tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60916594662275605502024-03-19T12:58:21.188+05:30PhotoMythraA blog about befriending the camera and understanding the aspects of photography.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-960055330290593562012-03-25T22:08:00.001+05:302012-03-25T22:08:18.932+05:30Let's get technical - Its ok to get hyper<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't panic - the title in no way refers to a psychological state of being; it refers to the concept of hyperfocal distances :). Now that we have spoken at length about the technicals of photography (aperture, shutter speed, focal length, depth of field, etc), I believe that the time is ripe to delve into this magnificent and magical funda of focussing in photography - the hyperfocal distance. This is the sweet, magical spot at which when you focus, the image seems to be in focus from some distance before that spot to infinity in the background. Have you ever wondered why despite the smallest aperture (for eg, f22) you are unable to bring all elements of a landscape shot into focus? The trick is to focus on this sweet spot!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Hyperfocal Distance</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the lens is focused at the hyperfocal distance, the depth of field extends from half the distance between the focus point & the lens, to infinity. This occurs at all aperture settings; you can get this effect even at the usual minimum f-value like f3.5 (you needn't push the dial up to f22 or anything remotely close to it). The hyperfocal distance differs on the basis of the focal length & aperture of the lens. For example, a 200mm lens could have the hyperfocal distance as 275 ft (hence the depth of field would range from 275/2= ~136ft to infinity) while a lens at 25mm could have it at 5 ft (dof ranging from 2.5ft to infinity). These values themselves would differ at different aperture values. As you must have inferred by now, you need to "know" the hyperfocal distance for each focal length beforehand. There are multiple options for you to be in the know of the hyperfocal distances, a few of which are listed below.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">1. Using the distance scale on lenses</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it's best explained through a video tutorial. There are many out there on youtube. See if get the gist of the depth of field scale (also called distance scale) that most lenses have on them, through this video tutorial. If not, ask & you will find many more in youtube.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/IOIuIO8By1c?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">2. Using tools/calculators</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For android users, this app comes highly recommended - <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aimenrg.dof&hl=en" target="_blank">DOF Calculator</a>. Amongst other features, it has a hyperfocal distance calculator which takes the focal length, aperture & camera model to reveal the hyperfocal distance for this set of parameters.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMoTqjo8D-LlgQUDreepzyjell80xyHUbtLbkFaNgSxJQ0Dfanq-J1u4kIb9z_vbcW67qFlmavwfHhe6slspna7uXLLLlOoCOwLWM2JqNaj4AQF9MxoKq8EWfOzzWAlnp1RHVrQke5b7g/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMoTqjo8D-LlgQUDreepzyjell80xyHUbtLbkFaNgSxJQ0Dfanq-J1u4kIb9z_vbcW67qFlmavwfHhe6slspna7uXLLLlOoCOwLWM2JqNaj4AQF9MxoKq8EWfOzzWAlnp1RHVrQke5b7g/s1600/2.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Dne-QiCwoxbo7rxxQy7672NgEI8BO71n8jk-u6E5rNHvW6ctYWHyoPRDWH6_DnSWQPydyzzvabprs1DEVJctU-fjp3oPS-DvdBAsMY4b7jvqvpFRLRYt-ife2Y_UAe7NmMpgUszA7aw/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Dne-QiCwoxbo7rxxQy7672NgEI8BO71n8jk-u6E5rNHvW6ctYWHyoPRDWH6_DnSWQPydyzzvabprs1DEVJctU-fjp3oPS-DvdBAsMY4b7jvqvpFRLRYt-ife2Y_UAe7NmMpgUszA7aw/s1600/1.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am unaware of any such apps for windows or apple phones (not that they don't exist) and so have not written about them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want to, and if you prefer the old school methods, you can also calculate the hyperfocal distance with your trusty pen and paper using the hyperfocal equation which is primarily a function of focal length & aperture. Don't get swayed by the simplicity of the <a href="http://www.dofmaster.com/equations.html" target="_blank">equation </a>- it needs detailed understanding of a multitude of fundas before you can grasp the equation in its entirety. I myself chose to fall back on the android app rather than lose hair over the equation :).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet another option is to simply print and carry a detailed chart/table of the settings and the resultant hyperfocal distances. One such chart is available in pdf format <a href="http://www.photo-nat.com/Newsletters/hyperfocal.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">See it to believe it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check out the below images to see the difference for yourselves. The second image seems like it is in focus from -∞ to +∞, doesn't it? That's the magic of the sweet spot :)</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfj-g0FdQOmQ3zdXnXIVfy7yvujjAnDOuhwczdU9oA83eacMhMggtJaMghqeBgLwvL9-PeFkZZ9lr-zwasm0E0s_uKpz3nRr5ZnjfQbbfwS0c41XbFi67B0XV4TJDRXBw5bZtb_BFEj8/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfj-g0FdQOmQ3zdXnXIVfy7yvujjAnDOuhwczdU9oA83eacMhMggtJaMghqeBgLwvL9-PeFkZZ9lr-zwasm0E0s_uKpz3nRr5ZnjfQbbfwS0c41XbFi67B0XV4TJDRXBw5bZtb_BFEj8/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without hyperfocal distance</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLnC1SktrGSHPGVSht9xrVbMC6hzK0akV-X3LA58qkf7gJScvOPICXkOJWtqaxY44zbYY5S0RETFNTkV55S-y2mZ26Yiw3jks7AL_rWrX2f6Caeqj4uNR5Y3EGbIW90-kCCZOF83AOzw/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLnC1SktrGSHPGVSht9xrVbMC6hzK0akV-X3LA58qkf7gJScvOPICXkOJWtqaxY44zbYY5S0RETFNTkV55S-y2mZ26Yiw3jks7AL_rWrX2f6Caeqj4uNR5Y3EGbIW90-kCCZOF83AOzw/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Focused at hyperfocal distance</span></td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-11904723813196577262012-03-11T17:02:00.002+05:302012-03-11T18:03:01.394+05:30Let's get technical - Wadda Focus!<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost a decade ago, when I got my hands on the new kid on the block - the digital camera, a feature in it that marked a major shift from film-photography was the auto-focus (AF) mechanism. The camera has some intelligent and sometimes bewildering intelligence in it, one such mark-of-a-genius trait being the AF mechanism. Have you ever wondered how the camera achieves such sharp focus effortlessly, while being equally stubborn at other times? In this post, let's look at how the AF mechanism works, thus moving a step closer to understanding your camera and avoiding embarrassing moments when it refuses to focus on your friends :) </span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Types of Auto-Focus (AF) mechanisms</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AF mechanisms are broadly classified as either ACTIVE or PASSIVE. In the former mode, the AF mechanism emits waves, infrared or infrasonic (like a submarine's SONAR) and gauges the distance between the lens and the subject. The passive mechanism is named as such because there are no signals sent from the camera to the subject for calculating the distance between the lens and subject; instead the AF software inside the camera analyses the image to achieve optimal contrast obtained at different positions of the focusing ring. Most of the contemporary cameras use the passive mode because of the problems inherent in the active mechanism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Active Mechanism</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are multiple problems associated with the active mechanism, which are aggravated when you are not in control of the environment. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Infrared interference: if the AF mechanism uses IR rays for calculating the distance, an attempt to focus near a halogen bulb or fire or a candle would throw the AF mechanism off balance.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Transparent surfaces: using SONAR for calculating the distance would ruin the focusing attempt, were a glass or windshield to be introduced between the camera and the subject since the sound waves would bounce off the glass instead of reaching the subject.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The passive AF mechanism quickly changes the focus a few times and compares the contrast of the images obtained. Based on which focus setting offers the best contrast, the camera chooses that as the optimal focus. This is based on the fact that a sharply focused image shows higher contrast than a poorly focused image. Well, as true as that maybe, only a genius could have tapped into such an obvious fact and used it as a means of focusing. Hats off to such Einsteins!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So why doesn't my camera focus?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you understand the meaning of the term "contrast", then it is pretty easy for you to understand why the passive AF mechanism may act stubbornly at times. Contrast is the difference between the light and dark areas/pixels in the image. If the contrast is low, the image does not look rich in color; it looks dusty or dull. As you increase the contrast, the darker areas become darker and bright pixels become brighter. Also, given an illumination setup, the image shows best contrast when sharply focused.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Compare the low and high contrast images below. Note the difference in color levels and hence, the clarity of the image.</span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9G7ebnureAWksIWYHK4ers5fcr0M-LFVZSs8e_RfRdivDHjIJHsMismdTKkmxtbhNpI1axo3aoZWaN1vWUOIBy_XmGK7oZZHE3iXbshyKEbC5D2DlM48AbHAcydLrTg-MT5UvehWJsyk/s1600/DSC_0312+copy.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9G7ebnureAWksIWYHK4ers5fcr0M-LFVZSs8e_RfRdivDHjIJHsMismdTKkmxtbhNpI1axo3aoZWaN1vWUOIBy_XmGK7oZZHE3iXbshyKEbC5D2DlM48AbHAcydLrTg-MT5UvehWJsyk/s200/DSC_0312+copy.JPG" width="200" /></a></td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZvF0EYcfr9uQ4MqRkVOEipznkRGplwUvszYtcLJhFbVx6FhMEIUugZnFR-9a_p5exhNAAVanBu8eknP4WucEtzCcKg00Kl90cTA6tSKQ5YlsP-wR2BbsR-HoHlLbajj6qxXplg0S8BE0/s1600/DSC_0312.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZvF0EYcfr9uQ4MqRkVOEipznkRGplwUvszYtcLJhFbVx6FhMEIUugZnFR-9a_p5exhNAAVanBu8eknP4WucEtzCcKg00Kl90cTA6tSKQ5YlsP-wR2BbsR-HoHlLbajj6qxXplg0S8BE0/s200/DSC_0312.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">High Contrast</span></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Low Contrast</span></td>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if your camera is letting you down on occasions, check the below list and see if any of these is the reason:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The frame is almost uniformly colored: this happens when you try to focus on a clear sky, single-colored and uniformly lit wall or object. Since all the pixels have almost the same values, the camera cannot identify the contrast level in the image and hence cannot perform contrast based AF. In the below image, I tried to focus on a white wall but could not because of the lack of contrast.</span></li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3wTxSR9YJeVshA8N08bw0XUGnirZZ-ECCVgd2hyphenhyphenm_kjEgzg5ADhkUapkYwCAoUJZcwcUm_TniCfXNYRGCi7AJybD3g8OByGi_jzYdKdRM1IQj1McW6j3qc61Wf_cId36CDliBX2dObI/s1600/20120311_171659.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3wTxSR9YJeVshA8N08bw0XUGnirZZ-ECCVgd2hyphenhyphenm_kjEgzg5ADhkUapkYwCAoUJZcwcUm_TniCfXNYRGCi7AJybD3g8OByGi_jzYdKdRM1IQj1McW6j3qc61Wf_cId36CDliBX2dObI/s200/20120311_171659.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">White wall</span></td></tr>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moving subject: this happens if the subject is in motion while you are struggling to focus on it. Since the pixels are moving, the 2 images taken by the AF mechanism for comparing contrast cannot be used for comparison. In this case, you are better off focusing on something that is at the same distance from the lens as the subject is, and then keeping the shutter half-pressed (the focusing happens when the shutter is half pressed), move the camera to get the subject in frame.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Low light conditions: less light means more dark areas. The darker the picture, the less the contrast (remember, contrast required dark as well as bright areas) which stresses out the AF mechanism. I was unable to focus in the below image for lack of visible light. As such, the superman logo is out of focus. (though it is bright red, lack of contrast and complete lack of visible light scrambled the AF mechanism).</span></li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2JvejHqCudlmZZ1LHN2BJK5SIy3zTS3FQF8qGZ8_OcDDJqLxVw66WHAGqmqU-DO2Hlzot7iwwRKLlWMxfLzvdvnocFsYFXcpjSZ5E8zJOtLt6gj8zkBpwmU3sMzo8fCGM0lFZG-7gEVI/s1600/Image(358).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2JvejHqCudlmZZ1LHN2BJK5SIy3zTS3FQF8qGZ8_OcDDJqLxVw66WHAGqmqU-DO2Hlzot7iwwRKLlWMxfLzvdvnocFsYFXcpjSZ5E8zJOtLt6gj8zkBpwmU3sMzo8fCGM0lFZG-7gEVI/s320/Image(358).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Low light conditions</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">AF-assist</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you turn on the AF-assist beam through camera settings, in low-light conditions the camera will emit a bright light through an emitter on the front of the camera body (usually its next to the lens) which is used to illuminate the subject, thus increasing light levels and helping the AF mechanism focus. So enabling this option will help you use the AF in low light conditions. Some cameras allow the option of using the camera flash for AF - this is termed as pre-flash in which the camera emits multiple bursts of the flash to illuminate the subject while focusing.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://a.img-dpreview.com/reviews/CanonD30/Images/afassistlamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://a.img-dpreview.com/reviews/CanonD30/Images/afassistlamp.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AF Assist lamp</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">How does my camera focus?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are curious to know which AF mechanism your camera employs, you can try this trick. Go outdoors and point towards the sky and try to focus on it. In case of active AF, the camera will mostly focus but in case of passive AF, given a clear sky (no clouds and no variation in color), the camera will not focus.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Some tips about AF</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The focusing mechanism offers two modes for you to choose from - continuous and shoot-only. Should you choose the latter mode, the camera will attempt to focus only when you press the shutter halfway. This is good and recommended for situations where you take time to compose the picture (portraits, studio shoot, landscapes, etc). During sports or high speed photography though, you may want to switch to continuous focus mode so that the camera does not wait for you to half-press the shutter to begin the focusing process, thus introducing a lag between shutter press and image capture. In this mode, the camera keeps attempting to focus the frame, regardless of whether you are tracking the moving subject or simply waving the camera around while waiting for something exciting to happen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The continuous mode keeps the camera on its toes and hence, consumes more battery and leads to faster wear and tear of the focus motor. So unless specifically required, work with the shoot-only mode.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-5233394231021233692012-02-28T13:14:00.002+05:302012-03-11T14:57:52.174+05:30Creative Explosion - Perspective<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
With this, I start a new thread of articles which explore creativity in photography. Until now, most articles penned by me have been restricted to the threads "Let's get technical" and "Blasting the myths" which dealt with laying down the technical fundamentals and clearing the mist around photography resp. Along the way, I believe I have chalked out a sound understanding of photography and laid the foundation for the next generation of posts.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perspective</span></div>
