Ski trip to Red River New Mexico 2016
This year winter we were excited to plan our trip for skiing. After done some research, the nearest place to go skiing was New Mexico. It took about 10 hours to get there but because I was the only one who was driving, so we decided to overnight at Clayton after tiring 7 hours driving. Next morning, after breakfast we drove again for another 3 more hours. I did not feel tired at all because of the breathtaking views welcoming us along the way ;). S before going for skiing we ate our brunch at the cafe nearby the resort. Actually we bought our lift ticket including rental fees from Groupon for 60 dollar per person. Unfortunately, after we just realized that the coupon can be used only not peak season. Man! but fortunately they allowed us to use the coupon after we paid the difference amounts. So actually we paid the full amount of the ticket. So because our budget was so tight so we just decided to buy for one day and then before heading home on the next day, we again stop at one of the coolest lodge at Sierra Bonita Lodge in Gudalaputa. Well, even our trip was so short, we still had much fun!
Last week we went to Brazos Bluffs Ranch for horse back riding. One of my favorite activity to do during winter. We got a super deal, 55 dollar for two for 60 minutes ride from Grupon. wohoo!!! I was super excited even though I have to drive about 1 hour 39 minutes from home. The ride was so fun though I could not took many photos. So people from Texas, if u guys looking for something to do with your family, I recommend this as you can enjoy this ride while enjoying the beautiful scenery along the trail. Please enjoy our latest short video from Homsis Video Channel.
Last week I covered the three things you should do if you buy a DSLR or mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. Second and arguably most important on that list was mastering your camera's "Manual" mode. Here we're going to dive into exactly how that's done.
In "Manual" mode, you take over the decision making for your camera. You ask yourself What am I trying to show in this image? How do I want it to look? How do I gather enough light to get the job done?
The answer to all those questions rests in three settings: shutter speed, aperture (aka "f-stop"), and ISO. They all do different, important things, but each impacts how much light your sensor absorbs. If they're out of balance your shot comes out under- or over-exposed. But understand them and you can push your photography to levels impossible in "Automatic" mode.
Here's how they work.
We'll start by exploring shutter speed.
0.4 seconds; f/9; ISO 50 (Note: I've listed the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO numbers under each image in this slideshow where they were available. Don't worry if they don't make sense yet. By the end of this post they will.)
Shutter speed is the easiest to understand of the three settings.
Think of your camera as a dark room: shutter speed is the length of time its door stays open and light flows in. The longer you leave the door open, the more the room fills with light and the brighter your image gets. Slow shutter speeds lead to brighter images. Fast shutter speeds lead to darker images.
But there's a hitch: If you leave the door open too long, the objects in your frame have time to move and can smear your image. This creates motion blur.
Shutter speed is measured in fractions of seconds, with the rare exception of cameras like the Hubble Space Telescope that need to expose for hours or days to take in enough light.
For the image above, I asked TI digital culture reporter Kim Renfro to whip her hair back and forth. Exposing for 0.4 seconds – a very slow shutter speed – her whole head appears as a featureless blob. Moments later I took another shot, this time exposed for only 1/1000 of a second.
1/1000 sec; f/1.8; ISO 1250
Suddenly, Kim is frozen in time and space. (Note how I changed the other settings as well to account for the 400-fold decrease in time for light to flow in.)
Unless you want to see motion blur in your image, like in the lens-swinging football photo at the top of this page, your shutter speed should be fast enough to freeze your subject in place. Any faster and you'll likely have to compromise your ISO to get enough light (more on that later). The one exception to this rule is bright sunlight and other situations so brilliant you actually need to speed it up to keep light out of your camera.
Here's what shutter speed looks like on my Nikon's right-side display. The number "50" means 1/50 seconds:
Since every camera is different, you'll need to look through your user manual to learn how to adjust shutter speed on your camera.
