Digital Camera World » Photography Tutorials

Digiscoping: how to use a spotting scope with your camera for ultra-close images

jmeyer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:00:37 +0000

If you’re struggling to get close enough to your wildlife subjects to create images with any real impact, why not try digiscoping? In this quick guide we’ll show you how to use a spotting scope with your camera to nearly double your magnification.

All images by Chris Rutter

Normal 400mm or 500mm telephoto lenses aren’t powerful enough to get close enough to many wild animals. However, digiscoping, where you attach your DSLR to a spotting scope, can give an equivalent magnification to an 800mm lens or more.

For digiscoping you will need an adapter, which are made by many of the main scope manufacturers. Most digiscoping adapters have a ‘universal’ attachment, known as a T2 mount, that are available in a range of camera fittings.

Spotting scopes don’t offer the automatic functions such as focus or a variable aperture that you’d have with a telephoto lens, and the effective aperture of most is between f/8 and f/16, so you’ll need plenty of light to use them effectively.

You’ll need to use high ISO settings to get shutter speeds fast enough to prevent blur. Despite these limitations, digiscoping offers a relatively accessible way to get huge focal length optics for your DSLR.

Digiscoping step-by step: how to attach your DSLR to the spotting scope and the best settings to use

01 Attach the adapter
Before you can attach your camera to any spotting scope, you’ll need to fit an adapter. There are various types for different telescopes and manufacturers. We used a Nikon for our shoot, and with the Nikon adapters you take off the standard viewing eyepiece and fit the FSA-L2 or FSA-L1.

02 Attach your camera
Once the adapter is fitted to the scope, you can attach the camera. With the Nikon versions the camera fits straight onto the adapter, but for other makes of scope and adapter we would have needed to use a T2 adapter in Nikon F fitting to fit the camera to the adapter.

03 Camera settings
With no electronic connections, the range of exposure modes and metering using any adapter is limited. On most cameras you can use manual or aperture-priority modes, and centre-weighted metering. In changing light conditions, aperture-priority mode is best.

04 Auto ISO
You can’t adjust the aperture when using a spotting scope, but the automatic ISO setting allows your camera to adjust the exposure without relying simply on the shutter speed. Limit the ISO to 1600, and set the minimum shutter speed to 1/500 sec to get sharp results.

05 Frame your shot
Using the huge magnifications available with digiscoping, finding and framing your subject can be a challenge. Move the telescope until you spot an obvious feature in the viewfinder, look where it is in relation to the area that you want to shoot, then reframe the image.

06 Focusing
You will have to use manual focus, and this can be difficult to judge due to the limited depth of field and the small maximum apertures of most spotting scopes. Roughly focus the scope on the area you want to be sharp, then fine tune your focusing slowly until it is spot-on.

PAGE 1: Digiscoping step-by-step
PAGE 2: Best digiscoping adapters

Movement photography: camera panning techniques to convey a sense of speed

crutter — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:02:41 +0000

Camera panning techniques look and sound complicated. In reality, though, anyone with a manual mode and the patience to practice can learn how to pan a camera. In this tutorial we’ll show you how you can use slower shutter speeds to add a greater sense of drama to your movement photography.

All images by Chris Rutter

Camera panning is a skill that takes practice to get right. Following fast-moving subjects accurately, and choosing the best shutter speed to balance getting the subject sharp and sufficiently blurring the background isn’t something that you pick up immediately in your movement photography. But it’s incredibly rewarding when everything comes together.

If you’re new to movement photography, start your experiments using camera panning with subjects that travel in a straight line, perpendicular to the direction you’re shooting in, such as racing cars moving along a straight part of the track.

In this situation you should set the camera to shutter priority mode, select a speed of 1/250 sec and make sure that the drive mode is on continuous shooting.

You should then manually focus the lens on the point where you’ll shoot your subjects. This will avoid problems with the autofocus changing the focus point during your pan.

Next, position yourself so that you’re facing the point you’ve focused on, and turn your body so that you can pick up the subject as early as possible as it travels towards you.

Swivel smoothly, keeping the subject in the same position in the frame, for as long as possible as it travels past you.

To get the smoothest pan you should try to swivel from your hips, rather than just your shoulders, and fire the camera in the middle of this movement.

Remember to continue panning well after you’ve finished shooting, because stopping too early can create a jerky movement, which will spoil your movement photography.

