Camera Maintenance

There's a lot of information out here on the web for emerging amateurs and aspiring professionals, but where do you turn for accuracy in the information that's out there? Where do you turn when you're trying to identify an issue with your images? Having a newly-found issue I did a little search for all of us.

You see, I've dealt with dust, fiber, hairs, etc on lenses and filters. What I've not dealt with often are those things finding themselves on the cameras sensor itself. Here's a link to how to identify those issues. There's not much for cleaning sensors, which if you're going to do I recommend proceeding with caution, but if it's your lenses and filters that are causing you issues there's plenty of good information here. Give it a look, come back and share if it helped. :)

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Here's a preview of my profile that's available on www.thumbtack.com There you can sort through services available from vendors of all sorts. You can see reviews from customers, the vendor's portfolio and their responses to various questions there from thumbtack.com.

Here's a link to my portfolio there.

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 I'm taking a bit of a different approach to this post.  Many times I'll hesitate from sharing any photographs of firearms.  I find many people fear even looking at them, they feel uncomfortable being around them and they feel alienated by the use of their images.

With that in mind, these are excellent examples for a teaching opportunity in focal length and how to control how your subject matter appears based on what you're doing with your lens, using a zoom, not using a zoom, etc.

For this post, I've put all the images which use a wide angle (less than 45mm) focal length on the left side, normal in the middle (about 50mm-55mm) and larger than 55mm on the right side.  I used a 24mm-70mm lens in this shoot which gave me perspective control in how the viewer sees the subject, it also can be troublesome, especially if you were taking portraits of a person.

Why does focal length matter?  Well, like I mentioned above your normal vision is comparable to about the focal length of 50mm-55mm.  Anything less starts becoming wide angle, anything larger starts compressing the image.  That's not a bad thing, but it's something that you need to be aware of in order to control your images rather than to be controlled by your images.

 If you notice, all the images on the left (again, they were shot using about a 24mm focal length) give the appearance that the rifle has a very long barrel, the muzzle break on the end looks quite large and the scope appears to be very distant from the end.

In portraiture this may result in making a subjects nose (or whatever feature is physically closest to the lens) to appear bigger than it actually is.  If you're photographing someone with a large nose and you're focusing on the face then you might make the nose look even larger than it actually is.

If your sitter wanted to enhance a physical feature by making it appear larger this could play out to your advantage, using a wider angle lens and using an angle where that physical feature is closer to the lens.

 

 With that in mind, if you're working with someone who wants to make a physical feature less noticeable you might in turn consider using a larger focal length (preferably 100mm-200mm).  This can be effective if your sitter has a large nose and is concerned about how large it appears.  A woman who is well endowed and wants to appear...less endowed... may also prefer a larger focal length to be used, because it can help make those closer physical features to appear smaller.


So what's right?  What's the best lens to use?  When it comes to photography if you don't have a camera it doesn't matter what camera is best for a genre if you didn't have a camera there with you to capture the moment.  If you only have one lens, you can work around any shortcomings it may appear to have. If you're working with a wide angle lens and trying to conceal other features simply using a prop with your subject can make all the difference.  If there's a broom stick, baseball bat, pillow, or another prop appropriate to the end-goal of the image that can be used, having your subject hold that object in front of them, hold it to them, etc may be able to help you overcome that wide angle effect.

If you're working with a 70mm-300mm lens you might consider keeping your lens at 70mm and adjusting your own positioning to change the image's crop.  If your sitter wants to enhance physical features then you might consider getting more of a profile for the shot, because shooting along (or across) the subject will show those changes in physical features more even when using a longer lens.

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Sometimes, in order to be noticed, receive recognition, credibility, reputation, notoriety...

Contests MUST be entered.  Today is no different.  :)

Visit FindYourArtSchool to see my photo submission and easily find over 400 good interior design schools and more!

Emotions in Facial Expressions

 Something I hear all too often is "I never like pictures of me, because I'm never making the face that I think I'm making".

So, how do you evict emotions in facial expression?

To create descriptions for these I stood in front of a mirror and kept thinking about things that made me feel these ways and took notes as to how I personally responded to each stimuli, while some people may express emotions visually differently than another...I believe that unless you're Kristen Stewart there's a pretty good chance that there are strong similarities in what I described...and how you show it.