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Simplistically speaking, perspective is the spatial distance between objects in the image, that helps you judge the spatial placement/location of the objects and their heights/forms relative to each other. Perspective is affected by the focal-length & subject-to-lens distance combination. You can alter perspective by either moving around or by changing the focal-length of the lens or both.</div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A wider focal length creates more depth in the image (do not confuse this with dof) and makes the objects look farther away. A tele lens will make the objects look more closely located though in actuality they may not be, thus making the image look flat (less depth). I don't have an image to depict this phenomenon right now so I'll suggest that you visit </span><a href="http://www.photozone.de/focal-length-and-perspective" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" target="_blank">this</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> page to understand what I am blabbering about :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">How to alter perspective?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd say that more than focal length, it is the subject-to-lens distance that determines perspective. After all, change in focal length is an eventuality that follows when you change the distance. Unleash your creativity with perspectives by moving around the subject and clicking from various distances while maintaining the subject's height/width the same across images. You will notice that if you kneel down and click a standing person's pic from a close distance, the person looks gigantic as compared to his/her surroundings. This attributes a larger-than-life or a heroic feel to the persona of the subject. On the other hand, if you click the same subject by standing on a stool and looking down at the subject, he/she appears dwarfed, which creates a sense of suppression.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">How perspective is used in movies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is where the director of photography in movies/sitcoms comes into play. Using a telephoto lens, the director positions the actor far away from the lens. When the director zooms in on the actor through the telephoto lens, it looks like the oncoming truck is right in the actor's tracks and is going to overrun him when in fact, they are on parallel tracks made to look superimposed because of the manipulated perspective (zooming into an object from a distance flattens the perspective, thus making things look closer than they are). Also, when the director wants to show an actress/actor along in a dense area like a forest/garden, he uses a wide angle lens to introduce more depth in terms of perspective into the frame.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So choose a position because of what it does to the perspective; then choose the focal-length/zoom. The next time you click a pic, remember the "perspective" concept and put some thought into the composition of the image. I guarantee that you will like the entire process of photography even more down this road :)</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-40723220844950363142012-02-26T20:11:00.002+05:302012-02-26T20:11:47.018+05:30Let's get technical - Focal Length<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you own or plan to own an SLR camera, you would be exposed to the standard lens nomenclatures which define your lens' capabilities. Consider for example, the kit lens on most cameras - the 18-55 lens. In a Nikon you would come across the 18-55mm VRII f3.5:5.6 lens. In this article, we will discuss what the "mm" in the 18-55mm stands for and how it affects your clicks. Note that the focal length-range is also specified on the lenses of compact digital cameras.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Focal Length</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In optics, it is defined as the distance between the vertical center of the focusing lens and the focal point. As can be deduced from the below image, closer the lens comes to the sensor (focal plane), lower the mm figure goes (focal length) and wider the image.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dptips-central.com/image-files/focal_length.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="161" src="http://www.dptips-central.com/image-files/focal_length.gif" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Image Courtesy: dptips-central.com</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Crop Factor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Camera bodies are basically of 2 types - full frame and cropped sensor. In case of the latter, a cropping factor comes into play, which is somewhat equivalent to 1.3. So an 18mm wide angle lens on a cropped-sensor body will yield a focal length of 18 x 1.3 = 23.4mm. Hence, if you want to harness the real power of wide angle lenses, no cropped-sensor body will give you that like a full frame body would :)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Classification of lenses</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Based on the focal length of the lens, it can be classified under one of the below categories:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prime: this lens has a fixed focal length. For example, the 50mm f1.8 Nikon lens</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zoom: any lens that has a range of focal lengths (you can zoom in/out) comes under this classification. For example, 18-55mm f3.5:5.6</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wide angle: a lens that provides an eventual focal length of 35mm or below is called a wide-angled lens. Please note that in case of cropped-frame camera sensors (Dx in case of Nikon and APS-C for Canon), presence of the cropping factor means that your 35mm lens is not actually an 35mm lens and hence is not a wide angle lens.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Super zoom/telephoto: with focal lengths beyond 135, a lens can be considered to belong to this segment.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The below snapshot is of a Nikon Dx 18-55mm lens. So the next time you look at a lens, I hope you won't be puzzled about the meaning of these golden colored letters :)</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18-55-ii/D3S_4461-460.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18-55-ii/D3S_4461-460.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Image Courtesy: kenrockwell.com</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Prime Lenses</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are wondering why one would settle for a prime lens, which is no less expensive than a decent zoom lens, then I can answer that for you. A prime lens has lesser components as compared to a zoom lens (sometimes a zoom lens has upto 35 lens components in it) and hence have less negative effects on the image capture process. Due to multiple components in a zoom lens, the light entering the lens is reduced by the time it reaches the sensor. Also, zoom lenses work best at the mid-range; an 18-200 lens would would best at around 125mm while it would create problems like distortion at the extreme ends of 18 and 200 mm. Also, due to architectural provisions/restrictions, a prime lens can offer you a much wider aperture of 1.2 or 1.8 mm which is almost not possible in zoom lenses (most zoom lenses have a min aperture of f3.5). A focal length of 1.8mm yields a much shallower dof which is awesome for portrait photography.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB4gBaFYB0sO9IfujwvlYuPDU8KS3PJjDB72ijNSWmxEH9OwVyjEinGGNUtIXyFWuncd6dS2MdTHVW2B_EeHwE6_DZt7b7u1YuC7y3baSYOW2lBeuP_EbhMeZIzdsL4MfMzbdhfei9eb8/s1600/DSC_2949_fb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB4gBaFYB0sO9IfujwvlYuPDU8KS3PJjDB72ijNSWmxEH9OwVyjEinGGNUtIXyFWuncd6dS2MdTHVW2B_EeHwE6_DZt7b7u1YuC7y3baSYOW2lBeuP_EbhMeZIzdsL4MfMzbdhfei9eb8/s320/DSC_2949_fb.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this image, do you notice the shallow dof? The face of the guitarist is in focus while even his hands which are quite near to his face are out of focus, not to mention areas farther away (the end of the guitar and the cushions). This was shot with a 35mm f1.8 nikon lens. If i were to shoot this with an 18-55mm even at f.3.5, the dof would have been much deeper and the focussed area would encompass more of the guitar, thus stealing attention from the guitarist and confusing it with the guitar.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-82374608035107330592012-01-27T19:25:00.002+05:302012-01-27T19:29:14.154+05:30Let's get technical - Dynamic Range & Histogram<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
In statistics, a histogram is a graphical representation showing the distribution of data. In photography, a histogram shows the distribution of colors across the dynamic range of the camera or the color set of the image. Almost all cameras have a histogram display feature in them today, thus allowing you to judge whether your image is correctly exposed or not. To correctly understand histograms, you'd need to compare different images and their histograms. This post will simply help you understand what the graph on your screen says and whether you should listen to it all or not.</div>
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To understand histograms, let me first skim through the concepts of dynamic range and contrast ratio.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dynamic Range</span></div>
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Each camera has a limit to the number of color/light levels that it can capture. This is called the Dynamic Range of the camera. Technically speaking, Dynamic Range describes the ratio between the maximum and
minimum measurable light intensities (white and black, respectively). Let's try to understand this concept.</div>
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The sensor captures data in an analog form. This analog signal is then converted into a digital signal and sent to the camera's processor. Let's assume that the processor accepts an 8bit signal. So each pixel on the sensor sends out the pixel color/intensity information as an 8bit signal to the processor.</div>
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With 8 bits to represent each pixel signal, we end up with 2<sup>8</sup>=256 levels of intensity within which this signal can lie. As shown below, a histogram in an 8bit digital camera shows the spread of different pixels between the darkest (0) and brightest(255) light intensities. Simply put, a histogram's vertical axis shows how much of the image is found at a particular brightness level. Here we can see that the image has more dark areas than bright.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDnBReEGKCj1HrzwvK65cLlxiS8I02STKWBCDLaCJSrXnN-KShk9NC-J92dEfJTUJZRq119u1L6bpPiCK5F9a9WWRbOyYiJBqu1XRkAPnGqXk2OlRIllAWyPVy5T66d2lKaUs1EwyBZ6I/s1600/hist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDnBReEGKCj1HrzwvK65cLlxiS8I02STKWBCDLaCJSrXnN-KShk9NC-J92dEfJTUJZRq119u1L6bpPiCK5F9a9WWRbOyYiJBqu1XRkAPnGqXk2OlRIllAWyPVy5T66d2lKaUs1EwyBZ6I/s200/hist.jpg" width="200" /> </a></div>
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Coming back to the topic of dynamic range, a camera which uses more bits for encoding the analog pixel signal into a digital signal will have a wider bright-to-dark light spectrum and hence will capture colors more accurately at different light intensities.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Contrast Ratio</span></div>
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Some manufacturers or comparison websites express the camera's dynamic range with the term "contrast ratio". This number will look something like "1000:1". So how should we look at this concept?</div>
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Assume each pixel to be a bucket; a bucket that collects light photons. The more photons that a bucket collects, the brighter than bucket becomes. Now each bucket has a limit to the number of photons it can collect (and report to the camera processor). This depends on the number of bits used to convert the analog signal to digital. Let's assume the camera uses 8 bits which means the bucket can contain a maximum of 256 photons beyond which it will overflow (be overexposed). The lesser the photons, the darker the image.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiticCnH4B8UIK5Ch8F4QlMpJIY4-Z7joiK_EBD9U8bL_jRx6o9ernWZuqECFygMS1KMs4_yCtCIYCyZiQ8L1KZ8zi6aOtVbz9JcO6sFnK7sChrcFV4XyZUeAw7xAn8pCWv31E0wXf57jU/s1600/pixels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiticCnH4B8UIK5Ch8F4QlMpJIY4-Z7joiK_EBD9U8bL_jRx6o9ernWZuqECFygMS1KMs4_yCtCIYCyZiQ8L1KZ8zi6aOtVbz9JcO6sFnK7sChrcFV4XyZUeAw7xAn8pCWv31E0wXf57jU/s320/pixels.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy: cambridgecolor.com</td></tr>
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Contrast is the ratio between the brightness and darkness levels of the image. The lower the contrast, the more dirty/lacklustre/dusty the image looks; as you increase contrast, bright areas become brighter and dark areas become darker thus giving the image more clarity until a point beyond which the image starts looking unnatural. In the below image, starting from the lower left corner image (this image has the lowest contrast) you can see that as the contrast level is increased the dusty feel of the image starts wearing off and the image becomes more bright/sharp and clean. As we move clockwise towards the lower right image, the contrast levels have been increased too high to give the image an unnatural feel.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Contrast_change_photoshop.jpg/220px-Contrast_change_photoshop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Contrast_change_photoshop.jpg/220px-Contrast_change_photoshop.jpg" width="178" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: wikimedia.org</td></tr>
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A contrast ratio of 1000:1 means the camera uses a minimum of 1 photon in a pixel to represent the darkest area as compared to a 1000 photons to represent the brightest area. The more the maximum number of photons that can be captured by the pixel, the larger the range of intensities that the sensor can capture. So a higher contrast ratio is always better since the camera will yield a higher dynamic range (provided the number of bits used by the camera for representing the light signal doesn't act as a limiter).</div>
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So to summarize, Dynamic Range/Contrast Ratio is the ratio between the maximum and
minimum <b>measurable </b>light intensities.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">How does <i>dynamic range</i> relate to <i>histograms</i>?</span></div>
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If you have accurately understood the point that I am trying to drive home, you may have realized that dynamic range forms the X-axis of the histogram - the range of brightness levels that the camera can capture :)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDnBReEGKCj1HrzwvK65cLlxiS8I02STKWBCDLaCJSrXnN-KShk9NC-J92dEfJTUJZRq119u1L6bpPiCK5F9a9WWRbOyYiJBqu1XRkAPnGqXk2OlRIllAWyPVy5T66d2lKaUs1EwyBZ6I/s1600/hist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDnBReEGKCj1HrzwvK65cLlxiS8I02STKWBCDLaCJSrXnN-KShk9NC-J92dEfJTUJZRq119u1L6bpPiCK5F9a9WWRbOyYiJBqu1XRkAPnGqXk2OlRIllAWyPVy5T66d2lKaUs1EwyBZ6I/s320/hist.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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As the dynamic range increases, the width/number of intensity levels of the histogram increases and hence the graph becomes a more accurate representation of light intensities.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">How does a histogram help?</span></div>
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There is nothing called a "good histogram". A histogram only tells you whether the image has too many pixels at a particular brightness/darkness level or if the intensities are well spread out. Knowing this helps you avoid <a href="http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/posterization.htm" target="_blank">posterization</a> during post-processing and helps gauge whether the image is over/under exposed. How do you judge the below histogram?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7BU82ckhGyiFLbSi9PFD_iTF6tMIR85LBgd4CFCmT8DAVJjI18KcE6WOYped3aqxQm2V5aDwac0OgG0mw8ULLuoWdluLQo2CXpxa9IJjwYV4AtmKsT8QiT2b2D-grFJxTVdihIoc1Jw/s1600/hist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7BU82ckhGyiFLbSi9PFD_iTF6tMIR85LBgd4CFCmT8DAVJjI18KcE6WOYped3aqxQm2V5aDwac0OgG0mw8ULLuoWdluLQo2CXpxa9IJjwYV4AtmKsT8QiT2b2D-grFJxTVdihIoc1Jw/s320/hist.jpg" width="313" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy: luminous-landscape.com</td></tr>
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If you do not look at the image and only check out the histogram, your knee-jerk judgement would be that it is a bad image, won't it? :) But histograms are certainly useful, as can be seen in <a href="http://www.shortcourses.com/use/using3-7.html" target="_blank">this post</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-75364929502317058322012-01-12T14:30:00.003+05:302012-01-12T14:33:26.027+05:30Keep it RAW!<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
Advanced cameras can capture and save images in JPEG as well as RAW formats. Though RAW format consumes more carpet area on your memory card, it is wonderful and may I say, the only option for post-processing. Let's have a look at why JPEGs are bad for post-processing/image correction.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">How does the digital camera create an image?</span></div>
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Your camera sensor senses the incident light along with its different aspects like brightness, contrast, hue, the colors in it and many other things and applies a sophisticated algorithm to process all this detail and save it as an image on your memory card. This image can be saved with a lot of information or with minimal information so as to reduce the file size. If you save all the information possible, you can then selectively remove/polish/modify selective aspects of the saved image in an image editing program to yield desired results. If you remove much of the information and retail only as much as required for the image to be created with near-to-real reproduction, then you would achieve a much smaller sized email image which you can't do almost any post-production on. The previous type of image is called a loss-less image (RAW for example) while the other type is called a lossy image (JPEG).</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">What is a JPEG?</span></div>
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JPEGs were created as a web-friendly solution for images. Before JPEGs came into existence, the world worked with BMP images (which are quite rare these days but if you had a windows 95 PC, it did not recognize JPEGs; you had to install special software to work with JPEGs) which is an acronym for BITMAP. In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format" target="_blank">BMP</a> images, each pixel's color information was saved in the file. So if you have 1024x768 pixels in the image and each pixel took x bytes to save, you'd end up with 786432x bytes for one image. I remember BMP commonly weighing between 4-10 MB each. You can't have such heavy images on a webpage!</div>
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Enter the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG" target="_blank">JPEG</a>! It's an acronym which stand for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the geniuses who used their mathematical prowess to revolutionize image persistence and shrunk the 4MB BMP to a 100KB JPG!</div>
