All About Photography

A new series I shot this morning in my old wedding dress!. You'll be seeing more soon on flickr.

Well, I've finally found a moment to sit down and answer some of your photography questions. There were a few people I replied to directly who had more individual needs, but if you find your question still isn't answered here, e-mail me again and I'll answer it directly.

First off, I am no professional. Sometimes I think I've found some easy, cheap way of doing something that ends in a result I was looking for, but is entirely different from how everyone else achieved the result. But I'll answer your questions, there's just no guarantee that other photographers would say the same things! Feel free to skip through them to find your question. I do realize this is a bit long!

1) What kind of camera do I have? Well, I use a Nikon D70s that we bought two summers ago. I swore I would never go digital. I fell in love with photography in the darkroom. I loved rolling my own film, I loved swooshing the paper around in the developer and watching the picture emerge, and I loved having all that control over my prints. But now I wonder how the heck I managed without that little computer screen on the back, assuring me that I did indeed get the shot I wanted! How did I?

2) What lenses do you have? Now, the one thing I have realized in regards to the quality of my photos is it largely depends on the lens I am using. I started with the 17-80mm that came with my Nikon and could never get a shot I wanted, unless it was outdoors with the bright sun. My indoor shots always looked horrible, complete with the built-in camera flash, with absolutely no depth of field. (The distance between the nearest and the furthest objects that give an image judged to be in focus in a camera.) Enter the 50mm 1.8f  Nikkor lens. Almost all of my portrait shots until recently were taken with this lens. Almost all my indoor shots were taken with this lens too. Because of the 1.8 aperture, I am able to get a particular object in focus, with the background and/or foreground blurry. The aperture is what controls that. The smaller the number, the larger the opening in the lens, which gives you more depth of field. This shot was taken with that lens, set at 1.8f, which is why the dandelion is in focus, but nothing else is.
And my newest addition is the 30mm 1.4f which gives me a much wider angle (it's actually more like the human eye) and gives me two more stops, so I can really control my depth of field here. A larger aperture also means you can shoot in low light situations, so this lens came in handy for the wedding I shot that was indoors in a dimly lit room.
So if you typically shoot in low light situations, or want a really good depth of field, I would find a lens that gives you a large aperture, preferably 2.0f or under. But most of these lenses (that are affordable anyway!) are going to be prime lenses, which means there is no zoom feature. If you typically shoot wildlife or landscapes, I would go for a zoom lens and you probably won't need to worry about a large aperture because of the abundance of natural light.

3) What low cost digital camera would you recommend with the most options of controlling the shots? Well, I'm no camera reviewer, and it's hard to say what "low cost" is for everyone, but I have heard great things about the Nikon D40. I think it's really fairly priced, and unless you're shooting professionally and need a lot of control over the edits you do post processing, I believe that the camera body doesn't have much to do with the quality of your shots as the lenses do. So get the D40, save up for a good lens, and I think you'll be pretty pleased! I am recommending a DSLR instead of a "point and shoot" because you have so much more control.

4) How did you start? Where did you start? It's all so overwhelming: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance...! Yes, it's a tad overwhelming at first, but I promise if you take one thing at a time, it's not so hard. I started with a very basic, inexpensive SLR my senior year of high school. I've always had a tremendous amount of creative energy and I needed a new outlet. As a child, I used to come home from school and flip through old Life magazines and marvel at the photographs. I wanted to become a photojournalist one day (along with a musician, an acupuncturist, a graphic designer, an organic farmer, etc.!) and when our school offered a new photography course my senior year, I jumped at the chance. I had no idea what I was doing, but apparently it didn't matter. I didn't worry about anything technical, shot in manual all of the time without really knowing what it was I was doing, and managed to do pretty well. Now I know a lot more about what exactly it is I'm doing with the camera in terms of shutter speed, white balance, etc. And that all came from reading a LOT! Mostly online too. And then my issue is I never really understand something until I experiment with it for a while. But that's the beauty of shooting in digital...you have room for lots of experimenting!

