Photography Tricks: Use Sunglasses as a Polarizing Filter

Chances are, you have a high-quality polarizing filter with you at all times, right under your nose. (Actually, it's sitting on your nose.)

Next to a fully charged battery and a huge memory card, a polarizing filter is the digital photographer's best friend. It reduces unsightly glare, deepens the richness of skies, and improves overall color saturation.The problem for most shooters on the go is that they don't always have their full kit of accessories with them. And many point-and-shoot cameras don't even provide a way to attach an external filter, even if you wanted to.

So what's a photographer to do? Does this mean you'll have to suffer with glare-y subjects and desaturated skies, just because you want to tote a convenient digicam instead of lugging around an albatross of a camera bag? Not at all. Your solution is sitting there right on top of your nose. Your sunglasses! Great lighting usually results in good photographs, with or without filtration, as shown. But sometimes you want to enhance an already good lighting situation. Often, polarization is the perfect solution, as shown . If you don't have a polarizing filter with you, try your sunglasses. You might be surprised by the results.

Without Sunglasses Filter

 

Using a Sunglasses Filter

 

Many quality shades are made out of the same material that camera polarizers are made out of. Simply take off your sunglasses and place one lens as close to your camera's shooting lens as possible. Then, take the shot. If you want to see the difference, take the same.

 

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Smart Photography : Capture Kids Without Going Crazy

Sure, kids are cute in real life. But when it comes to capturing them with your digital point-and-shoot camera, they can be as elusive as leprechauns.

 

Digital point and shoots are great general-use cameras. But most of them are plagued by a phenomenon called shutter lag: the response time from the moment you push the shutter button to when the picture is actually captured is too long, sometimes as long as a second. In kid photography, a second might as well be a week.

 

Choosing a DSLR Camera

This next section of this hack provides ways to increase your odds of success with point and shoots. But first, if you want to cut right over to the fast lane, consider getting a digital SLR (DSLR), which has a much faster response time and performs better overall. DSLRs look and behave just like your favorite 35mm single lens reflex (SLR) cameras of years past, but they have a sophisticated image sensor instead of film.

 

Not long ago, this wouldn't be practical advice for parents, because DSLRs were just too darned expensive. But you no longer have to choose between a camera and a college fund.

Both Canon and Nikon have introduced quality DSLRs for under US$1,000, and more are sure to be on the way. The Canon Digital Rebel and the Nikon D70 are two examples of DSLRs that will help you keep up with your kids without maxing out your credit card.

 

DSLRs have minimal shutter lag times, allow for generous sequential shooting, accept a variety of lenses, and enable you to use external flash. In other words, they are perfect for action, kid photography.

 

Hacking the Point-and-Shoot Camera

Now that you know what your next camera should be, how do you get the most out of the one in your hand? OK, here are some tips to increase your odds of success.

First, get everyone outdoors, where there's more light, better backgrounds, and lots of things for kids to do. Then, make these three adjustments on your camera:

 

Set for the highest resolution your camera allows: This enables you to later crop out part of the picture, yet still has enough pixel information to make a good-sized print. It's like adding a powerful telephoto lens to your little point and shoots.

 

Find Infinity Focus mode and activate it: Essentially, this disables the autofocus (which is slow as mud on most consumer digicams) and lets you capture perfectly focused images from about eight feet to infinity. By doing so, you've just shortened the length of time from when you push the shutter button to when the image is recorded. This also allows you to hang back a few feet, so you're not spending all your energy chasing kids around instead of Photographing them.

 

Enable Continuous shooting mode: Instead of taking a bunch of single shots and missing the action, Continuous Shooting mode lets you hold down the shutter button and fire a series of frames. The knack to this is starting the sequence right before the decisive moment and shooting through it. Then, review your pictures on the LCD screen, remove the obvious misses, and keep the winners.

 

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Photography Tricks: Pantyhose Diffusion Filter for Flattering Portraits

Razor-sharp optics is great? Unless, that is, you're photographing the love of your life. In those instances, you might want to borrow her pantyhose.

