Home made photography studio (part 1 - Tabletop studio)

How to make a photo studio on a shoestring budget? This question is asked by many aspiring photographers. The main reason for this is the extra cost it involves setting one up. The good news is that actually you don`t need thousands of $$$ to get yourself started in studio photography. In this article I'll go through the possibilities and options you have to make a table top studio for shooting small items and subjects.

Most of the things you need you probably already have at home. One thing you'll need to buy is a tripod with a tripod head (there are some cheap ones available too). For a tabletop studio you don't need a fancy carbon fiber tripod that costs some $300 without a head. The main thing you should be looking for is the sturdiness of your future tripod.
Now, lets go through the set up. First thing you need is a light source. For most applications window light will satisfy your needs and you'll be able to produce some great shots. Choose a large window and place your chosen work surface next to it. Make sure to avoid direct sunlight. Get yourself a background. You can use a lot of different materials as a background: paper, fabric, plastic, wood, stone etc. Paper backgrounds: you don't need special paper backgrounds. Go to your local art supplies shop where you'll find large sheets of paper in different colors. Choose the colors you need, bigger size is better, it will give you more space to work with. You can attach your background directly to the wall behind your subject or construct some sort of a support system. Just use your creativity.
One more thing you need is a reflector. Again, you can buy one in a camera shop, or use any reflective surface. A sheet of white paper (use a large one), cooking foil (make a frame and attach the foil to it). The main thing to look for is the reflective qualities of the surface and the size (should be at least the size of the subject you're shooting) of the reflective surface. Use a reflector to fill in the shadows of the subject. Different reflective surfaces have different reflective qualities, some produce harder light some softer. Just try out different reflectors to see the difference.
Artificial light sources is another option. You can use them to compliment the window light or on their own. As an artificial light source you can use an off-camera flashgun or some household light sources, just remember to adjust the white balance accordingly to the light you're using.

Lets summarize the things you need to set up a home made tabletop photo studio:
1. Work surface
2. Light source
3. Background
4. Reflector
5. Tripod
6. Tons of creativity

Remember one thing, it's not the gear one is using that creates great images, it's the photographers creativity. Try this setup out and you'll know if you need some special equipment.

Prime photo lenses

Nowadays there are two general types of photo lenses: zoom lenses and prime lenses. All photo lenses can be divided in these two groups. Each of them has their own advantages and disadvantages against each other.

Basically, a prime lens has a fixed focal length, in other words, you can’t zoom it in or out. For example, a 20 mm prime lens is fixed in it’s focal length and in order to fill the frame, with the subject you are shooting, you’ll need to get closer. And vice versa.

For a long time there were only prime lenses in use, zoom lenses where created only in recent decades. Today they’re made in good quality and give high quality results. But still, prime lenses are not dead.

Why, you’d ask. Well, the best thing about the prime lenses is the maximum aperture you can get for the price you pay. Construction of a prime lens requires less glass because it’s focal length is fixed, therefore you can afford a wider aperture. Other advantage is the high quality of the image it gives. Because of less elements in the lens images are sharper. And because of the same reason the lens is lighter and smaller then a zoom lens of equivalent focal length and maximum aperture.

So, let’s sum up the advantages. Wide maximum aperture, sharp images, lighter weight, smaller in size and the price you pay for it all is lower compared to a zoom lens that gives you equivalent image quality and the same aperture at the same focal length.

What about disadvantages? Well, I can see only one, and it is the reason the zoom lens was created. The ability to change the focal length without changing over the lens itself.

Of course, today you can get a zoom lens that can offer you a wide aperture and a sharp image at a cost of weight, size and a higher price tag.

On the other hand, if you need to cover a wide range of focal lengths you will need more then one prime lens, this could make you pay more then for a single high quality and fast zoom lens covering the range of focal lengths you need.

Conclusion: it all comes down to your needs and budget. Before you buy you need to think what your needs are, then shop around and make your choice.

Telephoto lenses

Telephoto lens is a very useful piece of kit in any photographers bag. The lens is useful in many ways, one - the most obvious is the ability to fill the frame with a subject that is far away, it's helpful in situations when you can't get close to your subjects, like a football game or wild animals.

Any focal length above 50mm can be considered as telephoto, say 70mm or 135mm etc. There are two types of telephoto lenses: prime lenses and zoom lenses. Prime lenses are lenses with fixed focal length. This means that the lens can't be zoomed in or out. This type of construction uses less elements and therefore less glass. Usually prime lenses are high quality, professional grade products and the maximum aperture is wider than in consumer lenses.

Zoom telephoto lenses allow you to change the focal length in the range the lens is constructed. For instance 70 - 300mm. These lenses are constructed using more elements than in prime lenses, therefore more glass is needed, and maximum apertures are not so wide as in prime lenses to keep the cost low. There are professional grade zoom lenses with wide maximum apertures, but they are very expensive bulky and heavy.

Other good way to utilize this type of lens is to use it in portrait photography: use the long end of the lens (150 - 300mm) and a wide aperture (f5.6 or wider), place your sitter some distance away (the farther, the more blurred the background will be) from the background and focus on the eyes (the closest eye to the lens if the subject is turned). This technique will give you portraits with nicely blurred backgrounds and shallow depth of field.

Another use is in close-up photography, like flowers and other small objects. Long lenses compress perspective in the images compared to wide angle ones, if you will take a picture of telegraph poles from a side angle with a wide angle lens they will appear much apart, but if you will use a telephoto lens instead and frame the scene the same way as previous (you'll have to stand farther because long lenses bring everything closer) the poles will appear kinda compressed and closer to each other. Lenses are tools you can use creatively to achieve the incredible shots you're after.