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Because JPEG employs a lossy compression technique, every time you open a JPEG and save it through a CTRL+S, it is compressed and saved. So each save compresses it further and leads to a further reduction in detail. So if you want to photoshop your images, JPEGs are not the ideal solution even if you save them in the highest resolution possible.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lay it RAW!</span></div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format" target="_blank">RAW</a> is not an acronym - it simple hints at the fact that the image has undergone minimal processing between the point of capture (sensor) and point of save (memory card). As such, it contains maximum optical information possible. Each manufacturer has his own RAW file format which needs you to install manufacturer-specific software/drivers to view the RAW image. Nikon uses the NEF file extension while Canon uses the CR2 extension.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why should I use RAW?</span></div>
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There are multiple reasons for which you should shoot in RAW provided you are adept at using post-processing tools like GIMP/Photoshop or any other sophisticated image editing software.</div>
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<li>White balance correction: if you have shot an image with incorrect whitebalance settings, you can use a RAW editing program to make the correction. In the below image, the upper section has correct whitebalance while the lower one has a warm tinge.</li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://journal.phottix.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/white-balance-dogs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://journal.phottix.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/white-balance-dogs.jpg" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: phottix.com</td></tr>
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<li>Exposure correction: if you image is over/under-exposed, you can make corrections to get correct exposure. The below screenshot shows an over-exposed sky in the RAW image at the bottom with the corrected sky above it. This level of exposure correction is not possible in JPEGs.</li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/layersmagazine/images/tutorials/design/lightroom/2007_01/Krogh_LR_Layers001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/layersmagazine/images/tutorials/design/lightroom/2007_01/Krogh_LR_Layers001.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: kelbymediagroup.com</td></tr>
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<li>JPEGs store information in 8bit format while RAW store in 12 to 16 bit format which leads to an amazing difference in the quality of image detail. Due to this, any of the processing done to a RAW file yields a better final image as compared to changes done to a JPEG.</li>
<li>Many alterations/corrections like brightness, saturation, hue, contrast, color correction, gamma correction, sharpening, noise reduction, etc should be ideally performed on RAW images only.</li>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ok what's the catch?</span></div>
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With all due respect, RAW is not for everybody. Don't shoot in RAW just because I said it yields better and sharper images. If you don't intend to do post-processing on it, it's just not worth the hassle since you will be simply converting them to JPEGs for circulation/distribution and you personal archive anyway :p</div>
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<li>RAW needs manufacturer specific drivers/software installed to read the RAW file. For example, windows cannot read the NEF file (Nikon). You can access it through Nikon's RAW software or through third party tools like Adobe Lightroom which is a RAW editing software.</li>
<li>File size: RAW files are typically 4-6 times the size of the biggest JPEG that your camera can save. That means 1/4th-1/6th the number of photos that your camera can save. So if your card can save a max of 100 JPEGs of the highest resolution, it can save less than 25 RAW files!</li>
<li>RAW process workflow takes up quite some time for even the simplest operations: if you shoot 200 images in your brother's wedding and need to load them in a RAW processing tool, make corrections to them and save as JPEG - you'd need a fast processor, multiple hands like a demigod and multiple screens on which you can execute this shit in parallel to get it done in one day! It takes me upto a week to process RAW images of one photoshoot!</li>
<li>And of course, you need sufficient knowledge about the RAW processing tool too! </li>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I shoot in RAW, process in Lightroom and then polish in Photoshop to finally achieve the desired JPEG. Each image takes anywhere between 45-90 mins. You don't need to treat each image with such tender care and loving but if you have that kind of patience, stay RAW!</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-37686909486577094692012-01-11T22:38:00.002+05:302012-01-12T13:27:26.559+05:30Let's get technical - Lenses<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
When it comes to selecting SLR equipment, one needs to pay acute attention to lenses rather than camera bodies. Camera bodies are much easier to compare and judge than camera lenses. To start with, we have multiple lenses in a manufacturer's stable which look alike. For example, you'd often find two zoom lenses with the same focal range but with one or two other characters in its name differing - let's suppose an 18-55 VRII and an 18-55 D(these are hypothetical offerings and may not actually exist). To add to the buyer's miseries there are third party manufacturers like Sigma, Tamron who also have their league of lenses which look similar in nomenclature and confuse the already nervous buyer. People often ask me or quiz the retail shop guy "why is this 18-55 lens by ABC thrice as expensive as the other 18-55 lens by the same manufacturer" and the quizee goes "its made of better material...its simply better". I'd say dumb retailer but would you like it if he hurled a barrage of jargon in your face and made you look like a dumb camera aficionado in front of the other customers? It's wise to just lie down and take such answers once in a while :) </div>
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In this post, I will pour out whatever little I know about how 2 differently priced seeming-twin lenses could actually be different so as to justify the discrimination in price between them.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">How a lens works</span></div>
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A camera lens has an array of optical lenses (you learnt about convex and concave lenses in school right?). The job of this lens arrangement is to focus the incoming rays accurately on the sensor. The accuracy of the lens greatly depends on the architecture(arrangement) of these lens elements and the materials that go into making these lenses. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/lensflare_elements.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="95" src="http://images.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/lensflare_elements.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: cambridgecolor.com</td></tr>
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~ <span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Building blocks</span>: More than often, the price difference is due to the materials that are used to make these lens elements. For example, Nikon has this new technology that it has named "Nano Crystal Coating". I heard about this lens at a conference where one photographer thumped his chest and said "I finally bought a nano-coating wala lens" and all heads turned. By the time I turned around to see what the hulla was about, everyone had already prostrated in the direction of the now unanimously hailed sartaj amongst them :) Nano coating is some revolutionary low-refraction coating applied to lenses which reduces lens flare. So if you are shooting bright lights(like a street lamp or an oncoming car with headlights on) with such a lens, the glare cause by the bright light source will be quite reduced. This also reduces lens flares as shown in the below image. I borrowed it from Nikon's website which explains the Nano Coating funda. You can read up on it <a href="http://www.nikon.com/about/technology/core/material/nano_particle/index.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. So if your lens has such a revolutionary coating, you can expect a pinch to your wallet.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nikon.com/about/technology/core/material/nano_particle/img/pic_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://www.nikon.com/about/technology/core/material/nano_particle/img/pic_002.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: Nikon.com</td></tr>
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~ <span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Image Stabilization</span>: I have spoken at length about this feature in another post so I'll just mention that Canon uses the term IS (Image Stabilization) in its lens nomenclature while Nikon uses VR (Vibration Reduction). So if the lens is called 18-55 VR it means it has image stabilization mechanism in it and hence is higher priced as compared to a non-VR lens.</div>
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~ <span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Chromatic Aberration & other cool/unwanted features</span>: This is incorrect reproduction of colors due to the inability of the lens to focus incoming rays accurately on the sensor. Some lenses show obvious chromatic aberration in cases of high contrast or excessive brightness. Check out the below images. The one of the left is the one without chromatic aberration while the other has it. Do you notice the red border around the eagle's head? That is chromatic aberration. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqkijpbLXaiu-JlkhNlw9LS3FUHkEz41rt7QotYTLffBIMjOnCDNXgGs-ZwwaECBL3m3pSrfj51cmsM4hshKq-56Y44NCMUVRl_982SEeazF75Rd-HSIqvf68_UxFEwjAck9OosBKIMq8/s1600/chrom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqkijpbLXaiu-JlkhNlw9LS3FUHkEz41rt7QotYTLffBIMjOnCDNXgGs-ZwwaECBL3m3pSrfj51cmsM4hshKq-56Y44NCMUVRl_982SEeazF75Rd-HSIqvf68_UxFEwjAck9OosBKIMq8/s320/chrom.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: cambridgecolor.com</td></tr>
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Other problems that your lens can introduce you to are distortion,
vignetting. <i style="color: red;">Distortion</i> is where the image does not seem to have been
laid down on a flat pane. The below image is highly distorted - notice that the lines are not straight all through the image. The image has a bulging feel to it.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.andrewwoods3d.com/lens1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://www.andrewwoods3d.com/lens1.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: andrewwoods3d.com</td></tr>
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<i style="color: red;">Vignetting</i> is the gradual darkening/brightening of the image around the corners. It is said that almost all lenses introduce vignetting to some degree though Nikon claims that one of its fisheye lenses (can't recollect which one) has no vignetting at all. The below image illustrates this effect.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Example_of_vignetting_and_dusty_scan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Example_of_vignetting_and_dusty_scan.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: wikimedia.com</td></tr>
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So when a reviewer or a retailer labels a lens as a low-quality lens, it could be plagued by one or all of the above problems.</div>
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~ <span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Lens speed</span>: another very commonly used term to classify lenses is "fast lens". This simply means that the lens can take pictures at higher shutter speed owing to its wider maximum aperture. For example, an 35mm f1.8 lens would be a faster lens as compared to an 85mm f3.5 lens since at f1.8 the lens is wider than it is at f3.5 and hence takes in more light and you can click an image of the same brightness with higher shutter speed or lower ISO.</div>
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~ <span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Constant aperture</span>: zoom lenses usually have a range of f values that it shuttles between as you zoom in/out the lens. The f-value of a lens is calculated by the below equation<br />
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<b>f-value = focal length (mm) / actual lens aperture</b></div>
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In the cheaper lenses, the actual aperture of the lens diaphragm does not change as you change the focal length (by zooming in/out). As such, as you zoom in the f-value keeps increasing due to the above equation. Take the 18-200 f3.5-5.6 lens for example in the Nikon stable. If you set the aperture to 3.5 at 18mm zoom, as you keep zooming in towards 200mm, the aperture value keeps moving towards 5.6. So you can't achieve a f3.5 aperture at let's say 50mm or anything above it. Now there's no need to panic - there are special lenses made for perfectionists who will not bow down to this architectural flaw. These lenses achieve fixed aperture values because the lens adjusts the actual aperture as you change the focal length. For example, a 12-24mm f4.0 Nikon lens will not change its aperture come what may. Rejoice! But it will cost ya! :) </div>
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There are other premium features like Canon's USM (ultra sonic motor) which produces very low sounds during operation. Such lenses are suited for wildlife photography where animals can get spooked by strange noises.<br />
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So you can see that to judge the correct pricing of a lens, one needs to be in the know of the above and many more paradigms that plague photography equipment and need you, the buyer, to either compromise and settle for low-performance options or to shell out the extra buck for improved performance.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-59227360840252535762012-01-10T19:25:00.004+05:302012-01-10T19:32:03.150+05:30Let's get technical - White Balance<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
No smart-ass title this time because I am in a bit of a rush while I pen down this article :p Photography-workflow follows the age-old quality philosophy of 1-10-100. If you weed out an anomaly or unwanted element at the first stage you will need 1 unit worth of effort. If it is attended to at the next stage, the effort required multiplies ten fold! Often we ignore the camera settings while clicking a pic because of a repetitive consolatory voice in our head that goes "<i>photoshop hai na</i>" :) But when you have too many clicks from a photoshoot to edit, believe me, you'd wish that you had customized the camera's settings to avoid making simple corrections to images in photoshop at a later point in time.</div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What is white-balance (WB)</span></span> </div>
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Having pointed that out, let me talk briefly on the subject on white-balance in photography. Please understand that your camera captures the light reflected from your subject, the light which has originated from a light source like a CFL or halogen bulb, or a tubelight or natural day-light. The natural daylight contains a spectrum of colors across the VIBGYOR range which combine to form the seemingly colorless light. Artificial light sources usually have a specific light color (also labelled color temperature) which is not very obvious to the human eye but greatly influences the camera sensor. Such artificial light sources, like ones mentioned above alter the white balance of the image with their color temperatures. For example, CFL lamps have a greenish tinge to their light - our eyes see these bulbs as bright white but the camera sensors sees the light as green; halogen/street lights have a deep orange shade. Also, if the subject is in the vicinity of a colored reflective surface like a shiny carpet/curtain/table then the light falling on the camera will contain that color and hence the whitebalance of the entire image will be screwed up.</div>
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This has bugged me often in weddings. There's a lot of sickening yellow in the air. Ladies don yellow colored sarees and drown themselves in an uninhibited display of gold. I hate it when I forget to correct the white balance on the camera - I shoot anywhere between 200 to 500 images which I later have to correct painstakingly in photoshop. It takes me even a week at times to make such simple corrections :(</div>
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So coming to the topic at hand, if your light source is artificial, you should click a test image and check if it correctly reproduces colors as seen by your naked eye. The color alterations are more evident in dark areas like areas in the shadows.</div>
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If you know the light source that is causing white balance alteration, you can choose from the below preset whitebalance modes.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPP4_1epoB-BCB2btTDi-yOZtFFezDy5alZGnTe8VXof2PbGaoZMpPhHJkYi5oQCRP6PRPGDQG6VALo6kX403naYB3C5yECldT_8lPbvNsPh2exsYdd45dP9NLOzGBNw6gjtoJ0nXNzg/s1600/wb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPP4_1epoB-BCB2btTDi-yOZtFFezDy5alZGnTe8VXof2PbGaoZMpPhHJkYi5oQCRP6PRPGDQG6VALo6kX403naYB3C5yECldT_8lPbvNsPh2exsYdd45dP9NLOzGBNw6gjtoJ0nXNzg/s1600/wb.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: cambridgecolor.com</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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What any whitebalance setting does it that it compensates for the excess of color in the environment. For example, the light source is flourescent, like CFL lamps, setting WB to flourescent will add light on the other side of the light spectrum to compensate for the excess flourescent light in the environment. So, if your scene is lit by incandescent bulbs, your light is orange.
