Photography Magazine

Get into the groove with concert photography 

Photographing events and concerts of people that you admire and love is an exciting kind of photographic experience. Why, some even get so lucky as to have traveling jobs photographing their favorite bands and rock stars. We can’t promise you that you’ll land your dream job. But we CAN show you how to get better at photographing live concerts.

Use a High ISO

When photographing live shows, the best way you can capture the atmosphere of the moment is to use the existing lighting. Stage decorators and technicians go to great lengths to organize impressive stage lighting, probably coordinated with sound effects. It would be a pity to zap all that creativity away by using a fill flash or on-camera flash. So turn off your flash and turn up the ISO! Trust us; it’s worth the extra bit of grain at ISO 1600, than to have flat lit concert images that look like they’ve been taken by an amateur. While we do agree that lower ISO levels give the best quality, shooting concerts is more about getting the right timing than getting a high quality picture of a static moment…

Turn off the AF

Any auto focus mechanism requires a certain amount of minimum light level for it to work effectively. In concerts where the lights often flash, such as rock shows and dance events, this becomes difficult. The camera’s auto focus mechanism simply does not have the capability to focus when the lights are flashing on and off and varying in intensity as well. No camera in today’s market would be able to lock focus in such circumstances. This is why you could get off-focus images in low light conditions. The answer of course lies in switching the focus to Manual Focus. Many compacts apart from DSLRs of course, offer the manual focus feature. To make things even better, use as small an aperture as possible, so the depth of field is greatest. Again, read that as very high ISO levels to start with (out first tip).

Work to the music!

Say you’ve fired a few test shots in lighting similar to the stage at its brightest…and worked out an acceptable aperture-shutter aped-ISO combination…you are at the concert and ready to fire…how do you get your exposures spot on, how do you time your shots when the lights are constantly turning themselves on and off to the sound of music? Well…simple. Listen to the music! With a little bit of effort, you will quickly get into the groove of the music and start getting ‘in tune’ with it. Expect the lights to go brighter when the drum solo is approaching…for a shoot like this, it would be great if you already know the songs that are going to be played by the band on stage. One quickly realizes that it is very fulfilling to be able to shoot in rhythm to the music. You will probably walk away with the best pictures of the day, if you use these three simple tips to their best applicability.

One of the most common complaints that amateur photographers have is ‘blurred’ images. ‘Blur’ can be a result of two kinds of errors. One would be an off-focus lens, and the other reason is usually camera shake. Both these errors are commonly referred to by the layman as blur.

As far as off-focus images go, it is usually a result of wrongly set focusing ring on a manual focus camera. If you use a auto focus camera, and still find some images off focus, it is probably because of the fact that your subject was off-center. Most auto focus mechanisms take the center-weighted approach, meaning – they focus on whatever subject is found at the center of the frame. If your subject is off-center, try this simple trick for error-free and in-focus images – get the subject into the center of your frame, and half-press the shutter. When you do this, the lens locks on to the subject, and usually a digital camera will alert you of the fact that the subject has been locked in focus, with a beep. Now, DO NOT take your finger off the shutter button. Keep it half-pressed as you re-compose your frame to the desired composition. Now, you can fire the shutter and get a in-focus image. Alternatively, if you are finding it difficult to half-press the shutter to get the focus lock, switch over to manual focus mode and us your judgment to get the subject sharp and clear. Finally, the smaller the aperture you use, the more of a range would you get into focus (more depth of field). The final technique mentioned (small apertures) should only be used at times when you are in an absolute hurry, since it does not always give you the perfect results you can expect with the former two techniques mentioned.

Camera shake is another cause for blurred images. This is quite different from the former reason of off-focus, and is simpler to understand and simpler to correct as well. Typically, you would get an image with camera shake when the shutter speed was set to too low a value, and the picture taken hand-held. There are more than one ways to correct camera shake. For one, maker sure that your shutter speed is at least the inverse of the focal length used. If you re using a 300mm setting on your lens, your shutter speed would need to be set to 1/300 of a second at least. Next, you should use a tripod whenever and wherever it is possible to do so. Where a tripod is unavailable, use a wall or a tree to rest against, as you fire the shutter. In the absence of such, use your knee to rest your hands on. Also, never jerk down the shutter release but instead, squeeze it gently till the trigger fires, much like a gun is fired! Finally, rest the camera against the side of your face for support. This is critical especially with the heavy digital-SLRs.

