Useful Camera tips for artists’ reference photos II

(click on image to enlarge)

Shooting the South Face in Peru

Watercolour and ink

©2009 Charlene Brown

Backlighting: This problem usually arises when you’re shooting people in front of a bright background, but comes up in landscape photography too – if you’re trying to photograph the north face (always the best side for ice and snow, unless you’re south of the equator) of a mountain at high noon. The main thing is to make sure the lens is shaded, and if you want to see details in an otherwise silhouetted foreground figure, force the flash.

Shaky Zooming: The effect of an unstable camera increases exponentially when using a zoom setting, and is best handled with tripod and remote shutter release.  Failing these, be sure your camera’s internal stabilizer is on if it has this capability (I used to just leave mine on all the time I like it so much, but this can be a real battery-drainer, so don’t.) Brace the camera against something and activate the shutter delay (just a 2 second delay, not the 10 second one you use if you’re trying to get into the picture yourself.

Shutter delay is probably a good idea for time exposure shot too.

Restoring your camera to its normal operation after you have (accidentally or on purpose) got it on some peculiar Manual (M) mode setting.

Quick reference Listing:

• Mode, if other than idiot-proof, point-and-shoot, or iA (intelligent automatic)
• Numbers, representing clock-face positions (12,3,6 or 9) on the circular curser button.

Dim light: P OK OK 6 6 6 OK ISO high OK return return

High Angle: P Q 3 3 LCD 12 OK

Fast movement: Q Burst 6 5AF OK

Depth of field: A Exp 9 9 f3.3 OK

Backlight: P 3 6 6 OK

Shaky zoom: Zoom 9 12 OK

Time exposure: S 9 12 OK Exp 6 6 6 Exp 

Restore: M OK 3 3 OK 4/7 6 6 6 OK Yes No return