The Incandescent WB will cause your camera to add a lot of the opposite
color, blue and cancel out the excess orange light, thus giving you an image that is closer to actual colors.</div>
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These are some common WB modes that you would find on cameras:
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<li><strong>Auto</strong> – this works well in most cases but it's better to try the preset or custom mode for a mishmash of light sources.</li>
<li><strong>Tungsten</strong> – use this in case of bulbs or high-temperature light sources. This mode produces a cooling effect which reduces the REDish light tinge in the image.</li>
<li><strong>Fluorescent</strong> – this is the opposite of tungsten and warms up the image.</li>
<li><strong>Cloudy</strong> – this setting generally warms up the image a bit.</li>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Custom White Balance</span></div>
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In a situation where there are multiple light sources or too many reflective surfaces producing a non-standard whitebalance like tungsten/flourescent/cloudy, etc use the custom white balance feature of your camera. What you need to do is simply point out to the camera, the object/surface that is actually white. So what you are telling your camera is "see..this object is actually white but the light source is making it look blue/orange/green or whatever..". So the camera calculates the correction to be made to make that object look white under that light source and applies the same correction to all objects in the frame! Simple ain't it? :)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That's how simple the concept of white balance is folks! So the next time you are out shooting dozens of pics, please keep a checklist ready and include white-balance checks in it.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-19725317576267788662012-01-06T18:51:00.001+05:302012-01-06T18:51:44.311+05:30Meter down<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
Thanks to my friend Rahul Purbey, an avid enthusiast, I got a new topic to write on - Metering. Due to his persistent queries, I had to do quite a bit of research on the topic and I think I have answer to his root query - "what is camera metering?".</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://my3boybarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/incamerameter2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://my3boybarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/incamerameter2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: my3boybarians.com</td></tr>
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Camera metering is the funda that comes into picture once you have chosen the ISO, shutter speed and aperture. These three determine the exposure levels of the captured image - how under/over/correctly exposed the image is.</div>
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Metering can be inbuilt (most of us use the camera's inbuilt metering system) or external (the ones we see on tv, used in photoshoots wherein a person holds a metering device infront of the model's face to measure light). I am talking about the inbuilt metering system here.</div>
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Once you push down the shutter button and wait for the camera to focus on the subject, the camera performs the metering function and shows results on the lcd screen. The result is displayed by different models/manufacturers differently. In the above image, the metering result is shown along a horizontal scale (circled in red) with the center of the scale being perfect exposure (according to the camera's metering algorithm; camera metering is not always accurate) and either side being over and under exposure.</div>
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In the above image, it shows that the image is heavily underexposed(the meter shows readings on the -ve side of the graph) and hence, your image will be very dark if you use the current ISO+shutterspeed+aperture combination.</div>
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There are different ways in which your camera performs metering. The usual modes are spot metering, center-weighted and matrix/evaluative metering. Spot metering uses a spot on the frame to perform the metering process and determining whether that spot will be overexposed or underexposed. Center weighted metering, as the name hints, uses a small area around the center of the frame to perform metering. Matrix metering uses many more points spread out around the frame to perform metering.</div>
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So if you are concerned only about the rose in the frame and don't care if other elements in the frame get over/under exposed, use spot metering, and so on.</div>
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Its nice to put your grey cells to work while clicking a photo. Know the shutter speed, ISO and aperture settings and what exposures typical combinations provide. Also look at the meter before clicking. Look at it as a challenge - don't be a point and shoot user. Once you ready yourself for these challenges, you will actually enjoy and recommend photography as a hobby, instead of branding it as a piece of cake.</div>
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Happy clickin!</div>
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Sid</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-8696252788804337462012-01-05T17:16:00.001+05:302012-01-05T17:54:03.962+05:30Don't shake that booty!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am a strong advocator of restraint when using flash for lighting; even if it is past sundown. I prefer to avoid the use of camera-flash altogether, as long as the subject is willing to stand still for those 5-10 seconds to avoid blur in the captured image. But keeping the camera steady for a speed less than 1/60th of a second (your camera will show this speed as 60 or 1/60 shutter speed) is nothing short of a herculean task considering that even in sufficient ambient light, blur begins to creep into the image below shutter speed of 60. So in this post, I will talk about some techniques that will help you discipline your body into standing still and reducing, if not completely eradicating camera shake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The swan-elbow technique</span></div>
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This is a body posture that helps me steady myself while standing. Through practice I have near-perfected the posture over time. I call it the swan-elbow technique simply because it focuses on resting your elbow on your waist and in the attempt, you assume a pose resembling a meditating, relaxed swan.</div>
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Keep your feet apart such that you can stand without wobbling. The minimum distance would be that of the width of your waist. I was about to assume that you are a right-handed person and I realized - cameras are not made for left-handed people! Wow! He he..</div>
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Coming back to the topic at hand, you would be placing the camera body on the palm of your left hand and using your right hand for the shutter. Place the left elbow on your left waist. In the process, you will lean forward and your back will arch forth like the neck of a swan.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now comes the difficult part. Learn to hold your breath. This is how snipers train. They learn to hold their breath and slow down their heart rate. A slow or soft beating heart leads to less tremors in the body and hence greatly reduces camera shake. Practice holding your breath in this pose and you will see that over a period of time, you can actually greatly reduce camera shake through this technique!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Also, keep your body comfortable - don't stress your muscles by extending your arms. Like your left arm, try to keep your right arm also close to the body. Be comfortable so that no part of your body feels pain/pressure/fatigue and leads to trembling. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Lean Mean technique</span></div>
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No you don't need to slim down for this :p This technique simply hints at making apt use of solid structures to lean on them and stabilize your body to reduce camera shake. For example, instead of just standing and trying the swan-elbow technique, lean sideways on a pillar/column/wall, hold your breath and shoot - this is much simpler!</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Put it down</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Keep the camera on a stool or any elevated stable structure, look through the viewfinder and shoot. Though this will limit the angles that you can achieve (since the supporting object would have a flat surface), this will provide utmost stability to the camera unless you are standing on trembling ground.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So if you are not carrying a tripod around like a coolie, you can definitely work on the above techniques to get blur-free bright pictures in low-light conditions. </span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-69522459456577392102012-01-04T17:10:00.003+05:302012-01-04T17:10:59.994+05:30VR / IS Lenses - should I foot the extra buck?<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">
If you look at the brochure of any lens manufacturer, you will easily come across these VR (term used by Nikon) or IS (term used by Canon) lenses which seem to be similar to their counterparts without the VR/IS but are quite highly priced. For example, the Canon EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM is an IS lens as compared to the Canon EF75-300mm f/4-5.6 III. You can view these <a href="http://www.canon.co.in/personal/products/dslrs/lenses#type=telephoto-zoom" target="_blank">here</a>. These are priced at <span class="red">INR 38,990 and </span><span class="red">INR 11,595 respectively. Though they don't have the exact same zoom range and USM is another differentiating feature between these lenses, I just used these near-siblings to exhibit the presence of lenses with/without IS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="red">What is VR/IS?</span></span></div>
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<span class="red">VR stands for vibration reduction and is the term used by Nikon. Its competitor Canon uses the term IS which stands for Image Stabilization. In either of these technologies, the underlying funda is simple - the lens mechanics detect the movement or the camera holder (the person who is using the camera) and compensates to a small extent for the movement/shake/vibration. </span> Specifically, it compensates for pan and tilt of the camera. IS/VR features do not compensate for blur cause by the subject i.e. a fast moving car or a pouncing cheetah :)</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="red">So what's the big deal?</span></span></div>
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<span class="red">It is difficult for us to keep our hands absolutely steady while clicking a pic, especially when we are poised in unusual poses as we attempt to get that hatke angle. VR/IS is also useful when the lighting is not sufficient. It lets you slow the shutter speed by an additional 1 or 2 stops and yet achieve the same level of blur that you would have obtained in case of a non-IS/VR lens at a higher shutter speed. So you can slow down the shutter speed to 40 to let in more light and make the picture brighter, while still achieving the camera-holder induced blur-levels of a shutter speed of 60.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="red">Should you pay the extra amount for a VR/IS lens?</span></span></div>
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<span class="red"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I would suggest that you do. It's usually a small percentage over the price of the non-VR/IS lens but I personally believe that it's money rightly spent.</span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-74518217156846476932011-12-07T03:27:00.001+05:302011-12-07T05:22:53.177+05:30Jumpstart your prowess - Turn the dial<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
A friend recently bought a bridge camera and told me "I just bought this fine camera but I don't know how to use it; so I just set it to auto". So here I am, blogging about how to get to know your camera for the first time.</div>
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Any digital camera has a few common features that are easy to understand and use. We get comfortable with a few of those features and stick to them every time we use the camera. I am speaking about the times when we shoot in auto or landscape or portrait preset modes for starters. In this article, I will make a mention of the usual features that a bridge/slr camera has that can be used on and off to take your camera past the AUTO mode.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">What is wrong with AUTO?</span></div>
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Shooting in auto is not only the not-so-smart thing to do with a smart camera, it's just so wrong! Would you peddle your way to office seated on a motorcycle? Would you play a mario or tetris on an PS3? Do you watch non-HD content on a heavenly HD tv? If you do, then <i>bhagwan hi maalik hai</i> :o Here are some reasons why you should break free from the nauseating habit of the auto mode. </div>
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<li>When you shoot in auto, your camera decides the shutter speed, aperture and iso for you. Every manufacturer has its own algorithm to help the camera decide what settings to use in different environments. So with an auto mode, different cameras yield different results. This is why we see manufacturers claiming that their camera is the best in the creed for night shots or that their camera has the best focusing mechanism.</li>
<li>Modern cameras have a horde of sophisticated features like face-recognition which get employed for focusing in auto mode. The drawback of this is that if you are shooting a pic of your dog and there is a person in the frame, the camera will focus on the person and you dog might be out of focus!</li>
<li>The archilles heel of digital cameras is its focusing mechanism - cameras are blind as a bat when it comes to low contrast or dark areas. Try this in auto mode - choose a plain wall which has just one color and no pattern/design on it (dark or light, doesnt matter). Now try to focus on it. It is highly probable that you will have to try a few times before your camera is able to get a focus lock on the wall.</li>
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Switching to manual/priority modes gives you complete control over your camera. Now you won't focus on the stranger in the crowd instead of your sweetheart; you'll be able to capture shots in the dark and much more.</div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: small;">Aperture (Av)</span></div>
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Use this feature when you want to change the dof and want the camera to choose the shutter speed. This is helpful if the subject is stationary, like a tree or an immobile. The reason the subject needs to be sufficiently stable is that the camera will set the shutter speed to provide a bright picture - it will not care for the relative movement between camera and subject.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Priority mode - Shutter Speed (Tv)</span></div>
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This is used if you want to vary the shutter speed and capture a fast moving object or slow down/create blur in your images. The camera will choose the aperture that provides a bright enough picture, thereby claiming control over the dof.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Manual Mode (M)</span></div>
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In this mode, you can alter both shutter speed and aperture. This mode gives you complete control over the camera. Most photographers always shoot in this mode.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Preset Modes</span></div>
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Portrait Mode</div>
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This can be used to click close-up photos, the kinds that you would click if it were a portfolio shoot. In this mode the camera uses shallow dof, thus rendering the background out of focus and giving a portrait effect.</div>
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Landscape Mode</div>
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This does the opposite of portrait - it uses a deeper dof thus keeping more objects in focus. This is necessary when you are clicking a pic of a wide area, a street view or the horizon wherein the objects in the frame are placed at different lengths from each other.</div>
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Snow Mode</div>
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This mode uses settings that compensates for excessive reflected light. This is useful to avoid overexposure due to the light reflected by the snow around you. You can take care of this using manual settings also, but as compared to an auto mode, this is a better choice in snowy conditions.</div>
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Sports Mode</div>
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This mode simply increases the shutter speed so that you can freeze a fast moving object like a car or a running person. You can increase your chances of getting a sharp pic in any mode by employing the art of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panning_%28camera%29" target="_blank">panning</a>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Macro</span></div>
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All cameras have an ideal distance range in which the subject should be, for sharp images. If the subject comes too close to the camera, you would need to shift to macro mode or change the lens itself to a macro lens. Macro mode in cameras is used to let you get up close (<i>and personal?</i>) with the subject. This is useful if you want to click a lifesize pic of a housefly or a millipede. But macro mode by default switches to shallow dof and is prone to camera shake.</div>
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I hope I have been convincing to some extent, in my argument against the auto mode. The only way to enjoy your camera is to go manual; auto is for your amma appa :)</div>
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Happy clickin!</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sid</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-19949843010620944232011-11-24T04:31:00.001+05:302011-11-24T17:18:14.587+05:30The stuff that good clicks are made of<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
The reason photography is classified under arts is simple - it is subjective. You cannot define a good photograph - you can only define your idea of a good photograph.</div>
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I was once asked to explain how I would differentiate a good photograph from a mundane or bad click. In return, I asked her whether she preferred a beer mug or a wine glass for drinking water. She chose to drink in the beer mug. I told her that I would personally prefer the wine glass. Whose choice was correct? Neither was wrong I would say. The wine glass appealed to me - maybe out of habit or out of social norms that beer is usually served in a beer glass while water can be served in wine glasses. But why did she choose the beer glass I wondered. She had no logical explanation for it - it was 'her choice'. And that was my explanation to her question - it's an individual's choice!</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So why did I blabber about this incident you may ask? I did it to simply prove a point - art is subjective; our appreciation of a work of art is based on our perception of that piece. We often hear about masterpieces from Picasso or Da Vinci and wonder what separates these works of art from the creations of other artists. While I or you may not be able to decipher the works of these masters, there are those who will do anything to have these in their list of prized possessions. So you see, my idea of good photography is MY IDEA - you may not disagree with it; or you simply might. So I am going to try laying down my idea of a good click, hoping that I can get feedback on and will be able to improve my criteria for a good capture.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">1. The message</span></div>
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You pen your story not with ink, but with color & composition. What story is your image narrating? What are you attempting to depict through your clicks? It shouldn't be a day's work for the viewer to figure out the message in your photographs.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZR0bYPNswwgi0ULsCQ1MVG4JXK8RYqBMOaqvyzDbofm8X_3Qfi-4fsZEDOTRZ_Kf2-f9g-FWghh2-_KVMeJeHL_3ysDxFcuzEHiXK9mVizs6U2bkbtMiXXl0oHtRM98CNHaftsChBYgw/s1600/DSC_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZR0bYPNswwgi0ULsCQ1MVG4JXK8RYqBMOaqvyzDbofm8X_3Qfi-4fsZEDOTRZ_Kf2-f9g-FWghh2-_KVMeJeHL_3ysDxFcuzEHiXK9mVizs6U2bkbtMiXXl0oHtRM98CNHaftsChBYgw/s200/DSC_0001.jpg" width="133" /></a>
