Create Soft Background Portraits

Do professional portrait photographers use special lenses and accessories to soften the backgrounds in their portraits? No, they don't. They manipulate the depth of field, and this hack will show you how.

 

The previous hack showed how to create tremendous depth of field for landscape compositions. But when you're shooting portraits outdoors, this is usually the last thing you want. For these types of assignments, you want your viewer's attention locked in on the subject, not the background. The best way to accomplish this is to narrow your depth of field and focus your camera directly on the subject's eyes.

 

Why Soft Backgrounds?

When everything works right, the result is a dreamy, soft backdrop that makes your model pop forward, attracting all attention to her presence. Generally speaking, the first thing viewers look at in a portrait is the subject's eyes. The easier you make it for them to get to that spot, the happier they will be, at least subconsciously. Once they've viewed the eyes, they examine other aspects of the person until they're satisfied and move on. To get a soft portrait background, try to get some distance between the subject and the backdrop. Then, open your aperture to limit the depth of field.

 

 

Distracting background elements, such as a tree growing out of the top of the subject's head, is unsettling to the viewer. That's why you often want to eliminate or at least soften these elements.

 

Now remember, this is not a technique that you'll use every time you shoot a portrait. If, for example, you're shooting a baseball owner standing in his stadium, you might want the background elements distinguishable, because that tells a better story. So, soft-background portraiture is a technique to use only when appropriate for the assignment.

 

Here’s a tip for creating a soft background for your portrait: Use a telephoto lens

 

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Learn Photography: Create the Maximum Depth of Field

Imagine the kind of pictures you could take if everything were in focus from one foot to infinity? Here's the inside scoop on one of the oldest secrets in photography.

Galen Rowell, one of my favorite photographers, used to create landscape compositions in which both foreground objects and distant elements appeared in perfect focus. The effect is stunning. The viewer can both study a delicate pattern of petals in a foreground flower and marvel at the beauty of outlying mountains. How did he do that?

Galen found a way to capture tremendous depth of field in his images. In other words, he could have everything in focus, from inches away to infinity. You can employ this same technique in your photography; you just have to know the hack. Three important factors come into play on these types of shots:

The focal length of your lens: The wider the better

The lens aperture: The smaller the better (f-16, f-22, etc.)

The object on which you focus in the composition: Contrary to expectation, it's not the thing closest to you.

Once you've properly set these adjustments, you can create depth of field that spans from a foot in front of you to the puffy clouds drifting by.

 

2.12.1 Focal Length: The Wider the Better

Wide-angle lenses, or zoom lenses set to wide angle, are a key factor in depth-of-field photography. They help create the illusion that more things are in focus. Galen Rowell usually shot with 35mm film cameras, and often he would use a 24mm wide-angle lens for this type of landscape image. For this hack, I recommend you find a digital lens that provides a film-camera equivalent of a 28mm lens. You can go wider if you want (such as 24mm), but as you'll see, that's easier said than done in the digital world.

For example, if you're shooting with an SLR, such as a Nikon D70, then you would need to use Nikon's 17-55mm zoom lens to get roughly the same angle of view as Galen's 24mm lens on his 35mm SLR.

Why? Well, the D70 and many other digital SLRs have image sensors that are smaller than 35mm film. That changes the relationship between lens and camera, and the result is that you often have to multiply the focal length of the lens by a factor of 1.5 to get the same angle of coverage that you would with the lens mounted on a film camera.

If you multiply the Nikon 17-55mm zoom lens by 1.5, you get the 35mm equivalent of a

25.5-82.5mm lens. You may or may not care about all of this. But what you do need to know is that you have to find a lens with a film-camera equivalent of at least a 28mm lens for this type of photography. The Nikon 17-55mm zoom on a D70 should work nicely.

If you're shooting with a digital point and shoot, such as a Canon PowerShot A80, then your built-in zoom lens (7.8-23.4mm) has the film-camera equivalent of a 38-114mm zoom lens? not quite as wide as we'd like for this type of shooting. The good news is that Canon offers a wide converter (WC-DC52) for this camera that attaches over the built-in zoom lens. It extends your field of view to a healthy film-camera equivalent 24mm lens. Cool! In fact, many digital point and shoots accept wide-angle lens attachments. If you're interested in this type of shooting, then you'll want to make sure your next camera has this.

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Painless Infrared Photography

What kind of eerie world makes the sky go dark and trees turn white? It's the stunningly beautiful realm of infrared photography.

If you've ever tried shooting and processing infrared film, you know what a pain in the aperture it is to deal with. You have to load the camera in complete darkness, guess wildly about the exposure settings, process the film, and then cross your fingers that at least one or two shots turned out the way you had hoped. The results could be stunning, but they came at a painful price.