Here are some general rules of thumb for shutter speed:
- Your shutter speed fraction should almost never have a lower denominator than your focal length (the "zoom" of your lens, measured in millimeters). So if you're using a 50 mm lens your shutter speed probably shouldn't be slower than 1/50 seconds, if you're using a 200 mm lens your shutter speed probably shouldn't be slower than 1/200 seconds. This keeps the shake of most peoples' hands from blurring their images in normal situations.
- At around 1/160 seconds your shots will freeze most normal human gestures. But don't be afraid to go slower in a dark setting if your subjects are still enough.
- At around 1/800 seconds your shots will freeze most sports. You're going to have to go faster to stop a baseball pitch or hockey puck though.
But these aren't hard and fast rules. The better you understand shutter speed, the better decisions you'll be able to make in each situation.
Here are some images from out in the wild. Even though the room was dark, I shot this image at high speed in order to freeze every droplet in the air:
While for this one I slowed the shutter way down and held the camera steady in order to best capture the soft light:
In this image the shutter speed matches the police officer, but lets the train blur:
The flash in this shot freezes the scene in place. A long shutter leaves a ghostly after-image in the color of the club's light:
Next, let's talk about aperture (aka f-stop).
1/400 sec; f/1.4; ISO 200
If shutter speed is the length of time your camera's door stays open, aperture is the measure of how wide it opens.
This has two key effects.
First, wide apertures allow in more light, while narrow apertures allow in less light.
Second, wide apertures leave more of a scene out of focus than narrow apertures.
The second point is a bit difficult to understand at first, but it's important. Look at the image above. See how the highlighter is in sharp focus but almost nothing else is? That's because this was shot at a very wide aperture.
Now look at the image below:
1/80 sec; f/11; ISO 2000
See how much sharper the rest of the scene is? That's because the aperture is much narrower here.
You don't need to understand why this is in order to use it, but for the curious a good mental shorthand is flowing water.
Shoot a jet of water through a long, narrow opening – say, a hole drilled in a dam – and all the molecules should move in a fairly straight line after coming out the other side. In your camera, all the photons end up pretty much in order after zipping through a long, narrow aperture. So even those not focused by the lens end up somewhere close to where they "should" be.
But take some dynamite and bust that dam open and the water is going to crash all over the place. There are just more routes for water molecules to pass through an opening that broad. The same thing happens in your camera at wide apertures. Except for a very narrow band focused by your lens, the photons scatter creating a blur.
Here's the aperture reading on my Nikon, known as an "f-stop":
As your f-stop number goes down, your aperture gets wider. That means an f-stop of f/2.8 is wider than f/3 but narrower than f/2.
Here are some things to keep in mind about aperture:
- Wide apertures' blurring effects are more pronounced when the object in focus is closer to the camera.
- Wide apertures can help your subject pop from the background, but you lose the context and detail of your composition.
- Some lenses show a "vignetting" effect at their wider apertures. This is a circular shadow around the edges of your frame – an optical effect of the glass in your lens. Some people like it. Some people don't. Instagram filters usually add fake vignetting.
- Make sure your aperture is narrow enough that you can keep your subject in focus as it moves. The fastest sports photographers may shoot wide-open, but the rest of us have to compromise.
- Better lenses have wider maximum apertures than cheap ones. Many top-tier primes go as wide as f/1.4, and most good lenses go as wide as f/2.8. Junky kit lenses often contract from f/3.5 to f/5.6 or narrower as you zoom in.
In this shot, I kept the aperture narrow to keep all four actors' expressions in focus:
While in this one I opened the aperture wide to see the fencer's expression through her blurred-out mask:
For headshots, I usually aim for a middle ground:
The last important camera setting is ISO.
1/1000 sec; f/9; ISO 25,600
Look at the camera settings for this image. The shutter only opened for 1/1000 of a second, and the aperture was only f/9. That means that light had just a sliver of time to slip through a pinprick into the camera. So how did this shot of the Tech Insider newsroom (half-empty for lunch) not come out completely black?
The answer is ISO, or the sensitivity of the camera's sensor.
