Over the weekend, something unforeseen happened, one thing led to another, and I ended up taking pictures of old pictures.  I had wanted to scan the negatives of these pictures, but I have not had the time to do so.  In this case, my brother-in-law asked me for some old pictures of my wife, as well as any pictures I had of his youngest brother.  It’s not really a long story, I just don’t want to go into it.

The task ended up as a group effort between me and my kids.  I asked my son to take the pictures, while me and my daughter filtered through the loose pictures and albums.

I was not feeling up to it, but as there was some need for urgency, I had to plow through.  We did have fun though.  And my son did learn a thing or two about taking pictures of pictures.  Truth is, given the time, I would have opted for a scan of the pictures.  But my scanner is a ten year old machine which doesn’t scan fast enough.  Hence the only alternative was to take pictures.

My son started out with the pictures on the desk and him hovering above the pictures.  Problem was the lighting.  We were just using the regular room lights.  No use for flash as that would wash out the picture.  He had to move to where there was brighter lighting.  After a while he was still slowly edging his way through his task.  He was holding the camera and not using the tripod.  This resulted in blurred pictures, besides taking a long time doing and redoing the pictures.

At that point I substituted for him, in as much as we were already done through choosing which pictures to shoot.  I got the tripod out, experimented a bit with the distance, and started shooting away.  I wasn’t able to shoot all the pictures we chose.  This was because of various reasons, including the contrast of the photos, the glare from the lights, some folding of the pictures, and the slight but very discernible slant for most of the pictures. But I was able to shoot the pictures almost like an assembly line manner:  set the picture, set the aperture, shoot, and cycle.

It was a good drill all in all.  But I guess I should really start on that project of scanning all the pictures using the negatives, if possible.  That would have to be for another day.

There’s this anecdote a friend of mine told once.  It was his own experience.  His wife works for the Accounting staff of one of the biggest sports shoe makers in the world, and that company had a promotional event which involved some NBA players at a basketball clinic.  With free tickets, my friend went to the clinic with his whole family.

He’s not really a basketball player, but is into sports, like bowling, badminton, swimming and mountain bike riding.  He’s also a techie for a major computer company.  Besides, that one of his hobbies is photography, he’s had a digital camera since the late 1990’s.

He goes to the event with his whole family and starts using his digital camera.  Shoots with the flash and takes some videos of the events.  And when the NBA players come along the worst thing happens.  He runs out of battery charge.  He checks out his camera bag and he’s got no spares.  He never did explain if he forgot to charge the batteries but he was not very happy.  He didn’t have anyone to blame as this was solely his fault.  The event was set and they’ve planned to be there, and he wanted to take pictures.  Unfortunately, due to an oversight on his part, that didn’t happen.  He went home dejected because he had no pictures of NBA stars.

This just goes to show that even for guys who have been taking pictures for a long, long time, it’s still possible to screw up because of batteries.

For photography in general, it’s a cardinal rule to check the equipment before going anywhere.  In the case film cameras, check that the flash is in good working order and the batteries charge the flash in an acceptable time, typically about 5 seconds.  If it takes longer than 10 seconds, it’s time to change batteries.  It would be pre-emptive to replace batteries at this point, unless you’re willing to wait until the batteries are fully depleted, and in the case of flash units, if it takes longer than 10 or 12 seconds, then the flash might be too weak to light up the picture.  In which case, you would end up with a picture which has uneven lighting (strong at the center and shadowy at the edges) or an underexposed shot, or just a black film.

And whether it’s a film camera or a digital one, it’s always best to bring along spare batteries.  There’s always that feeling that the best shot is the one which was not taken (something like the fish that got away).

For rechargeable batteries, the normal recharging time is 6 hours.  But there are chargers which can fully charge batteries within one and a half hours.

Additionally, it’s better to have lithium-ion batteries rather than nickel-metal hydride (NiMh) batteries.  The older technology NiMh batteries have what’s called battery memory or charging memory.  With these, the battery charge has to be fully depleted before being recharged.  Otherwise, if this keeps happening, the battery will slowly lose recharging capacity.

With today’s electronic devices, with no battery charge, it just doesn’t work.  The alternative would be to plug in the camera to a wall outlet.  Though not every camera can operate while plugged in in this manner.

