Digital Photo Tips

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.

My son took these pics when I was in Cameron Highlands. It is quite a candid one because I didn’t know he was taking photo of me taking photo. Sometimes, the pics come out looking really gross, like I pangsai like that. I mean squatting down and shitting. I think when we want to take some pics, we tend to forget where we are and just focus on the object. So there are all sorts of funny pose.

The trip to Cameron was quite a short one and all I have are stupid, boring, sour can die strawberries to snap at. I would love to go on early morning walks to take pics of dew drops on grass blades and tiny wildflowers. Do you know that those tiny wildflowers we usually stepped on are really nice when taken in macro shots? But I slept till 10 am so no more dew waiting for me.

Besides strawberries, there are lots of flowers. I snapped flowers because there really is nothing else to take. I didn’t know that these African violets (i think that’s the name) can look so nice. They have these shiny parts that normal eyes never notice. The pic is taken with my SB 600 with Nikon micro lens. It is a trial and error shot.

BTW, I also found out that it is so hard to look into the viewfinder with a spectacle! Damn, I see double objects because my spec is quite ‘thick’ as in almost 500 in ‘power’ (or what you call those measurements). The spec keeps getting knocked by the camera. Ish, another lesson learnt – Avoid specs. But I wonder how those professional photographers with spectacles manage? Must ask Kid Chan if he wears his spec all the time.

I am running through a bunch of photos I took with my Nikon micro lens and found this photo of a cheese sausage. When the photo is downloaded to my laptop, it looks more like a baloney. And if I bring it to my 19″ Samsung monitor, it looks like a log!

I notice something weird. Without a micro lens, I normally missed many details about the things I stuffed into my mouth. But when I blow up the thing, sometimes they look yucky and no longer look yummy. For example, the photo of this sausage look fine because of the bokeh or whatever you call those blurry parts. If it has been sharp and focused, I think I will not want to eat sausage anytime soon.

So, my conclusion is – If we do food photography, don’t always make the photos too sharp as some foods look horrible when enlarged 10 times.

As mentioned in my previous post, I was in the chapel with my Nikon D40. Outside, it was raining really, really heavy and the rain even splashed into the tiny chapel. I was so worried about my camera as I didn’t have any bag with me. The only thing I can shelter my camera with is my t-shirt.

But lucky the kind folks there rushed out to close all the doors and we were then squashed inside the dark chapel. As I have nothing to do, I tried all the white balance of my Nikon D40. The above is using the incandescent light setting.

This is with cloudy weather setting as I forgot to change the white balance after my photography outside. I am still fumbling with all those settings as I move from location to location. I suppose all noobs make such mistakes. I told my friend that the bluish setting was intentionally set that way because it looks more artistic!

And finally, this is using the P setting which has a regular tone. However, if you ask me, I still prefer the second photo for its warmth. Anyway, this Nikon D40 has served me well and I would never trade it for anything, not even Canon cameras.

In fact, I highly recommend Nikon to just anybody. It is the only brand you need to know. Looking at all the above photos, I think I have at least learnt some lessons on my camera settings during that one hour trapped in the rain.

*sponsored but all photos and ideas are mine*