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The image of the left has two possible subjects - the setting sun and/or the bike. Both could be the subjects in the image but since the bike is not completely inside the picture, the message is not clear. What are you trying to say? "guess the bike?" If yes, then what is the beach/sunset for?<br />
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The image on the right provides more clarity on the message - it screams "check out the bike with the beach/sunset backdrop!".<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">2. Step out of the crowd</span></div>
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Be different, be yourself. Admiration for your favorite artists should not creep into your style in the form of blind imitation. Create your own style. We all know how much we adored Anu Malik's blatant plagiarism :) </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">3. What am I lookin at?</span></div>
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Your image should guide the viewer to your subject in it. If the viewer is struggling to locate the intended subject in the image, obviously he/she will run into bad weather trying to get the message of the photograph. Cut him some slack, don't make him work for it.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">4. Dump the clutter</span></div>
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Try to get rid of matter not relevant to the subject. For example, if your image is aimed at showcasing the beauty of a car then get rid of the bits of paper or any other disturbing artifacts/people in the frame before you compose the image.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">5. Hold it steady</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When not using a tripod, it is easy to introduce camera shake into the picture, especially in situations of low light. Though it may look sharp on the miniature display that your camera is equipped with, it maybe a completely different story altogether on your computer screen and worse - in prints! So make it a habit to keep your hand steady.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">6. Colorful or colorless?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Try to take pictures in black-and-white. While you also have the option of shooting in color and then converting it to b&w during post-processing, shooting and reviewing in b&w on the camera gives you a completely different experience - that of judging light.When we shoot in color, we usually pay attention to the colors in the frame and not the light. Shoot in b&w every now and then - either to understand light or simply to break the monotony.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This image has no post-processing done to it. This is a shot of a dining table in a dark restaurant. The table had a dim overhead lamp which lit a minimal area over the table. Shot in b&w, I really liked the effect.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">7. Post-processing - now even you can fake it!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Why do most contemporary photographers indulge in the highly debated act of post-processing? That is because they want to bring the mental picture to life. If you were an artist who painted with a brush, you could have used the colors that you wanted and bring your imagination to life. With a camera, alas, not everything is in your control. People don't smile, don't look in the right direction, don't wear the right clothes or everyone is just having a bad hair-day! Whatever the case, you are unable to compose the scene to suit your mental picture. Fikar not biraadar! Tools like Adobe Photoshop, GIMP (open source & free), Adobe Lightroom (RAW file processing) are here to help you bring your imagination to life :) </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But don't overdo it. An image should at best, look "polished" but not "altered". Nobody likes to look at a picture that has "what you see is not what it was" written all over it. In the below images, the one on top has mild saturation applied to it to bring out the green. The bottom image on the other hand, has gone overboard with the saturation slider and screams "fake! fake!". Resist the temptation to post-process to such a point.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Amz_oKenlPHaT5oWWl1aiMuKeL9Uw8UR6BD6Xr68wChIJQbM4bi0TR8_G5V5DxkeK0kk9G-0uzlEpCgHl83jZOIWVsO-4bAPA44eCOY5_pZAIE-q2AHfBNbF83wihNFL0vi6D4opX00/s1600/DSC_0088-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Amz_oKenlPHaT5oWWl1aiMuKeL9Uw8UR6BD6Xr68wChIJQbM4bi0TR8_G5V5DxkeK0kk9G-0uzlEpCgHl83jZOIWVsO-4bAPA44eCOY5_pZAIE-q2AHfBNbF83wihNFL0vi6D4opX00/s320/DSC_0088-1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So those were some guiding lines followed by me when I have to decide a good image from a bad one. Note that the above guidelines apply more to personal/artistic clicks and need not be valid in the commercial field. For example, post-processing is part and parcel of commercial work. If it weren't, believe me, your simple girl next door would make more heads turn than all the Katrina Kaifs and Bipashas combined :)</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-59464765396207072112011-11-20T15:37:00.001+05:302011-11-24T17:20:02.794+05:30Jumpstart your prowess - Lets get technical<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span">In this post, I would like to discuss the technicals of photography - aperture, shutter speed and ISO. It is important for you to get a fair understanding of how these parameters affect the final image that is clicked on your camera and how these collaborate or interfere with each other.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">If you have a bridge/SLR camera, you should try playing with these parameters and see how they help you bring your mental picture to life. Some compact cameras do allow you to change ISO I guess but <i>asli maza toh SLRs mein hi ata hai </i>:)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Shutter Speed </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Tv on Canon mode dial)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">This parameter refers to the amount of time for which the camera body shutter remains open and lets light fall on the sensor. The sensor then saves this incident light pattern as an image. The longer the shutter remains open, the more the light that gets collected by the sensor and hence, the brighter the image. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/camera-diagram4.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/camera-diagram4.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Image Courtesy: Howstuffworks.com</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">The above image shows a skeletal structure of the mirror+sensor+shutter+pentaprism arrangement inside a camera body. The mirror helps you see through the viewfinder, what the camera sensor will see when it is capturing the image. When you click to capture the image, the mirror falls back and becomes parallel to the base of the camera, thus allowing incident light to fall on the sensor rather than bouncing off to the pentaprism. At the same time, the shutter moves out of the way and stays out for as long as the shutter speed that you have set. The sensor then saves the incident light as an image. If anything in the scene that is being captured moves, this will create a blur or a ghostly trail in the saved image. I find it difficult to explain this verbally so I would suggest that you look for video explanations in youtube.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">Some sample shutter speed values are </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span">1/8000, 1/4000, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 or -1, -2 etc. On your camera display, the shutter speed maybe displayed as 60 instead of 1/60, and so on. This means that as you move towards the right of the above series, the time allowed for the shutter to remain open keeps decreasing and hence, the amount of light available for the sensor to capture keeps reducing and the image becomes darker. If you need to freeze a fast moving subject and capture a crisp, sharp, focused image of it than you need to increase the shutter speed (reduce the time for which it remains open). This is what your preset SPORTS mode does internally.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Alternatively, if you reduce the shutter speed (keep the shutter open for longer periods of time) then though the image will be brighter due to more incoming light, any shake in the camera or visible scene will lead to a blur in the captured image. This is what happens in most night-shots wherein you are forced to reduce the shutter speed to compensate for the lack of lighting and the subject moves. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IS-DBZEXcA" target="_blank">Light painting</a> is a field of photography that stems from this concept.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfejlN5Y9UyvGO3yrV-ohDvp0p5VUgk-sB7kbcX14hQ0dMewoMw8CCIoQWKapj7H2DbzuCJioF4_Lau4bjVQFevBWY6HKWJcdYc0zeV_at3LFnfkh8e9N69A1qLUp0XjrFoLVzLSVCyW8/s1600/DSC_0466.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfejlN5Y9UyvGO3yrV-ohDvp0p5VUgk-sB7kbcX14hQ0dMewoMw8CCIoQWKapj7H2DbzuCJioF4_Lau4bjVQFevBWY6HKWJcdYc0zeV_at3LFnfkh8e9N69A1qLUp0XjrFoLVzLSVCyW8/s320/DSC_0466.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">In the above light painting image, a simple led torch has been employed to paint wings around the subject while the shutter was kept open for 20 seconds. The below images also have long shutter speeds but cannot be classified under the light painting style since the photographer has not "painted" with his own source of light like a torch/candle.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Aperture</span> (Av on Canon mode dial)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">It is mentioned in terms of <b>f</b>-stops or <b>f</b> numbers and refers to the lens diaphragm opening inside a camera lens. The aperture determines how collimated (parallel) the incident rays are. A smaller opening lets in rays which are highly collimated. This in turn produces an image which is sharp throughout. A wider aperture lets in rays at different angles which when tried to focus onto a single area on the sensor by passing them through a lens mechanism, do not provide an evenly sharp image. This phenomenon is used in portrait photography wherein you want the subject (bride/groom for example) to appear sharp while the background appears out of focus.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.geekinspired.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/aperture_scale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://www.geekinspired.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/aperture_scale.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Image Courtesy: geekinspired.com</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">To understand more about how an aperture affects the dof (depth of field), I suggest reading up on pinhole cameras (also called Camera Obscura) </span><a href="http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/whatis.html" target="_blank">here</a><span class="Apple-style-span">. It beautifully explains the technology behind camera optics. <a href="http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0006DG" target="_blank">This</a> article explains the concept of lens aperture in a bit more over-the-top fashion :)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">As of now, it suffices to understand that aperture is used to control the dof. A value of f 1.8 means f/1.8. Hence f1.8 is a wider aperture as compared to f8.0 and produces shallow dof.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgarUZo_7mww4acT_lY0rzUuog4P87MYaB2WKnTFNiXlvUxXKVT-HOIwmt1YEd-pIq46RPp6N2uy7UaVlIcyeaHHmH8l0bbq-FHMHjvgedx-pd2-YEXVFMXUATeuDLZ_eh1PdADySloeyg/s1600/DSC_0208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgarUZo_7mww4acT_lY0rzUuog4P87MYaB2WKnTFNiXlvUxXKVT-HOIwmt1YEd-pIq46RPp6N2uy7UaVlIcyeaHHmH8l0bbq-FHMHjvgedx-pd2-YEXVFMXUATeuDLZ_eh1PdADySloeyg/s320/DSC_0208.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">The above image was clicked at f3.6. Notice that the golden bangles at the forefront are in focus and are sharp while the blue bangles in the background are out of focus. Had the aperture been smaller (f8.0 or above) then both set of bangles would have been in focus.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">An offshoot of aperture settings is its effect on brightness of the captured image. Since the aperture setting modifies the size of the diaphragm through which light enters the camera, a shallow dof means a larger opening which means more incoming light and hence, a brighter image. As you reduce the shallowness of the dof, the image will keep getting darker thus requiring you to reduce the shutter speed to maintain the brightness levels.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">ISO</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">This is a concept carried forth into the digital era from the age of film cameras. In the days of yore, films were made for different sensitivities to light and were accordingly awarded ISO grades. A film of 80 ISO was less sensitive to light as compared to a film of 200 ISO. Hence, a picture shot on a 200 ISO film with shutter speed x and aperture y would look more bright as compared to that shot on an 80 ISO film with the same settings.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">In digital cameras, the ISO effect of the film era is obtained by amplifying the electrical signal received from each pixel before it reaches the processor. Read the below posts to know more about this.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: #222222; cursor: pointer; font-size: small; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px;"><a href="http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/9263/why-cant-the-iso-level-on-most-digital-cameras-be-set-below-80" target="_blank">Why can't the ISO level on most digital cameras be set below 80?</a></span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><a href="http://imaging.nikon.com/history/basics/13/index.htm" target="_blank">Imaging History (Nikon)</a></span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">ISO settings in digital cameras do not have an optical background unlike shutter speed and aperture. ISO settings in digital cameras have an electronic explanation as can be seen from the above two links. Hence, the ISO performance of different cameras differs. This takes me back to my article on comparison of cameras wherein I stated ISO as a parameter on which cameras should be compared. For example, a Nikon D3000 starts introducing grain into images even at ISO 400 whereas a Nikon D7000 can be pushed upto 1600 ISO for the same settings of shutter speed & aperture to provide almost no noticeable grain. This is a result of superior electronics/hardware and is not related to the optics (lens).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span">As you increase the ISO, the image starts looking grainy/noisy. The noise is more noticeable in darker areas of the image. Hence, if the ISO is increased in situations with fair amount of light, it makes the image brighter but doesn't really introduce much noise. But in darker areas or at night, high ISO will make your image brighter at the same shutter speed & aperture setting while introducing noise at the same time. As explained in the above two links, better camera hardware leads to less noise and hence, costs more.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">What/when/how?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">Now that you have a basic idea about the three parameters, lemme tell you how to use this newfound knowledge to achieve the desired results.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>* Increasing brightness</i></span></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Reduce shutter speed: try to keep the shutter speed above 60 (for example, 80, 100, etc). Even in sufficient lighting, setting the shutter speed below 60 will introduce blur. In case you are reducing the shutter speed, use a tripod to keep the camera stable. Alternatively, you could place the camera on solid ground like the floor or a table to avoid camera shake. As for the subject, make sure that the subject is stationary and that there is no movement in the scene being clicked. This works well for structures (buildings, statues) but is difficult if the subject is a person/animal/plant and the night is windy.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Increase aperture: this means reduce the f value (for example, f1.8 is a bigger aperture than f8.0). While aperture is used for controlling dof, it also affects brightness of the image.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Increase ISO: since this artificially amplifies the signal sent from the pixel to the processor, any prevalent noise in the signal also gets amplified thus leading to grain/noise in the image. Know the ISO durability of your camera since each camera model has its own ISO performance.</span></li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>* Changing the dof</i></span></div>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span">aperture is the only setting that can be altered for changing dof. Remember that changing dof also changes the brightness of the image</span></li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>* Night photography</i></span></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">reduce shutter speed (use of tripod recommended to reduce/prevent blur)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">use artificial light source/flash: I personally avoid the flash as much as possible since it hampers accurate collection of colors. But you can reduce the shutter speed and use flash at night. This will lead to lighting-up of the subject while also capturing true colors of the areas where the flash has not been able to reach (the background). Check the image below which has been clicked through this technique.</span></li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9SlyUYDQMCx9DXYqE1dkjwVPPvrsiSpbHK-wB1dDAZfKtpT_GikNJiNeuZ0xQrDNl8SmTBMtLuiX9glCC5NtqVjr9AY4mgSbnZ9X-cHv2XJ-hBWtJQe-GflyRvQ0NNd49nSnNad_SeFU/s1600/DSC_0035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9SlyUYDQMCx9DXYqE1dkjwVPPvrsiSpbHK-wB1dDAZfKtpT_GikNJiNeuZ0xQrDNl8SmTBMtLuiX9glCC5NtqVjr9AY4mgSbnZ9X-cHv2XJ-hBWtJQe-GflyRvQ0NNd49nSnNad_SeFU/s400/DSC_0035.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">In the above image, you can notice the light shining off the metal bars at the lower area of the image. That is the light from the flash. While the flash fires off in the beginning and lights up the areas on which it falls, it doesn't reach the background which is miles away in this case. Since the shutter speed was 10 seconds, the camera got sufficient time to capture the background light and hence, the true colors of the background were successfully captured.</span></div>
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<i style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">* Light/Ghost photography</i></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Ghost Photography is a type of night photography in which the shutter speed is reduced so that blur can be introduced using bright objects against a stationary or dark background. In typical ghost photography for example, you would set the shutter speed to slow values so that a person moving around at a quick pace would appear ghostly. Check the below image for example.</span></li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgCRfC0XqNAmdIaUvFgZez7aHWVFadMDDZknmucmE0Ve5uMv9RBqT_eOBH_hOPlsE7jo78BfB0sPtVX16alCML9kYHUVM_Bq6J2EPAltjLxf87FJC01Es4B_9qbVDuTlCRh_L_OLB-Iv0/s1600/Ghostly+Descent.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgCRfC0XqNAmdIaUvFgZez7aHWVFadMDDZknmucmE0Ve5uMv9RBqT_eOBH_hOPlsE7jo78BfB0sPtVX16alCML9kYHUVM_Bq6J2EPAltjLxf87FJC01Es4B_9qbVDuTlCRh_L_OLB-Iv0/s400/Ghostly+Descent.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">In this image, the person on the left sets the camera on a tripod and walks from the camera to the subject while the camera is capturing the image. The shutter speed was set to more than 5 seconds.</span></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Light photography/painting is simply painting with light. Set the shutter speed to slow values so that the camera keeps capturing the image infront of it. During this time, point a torch or any other light object towards the camera and move it around. Whatever the pattern traced by the torch, is saved as an image as if you painted with light instead of with a color brush :) You can search for tutorials on light photography in youtube. There are loads of tricks explained there.</span></li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Is there some special equipment for night photography?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">No! You can buy lenses with bigger apertures (f1.8 for example) or you can buy camera bodies which have better performance at higher ISOs. Full frame cameras have better ISO performances for example. There is no special lens/camera architecture that is built for night photography as such.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">There are many more tricks that you can try with your camera. But then, how well your camera supports your kida-ambitions is what makes it a good camera. I hope now you understand why I was speaking about deciding on your passions and ambitions before buying a camera. If you want to try out the above tricks, you would need a camera that allows you to try em. Else, just carry a compact camera which is good for your point-and-shoot needs.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Happy Clickin!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sid</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-34218048971354196772011-11-17T20:03:00.001+05:302011-11-20T15:36:13.041+05:30Jumpstart your prowess - Composition<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
