PhotoWalkPro

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The last thing I did before leaving San Diego was spend some time at the zoo.  Yes, it’s true, I actually paid the $37 to get in but it was such a beautiful day and I had so much time to kill that I figured it would be money well spent, and it was.  I saw all of the great exhibits that the park is famous for and enjoyed the beautiful sites and sounds of nature.

There is one thing that you’ll see more of at the zoo than animals is cameras.  And it also seems that every time I visit a zoo, I see more and more DSLR’s.  With that in mind, I thought I would share some tips for getting better shots at the zoo.

1. To really get the type of intimate images that focuses on the animal and not the environment, you will want a long lens.  The longer the better.  I have three lenses that I use for zoo close-ups, a 70-200mm, 70-300mm, and 80-400mm.  Many zoo enclosures are designed to keep some distance between you and the animals.  A long lens will help cut the distance and get you close again.

2. If you are going to use a long lens, you might want to consider using a monopod as well.  Tripods can be cumbersome when getting through the crowds at a zoo.  The monopod option is easy to transport and still gives the measure of stability you sometimes need when working with long focal lengths.

3. Move close to the enclosure.  Whether it’s a wire mesh or bars, you are bound to get a better shot by moving your camera as close as possible to the obstruction.  The closer the fence is to the lens, the greater chance that it will be blurred so far out of focus that you won’t see it in the image.

4. Another way to help blur those obstructions is to shoot as wide open as possible.  This really serves two purposes.  First for the reason just mentioned, large apertures help blur objects close to the lens.  The second reason is to work with a very shallow depth of field.  This will help put the emphasis on the animals and off of the possibly distracting backgrounds.

5. Try visiting on an overcast day.  If that isn’t possible, try to work in the shadows if at all possible.  The truth is that many zoo environments contain open-air enclosures for the animals and are often in full-sun, which creates harsh shadows and very contrasty scenes.  Cloudy, overcast days, or shaded locations will provide more saturated colors, better details, and a better overall image.

6. Finally, be patient.  Find a good vantage point and don’t settle for whatever shot you can get.  Animals in captivity will move about their enclosures sooner or later and your patience will pay off in the end.  I have seen some photographers who have camped out for hours at the same enclosure just to get the perfect shot.  I’m not suggesting that but you should plan on spending some time to get good shots.  If an animal isn’t out where you can get a good picture, try swinging back later to see if the situation has changed.  I am betting that your persistance will pay off for you in the end.

The other day I was taking some pictures for the new book when I noticed that things just weren’t looking sharp.  I’m not talking about the images coming out of the camera, rather the actual scene I was looking at through the viewfinder.  At first I thought it was the lens focus but all of my images looked razor sharp on the LCD and again in my computer.  Then the thought hit me, maybe it’s not the camera, maybe it’s me.

In the past year or so my reading vision has begun to deteriorate.  Yes, it’s true. I am one of those people that now needs to hold things further and further away to see them clearly (luckily I have long arms).  I have resorted to wearing reading glasses for really small text but the thought never occurred to me that it would effect my view through the camera.  Sure enough, I made a minor adjustment to the viewfinder diopter and everything snapped into crisp focus once again.

Here’s a quick and easy way for you to check your diopter adjustment as told to me by my friend Anne Cahill from Nikon NPS.

♦ Locate the diopter adjustment for your DSLR.  It’s usually somewhere near the viewfinder and is either a slide or knob.
♦ Remove your lens from the camera.
♦ Now look through the camera and point it to a blank, light colored wall.
♦ Adjust the diopter until the auto-focus points and other markings that appear in the middle of the viewfinder appear sharp.

You should definitely consider doing this if you shoot while wearing glasses or your vision is changing.  Also, your knob or adjustment slider might just get moved over time so check it out and see what you’ve been missing.

Have a great weekend!

