So You Are Going to Buy a New Lens

If you own a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera, then one of the purchases you will eventually want to make is another lens either to replace the kit lens that came with the camera or to complement it. For the most part, kit lenses are very good for the average amateur. But they have limited range, most being about 18 - 55 mm. This is a 3X zoom. How do you figure it out? Take the large number (55) and divide it by the small number (18). The answer is very close to 3, thus the 3X zoom.
There are a number of things that affect the cost of a new lens:

* What's the zoom range? Or, is it a "prime" lens - one which does not zoom?
* What's the maximum f stop or aperture opening?
* Does it have image stabilization? (Some manufacturers - Sony [ex Minolta], Pentax and Olympus - build stabilization into the camera rather than the lens.)
* Is it a "Pro" lens - which usually means it is made with low dispersion glass?
* Who is the manufacturer? Lenses made by the camera makers are generally more expensive than "3rd party" lenses made by companies like Sigma, Tokina and Tamron.

How to: Add Contrast and Saturation in PhotoFiltre

PhotoFiltre is a favourite program of mine. I have and use Picasa as my organizing software, PhotoFiltre as my "quick and dirty" editor, Adobe Lightroom, Elements and Photoshop CS2 as my high-end (read more complex) editors. If you are using PhotoFiltre, you can quite easily increase the contrast and saturation of your photos with minimal stress.

The Auto Gamma button will adjust both the brightness and contrast of your photo to what the program thinks should be correct. (I never use it!)

The Auto Contrast will adjust the contrast in the photo to a standard that the program thinks is correct for your photo. I generally try it. If it doesn't do what I want then I Undo it and go to the manual adjustments.

Manually adjusting the contrast is as simple as clicking on the Contrast + button once or twice. Be careful to not overdo it - you'll drive the shadows into complete blackness and the highlights (bright areas) into being "blown out".

Here is the Pyramid photo again with the contrast "way" overdone.


The colour saturation controls are used in the same way. Just click on the Saturation + button once or twice to boost the hue content of the photo. Again, don't overdo it or this time your photo will look like it's been hit with a dose of radiation and will glow in the dark!

Add a little contrast and Saturation

I find that my camera takes photos that are a little soft on contrast and sometimes undersaturated.

First, what do the words mean? A high contrast scene has very few middle or "gray" tones. A low contrast scene has an overall dull feeling - created by "gray" and dark tones. Most scenes have a normal contrast - some pure white, bright areas, some pure black dark areas and the rest of the image falls in the middle.

Saturation refers to the dominance of hue in the colour. The purer and brighter the colour, the more saturated it is or appears.

Looking at the original photograph taken at Giza, Egypt on a sunny morning in March, you can see that with the exception of the blue sky in the top left corner, the colours all look gray-ish and the colours are not particularly pure and bright.

Increasing the contrast in the photo will cause the "whites to be whiter and the blacks to be blacker" and thus do away with some of that gray feeling that the original imparts. It brings back the feeling of sunlight to the photo. Just be sure to not overdo the contrast increase - generally 10% is lots!

Remember too though that photographs are viewed subjectively - if you like it then it's fine. But...if you overdo your "corrections" to a photo, you may be the only one who likes it!

The overall feeling in the Sahara is that of yellow- orange rock and sand.
Although the contrast correction has brought the photo pretty much up to what the scene actually looked like, adding 5-10% of saturation to the overall image has caused the blues and overall reddish feeling of the pyramid and the sand to "pop".

All the corrections here were made with PhotoFiltre - a free photo editing program.

A Quick and Easy Tripod Substitute

Although it's no substitute for a real tripod, this video clip very nicely illustrates an old method for stabilizing your camera. There are drawbacks of course and one warning. Don't get overly enthusiastic about screwing that bolt into the bottom of your camera. Just till it's tight. If the bolt is too long (like that in the video) and you overtighten it, you will drive it through the bottom of your camera - not nice!


$1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod - video powered by Metacafe

Video - the Five Rules of Composition

There's a nice little video on the Five Rules of Composition. With minor argument - who says there's only five? What makes them "rules" rather than "guidelines"? It's a very nice little video. Take a look:


VideoJug: Photography: The Rules Of Composition

More Rules: Mergers

Going on about rules, there are a few "rules" that can actually be considered rules - that is, more than guidelines. (Well, I guess you can break them if you are looking for a particular effect.)

Probably one of the funniest effects that you can create, usually accidentally, is a merger. A merger simply refers to the instance where two unrelated objects meet in the image and appear to be joined together.

At the left is a lamp - really a statue in a hotel lobby with a lamp "growing out of its head". This is a deliberate merger in the name of furniture design.

The more usual merger is one like that on the right where there is a mast growing out of the lady's head. In many cases you will see photographs of trees, light poles and stop signs growing out of peoples' heads.

In most cases we don't even see mergers until someone points them out to us. Prior to photoshop and like software, you avoided mergers by carefully watching the backgrounds in the viewfinder before you took the image. Today, many mergers can be removed by using the clone brush in your photo editing program. At the left the mast and the rope or wire have both been removed from the photo.

Rules

There are various "rules" for making good photographs. Now I'm a big follower of rules - my training is as a mathematician and I'm good at programming computers, both of which require the knowledge of and the adherence to various rules and sets of rules. But I've got to wonder sometimes. I was asked to help judge some photographs for a local camera club and happily agreed since it's always good to see what others are doing and give some constructive criticism. One of the other judges nitpicked everything it seemed. And mostly it had to do with "rules".

One of the big rules in photography is the Rule of Thirds. If you divide a photograph into thirds with two vertical lines and two horizontal lines, then the centre of interest should lie on the intersection of a vertical and a horizontal line.

So as you can see in this photo of a boy fishing for carp, he is at the intersection of the right and bottom thirds.


There are various related "rules" that derive from the Rule of Thirds:

• the horizon should never divide the photograph into halves; don't have the horizon in the centre of the photo.
• don't put the subject or centre of interest "dead centre" in the photo.
• don't align verticals down the centre of the photo.
• watch your positioning so that various elements of your photos don't line up one above (or below) the other.
  

The problem I have with rules in photography is that they are really just GUIDELINES! In general, you'll get a better photo if the centre of focus, the subject sits on the intersection of thirds, but not always. Sometimes you can't get that arrangement. Sometimes you don't want that arrangement. But my biggest fear when a photography judge starts invoking rules is that a beginner takes it too much to heart.

In this photo of a "lobster claw" the plant occupies the left two-thirds of the photo. But it works - at least for me and that's what's important. Do YOU like the photo and its arrangement? If you like it then take criticism with a grain of salt. Is it possible to make the photo stronger by moving the centre of interest? In this photo I don't think so because the centre of interest is the whole plant.

In this sunset the horizon is a little crooked - it should be straight! (And I agree on this one - horizons should be horizontal otherwise you get the feeling the water is running out to one side.) But it does lie almost perfectly on the top third.

But the sailboat and the sun both break the "rule". The sailboat is almost dead centre and it is aligned directly under the sun and the sailboat is aligned in the reflection of sunlight in the ocean.

But again, I'm happy with this shot. The reflected sunlight leads you out to the boat and on to the sun as it sets over the Pacific. It works for me. A photo judge may not like it but I don't care!