There’s a new mall in out town.  It opened about a almost two months ago.  My kids and I had planned to visit it on opening day, but one thing led to another, and we instead ended up in a mall about two kilometers from the new one.  And today, we had planned to take pictures of it.

I have not had the opportunity to take a look at the place.  On the daily commute to the office, I saw the mall’s construction almost daily.  And relative to other malls by the same developer, this was relatively small.  It did have a lot of things going for it, including the full support of the city government.  The mall construction was incumbent on the construction of another bridge to ease the expected traffic.

By chance I went to that mall just this past week because the utility company moved their customer support office from a third mall, to this one.  And I was impressed and very much surprised by what I saw.  It was very bright.  Though I knew it was going to be well-lit, as I pass by the building every evening on my way home.  It’s practically blazing at night, even without any neon lighting.

I went into the building just before noon, and from the glare of the direct sunlight to the lobby, there was only a slight diminishing of the light.  The lobby was glass-fronted to the roof.  And with the wide lobby, this resulted in sunlight streaming in full force.  And along the main hallway running perpendicular to the lobby, one end was also a glass wall.

To capture how bright the building was, we planned to take pictures of the lobby from the top floor, this should show the sunlight streaming inside the building.  Another shot of the lobby would be from the ground floor, shooting upwards at an angle to capture the whole wall of glass and the big metal pipes which support it.  Wide-angle and quite close shooting upwards and from the side would show the vanishing of the glass and metal structure.  Unlike the concrete walls, the glass is set at an angle where the top has a slight overhang.  The close wide-angle shot would show the angle to its advantage.

Other shots of the building would be from several vantage points outside it. There’s the pedestrian overpass as one vantage point.  Shooting from there would also show the river and another mall across the river.  Another angled shot would be from the bridge.  This would frame the mall and the overpass.

some other shots from across the river would give it a good perspective.  Another good photo would be one where the train is crossing the river, with the mall as background.  But this would have to taken from the second bridge, and about two hundred meters distant.

Pictures of malls can give a false sense of perspective unless there are other buildings or structures within the frame, or there are people in the picture.  The other buildings would give more perspective and comparison in terms of size.  While the people would give the picture some sense of dynamics.

We’ll have to reschedule another time as the weather did not cooperate today.

The best times to shoot a picture under the sun would be between 7:00 to 10:00 AM and between 4:00 and 5:00PM.  But even the afternoon sun would give a reddish tinge as the sun’s rays get filtered out leaving the long end of the spectrum.

The worst time would have to be from 11:00AM to 2:00PM when the sun is at it’s zenith.  The light would be too bright (harsh as some would call it) and streaming from the wrong angle, straight down.  This would leave the face highlighted in sharp stark shadows.

The best solution when forced to take pictures while the sun is high would be take pictures in the shade, or partial shade and lying down, with the camera above the subject.  But seriously, there are ways to do this.

Without any props, the best way to do this would be to set the aperture one or two stops down, to underexpose the shot, use the flash and to shoot the subject with the camera held upside down.  This is specially true if the shot was a portrait.  The reasons behind this are simple enough to understand once you get past the shooting with an upside down camera stage.

Since it’s too bright, setting the aperture a step or two down, will result in a darker (or toned down) picture.  (The reverse is normally done if the background is much brighter than the foreground or subject.) Otherwise, there would be no details captured of the subject.  To offset this, using the flash will illuminate the subject.  And while using the camera upside down, the flash unit would be below the lens, resulting in highlighting the dark areas from the harsh sunlight streaming from directly overhead.

Alternatively, if there was a choice of position, shooting from above the subject and the subject looking up. there’s no need for a flash.  But it would still be a good idea to underexpose a bit.  This is a judgment call depending on what the ground is, if it was sand or snow, set the aperture one or even two steps down.

A word of warning is needed at this point.  If you have a digital camera, check the white balance setting.  And while you’re at it, don’t use the automatic mode for balance setting.

With some camera accessories (like reflectors and filters) the job gets easier.  There’s no need to use a fancy reflector, just a screen you can use to reflect sunlight so that instead of streaming harshly from above, the light gets reflected from the sides.  This could be a white board or a board wrapped with aluminum foil.

