Archive for June, 2010

Sports Photography

For sports enthusiasts, there’s nothing more exciting than sports people playing their favourite game. The sight of the field, rink or golf course initiates the thrill and anticipation. This, combined with digital photography, can provide some amazing photographic opportunities. However it’s not a matter of point the camera at the person diving for the ball or puck and snapping away. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

In digital photography sports can be quite challenging. The sports people do not present an easy task of being photographed because of the amount of high movement. However, you can indeed achieve great sports digital photography. Most excellent sports digital photography requires good planning and execution.

Here are some exclusive tips for gaining fantastic sports shots in your digital photography.

First things first; know your digital camera. I recommend taking note and practicing first all the settings that sports photography needed. You may find yourself going for the faster shutter speed, increased ISO and burst mode. Let’s take a look at all these things on your digital camera and see how they can be applied to give you sensational sports photos.

High shutter speeds:
As with all moving objects, in order to capture the “frozen in time” look in digital photography a fast shutter speed is required. The faster the movement the fast the shutter speed will need to be. In digital photography the general consensus is that the shutter speed needs to be faster than that of the subject. For example if you have a sliding puck across ice and there is a someone about to take a dive for it then its necessary to quickly mentally assess how fast that person might be traveling at. If they are traveling at approximately 50 kilometers (approx 32 miles) per hour then you may find a very fast shutter speed is needed for this digital photo.

A very fast shutter speed in digital photography may be anything from 500th of a second or higher. For high speed movement you may want to consider an even faster shutter speed of 1000th of a second or something in that range.

Keep in mind that in digital photography a fast shutter speed works to reduce some of the light which is why a higher ISO is often necessary. (I’ll talk about that in a minute.) Usually a if a ball, such as a baseball going at around 145 kilometers an hour (90.09 miles per hour) a shutter speed of around 1/4000 will get you that “suspended ball in mid air” type of photo. For physical movement, such as someone leaping to catch a football, a shutter speed of 1/500 or over is a good place to start.

Now this is all very well if your scene if well lit. But what if you are taking your digital photography shots indoors at night and the light is not quite enough to provide enough light? In most instances, an indoor stadium at night time will be well lit, but that doesn’t always ensure good digital photos. In sports photography we need to understand that we can only control the artistic value and input of our digital photo and the control of the camera. We can’t control the lighting on the scene being such a public event. In digital photography sports photos we must realize that it’s going to be a challenge to begin with. So here are something’s you can in your digital sports photography to increase the amount of light.

If you have a light tool on your digital camera such as a histogram you can get a good idea of what the light levels are like on your sensor. With this handy tool you can adjust the ISO at the time of your pictures taking.

Increase your ISO: A high ISO in digital photography simply means the sensitivity to light that your digital camera has. In a nutshell the more ISO you have increased the image to, the less light the sensor needs. In sports photography an ISO of 400 or higher can work really well. The downside to this is that it does increase noise. To combat this you can use noise reduction software in the post editing process such as Noise Ninja or increase the LAB mode in the post editing process. Don’t be afraid to try a few shots at 400, 800 and even as high as 1600.

Burst mode:
In most sports digital photography this will be one of the settings you will turn to. Burst mode is also known as ‘continuous shooting’. This ‘continuous’ shooting mode allows you to get a sequence of shoots in succession. You can increase your chances of getting that ideal “split second perfect shot” that you might not be able to get by pre-emption or in normal shooting. This also works so beautifully if your digital camera has a painfully long lag time. I’ve used this so many times to get around the high lag my Sony Cyber shot has got. Some cameras have 3 frames per second and some go up to 12 frames per second. You simply select this mode and hold your finger on the shutter button and it will fire off as many shots in 1 second as it can.

Okay so I’ve been talking about your digital camera and the setting’s used for ideal sports digital photography, so what about any external equipment? If you have been thinking about this you’re spot on. You can take as much time with your settings but there’s not much point if you can’t get close to the action. There’s no point having a picture with perfect lighting and perfect action if the players are like dots on a sheet of paper. You need a good telephoto lens if you can’t get close up. A telephoto lens brings you closer because of its long distance capability. It will get you closer to the action but will need a faster shutter speed.