 

Digital photography has changed all that. Not only is persnickety film handling a thing of the past, but you also now get to preview your infrared images on the LCD monitor before taking the shot. And the best part; they will look every bit as beautiful as their film counterparts, as you can see in image which was shot with a Canon G1 digital camera. This barn shot was taken at 1 p.m. Most photographers are diving for cover at this time of day? That is, unless they're shooting infrared.

 

Infrared photography deals with the spectrum of light that you can't see but that your digital camera can. If you buy a filter to eliminate the normal light rays and capture only the infrared rays, you can add this look to your photographic bag of tricks.

 

The first thing you'll notice in infrared photography is that the blue sky goes dark and that most trees turn very light. Glare is minimized, giving your pictures an eerie clarity. A popular filter for digi-cam infrared photography is the Hoya R72. If your camera accepts filters, then go get an R72 at the camera store, attach it to your camera, and look at a brightly lit scene in the LCD viewfinder. You'll know right away if your camera is suitable for this kind of shooting. You can test the "infraredness" of your camera by pointing a remote control toward the lens and seeing if the beam registers the camera's LCD monitor. 

 

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Stylish Photography: Multiple Exposures, Digital Style

If you're looking for the multiple-exposures setting on your digicam, forget about it. It probably isn't there, unless you own a Fuji pro SLR camera or one of a handful of other models with this capability. So, what's the creative digital photographer to do?

 

In the film world, multiple exposures are a great way to create interesting, unexpected visual effects. Traditionally, this was done either in-camera by exposing one frame of film many times or in the darkroom by sandwiching negatives together.

Unfortunately, most digital cameras don't support multiple exposures. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. Photoshop, the digital darkroom of choice for many, comes to the rescue.

 

There are a couple ways to approach gathering your source material for Photoshop. You can previsualize the final image you're after, shoot its parts (layers) with your digital camera, and then assemble these layers on the computer. Or, if you just want to experiment, grab a few pictures out of your existing library, mush them together, and see what happens. Suddenly, every digital image in your photo library becomes potential fodder for an interesting photo montage.

 

Assembling Multiple Images into a Montage

 

As you shoot, try to imagine each shot layered on top of the next one, resulting in an interesting image. For each shot, we're going to underexpose by a factor of 2. Set your exposure compensation to -2 and take three different shots. You've now captured three underexposed images that, when added together, will create one well-exposed image.

Bring these pictures into your computer, start up Photoshop, and open each one in turn. Copy two of the images and paste them into the first. You should now have a single image file with three layers. If you open the Layers palette (Window Layers), you'll see

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Photography: Make Your Own Passport Photo

Don't spend money for a terrible passport picture that you'll be embarrassed to show to strangers all over the world. You can take your own shot, and make great first impressions instead.

 

 

Why is it that whenever you have an official photograph taken, you're made to look like a  criminal or terrorist? Sometimes, you don't have a choice in the matter, such as for your  

driver's license (or booking at the county jail). But when it comes to passport photos, you 

can submit your own picture, and I recommend you do.

There are general requirements for an acceptable photo:

· Photographs must be identical and recent (within six months), with a clear full-face  and front-view image. They may be in color or     black       and white.

· The photographs must be at least 2" 2" (5cm 5cm), exclusive of any white borders. The image size, from the bottom of the chin to the top of    the    head (including hair), should measure between one inch and one and three-eighth's inches. There should be at least one half inch    between the      top of the head and the photograph's border.

· There must be a clear contrast between the background and the image of the subject. The background of the photographs must be white.      Grainy   photographs cannot be accepted.

Easy enough, right? Now let's talk about actually taking the picture, because that's the important part. Here is the equipment you'll need:

· Digital camera with a self-timer or remote release

· Tripod or alternative way to position the camera

· Two pieces of white foamcore, cardboard, or some other sturdy, reflective surface

· A stool or something else to sit on

· Inkjet printer with photo paper, preferably with matte surface

You want to avoid that stark, deer-in-the-headlights appearance that's usually caused by using a single flash in darkened room. You might still use a flash for your shot, but if so, it should be a fill flash and not the sole source of illumination. 

Look for a well-lit area that has a white or light background. You might use a brightly lit room in the house (with lots of light coming through one or more windows) or an outdoor setting, where you can use the side of the house for the background. But you don't want the sun shining right in your eyes. Diffused light is better.

Position your sitting stool at least five feet away from the background. You don't want to record much background detail. Instead, you want the background a little out of focus, and distance is the best way to create that effect.

Put the camera on the tripod and point it at the sitting stool. A trick I like to do is to put a lamp on the stool to act as my model while I'm aligning the camera. If you have a helper for this project, that person can serve as your stand-in. Position the camera slightly above eye level of the subject. By doing so, the picture will be more flattering and, if you do use a fill light, the shadows will be cast downward and out of the picture.

