This is the 8th in the series of 10 Cool Features of Your Digital Camera You Should Know and Use. This feature more than any one we've talked about is more about having fun with your digital camera. My wife recently attended the wedding of a niece in another state and I didn't go because I had to stay home and work. When she got back she was showing me some of the photos she had taken and I asked her if she had videoed the ceremony. She gave me that look of "What are you talking about?" Turns out she didn't know that her little "point and shoot" has a movie mode. One of the many features currently being touted by the mid level DSLRs is HD (High Definition) movie mode. So apparently it is a fairly popular feature. I'd love to see how many of the home done YouTube videos were done with "still" cameras in movie mode. I'd venture to say the number is probably significant.
There are times when -mostly just for your own pleasure- movie mode is the way to go. My wife's niece's wedding is one of those where it might be nice to have the ceremony. Another one is babies first steps, or attempts at them anyway. And of course when you can see somebody is about to do something so stupid as to defy all reason and you can't talk them out of it (or maybe you didn't even try), but maybe you can become famous on YouTube or get rich on America's Funniest Home Videos. Movies don't have to be long to be fun to watch. Like looking at a photograph, sometimes you only need a few seconds to enjoy it. In addition, most digital cameras that have video mode include sound.
This photo of one of my darling grandchildren is certainly cute and tells a little bit of a story as you see her standing by the couch. Her mom and dad will always remember how cute she was as she was learning to move along on her own by holding on to furniture.
But why not add sound and motion? Sure, you can't put this in a standard photo album, but I think you can put it in most of the new digital photo frames. You can email it to family and friends, you can watch it on your computer and you can even show it as part of her wedding video in 20 years or so.
Get your camera manual out. By now you should know where it is since it should be right next to your camera. Read about movie mode and make a few movies. As always I'd love to hear from you about your experience with it. The most important thing is to have F U N !
This is the 7th in the series about 10 Cool Features of Your Digital Camera You Should Learn and Use. I started talking about "Using Scene Modes" in the last post of this series where I spent some time on the Portrait mode. Today I'll finish up our discussion of Scene Modes by talking about two other very common and handy modes.
I'm going to spend a minute on Landscape mode first because it is basically the opposite of Portait mode. If you remember - and I hope you do - Portait mode sets the focus up closer and strives to get a smaller depth of field (DOF) where Landscape mode - usually represented by two small mountain peaks - will set the focus at infinity and close the lens down to get more DOF. The advantage to you is that you don't have to worry about something close in to the camera setting the focus off if what you really want is that distant peak or tree or whatever it might be.
This week's guest photo is by a friend of mine, Chad Barton. Chad has taken many beautiful photos, but he especially loves Sunsets. Perhaps it is because he lives only 1/4 mile from the Eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake where he can quickly go and get some beautiful and dramatic sunset shots almost any evening where there are at least a few clouds in the vicinity. There may be more from Chad in the future to show off some of his other photo skills.
On at least two prior occassions on this blog I've committed to making a post a day (at least 5 days a week). The last one was here. But guess what, I didn't make it for very long either time. I feel a little bad about that, but not too bad because this last time began an evolution that took it from the old blog to where it is now, which is dramatically different than it was then. It is an extremely different look, and very different format, and a totally new concept and purpose. Hopefully now I'm ready to recommit and start getting something worthwhile to come and look at.
Yes, I'm still in the middle of a series about 10 Cool Features of Your Digital Camera You Should Learn and Use. That is part of the reason that I quite getting a post out every day. It took me a while to decide that it was okay to have regular posts and then insert the posts from that series. With the new format it's real easy to find and even isolate the articles from that series by simply clicking on the "10 Features Series" in any one of the posts' labels or in the "Labels" sidebar. The 10 Cool Features Series is just a jumping off point to help people with their photography, but mostly it helps me.
Here is today's photo. I'm not one who cares as much about what camera took the photo or what lens was used. I'll tell you on most of the photos I take now that I shoot in RAW format and then use Photoshop to process the RAW. If you want more information or you just want to share your opinion or ideas, please feel free to leave a comment.
We're already to the 6th post in the series about 10 Cool Features of Your Digital Camera You Should Learn and Use. But we're not to the 6th feature we're just on the third, and that is the scene modes. If you read the previous post about Computers With a Lens, you'll remember that I said that the digital camera engineers just took what good photographers already knew how to do and programmed it into the tiny computers attached to the lens and most manufacturers call them Scene Modes. Knowing that, then you can choose to use the scene mode if your camera has it, or if it doesn't, then simply reverse the process and do what good photographers have always done to accomplish the same thing.
One of the most used of the Scene Modes is the Portrait mode. Skilled photographers have always paid close attention to the background of their photo. A cluttered or busy background, or one that has too many colors and/or geometric shapes will distract from the subject. We've found that the best solution to that is two fold: 1. Find or create a pleasant background. 2. Soften the focus on it. When I'm using an indoor studio where I have total control I use a muted background with no real shape and which has homogeneous colors, and even then I try to create a soft focus and control the light on it. In other locations, whether indoors or out, I just try to pick a pleasant background and have it out of focus. Even the cleverest digital camera cannot control the background, but it can work on softening it. How does it do that? Refer back to the post on Macro mode where I showed several examples of flowers with varying depths of field (DOF) depending on the lens opening. You'll recall that the wider open the lens (the smaller the f number) the shallower the depth of field. So, when you select Portrait Mode (see your camera's owner's manual) the computer in the camera will tell the camera lens to open up wide. Then to compensate for light it will simply adjust the shutter speed so that the photo does not become over exposed. Some cameras might also warn the focusing mechanism that you will probably be closer to the subject and some might even apply a slight softening filter to reduce the detail in the skin to give your model their best possible look. It will probably also put your flash in auto with "red-eye reduction" on.
In this first photo you'll notice that the leaves in the background are almost in sharp focus and although it is a pleasing background it can still be distracting as you notice leaves and wonder what kind of tree it is. This portrait was taken with the lens at f11, which is closed down quite a bit so that it gives a pretty good DOF.
This is the 5th of the series about 10 Cool Features of Your Digital Camera You Should Know and Use. A digital camera is like a little box of magic. In the “old days”, (that would be 10 years ago) if you wanted a decent photograph you put an image through a lens on to film which was then processed and printed. Yes, digital cameras have been around a little longer than 10 years, but not much and the key word in that previous sentence was decent. I remember my first real encounter with a digital camera was when a friend had one of those Sony Mavicas and he took my photo standing next to a life size cut out of Elvis Presley and subsequently emailed it to me. The quality was terrible. You couldn’t tell which was Elvis and which was me. I wish I had kept the photo, at least for comparison. As I have told many people over the past few years, today’s digital cameras are a lens attached to a computer and with that computer we can do some amazing things. Think about how many people make their living by trying to come up with some teeny little thing that will make the next model just a little better so people like you and me will have to buy it. One of the things these great software engineers have come up with is “Scene Modes”.
All the good photographers from the “old days” knew how to make their portraits better by doing certain things. They also knew what they had to do to capture the best sports shots and how to take a better photo on the beach or skiers against the new fallen white snow and even how to get the best pictures of fireworks. Knowing this all the engineers had to do in these new computers with lenses was program into the computer those techniques. That way even people who were too busy or just didn’t care to take the time to learn could still get better photographs and when all is said and done, isn’t that the ultimate goal?
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