Pink Tulip

Spring has officially sprung and with it flower beds around Long Island are beginning to show signs of color.  It’s early yet, but soon beautiful flowers will be in bloom everywhere.  Flowers make great subjects and are highly sought after as fine art.  Want to get that winning shot? Here’s how.

A Bug's Life

First thing you need to do is get your equipment together.  Gather the lenses that you want to use, your tripod and have your flash unit and diffuser nearby if fill light becomes necessary.  Most photographers tend to ditch the tripod, but if you are looking for that really sharp image you may want to adjust your thinking.  If your shooting anything less than a 125th of a second or you catch a breezy day you are going to get blur without a tripod.  A tripod can assure that at whatever speed or condition you are shooting, your image will be sharp as a tack!

How will you frame your subject?  Consider this question before you start shooting away.  Are you looking to fill the frame with the flower or will just part of the flower fill the frame?  What is the most interesting part of the flower?  The petals?  The stem?  An insect?  Choose your angle too.  It is much more interesting to photograph a flower from an angle that is unusual.  You might have to get down low or get up real high.  Either way, think outside the box when choosing your angle.  Consider your background and foreground.  Make sure you don’t have distracting or competing objects that will take away from the focal point of your subject.

Aperture.  This is critical in photographing flowers.  Understand that a wider aperture decreases the depth of field (the smaller the numbers, the wider the depth of field).

Most cameras have a macro setting which allows you to get a little closer to the flower while blurring out the foreground and background.

Macro Mode Icon

If you have a macro lens, this is the time to use it.  If a macro lens is one of your desires, shop through Long Island Photo Gallery photography equipment pages.

~ Joanne

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White Iris

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It’s that exciting time of year again, Fourth of July.  Time to get some great photos of fireworks.  Here are a few tips from a recent article from Digital Photography School.

1.) Use a Tripod:  A tripod is critical when shooting fireworks because you will be using longer shutter speeds to capture the movement of the fireworks.  But you must keep the camera still so that you do not capture the movement of the camera.

2.) Remote Shutter Release: Having a remote shutter release helps to eliminate any movement of the camera.  Do some research online to find the right accessory for your camera.  If you do not have a remote shutter release, try using the camera’s self-timer.  This is a tricky way to go, but if the fireworks are going off fast and furious, you should be able to capture a few good shots.

3.) Frame Your Shot: Sounds so basic, but how do you frame a shot when you haven’t seen the subject yet?  Do some planning.  Get to the firework location early so that you can find a good, unobstructed view point to setup your camera and tripod.  Have your lenses, background and foreground picked out before the fireworks start going off.  Have your desired focal lengths planned out.  It’s harder to take zoomed in / tight shots, but if you have your lens trained on the right part of the sky, you just might catch a great burst of color up close.

4.) Aperture: Fireworks emit a whole lot of light.  So you don’t need a fast lens.  Digital Photography School recommends shooting between an f/8 to f/16.

5.) Shutter Speed: If you have a ‘bulb’ setting on your camera you may want to use that.  This setting allows you to manually hold the shutter open (with a remote shutter release) from the moment the firework is launched until it bursts in the sky.  Usually a few seconds of open shutter speed.  If you don’t have a remote shutter release or the ‘bulb’ setting then you can set the shutter speed to be open between 1 and 6 seconds, depending on the height of the burst.  Fireworks are bright, so be careful not to over expose.

6.) ISO: Set the ISO to 10o and things should go beautifully.

7.) No Flash Required: Let the fireworks light up your foreground, background and night sky.

8.) Manual Mode:  This is the best way to control your shot because you have complete control of you are doing all the thinking for your camera.  Manual exposure and manual focus.

9.) The Early Bird Catches The Best Shots:  Fireworks emit a lot of smoke and haze.  So get your shots in early to avoid obstruction from this unavoidable side effect.

Happy shooting and have a safe and happy Fourth of July everyone!