August Quick Tip Shutter Speed

This months Quick tip is on hand holding and shutter speed. Most people push the limit on the slowest speed they use. If your subject is not moving or if you're shooting with flash it's not that much of a problem, but if you're shooting in low light with a lot of movement you're better off opening up your aperture and cranking up your ISO a bit to compensate and set your shutter speed an leave it alone.

If you're hand holding your slowest speed should be 1 over the focal length of your lens or 1/60th of a second, which ever is faster. So if you're shooting with a 300mm lens then your slowest shutter speed should be 1/300th of a second. You can push this a little as long as you have a stable holding technique. 

1/60th is the slowest I'll go unless I'm doing something special or  I'm purposely trying to get some motion blur and when that's the case I'm going a lot slower than 1/60th.

So for this quick tip, if you're in low light situations use shutter priority or manual and set your shutter to the lowest speed for hand holding and adjust your exposure with aperture and ISO.

July Quick Tip: Super Clamps

My quick tip for July is really not a tip but some equipment advice. I've been playing around with some different lighting setups and found one piece of equipment invaluable, the Super Clamp. They're manufactured by several different companies but all of them operate about the same. Here's a link to Manfotto's version at Adorama: http://www.adorama.com/BG2900.html. The price for one of these is anywhere from $17 up to $50. I was lucky and found mine at a surplus store for $5 a piece (I bought three of them and would have bought more if I had more money) but mine are white instead of black but, mine also came with spring clamps that attach to the stud.

These things are so versatile it's unbelievable. I took one and turned two light stands into a boom stand. Now I wouldn't attach a heavy mono light to it but a small speed light did just fine. I also use them with my 6ft diffusion panel. I put two of them on a light stand and attach two speed lights to it then clamp the diffusion panel to another light stand and I have a nice diffused strip light. Need to hold a bounce card in a difficult spot? With a spring clamp on one of these super clamps your good to go.

There is an unlimited amount of accessories that you can purchase to use with these things as well but you can do so much with just a clamp and a stud.

Next to gaffer tape these things are a must in your bag.

June Quick Tip: Splitting the Difference

This month's quick tip covers dealing with different lighting in the same image and you don't have a flash to balance the exposures. For example: your out shooting in the woods and you see a flower in the shade but you want to frame it with trees and use the sky as a backdrop. You have the exposure at the flower and the exposure of the sky. One thing you can do is get the exposure of the sky then get the exposure of the flower. Now split the difference between the two. You'll be slightly under exposed on the sky and slightly over exposed for the flower.

The quickest way to do this is set your camera meter to spot, point it at the flower and zero out your meter. You then point it at the sky and zero it out but make sure you count the number of stops as you change them. You can then go back the other way but you will only go half the way. For example you zero out the flower then you count as you zero out the sky. Say there are 6 stops between them. You would then adjust back 3 stops frame your shot then shoot. The example I used here is not the greatest photo but it demonstrates the technique rather well. The photos are of some stuff in my bedroom window and the pillows on my bed with the window for the background. I did not do any post production on the images. The first shot is exposed for the inside stuff. The second for outside and the third is exposed in between the two. I know you can use an HDR Program to get a good image but if you don't have access to one this technique will work in a pinch.

All images were shot at ISO 1250 and an aperture of f/16.

Shutter Speed of 1/40

Shutter Speed of 1/1250

Shutter Speed of 1/320

The difference between the exposure here is very extreme, almost 6 stops difference between the two areas and I lost some details on the jars and the darker colored items, but the closer the difference the better your results will be. From here you can fine tune your exposure as well to get a better balance between the two.

May Quick Tip: Initial Camera Setup

I have decided to create a monthly quick tip. Just a little something each month that may help you in your photographic endeavors. These tips are the result of problems that I or one of my friends have run into and how we solved the problem.

This month I'm going to cover setting up your camera before you go out with it. 

My friend messaged me this morning about missing a shot because she didn't have her camera ready. She had it with her but was unable to get the shot because she was fumbling with a lens, or focusing or some other thing that messed her up. I myself have missed shots because of the very same thing. I have my camera with me, it just isn't set up for the lighting and area that I'm shooting in.

One thing that I find that helps alleviate this problem is setting up my camera before I even go out the door. I take into consideration where I'm going what the light is like, weather I'll be using flash or not, how big or small the area is and what I'll be shooting. From these factors I select an initial ISO and shutter speed. Once these two are set it's real easy to set aperture and make any fine adjustments to get that shot.