Once you’ve perfected this camera panning technique, and you can smoothly follow the action, you can start to reduce the shutter speed to give more blur and a greater impression of speed in your movement photography.

Start by dropping it to 1/125 sec and then 1/60 sec or even slower, but make sure that you’re keeping the main subject sharp.

With the basic panning action mastered, you can use this technique in more difficult situations such as when subjects are moving diagonally towards you, or on even more unpredictable subjects such as moving animals or footballers.

This random movement makes it trickier to get as much background blur, because you need to use a faster shutter speed than if you’re shooting something more predictable.

Unlike with subjects moving perpendicular to you, it’s also better to select predictive autofocus mode, because the distance between you and the target will vary..

PAGE 1: What is panning?
PAGE 2: 3 simple steps to panning like a pro
PAGE 3: How to choose the best shutter speed for movement photography
PAGE 4: Final tips for taking successful panning photos

Frame within a frame: composition tricks for adding depth and context

jmeyer — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:00:25 +0000

Using a found frame within a frame is a great photo composition trick for filling space and adding depth to an image. In this simple guide we show you how to find your frame within a frame and how to make it work.

Frame within a frame is a simple compositional trick that can prove particularly effective in city and travel photography. Including a natural or man-made aperture such as a gateway, aperture or hole in a hedge in the foreground of your shot creates a distinct border at the edge of your pictures.

One of the attractions of this form of composition is that it allows you to get away from a standard rectangular frame forced on to you by your camera’s sensor.

Using a natural frame allows you to create new inner picture shape. This adds variety to your shots, and often means you can mask out the acres of boring sky or grass that you would otherwise have to include in the frame

Adding the frame in the foreground is also one of the many ways of adding a feeling of depth to your shot, giving a strong suggestion of the third dimension that is missing from a two-dimensional photograph.

How to use a frame within a frame

01 Hunt high and low
Finding natural frames for your pictures can demand a bit of ingenuity, but once you develop an eye for it you will see them everywhere. You will need to change the camera’s height and position to ensure that you can frame the subject well within the frame you find.

02 The window view 
Manmade apertures are the obvious choice for this effect. Archways, gaps in gates and windows can be found giving views of most places if you are not too far from civilisation. This gate was ideal as it could be angled to frame the castle as perfectly as possible.

03 Foreground framing elements
Finding foreground framing elements is a great way of filling areas of empty space in a frame, such as featureless skies or acres of grass. Foliage can work well, and can be found in most places. This hole in a young holly hedge overlooking the keep does the trick here.

04 Focus of attention
For this type of photography, we’d recommend using the ‘A’, or aperture priority, mode. This gives you good control over depth of field. With every frame-in-a-frame you shoot, you will need to decide how much of the scene and how much of the foreground you want in focus.

05 All looking sharp
It is tempting to always have both the subject and the frame tack-sharp, but this can be tricky to achieve. To maximise depth of field to achieve this you will need a small aperture (f/22 say, as above). Use a tripod, and then focus on a point about a third of the way into the scene.

06 Go arty with blur
For handheld shots it is usually expedient to have the frame slightly out of focus to ensure the subject is sharp, accentuating the feeling of depth. A radical alternative is to use a wide aperture (f/3.2 here) and focus on the foreground and keep the subject teasingly blurred.

Final tip 
Found frames can be useful for hiding ugly signs, parked trucks and crowds of people, making the technique very useful for city photography – at home or when traveling.

Shadow Art: abstract photography effects with everyday items

jmeyer — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 13:00:03 +0000

Find out how you can use common household items to create striking shadow art. These simple photography effects can be achieved by anyone and can be shot anywhere, using anything!

Get creative this weekend – all you need for this project is a lamp, a plain wall and a bottle. By deliberately using shadows as part of a composition you can give a unique feel to your still lifes.

Glass props work well for this project, as they give off interesting shadows under a strong light.

We set up our glass bottles on a table, placing a flower in one to give a stronger silhouette, and lit the scene from the side using an anglepoise lamp.

You can also use a flashgun as a light source, but you’ll need a cable or wireless trigger so that the flash can be placed away from the camera.

Another option is to set up your bottles behind paper or muslin and shoot through it – the shadows will fall softly against the surface.

How to photograph shadow art

01 Set it up
Set your props up in a dark room and place your light source to the side of the table. Now it’s just a case of playing with angles until your bottles cast a strong shadow on the wall behind them. Try overlapping shapes and colours, and mixing transparent props and opaque ones.