A flattering portrait is often praised for its soft lighting, good angle, and natural expression. You'll rarely hear a subject rave about a picture that highlights her pores, wrinkles, and blemishes. Sometimes, modern camera lenses can be too sharp! A popular solution for photographers used by pros is what known as a softening or diffusion filters. Simply put, these accessories attach to the front of the camera lens and downplay the appearance of texture on the face. The wrinkles don't go away; you simply don't notice them as much.

These specialized filters can cost as much as US$200 and are difficult to find for less than US$20. Plus, if you use a variety of lenses for your portrait photography, you might have to buy more than one filter to fit the different lens diameters. That's fine if you shoot portraits for a living. But what if you just want to take a nice shot of your sweetie?

Ask her for her pantyhose.

That's right, by stretching a piece of light beige pantyhose over the front of your lens and securing it with a strong rubber band; you can create the same flattering effect achieved in professional portraits. The more tightly you stretch the material, the milder the effect? The looser the material, the softer the image

You can capture good portraits without filtration, if you use good technique. But there will be situations in which you'll want to use a pantyhose filter to add a little softening effect, be sure to keep a knee-high stocking, along with a couple sturdy rubber bands, in your camera bag for just these occasions.

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Camera Attachment Tips: Gaffer's Tape When All Else Fails

Sometimes, there just isn't an adapter to hook things together elegantly. Does that mean you don't get the shot? Hardly! That's when you reach for the gaffer's tape.

Gaffer's tape has been used on Hollywood movie sets for decades. It's known by brand as Permacel P-665. This versatile cloth-backed black tape allows you secure just about anything, from an abused camera bag to a misbehaving reflector that just won't stay in place. What's remarkable about gaffer's tape, and what makes it superior to other alternatives, is that the adhesive doesn't leave a residue on your equipment. So you can strap your camera to a street sign's pole, take a series of pictures, and then peel the tape off without a trace of evidence.

Gaffer's tape comes in one-, two-, three-, and four-inch-wide rolls. Because it's cloth-backed, however, you can peel it off in straight strips, creating any width you need for the job. Often, I'll peel off a number of strips and hang them off an edge of a table before I start working, just to keep them handy.

The black backing also makes this tape useful for blocking out stray light and eliminating reflections off metal surfaces. You can use it to hold power cords in place, tape them to the floor so that people won't trip over them, and even hold down the edge of curled-up carpet. One full roll costs about US$15. But unless you're running a full-time studio, it will probably last you for years. And you'll sing its praises every time it bails you out of a jam.

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Camera Attachment Tips: Stay in Charge of Your Batteries

The Achilles heel of digital cameras is that they need power? lots of it. But what do you do when you're in the middle of nowhere and you want to keep shooting?

I'm going to start out by saying that you should always have an extra battery on hand.

Digital cameras are power-hungry beasts that behave only as long as you feed their insatiable appetite for electricity. Once the juice runs out, they're about as useful as the box they came in.

When you're traveling, be sure to take your charger and extra battery with you. Each night, put the battery you've been using all day in the charger and put the spare in the camera. Then, when you take off the next morning, pull the freshly charged battery out of the charger and put it in your camera bag. Continue this rotation throughout the trip. If you have a particularly demanding shooting day, that extra battery will be as welcome as the Calvary when the first one fails. Just remember to charge both once you return to the room.

Car Chargers for Road Trips

The previous routine should work great for 90% of your travels. But what do you do on extended road trips and hikes in the backcountry, when an electrical outlet isn't right there beside your bed at night? You could take enough extra batteries to last the entire trip. If you figure one cell a day, you're probably safe, with a little discipline. My problem is that I always want to review my images at night, and that uses battery power. So I find that the one-cell-a-day regimen is a little stringent for my diet. Not to mention that most rechargeable Lithium batteries cost US$50 or more each.

Car travelers have a great alternative. Almost every camera manufacturer makes a cigarette-lighter attachment for their chargers. Your charge-and-use routine is a little different when using these tools. Instead of recharging at night, while you sleep, you charge up during the day, while you're driving. The trick to car chargers is to use them while the engine is running; otherwise, you'll drain your car battery. Running out of juice for your camera is one thing, but a dead car battery is a whole new level of distress.