There is no real definition of an amateur camera, or an amateur photographer for that matter. The basic difference between an amateur photographer and a professional one is that the amateur doesn’t make money from his or her craft, while the pro makes a living out of it. For the sake of this article however, let us look at some of the lesser priced models, and the compacts and the semi-pro cameras.

Most people who buy cameras for everyday use, intend taking photographs at family get-togethers and portraits. For this purpose, a portable pocket camera that is light and easy to use is the need of the hour. The Olympus MJU series are perfect for this kind of use, are the Canon PowerShot models and the Nikon Coolpix series. As with the professional models, Nikon and Canon lead the markets with compacts as well. Olympus, Fuji and Pentax too make great digital cameras, and are usually lower priced as compared to Canon and Nikon. Casio and Panasonic make some pretty interesting models, Panasonic using Leica lenses and Casio making some very compact cameras that easily fit into a shirt pocket or a purse. All said and done though, it is only your own personal requirement that determines the kind of camera you ought to purchase. If you are completely new to photography and do not want to be bothered with things like focus, exposure and all that, we suggest a totally automatic compact camera. Some of the latest features to hit the compacts include image stabilization and face detect. Image stabilization ensures blur-free pictures even in low light conditions, and face detect ensures that the camera focuses on the subject’s face even if it is located off the center of your frame, giving you in-focus subjects at all times.  

So how about a camera for those who wish to take everyday photographs as mentioned above, but also want some creative control over the settings? Semi-professional cameras offer SLR-like features at a lower price and weight to their big sisters, the SLRs! For example, you may not be able to use interchangeable lenses, but a semi pro like the Panasonic Lumix series will give you a lens with a wide zoom range. Also, a semi pro may give you the advantage of a hot shoe, allowing you to use an external flash (on camera or studio light). And then of course, the semi pro models allow you manual override on focus, shutter speed and aperture to name a few settings. All in all, if you are a traveler who like sto take a few creative photographs on your journeys, or if you are a beginner wanting to learn the craft, a semi pro model will do you good.

Again, it is only your personal requirement that should finally decide the camera you buy. Before you go to the camera dealers, you should at least have an idea of the type of camera you want – a compact, a semi-pro model or an SLR or beyond.

1. Don’t use the fill-flash unless absolutely required - it is a fact that in-built camera flashes tend to give a very flat and 2-dimensional appearance to photographs. Avoid using it unless the existing light just isn’t adequate. Try using longer shutter speeds instead. In case of automatic cameras, shutting off the flash (if possible) would automatically ensure longer shutter speeds.

2. Don’t pose people awkwardly - it is ridiculous to see people posed in awkward positions, especially when the subject is a shy person who doesn’t like doing so in the first place. With people like those, it is much better to shoot them candid, or give them a prop to distract their attention.

3. Don’t leave room for red eyes - when using flash, avoid the red eye syndrome. You can do so by ensuring that the eyes are not absolutely parallel and directly in fron of the flash. Try shooting at an angle to the face.

4. Don’t use high ISO levels. Well, not unless the existing light is too low. Remember, the lower the ISO value, the better would be the pixel quality in your files.

5. Don’t allow for cluttered backgrounds. A distracting background can take the charm out of the most pleasant of portraits. Make sure you throw the background off focus if you cannot reposition the subject. Also, you could zoom in as much as possible, to keep your attention (and the viewers’) on the subject’s eyes.

6. Never shoot strangers unawares. Thats what the paparazzi do, and that is why they often get into trouble! Of course, candid photographs are always a special something. But when shooting candid, it is better to do so with people you know.

7. Never jerk down the shutter release. Instead, squeeze it gently until it fires. This ensures you do not allow the camera to ’shake’ by the finger movement. In fact, it is also good to hold your breadth for the second you are firing your shutter, while you rest the camera against the side of your face!

8. Never leave your camera at home! If you are looking for winning images, you need to carry your camera with you everywhere you go. For example, this candid image was photographed on the spur of the moment when the photographer’s friend sat down to rest after a long bike ride.

 9. Never leave batteries in your camera for lengthy storage. It is a pathetic way to lose your camera’s functionality. All batteries leak after a certain period of time, especially the use and throw ones. So, if your camera uses something like AAA batteries, REMOVE them when storing your camera for long durations.

