Basic Photographic Principles

I'll start off by saying that I'm no expert in Photography, nor have I ever claimed to be. However, I've picked up a few tricks over the years.

What I want to achieve straight off the bat is to bust some very annoying myths that have been floating about for a while regarding the art I dearly love.

The better the camera, the better the photo.

This is a huge misconception. While it is obvious that a quality camera with good optics and a well designed sensor will output high quality images, it isn't true that a low budget camera will output sheer rubbish. In the latter half of 2012, my only camera was a $90 Olympus VG-160. I still got acceptable results from it.

See here, here, here, and here.

Combine your cheap camera with some software such as Hugin , and you can start stitching some high quality panoramas in no time!

In another post I have on this blog I've explained the advantages that you can obtain by using your phone's camera more often.

The most important thing anyone wanting to take a good photograph must realise, is that the most important thing is you. It doesn't matter if you have a mobile phone, a point and shoot, or a DSLR with some good lenses, all of these can take a good image in the right conditions. And that condition, is you.

You control the composition.
You (sometimes) control the light.
You control the framing.
You (Sometimes) control the camera.

You can do all three of these things on practically any camera.
Higher end equipment allows a lot more control for the user.

The next myth, is much more annoying:

Editing/Processing is cheating.

An awesome example of pre-digital editing.

Since the dawn of Digital photography, people have always assumed that processing a photo after taking it is in some way ruining the authenticity of the photo. Well, that doesn't make any sense. What you can do in a digital editor you can already do in an analog darkroom- and for over a century it's been that way.

Cropping/brightness/contrast/desaturating etc are all necessary to do in the darkroom to get the results you are after. Why not in digital too? As an avid film photographer, I experiment with cross processing, over developing and deliberate negative damaging to create some very aesthetically pleasing art.

I saw someone open up the JPEG files from his DSLR and state that he didn't need to edit his photos. JPEG files are typically the only output from basic cameras and mobile phones. They have already been processed inside the camera and are usually acceptable to use without any alterations but still need tweaking to get the most out of them. Consumer DSLRS are designed to output very colourful JPEG's that look great to the average person. - They only want some holiday photos! 

With RAW files taken from more advanced cameras, the output is generally flat and undesirable. This is because the camera has saved the entire set of data seen by the sensor, without making any adjustments to the image. You NEED to process the RAW file in some way shape or form to get it into an export format such as TIFF or JPEG. To that end, Editing is a necessary part of any photographers workflow, and anyone who thinks otherwise is  ignorant of that basic fact. (That said, in-camera settings can be effectively utilised)

I shot this photo on my DSLR. It was a 10 second exposure. I still needed to increase the saturation after. If you look closely, I didn't use any noise reduction- NR is quite an important step.

Now I've had my opening discussion, I'll get onto the actual topic of the post. Basic photographic principles:

Composition

The most fundamental principle of art is composition, all famous works of art, from Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, down to Van Gogh's sunflowers painting, and to Ansel Adam's Landscape of the river, all have the one basic element:

Really, really good composition. None of those works of art would be as famous as they are now if the artists ignored the composition. So likewise, neither should you.

One of the images I took at Adelaide last year.. If I didn't kneel down to the low angle, I would not have the strong juxtaposition between grass, flower, fence, and sky. 

Instead, you would have seen a lot of clutter that was just over the hill and would have ruined the simplicity of the image.

Simplicity is key here. Try to find strong, defining contrasts, and make the most of them.

The object I had for taking this image was to show an expanse of land, under an ever bigger expanse of sky.

The next most important thing is to experiment. You might find the right subject and composition, but it is still not enough to shoot from the same angle. It is possible to make very different landscapes look nearly identical.

Try different angles. Try different settings. Try a different camera if you have to, just keep your mind open to any new possibilities.

Image Shot on Lucky SHD 100 35mm film, developed in instant coffee, and then scanned in. (I love analog)

Image shot with a 40 year old lens with an adaptor.

Image shot with the simple Canon kit EF-S 18-55 Lens. 4 images combined in Hugin.

Timing

An image is all about timing. Whether it be the timing of the shutter, the time of day, or the timing of when the scene is captured, timing is just as critical to an image as the composition.

Lighting
Lighting is one of those key aspects to an image, most good landscapes are shot during what is called 'Golden Hour'. That is- The first hour of light after sunrise, and the last hour before sunset. This time is when shadows are longest, light softest, and sky the most beautiful.

Shot this the other day. Not the best background as the Perth Airport is re-vegetating the area, but you still get the idea.

However, creating your own light is just as important.

Meet Cassandra. My curious, beautiful, adorable, energetic little bunny rabbit. As I write this sentence she is running around my room pooing everywhere. I'll have to get the vacuum cleaner out once I'm done.

I shot this little portrait with a Canon Speedlite bounced off the ceiling. Flash photography, when used correctly, is amazing for making good indoor photos.



I should wrap up this post, as I only want it to be short, but I hope you got something out of this, and that you can use it to better your own work.

Wave Rock

For my birthday, my parents booked a tour of one of WA's icons. Wave rock.

