Safari-Express "Photography Tips"

HOW TO TIPS
    GENERAL PHOTOGRAPY TIPS
    LIGHTING TIPS
    BIRDS IN FLIGHT
    OTHER FOCAL TIPS

GENERAL PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS
Outdoor Photographer by John Shaw - June 1998

Tip 1 If there's an amazing sky, include a lot of it - This should sound rather obvious, but don't forget to look at the sky itself. Good skies, combined with good foregrounds, yield good opportunities. And check out the clouds themselves for shapes and forms. Booming cumulus clouds are very dramatic. Fleecy, high-altitude clouds are more subtle, but they can be equally interesting. You might want to pick up a weather field guide so you can identify all those different kinds of clouds.

Tip 2 Use a Polarizing filter, but use it carefully - Polarizer’s are well-known for making the blue sky record on film as a saturated, dark blue. Most of the current E-6 films (Fujichrome, Velvia and Sensia and Kodak E100S and E100SW) already have saturated colors, so don't overdo the use of a polarizer. After all, you don't have to turn a polarizer until it's at the very strongest effect. Don't expect a polarizer to improve a gray, overcast sky -- it will have no effect whatsoever. Polarizer’s exhibit their strongest effect on clear, blue skies when used at a right angle to the sun's axis. Point your index finger at the sun, then extend your thumb at a 90° angle to your finger, like a child's imitation play pistol. Keep your index finger pointed at the sun and rotate your wrist; your thumb will travel in a plane across the sky, which is the area of maximum polarization, the area which will darken the most. Wide-angle lenses accentuate this band of polarization because they ‘see' so much of the sky. Consider a 24mm lens, which has a picture angle of about 84°. Shoot through a polarizer, and one pan of the frame might record as a deep blue polarized sky while the other side will exhibit the polarization effect. This isn't a polar 'polarizer problem, but rather a lens coverage problem. If the graduated tone in the sky bothers you, there are several possible solutions. One is to use your Wide-angle lens in a vertical composition rather than a horizontal one. In effect, this cuts down the picture angle, limiting the angle of view across the sky and, consequently, reducing the shift in polarization. Or shoot with a longer focal length lens. Once you get to about 135mm or longer, the lens' sky coverage is narrow enough that a polarizer's effect will be quite uniform. Polarizer’s are available in both linear and circular models (both are round filters), but most current AF cameras need the latter to meter correctly. Usually, I determine if I want to use a polarizer by simply looking through the filter itself while I'm holding it up to my eye.

Tip 3 If you have a blank, featureless sky, crop tightly - In compositional terms, a blank, featureless sky is extremely difficult to handle since nothing is going on up there. The worst possible thing you can do is let that area of a single, dull tonality take up a lot of a photographic frame. If there are no clouds in the sky or the even toned sky area you include. Don’t let that cloudless blue sky or the even toned sky at twilight and dawn take up half the frame. Emphasize the lines, shapes and forms in the foreground and include just a sliver of sky.

Tip 4 Shoot in bad weather - In photographic terms, bad weather is often good weather since it can offer moody, dramatic skies. I'm not suggesting that you go out and try to photograph in the pouring rain or driving snow, but just before and after storms the sky can be spectacular: the slate gray of distant storm clouds, the lines of rain reaching from cloud to ground and sky phenomena such as rainbows or sundogs. To enhance a rainbow, try using your polarizer. You'll discover you can either wipe out the rainbow totally (but why you'd want to get rid of a rainbow, I can't imagine) or emphasize it dramatically. Turn your polarizer as you view through the lens until you see the effect you like. By the way, the use of one of the rainbow effect filters is usually easily spotted. Real rainbows form in an arc 42° around a point directly opposite the sun when the sun is fairly low in the sky. I've seen too many "rainbow" shots taken at high noon on a clear, cloudless, day — impossible to say the least.

Tip 5 Make the sun or moon stand out in the frame - Ever wonder how those shots are taken showing a large sun or moon image?'Well, there are only two ways to make any portion of a picture appear larger. One is to get closer to the subject (just kidding here; space travel isn't an option for most of us.) The other is to use a long focal length lens. If you want both the foreground and the celestial object in focus, you'll need a ‘foreground' at some distance from your position. After all, you need enough depth of field to cover all the way out to infinity focus, yet a shutter speed every 100mm of focal length you use. For example, if you want the moon to be about 3mm in diameter on film, shoot with a 300mm lens. A 500mm lens gives about a 5mm diameter sun. You can see why shooting with a 50mm normal lens is so often disappointing; the resulting sun or moon image records quite tiny on the film at roughly ½mm in diameter. This rule of thumb works regardless of the film format you're using, whether 35mm, 2 ¼ roll film or 4x5. A 5mm diameter sun image just appears a lot larger on a 35mm slide with its 1 x l½ inch dimension than on a sheet of 4x6 film. Be careful about double exposing the moon into your skies. Both the moon and the Earth are lit by the same light source, our sun, The direction of the light falling on both should be the same. However, I've seen pictures of the full moon hanging over a side lit foreground landscape a physical impossibility on this planet. Must be a shot from another galaxy's planet by an alien photographer.

