Digital Photo Tips

I took these photos early one morning on the Malaysia polling day. It was a beautiful morning with fluffy clouds. Normally all these balls of cottony clouds will gather and cause a storm later in the day. We see a lot of these clouds lately and yes, it rains practically every day.

At first, I just snap the photo with my DSLR with P mode. It turned out so sucky. Since, I wasn’t there to vote but just to wait for my hubby who was voting (I vote elsewhere), I had plenty of time to tweak those knobs.

I changed the aperture to F9 and tadaa…I can actually see much nicer sky with fluffy clouds. The higher the F number, the darker the photo is. The first ugly photo is using a F5 which means more light went into the camera.

If your camera doesn’t have aperture priority, what you can do is to point your camera to the brightest spot, i.e. the white clouds and it will automatically adjust. If you point your camera to the school building in a shade, then, the camera will adjust itself and allowed too much light inside.

And that’s what I did on Malaysia election day. Finding the bright and dark side of things.

1) Get to the location wayyyyyy earlier and not just four minutes before countdown!

2) If at all possible, stay far away so that I can get the silhouette of those magnificent heritage buildings. This way, I don’t need to take stupid flare of the fireworks only. No frame, no nice.

3) Local fireworks are really shitty. Just one flare after another.

4) Adjust camera wayyyyy before the fireworks start. Manual focus, aperture about f 8, shutter speed no problem because the fireworks are really bright.

5) Forget about tripod if I am going to a crowded place, I don’t want morons to trip my tripod and break my expensive lens.

6) Check the battery.

7) Check the memory card space. Tiu, initially I shoot with RAW + JPEG and after three shots, memory card full! So, I have to delete photos one by one, re-set to JPEG only and by the time I finished the show is almost over.

And lastly….an expensive lens with a DSLR camera does not guarantee good photos if I am standing at the wrong location. I want my kids to get the boom effect so we stand so close to the firework, practically underneath it. My hubby who was caught in the jam far away (I took my kids down and we walked to the field) took better photos with the camera phone because he has the buildings in the frame and not just stupid balls of fire like me. So blek, till next year…or whichever event where the government is willing to burn money for my hobby’s sake.

One more thing - If I am taking photo, I cannot concentrate on my kids whom I was afraid will wander off. I also cannot stand and enjoy the fireworks. It is one stupid, long, mundane watch from the viewfinder of my DSLR.

“When you want to take flower photo, you turn the knob to Scene and choose flower. Then, you select Macro.”

Little boy, “I know already.”

“It is still bright now, you can turn off the flash. That zig-zag sign?”

Little boy, “I know already.”

“Mommy, hold the stick (twig) for me. I want to take yellow fahwer.”

“Now, this flower is under the shade and it is too dark. You cannot get a good focus. You can turn on the flash.”

This little boy has damaged my Konica-Minolta Dynax 5 (now Sony Alpha) beyond repair and damaged my Konica-Minolta Z3 as well. He has taken photos since he was 2+ years old. LOL. Now, at four years old, he is very familiar with all the camera knobs and can even pay attention to the frames.

(photo of him taken in 2006 when he was three years old with my KM Z3)

“So, can you tell mommy how to focus properly?”

“I know already. You take the camera near near and then, you press a little bit and see can get green box. If get red box, means cannot press all or else the photo will be blur. And if still cannot get green box, that means the place too dark.”

I made a posting earlier but I think it must have gotten lost in my old server. That’s the problem of not listening to my webmaster. Anyway, I want to use the below three photos to show how different the same object can look in photos when we focus and use different settings on our camera.

I am using my son’s point and shoot camera, Nikon P4 which does not take very good photos in the dark. I use the top of my laptop to give it a secure base or else the photos will turn out very blur.

A lousy photo because I forgot to turn off the flash. It is just a plain looking photo. Many people commit this mistake. Just because they have a flash and when the surrounding is dark, they blindly use the flash. I have seen people doing this at lantern festivals. The flash will spoil the mood.

In this photo, I focus on the brighter table lamp which is why the surroundings turned very dark. It was my intention to create that mood. For the very newbie in photography, where you focus makes a lot of difference to your photos. If you are taking photos, remember to judge if you want a brighter photo or a darker one which will create the kind of ambience you prefer.

Meanwhile, on this photo, I focus on the background, i.e. the curtain/love hearts. That’s why the lamp became too bright. See the differences in all the photos? It is due to where we point the focus (that little square lah!).

So, remember, don’t spoil your photos by using the flash all the time because you will kill off the ambience and mood. Feel the surroundings and experiment with all the settings in your camera.

I get damn pissed when people try to show off their photography knowledge when they do not know what they are crapping about. I have many cameras, from cheap point and shoot to DSLR with expensive lens. So, I do not always stick to only one good camera but capture the moment with whatever I have in my bag.

For example, the above photo. It was an impromptu one I took because my son was trying to hold his fingers in a certain way. To me, I captured the moment. Of how my son was making sure his middle finger doesn’t stick out. I find the lighting so warm and the moment beautiful.

Who cares the photo isn’t sharp. Who cares if the white balance is not right. Who has time for that when the moment must be captured there and then.

So, the next time before you try to tell another person how fugly their photo is, ask yourself if you have the luck to be in beautiful situations like those? Are you lucky enough to be the parents, boyfriends or whoever to have the beautiful shot of what they captured?

Don’t be the slave to the numbers, dials and whatever thingamajig of photography only. Being able to capture the moment is a gift on its own.