For your first test shot, turn off the flash. Let's see how it looks with natural light only. Turn on the self-timer, have a seat, smile slightly, and hold still until the camera has recorded the image. How does it look? If one side of your face is too shadowy, then position one of the pieces of white foamcore so it reflects light onto the dark side of your face.

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Secrets of Whiteboard Photography

Never rewrite anything you can digitize. If you've ever been tasked with copying a full whiteboard after an intense brainstorming session, you know what I mean.

You've just finished participating in one of the most amazing brainstorming sessions of your career. The massive whiteboard, which covers an entire wall of the conference room, is covered with words, arrows, and diagrams. You're about to rush from the room to begin putting these plans into action when your boss says to you, "Robertson! Would you please copy down these notes and circulate them to everyone who attended the meeting?"

Copy those notes?! Not even Leonardo Da Vinci could reproduce those drawings. Suddenly, an air of calm comes over you as you recall "Secrets of Whiteboard Photography" from Digital Photography Hacks. You pull your digital camera out from your backpack and go to work. Why rewrite something that's already been written, when you can photograph it, save it as a .jpg file, and circulate it to anyone with a browser on their computer?

This hack will make more sense to you if you first understand how a camera sees the world. Most cameras are calibrated for capturing blue skies, green grass, and other middle tones. And, more often than not, your camera will try to convert anything on the extreme end of the exposure scale to those same middle tones. So the black cat becomes gray and the whiteboard becomes a murky beige color. So, job number one is to find your exposure compensation adjustment and set it to +1. That will tell your camera to overexpose the subject and make the whiteboard white, not gray. Then, turn up the room lights, open the shades, and turn off your camera's built-in flash. Those little strobes might be fine for blinding your best friend at her birthday party, but they're not so good for shooting whiteboards? unless, that is, you don't care about reading the writing. Flashes tend to nuke white shiny surfaces.

Now, take a test shot like the one shown in Figure. How do the colors look? Some cameras have excellent auto white balance settings and will compensate for most lighting situations. If the color looks off, you might want to override the auto setting.

Tame whiteboard madness by taking a picture, not by rewriting.

 

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Photography Ideas: Get the Big Picture with a Panorama

They say two heads are better than one. When it comes to showing the "big picture," many heads? er, shots? are definitely bigger than one.

 

Many people are frustrated by their inability to capture the majesty of awesome natural monuments such as the Grand Canyon. I've heard this phrase a dozen times: "This picture doesn't really do it justice. It looked so fantastic when I was there." Bad photography isn't the culprit here; inadequate coverage is.

 

Let me ask you this: if you went to the Grand Canyon and had to look at it through a toilet-paper tube, how impressive would you think it was? Probably not much, the same thing happens when you try to capture the magnificence of a vast location with single shots on your point and shoot. This doesn't mean that you have to go out and buy a camera with a super-wide lens. Instead, put the magic of digital photography to work for you.

 

Almost every digital camera available today is capable of creating breathtaking panoramas by stitching together a series of shots into one gigantic, seamless scene. Back in the days of film, you probably played around with this technique by taping together snapshots to make a bigger picture. One of my favorite artists, David Hockney, put a creative spin on this technique with works such as "The Brooklyn Bridge Nov 28th 1982" and "Pear blossom Hwy. Hockney's works are usually referred to as photographic collages. But the concept is similar to our exploration here? Taking a bunch of small images and combining them to make a big picture.

 

Unlike Hockney's work, however, our panoramas are very linear, moving from left to right. If your camera has a Panorama mode, use it; it helps you capture the images in a way that's easier for your computer to deal with later. That's the process. You shoot 3 to 12 pictures, moving from left to right, and then upload them to your computer where they can be stitched together as a sweeping vista.

 

Let's start with the shooting technique. You'll get the best results if you use a tripod, and you'll have even better luck if you have a bubble level to go with it. That way, you can align your camera to keep a straight horizon line through the entire picture-taking sequence. If your tripod doesn't have a built-in level, go to the camera store to buy one that attaches to your camera's hot shoe.

 

Look for a location with the sun to your back. Most panoramas cover about 180°. You want the lighting as even as possible on that scene so that you don't have abrupt shifts in the color of the sky, which makes it more difficult to stitch together the scene and end up with continuous tones. Once you have your camera mounted and aligned, swing through the scene and follow the horizon line to make sure it stays level.

 

If your camera has a Panorama mode, enable it. Otherwise, just make sure you overlap one third of the frame as you move from shot to shot. This will give your computer lots of information to stitch the scenes together.

 

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