Five Panning Photography Tips March 16, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Photography, Tips & Tricks , 5 comments
Canon 7D, Canon 24-105 ƒ/4L IS lens, 1/15 sec at ƒ/4.5, ISO 640
Panning is one of my favorite techniques to use when photographing fast-moving subjects. Basically what you are doing when you make a panning shot is you are following the subject and moving your lens along with them while pressing the shutter. Here are some tips for creating great panning shots:
1. Slow shutter-speed is the key. Using a slower-than-normal shutter speed will help you to effectively add motion-blur to the background. It’s usually a good idea to shoot in shutter-priority mode when creating panning photos.
2. The speed of the subject determines shutter-speed. Most of the time you won’t know exactly what your shutter speed should be in order to get a desirable image, and one factor you need to consider is how fast your subject is moving. To create a good amount of movement in the background and still keep the subject sharp a fast-moving subject will need a faster shutter-speed than a slow-moving subject.
3. Use a flash. Another useful tip is that if you have a flash or some sort of strobing light-source available then use it! It will help freeze your subject and allow you to use an even slower shutter-speed than without one. In the image in this post I wasn’t able to use a flash so I had to do my best to keep my camera steady and moving with the skater.
4. Follow-through to get the shot. Just like with kicking a ball or swinging a golf club you need to make sure that you follow the subject the entire way through the shot, and only stop once you are sure that your shutter is closed. This will help you get smooth lines in your background.
5. Use manual focus. If you know the spot that your subject will be passing by then pre-focus your lens. If you rely on auto-focus then your camera might not catch focus quickly enough, which means you would miss the shot altogether.
Panning requires a lot of trial-and-error, which I think is why I like it so much. You never quite know what you’re going to get and oftentimes you can be surprised when you review your shots. :)
Food Photography: No Styling vs. Styling February 10, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Food, Photography, Tips & Tricks , 6 comments
Styling is something that can really make a big difference in your food images. Heck, it’s so important in the industry that some people make it their full-time job! And since I mostly do my own food photography then I have no one but me to rely on to make my images look good.
In the images above it’s pretty obvious which image was styled and which was not. The image on the left was photographed at an an outdoor taco stand, so the food is fresh, and not too bad-looking, but it’s not quite as appealing as the image on the right. The image on the right is fully edible … it got cold during the shooting process so it didn’t get eaten but other than that, and a few different ingredients than the taco-stand image, it’s basically the same. I spent several minutes placing the ingredients exactly where I wanted them to be … everything is in its place because I wanted it to be there.
In my photos I will usually do as much styling as needed to make the image look great. Sometimes it makes the image inedible (like adding soap-suds to bacon to give it a “foamy” look), but most of the time everything in the dish is natural … so don’t think that you have to do anything weird to your food to make it “photographable”. The key to making food images look good is using fresh, clean, ingredients and having immaculate attention-to-detail. I like to look at lots of food images in magazines and cookbooks to help inspire me for my own creations, and when I look at an image I will usually ask myself “why does it look so tasty?”. When I answer that question I log it away and apply that newfound knowledge in my own photography.
Two Minute Tip: High Pass Sharpening February 5, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Photography, Photoshop, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Video , 4 commentsHere’s another “Two Minute Tip” on how to selectively sharpen images with the high-pass filter using Photoshop.
Food Photography: Take a Bite! February 3, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Food, Photography, Tips & Tricks , 6 comments
Canon 7D, Canon 24-105 ƒ/4L IS lens, 1/30th sec @ƒ/4, ISO 100
When it comes to food photography crisp, clean images are always nice, but sometimes it’s good to mess it up a bit. Get some crumbs on the plate, use that fork/spoon/knife and make the image look like it’s being enjoyed. There are ways to do this and still make the image look tasty.
I am very particular about the styling in my images, so the placement of every crumb, garnish, or droplet was placed there either on purpose or was left in place because I noticed it and liked the way it looked. My ultimate goal is to make the image look like it wasn’t on purpose, but still look tasty enough to eat.
Lens Compression January 29, 2010
Posted by Nicole : Photography, Tips & Tricks , 11 comments
Canon 7D, 1/250th sec at ƒ/5.6, ISO 100
LEFT LENS: Canon 70-200 ƒ/4L IS; RIGHT LENS: Canon 24-105 ƒ/4L IS
I photographed the two images above to demonstrate one very cool bit of knowledge about photography – lens compression. The longer your lens the more compressed, or blurry, your background will be. Both images used the exact same exposure, light, subject, etc – the only difference is that I used a different lens for each shot. A longer lens is going to create the perception that the background is actually closer to your subject, and, in this case with the lights in the background, the more zoomed-in you are to your subject the larger your background bokeh will be.
The image on the left was photographed with a Canon 70-200 f/4L IS lens, zoomed all the way out to 200mm. For the image on the right I used my 24-105 f/4L IS, zoomed all the way to 105mm. (Note that I am using a Canon 7D, which is a crop-sensor camera so the focal length is actually a little bit longer).
