I’m thinking that this will be an ongoing thread for tips. Photography is a big thing with our group, and the images help translate our image to the rest of the internet. Thus, it’s probably a good idea to try and capture the garrison in the best way possible. I am by no way an expert in photography – I’m still learning quite a lot about it, but here’s some things that I’ve learned that I’d like to pass on. This is in no way any sort of ultimatum: “do this, or your pictures suck”, just some things that I’ve found. For all of you photography people out there, I’d love to get your imput as well.
Lighting
Lighting is the most important thing when it comes to photos – over or underexposing a shot can ruin it, and given that we do a lot of our events in a number of environments, it helps to know a bit about it. Cameras depend on light to operate. The basic principal is that light hitting the film in an older camera will cause chemical changes that can then be translated into a photograph. The same principal is applied to digital cameras nowadays.
Low Light
The longer the light hits the film, the longer the exposure. This is good for low-light images, where there isn’t as much light making its way through the Aperture, but the downside there is that your subject (the thing that you’re shooting) may move, or you, the photographer, might move. This causes the photograph to be blurred.
Lots of Light
Too much light can overexpose an image, depending on your settings. Shooting towards a light, or the Sun, with your subject in between you and the light source, will cause the subject to be shadowed, and you might not get a good view.
Here, Aaron has been shot with too much light – note how it’s cropping in around the edges.
How to compensate for lighting:
Low Light: Use a flash, and learn how to use your camera’s settings. Oftentimes, I’ve found tha the flash can over-expose the picture, causing it to be very washed out and look very odd, especially shots that are indoors or at night. I’ve found that bumping up the ISO (Film speed )(you can do this with manual settings) to higher numbers will help with lower light. Lower ISOs, consequensly, are better for better lighting. Try to minimize the amount of movement that you do. Lean against something, rest the camera on a steady surface or invest in a tripod. This will allow for a steady platform, and should help cut down on the blurriness.
Lots of Light: Don’t shoot into the sun (direct sunlight can damage a camera), instead shoot away from it, with the sun or lights to your back – this cuts down on the shadow. Use the flash as well, if you do shoot into the light.
Here, the flash has been used inside, where it’s slightly darker. Notice how it washes me out a little, but keeps the background somewhat dimmer.
This is an example where there’s too much light in the background, but not enough in the foreground, leaving everything with a lot of shadows. I should have used a flash here.
The manual settings on a camera are generally spelled out on your camera’s guide – don’t throw it out!, it’s an incredibly helpeful resource. My camera actually tells me what things do, which is handy, and the best thing to do is to practice – you learn best by seeing what works, and what doesn’t. The auto feature will usually select the best internal settings on its own, if set to that, which can be good or bad – I tend to shoot my pictures without using the flash – I prefer natural lighting when it’s avaliable.
Composition
This is a little more tricky, because it’s often in the eye of the beholder – keep in mind that there is no right or wrong way to shoot something. My friend Seth, who’s trained with this stuff, told me that there is a general rule of thirds. According to Wikipedia:
“The rule of thirds is a compositional rule of thumb in visual arts such as painting, photography and design. The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.”
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
I find this works really well for me. It gives the photograph some balance and helps show off your subject and the surroundings a bit. When I’ve been shooting, I try and focus on some of the smaller details, putting those in focus over the rest of the frame.
In both of the above pictures, there’s specific things that I wanted to highlight – Brian’s Red Bull, and Mike’s Blaster. In these instances, they held out the items, and the camera did some of the work, autofocusing on those items – that’s the subject of those pictures.
In the same way, Brian and Cy are both the subjects of these two images, as they’re in the foreground. If i was taking a picture of the Mandolorian in the background, or the red car, I’d want to reposition the shot and focus in on it better, again, using the rule of thirds.
In this instance, I haven’t really gone by the rule of thirds, and as a result, the image here is straightforward, the subject as the people in the center, but the viewer isn’t sure which person is the subject. I’ve found that I tend to flick past a lot of these images, simply because they don’t tend to leave an impression. It’s just a couple of troopers and kids, very common:
Whereas, I’ve found a shot like this, that shows the scale of something, to be much more interesting, where there might not necessarily be a subject:
Part of the idea here is to highlight parts of us as a whole. When it comes to trooping, what I’ve found that makes really good pictures is the poses, things that come right out of the movies, or some of the shots with weapons. Some of these rely on the photographer being in the right place, and postitioning (if possible) the subjects as needed. For example, a barrel shot of a Stormtrooper with a gun is cool, but you’ll see the TK pointing something with a hole. Angle the gun away a little bit, and you see the entire weapon, which makes the photograph more interesting, especially when it makes that specific detail ‘pop’. I also try and capture things from strange angles, from down on the floor, to the side, really close up, etc, to get something slightly different.
This isn’t to say to just take pictures that are artsy, at weird angles all the time. There are tons of pictures that would be brilliant, but are never taken. I take a ton of picture purposely, setting my camera to take multiple shots, one after the other, with the intent on editing them down and weeding out the best ones for online. I don’t put all of my photos up – I tend to take 400 + at events when I’m taking pictures, and will usually end up with around 50 or so – a couple friends of mine do the same, for the same reasons.
After Affects
Something that I’ve started doing with my pictures after events is running them through a photo program to adjust the color and shadows a little to make the picture better. I personally have been using Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/) to do this, but other people have highly recommended Adobe Photoshop, and there are some other good ones out there as well. I tend to darken the outdoor photos a little and add in a bit more color to compensate for the outside light, while indoors, I tend to do the opposite.
Here’s an example:
Before:
After:
It’s a fantastic way to show what the garrison does as a group, but a step beyond that is to take some fantastic pictures. I know that when I started, a lot of this was from playing around with my camera – with a lot of new people, who may or may not have had a lot of practice with this sort of thing, I’m hoping that it’ll help a little.
Another crucial point to all of this is that you don’t need a horribly expensive camera to do this sort of thing. A couple of those shots were done with my iPhone, a couple with a point and shoot Canon that I had and others with my lower-end SLR Nikon. It’s not necessarily the camera type or quality, it’s how you lineup your shots and knowing what you’re doing with the settings.
Posted by Andrew 
Posted by Andrew 
Posted by Andrew 