02 Settings
Put your camera on a tripod. This will allow you to use a low ISO, such as 100 or 200, and leave your hands free to adjust your props. Use a small aperture, such as f/11, to ensure everything stays sharp. If you’re struggling to give your shots an abstract feel, try changing the White Balance.

03 Get experimenting
Don’t stop at bottles – scout around the house and you’re sure to find a host of objects that will give you interesting silhouettes. Anything translucent works really well, or try shooting the shadows left by everyday items like a fork or a wedding ring to see what effects you can get.

Balanced Pictures: using color, shape, light and shade for perfect composition

jmeyer — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:00:07 +0000

Our latest guide to improving photo composition shows you how to create balanced pictures. Find out how to take pictures using color, shapes, light and many other factors to create harmonious compositions.

Balance in pictures is a powerful thing. Keeping a frame balanced isn’t quite as simple as getting the right proportions between subjects, or being able to split the image into chunks.

It can be based around colors, light and shade, and other factors.  Why do certain numbers in pictures work better than others? Read on to find out.

Balancing light

Dealing with light in a scene is a matter of balance. The contrast between light and shade can make or break a picture.

Paying close attention to the two extremes when composing and framing your images will result in better photos.

Balancing a scene is a case of making sure that where there’s light, there’s also shade.

Highlights and bright areas are often referred to as ‘light’ (as in weight), whereas dark areas are described as ‘heavy’.

Try composing shots that have light and heavy areas placed according to the rule of thirds.

This image, taken in Bath Abbey, Bath, England is an example of how attention can be drawn to smaller ‘light’ areas in a picture. Without the larger ‘heavy’ areas the shot would feel unbalanced and the composition would suffer.

PAGE 1: Balancing light
PAGE 2: Odd numbers work best for balanced pictures
PAGE 3: Using patterns for balanced pictures

Depth of Field Preview: the button behind every sharp image you take

jmeyer — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:00:16 +0000

In this tutorial we show you step-by-step how to use your Depth of Field Preview button to check your test shots and ensure everything is as sharp as you want.

How to use your Depth of Field Preview button

01 Don’t trust the viewfinder
The viewfinder on a digital SLR is designed to be as bright as possible, and should give you an idea of what the shot would look like if you used the widest lens aperture available.

02 Use the Preview button
Most digital SLRs come with a Depth of Field Preview button. When pressed, this helpful button closes the lens diaphragm to the aperture currently set, so you can check the amount of depth of field.

03 Instant darkness
The problem with the Depth of Field Preview, however, is that it makes the viewfinder image go much darker – making it harder to see the effect that this feature is actually trying to show!

04 Zoom in
A better solution than using the Depth of Field Preview button is to take a test picture, and then review it on the LCD screen. Use the zoom function key (signified by a magnifying glass and a plus sign).

05 Look at the detail
The zoomed-in preview of your test shot on the LCD will typically give you 10x magnification, enabling you to check exactly which parts of the picture are sharp – or how much they are blurred.

06 Check in every corner
Use the cursor keys to move around the magnified image, so that you can see the full extent of the depth of field, and whether you need to adjust the aperture to get a better result.

Lo-Fi Photography: turn your DSLR into a toy camera

jmeyer — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:30:02 +0000

Lo-Fi photography is enjoying a huge revival at the moment. Using old cameras has become seriously trendy, and there’s now an easy way to get vintage-looking snaps with a modern digital camera.

Cult camera brand Lomography has created a set of plastic lenses for digital cameras so that DSLR users can participate in the lo-fi photography revival.

The Diana+ lenses cost around £30 each and fit onto all DSLRs with a simple plastic adapter (which costs around £15). The collection includes a fisheye and a telephoto as well as the 33mm superwide lens that we tried out.

The lenses are pretty low tech, but that’s part of the fun of lo-fi photography. The unpredictable variations and soft, slightly surreal focus that they produce allow you to create retro snaps without the fuss of film.

Lo Fi Photography step by step: how to turn your DSLR into a toy camera

01 Attaching a Diana lens
Fit the adapter onto the back of the Diana lens and twist clockwise until it clicks into place. Now, mount the Diana lens onto your camera body by aligning the lens with your camera and rotating anticlockwise until the lens locks on and you hear another click.

