Tips for shooting panoramas

Technique

• Tripod
• Shoot vertically - less lens distortion.
• No auto white balance (might change)
• No auto exposure (lock settings from first shot)
• Focus the first shot and turn off auto focus on the lens.
• First shot with your finger to know where the series starts afterwards.
• Shoot quickly.
• Use self timer to avoid blurred photos in the sequence.

Post processing

• Open all in Photoshop.
• File->Automate->Photomerge

Tips for landscape photography

Time

Dawn: 15/30 minutes and after. Dusk: 15/30 minutes before and after.

Technique

Aperture priority mode.

Filters

Polarization: Except on wide 10/12mm lenses. Cut reflection and adds richness to the sky. Neutral density gradient: Balances exposure between ground and sky.

Shooting portraits

Camera position

Standing: Tripod to waist height, straight lens.
Chest: Tripod chest height, lens straight.
Head and shoulders: Tripod to eye height, lens straight.
Around 3/4m away from subject.

Technique

Best focal length is 85mm/100mm, as there is no wide lens distortion or tele photo compression. Aperture priority, f/4 for internal shots gives sharpness and depth,f2.8 or less could be used externally if we want to blur distracting backgrounds. Best backgrounds are white or black. For whites, point light directly at background, for blacks, backlit the subject to make it emerge from the background. The background shouldn't be brighter than the subject. For outside portraits, shot in the shade not in direct sunlight. Use collapsible reflectors to direct light to subject both indoors and outdoors. For sunset portraits, flash off, lock light at the sky. Turn to subject, shot with flash. That way both sky and subject are lit.

Photographing movement

Panning

Make your camera follow the movement of your subject and all the rest will be blurred. At least 1/640, shutter priority. Focus on the spot where the subject will arrive and disable auto focus on lens. Continuos (burst shooting) will at least get one sharp shot.

Post processing

• Duplicate background
• Filter->Blur->Motion Blur
• With angle 0, increase distance.
• Use the eraser tool with a big soft edged brush over your subject to bring it back to focus.

Using a flash

Interior

• Use a flash diffuser
• Direct the flash to a white ceiling less than 3m high.
• Use a reflector hold at shoulder height at the left or right side and direct the flash there.

All these methods will avoid the flat shadows that direct flash light causes.

Exterior

Shoot with a flash if you are shooting with strong direct sun light. Rotate it to the left or right and tilt it 45 degrees to avoid direct impact, keeping your subject less than 3m apart.

Close Up lens instead of macro lens

An option if a macro lens is too expensive is to buy the Canon Close Up lens 500D for Nikon fit, or the Nikon 5T/6T close up lens.
For a Nikon 70-210mm f/5.6, the Nikon 6T makes a good buy.

More info

Taking sharp photos

Equipment

1. Good tripod and ballhead, and use it even in daylight.
If you can't use tripod use very fast shutter speed, preferable bigger than your focal length (f.e a 180mm lens, f/200). If you have little light, at least use continuous shutting mode with 10/12 shots. At least one will be focused. And use Photoshop Noise Ninja to remove the noise if you are forced to shoot with high ISO.
2. Wireless remote or self timer.

Technique

1. Mirror lock-up to reduce internal vibrations.
2. Ideally two full stops above your wide open aperture (for f/2.8, f/5.6 and f/8 are ideal)
3. Use the lowest ISO
4. Always zoom in to check sharpness.
5. Use the highlights (blinkies) on your camera. They show parts of the picture with no detail, use exposure compensation to correct it.

Post processing

Quick Unsharp mask with these settings:

People: amount 150% Radius 1 Threshold 10
Urban, travel: Amount 65% Radius 3 Threshold 2
General: Amount 85% Radius 1 Threshold 4


The best sharpening technique uses the channel palette not to affect the color content as follows:

• Mode->Lab color
• Channel palette->Lighten channel
• Apply Unsharp mask as before. And again.
• If the second filter is too sharp do Edit->Fade Unsharp mask and lower opacity to 50%, halving the effect.
• Mode->RGB

Retouching skin with Photoshop

Removing or softening skin flaws with the clone tool

1. Select the clone tool with a small brush, lighten mode, ~12% opacity and 100% flow rate.
2. Alt click on a part of skin with the appropriate color.
3. Soften the blemish with click and hold.
4. Change mode to darken the light area.

Removing highlights and reflections (like nose edge) uses the same method with the darken mode. Applying a Gaussian blur afterwards will remove imperfections.

Softening and blending skin with a Gaussian blur

1. Copy the image to two new layers.Hide the top layer and select the middle layer.
2. Change blend mode from normal to darken in the Layer's pallete.
3. From the menu choose filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur with a 35 pixels blur.
4. Hide middle layer and chose top layer.
5. Change blend mode from darken to lighten, and apply a 50 pixels blur.
6. Click on the middle layer and change its opacity to 30%.
7. Hide background layer and create a new layer, dragging it to the top of the stack.
8. Hold ALT key, click hold on Layers, releasing the click over 'Merge visible', creating a flatten version in the new layer.
9. Make background layer visible and hide the two middle layers.
10. Select the top l ayer and lower its opacity to 37%, adjusting this value to your taste.
11. To remove the Gaussian blur from the non skin areas (eyes, mouth, etc), click on the layer mask icon on the layer palette.
12. With the foreground color black, select a small soft edged brush and paint over everything except the skin.
13. Do Layers->Flatten image, and maybe retouch the Brightness/Contrast.
14. Finally, use the spot sharpener over eyes, mouth and everything else you want sharpened, but don't over sharpen as its very artificial.

These are quick notes from the useful tutorial