Many fantastic sports digital photos are taken with an emphasis on a very fast shutter speed, an f stop of around the 2.8 mark to blur the background and focus in on the subject. You may find that if your sportsperson is visually separated from the background and you take the digital photograph with a telephoto lens you’ll have a more shallow depth of field which can give you a more powerful feeling in your digital photo. You can get away with a good optical zoom lens, but you’ll get far better digital sports shots with a proper telephoto.

So what about the artistic side of sports photography with your digital camera? Plenty!

Pre-emption and Emotion is the key to good art.
When taking sports photography you probably won’t find a more public display of human emotion. The emotions of a sports person range from intense anticipation to extreme disappointment or extreme exhilaration. Pre-empting when these emotions take place is they key to getting artistic and impressive sports photos. This comes with practicing your digital photography.

SO much pressure is placed on our athletes, expecting them to perform so we can enjoy the show and the investors can enjoy their returns. This is another reason why I say to get a telephoto lens so you can capture the emotions on their faces and their body language. It makes for superb photography. For ideas on ice hockey, have a look at some ice hockey images that are great study tools.

Don’t just look at these digital photos, you must study them. Take on the attitude that studying sports photography will improve your digital sports photos ten fold. You will have a style to emulate and copy to start with then eventually, when you become confident, you’ll start to adopt your own style.

Happy shooting,
Amy Renfrey

To study digital sports photography check these sites out: http://www.espn.com and http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com

Amy Renfrey is the author of two major successful ebooks “Digital Photography Success” and “Advanced Digital Photography”. She is a photographer and also teaches digital photography. Her educational ebooks takes the most complex photography terms and turns them into easy to understand language so that anyone, at any level of photography, can easily move to a semi-professional level of skill in just a very short time. She’s photographed many things from famous musicians (Drummers for Prince and Anastasia) to weddings and portraits of babies. Amy also teaches photography online to her students which can be found at http://www.DigitalPhotographySuccess.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amy_Renfrey

What photography do you want

Persons capture images for a lot of motives, assorting from over-romantic incentives to extremely convenient anxieties. Capturing images may possibly be an artistic structure, a family unit pastime otherwise a past obligation. Likewise, staring at images keeps us in contact with the past times, continues us educated of happenings moreover permits us to value creativity.

Photography is an impressive ability outline that comprises more than simply portrayal, scenery or glamour taking pictures. Mutually specialized and unprofessional photographers might support precise varieties of photography more than others. Although an expert photographer may possibly toil in photojournalism, an unskilled might be mainly fascinated in large-photography.

Capturing images can be as effortless as positioning the photographic camera, clicking and desiring impressive turns out. A lot of inhabitants capture images in this way Nonetheless, this technique might be incompatible: at times it works and occasionally it doesn’t.

So, which kind of photography do you want? Here is a comprehensive list of the kinds of photography:

Representation Photography-Documental photographs inform tales with pictures. The major dissimilarity among photojournalism and representation photography is that representation photography is destined to provide as a past representation of a political or sociable period whereas photojournalism represents a specific prospect or occurrence.

Photojournalism-Even though unskilled might terminated into this branch of knowledge lacking of proper preparation, photojournalism is frequently restricted to proficient. One cause photojournalism is frequently accomplished by experts is that sober photojournalists have to be sure that their shots uphold the reliability of the unique view.

Photojournalism entails the photographer to capture simply the essentials: no modification or exaggeration of the image is allowed. Photojournalism images are frequently influential pictures that prosecute the observer with the information subject matter. Cognizing how to obtain specified shots to interpret the unique sensation is frequently discovered simply throughout the years of performance and understanding.

