Saturday, October 1, 2011

My photography secrets revealed!

Secret # 1, I am an amateur.

I am writing this for my friends who say they wish they could take pictures like mine. First of all , thank you for the huge complement and second of all you can take good pictures too. Here is how.

Oh, the legal department here at "The kids left home and I got all the rabbits", say I need to state I am not advertising or being paid to mention the following brands and products, they are just what I have and use.

My Camera.


That's it folks, a little Canon Power shot. It fits in my pocket and in my purse and goes with me pretty much everywhere. All the photos and videos I post on here and Facebook, that I made that is , come from this little guy.

I wanted, and still do at times,  a bigger camera. This one is pretty good but is slow to catch action pictures. The time between pressing the button and the camera actually taking the picture can be frustrating. I get lots of pictures like this.


disappearing squirrel...see his tail?

I know I will not pack around a big camera. So I decided stick with what I got and actually use it!


So how do I get my good photos. 

90% is composition, how the shot looks in the view finder /screen just before I click the button. You all know when you see a good picture in a magazine ore on the wall. Look for that good picture in the view finder/display screen and more than half the battle is won.
 

The other 10%  is photo editing. I use Photo shop, but I could do the same with the soft ware that came with the canon. I just figure the Lycra Man bought me Photo shop so I better use it!

Remember I said composition? Part of that is being aware of what is in the back ground of your shot. Sometimes you can't help it, what is there has to stay there, and some times you just don't notice. So...crop it out!!!



 I still didn't quite get the volleyball net out of this photo see the black arrow?




 I didn't like the picnic table in the back ground and I couldn't fix the sun flare lightening the top corner, so I cropped it out, gave me a weird shaped picture but one I like better.

Which brings me to the last thing I do to my photos. I adjust the lighting levels. It makes the colors a little brighter and the picture sharper. 

 I adjust the little triangles,the levels input sliders, the black one on the left of the histogram, the mid tone, in the center, and the white on the right. This is the histogram of the photo right out of the camera followed by the adjusted histogram, you can see I don't move the sliders too much.











Here is the picture 




See how the colors are a bit brighter and the picture is clearer. 


more examples.














Just a little difference and that is all I really want.


so my friends, these are my secrets...have a camera I will use, aim it well, and tweak the pictures just a little. You can do it too. I promise!



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