01 |
When it comes to buying camera gear, it's
really easy to get carried away.
| | 00:04 |
It's an incredible hobby but it can also
be a very expensive hobby.
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So, I want to talk a little bit about the
equipment that I have in front of me
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here, some of the choices that you can
make when you're spending your hard
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earned cash on your camera gear and just
basically how to divide your money if
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you're starting from scratch.
So let's actually start with that.
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Let's say that you have a budget of a
grand.
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And that's what you're going to spend on a
camera and a single lens.
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So how do you decide how to divide that
budget?
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In general here's what I like to tell
people.
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Spend about a third of your money on the
camera body.
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And the other two thirds on a lens.
And here's why.
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A camera lens will last your entire life.
As long as you take really good care of
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it and you buy quality gear to begin
with, this will never have to be replaced.
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The body, on the other hand, is something
that you're likely to want to replace after
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just a number of years.
So if you put all your money into the
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body, chances are you're not going to get
the most out of your investment.
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Now let's just say that you decide you're
going to start out with something like this.
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This is a Rebel series camera, which is a
lower cost camera body, and it's a
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perfectly good body to start with.
When you buy this camera, you can get the
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kit lens that comes with it, which is
just a pretty cheap, kind of plasticy
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lens, or you can choose to buy the body
on its own, and then choose a better,
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higher quality lens to go with it, and
that's what I really think you should do
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because that lens will last you for a
really long time.
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Where as after a couple years, you're
probably going to want to replace the body.
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When you're talking about the money that
you're going to put into the camera body,
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something like this is going to cost you a
couple hundred dollars.
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This range is going to cost you a couple
thousand, and this range is going to cost
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you several thousand.
So of course, unless you're a working
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professional photographer, you don't need
a camera like this.
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If you've got the cash, this is a
fantastic range of camera to buy.
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This kind of middle to upper range DSLR.
It's a fantastic body, it'll last you for
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a really long time, and it's really good
quality.
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But don't feel bad if you can't afford
this.
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Because this type of camera, a lower end
camera, is still really really good.
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And again, what makes the difference is
the lenses.
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So let's talk a little about the lenses
themself.
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And a difference between a lower cost and
a higher cost lens.
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The cheapest lenses, like the one on
here.
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Are generally made of plastic.
And aren't going to last very long.
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So again, you want to put a little bit
more money into the lens.
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Let's start with these two lenses as an
example.
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These are both 50 millimeter lenses.
Now 50 mill is a really good all purpose
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lens to have This one costs about $125
retail which means you can actually get
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it cheaper on the streets.
This one right here is also 50 millimeter
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and this costs over $1600 retail.
So what's the difference.
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Well first of all, this ones made of
plastic and it's alsoINAUDIBLE 1.8 so
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it's not terribly fast.
However, for the money this is the
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fastest lens that you can buy for very,
very little cash.
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This lens, on the other hand, is an F1.2,
and if I hold the two up side by side,
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you can clearly see the difference.
A lot more glass goes into that F1.2 lens
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than goes into the 1.8.
What this means is I can shoot in much
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lower light, and it also means that I'm
going to have a much shallower depth of field.
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In fact with this lens, the depth of
field can be so shallow, that if I get
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close to the subject, and focus on their
eye, their eyelash might be out of focus.
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Now it sounds a bit extreme, but it does
allow you to get very shallow depth of
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field, from a distance, which is what
lenses like this are for.
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Another lens that's a similar vain, is
this one here, the 85 1.2.
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As you can see, this is just a swimming
pool for light.
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It is a massive, massive piece of glass.
It's a very expensive lens, but it also
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gives you that incredibly shallow depth
of field that is ideal for portraits.
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This is a wedding photographer's dream
lens.
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But you don't always have to spend this
kind of money.
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Let's take a look at something else here.
This is a telephoto lense, a telephoto
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zoom and it's a 70 to 200 F4.
This is about a midrange lense.
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You can buy a cheaper version of this
lense and you can buy a much more
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expensive one as well.
The 70 to 200 F2.8 is the photojournalist lense.
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It is an incredible piece of equipment.