When your camera is set to a high ISO, it absorbs more light. When your camera is set to a low ISO, it absorbs less light. It's an easy way to brighten or darken an exposure without changing your shutter speed or aperture.
Of course, there's one big honking disadvantage to just raising your ISO every time you walk into a dark room. The higher the ISO of your image, the grainier it comes out.
Here's an image shot in the same lighting as above, but with the aperture and shutter speed adjusted to allow for a much lower ISO:
1/50 sec; f/2.8; ISO 400
Generally, more expensive cameras add less grain for each step up the ISO ladder. Here are some basic guidelines for working with ISO:
- Under-exposed images tend to be grainier than over-exposed images at the same ISO.
- On a professional-tier camera, grain should stay within acceptable levels until about ISO 3200
- On a quality consumer DSLR, grain should stay within acceptable levels until at least ISO 2000
- Most cell phones and other point-and-shoots show serious graininess after around ISO 800
- If you're shooting in the studio or outdoors during daytime, keep your ISO to your camera's minimum – usually 100 or 50.
Here's what the ISO reading looks like on my camera. I have to hold down an "ISO" button to make it appear.
I bump my ISO up most often when shooting news, where I have no control over a scene's timing or lighting.
This hard-right Israeli settlers' march through an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem took place well after midnight.
Most of the settlers kept their backs to the bright streetlights – as did the police. You can see grain in the images, but my wide-open aperture leads to a bright enough exposure that it's not overwhelming:
Let's review!
Shutter speed is the length of time a picture is exposed. Slow shutters let in more light but allow motion blur. Fast shutters let in less but prevent motion blur.
Aperture is the measure of how wide a lens opens for a picture. Wider apertures let in more light and have a narrower plane of focus.
ISO is the sensitivity of your camera's sensor (or of a roll of film) to light. Higher ISO comes with more grain.
Go forth and capture the world in your lens.
Source: http://www.techinsider.io/how-to-take-great-photographs-2016-1
First step: find a camera that you like and buy it. I went to various big box electronics stores to put my hands on different cameras. I knew I wanted either Canon and Nikon, so I just put different versions in my hands and I decided that I liked the Canon interface better. The T1i was the cheapest Canon DSLR that I could find, and I happened to find one on craigslist with the kit lens and an extra battery.
I was ready to go. I had about 2 weeks to practice with the camera before embarking on my trip. Here’s what I learned.
Photography was harder than I thought
I didn’t understand composition, aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, white balance… the list goes on! All these concepts were foreign to me. However, being an audio engineer, I did have an innate grasp on ISO. It’s just like audio gain; gain makes your mic more sensitive to sound, and ISO makes your sensor more sensitive to light. Turn it up to 11!
However, photography really wasn’t coming naturally to me. It wasn’t clicking how to make three seemingly simple settings work together to create a properly exposed image, and I was feeling defeated. So rather than continuing to teach myself, I turned to where I just happen to work – CreativeLive. I had, at that point, previously worked onJohn Greengo’s Fundamentals of Photography workshop so I knew I could trust his knowledge, teaching style, and thoroughness to set me up with my camera. This workshop is still one of my favorite CreativeLive courses. I can’t recommend it highly enough to any budding photographers. It took the shock out of taking the plunge into DLSR Lake!
The Importance of Fundamentals
For two weeks, I practiced with depth of field and struggled with shutter speed. I took a lot of boring and blurry photos. I didn’t have a point of reference for how fast a shutter closed. It seems like 1/1000th of a second is really fast. And it also seems like 1/100th of a second is really fast. I mean, really, it seems like 1/15th of a second is really fast. I can’t do anything in 1/15th of a second!
How do you figure out how fast the shutter speed has to be to freeze action? I found the answer in Fundamentals of Photography and especially in the bonus materials! I found a stellar breakdown that provided me nine points of reference for shutter speeds. After studying the breakdown, I decided that I would make sure my shutter speed was always above 1/125th of a second to get sharp images. It wasn’t science, but it was a starting place.