The aperture would still have to be a step or two down, because there’s really too much light on the subject and some details would be lost.  You’ll have to try for a softer shot, preferably with a neutral or gray filter.

And if you’re working with a polarizer, it would be a good idea to shoot the subject at an upward angle, in profile, with the sky and clouds as background.  The picture would have to be shot with flash, still with the camera upside down.

One of the easiest photography projects there is is a silhouette.  All that’s needed is a light background and a dark foreground subject.  That being said, the next step is to find the right subject or picture topic.  That’s the hard part.  It’s not easy to find something interesting if you won’t be able to recognize any details about the subject, because the subject is supposed to be a big shadow.

For the best dark foreground with an interesting background, I usually choose sunsets.  There are lots of possibilities with sunsets.  There’s the play of clouds with the rays of the sun going through them, or the bright red disk hovering on the horizon and reflecting on the surface.  With a sunset background, there’s more than enough time to shoot lots of pictures, but maybe not enough time to prepare for the picture.

A sunset background, with the reddish light, makes the foreground that much darker.  If you shoot the subject with the sun directly behind it you would get nothing but a black shape (the silhouette).  If you’re lucky, you would be able to shoot the sun’s rays as well.

A traditional silhouette would be a profile or side view picture of a person or an object.  If this is too static, you might try a picture of kids playing, but with the sun almost at the edge of the horizon, or at least very low.  This would add more emphasis on the shapes up front.  Pictures are static, and a silhouette makes a picture more static than it already is.  It’s useless to shoot set pictures, like groups or people with the sunset as backdrop, the picture might accidentally turn out as a silhouette.  Instead try to shoot a picture denoting some action, like kids playing.  This would make the shadows in front a lot more interesting.

I just saw a photo done on a website with a photo submissions page for amateur models (and I presume that the photographers are also amateurs) and only now have I realized that current digital cameras really are fast.

The beach scene picture was of a model wading in the water and throwing her head back, with the wet hair trailing water.  The picture itself was only 600×900 (portrait) and was a full body shot, however, the water trail was from the knees to about another three feet above her head, with the hair extending upwards as well.  What’s important to note is the detail of the water droplets in varying sizes, from knee high water to the arc above her.

Technically, there are several requirements for the scene to be captured.  The light has to be quite strong.  Since the picture was on a beach in the Maldives, that was taken care of –  the subject’s face was quite sun-burned.  The aperture has to be wide, to capture the most light.  And from the picture it sure looked like it, as the background showed a blurred shape up to his waist in water.  And if you looked closely, even the waves a few feet from the subject was already blurred and out of focus.  These two perquisites are to ensure the third one, a short exposure of maybe 1/1000th of a second, at most.

A few years back I would have added a fast film, at least an ASA/ISO 400.  (But who brings ISO 400 film to the beach?)  But nowadays, a good quality DSLR with manual settings could take the shot.

With good weather, this beach money shot could be taken around 8:00am to 10:00am in summer.  It could actually be taken as early as 7:00pm, but you run the risk of not having enough light.  Later than 10:am and the sun would be too high.  In the afternoon, after 4:00pm and you run the risk of a reddish tint to the picture.  And do make sure that the photographer (and camera) has his back to the sun.

Beach pictures are usually problematic.  The sand reflects light and the shot might be over-exposed.  White balance settings have to be set properly.  It would be best to attach a polarizer to the lens to catch bluer skies and clearer waters.

This kind of picture is not usually taken during trips to the beach.  It takes some time to set up and compose.  Again, the good news is that if your digital camera has a manual setting, it’s worth the time to set it up.

I’ve been discussing filters for a while now, and I guess I need to go back one step and explain what a filter is and what it can do.  In photography, a filter is a camera accessory consisting of an optical element that can be inserted in the optical or light path. The filter can be a square or rectangle shape mounted in a holder accessory, or, more commonly, a glass or plastic disk with a metal or plastic ring frame, which can be screwed in front of the  lens.

Filters allow added control for the photographer of the images being produced. Sometimes they are used to make only subtle changes to images; other times the image would simply not be possible without them. The selection of the proper filter is actually far more important than any choice of lens or camera. The filter has a large and real effect on your image. Lens brand and sharpness does not.