Have you ever looked at one of your images that was taken with a wide-open aperture setting and noticed that the focus is off?  Maybe it appears to be behind where you thought you focused?  This may be due to the lens system doing something called back-focusing.  Usually it’s not extreme and only really noticeable when shooting wide-open but if you are doing any sort of macro work, it can be very frustrating.  You can also have the opposite problem where the area of sharp focus is in front of the intended focus point, called front-focus.  The easiest way to check this is to print a focus chart, put your camera on a tripod at a 45° angle, focus on the center point using the auto-focus, with the lens set wide open, take a photo, and then look at your image on your computer at 100%. Read the rest of this entry »

I was working on some images yesterday when I discovered something about the Adjustment Brush that I never knew before.  While burning in an area of the image, I was wishing that I could use the brush for straight lines like I do in Photoshop.  If you want to paint a straight line in Photoshop, I simply click with the brush in one spot and then hold down the Shift key and click in another area and Photoshop draws a straight line between the two spots. Read the rest of this entry »

I was reading an email that I had received from someone that had purchased my Canon 50D: From Snapshots to Great Shots book and they asked me a great question.  How do you know what F-Stop to start with? This is actually a pretty common question and it’s one that I heard several times over the past couple of weeks while teaching a photography class in Malaysia.  The truth is that there is no simple answer.  A lot of the decision depends on other factors that go in to determining an appropriate exposure setting like; What is the best ISO for the scene? Do I need to use a fast shutter speed because I am going to be hand-holding my camera? How much light do I have to work with? and on and on.

Depending on the subject you are shooting, you will want to vary the amount of depth of field in your image.  Remember that there is only one plane of focus but the depth of field will render a range of acceptable focus depending on the selection of the aperture.  This also has a lot to do with your distance to the subject and the length of the lens.  Wide angle lenses have a greater apparent depth of field due to the wide angle of view, which makes everything look smaller and thus sharper.  Remember that everything looks sharper and more in focus when it’s smaller, which is why I always tell people to zoom in on their LCD screens.  Everything looks great on a 3″ screen.  A longer lens will offer a more narrow field of view and make everything look larger.  Long lenses can also produce a more narrow depth of field than wide angle lenses.

So with all of these things to consider, where does one start?  Well, you could start with your sharpest aperture setting.  This will usually be one of the f-stops in the middle of the range of available f-stops for your lens.  It is also referred to as the sweet spot and it’s usually somewhere around f/8 or f/11.  This doesn’t mean that you should always shoot at f/8.  For example, if I am shooting a landscape or panorama, I will try to use a smaller f-stop (f/16 or 22) to get a greater apparent depth of field from near to infinity.

If I’m shooting a portrait, I will tend to go the other direction by selecting a larger aperture opening (f/4 or 5.6) so I can narrow the depth of field and place more emphasis on my subject while blurring distracting background objects.

It’s possible to see the effects of your aperture setting as it relates to depth of field by using your camera’s Depth of Field Preview button.  Most lenses do not close their aperture down until the moment the photo is captured.  This is done so that you have the brightest possible view in your viewfinder.  When pressed, the DOF Preview button will close the lens down to the selected f-stop and will allow you to actually see how much depth of field you are getting at the chosen f-stop.  It also makes the image in the viewfinder appear darker at smaller f-stops due to the lower amount of light coming in through the lens when it is stopped down.  Note that not all cameras have a DOF Preview button so consult your owner’s manual.

While the DOF Preview is a good starting point, the only way to really determine just what the proper f-stop should be is through experience.  Sometimes it’s a good idea to shoot at multiple f-stops just to see which one you like the best.  Over time you will develop an eye for what will look good with a lot of depth of field and what would look better with just a little.  From that point you will be able to adjust the other camera settings to get just the look you are after.

See, I told you it wasn’t simple,  but with practice, it will get easier.

For a little more on Depth Of Field, check out my post on Hyper Focal Distance.

Most photographers know that the tripod is an indispensable tool for capturing long exposures but so often I see it used in an unstable manner.  Most tripods have a center column that can be raised to offer an even higher vantage point for your camera.  The problem is that the higher the column is raised, the more unstable your camera becomes.

Think of it like a tall skyscraper.  As it reaches further up into the sky, it actually moves from side to side as a result of the wind.  This is the same effect that you can get from raising your center column.  And though you won’t get a 16′ side to side motion like the Sears Tower, you will get enough motion to add a soft blur to your image, especially on a windy day.  To ensure that you are getting the maximum stability from your tripod, keep the column all the way down so that the camera is resting at the apex of the tripod legs.  This position will provide maximum stability for your camera and help you to get tack-sharp images.