Chapter 8: What you should bring in your bag Flashcards
What is the basic equipment you need in your bag?
- Sturdy Camera
- A variety of lenses
- A strobe
- Plenty of batteries
- Lots of memory cards
What should you have for set for camera exposure?
Should have auto exposure
-Different metering types include spot, matrix(evaluative) or center-weighted
Metering sees the world in neutral gray be sure to take this into account in different lighting situations
-Open up the aperture a couple stops to adjust for the correction of a bright subject with a bright background and vice versa for a dark subject on a dark background
What is a histogram?
Use the histogram to view the exposure of a photo.
This shows you the highlights, low lights, and mid-tones in a picture in a graphical form.
A photo with average exposure will have tones distributed throughout the graph
Overexposed will have bars on the right and underexposed will have bars on the left.
When should you shoot in RAW or JPEG?
When shooting know what file type you shoot in.
JPEG has a smaller file therefore you can fit more information (photographs) on one card
To compress the photos for JPEG they throw out some “redundant” information, that could be used to edit the photo later
RAW is unprocessed and better for in camera adjustments to brightness and color balance, even improper exposure
How can you personalize autofocus?
Cameras with autofocus produces sharper pictures in certain situations such as following a moving target
You can set the autofocus to start when you hold the shutter halfway down
You can set up a secondary button to press when autofocus is needed
This is part of customizing your camera to your specific shooting style
How can you use shutter speed?
Beware of the digital delays between shot
- There is a delay from when you hit the shutter to the actual picture being taken, beware of your timing
- It also takes some time to dump each photo taken from the temporary memory to the Media it is being recorded on.
Use your LCD screen to examine sharpness and expression immediately
-You can also use the tools(histograms, graphs, etc.) on the camera, shown in the LCD, to create a better shot
What do different lenses do? What lenses should you bring in your bag?
Zoom lens
- Offers a range of focal lengths
- These work great for fast changes in subjects
- Used mainly outdoors due to the wide apertures
Telephoto lens
- Great for getting subjects at a distance
- When used at wide apertures it blurs your background
Stabilization/Vibration-Reduction Telephoto Lens
-This only eliminates hand/camera shake not subject movement.
Wide-Angle lens
- Allows you to get up close and personal with subjects
- Increases your depth of field, Difficult to blur backgrounds
- Greater chance for distortion, adjust the distance from the subject to fix this most of the time
Packing for anything
-Wide-medium zoom lens, medium-long zoom lens, 10-17mm for wide angles, have at least one stabilization lens, and sometimes a 300mm or 400mm telephoto
How can you keep the camera steady?
Tripods
- The most stable piece of equipment, although it hinders movement
- Used for portraits, low light, and slow shutter speeds
Monopods
- More mobile stabilizer, not going to be as steady as the tripod
- Used for athletics and holding up heavy lenses
What do you need to know about memory cards?
Usually going to be SD with current cameras
The Memory/Quality Trade-Off
- High quality images require more memory on the card
- If Print quality is the goal shoot high quality
Resolution and Compression
-Low quality pictures use less pixels and compress the image the most
What can you do with a digital darkroom?
If you have shot a great photo but it is low quality you may be able to fix it with photo editing software such as Photoshop by unsampling this only avoids obvious pixilation it does not add anything to your photo
Digital noise can be seen when shooting in low light or in too low quality the more you increase the size the more apparent it is.
How can you use colors correctly?
Be sure that the colors you use are appropriate to the story and does not take the viewers attention away from the subject or change the meaning of a photo
Time of day indicates what kind of light you will have, and changes the color of subjects as well as casting different shadows this can change the feel and meaning of a picture
How do the different times of day have different lights?
Dawn
Creates soft shadows and monochrome colors
Midday
Very harsh light
Hard shadows
Shoot in the shade if you shoot midday outdoors
Late Afternoon
More reds, that usually flatter the subject
Dramatic backdrops of the sunset sky
Shadows stretch to create a different feel
Evening
Colder Blue tones
Bland buildings and structures