10. Never let your camera get damp. Well, not unless it is one of the more modern water-proof models. Dampness is one of the worst enemies of all cameras, digital cameras in particular. Use a water-proof case for your camera while transporting it.

Positioning and posing people is a vital aspect of every day snapshot photography as well as professional photography. It is true that seldom does the everyday ‘amateur’ photographer have the presence of mind, or the time to ‘wait’ for a natural photograph-friendly moment to occur. More often, we use the camera as a means to capture everyday moments on family picnics and get-togethers with friends. Here are a few tips on how you can pose people for your photography. We hope the article will be of use to you, and that you will soon be able to shoot more appealing images after reading this.

Many professionals feel that posing is more than half the ‘portrait battle’ won! Body language plays a vital role when you position the limbs and head and torso of your model(s). A chin held high spells out confidence. A chin held a little too high could, on the other hand, speak of pride. Similarly, a stooping posture could give the viewer an impression of sluggishness or depression, while a chest held out firmly tells the viewer that the model is confident and content.

Photographing and posing children is of course much more difficult than shooting images of adults, simply because kids do not respond to specific instruction as adults do. So, one needs much more patience and dedication to shoot a portrait like the one shown above. It is a great idea to ’set up’ everything other than the child, and wait for the right moment to begin clicking away. For the above shot, the photographer conveniently asked the child to lean her elbow on the bonnet of the family car, and then began conversing with the child. The hand on the bonnet forced a pose out of the child. Being the exceptionally boisterous child that Tanya is, she was not shy at all, as she laughed at all of the photographer’s jokes with zest!

Of course, it is much more difficult to photograph a child, or an adult for that matter when he or she is camera-shy. In such case it is best to pre-occupy the subject’s attention with a prop of some kind. For extremely shy people, it could well be their favorite book or magazine. In case of children, it could be their favorite toy…

A few things to remember in general - never let the background be too cluttered. Never let poles and trees ‘grow’ out of people’s heads and shoulders. Instead, it is better to lean them against the prop. Also, why not get the person’s hands to do something? Hands tend to go stiff when people are asked to pose for a photo. Again, in the above image, the child’s right hand was forced to get involved in the pose, by asking the child to take her hat off. Finally, shoot more images than you require, and select the best of the lot - to get the right expression on the subject’s face. The above image is one out of about 20 photographed one after another.

The red eye syndrome on photographs is a common problem. If you do not know what it is, it is the bright red appearance of the pupil or both pupils, in certain photographs where flash light was used to illuminate the subject. There are a few ways around this problem. Let us understand first, what causes the red eye. In low light conditions, the pupils of the eye expand much like the aperture of your camera’s lens, so as to allow more light to fall on the retina. This forms a brighter image where light levels are not sufficient to do so on the ‘film’ of the eye - the retina. When the eye experiences brighter light, the pupils contract (like a smaller aperture) to accomodate the increase in light, and therefore this expansion and contraction of the pupils is constantly taking place as we experience varying light intensities. Now, the flash on the camera is obviously used in low light levels. Keeping in mind that the pupils of the eyes of the subject were already expanded in such a scenario, the eyes are not prepared for the unnatural burst of light. In such case, if and when the flash and the eyes are near-parallel or parallel to ach other, the flash light hits the retina, and bounces off it to create the red eye. The redness is of course, thanks to the color of blood within the retina. A little bit on how it can be avoided -

Solution 1:

Try and NOT have the eyes and the flash parallel to each other. In other words, do not shoot directly into the subject’s eyes while using flash. Chances are, you will have a red eye effect on your photograph if you do.

Solution 2:

If you already have an image with red eyes, do not worry. We have Photoshop to the rescue as usual. Open the image in Photoshop (File>Open). Select the red area in both eyes using the lasso tool. Give your selection a sufficient feather effect. Now, simply play with the Hue/Saturation/Lightness option (Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation) to remove the red eye, in a most natural looking fashion.

Solution 3:

Certain cameras have a built in red eye reduction feature. This simply means that the camera’s flash fires one or two times before the shutter release/final exposing flash. The reason for this is, the initial bursts of light tune the eyes of the subject into the bright light levels condition. Thanks to this, the pupils contract, and the eyes are no longer taken by surprise when the final image is photographed. More often than not, this method does not leave room for the red eye. However, in some cases, when the camera flash and the eyes are parallel to each other, a speck of red eye may still be visible. But do keep in mind, this method also consumes more battery power thanks to the extra bursts of flash per image.