The negative aspects of using filters, though often negligible, include the possibility of loss of image definition if using dirty or scratched filters, and increased exposure required by the reduction in light transmitted. The former is best avoided by careful use and maintenance of filters, while the latter is a matter of technique; it usually will not be a problem if planned out properly, but in some situations does make filter use impractical.  Worst case is that the light degradation is inevitable and is something I have to live with when using some filters.

Photographers classify filters according to their use. If you are aiming for cleaner, sharper pictures with less haze, photographers would pick up UV Filters which absorbs ultraviolet rays.  In fact, most photographers leave a UV filter on their camera lens at all times to protect the lens from dust, moisture, scratches, and breakage.

There is what are called Sky Filters - which reduce blush tones in outdoor shots.  We do not have to worry because this keeps skin tones natural and free of reflection from nearby objects.  It can also serve as a permanent lens protector.

Protector Filters are filters which protect your lenses from expensive front element damage which could be caused by dirt, knocks or scratches.

And you can choose also polarizer filters.     The circular polarizer and moose filters  are essential for outdoor photography; deepens intensity of blue skies; reduces or eliminates glare.  Circular Polarizing filters are used on auto focus cameras.  When using non-auto focus camera, use linear polarizer filters and linear focus.

The Neutral Density Filters are devised to reduce the amount of light without affecting the color.  This also eliminates overly bright, washed out images. This is also great for video.

One special kind of filter is the HOYA HMC Ultra Thin Filter.  This is a series or set of high end filters designed to avoid vignetting problems which occur with wide angle lenses.

Filters are commonly used in black and white photography to manipulate contrast. For example a yellow filter will enhance the contrast between clouds and sky by darkening the latter. Orange and red filters will have a stronger effect. A deep green filter will darken the sky too but will lighten green foliage and will make it stand out against the sky. Also see diffusion filters, which are used to reduce contrast.

Yes, filters are needed even if you use a digital camera and edit with Photoshop. Polarizers and grad filters need to be used before the lens and are not well, if at all, simulated electronically. Digital cameras are excused from most of the color conversion filters, since you dial these in as white balance settings. I still use a mild warming filter (81A) on all my digital cameras since I prefer the look I get, even with the WB adjusted warm.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the first accessory I buy for a camera is a UV filter.  This is mainly for the protection of the camera lens.  Even now now with a UV neutralizing factor built-in with today’s digital cameras, rendering a UV filter unnecessary to filter out unwanted UV rays, I still use one for the protection.

Ultraviolet light is something we can’t see. However, your camera can see it. From an optical standpoint, a digital camera is not as vulnerable to ultraviolet light as film, but a UV filter can cut down on “purple fringing” and/or blue hues that occur in film and some digital cameras. Also, the use of an ultraviolet filter can protect your camera lens.
With the ultraviolet filter, we can achieve improved contrast and color saturation when shooting sunny landscapes, marine and mountain scenes. This filter specifically reduces the effect of ultraviolet light and atmospheric dust.

To maximize the use of the ultraviolet filter, experts have provided us seven steps on how to use this high-end.

Step 1.  Write down the diameter of your camera lenses or take your camera and lenses with you to buy the filter.

Step2. Purchase an ultraviolet filter for each of your camera lenses or opt for a filter system. In this case, you buy a filter-holder for the camera and interchangeable rings that fit your lenses. This is good for people who change filters often.

Step3. Screw the ultraviolet filter onto your camera lens.

Step4. Protect your camera lens from breakage, scratches, dust and moisture by leaving an ultraviolet filter on your camera lens whenever you’re not using a different filter, even when storing it.

Step5. Use a blower brush to remove dust and sand from your camera lens and filter.

Step6. Breathe on the filter or lens, and carefully wipe away any fingerprints or smudges with a lens tissue.

Step7. Take your photos as you normally would. The filter blocks the ultraviolet light.

In theory, UV filters add clarity by cutting UV scatter in high UV environments—e.g., at extremely high altitude (well over 10,000′) or in long shots over water, but most digital cameras are too UV-insensitive to benefit here. Post-processing can suppress or sharpen a hazy blue channel to good effect, particularly in B&W work, but an effective UV filter (most like a haze) might allow you to improve clarity while preserving blue channel data in your color images.