Greetings dear photography enthusiast! </div>
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I hope my posts have been entertaining as well as informative for you until now. Having cleared misunderstandings and myths regarding camera equipment, I believe it is time I got down to talking about photography and moving away from the topic of equipment for a while.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So you are all geared up to take up the challenge of mastering the art eh? Glad to hear that. Keep that </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">josh </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">simmering my friend, cause no reward is greater than the fruit of a pursuit of excellence!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Let me talk about a few fundas of photography to get you started. This post is aimed at novice enthusiasts who are wondering if they are on the right track of learning. So I will try to keep it very basic and explanatory with lots of links to articles as and where necessary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This post will explore the concepts related to image composition - what should and what shouldn't be in the frame. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rule of thirds</span></div>
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A very commonly discussed rule in creative circles is the rule of thirds. This is not a rule per say, rather a guideline to help you compose/frame your pictures to make them look appealing and to add a sense of subject and message to it. Of course, as a creative person you are not bound by rules and hence are free to make your own rules or to not follow suggested approaches but then, the rule of thirds is a very common rule that does give birth to deeply communicative images. Some articles claim that research has yielded evidence of the fact that when most people look at an image, their eyes start at one of the four focus points that the rule of thirds yields. This theory completely applies to me and hence, I believe that this rule is not a hallucination of an intoxicated artist but is in fact, based on factual observations.</div>
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So what is this cosmic rule of thirds? Its very simple. Divide your image into 3x3 sections so that you get 9 cells as shown in the below image. The 4 intersection points formed around the central area of the image are the focus points that I was talking about. Chances are, placing your subject at one of these focus points will make the user note the subject before he/she notices anything else.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://slideguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Slide056-590x443.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://slideguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Slide056-590x443.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Image Courtesy: slideguru.com</span></td></tr>
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Check out the set of images below. The one of the right follows the rule of thirds. Which one would you have shot? </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNfQHmn4kz1_GOiHQNWwb0Ky2zZFHKsordQbh-ooXCSfv6B_WAssXoLClT99ZIYpU18Mr4OZ5aPE1ocfY5kZZPL0EqCRZAD3H5BzZaQlqab1uIuMl2SXxBs7epy4KsjennugGcbxyj9EY/s1600/650px-RuleOfThirds-SideBySide.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNfQHmn4kz1_GOiHQNWwb0Ky2zZFHKsordQbh-ooXCSfv6B_WAssXoLClT99ZIYpU18Mr4OZ5aPE1ocfY5kZZPL0EqCRZAD3H5BzZaQlqab1uIuMl2SXxBs7epy4KsjennugGcbxyj9EY/s400/650px-RuleOfThirds-SideBySide.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Which of these images looks more appealing to you? I personally prefer the one on the right. Coincidentally, this image follows the rule of thirds. You will notice that the one on the right is a little lower than the other one and is shifted towards the left. This removes the unnecessary brown sand at the bottom of the screen and brings the focus on the towering rock which was the intended subject even in the picture on the left. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As I said before, the rule of thirds is just a guideline that you should be aware of. The appeal of the image is not dependent on this rule. Listed below are some images which follow/don't follow the rule of thirds.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2WCWnSUEsAIPn8yYzUK2U7O_EgzZGLxfaEv16CWvfyn9lNQrN7xYKoUiWMBT5Maya1A4P6fdhYxz3JuCpCLgEPwtUbiMQEGMt7K9t71x5OPQDpwltxVln03IHvlhwPZpEruBjFYP_tFM/s1600/DSC_0416.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2WCWnSUEsAIPn8yYzUK2U7O_EgzZGLxfaEv16CWvfyn9lNQrN7xYKoUiWMBT5Maya1A4P6fdhYxz3JuCpCLgEPwtUbiMQEGMt7K9t71x5OPQDpwltxVln03IHvlhwPZpEruBjFYP_tFM/s320/DSC_0416.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The above image follows the rule of thirds. Notice how the attention is drawn not only to the person standing in the image but also to the sky and the landscape. As can be inferred from this, the rule of thirds can be used to draw attention to the environment of the subject (the landscape/friends/objects around the subject) while also drawing attention to the subject.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The above image defies the rule of thirds because the aim of the photographer is to draw attention to the subject only. Had the subject been shifted to one of the corners, the viewer would have been confused as to what the photographer wants to show besides the subject since there is no concrete/beautiful scenery in the vicinity of the subject.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Depth-of-Field (dof)</span></div>
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Dof is the width of the plane near the subject, that is parallel to the surface of the camera lens. Look at the illustration below to understand this definition. dof is varied by altering the aperture setting of the camera. Aperture is measure in f-stops. For example, f1.8, f3.6, etc. f1.8 provides shallow dof as compared to a higher number like f3.6 and so on.</div>
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In the above image, the gray area is the dof around the subject. Objects outside the dof will not be as sharp as the objects inside the dof and the level of sharpness in these objects will increase with their distance from the dof area. For example, a vase placed just outside the dof area behind the subject will be a bit less sharp while a vase placed 5 metres behind this vase will be quite out of focus. When the dof plane width is small, the term used for such a setting is "shallow dof" since the area in which the image is sharp is shallow/small. "Increasing the dof" means increasing the width of the dof plane.</div>
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Please not that the dof plane is always created parallel to the surface of the lens. So if you have a string of people standing in front of the lens at varying perpendicular distances from the lens and you focus on the person in the middle of the lot, all those who are in the dof plane will appear sharp in the image. People who are a step or two forward or behind the person in the middle will start appearing out of focus.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dof is most useful and produces appealing images during portfolio shots where you want to focus on one person in a crowd. This could be the groom/bride or even just the wedding ring. One of my favorite wedding photographers </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/d_payne" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">Joseph Radhik</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> routinely employes the dof funda to his image to produce fantabulous results!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Notice that the background in the above image is out of focus. This is because of shallow dof. As mentioned above, shallow dof produces awesome effects in portfolio shots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Reduce clutter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Do not stuff your image with too many subjects. Keep it clean. When I look at your image, my eyes should not wander around in search of the subject. Your image should guide my eyes to your subjects. For example, I consider the below image cluttered. I cannot decide what or who the subject is.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tibetanwomen.org/images/photos/events/tib_peoples_movement2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.tibetanwomen.org/images/photos/events/tib_peoples_movement2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy : tibetanwomen.org</td></tr>
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In the below image, we know what or who the photographer is trying to point at. It is the six people in the image. There is no other subject/distraction in the image that can make you think otherwise. Of course, this is a studio-staged image and hence you could do away with the clutter and this is usually not possible in candid pics like the one above but nevertheless, I have used it to explain the difference that clutter makes.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://edzcelperk.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/friends-season.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://edzcelperk.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/friends-season.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Image Courtesy: </span><a href="http://edzcelperk.files.wordpress.com/" style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" target="_blank">Wordpress</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Notice that even if you have clutter in the image, you can shut them out of the viewer's focus area by either darkening it or by blurring it. These are post-processing options which are to be the last resort and should not be considered while clicking the image. Below, the image on the right has a background that distracts the viewer. The one on the left has that background darkened out in post-processing to help the viewer focus on the intended subjects - the bells.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Silhouettes </span></div>
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With respect to photography, a silhouette is identified as a dark image outline against a brighter background. For example, the dark, unrecognizable snapshot of a person against the orange setting sky in the evening. Silhouettes create a mystic feel about the identity and persona of the person being included in the image and usually leaves it to the viewer to draw a meaning out of the image.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEict9fmtuoWjaNI3cPRuSCftO6M55Q243YkSGMYWHZq6GzmPuiZIUjH45wgIHSnucDo6_J8w1_qqjNAKy2zCuiDvqSBwo0jTxzFG9Ww63_Aq5DaKT_3OQrqor8YokMXgLhDAOIybhV1_2w/s1600/IMG_1894.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEict9fmtuoWjaNI3cPRuSCftO6M55Q243YkSGMYWHZq6GzmPuiZIUjH45wgIHSnucDo6_J8w1_qqjNAKy2zCuiDvqSBwo0jTxzFG9Ww63_Aq5DaKT_3OQrqor8YokMXgLhDAOIybhV1_2w/s400/IMG_1894.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Seedha ya tedha?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here I am talking about shooting an image in portrait or landscape mode. You need to use your own judgement of what would capture the subject properly and convey what you want to. Check out </span><a href="http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/tip/504/when-to-shoot-in-portrait-or-landscape-mode/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">this</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> article on this topic. A landscape image has the capability of showcasing more the the situation and hence provided a more complete picture whereas a portrait image has the capability of showcasing few selected subjects that you want the viewer to focus on. Depending on what it is that you want to portray, choose the mode. Once again, either mode may produce a good image but both modes may not convey the same thing or make the user see the same thing that you want them to.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetFHp4EsJlQPbieBlofD2OpIFca6Da1aT1rXAj05wI4Z-W4DQjB8QCMiCDah5Yu-tEHzB3OVq7Yo_v5JiSslY1s2DhZDlaHjhg7SCIeJanH4MKAsnRMM2fP5aAuAnDYffJ20P1Fk63AY/s1600/DSC_0047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetFHp4EsJlQPbieBlofD2OpIFca6Da1aT1rXAj05wI4Z-W4DQjB8QCMiCDah5Yu-tEHzB3OVq7Yo_v5JiSslY1s2DhZDlaHjhg7SCIeJanH4MKAsnRMM2fP5aAuAnDYffJ20P1Fk63AY/s320/DSC_0047.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the above image, much of the detail to the left of the scenario has been lost because the photographer tried to include the subject as well as much of the background on the right. This has been corrected by moving a few steps back and capturing a portrait shot instead. The portrait shot makes the subject look smaller as compared to his surroundings but looks much more visually appealing and more importantly, complete.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YOJcgkbSCh0qv-50VNekVCdnpr0hyphenhyphenOt3lASrrjuvWiaBJxgXI3DmVYN4-Q-h-wyCoxSiEyk2Ry2KqltogsejQz-A3KEjBdDWOenCEUrIxAOmTBT5oO2ILW0I_jrTmPOd8Y9BqtnWtiQ/s1600/DSC_0048+copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YOJcgkbSCh0qv-50VNekVCdnpr0hyphenhyphenOt3lASrrjuvWiaBJxgXI3DmVYN4-Q-h-wyCoxSiEyk2Ry2KqltogsejQz-A3KEjBdDWOenCEUrIxAOmTBT5oO2ILW0I_jrTmPOd8Y9BqtnWtiQ/s320/DSC_0048+copy.JPG" width="214" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Leading Lines </span></div>
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I don't really know how to best explain this concept. It is about using lines or structures that form a linear arrangement which give the viewer the idea that the photographer is trying to point towards something using the subjects in the image. Check out the below images for example.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Point of view concepts</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are different positions in the room that you can capture the subject from. You can lie on the ground, or kneel, or climb up a ladder, or get behind the subject and show his/her back instead of the face and other innumerable positions. </span><a href="http://photography.about.com/library/pointofview/blpointofview.htm" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">Here</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> is a wonderful and somewhat comprehensive article on this topic. Try not to be monotonous in your point of view. For example, I see wedding photographers permanently perched in front of the wedding podium clicking pictures from just one position throughout the wedding. I have no interest in looking through the same angle throughout the entire album. The album should give me a tour of the wedding day. And a tour requires the camera to move from one position to another. So my word of advice is - move your feet, roll in the muck, climb the trees and break the cliche</span>.</div>
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So these were some of the composition related concepts that I could delve upon at the moment. There are many more but they are better left for another day. I hope this article adds to your creative mind and helps you be artistic with your captures.</div>
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Happy clickin!</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sid</span><br />
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-31292889094727333162011-11-16T21:34:00.001+05:302012-01-09T16:44:16.143+05:30Blasting the myths - Is it wise to go gaga over camera phones?<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
Was it ever? No it wasn't. Sure, high-end camera phones do provide superb pictures in well-lit areas. But they are still bogged down by problems inherent in such small compact devices, which will always make them inferior to dedicated image-capture devices (I hope you get the gist...am talking about cameras).</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">I have seen people go head over heels while praising their camera phones. The praise showered by them is usually made up of phrases like "you know...my cell has a 5mpx camera!" or "this is the latest camera phone in the market...and one of the most expensive too" and of course, the unmistakeable "my camera has a Carl Zeiss lens". I wonder what fortunes Carl Zeiss is showering on these camera manufacturers for their marketing blitz against innocent consumers. But then, such naive consumers always have it coming :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Ok so what's wrong with your camera you ask? You paid 30k for a camera which does not qualify in the arena of compact cameras in the 10k bracket - that's what's wrong with your uber-cool camera phone. And to think, the device that you had actually set out to buy was a device that can make calls and send text messages and has a long battery life :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Camera phones have a set of problems which have been prevalent to some degree since the inception of such phones. Some of them are explained below. I don't expect you to shun camera phones after reading this post; I just want to open your eyes to less-discussed facts about such devices so that you may not have unrealistic expectations from your big-budget phones.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">* Shutter Lag</span></i></div>
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Camera phones do not have a physical shutter. This means that the software in the phone tells it to capture light for a specific time and save it as an image. This time difference between pressing the button & the image actually being clicked is called Shutter Lag. Even good phones have sufficient shutter lag in them.<br />
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The problem with camera phones is, the slower the hardware of the phone, the slower the image capture. Besides shutter lag, slower hardware will mean the image capture will take time and the saved image will be blurred. This means that in case of insufficient lighting (even if you are standing in the shadow of a structure in broad daylight, the lighting maybe insufficient for your camera) you would need to hold your hand still (and that applies to the subject as well) to avoid blur.</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">* Lens construction</span></i></div>
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Unlike in digital cameras, most low-end camera phones employ plastic or bad quality lenses which render your pride-instilling megapixels useless. Here, I would accept, that beating the "Carl Zeiss" drum actually makes a bit of sense :)</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">* Flash</span></i></div>
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Most camera phones have LED flash which is as good as nothing. I remember Sony Ericsson phones were packed with Xenon flash units which were bright and actually played the role of a "camera flash". So if your phone has an LED flash, just go bah! at it and turn around.</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">* Zoom</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Most camera phones lack optical zoom and provide only digital zoom. Digital zoom is a stupid funda; the idea is so stupid that it works in hypnotizing most buyers! :) Optical zoom requires you to physically alter the position of elements within the lens by twisting the lens (in case of SLR cameras) or by using the zoom in/out buttons (in compact cameras). Digital zoom simply crops the image so that it looks big/zoomed-in. Try this on your PC - open an image in mspaint and use the select tool to select a rectangular portion from the center of the image. Use this as an image and repeat the process atleast 3 more times. What you see is what digital zoom gives you - a cropped, bad resolution image. In this case, the sensor is the same but the image is a cropped & zoomed-in version of the one that you would get without any zoom on your camera phone. See below illustration.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMdikhvJV_ITkyTIhLpm9lXrk6R87YESeF8iA9y7X_XY-viSGfPYB68PNX-P1pzvteVs7zPyf_U1_u9iwumpQSlSQuyOILHx_k365Cgs9mQxBdZTDM0q8xO4aAfSW5GPzO6nbYXKmyWQ/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMdikhvJV_ITkyTIhLpm9lXrk6R87YESeF8iA9y7X_XY-viSGfPYB68PNX-P1pzvteVs7zPyf_U1_u9iwumpQSlSQuyOILHx_k365Cgs9mQxBdZTDM0q8xO4aAfSW5GPzO6nbYXKmyWQ/s320/Untitled.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>* Small sensor size</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">As explained in another post, stuffing 12 mega-pixels (Nokia N8 boasts of this one) on a small-size sensor will not yield the same quality as a 12 mpx sensor in a digital camera does. So the next time you hear someone boast about the number of megapixels in his camera phone, give him a knock on his head on my behalf :)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Conclusion</span> </div>
