DIY Bugs
If you mess with computers, you’re sure to face problems with bugs. Not the creepy-crawly type, but the digital type.
Anything to do with computers — digital cameras, software, hardware, the Web, etc — is beset by bugs. Bugs that create artifacts in digital pictures, delete data, rewrite it; bugs that mess with our digital life.
But, in digital imaging, arguably the biggest and most annoying bugs that besets our efforts to bring home the winning picture are often those you create yourself. Often they’re sitting inside your camera, ready to pounce. And these you can fix yourself.
Fault: Blurred Images
The scene: you take that once-in-a-lifetime shot of your son scoring a goal in soccer. It looks OK on the LCD but when you get it home it’s blurred.
Why?
Was it camera blurr caused by your own handshake? The message is that if you’re shooting action, the less that moves the better — on the camera side.
Let action be the prime movement.
Hold the camera steady; firmly tuck your arms into your sides. Set yourself and camera as close to the action as possible: if you use the zoom at the tele end you’ll need to get your act together. If you choose to use a long focal length, use as fast a shutter speed as possible; to help with this, select a higher ISO — to about 400 or higher should still give you a printable result.
Use the camera’s burst or continuous mode to shoot a run of images, so you get at least one shot that is sharp. Many cameras have an auto focus mode that tracks and focuses the moving subject as you shoot. If the subject is distant, lock the focus on infinity.
Dark Shadows, Bright Highlights
Many cameras have modes that will maximize highlights and shadows. These can deliver a far better printed result with an optimum rendering of highlights and shadows.
Some cameras even have a mode that can fix these after exposure and save the picture as a separate file. You can also fix the problem later in an image editing program.
Dull Picture
If you shoot a person against a bright background — sky, beach, snow — adjust the exposure over-ride to prevent the system from exposing for the bright background; an extra f stop will do it. The sky background will then burn out but the more important subject will be correctly exposed.
Another and far easier option is to use one of the scene modes that many cameras supply: choose beach, snow or similar.
Aids
- Keep your lens clean. Use lens wipes or soft tissues.
- If the camera just won’t go, perhaps it’s a simple matter of the battery not making a correct contact with the camera’s internal terminals. Take out the battery, wipe the battery and camera terminals — replace.
- The LCD screen goes off just when you need it: maybe you need to reset the power-off interval to a longer period so it doesn’t self-cancel.
- The flash won’t fire. Maybe you’ve set it to the off position. Reset to ‘auto’ or ‘forced on’.
5 Responses to “DIY Bugs” - Add Yours
June 15th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Some of these mistakes can be pretty easily fixed if using RAW (of course, that mostly true to the DSLR crowd)
This photo had the same problem as the second example in the post – http://www.ilanbresler.com/2009/05/what.html – The fact that I shoot in RAW helped me to “save” the skies.
I processed it in two ways – One, leaving the street lit and the skies ‘burned’
Two – Dark street but ’saved’ skies. And combining the two for the final result.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:22 am
This may come off as overly critical, but the article reminds me of the old Kodak books; Taking Better Pictures, which were better written. This article may be helpful to rank beginners, but some of it is too simplistic or just plain wrong. For example, instead of recommending cleaning a lens with a tissue, which is made from wood byproducts, why not recommend a good lens cleaning system, like the Lenspen or Giottos Rocket Blaster Lens Cleaning System?
As for getting a sharp picture, I think it is poor to recommend that people take a lot of pictures in burst mode in hopes of getting one good one. I used to shoot a burst of images then have 12 poor photos – none usable. Why not recommend that you prefocus on where the main subject will be then shoot at the peak of action? Too many beginners today think taking MORE pictures is a suitable substitute for taking BETTER pictures.
You should also recommend that beginners buy the best tripod they can afford. Their photos will be noticeably better.
As for keeping the camera still which is normally good advice, why not describe shooting options, like panning the camera to follow the action for a blurred background to accentuate the action?
Nonetheless , I commend you for trying to help beginners. I hope my critique is helpful in that effort.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
This is a really interesting articles, I had never thought of it this way, thanks for sharing.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:56 am
June 19th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I am a sports photog for a college newspaper and even in sports I almost always try to get that one perfect shot using timing. While I have my camera in burst mode the first shot usually comes out the best. I hear the cameras around me doing similar things. Shooting 2 or 3 shots is about the maximum that most professional sports photogs take in a burst. After that the action is over and you waste both battery and memory.
My other recommendation to both beginners and moderate photogs is to turn your camera on in manual mode whenever possible and practice that way. Computers have come a long way but the human eye through a view finder is still a much more powerful tool.
Best of luck to all of you out there and just stick to it!
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