Tip 6 Make a sunstar - You can easily add a star-burst effect to any picture in which the sun is included. Hide most of the sun behind a subject-a tree or rock, for example then position yourself so that only a tiny point source of light peaks out. Stop your lens down as far as it will go, to the smallest aperture possible, and shoot. You'll automatically get that sunstar effect as a minute bit of light leaks around the diaphragm blades in your lens, This is very easy to do with a Wide-angle lens, which all by itself effectively turns the sun into a point source of light. ft's slightly harder to got that sunstar with a long focal length lens, as you must position the camera far more precisely.

Tip 7 Silhouette a subject against the dawn or twilight sky - At dawn and twilight, the sky often takes on beautiful shades of purple and orange. Any foreground object - a tree, rock formation or cactus, for example, will be sharply delineated against this color. Obviously, you'll want to use a tripod as the exposure times will be far beyond what you can safely handhold a camera. The only real problem you'll have is determining the exposure. Here's the solution: Spot meter the brightest area of the sky itself and place it at least one stop lighter than the meter reading. This ensures that the silhouetted object will be visible. With dark skies, opening up one stop will have no effect whatsoever on the black silhouette of the foreground and it will remain pure black. With a ‘light’ sky, the foreground will show up. If you use a medium-toned placement for the sky exposure, the object and the sky will be too close in tonality and will tend to blend together. This is especially true if you're shooting with a Wide-angle lens. The edges of the frame will naturally be darker than the center since the edges are effectively off-axis to the light source; consequently, any silhouetted object just disappears except in the center of the frame.

Tip 8 You can photograph gray skies, but not white skies - The worst sky of all to include in your picture is a pure white, overcast sky. High overcast is a great light for details, but a rotten light for scenic photos that include the sky. However, gray skies are another
story. The stark, gray skies of a bitter winter day can actually help convey the feeling of cold especially with a winter sun burning through the clouds. To my eye, a gray winter sky works best when the rest of the subject is monochromatic black and white. In essence, you're shooting a black-and-white picture, but using color film. In the summer, try to include as little as possible of a mediocre gray sky unless there are variations in tonality such as subtle shades of gray in the sky.

Tip 9 Keep the horizon level - Regardless of how spectacular your sky may be, a ‘leaning' picture will be far weaker than one where the horizon line is square with the word. We've all seen those shots that have a pronounced left or right tilt to them. I find myself holding my breath, waiting for the subject to slide off to one side and out of the frame. One reason you get tilted horizons is that most tripods are too short. Consequently you have to shoot from a slightly bent over position, leaning your head one way or the other to see through the viewfinder. If you use your right eye to view through the camera, you'll tip your head slightly to the left. Use your left eye, and your head will be cocked to the right. Whichever way you tilt your head, that side of the horizon will most likely and up dropped down slightly lower. There are some quick and easy solutions. Once you compose a shot using whichever eye you normally do to focus, view your composition again but with your other eye. You'll immediately notice any tilt. Changing the focusing screen in your camera to an architectural grid screen, with etched lines to use as a reference, is also a good idea, Best of all, once you've set up a shot, take a giant stop backwards, away from your tripod, Look at the camera back. You'll immediately see if it’s square with the world. If the camera is level, so is your photograph.

Tip 10 Watch out for lens flare and airplane contrails - Lens flare is a killer for scenic photography. Suddenly it seems like you're recording UFOs streaking across the frame. This is especially true if you're shooting with a zoom lens. Zooms are optically very complex, incorporating many elements so, consequently, light bounces around inside and between all the optical components.

MISCELLANEOUS
Memorize This!
By Jason Schneider
Popular Photography November 2004

12 essential facts, formulas, and photographic rules

What happens when your systems go belly-up, when all of that cutting-edge technology dies and you must rely on (gasp!) your own knowledge? It pays to have these basics in your head. They can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.

1. Sunny 16 rule The basic exposure for an average scene taken on a bright, sunny day is f/16 at a shutter speed equivalent to one over the ISO setting—that is, f/16 at 1/100 sec at ISO 100. From this you can interpolate, and try f/22 at the beach, f/11 on a cloudy-bright day, etc.

2. Moony 11, 8, and 5.6 rules There are many different rules that work well when shooting the moon. One favorite for a proper exposure of a full moon is f/11 at one over the ISO setting. For pictures of a half moon, use the same shutter speed at f/8, and for a quarter moon, use the same shutter speed at f/5.6.