Macro Photography-Macro-photography distinguished the subject field of photography in which images are captured at close up scope. When limited to lens men with improved and luxurious apparatus, macro-photography is currently uncomplicated for unskilled to put into practice through digital cameras by means of macro environment. Macro-photography subject matters might comprise arthropods, plants life, as well as the surface of a woven jersey otherwise some content where close-up taking photos exposes appealing informations.

Action Photography-Though experts who capture moving shots might concentrate in a diversity of various subject matters, games photography is one of the quickest and most arousing styles of taking photos. Just like several action shot, an excellent games lens man has to be acquainted with his or her subject matter fine adequate to expect when to capture images. Very similar regulation goes for photographers captivating moving shots of fauna organisms in natural world or of an airplane departure.

Micro Photography-Microphotography makes use of dedicated cameras and magnifiers to captivate pictures of enormously tiny objects. The majority of utilization of microphotography is better suitable for the systematic human kind. For instance, microphotography is exercised in subject areas as varied as natural philosophy, environmental science and medical science.

Marketing Photography-It’s because photography performs a very important role in marketing, a lot of expert photographers dedicate their professions to marketing photography. The require for sole and noticeable marketing reproduction means the photographer might toil with numerous forms of taking pictures, as well as macro-photography and beauty photography.

Beauty Photography-Beauty photography, sometimes misidentified with pornography, might be horny and titillating except it is not pornographic. Alternatively of centering on nakedness or violent postures, glamour photography seeks out to seize its subject matter in reminiscent postures that give emphasis to curvatures and shades. As the name entails, the objective of beauty photography is to interpret the role model in a sensational brightness. Therefore, lots of glamour shots bear teasing, unexplained and good-humored natures.

Aerial Photography-An airborne photographer concentrates in capturing images from the air. Photographs might be utilized for reviewing or constructing, to seize birds or climate on movie or for armed forces intentions. Aerial lens men have make use of airplanes, particularly lights, parachutes, hot-air balloons and remote controlled airliner to capture images from the atmosphere.

Imaginative Photography-Imaginative photography can hold a broad selection of subject matters. Whereas a natural world photographer might make use of undersea taking photographs to generate an art show based on marine life, a representation photographer’s amusement might attribute black and white imaginative portrayal. Overall cases, the shoots should have artistic significance to be regard as artistic creation.

Marriage Photography-Marriage photography is a combination of various styles of taking photographs. Even though the nuptials photograph album is a documentary of the marriage day, marriage photographs can be improved and modified to generate a mixture of special effects. For instance, a lens man might take care of several of the photographs with reddish brown harmonizing to provide them an extra traditional, enduring look.

Underwater Photography-Subsurface photography is frequently in employment by scuba divers. On the other hand, the price of scuba diving, attached with frequently luxurious and awkward undersea picture making apparatus, creates this one of the fewer frequent styles of taking pictures. Likewise, if an unskilled has the apparatus and the scuba knowledge, captivating shots below the surface can be difficult, as scuba safety glasses are overstated and deform the photographer’s visualization.

Travel Photography-Travel photography might extent numerous types of photography, as well as advertising, documentary or dialect photography that portrays a mainly local or chronological taste. A travel lens man can capture the sense of a site with mutually sceneries and portrayal.

To help you even further you may want to take a look here at Digital Panoramic Camera to learn about the new point and shoot digital camera from Sony that will have you taking amazing digital pictures in no time. In fact, this is the same camera that Taylor Swift uses on her TV commercial. Just Click Here Now.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sara_Ramsey

Photography Samples

Here is a few samples of my work. Have a look and then come to my main site at Matt Birch Pictures where all images are for sale. I am available for all kinds of work anywhere in the world. Its not just photography in Essex.

British Indoor Ski Championships

I am off to the British Indoor Ski Championships this weekend for three days of high quality photographic work. These images will be on my site in the coming weeks. Keep checking the site to see how it went.

If you are looking for any kind of photography in Essex, the home counties or even in foreign climbs, then give me a call to see what we can do for you. The pictures from the Ski champs will be on my main site Matt Birch Pictures before they reach my blog.