It's big, it's heavy, it's durable, it
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will last forever, and it is amazing.
But this lens cost about a third as much.
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It's F4 so it's a little bit slower, but
it's incredibly sharp.
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This is an absolutely beautiful lens to
work with, and it'll save you a whole lot
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of money.
If you don't need that 2.8, and chances
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are you really don't in a long telephoto,
this lens will save you a lot of money
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and last you just as long.
If you spend less than this, you can buy
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one that has a variable aperture.
That's a lens that says for example it
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goes from, 70 to 200, and F5.6, to F8
maybe.
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At 200 millimeter it's F8, at 70 it's
F5.6.
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It's not really ideal, and that's
definitely not the higher quality lens.
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If it's all you can get, then that's
fine.
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But if you can, save your money and buy
something like this.
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It will last you a lot longer, and the
overall quality is a lot better.
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Now let's talk about some of the other
toys that you can buy.
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There's lenses like this.
This is a fisheye lens.
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You can see the curvature of the lens
here, and this gives you a super, super
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wide field of view, and it distorts,
dramatically around the edges.
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It's kind of a specialized lens but it's
a lot of fun to shoot with.
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This is a macro lens.
This is a 100 millimeter macro, and this
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is designed for shooting very, very close
photos.
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This is great for shooting flowers, or
anything that you want to get super super
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close to.
But here's another tip about this lens.
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This is one of the sharpest lenses that
Canon makes.
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>> On the Nikon and Sony realm, you'll
also find that their macro lenses are
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incredibly sharp.
The relatively inexpensive compared to
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something like this 85 millimeter
portrait lens here.
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And they're incredibly sharp, they're
quite fast, and these make fantastic
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portrait lenses even though they're sold
as macro lenses.
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Now one of the cool thing about (no
period) This is a macro ring light.
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This snaps onto the front, and now you
have a flash on the front of your lens,
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that you can photograph flowers, and
other things up close, without having a
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lot of available light.
So this is another really cool accessory,
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if you're into shooting macros.
Now here's the thing about all this gear.
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You don't have to buy the gear that your
manufacturer makes.
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So this is all Canon gear here.
So these are Canon cameras, and these are
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all Canon lenses.
>> Here I've got a Nikon, here I've got
| | 06:04 |
a Sony.
And here I have a lens made by a company
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called Tamron.
Sigma is another manufacturer that makes
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third-party lenses that can go on any of
these cameras.
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So if you can't quite afford the really
high-end 7200 lens from Canon for
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example, you might be able to afford the
similar lens, or in some cases almost
| | 06:20 |
identical lens, from another
manufacturer.
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Again, like Tamron or Sony.
Sometimes these lenses aren't very good,
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but sometimes they're amazing.
And in fact, sometimes the third party
| | 06:32 |
lenses actually get better reviews than
the native lens, the lenses made by the
| | 06:35 |
original manufacturer.
And the only way that you can know this,
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is to do your homework.
And what I recommend you do, is go to a
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website called dpreview.com This website
is incredible, they have very very good,
| | 06:46 |
very thorough, and very unbiased reviews
that show you just how good the gear is.
| | 06:52 |
You can read pages and pages of
information about the gear before you
| | 06:55 |
make the buying decision.
And you can find out exactly what you're
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getting into before you plunk down your
hard earned cash.
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So that's basically what I reccommend
that you do.
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Again is a summary.
Whatever your budget is.
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If your starting out.
Spend a third on the body.
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Two thirds on the lens.
And go from there.
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Buy lenses that your going to use for the
rest of your life.
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And buy a body that you know your going
to replace within a couple years.
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Because that's just progress.
These things change every year dramatically.
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These guys, really don't.
The lenses that are coming out today, are
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virtually identical to the ones that came
out a few years ago, five, and even ten
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years ago.
The cameras are changing so much, every
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year, that you pretty much are guaranteed
you're going to want to buy a new camera
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within a couple years anyway.
So again, that's how I'd advise you to
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spend your money.
Do your homework.
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Make sure you're buying something that
you're going to be happy with for a long time.
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And you're going to love your career in
photography.
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