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Nikon
D300, 18-200mm VR @ 62mm, ISO 1000, 1/125s, f/5 |
For example, when photographing the bridal couple, a wedding photographer has a very good idea how the framing and lighting of the image will look in the wedding album before he composes the picture.
We amateurs, on the other hand, tend more to a process of trial and error.
That is part of the learning process. To make learning effective, though, we need guidelines. Otherwise, we end up with hundreds or thousands of pictures that are fairly ordinary.
ImproveYourDP will help you increase the number of keepers in your photo inventory. The site strives to help you know what questions to ask before you press the shutter release. As you read the stories of Ted, the Roving Photographer, and peruse the basic photography principles of CSE, you'll find examples that give you ideas for the next time (hopefully soon) that you pick up your camera.
In these pages, You'll often find a story about the taking of a photo, complete discussion of pros, cons, and keys to improving the resulting images.
Let's start with the chicken photo example. It is intended to give you insight into the ImproveYourDP approach to helping you improve you digital photography.
A chicken photo in the making
In truth, while this looked to a chicken novice like me as just one chicken among a sea of 100's, this wasn't an ordinary chicken. It was a 4-H prize contender at a county fair. Still, I think you'll see that the basic photography principles in this 
example would hold up if you journeyed out to your local friendly farm.
I'd also like to tell you that the final shot, above, was well-planned,.but it actually relied on a heavy dose of serendipity. It took eleven shots, my patient family, and the help of the chicken's owner to help me.
What really happened was that I was cruising through the fair's poultry exhibits, trailing way behind my family, as you might imagine, and trying for useful grab shots.
Poking my camera at the chicken cages, I found that if I was careful, I could get the wires of the cage to frame the bird's head, leaving me with a passable illustration for a story about the societal impact of confining fowl within bars - which is to say that this was not the most interesting of photographs.
I tried a few more like this one, trying to get the beak to not look like it was eating the wire. I had just about given up, thinking this was as good a chicken photo as I would get.
Then, a woman approached me and asked if I'd like to get a better shot. She was the mother of the 4-H'er who had raised the chicken.
The woman opened the cage door, which gave me an unobstructed view of the chicken.
This was a big help, but the background remained uninspiring. The bird's head blends with the chicken behind, and the beak is hard to see because it doesn't contrast well with the tin can.
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The real magic happened when she offered to bring the chicken out of the cage. While she held the chicken for me, my wife and daughter talked with her about 4-H - a perfect distraction that allowed me to try all sorts of different angles.
I found this angle that captured the bird from below, giving it a regal appearance. The open overhead door provided a great contrasting background with the sky nearing dusk.
It was then just a matter of cropping the photograph to remove the dark background from the bottom and to reposition the subject in the frame. You'll see the approximate area of the crop if you roll your mouse over the image, then compare to the final image at the top of this page.
Lessons
At ImproveYourDP, we look at picture quality from the perspective of CSE. Here are some of the key points achieved in each of these three areas for this chicken photo.
Composition
- Get close - by finally framing just the head, instead of most of the body, I put the focus on the most interesting part of the chicken.
- Clean background - compare the gray, cluttered background inside of the cage with the clean, contrasting color of the sky in the final image.
Cropping - the fourth chicken photo in the story was shot from much closer to the chicken than the others. Still, it took a final crop to remove some remaining, distracting background, with the advantage of bringing the viewer even closer to the subject.
For comparison, the crop in this picture, at right, puts the chicken left in the image. I ended up liking the one at the top of the page better - it has a feeling of openness in the direction the chicken is looking, while this one looks boxed in. You may want to give some thought as to which one you prefer, and why.
- Rule of thirds - much ado is made about the rule of thirds. It really means, "most subjects look best off-center, unless you have a good reason to center them." Rules are meant to be broken but, in this image, I followed it to a tee - the chicken's eye is precisely on a third point in both versions. Read more about the rule of thirds here.
Sharpness
- High ISO - it was not very bright inside the barn. Had I not had a camera that could go to a relatively high ISO sensitivity setting of 1000, with low noise, I would have had to use a flash.
- Image stabilization - even with the high ISO, a speed of 1/125 second for a 95mm focal length is at the low end of safe shutter speed for casual, handheld shooting. Image stabilization removed the risk of introducing motion blur.
Exposure
- Good lighting - this goes hand-in-hand with the composition comments. With the flat fluorescent lighting, it was difficult to get good contrast between the chicken and the background of the cages. Only when the chicken was placed against the sky, was it possible to expose well for the head and make the most of the available light.
- White balance - in the final chicken photo, there were two light sources, indoor fluorescent and skylight, that ended up working well together. I adjusted the camera white balance to warm up the greenish color of fluorescent lighting in the barn. This also had the positive effect of warming up the blue evening sky.
So, welcome to ImproveYourDP. I hope you find the stories, tips, and critiques helpful. As you get more familiar with the site, I'd love to hear your thoughts about what works well for you and what else you'd like to see covered to help improve your digital photography.
Your best next stop: Basic Photography Principles, an introduction to CSE.