How to make money with photography blog

Few days ago I stumbled across this blog (blogs.photopreneur.com), and I find it quite useful for those photography enthusiasts who are into making money out of photography. Articles like "52 ways to monetize your photos", "47 things people will pay you to shoot" etc.
Check it out if you have interest. Very well put together articles and interesting too.

Photopreneur

What is ISO in photography?

ISO stands for International Standards Organization. How does that relate to cameras? ISO standardizes a lot of different industries, and photography as well.

It is used to standardize film sensitivity to light, in digital cameras a ISO equivalent is used. The lower the ISO value the less sensitive the film or image sensor is to light. The higher the value the more sensitive the film or image sensor is to light.

In cameras it affects the saperture and shutter speed setting combination to achieve a correct exposure.When light levels are low, the shutter speed will be slow, and that affects the images dramatically. So in order to increase the shutter speed you need to increase the ISO. With film you would need to change the roll to one with a higher ISO sensitivity. With digital cameras you just need to change the setting.

How does it affect the image quality? Well, with film it adds more grain to images, with higher sensitivities, it can add a mood to an image. With digital sensors it adds more noise, with higher sensitivities.

The bottom line is to use the lowest ISO setting possible in order to increase the image quality. Larger sensors produce less noise at higher sensitivities then smaller ones. So, a DSLR with a full frame sensor, such as Canon EOS 5D will produce a considerably higher quality image then a camera with a smaller image sensor.

Noise can be battled effectively with a help of software, such as Neat Image, so if you need to use high sensitivity, use it, its better to have the image to work on, then have no image.
One more way to avoid using high ISO sensitivities is to use a fast (wide aperture) lens, with a maximum aperture at least of f2,8 or faster on your DSLR. This will allow more light to reach the sensor, thus increase the shutter speed and you will be able to use a lower ISO setting.

In general, all new DSLR cameras have a very good noise performance up to ISO 400, above that results differ, with full frame models doing better. Point and shoot cameras perform poorly because of their tiny sensors and to much pixels crammed on them.
So, always try to keep the ISO setting as low as conditions allow and you will increase the quality of your images.

Exposure bracketing in photography

Exposure bracketing, that's another thing to learn in order to better understand how photography works.

Well it ain't that complicated as it sounds. It's exactly what it says on the tin. You bracket the exposure that camera thinks is correct with two more exposures, one underexposed (darker image) and one overexposed (lighter image).

So, how that works and what it's for? Let's say you are about to take a picture of a complicated scene, such as a sunset on a seaside. In this case it's complicated because the sun is so bright, that it can easily confuse the camera meter. The meter will think: wow, that's bright, I'll have to expose it "correctly". And more often the image will come out underexposed, not exactly what you would expect. Now, what you do is you bracket your exposures. This setting, when turned on, will set the camera to shoot three differently exposed frames, one underexposed, one normally exposed and one overexposed. You will have to push the shutter release button three times to get your three frames. Question: how different the exposures will be? This is up to you. When you set the exposure bracketing you set the values your self. This is measured in stops, you can set 1/3 of a stop in most modern cameras too. So, in the case of the sunset we will bracket by at least one stop, even two would turn out better. Then you can choose the best exposure.

In the old, film days, this was a popular technique to ensure a good exposure, especially when using filters. In the case of the sunset there could be done more then one bracketing with different settings to get just one picture. That's because you couldn't see what you're getting until the film is processed. But now we have digital cameras and we can check the exposure on the spot and then adjust it as necessary. But that doesn't mean that bracketing is unnecessary, the small (compared to a computer monitor) camera display isn't the best way to judge the exposure, so you can bracket as many as you need and check on your computer, and choose. And it won't cost you a dime.

Exposure triangle in photography

Exposure is determined by three factors: number one is aperture, number two is shutter speed and number three is ISO setting (sensitivity value of the film or sensor).

Any change in one of these factors will result in a change in the exposure. So, if one factor is changed, but exposure has to remain the same, then second of these factors have to be adjusted accordingly.

Now, lets see how it works. Lets say our ISO setting is 200 and aperture is f2.8 and the shutter speed is 1/250 of a second. And let's assume that these settings will result in a correctly exposed image in the lighting conditions we're in. So, lets change the ISO setting from 200 to 100 because the lower ISO will give us better quality image with less noise. By doing this the exposure will become underexposed (darker image) by one stop. Stop is a term to describe the amount of exposure change. Now we need to adjust either aperture or shutter speed, in order to correct the exposure, we need to compensate for reduction in sensitivity. We need to allow more light to reach the film or sensor. So, we decrease the shutter speed by one stop, that results in 1/125 of a second, half of the original value. By doing this we retain the aperture value the same - f2.8. If we need the shutter speed to remain at 1/250 of a second than we can increase the aperture from f2.8 to f1.4 by one stop, this way we compensate for reduction in sensitivity by letting in more light during the same time frame.

When exposure values are being set we need to prioritize what is important, depth of field (aperture value) or freezing/blurring a moving subject (shutter speed), image quality (ISO setting). When we got our priorities right we can set the values accordingly.

All modern cameras have built in light meters, which measures the light and can determine what is the correct exposure, this helps us. We only choose two values and the camera can set the third accordingly. Use aperture priority mode on your camera if you need a certain aperture, or use shutter priority mode if you need a certain shutter speed, assuming that you have chosen your ISO sensitivity beforehand. If you want full control of the exposure, you can use manual mode in which you have to set both, aperture and shutter speed.

One more way to change the exposure is by using exposure compensation setting, which allows you to tell the camera by how much it should underexpose or overexpose the image. Thing is, that cameras aren't as smart as we are, so exposure errors occur in difficult situations which fool the meter. And in these situations you, the photographer step in and correct things as they should be.