Outdoor Photography
Sep/03/2010 02:02 PM
So you want to do some great outdoor photography! What makes great outdoor photographs? Well, there’s not even enough time to go into that, but here’s a few simple tips that can help really make your outdoor shots look great.
- Lighting is VERY important. While it’s not always possible to get to the outdoor location you want to photograph at the ideal time, if you can plan to be somewhere at a certain time of day, it’s best. Even better, if you can scout out the location ahead of time and find out when the sun hits certain parts of the scene at different times of day, that can help you determine when to arrive. There’s no absolutes, but in many situations, you will find it best to do morning or late afternoon shots so the sun is lower in the sky. When the sun is high over head, it is often too bright and can make it very hard to get nice blue sky without everything else in the scene going dark. You want enough light to light up the scene but not enough to blow out the color in the sky and make it look white. You will have some control over this with SLR cameras or camera’s that give you a lot of manual setting (assuming you are familiar with settings), but if you like to shoot in automatic with the camera, you will most likely have much better luck choosing a time where the sun is low in the sky. Sunrise and Sunset are obviously great times when you get all the nice orange and red tones, especially with some clouds thrown in, but those settings may require a tripod and control over the camera settings as well.
- Focus - Generally, with an outdoor shot, you will want everything in focus. If you are using a point and shoot camera, or have your camera in Landscape mode or fully automatic, you will usually get everything in focus. With SLRs and camera’s with a lot of control, you may need to set them in such a way that everything will be in focus or acceptably sharp. Again, Point and Shoot cameras will most likely do this. You can set your camera to Landscape mode if it has it. On an SLR, you may want to set the camera to Aperture Priority Mode and set the fstop setting to as high a number is possible, such as f22. Word of caution though, when you set to high fstop settings, the aperture is closed up quite a bit letting much less light in and the camera will need a slower shutter speed to get a good exposure. If there’s a lot of light, you may be ok. If you want to experiment, you go on the web and read about the “Hyperfocal” setting, this allows you to get most everything from near to far in focus depending on the settings where normally close up objects might have been a little out of focus. Hyperfocal is not a setting in the camera, but a way you must set it up and focus, so you will need to do some reading and experimenting since I won’t be going into it here. The photo above was shot using the hyperfocal technique.
- Rich Colors (or tones in black and white) - Exposure will be very important, but also Color Temperature. For Film, Daylight balanced film which is most common and probably what you are using. For Digital either set the white balance to Auto or Daylight, or you can use custom white balance, but you will need to research that and read up on it in your camera’s manual. That may be a topic for a future blog post. I’d also recommend ISO 100, but no higher than 400. The higher the ISO, the more grain or noise you will have in your photo. That may or may not look good in a print, especially if you enlarge it. On the computer, you may want to adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation to get a nice, crisp, colorful picture, or nice tones and contrast in black and white. With film, and even digital, you can give instructions to some labs to adjust for nice, crisp color. The proper post processing may be required to really get the image you want, and the local retail chain store or club’s technicians may not be up the task and the machines auto settings may or may not give you the print you are looking for.
Hopefully, some of this has been helpful. Next time, I may venture into Custom White Balance which helps get accurate color on your digital camera.
- Lighting is VERY important. While it’s not always possible to get to the outdoor location you want to photograph at the ideal time, if you can plan to be somewhere at a certain time of day, it’s best. Even better, if you can scout out the location ahead of time and find out when the sun hits certain parts of the scene at different times of day, that can help you determine when to arrive. There’s no absolutes, but in many situations, you will find it best to do morning or late afternoon shots so the sun is lower in the sky. When the sun is high over head, it is often too bright and can make it very hard to get nice blue sky without everything else in the scene going dark. You want enough light to light up the scene but not enough to blow out the color in the sky and make it look white. You will have some control over this with SLR cameras or camera’s that give you a lot of manual setting (assuming you are familiar with settings), but if you like to shoot in automatic with the camera, you will most likely have much better luck choosing a time where the sun is low in the sky. Sunrise and Sunset are obviously great times when you get all the nice orange and red tones, especially with some clouds thrown in, but those settings may require a tripod and control over the camera settings as well.
- Focus - Generally, with an outdoor shot, you will want everything in focus. If you are using a point and shoot camera, or have your camera in Landscape mode or fully automatic, you will usually get everything in focus. With SLRs and camera’s with a lot of control, you may need to set them in such a way that everything will be in focus or acceptably sharp. Again, Point and Shoot cameras will most likely do this. You can set your camera to Landscape mode if it has it. On an SLR, you may want to set the camera to Aperture Priority Mode and set the fstop setting to as high a number is possible, such as f22. Word of caution though, when you set to high fstop settings, the aperture is closed up quite a bit letting much less light in and the camera will need a slower shutter speed to get a good exposure. If there’s a lot of light, you may be ok. If you want to experiment, you go on the web and read about the “Hyperfocal” setting, this allows you to get most everything from near to far in focus depending on the settings where normally close up objects might have been a little out of focus. Hyperfocal is not a setting in the camera, but a way you must set it up and focus, so you will need to do some reading and experimenting since I won’t be going into it here. The photo above was shot using the hyperfocal technique.
- Rich Colors (or tones in black and white) - Exposure will be very important, but also Color Temperature. For Film, Daylight balanced film which is most common and probably what you are using. For Digital either set the white balance to Auto or Daylight, or you can use custom white balance, but you will need to research that and read up on it in your camera’s manual. That may be a topic for a future blog post. I’d also recommend ISO 100, but no higher than 400. The higher the ISO, the more grain or noise you will have in your photo. That may or may not look good in a print, especially if you enlarge it. On the computer, you may want to adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation to get a nice, crisp, colorful picture, or nice tones and contrast in black and white. With film, and even digital, you can give instructions to some labs to adjust for nice, crisp color. The proper post processing may be required to really get the image you want, and the local retail chain store or club’s technicians may not be up the task and the machines auto settings may or may not give you the print you are looking for.
Hopefully, some of this has been helpful. Next time, I may venture into Custom White Balance which helps get accurate color on your digital camera.