Traveling Photography – What to take in your Kit

During the traveling, you may want to photography the beautiful scenery. Once searching your kit, you may find something were lost at home. Therefore, to ensure you have a nice trip with fantastic shots, you need to arrange your kit in order. Below is a list of equipment quoted from the digital camera school.

• Extra Batteries – depending upon how many shots you tend to take in a day.

• Recharger – of course when you have a rechargeable battery you’ll want to remember a way to charge it up.

• Power Adapter – if you’re traveling overseas always do a little research before you leave on what power sources they have and what type of adapter plugs you’ll need.

• Cleaning Gear –some basic cleaning gear including a lens cloth, a cloth for wiping down the outside of the camera and a bulb blower.

• Filters –These are great for cutting out flare and have a considerable impact when photographing water, glass or sky.

• Flash – external flash units can be very handy to have while you travel although can add significantly to the weight of your kit (and you’ll need more batteries for them of course).

• Memory Cards –One might just get the largest size available but consider below scenarios. What if your card becomes damaged, what if it’s stolen, what if you lose it? Whatever your strategy, you’ll need to pack the equipment concerned.

• Camera Bag –If you are traveling with plentiful equipments, you’ll need something sizable. Another option is to take two bags – one to transport your gear with on travel days and the other which you use on a day to day basis for taking what you’ll need that day

• Tripod –Some use the mini tripods that are all the rage these days, but they tend to be best with lighter point and shoot cameras than larger and heavier DSLRs.

• Point and Shoot – some DSLR users back a compact point and shoot camera as well.

PS: Don’t forget to make sure your travel insurance covers your equipment!

Festival Photograph Tips: Never Stopped by the Crowd

quoted from national geographic

For Chinese national day is coming, an 8-day holiday is right here under our noses. As to most of office staff, it’s a good chance to travel around and relax them. Beautiful scenery definitely can’t be missed. Therefore, besides of keeping security of yourself and personal effects in the crowd, you may also need some useful tips on how to take clear photos in the crowd, which is more than avoiding shaking!

Keep your camera at the ready

When you're squashed in a crowd of people, trying to pull a camera out of your bag is really hard work so it's best to have it in your hands ready before the crush begins. If you want to make sure you're not going to lose it put a smaller strap on it and place it over your wrist.

Compose your shots

As you won't be able to move very far, the ways you can compose your shots will be limited and you'll just have to rely on the band getting into poses/positions you think are worth photographing.

Get decent shots as the light fades

quoted from national geographic

As most compacts try and use flash when it gets dark make sure you turn it off. If you don't turn your flash off you'll probably end up with a shot that shows a few rows of heads and nothing behind them. You can increase the ISO manually but just keep an eye out for noise as some compact cameras struggle with this when you start to use higher ISO settings.

Try and stand still

It can be hard to do when you're in a crowd but by doing so you'll reduce the amount of shake in your shot, particularly when the sun's set and your camera's having to use longer shutter speeds when any movement can be easily picked up in your final photograph.

Remember the crowd

Try turning around and photographing the mass of people around you. It's not as easy if you're standing low down but get up higher on a slight hill/banking and it's easy to capture a sweeping shot of the festivities.

Google Photography Prize: a Photography Contest for Students

When I open Google’s website today, a cute cake suddenly jumps into my eyes. At first, I think it maybe any hero’s birthday. Then, I figure out it is the 14^th birthday of Google. Time flies and I had never imaged my growth 14 years ago. And many thanks wishes to Google, for it always provides the most effective information at once.

And today, I’d like to introduce Google Photography Prize, a photography contest designed for students in higher education aged 18 years or older. Including 10 categories such as Me, Food, Travel, Fashion, Action, Street, Sport, Night, Sound/Silence and Point of view, you can submit a series of photos to any one you like. And the prizes are quite rich. In addition to having your photos displayed online, you can achieve a Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone or a trip to London. The Grand Prize winners even can obtain an once-in-a-lifetime photography trip companied with a professional photography coach.

And below are some of the winners in 2012. All the brilliant works are captured by excellent students. Enjoy them and you may learn something from here.

Grand Prize - Viktor Johansson

Top Finalists - Category: Night

Top Finalists -  Category: Night 

Top Finalists - Category: Point of View 

How to Photograph the Moon

Photo by penguinbush

The Chinese Mid-autumn Festival is around the corner. And for the Chinese, it is a time for family members and loved ones to congregate and enjoy the full moon - an auspicious symbol of abundance, harmony and luck. Most of time, we will take out a camera and photograph the sweet moment. And being the brightest object in the night sky, it’s something photographers of all levels can shoot, however it does take planning and preparation to accomplish.

Tripod. A secure base for your camera is essential to capture the moon and avoid camera shake.

Long zoom lens. In order to help fill the frame and properly show off the moon, the longer your zoom lens the better. It’s best to use anything 300mm or longer.

Photo by Flowery *L*u*z*a*

Shutter release cable. This is not an essential piece, but it’s nice to have and helps avoid camera shake. If you don’t have one, you can use the self timer function on your camera.