Once you get your routine down, you can span the entire country with just two camera batteries and your car charger. If, for some reason, your camera doesn't have an optional car-charger accessory, all is not lost. Every electronics store carries DC to AC inverters that will also do the trick. You plug the inverter into your cigarette-lighter socket and plug your regular battery charger into the inverter. Yes, this system is a tad more bulky than the dedicated car charger, but it works just as well.

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Camera Attachments Tips: Double-Strapping on the Trail

Tired of your camera bouncing around during your hike? Strap it into place, for comfort and for fast access.

Here's the hiking photographer's dilemma: do you stash your camera in the backpack so that it doesn't bounce around and possibly get damaged, or do you leave it around your neck so that you're ready for the next shot, no matter how uncomfortable it is?

I can tell you right now that I'm a big fan of finding ways to keep your camera handy. Great outdoor shots present themselves with little warning, and they are usually gone within seconds. Your camera might be safe and sound in your backpack, but it also won't have nearly as many exciting pictures on it. You might miss the shot of a lifetime!That said, my gosh, it's aggravating to have a camera swinging every which way as you try to navigate the up-and-down terrain of trail hiking. I've even encountered situations, such as crossing a stream on a log, when my swinging camera just about threw me off balance.Falling in the stream is not good for one's morale, nor is it healthy for the life of your digital camera.

If you've followed the evolution of outdoor and backpacking equipment, you know that things are pretty high-tech in that world too. Flashlights have multiple LEDs for illumination, camp stoves are feather-light and burn with welding-torch-like intensity, and the array of straps and pouches available provide lots of options for toting your gear.

One of my favorite setups involves using one Op/Tech USA strap around my neck and adding a second stabilizer strap around my midsection. This arrangement holds the camera snugly against my body, while providing quick access when a shot presents itself.

I prefer the Op/Tech stabilizer strap because it is made out of a rugged neoprene material that acts as a shock absorber as you move about. The camera actually feels lighter than it does with other types of straps. Plus, the Op/Tech strap has quick-release buckles that enable you to detach the camera from the strap at a moment's notice.

Op/Tech also makes a Bino/Cam Harness that enables you to slide the camera up and down the straps without actually having to detach it? You can create your own strapping system with basic nylon straps and buckles purchased from any camping store. Just remember to get quick-release buckles so that you're not.

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Camera Attachments Tips: T-Mounts and Other Threaded Tricks

Digital SLR users can connect their camera bodies to a variety of bargain optical attachments by using one of the most enduring adapters of all: the T-mount.

The best camera for photographer-hackers is certainly the digital SLR (DSLR). From outward appearances, these cameras look just like the 35mm single lens reflex (SLR) models that photographers have been using for decades. SLRs are distinguished by the ability to remove the lens from the body and replace it with another type, which makes them extremely versatile. The other advantage is that you view the picture through the same lens you use to take the photo, so what you see is what you get. DSLRs work the same way. The only difference is that they have an image sensor instead of film.

DSLRs are a lot of fun for hackers, because when you remove the lens, you can attach just about any optical accessory to the camera body, including microscopes, telescopes, slide copiers, and much more. At first, you might hold the microscope in one hand and the camera body in the other and wonder how the heck these two items can work with each other. Generally, this happens via some type of adapter. For example, telescopes have an adapter that replaces the eyepiece, and you attach your camera to the adapter. The same goes for microscopes and other optical goodies.

But you still need a way to connect your camera to the adapter. If you don't want to shell out the big bucks for a custom adapter made by your camera manufacturer, you can make this connection by using a common photographic tool called a T-mount.

T-mounts are simple devices, really nothing more than a thick metal ring. On one side, there's a bayonet-styled mount (like the one on the base of your camera lens) that attaches the ring to your camera body. Inside the ring, you'll notice there are threads. These are a standard size that most adapters in the universe screw into snugly. So, all you have to do is screw the optical adapter (as for a telescope) into the T-mount, tighten it, and then attach the unit to your camera body. You're in business! Now, your camera will mount on whatever optical lens the adapter is designed for.

It's a good idea to find a T-mount that works with your digital camera. Once you do, just about any optical adapter you find in the bargain bin will now mount on your state-of-the art camera. For example, my slide copier is over 20 years old, but it works great on my state-of-the-art DSLR because I have a T-mount to hook the two together.

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