5) So say a gal was making the jump from point-and-shoot to DSLR: what sorts of things would you encourage her to do to take advantage of the extra $700 she just spent? Play around with the "M", "A", and "S" modes. I shoot mainly in "A", which is "aperture priority". I do this mainly because it saves me time, and when I'm taking pictures of an active toddler, I need to be quick before the shot disappears! By shooting in "M" you will have full control over everything, meaning you will need to adjust the aperture and shutter speed to get the correct exposure before taking the shot. By shooting in "A" you only control the aperture, and the camera takes care of the shutter speed automatically. And by shooting in "S" you control the shutter speed while the camera adjusts the aperture. I shoot in "A" mostly because I'm typically looking for a particular depth of field in my photos. I would only switch to "S" if I wanted a shot that showed action, like here. For that shot I set the shutter speed to 30 (really slow) to allow my image to blur. And I would shoot in "M" only if I wanted to have full control over the exposure, meaning if I wanted it underexposed or overexposed.

6) How long does it take you (on average) to shoot your self portraits? Is it relaxing for you? Well, I am one of those photographers that sees a photograph before I even take it. I hardly ever take a photograph without seeing it in my mind first, if that makes any sense. So the images are already "up there" and all I need to do is create them through the view finder. Since the thinking part is done, all I have to do is set up a shot. For most of them, the set up and shooting time takes me about 10-15 minutes. For the more complex ones, like this, it takes me about 20-30 minutes, mostly because I take a lot of pictures to make sure I get one good one. Also, that shot involved a ladder, bungee cords, ropes, and a long pole, so it took even longer.
Taking my self portraits is relaxing for me on most days, mostly because it's my creative outlet. I really look forward to it. I typically put the little one down for her nap and rush around trying to set up my shot. Stephen has been graciously taking the little one for half a weekend day so I can shoot at a different location, or try some more time-involved shots. This helps tremendously because I don't feel so limited.

7) What programs do you use for editing? Photoshop scares me, although I really want it. It just seems too complicated. I use "Aperture" by Apple, which does some very minimal editing. I've used this up until last month when I discovered Picnik.com and now use that for most of my photos. I also have the free download Seashore that I've never used for anything but resizing photos and adding text, until this week when I discovered the world of textures and layering. So you'll be seeing more of my photographs enhanced with Seashore.

8) What would you say your top three sorts of edits you do after taking photos? Exposure is always first. I usually overexpose a little bit without washing out any of the light parts of the photo. Then I move on to saturation, either by a single color, or as a whole. Then I adjust shadows, if there are any to adjust. Lastly I adjust sharpness. Oops, I guess that's four...

9) How do you get that "honey-colored" look in your photos? Picnik.com. I use a variety of adjustments on here, but the 1960's look is my fav, as well as the cross-processed, which my bike banner was done with.

10) Do you usually find a quote first and then take a picture inspired by it, or the other way around? I normally read a quote or poem first that sparks something in my imagination, then try to recreate what I've pictured in a photograph. My Hafiz books are literally overflowing with bookmarks and bent page corners. I just can't help be inspired when I read something by him. There are many days that I don't have much time to be super creative, so I take a pretty average shot and after I edit it, I look at it to see what it makes me feel. Then I take that feeling and try to find a quote that matches it. This is always the harder way. Most days I sit at the computer for over an hour trying to find the perfect quote!

11) What are the best times of day to photograph outdoors? Well, 10-2 is the worst because the sun is so harsh at that time. And unfortunately it's during that time that I have my only opportunity to do most of my self portraits! My favorite time of day to photograph is early evening, when the sun is low and the light turns a great golden color. This picture was taken around 6:30 p.m. and I got just the light I wanted!