02 Switch to manual
Switch to Manual mode – your camera won’t recognize the lens otherwise. The aperture is fixed; to adjust the exposure change the ISO and shutter speed. The lens is marked with three distances, so you can estimate how far away your subject is and pick a focal distance to use.

03 Get experimenting
Diana lenses are great for taking portraits and for capturing anything in the middle ground. Try shooting interiors, cityscapes, architecture or garden scenes. The secret is to experiment; the idea is to create unpredictable and surreal takes on everyday scenes.

Banish blurry photos: how to keep your foreground interest pin sharp

jmeyer — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 11:30:29 +0000

Don’t rely on centre-point autofocus for your landscape photography. Our tutorial below shows you how to avoid spoiling your excellent photo composition with blurry photos by keeping your foreground interest sharp.

Fully automatic DSLRs have revolutionised photography over the past decade, but don’t assume that the camera’s autofocus system will always produce an image that’s sharp in the right places.

The camera will only focus on what you point it at, and it will often focus by default in the middle of the frame.

Much of the time this is fine, and your pictures will turn out correctly focused, but this is not always the case. To shoot sharp landscape photos, for example, out-of-focus foregrounds are a problem.

Our original blurry image

The reason for this is that when using autofocus in combination with the central focusing point, the camera will focus on a part of the scene in the middle distance.

This means that the foreground elements, which are obviously closer to the camera, will therefore be out of focus. The solution? Take some control…

How to keep the foreground in sharp focus

Switch focusing point
Most cameras provide different focusing points around the frame that can be manually selected using the main control dials or a joystick. Simply press the AF point button and scroll to select an active focus point that lines up with part of the foreground to ensure this will appear in focus.

Use AF Lock
An alternative way to achieve the same result is to lock the focus. Use the central AF point, but after lining up the shot, tilt the camera down to focus on the foreground. Press and hold the AF Lock button to lock the focus, recompose and take the picture.

Select a small aperture
Even if you use the centre focus point and focus on the middle distance, it’s possible to bring much of the foreground into focus. To do this, select a small aperture of around f/16, which will maximise depth of field and increase how much of the foreground appears sharp.

DIY Photography Hacks: make custom bokeh shapes and get creative with blur

jmeyer — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 02:00:39 +0000

Get creative with your photography and learn how to make your own custom bokeh shapes by making your own template at home. Our latest DIY Photography Hacks series post shows you a quick and inexpensive way to produce fun and exciting background blur effects.

The word ‘bokeh’ comes from the Japanese word ‘boke’ meaning blur or haze. This photography slang term relates to the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus areas of an image, which in turn is determined by the way the lens renders those areas.

In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to create your own custom bokeh shapes, by making a template that fits over your lens. To do this you’ll need nothing more than some card and an elastic band.

We’ll guide you through the process of drawing and cutting out the template, and fixing it over your lens. We’ll then show you how to compose a subject with a backdrop of fairy lights, which will look really striking when blurred. Finally we’ll show you how to set up your camera to capture the bokeh effect.

Step by step how to make custom bokeh shapes

1. Draw your custom Bokeh shape

Place your lens on the card, and draw around it with a pencil. Next, draw a shape in the middle of the circle to create the desired bokeh effect – we’re using a heart shape. You need to keep the shape fairly small – roughly the size of a penny.

2. Fit the bokeh shape template over your lens

Next, draw a larger circle outside the first circle, so that the custom bokeh template will overlap the front of the lens like a cap. Using a cutting blade, carefully cut out the heart, and then cut around the outer circle. Fit the card over the lens, and fasten it in place with an elastic band.

3. Set up the backdrop

Hang up a dark piece of material for your backdrop – we hung ours over a radiator. Next, arrange the fairy lights in front the backdrop, making sure they’re evenly spread out. Place a small table 4-5ft in front of the backdrop to place your foreground object on. Close the curtains to darken the room.

4. Set up your camera

Set your camera to Manual mode, set Quality to Raw, and set the ISO to 100 for noise-free images. Open up the aperture as wide as it will go – we set ours to f/1.4, which gave us a shutter speed of 1/80 sec. A flashgun produced too much light, so we used our on-body fl ash. Set your lens to Autofocus, focus on your foreground object, and start shooting.

Final Tips!