Camera. While almost any camera will work but rarely produce decent photos, mostly due to the small size of the sensor and it over-heating during longer exposures resulting in digital noise. A DSLR is preferred here, or film SLR, again with a long lens on it. No preset or auto function of your camera will be able to properly meter the moon, so you are best off shooting in full manual mode. 

ISO. Digital cameras should be set to 100 or lower, film shooters should shoot film of 100 ISO or slower to eliminate noise and grain.

Aperture. Because you’re after crisp, clean shots shooting at f/11 to f/16 will be the best place to start.

Photo by jurvetson

Shutter speed. This will be the point at which you will need to adjust on a number of shots.  The variables include the phase the moon is in, geographical location and desired shot, but on a clear night starting at about 1/60th should be a great middle ground.

Picking a spot to shoot the moon is one of the most important factors in achieving a quality shot. If you want to showcase the moon itself you want to avoid any other ambient light, including street lights and traffic. On the contrary, if you are trying to include a city skyline under your moon shot, you’ll need to find a lookout that allows for the twinkling lights.

How to Use Color Effectively to Enhance Your Digital Photography

Pink Sherbet Photography

When I feel blue, I always want to look for some colorful things to brighten my mood. And if I photograph it into photos, I can share it with my friends. Therefore, let’s learn from Amy Renfrey’ advices, who is the author of the Digital Photography Success ebook.

The first thing I recommend to start with if you are a serious digital photography enthusiast is to understand how color works. When you understand how color works in digital photography you can then use different colors to create very different feelings and emotions in the photo itself.

Colors such as blues, greens, mauves, etc are introverted colors and can often give your photo different feel to reds and yellows. For example think of a field of green with a tree that has purple flowers. It tends to represent, and even induce, feelings of tranquility and calm. These, in digital photography, are regarded as introverted colors.

Color such as yellows, red, oranges and pinks can often instill an energetic feeling. If you want to create a sense of stillness and calm in your digital photography then aim for subjects that have cold colors. And the same goes the other way too. If you want to have a bright energetic feeling, then go for colors that are warm

Pink Sherbet Photography

Contrasting colors in digital photography work very well too. Primary colors together such as blue and yellow seem to look great side by side, or one as a back ground and the other as a main subject. When doing digital photography, think about the colors you are creating in your photo. Try to aim for digital photos that have colors that look good together, and do not clash like hot pink and bright red next to each other for example. If you want extrovert bold color in your digital photo, don’t overcrowd the viewer with too many bold colors. In digital photography it works best if you have the main subject having the bold color, rather than multiple points of bold color in the background for example.

Choosing good digital photography subjects with simple composition makes colors work well to compliment each other. And remember digital photography is all about creating a feeling. And working your colors together well will enhance your digital photography images tenfold.

Ottok: Find Beauty in Incomplete Things

When immersed into something really fond of, we are always easy to forget tiredness and unhappiness. That’s more than a hobby. We love what we do and one day if we develop it to become our lifelong profession which may be the best thing ever. And as to me, I like handwork and photography most. But neither of them has been developed into my vocation. Therefore, I will always admire those people who can work for his heart and enthusiasm. But who can say amateurs are not high on the list?

And today, I’d like to introduce an amateurish photographer, Ottok, whose works have nothing with amateur. When asked for the reason why photography, he just responded, “ I photograph because I have a passion for it. It’s that simple.”

“I have struggled in the past to find the right words to describe what drives much of my art. And then I read an article on the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi: finding magic in the ordinary…in the flawed. As Leonard Loren said: “Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things unconventional.” Wabi-sabi is what I seek when I explore an abandoned factory or walk the streets of a city or find a deserted house in a field.”

If you are interested in his works, please read more on his photoblog: http://www.ottokphotography.com

Small Tips to Control White Balance

Yesterday, I have talked about the basic knowledge about the white balance. Learning from their icons, you will figure out their functions and make the most of them. And today let’s study deep for more information about the white balance. And I hope the following tips will help you to shoot excellent photos.

1.       Find the white balance control on your camera

On your compacts, it's generally buried fairly deep in the menus, because they really don't want you messing with it, but you can get there. Hit the menu and it's generally in the camera or shooting mode, you'll find the setting white balance or WB and once again, press the button and choose which white balance you want to use.

2.       Try your "Auto", "Daylight", "Cloud" and "Shady" white balance settings under daylight.

Most of the time the colors will be too cool in "Auto” and you'll also find that things will look much nicer in the other settings. This differs from camera to camera; some cameras (specifically camera phones) have terrible white balance algorithms in some settings.

3.       Try using your "cloudy" and "shade" settings to get warm colors, even in daylight!

As said, these settings are intended to compensate for bluer light, but you can use them to warm your colors, too. Cameras have built-in color correction algorithms, not built-in artists; they don't know that your photograph should be warm.

4.       Use white balance trims to get your colors perfect.

You might find, for example, that under certain kinds of indoor lighting your camera almost gets the white balance perfect in its "Auto" setting, but could do with being a little cooler, or that your sunsets would be perfect if they were a little bit warmer. This is where white balance trims come in: it allows you to take one of the camera's white balance presets, and adjust them slightly warmer or cooler to get perfect results.