3. Camera shake rule The slowest shutter speed at which you can safely handhold a camera is one over the focal length of the lens in use. As shutter speeds get slower, camera shake is likely to result in an increasing loss of sharpness. So, if you're using a 50mm lens, shoot at 1/60 sec or faster. Not enough light? Use a flash, tripod, or brace your camera against a solid object.

4. Anatomical gray card Metering off an 18-percent neutral gray card is a good way to get a midtone reading that will give you a good overall exposure of a scene. Forgot your gray card? Hold your open hand up so it's facing the light, take a reading off your palm, open up one stop, and shoot. (Various skin tones rarely account for even a full-stop difference.)

5. Depth of field rules When focusing on a deep subject, focus on a point about a third of the way into the picture to maximize depth of field, because the depth-of-field zone behind that point is about twice as deep as the depth-of-field zone in front of it. This works for all apertures and focal lengths, but the smaller the aperture and the shorter the focal length, and the greater the distance you shoot at, the greater the depth of field.

6. Largest digital print rule To calculate in inches the largest photo-quality print you can make with a digital camera, divide the vertical and horizontal pixel counts (see your manual) by 200. For critical applications, or if you want exhibition-quality prints, divide the pixel counts by 250.

7. Exposure rules The classic advice is, "Expose for the highlights, and let the shadows take care of themselves." This works with slide film and digital. But with negative film, especially color negative, you're better off overexposing by one stop.

8. Quick flash-fill rule When using an automatic flash unit that doesn't provide auto flash-fill ratios, set the flash's ISO dial to twice the ISO you're using. Meter the scene, select an f-stop, set the autoflash aperture to the same f-stop, and shoot. The resulting 2:1 flash-fill ratio will produce filled shadows one stop darker than the main subject.

9. Flash range rule Want to know how much extra flash range you get by going to a faster ISO? The rule is, "Double the distance, four times the speed." For example: If your flash is good to 20 feet at ISO 100 (film or digital), it will be good to 40 feet at ISO 400.

10. Megapixel multiplier rule To double the resolution in a digital camera, you must increase the number of megapixels by a factor of four—not two. Why? The number of pixels in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions must be doubled to double the pixel density across the image sensor.

11. Action-stopping rules To stop action moving across the frame that's perpendicular to the lens axis, you need shutter speeds two stops faster than action moving toward or away from you. For action moving at a 45-degree angle to the lens axis, you can use a shutter speed one stop slower. For example: If a person running toward you at moderate speed can be stopped at 1/125 sec, you'll need a shutter speed of 1/500 sec to stop the subject moving across the frame, and a shutter speed of 1/250 sec to stop him if moving obliquely with respect to the camera.

12. Sunset rule To get a properly exposed sunset, meter the area directly above the sun (without including the sun). If you want the scene to look like it's a half-hour later, stop down by one f-stop, or set exposure compensation to minus one.

Digital Cameras
Gadget Bag: Light Meters by Ibarionex R. Perello
Outdoor Photographer Jan/Feb 2002

The fact that a digital camera records images to a media card rather than film doesn’t make a good exposure any less important. A bad exposure will result in the loss of important information in the shadows and highlights. If the data isn’t there, no software will “fix it” later.

Most of today’s compact zoom digital cameras include a center-weighted metering system. Advanced models or digital SLRs will include a multi-pattern meter as well as a spot meter. Unlike a film camera, however, a digital camera provides you with the instant feedback of its LCD panel to reveal any exposure problems. If the image is too light or dark, you can immediately correct for it using exposure compensation or controlling the exposure manually.

Digital Horizons...
Outdoor Photographer Mar 2003

Losing your digital images can be a tragedy. Use these tips to keep them safe.

Your photographs are important to you. You want to be sure that they last and are available when you need them. In the past, we all worked to protect our images from attack by mold or water, damage from chemicals in plastics used for filing them and destruction from fire.

Today, we face new challenges. Just because an image is on your hard drive is no reason to feel secure. Recently, one of our staff editors had his hard drive on his home computer fail and he lost everything on it. This wasn't an old computer, either—it was about six months old. I also had a hard drive failure on a home machine, but luckily, my images were backed up. While modern hard drives are great, obviously, they can fail. If you've done nothing to protect your images, this can be a real tragedy.

Everyone has his or her own way of working, but here are some tips to help protect your images. Like flossing, though, they only work if you get into a habit of doing them.

DVD And CD Working File Backup. As you work on your images, back them up regularly to a removable, non-rewriteable disk, such as any of the DVD recordable
formats or CD-R, so the images can't be changed. DVD is still relatively new, but has a huge capacity, at almost 5 gigabytes per standard one-sided disk, compared with about 700 megabytes for a CD. Both can have files written to them in several sessions. Use the highest-quality media such as the DataLifePlus disks from Verbatim.