- A good bokeh effect requires a wide aperture, ideally f/2.8. Prime lenses are great for this technique as they tend to be faster lenses. Position your camera as close to the subject as it will focus and the greater distance between the foreground and background, the more the lights will blur and the greater the effect will be.

- By using multi coloured fairy lights you’ll get a much more colourful and fun effect. If you use white fairy lights you can adjust the colours in Photoshop CS or Elements with a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. See below…

Play around with the colours – You can change the look and feel of your bokeh image using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop.

To change the colours of your image, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and select a colour from the menu above the sliders so that only those tones in the image are altered – for our image we chose Blue. Now simply drag the Hue slider to adjust the colour; you can also adjust the strength of the colour using the Saturation slider. Alternatively, you can leave the menu set to Master, so colours throughout the image are altered, then adjust the sliders to suit. You can also graduate the effect to combine the altered colours with the image’s original colours. To do this, select the Gradient tool, click Edit, select Foreground to Transparent and click OK. In the Options bar select Linear, and set Mode to Normal and Opacity to 100%, and check the Transparency box. Target the mask by clicking its thumbnail, and draw gradients of differing lengths and directions on the mask to partially reveal the colour change.

DIY Bokeh – Destroy it yourself!

If arts and crafts aren’t your strong point, you can buy ready-made pre-cut bokeh shapes. The ‘Better Bokeh Kit’ consists of 24 bokeh discs in a wide variety of designs for every occasion, and comes with both a universal lens mount and a ‘P’-series adaptor for use with filter holders. See www.betterbokeh.co.uk for details. The same company also manufactures an‘ Immature Bokeh Kit’ with rather cruder designs – you have been warned! See www.immaturebokeh.co.uk

Full frame sensor size explained: exploit its advantages for pro-quality pictures

jmeyer — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:30:47 +0000

The launch of the Nikon D600 and Canon EOS 6D ‘entry-level’ full frame DSLRs has brought the full frame sensor size to a whole new audience. But what can a full frame sensor offer your photography that your crop sensor can’t?

In this post we’ll explore some of the myths and pros and cons of full frame sensors and explain how it can affect the different types of pictures you may take. We’ll also look at ways to fine-tune your shooting technique you really use your full frame sensor to its full potential.

We’ve used the full frame Nikon D600 and Nikon APS-C sensor cameras for our examples in this article for the sake of clarity. Mixing up each camera manufacturer’s unique nomenclature can get confusing and distract from the overall discussion on full frame sensors. But the same principles discussed below will apply whether you shoot with a full frame Canon DSLR, Sony, Leica or any other full frame camera.

What is full frame?

‘Full frame’ is the term used to describe a camera with a sensor the same size as a 35mm film negative, measuring 36 x 24mm. Most DSLRs, however, use sensors measuring approximately 24 x 16mm.

This is close to the APS-C film format, which is why these are often referred to as ‘APS-C’ cameras. Nikon makes cameras in both sizes, but uses its own nomenclature. Its full frame cameras are ‘FX’ format, and its APS-C cameras as ‘DX’.

Originally almost all DSLRs used the smaller APS-C format. Sensor technology was in its infancy, and manufacturing large sensors was prohibitively expensive.

Over the past few years full frame cameras have become less costly, and while Nikon’s D3, D3s and D3x bore professional price tags, the Nikon D800 and D600 introduced in 2012 cost much less. They’re still not cheap, but they are just about affordable.

A Nikon full frame sensor

Bigger is better
In the days of film photography, bigger negatives always produced better quality than smaller ones, and the same is true of digital sensors. Nikon’s full frame FX sensors are 1.5x wider than its DX sensors, with an area roughly 2.4x greater. This has an impact on the quality of the pictures.

In general, pictures taken on full frame cameras are sharper, with better fine detail, smoother tones, a wider range of tones and a greater sense of ‘depth’.

As a result, more and more amateurs and enthusiasts will be tempted to upgrade from their DX- format Nikon cameras (or whatever brand you may shoot with) to a full frame model.

While the improvements in quality are relatively easy to demonstrate, there are disadvantages too. DX-format Nikon DSLRs aren’t just cheaper; they are in many ways easier to use and more practical.

PAGE 1: What is full frame?
PAGE 2: Lens loyalties with full frame
PAGE 3: Why the depth of field is different
PAGE 4: How to shoot with a full frame sensor
PAGE 5: How a full frame sensor affects your pictures
PAGE 6: Pros and cons of using a full frame sensor