12) Do you always bring your camera with you? If yes, do you have a special bag for it? Yes, I always bring my camera with me. And if I don't, I always see something truly amazing that makes me hit myself for forgetting my camera! Even if I don't think I'll need my camera, I still put it in the car when we go out, just in case. I use the Crumpler "6 Million Dollar Home" for transporting my camera. I'm very pleased with it, but I wish I had gotten the next size up.

13) What are your secrets for great pictures? There are no secrets! I think always "seeing" a shot before taking it is a big deal for me. It helps tremendously and I also don't fill up my camera cards because I only need one or two shots. But really, my big "secret"? Well, I guess it would be to see the world through your view finder the way nobody else would. Make your photographs show a world nobody could see with their own two eyes. Photography for me is therapy. It's how I work out everything going on in my life. I can look back at my past photographs and know exactly what was going on in my life because of how I was seeing the world. It's an amazing gift, and I feel truly grateful for being able to share them all with you!

I hope you found at least something helpful in this post. And I hope you don't mind, if for only a little while, this blog morphs into more of a photography outlet for me. If you find any of this helpful, let me know and I'd love to check out your photos! Until next time...

Comments

[Dawn]

Wow! This was so helpful! Yesterday, I was pouring over the owner's manual for my camera that I've had for a year...again, trying to learn a thing or two. This post was much easier to understand than that manual! What you said about the A, M, and S settings were particularly helpful. I have just been experimenting without any rhyme or reason with those settings lately.

[Z.]

Hi! Thanks ever so much! Can I have one more question? Do you always edit your pictures or are any of your pictures unedited? I'm bit scared of Photoshop as well, I've been using Photofiltre but I'm still looking for something else. I'll look at this Picnik.com. But for some reason, I always feel like cheating when I edit my pics :-(

[Ms.Cleaver]

Really great post. I just purchased a digital SLR (Pentax K200D) about a month ago, after having a Pentax K100 film camera and a point and shoot digital for about 3 years. I love having more control with the SLR and the practically unlimited amounts of photos I can take. But I think I'd have to buy a purty expensive digital to get film quality black and white shots.

I thought I'd also give my flickr link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mscleaver/sets/72157606292061870/

[Heather]

Thank you Thank you Thank you! I have some wonderful ideas now of where to begin!

[Marta]

Thank you, Erin! That was very inspiring and super helpful! I finally know what those letters on the camera mean. You should consider writing camera manuals- I mean, when I was reading your answers, I imagined a user-friendly manual that you don't throw back in the drawer every time you try to actually understand what it says. Sometimes I feel like my Canon DSLR manual is for peeps who already know how to use it :o))

I am looking forward to seeing more pictures! I am glad to have stumbled upon this blog! :o)

[tara schoepf]

well put, thanks mucho!

[Tava/Yarnmama]

Thanks so much for this Erin. I just bought a Nikon D60 and have not seen anything as helpful as this blog post. Thanks!!!

[Amy]

I think that you *are* a professional, the moment you decide to call yourself one.

[Michelle]

I completely agree with using prime lenses in low lighting situations. We have a 50mm 1.4 that I absolutely love. I was hesitant because we bought a fully manual lens and wasn't sure I would use it. I do. All the time! I am drooling over the 30mm. It's on my wish list!

[katy]

thank you again for your graciousness and generousity...i have always been drawn to photography and you have really inspired me to go for it. so i will definitely be using your insights as a resource to this venture! i am so thankful that i found you (your blog:) take much care.

[stephanie]

How wonderfully generous to post such detailed and inspiring information! I have just recently purchased a Nikon D60 and am busy exploring the creative possibilities. This was all SO useful. I am very envious of the 1.4 lens. My old, beloved Minolta film camera had a 1.4 lens and it was just divine, it took my pictures in a whole new direction. I think it is something I shall investigate for my new camera. I so love your double exposure shots.....is it difficult???
Thank you for such a great post:)
Warmly,
Stephanie :)

[shelley caskey]

what great info, erin! thank you SO much! can't wait to get out there and try some of your helpful hints/tricks on my own! :)