Correcting colors on an image is one of the most widely used applications of photo-correcting software. Let us take a closer look at how and why this can be done.

The truth is, that any digital camera, however much effort has been put into its color correction and white balance settings; creates a color cast under certain situations. This is thanks to the different ‘color temperatures’ of different kinds of lights.  For example, our everyday tube lights have a ‘cooler’ tone as compared to the ‘warm tone’ bulb lights from incandescent light sources. No auto white balance setting can be so perfect (at least not till today) that it can accommodate changes for a variety of light sources such as fluorescent, neon, bulb, tube light and daylight. Most cameras perform well under daylight. So what do you do when you get an image with a color cast? Well, you open Adobe Photoshop!

Check this image out for instance. The skin tones clearly tell you that it has a yellowish and unnatural tone. Well, we open the image in Photoshop, and then open the color corrections option. In fact it is called color balance in Photoshop, and you can reach this panel under IMAGE-ADJUST-COLOR BALANCE-

This shows you a sliding tool. In fact it shows you 3 sliding adjustments wherein you can adjust the red, green and blue tones - consequently adjusting their complimentary tones of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow respectively. Consider the image in question. We have declared that it has a markedly yellowish tone. This is obviously due to the fact that it was photographed under something like bulb light with the camera’s white balance set to daylight. Most compact camera users never fiddle with the camera’s white balance settings, and this is exactly what you can expect as a result. Anyway, we declare that it has a yellow tone simply by looking at the image.

Once you have the sliding tool open under the COLOR BALANCE option on Photoshop, we need to reduce the yellow. In other words, we increase the blue. Either way you look at it, it has the same effect on the image nevertheless. When we reduce the yellow (and a bit of red as well), the image begins to look much better - in fact we have adjusted it to clearly look much better, almost as if it were photographed under daylight -

 Do keep in mind that the color correction tools cannot have an effect over the exposure (or the brightness level) of the images. It simply replaces one color tone with another of your choice. However, the wrong color balance at times does seem to look like there is a problem with exposure.

Photoshop also has an auto color correct option. Look under IMAGE menu (IMAGE-ADJUST-AUTO COLOR). This works very well at times, but we have learned that one can get much better results by doing the correction manually using the above described process.

Photographing pets is one of the most common of reasons why people buy cameras at all. Pets, children, family get-togethers and the likes of such everyday subjects make up the blk of photography of the ‘usual’ kind. Since photographing pets is one of the most common of reasons for people investing into cameras, we decided to run an article on how this can be done best.

When you are taking photographs of pets, remember it is much like photographing toddlers. Babies trust very few people, and so do pets. It will be difficult to get good images of a pet if its owner is not on location, especially if it is only a few times that you have met the animal. So, make sure that the pet owner is around, and ask him or her to interact with the pet as you look on and take photographs. Photographing a portrait of the pet with its owner is also a great idea. If you are looking for an individual portrait shot of the animal, you could ask the owner to stand by your side while you focus your camera on the dog or whatever it is that you are photographing. Well, thats the psycological part of things, now for the technical.

Use slightly higher shutter speeds, because the movement of an animal can be quite unpredictable, especially in the case of very young and active ones. Cats tend to dart at things all of a sudden, and so do puppies. Wait for the right moment - this is imperative. Pets rarely pose for you. Keep the animal in the vie finder at all times and be ready to fire away at literally a moment’s notice. More often than not, you miss the good shots simply because your finger was not present on the shutter release button, even if your eye was on the viewfinder. Keeping all this in mind, it is good to use fast ISO settings and greater depth of field and shutter speeds. However, if the pet tends to sit still for a bit, go to the larger apertures and thus blur out the back ground.

Another HUGE point here - ALWAYS get down to the eye level of the pet while photographing a portrait. It works wonders as far as composition goes, and also makes things more ‘personal’ if you may. You can interact much better with the animal from it’s eye level. The greatest pet portraits, as you will see on web sites and in magazines, have been photographed from low levels, in other words - the eye levels of the pets.

Finally, you may want to make sure that the pet is looking well-groomed, especially if the shoot is for professional reasons. A shining coat of fur makes the pet, and thereby our photograph, look that much better. Go ahead, have a great time photographing pets!

