DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY NEWS FROM ePHOTOzine

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The latest winner of our popular daily photography theme which takes place in our forums have been chosen and congratulations go to Leedslass1 (Day 21 - Ice)

 

Daily Theme Runners-Up

If you didn't win this time, keep uploading your images to the daily competition forum for another chance to win! If you're new to the Daily Theme, you can find out more about it in the Daily Theme Q&A. 

Well done to our latest runners-up, too, whose images you can take a look at below.

  Day 16

Colourful Architecture

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  Day 17

City Lights At Night

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Day 18

Cutlery

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Day 19

Different Angles

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  Day 20

'Laughter'

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Day 22

Stormy Weather

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You’ll find the Daily Themes, along with other great photo competitions, over in our Forum. Take a look to see the latest daily photo contests. Open to all levels of photographer, you’re sure to find a photography competition to enter. Why not share details of competitions with our community? Join the camaraderie and upload an image to our Gallery.

Photo by David Burleson

Add A Vignette

To create mood and to add emphasis apply a vignette to your transport shots. For more information on how to do this, take a look at our tutorial: Creating Vignettes.

Shoot Inside

As well as shooting the outside, if you can, open the doors of the car, truck or of whatever transport you’re photographing and capture some interior shots. You can go wide, capturing the whole of the interior or use a close-up lens to focus on detail such as dials, buttons and badges.
 

Fill The Frame

To really add emphasis so the car is the only focal point of the shot, fill the frame with it. This, however, doesn’t mean it has to be positioned in the centre of the shot. Move your position slightly to the left or right and you’ll see how it can make a really big difference to the overall image. Just make sure you don't clip off a wing mirror or a wheel in the process.

Photo by David Burleson

Use Reflections

Try using the car’s mirrors or some part of its bodywork to capture a reflection of another part of the car in. Just have a good look at the reflection to make sure you or any passers-by aren’t captured in the shot as you’ll have to spend time cloning them out later if you do.

Away from the car look for puddles and other reflective surfaces you can photograph. New buildings, which are full of glass and steel, are great backdrops to position new cars against.

Stepping further back so you can see the reflection of the horizon down the side of the car can also work brilliantly, particularly at sunset or if you're in a picturesque location.

Photo by David Burleson

Change Angles

Take a walk around the mode of transport you’re photographing and look for the angles, shapes and little details that make it unique. 

Get low to headlight level to make it look intimidating while shooting from the side will give you the chance to follow the lines of the car’s bodywork which will help guide the eye through the shot.

Shoot up high so you can show the car’s overall shape, just make sure the sky’s not overexposed. You can always fit an ND grad to darken the sky, creating more mood. For wider shots, make sure you can’t see what’s behind the car from underneath it as this will be distracting.
 

Church interiors are difficult to photograph because they usually have huge bright windows and dark nooks and crannies with the rest being a mix of tones illuminated by tungsten light or candles. Automatic exposure cameras will often deliver a photo with a well exposed interior, but no detail in the windows. Fortunately, with digital photography and modern software there is a solution, it's called HDR (high dynamic range) photography. Using HDR can really make your architecture shots pop.
 

   

Most modern cameras will have a HDR mode built-in, however if this is not the case, then here are some basic instructions.

 

Creating a HDR image

To create a HDR shot you need to take several shots of the same scene at different exposures, each one from the same position. These are then merged into one photo using HDR software (see ePHOTOzine's technique section for articles on how to do this). To ensure the photos are in an identical position it's best to use a sturdy tripod which will keep everything aligned and steady. It's worth using a cable-release too to trigger the shutter when the camera is on the tripod, but with a static subject such as a church you can get away using the camera's self timer.
 

Use a wide lens

A wide-angle lens is best for church interiors and ideally you want one that's really wide. With a lens like this you can usually shoot the interior from wall to wall if you stand back far enough. The camera you use can be a DSLR or compact so long as it has a manual exposure mode or at least exposure compensation to override the automatic settings.

As exposures are long in churches they can soon flatten your camera battery so always carry a spare just in case. Also, when shooting HDR, every picture you take requires several exposures so you may need extra memory cards.

HDR exposures should have a fixed aperture so that the depth of field is the same for each shot. Set the camera to f/8 and before setting up the shot take a meter reading for the lightest area. If the shot has a stained glass window in view this will usually be the brightest part. These are usually very decorative and beautiful works of art so you need to record those with an exposure that gives 100% detail. Use the camera's spot meter and position the camera so the window is in the centre of the viewfinder where the meter takes the reading. Take a shot and preview the result on the LCD If it's good make a note of the shutter speed. Now take a meter reading for the darkest area and make sure that the resulting photo has detail in it. Make a note of the shutter speed.

 

Your HDR exposure should have a range of shots that covers from the speed needed for the window to the speed for the dark areas. Let's say the window was 1/15 sec and the dark area was 8 seconds. The full shutter speed options would be 1/15sec, 1/4sec, 1/2sec, 1 second, 2 seconds, 4 seconds and 8 seconds. So you could take seven photos or as most HDR software can get what it needs from two stop intervals you could take four shots at 1/15sec, 1/2sec, 2 seconds and 8 seconds.

With this new information, adjust the position of the camera on the tripod compose the photo, including the previously metered elements in the frame and take a sequence of pictures, making sure no one walks into frame and the light doesn't change, sun comes out, floodlight goes on inside etc., at the shutter speeds calculated earlier.

Try this technique all around the church, in bigger churches/cathedrals there are lots of smaller rooms and chapels to discover.

Here are some of the tutorials you'll find in ePHOTOzine's technique section on HDR photography

• HDR Buildings
• Creating HDR Images
• Post Processing HDR Images
• Using Oloneo PhotoEngine For HDR
• HDR Landscape Photography

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The latest winner of our popular daily photography theme which takes place in our forums have been chosen and congratulations go to Kenwil (Day 06 - Creative White Balance)

 

Daily Theme Runners-Up

If you didn't win this time, keep uploading your images to the daily competition forum for another chance to win! If you're new to the Daily Theme, you can find out more about it in the Daily Theme Q&A. 

Well done to our latest runners-up, too, whose images you can take a look at below.

  Day 1

National Parks

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  Day 2

'Win' Theme

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Day 3

Fireworks

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Day 4

Races

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  Day 5

Photo Walk

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Day 7

Panoramas

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You’ll find the Daily Themes, along with other great photo competitions, over in our Forum. Take a look to see the latest daily photo contests. Open to all levels of photographer, you’re sure to find a photography competition to enter. Why not share details of competitions with our community? Join the camaraderie and upload an image to our Gallery.