Annoyed - Eyebrows scrunched, slight pursing of lips, intense stare at person/object annoyed at.

Interest - Attentive eyes, head slightly cocked with a slight squinting of the eyes.

Joy - Eyes fully open (no squint), very slight tilt of the neck, almost a grin on the face.

Surprise - Eyebrows lifted fully exposing more of the eye than is usually seen, head slightly forward, jaw on the floor.

Fear - Head pulled back and slightly turned away from source of fear, slight tilt of head.

Boredom - Head tilted slightly backward and titled to side, shoulders shrugged.

Awe - Mouth half open, gentle raise in eyebrows, eyes slightly opened.

Admiration - More of a grin in the lips, "grin with the eyes", very slight close in eyelids to show focus of admiration.

Love - More intense admiration, closed mouth grin, dimples (if available), under eye wrinkles (constriction in cheeks creates a tug between the lower eyelid and the cheeks making barely noticeable wrinkles under the eye more apparent).

Serenity - Eyes closed, head tilted back slightly and slightly to the side, shoulders back, open acceptance.

Have you ever:

Asked a professional in their field and received a response that was longer than you expected, and much less simple than you thought reasonable?

There's probably a good reason for that.

If I were to ask a construction company for a proposal for a home on land I already owned I know full well that I'd have hundreds and thousands of questions to answer.  Why?  Because they're professionals who know that there are very particular points in their industry which require very specific information, they've also worked with more than one client and have accepted that the more information they get From the client, the better the result they can sell the client at the end of the day.

Well, is photography so complicated?  Why do photographers always give so long of an answer?

Some may give a short answer, that can be good or bad.  Perhaps the best response is a series of informed questions that only require short responses so that both parties can make the best of their day.

A photograph is a very complicated matter from the professional stand point.  A subject (whether it's an inanimate object or a animate object, a person or a pet) is a very dynamic image to capture and everything about that "snap" needs to be considered before the snap.  Why?  Because this allows the photographer to have the right environment for the subject.

Photographing a Ferrari in the war torn country of Somalia is about as brilliant an idea as photographing a couple's engagement photo's outside the county jail (assuming that they don't work there and that's a whole different ballgame called "environmental photography" which has nothing to do with weather or pollution but everything to do about the environment in which a person identifies themselves).

Perhaps the most important element in a photograph is light.  If there's not a good quality of light (for the intended concept in the image), a consistent light, a good color of light, a consistent color of light...then the photographer needs to already have responses to produce a consistent quality and color of light that enhances the desired image.

Environment may be the second most important element, as insinuated to two paragraphs ago.  Taking an image of something in a location that doesn't make sense for it to be in can be effective in some instances, on the other hand it can destroy the desired purpose by conflicting messages in the final product.

The first and second element as previously described determine the third element.  What gear will the photographer need to complete the shoot as desired?  I frequently pre-visualize a setting by actually photographing at the location in the situation I'll be shooting in before I am shooting the actual end-image simply because it allows me to have this third element nailed from the start.  As a photographer I need to know what extra light I need to bring with me, will that require me to bring power cords?  A generator or battery packs for my lights?  Do I need to bring a background to block something out, or to soften light?  Will I need an assistant to help with a reflector to balance the lighting on the subject(s) for the image?  What lens do I need to bring for primary?  Do I need a secondary camera, or three and four lenses ready to go?  Am I shooting a dozen images or three thousand images?

All of those "little" things have a fairly drastic effect on your end image.  I'll get more into nitty gritty concepts that evolve from this in later posts, but for now give the professionals a break.  Answer their questions pertaining to the ideal photo that you want captured and see if they don't just blow you away with the quality they provide you by knowing what you wanted and being able to mitigate how to make that happen for you.  :)

After all, I'm a professional.

While there are non-professionals out there trying to make an extra buck...if they're even a little decent they'll still ask you some of the above questions so that they can at least Try to deliver what they're being asked for.

Well, I've put instructionals here and there.  What would YOU like to see and learn about in photography?

Do you like the step by steps showing differences?  Do you prefer videos explaining how to perform different "tricks" or does explaining it in text suffice for you?