A telephoto lens is a lens which is considerably longer in focal length, compared to the ‘normal’ 50mm equivalent (on 35mm film cameras). When you use a long focal length lens, quite a few things happen - your depth of field becomes shallower (as seen in previous article), your images appear sharper as a result, the perspectives become flatter (background objects appear bigger than they do to the normal eye or the normal lens), and then you have a lot of technical mumbo jumbo to take care of as well. Lets look at some of that mumbo jumbo.

When you use a telephoto lens, your hands have to be that much steadier. This is thanks to the obvious reason that the longer the telephoto, or the focal lenght of the lens, the greater the dimensions of the lens, and the greater the difficulty of holding the thing steady. Simple physics tells us that the longer the ‘arm’ from the ‘fulcrum’, the more is the effect felt on the end of the arm when the fulcrum is disturbed. If you don’t understand that, no worries. It simply means, the longer the lens, the more chances you have of getting shaky pictures. The longest tele lens that you should brave hand-held would be the 300mm. Here is a rule to swear by - make sure your shutter speed is at least the inverse of the focal length. There is no hard and fast technical logic behind this, but it is simply a convenient way of determining a rough minimum shutter speed setting, as a mental note. For instance, if you are shooting on the 200mm setting of a zoom lens, you will need to have a minimum shutter speed of 1/200 sec. However you will in all probability still have a negligible amount of shake on your images, only visible to the trained eye, or on enlarged prints. To get a brilliantly sharp image, always use a tripod with your telephoto lenses. Some lenses are so heavy they need their own tripods.

This image of a homeless man was photographed in Bombay, using a tele lens. Notice that the sizes of the people’s legs behind him appear the same size as his own legs. This would not have been the case if the image was photographed on a wide angle lens. Moreover, a negligible amount of shake is visible, which means the image cannot really be enlarged to say more than 6×4. But of course it was a candid image, so the photographer had no time to set his camera on a tripod. Anyway, what is to be demonstrated by this image is the flattened perspectives of telephoto lenses.

To put things in a nutshell,

Tele lenses flatten perspectives

They gave shallow depth of fields

They need higher shutter speeds (to avoid shake) if hand-held

Very long focal length telephoto lenses are used for wildlife and sports photography

Extreme telephoto lenses are expensive and bulky!

Like most things in today’s world, there are two approaches to blurring out the background on your photographs - the classic method that is more difficult to master, but more rewarding at the same time; and the modern quick-fix digital method. It is good to be aware of both. But here we shall focus on the classic photographic techniques and leave the digital version to a later tutorial. The reason is, the digital version is a mimicry of the classic, so you would do well to be aware of the camera techniques.

Blurring out an area in front of or behind the subject is a very useful tool when you want to isolate your subject for obvious reasons. You understand how this is done when you understand the depth of field of the lens at the given aperture. As we know, an aperture determines the diameter of lens opening. The greater the aperture, the more light enters the camera and affects exposure. However, exposure is not the only effect of the aperture of a lens. Apertures also have a direct impact on the depth of field of the lens. When you focus on an object using your lens focusing ring (or on auto focus as may be the case), there is an area in front of the subject as well as behind the subject that are both ‘in focus’ up to a point. Objects in front of the subject will gradually fall more out of focus the closer they are to you (and the further they are from the point of focus). This gradual change in the sharpness or ‘unsharpness’ of objects is what we call the depth of field or ‘d.o.f.’ of the lens at the given aperture. When you are able to get your backgrounds (or foregrounds) out of focus at will, you have become a better photographer. But don’t forget to make an appropriate change in shutter speed to compensate for the increased amount (or decreased amount) of light that is allowed to enter the lens, with the change in aperture.

Take for example, the above image. It made a batter photograph to have the background out of focus. For this, the photographer used a large aperture. Another factor which has an impact of depth of field is the focal length of the lens. A longer focal length (’zoomed in’ for the beginners) produces a shallower depth of field. A 300mm telephoto lens was used to photograph the sample image of a bird in the hands of its rescuer. A wide angle lens has the exact opposite affect and produces a larger depth of field - directly proportional to the ‘wideness’ or shorter focal length. So - the shorter the lens focal length the more the depth of field, the longer the focal length the less depth of field. Also - the larger the aperture the less the depth of field, the smaller the aperture…you get the picture. Use focal length and aperture to control your d.o.f.