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So why do I have a problem with camera phones you may ask? It's not that camera phones are evil; they are simply overpriced. But that doesn't refute the fact that they are convenient and handy. In fact, <a href="http://www.mobiletechreview.com/editorials/Camera-Phone-Image-Quality-FAQ.htm" target="_blank">this</a> article provides researched data that more than 70% of cell phone users claim that they bought the phone because of the camera in it. My occasional rant on this aspect of buyer behavior is directed at buyers who buy a 30k phone for the camera in it when they can easily buy a better digital camera for one third the price and buy a decent phone for a few bucks more. At the same time, I do agree that having a good camera with you at all times does have its advantages. Well, my intention was to bring the facts forward and clear the air about fancy camera phones and clarify that they cannot match up to digital cameras.</div>
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<a href="http://www.which.co.uk/mobile/advice-and-support/mobile-phone-advice/choosing-the-best-mobile-phones/the-best-camera-phones/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">Here</a><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> is a list of camera phones which have performed well in the labs. Nokia N8 tops the list, followed by iPhone 4s and Samsung Galaxy S2. So if you still are crazy about expensive camera phones, these are the ones that your eyeballs should be playing ping-pong with :)</span></div>
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Happy clickin!</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Sid</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-34548506534280572602011-11-14T17:12:00.001+05:302011-11-24T17:21:47.958+05:30Blasting the myths - Comparing cameras<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This post is about comparing cameras and reading between the lines of any offer/marketing campaign. Manufacturers/retailers often take buyers for a ride by focusing on irrelevant aspects of the equipment. Come on! No manufacturer/retailer will tell you that lens a which seems to be similar to lens b is better than lens b and at the same time, is cheaper too! How then would you weigh the equipment and see if it suits your needs? Lemme suggest some facts to look out for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The more the megapixels, the better is my camera!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">WRONG!! '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel#Megapixel" target="_blank">Megapixels</a>' is neither the muscle nor the brain of the camera. The heart and soul of the camera are its sensor and lens. But the manufacturers always market a camera on the basis of megapixels and the brand of the lens. Occasionally, some camera models are marketed on the basis of additional features like shooting modes (night mode, etc). Do you see posters claiming that this camera has a such-and-such sensor and a lens of this construction? No! The reason is simple - it would either confuse the casual buyer or it would make the moderately serious buyer wise and help him/her choose the best :) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here are some articles that explain this concept beautifully. The second article illustrates the entire concept of megapixels, dpi and print sizes with amazing simplicity and depth. I suggest that you read it patiently and completely. You will definitely have a bone to pick with every person who pushed you into the megapixels race :)</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">> <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/05/why-weve-reached-the-end-of-the-camera-megapixel-race.ars" target="_blank">Why we've reached the end of the camera megapixel race</a></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">> <a href="http://www.mdavid.com.au/photography/megapixels.shtml" target="_blank">Megapixels: how many are enough?</a> </span></i></div>
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> <i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-pixel.htm" target="_blank">Pixels and print size</a></i></div>
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> <i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.dpbestflow.org/camera/sensor" target="_blank">Pixel Pitch</a></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Besides the fact that each image resolution has a best maximum-print-size, "Pixel Pitch" is a concept that should convince you to step out of the megapixels race. Pixel Pitch refers to the size of the pixel on the sensor. Take a sensor of 2x2 inches (these are dimensions quoted for this example and do not refer to actual dimensions of any existing sensor to the best of my knowledge) and stuff 1 mega-pixels in it. Now compare this to another sensor of the same dimensions loaded with 10 mega-pixels. The latter will obviously have pixels which are 1/10th the size of those on the former. These pixels would absorb less photons and hence generate a weaker electrical signal which is sent to the processor for composition of the jpeg image. Since the signal is weak, it needs to be amplified. Artificial amplification of this nature, engineers would agree, introduces noise in the signal and hence, in the image that is saved. Hence, cutting the long explanation short, more mega-pixels on the same sensor size would lead to degraded performance. By now, if you are still reeking from the hangover of more mega-pixels, you have foresaken the right of blaming your wife for your depleting bank balance :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To conclude, do not set mega-pixels as the main ground for comparison between two cameras.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This has a Carl-Zeiss Lens</span></span></div>
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Ok I don't really see how having a Carl-Zeis lens makes me cast all other options aside and run into your arms! I have not seen any Sony poster try anything besides this for the past few years. Look at Nikon - atleast they have Deepika rooting for them :p As for Canon, they countered Nikon's hottie with the Indian maestro of cricket - Sachin. Cmon Sony...catch up!</div>
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A camera lens is a sophisticated piece of engineering with multiple high-quality elements built into it. Determining the performance and grade of a lens is a complex process, best left to professionals. You should read up on reviews by camera magazines/websites to understand the performance of the lens in question. A very reliable and popular website for photography reviews/tutorials is <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/" target="_blank">Digital Photography Review</a>. The lens elements and its architecture determine the performance of the lens, and not the brand name of the manufacturer. For example, though it may be a lens from a reputed manufacturer, it may not be a good performer at the telephoto-end or the wide-end or in the mid-zoom-ranges or it may not focus in low-light conditions.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://artandstructure.com/photography/artofpho/lenselem.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://artandstructure.com/photography/artofpho/lenselem.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;">Image Courtesy : artandstructure.com</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sensor Size </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Camera</span><span style="font-size: small;"> sensors come in different <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format#Common_image_sensor_formats" target="_blank">sizes</a>. The most basic differentiation is full-frame and cropped sensors</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">. </span><span style="font-size: small;">A full-frame sensor has almost the same size as that of a 35mm film frame. A cropped sensor is smaller in size. If you read up on Pixel Pitch, you would understand that sensor size greatly affects camera performance. In Nikon, the cropped camera bodies carry the prefix "DX" while full frame sensors are labelled as "FX". Canon uses the terms APS-C and APS-H respectively for the same.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Batteries</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I personally do not prefer pen-cell batteries. They wear out soon and it is difficult to find the right charger-battery combination when you need to. What I mean is, though I may buy a Eneloop battery and charger combination this time, on a trip I might buy another brand of batteries or may forget the Eneloop charger and end up buying a different brand of charger. Contrary to popular belief, for long life of your rechargeable batteries, use them with their brand of charger</span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;">. Do not mix batteries of one brand with a charger of another brand. Also, choose </span></span>NiMH <span style="color: black;">batteries over the <span style="color: #cc0000;">NiCd </span>which are banned due to their toxic nature.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">ISO Performance</span></div>
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Compare cameras on their <a href="http://www.slrphotographyguide.com/camera/settings/iso.shtml" target="_blank">ISO</a> performance. Better cameras offer less noise at higher ISOs.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">List of accessories that can be coupled with the equipment</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Some of the accessories that you can couple with you camera are remote trigger, flash, filters, list of lenses, tripods, spirit gauges, camera bags, camera body protection covers, etc. For example, some cameras do not allow you to attach a flash light onto the camera. Look out for these details. Some cameras don't even come with a built-in flash.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Continuous click speed</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If you are interested in click images in burst mode (in this mode, the camera keeps clicking images at a fast rate until you release the shutter button or until the continuous-click limit has reached), then you should look at this rate. The higher the rate, the more the shots that can be clicked in quick succession. This is useful for example, if someone is diving into a pool of water and you want to capture the transition from the diving board to submersion.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dioptre Correction</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is useful for you if you wear specs. The dioptre can be calibrated by you so that you can look into the viewfinder without wearing your spectacles. This is very helpful during long durations of a photo shoot session.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Image Resolution</span></div>
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Look at the maximum image resolution that the camera can produce. Choose the one with the higher value.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Viewfinder/LCD Screen coverage</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is the amount of area that the screen/viewfinder lets you see. For example, if this value is 98% for your camera, it means that what the screen/viewfinder shows is 98% of what will be saved in the captured jpeg. Hence, this can interfere with your judgement what should go into the final jpeg. An occasional foot of a passerby or a blurred wagging tail of a mongrel would eventually irritate you enough to swear in the name of your innocent camera :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Supported Memory Card</span></div>
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If you already have a set of extra SD memory cards, why chose the camera that supports only the other type of memory card over the camera that works with SD cards? There better be a good reason if you still choose to go for the other camera.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Video Capabilities</span></span></div>
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In case you want your digital camera to work part time as a video camera, then compare the video capabilities of the options before you. Look for video resolution, maximum video length, stereo sound support. These days, most cameras boast of HD video. Believe me, HD is awesome! Read up on HD <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_video" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Live View Mode</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not all cameras support the live-view feature wherein you can see the image in the screen before you click the image. In most entry level DSLRs, you need to look through the viewfinder to see what the camera is seeing. The LCD screen in such cameras is used only to see the saved image and browse through settings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here is a comprehensive list of </span><a href="http://www.canon.co.in/personal/compare?category=dslrs&subcategory=eos&productfinder=personal-eos&languageCode=EN&product1=eos-1000d-kit-efs-18-55&product2=eos-1100d-ef-s18-55-is-ii" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">camera attributes</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> that you can look at while comparing two cameras. You would seldom find these details at the retailer's outlet and would need to read up on the internet before heading out to the store. <a href="http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/733/digital-camerasbuy-performance-not-megapixels/" target="_blank">This</a> is another brief article to help you understand that you should not go by the manufacturer's words.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-26639314082446758412011-11-14T15:14:00.001+05:302011-11-24T17:21:22.822+05:30Setting the foundation - "Where should I buy it from?"<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">An anxious call from a friend gave me the idea of this post. This is a short write-up on my take on one of the big questions in any retail customer's mind - the point of purchase.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Options</span></div>
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T<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">he very obvious options available to you are listed below. You can also rent equipment for short-term needs. I would not list it as an option right now since I am assuming that you want to "own" the equipment and are not looking for temporary/per-assignment solutions.</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Online</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Retail Store</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Used equipment</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Jugaad </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>US se aya mera dost </i></span></li>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><b>*</b></span> <span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i>Online</i></span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There has been an explosion of e-commerce websites that claim to offer the best deals across the spectrum of electronic items. Some of the websites with a good collection of camera equipment are </span><a href="http://www.zoomin.com/CamerasListing" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">Zoomin</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.jjmehta.com/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">JJMehta</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ebay.in/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">eBay</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </span><a href="http://shopping.rediff.com/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">Rediff</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. JJMehta has a reputation in Mumbai as the retailer with the best collection and prices.You should look at eBay, Rediff-Shopping and other e-commerce portals from time to time for offers or simply to be aware of the prices at which products of your interest are being traded. Purchasing over eBay is completely safe provided you study the retailer/seller before you place your order with him/her. </span><a href="http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/11/12/things-you-must-know-before-buying-on-ebay/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">Here</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> is an article on precautions to be taken before placing an order on eBay and other e-commerce websites. Please do not get scared after reading the article; its only a guide to safe shopping. Most of the ideas expressed in the article on eBay shopping precautions can be applied to the practice of online-shopping in general.</span></div>
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Join the facebook/twitter pages of manufacturers like Nikon, Canon, Sony, etc to look for offers/contests/coupons/vouchers which can land you a discount voucher.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And there is always the option of participating in online contests to win your equipment :) Cameras are increasingly becoming the popular choice for gifts in most online contests. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Pros</u>: easy to search and compare; option of cash on delivery</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Cons</u>: not the best prices usually; waiting time till delivery</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>* </b>Retail Store</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Though this may seem to be the simplest option, a shrewd buyer would need to walk across town and visit multiple stores to get the best deal. Camera equipment usually exchanges hands at a heavily discounted price. Retailers also throw in memory cards and camera bags/tripods if the buyers haggle for 'em. To give you a rough idea of the degree of discount that you can achieve, the MRP for a Canon is Rs. 39,000. I bargained for a camera bag and a 4gb memory card and eventually signed the bill for 36k at a retail outlet, only to realize a few days later that another retailer's quoting price is 36k for the same deal. Had I been patient and checked a few other stores, I may have hit upon a better bargain. Every city has its set of preferred/popular camera retailers. Try to locate these for starters as they would </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">try to understand your requirements and </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">offer you genuine advice on different cameras.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Pros</u>: usually gets you the best prices in the city; optimal for those who love to bargain :)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Cons</u>: walking around in search of the best deal</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">* <i>Used Equipment</i></span></div>
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In any electronic device, the moving parts are the ones that are susceptible to wear-and-tear/breakage. In a camera, that part is the shutter. Besides the shutter, the lens, display, battery and health of the memory card are things to look at before you buy a used camera. Pose the below questions to the current owner before you make up your mind:</div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Shutter cycles/shutter actuations</i>: this refers to the number of times the shutter has been opened/closed or in simpler terms, the number of pics clicked. It is a good idea to not buy a camera that has clocked more than 1lac shutter actuations. Check out </span><a href="http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">this </a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">website for a short list of some cameras and their recommended lives based on shutter cycles. </span><a href="http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/3813/how-many-actuations-are-too-many-actuations" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">Here</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> is a discussion on the same topic.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Damage to the lens</i>: hold the lens at varying angles to the eye in sufficient light and try to look for scratches/fungus marks on it. If the lens looks damaged, just run..run like the wind :)</li>