Something else that was really important to my learning process was going through every menu and setting on my camera, trying to understand every function. The more I understand my tools, the more I can focus on the art or moment or adventure. Learning the fundamentals is so important because it lets you focus on your goal, rather than your tool.
Mistakes happen 
It was time to embark on my journey. Peru, here I come! I was flying from San Francisco so I had a lot of time in the air and what better way to spend it than playing with my camera? The camera still felt so foreign in my hands. I was overwhelmed by the amount of things I didn’t know.
So, I continued going through every setting. Trying to learn every button. I adjusted picture profiles. I adjusted white balance (which is something I still struggle with. Auto White Balance is good enough for me; I shoot RAW anyways.) I adjusted the diopter. Whoops. I shouldn’t have done that!
I’m actually not sure if I intentionally adjusted the dial that sets the viewfinder’s relative focus or if I nudged it at some point, but I am sure that I didn’t realize what I had done until I got back to the states and I realized why while I was shooting everything just seemed – a bit off. A bit soft. Or out of focus. I’m not really sure if I had the photographical dialect to explain what was going on. I figured I was probably just a really bad photographer. It turns out, I just needed more practice with my tool! Once I fixed my diopter blunder, photography got a lot more fun. Everything started to click.
The easiest way to learn is to just shoot away!
I had my camera in my hands and held up to my face the entire trip. I didn’t go anywhere without it. I took a lot of bad photos, like, a lot. I also took a lot of photos that I’m proud of and so happy to have to remember the things I saw and people I met.
Who cares if everything is blurry, out of focus, too dark, too bright? That’s literally the worst-case outcome from pressing the shutter. I haven’t regretted a single picture I’ve taken.
Whether you’ve got a big vacation coming up that you want keepsakes from, your kids are going through their awkward phase and you want blackmail material, or you just need a new challenge and creative outlet, I can’t recommend DSLR photography highly enough. And if you’re nervous about the high learning curve, check out John Greengo’s Fundamentals of Photography workshop.
Source: http://blog.creativelive.com/
While it can take years to master the camera techniques you need to take amazing images, whatever your skill level and whatever you choose to shoot, it often pays to keep things simple.
To help you along we’ve put together 10 essential camera techniques every photographer should master. We’ll start with taking control of focus then move on to using features like exposure compensation, white balance and more.
From focusing and photo composition to white balance and lighting, this straightforward guide should cement your basic shooting skills, rid you of bad photo habits, and leave you to concentrate on simply getting better images.
When trying out these techniques it’s often recognising what could go wrong that will help youavoid making the same mistakes over and over again.
So with that in mind, we’ve also included handy examples of common problems and mistakes that can happen to anyone, whatever their experience, and how best to correct them.
But don’t be afraid of making mistakes; it’s how everyone learns a new skill.
Camera Techniques for 2014: 01 Take control of focus
eave your camera to its own devices and it will focus using the central focus point. While this will produce sharp images in many situations, for more creative photography it’s better to take some control over the focus point.
Your chosen subject won’t always be in the centre of the frame, after all.
So the first skill you need to master is how to get your camera to focus on exactly the point that you want to be sharp.
Your camera has a number of focus points spread across the frame – you can see them through the viewfinder – and these offer an excellent solution for focusing on off-centre subjects.
You’ll need to set your camera to its single-point autofocus mode, rather than the multiple or automatic selection.
Select individually
The exact procedure for selecting individual focus points (and the number available) varies according to your camera, but generally on Canon models you have to press the AF point selection button, then rotate the input dial or use the selector on the rear of the camera.
The exact procedure for selecting individual focus points (and the number available) varies according to your camera, but generally on Canon models you have to press the AF point selection button, then rotate the input dial or use the selector on the rear of the camera.
Look through the viewfinder as you do so, and you’ll see the active AF point (in red) move around the frame.
On most Nikon SLRs, once you’ve selected single-point autofocus you simply use the four-way controller on the back of the camera to highlight a different AF point.
