Digital Photo Tips

My hubby handles the camera better than me. Men being men, they seem to have better affinity with all the dials, knobs and numbers. However, I notice something that I am better. I can see which angles look nicer and usually whatever is in the frame are what I want to see in the picture.

Meanwhile, hubby may be able to adjust the right aperture and etc but I normally need to crop some of his photos because there are just too many distractions on the sides. For example, if he is taking a photo of a flower, he probably gets some stray, dead leaves to spoil it.

I suppose it is our women’s fussy eye for perfection that makes us see all these details on the viewfinder.

Of all the family photos I took, I think I love those that I captured when my husband or children were not aware. I dislike gettings kids to pose for photos because it makes them so unnatural. You can see their forced smile, the tense fingers and the straighten arms. Yet, many parents are still doing that. Those parents’ blogs are usually filled with their children standing in front of monuments, flowers, mascots in those pose. That is so yesterday.

I like photos that says something. I do not care if I don’t see the faces. I only capture faces when there are expressions on them.

Long time ago, we cannot afford taking these photos because each photo costs money. We need to buy film and then, develop the photos. So, there was this hang-up to get the most out of every photo. Include the tourist spot, get the smile and make sure everyone looks like one big loving family. Now? Everything is free. Just take every thing.

Photos are free now. So, don’t get hang-ups and keep capturing your two kids standing like statues, smiling like the Cheshire cats anymore. Capture the moment, not the persons.

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.”