<li style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Battery</i>: has a batter leakage occurred in the past, while the battery was inserted in the camera? If yes, had any damage occurred to the camera? This is a question that only the owner will be able to answer.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Memory card</i>: how old is it? What is the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Speed_Class_Rating" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" target="_blank">speed class</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of it? Does it have any bad sectors?</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So unless the current owner is a trustworthy friend who wouldn't be in the process of offloading his burden onto you, I would not recommend spending heavily on used equipment since we are not talking about a few hundred Rupees here. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Pros</u>: genuine user-feedback (if seller is trusted) on the equipment; low price</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Cons</u>: its a used device so may not carry warranty & can break down/under-perform as compared to a new piece</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">* <i>Jugaad</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If you know anyone inside the manufacturer company (Nikon, Canon for example), you can ask him/her to get it for you. Manufacturers usually offer discounts to their employees which maybe equal in amount to all or may vary depending upon the pay-grade of the employee. I procured a lens through this channel and effectively got a discount of 25% (9k instead of 12k).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Pros</u>: price</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Cons</u>: none</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">* <i>US se aya mera dost</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is my preferred channel when it comes to most pricy electronics! A Nikon camera cost me 10k less in the US as compared to India, while I got a lens for 30% less. But before you ask your friend to buy it there, ask him/her to confirm that the purchase comes with international service warranty. Do not miss out on the warranty for want of a discount.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Pros</u>: price</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Cons</u>: waiting time</span><br />
<br />
<div style="color: #cc0000;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Renting equipment</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You can explore this option if you want to test the equipment before you buy it, or if you need the accessories for a few days for a job. <a href="http://www.toehold.in/" target="_blank">Toehold</a> is one such company in Bangalore that rents out equipment at affordable prices.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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If you can think of more options, please do let me know and I shall gladly update the post. I hope that this article has been able to help you gauge the pros-and-cons of the different channels.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Happy Clickin!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sid</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-58196078749962642352011-11-07T13:32:00.003+05:302011-11-24T17:21:06.702+05:30Setting the foundation - "Which camera should i go for?" - part2<div style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">"Ok! I have identified my needs, passion and budget. What next?"</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
In this section , I will help you understand a few basic things about cameras like camera categories, their abilities and their price ranges. This will give you clarity on your ideal camera.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Digital Camera Categories</i></span></div>
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Digital cameras can be divided into 4 Categories: <i>compact</i> , <i>bridge </i>(also known as prosumer), <i>DSLR </i>and the more premium cameras like Hasselblad. I have heard that only two photographers/photography agencies in the entire nation own a Hasselblad and anybody else who needs it, rents it from them so don't even think of that segment. For amateurs, semi-professionals and quite a few professionals, the first three categories are the ones that matter.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: red;">*</span> <b>Compact Digital Cameras</b></i>: Cameras that come in this broad category are the ones which offer the user almost no or minimal manual control over the parameters of composition (ISO, shutter speed, aperture). These are called POS (point and shoot) cameras. One such camera is <a href="http://www.canon.co.in/personal/products/compact-cameras/ixus/digital-ixus-115hs?languageCode=EN" target="_blank">Canon ixus-115hs</a>. Such cameras come with a horde of in-built modes like night, landscape, portrait, snow, fireworks, high-speed, etc. which suit the trigger happy user very well. Such cameras are best for your parties and fit into your pocket or bag without any fuss. The downside is, the creativity is mostly in the camera and not in you since you are limited by the camera's features. To add a dash of your creativity onto the image, you would mostly need to post-process it (work on it after the image has been saved onto your PC).</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://a.img-dpreview.com/news/1102/canon/compacts/IXUS-115-HS-FSL-HOR-GREY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://a.img-dpreview.com/news/1102/canon/compacts/IXUS-115-HS-FSL-HOR-GREY.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;">Image Courtesy: dpreview.com</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: red;">*</span> <i><b>Bridge/Prosumer Cameras</b></i>: Cameras in this segment usually have ultra-zoom, manual features and allow you to attach peripheral equipment like flash, wireless remote, etc. What separates these cameras from the next category (DSLRs) is that bridge cameras cannot match the processor speed of DSLRs, do not provide removable lenses and the manual controls are not really good. These cameras are a step or a bridge between compacts (which allow almost no manual control) and DSLRs (which let you control the camera completely) and hence the name, bridge cameras. One such camera that I have used is the <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/news/0705/07050703canons5is.asp" target="_blank">Canon S5 IS</a>. The camera has a 12x zoom lens and 8mpx sensor combined with the usual manual modes (Tv, Av, P, M), flash hot-shoe for external flash and a rotating display. Moving up from the Konica Minolta compact camera to this, I could now slow down shutter speeds and capture images in the night, I could zoom into the bird perched up on a tree, I could capture vehicles in motion and do all kinds of freaky stuff that my compact camera just was no good at! The downside was that I had to now carry a big camera bag around.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.letsgodigital.org/images/artikelen/6/canon-powershot-s5is-zoom2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://www.letsgodigital.org/images/artikelen/6/canon-powershot-s5is-zoom2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;">Image Courtesy: dpreview.com</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: red;">*</span> <i><b>DSLRs</b></i>: This is the final destination for you in camera equipment unless you intend to shoot and print a 5 storied poster for a client. SLR stands for Single-Lens-Reflex which means that the image that you view in the viewfinder and the one that gets captured on the sensor are both obtained through a single lens. The name came into being when photographers moved from dual lens reflex to single lens reflex. Below is an image of a dual lens reflex camera. You can read up a bit on dual lens reflex cameras <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin-lens_reflex_camera" target="_blank">here</a> to understand the internals of dual and single lens reflex cameras and the pros and cons of it. Today, a new development is mirrorless cameras. You can read up on that too <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorless_interchangeable-lens_camera" target="_blank">here</a>. Some of the mirrorless cameras are Sony NEX and Samsung NX series.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bombago.com/082009/IMG_0002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.bombago.com/082009/IMG_0002.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="color: #999999;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy: shoporium.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
In DSLRs, there are broadly three categories:</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
1) Entry level DSLRs: these have slower processing speeds, minimal features and are cropped-frame sensors. Some examples are Canon 1100D and Nikon D3100.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
2) Semi-professional DSLRs: these have higher speed and more features than entry level DSLRs. One such camera that I have used is Nikon d7000. The first few differences that I have noticed between this camera and entry level DSLRs are better ISO performance (less noise at higher ISO), faster capturing/saving, exposure bracketing, etc.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
3) Professional DSLRs: these are full-frame cameras with the fastest hardware and a horde of features that only a professional will miss in the previous 2 segments mentioned. The full frame sensor leads to superior ISO performance and lets the camera take on more megapixels. At this point, I shall make a mention of the lesser known fact that every sensor size has an upper limit to the maximum number of pixels that it can support beyond which, to many pixels on the sensor lead to noise and under-performance. We shall look at this concept in greater detail in another article.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Let's talk money!</span></i><br />
<br />
<div style="color: black;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Most often than not, it is your budget that eventually decides the camera for you.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Sure, you want the best but can you afford it at the moment? One can find a pleasant compact camera with ease under the INR 10k bracket while a prosumer would cost you in the range of 15k-30k. The Canon and Nikon entry level DSLRs start at around 25k (this includes the body and kit lens which is usually the 18-55 lens).</span></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="5px" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr align="center" valign="middle">
<td style="background-color: #9fc5e8; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Category</b></span></td>
<td style="background-color: #9fc5e8; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Price Range</b></span></td>
<td style="background-color: #9fc5e8; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Best for</b></span></td>
<td style="background-color: #9fc5e8; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Preferred brands in India</b></span></td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">Compact</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">INR 5000 and above</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">Point and shoot users who don't bother about the technicals of photography. For example, kids, goofy parents and anybody who wants a camera "just in case" :)</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">Sony, Canon, Nikon</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">Bridge</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">INR 15k and above</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">Amateurs who want more out of their camera/are in the learning phase</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">Sony, Canon</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">DSLR</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">INR 25k and above</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">People who have the "kida" in them and are being held back by their equipment</td>
<td style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">Sony, Canon, Nikon</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<br />
With this I conclude the introductory article that hopes to address the "which camera should i go for?" question. I hope this has helped you gain clarity on the topic of cameras and will help you find your soulmate in cameras :) Best of luck in your find!<br />
<br />
Cheers!<br />
Sid
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-40761891572601940702011-11-04T19:50:00.004+05:302011-11-24T17:20:56.317+05:30Setting the foundation - "Which camera should i go for?" - part1<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">May I suggest a few guiding lines of thought to be followed when buying/upgrading your equipment. Here, I will list very simple steps or a checklist of sorts if you may,
to help you gain clarity on your expectations from your equipment.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>What is your need?</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If you figure this step out, you don't need guidance from any guy holding a camera and pretending to be in deep, poetic thought.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> You need to be true to yourself and let yourself know if your interest in photography is aimed at satiating your soul or do you belong to the "travel. click. upload." creed. If you think you would associate yourself with the latter, then you should not think about long term investment in this field in terms of technique, time and money. Remember the concept of ROI - if you invest in something, make sure you get the returns. On the other hand, if you think that photography is your calling, then don't rush into it. It needs technique, style and attitude - all of which need to be cultivated over a period of time.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Without these, equipment in your hands is like a scalpel in the hands of an untrained surgeon - you're just gonna make a mess of things and brood over it!</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Do you feel the passion?</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When you think of photography or witness a visually beautiful phenomenon, does your mind take a mental picture and go "klik!"? Do you curse yourself for not carrying a camera with you at that moment? Do you fall in love with your best clicks and stare at them for hours like a mother lovingly stares at her child? Well then my friend, you are in the Kida club of photography enthusiasts! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise :).</span></span> <span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Start working on your passion and don't stop till you feel that you have found and perfected your own style. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"</span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> yaar lekin camera ho toh ekdum zhakas ho..aise lage ke main koi amateur nahi hu..</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"</span></span></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">When I quiz my friends about the kind of camera that has their attention at the moment, the above is the most common response that I get. In fact, by now I have trained myself to expect the above response and I keep a mentally scripted monologue ready. It is only when the person answers differently that I have to pause and ponder before voicing my opinion on the matter. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<div style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">What kind of investment are you willing to make?</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
As
I mentioned before, camera equipment is
not cheap. Add to that the time it takes to master whatever equipment
you acquire. For example, if your camera has features that let you
manually control parameters (like shutter speed, aperture, ISO) and you
intend to get fairly acquainted with these, let me tell you that it is
not an overnight job. Even the most acclaimed photographers take time to
get acclimatized to new equipment, however simple or sophisticated it
may be.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
For
the above and more reasons, be true to yourself - identify your need,
gauge your passion and set your budget to zero-in on the perfect
equipment for your needs, passion and budget. For example, if you
believe that your current camera does not let you click photos the way
you want or has insufficient zoom or hampers your creativity and you
clearly need a camera that compliments your abilities, then do not
resist the temptation to upgrade. On the other hand, if you think that
it is a crime to not upgrade your equipment now that your friend has
done it, you are in the wrong lane! I have seen people buy expensive
cameras because it looks cool or simply because someone else in the gang
has just gotten a grade cooler after purchasing a new camera. Decisions made in such haste usually make the buyer regret and re-sell the equipment in the near future.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
Monetary
investment is one aspect; another is investment in terms of time &
learning. You need to learn the generics of the trade and then branch
into your own style. Remember, there are millions of camera owners out
there who click billions of pictures and share them with their friends.
Are you gonna be just another one of them or are you gonna be "the one"
of your kind? Once you get a camera, plan to use it for a year or two
before you upgrade your equipment.</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(to be continued...</i> )</div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6091659466227560550.post-2343465517699601822011-11-04T13:58:00.000+05:302011-12-07T05:23:55.667+05:30Why the blog?<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<br />
Photography equipment is not cheap, certainly not if you are
looking for performance as well as features. Hence, I have had the honor
of playing consultant to quite a few photography
enthusiasts and aspirants during their first camera
purchase. Having tried to understand their needs and ambitions, I have
always tried to arrive upon a decision that suits them in <span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">the short run
as well as in the near future, till they can make that decision for
themselves. My experiences as an amateur consultant for friends' camera
worries have inspired me into penning down my thought process in the
form of this post.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Social
networking has fueled an interest in photography and photography
technicals in an unimaginable way. We all like putting up pictures of
our friends, family, pets, possessions and travels up for our friends to
see. In fact, this may be one of the reasons behind your inclination
towards buying a camera and you might not have realized it by now. This
explosion in the camera user-base has lead to a great deal of exchange
of ideas and techniques, mostly on social platforms like blogs, social
networking sites, etc.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">That
reminds me of an amusing but important incident. I once put up a post
on a social medium, asking my friends how they would utilize their time
if they were guaranteed a comfortable source of income for free for
let's say, 6 months. I was surprised that the most common response to
that question was - "travel. click. upload." :) Therein lay the
foundation of my belief - that not every camera wielding "enthusiast"
knows what he is holding on to and what he can do with it, and hence,
falls short of reaching his potential. Having said that, I have seen my
share of such enthusiasts taking the art seriously and contributing to
my knowledge of this greatly satiating, satisfying and enlightening form
of expression.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">For
many years, I was confused about the "right camera for my
needs/aspirations" simply because, I did not know what my needs were!
Did I want to take it up professionally? Did I want to impress the
onlooker who should go gaga over the particular camera I am wielding?
Did I want to take it up as a stress buster or a hobby? I am still
trying to figure that out but I do believe that I have made the right
choice for the equipment at every stage of progression. And that gives
me the confidence to suggest the equipment for my friends' needs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Most
of the photography articles/blogs that I come across leave me with a
lot of unanswered questions. This led me to believe that I can
consolidate my findings, couple them with my own experience in the field
into a concise blog. If you have any questions regarding an article in my blog, please do send your feedback so that I can improve the blog and make it more intelligible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Happy reading & clicking!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Sid</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14983596093745344883noreply@blogger.com0