The main downside to using the outer focus points on many cameras is that they aren’t as sensitive as those in the centre of the frame.
This means that they can struggle to focus in low light, if the subject is low contrast or you are using a lens with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or narrower.
You may also find that there isn’t a focus point exactly where you want the camera to focus.
In both cases you can manually focus the lens, or use a technique known as focus lock, where you highlight the subject with the active AF point and then half-press the shutter release to lock the focus distance before reframing the shot.
Get white balance accurate every time
In this next section we’ll take a look at your camera’s white balance settings and how you can get the most accurate colours possible.
You might forget all about setting the right white balance – especially if you shoot in raw, as then you can change it when you process your images later.
However, you’ll need to get the right white balance in-camera to be able to assess the exposure and colours of your shots and achieve the best results.
Strong colours
Your camera’s Automatic White Balance setting generally does a pretty good job of capturing colours correctly in most lighting conditions, but it’s not infallible.
Your camera’s Automatic White Balance setting generally does a pretty good job of capturing colours correctly in most lighting conditions, but it’s not infallible.
The main situation in which you’ll get better results by using one of the manual preset values is when your subject is dominated by a single colour or tone, such as a blue sky, orange sunset or even a large expanse of green grass.
In these situations Automatic White Balance can set a value to counteract this strong colour, so you will get better results by selecting a white balance setting that suits the lighting conditions, such as Sunlight or Shade.
The actual white balance of the light at sunrise or sunset is close to the Tungsten or Artificial Light setting (3,200K). But if you set this preset you will lose much of the warmth that you want to capture in your shot.
Instead, try setting the white balance to Daylight, or even Cloudy, to capture the orange glow in all its beauty.
Set a custom white balance… in-camera or on the computer
For precise colours, you’ll need to take control and create a ‘custom’ white balance setting for the light you’re shooting in. There are a number of white balance aids available to help you do this – such as the JJC White Balance Lens Cap (£11) – but all you really need is a piece of white or grey card or a sheet white paper!
Once you’ve got that, try these two simple techniques for creating custom settings either in-camera, or when you process your pictures in software.
In software…
Shoot Raw files, and you can adjust the white balance at your leisure in Raw processing software, such as the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in that comes with Photoshop Elements – the options are similar to those on your camera.
You can use sliders to refine the colour balance, and there’s also a White Balance tool; click on a neutral tone in an image with this to set the white balance.
But what if a scene doesn’t contain any neutral tones? The answer is to place a piece of white or grey card in the scene at the shooting stage. It only needs to be in place for one frame, as you can use this to adjust the white balance across all images taken in the same light.
1. Set up a reference card
Place the white or grey card in the same light as the focal point of your picture. Choose a white balance preset on your camera, such as Daylight, and make sure you’re shooting Raw quality files.
2. Open the reference shot
Take a shot with the card in the frame, then remove it and carry on shooting. Later, in Elements, open the card image and click on the card with the White Balance tool. Note the values for Temperature and Tint, then manually enter these for your other Raw files taken under the same light.
3. Camera Raw in CS
The Photoshop CS version of Adobe Camera Raw features Select All and Synchronise buttons. These enable you to set the white balance for a series of images.
4. Select and synchronise
Select all the shots taken in the same light as the ‘card’ shot, then click on the white card and watch the magic happen! Alternatively, you can click Synchronise to synchronise WB and other selected settings.
How to set a custom white balance in camera…
Setting a custom white balance in-camera will save you time at the processing stage. Again, start with a white or grey card in the same light as your scene or main subject. We used a Canon camera for the purposes of this tutorial, but the process is similar with other cameras.
1. Take a shot of the card – it needs to fill the central area of the frame. Use any WB setting.
2. Select the Custom WB option in your camera’s shooting menu, and press SET.
3. Scroll through your images until you find the shot of the white card. Press SET, then OK.
4. Open the white balance menu and choose the Custom symbol to use the new white balance setting.
Source: www.digitalcameraworld.com
Source: www.digitalcameraworld.com