It was an early start, we had to get into the heart of Perth by 6:30 in the morning. We pulled up in front of the street in front of the Wellington Bus station and I got out, only to be greeted by a homeless man displaying various symptoms of crack use as well as a few other cautious travelers. After a bit of waiting, our tour van showed up, and we were off on the 300km trip.

By around 8:30, we had stopped in Brookton for some tea and biscuits. I took the liberty of shooting some photos of the train station on both my digital camera as well as my film cameras. We were the only people in sight, I guess Saturday mornings in a quiet town are used for sleeping in.

Brookton Train Station.

After that, it was onwards towards the central wheatbelt town of Corrigin.
The terrain was an unending horizon of green as the seeding season had just finished, leaving hundreds of square kilometers looking freshly green with the young heads of wheat, grass, and canola looking good. There were also sheep visible.

The only view for a few hundred kms...

Before we entered Corrigin, we stopped to look at the dog cemetery. According to Wikipedia, there are around 80 dogs buried there. The cost of a plot of land is $5000, this ensures that only really loved dogs are buried there.

Plaque reads "A tribute to man's best friend."

After the visit to the dog cemetary, it was then on to the rock itself.

Photo quickly taken before the next tour bus of people rounded the corner.

Wave Rock was bigger than I was anticipating, with the face towering over all who came below it. I shot some panoramas on my DSLR and then started chewing through my film stock on my analog cameras.

After photographing the face, it was time to climb it.

After a bit of climbing, the landscape opened up to us in a brilliant array of fields, salt lakes, and rock face. I deployed my tripod and shot a panorama on my DLSR, the 19mm wide angle lens on my Minolta 404si was good for shooting wide angles onto film, but the simple kit lens on the the Canon was all I needed for this task. Just click on the photo to enlarge it in gallery view.

Roughly just to the left of the center of this Panorama, you can see another large rock on the horizon.

Although dried, there are loads of rock pool sites featuring hardy moss and other small shrubs. When the rain hits, these small plants get all the nutrients they need from runoff water.

Jewels of the Rock. Dew is still visible on these awesome little hardy flowers.

We begun climbing down, so I deployed my tripod and shot another pano of the rock.

A little different perspective showing both the face of the rock as well as the rest of it. The knee high fence is for channeling water to the reservoir on the side.

After climbing down from the rock, it was time to head down for lunch at the cafe conveniently placed right next to it. On display at the cafe was a model T ford used in Corrigin and Hyden during the early 20th Century:

Beautifully restored after being consigned to the tip.

After lunch, we had a look at Hippos Yawn. I won't include a photo because it looks nothing remotely like a hippo and I believe it to be a total waste of time visiting.

We then headed back to Perth.

In summary:

Wave Rock is worth a visit, and if you can, you should make the effort to go.

As of April

April has been an interesting month so far with the completion of a few things. But first things first:
Storms.
I had not been able to capture any lightning since February 20 2013 and I was getting fairly impatient with finding the next load of lightning to capture.

On the 17^th I got some very distant shots that only illuminated the clouds from my point of view. Perth Weather Live got some good shots from admins and viewers but I was too far north to get anything. I went for a walk along manning road and managed to obtain some panoramas when I got to Canning Bridge. The storms were very powerful producers of lightning (by Perth standards anyway...) and I got the lit clouds. The storms were off the coast of Mandurah and then just died around 9 pm. I was expecting it to fire up again but they never did. Welcome to Perth. The storms are lacklustre in the metro but really good in the wheatbelt.

The only photo worth sharing from my walk.

With regards to (Non-Storm) photography, things have been okay too. I have gotten some nice (for me anyway) shots this month:

Lesmurdie Falls Rocks

Large Pano of the falls.

Another pano showing the lack of water.

Taken outside the art gallery of Curtin University.

Australia II at the WA Maritime Museum.

Another View.

The Megamouth Shark that is temporarily housed at the Maritime Museum.

A Pano of Fremantle.

As far as education and job hunting goes I am really hopeful that I can obtain some form of full time employment in the industry I have trained for. After 3 years of working to get qualified I only ended up with a Certificate III in IT and a CompTIA A+. Far less then I was aiming for. I attempted a MCITP exam but failed after only obtaining 570 points out of 700.

I have recently completed two (Unpaid) internships as well.
First one was at a computer store in the northern part of the city. It was highly stressful and I was run off my feet for the entire day. Add two hours onto each leg of transport meant that I had a 13 hour day for 4 weeks. I could barely cope with the demand but still managed to complete the internship.I then crashed for a week. Retail is not my strong point it seems.
I then did an internship at a data-center in the southern part of the city. This was awesome! I absolutely loved it there. There was the perk of being able to sit down and read up on processes. I learned to load and unload tapes into drives for different clients on time and also how to reset the chilling plants and operate the giant Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) that allowed the power to the data-center to be seamlessly transferred from mains to generator power. My training institute promised that there would be a job for me there, but alas, as fate has it, it turned out to be an empty one. Which was a shame, as I would have loved to stay there. I really enjoyed working with that team.

I am continuing the job hunt, so hopefully by June I will be employed.

DSLR + Lightning = Awesome.

Went on a small storm chase with Perth Weather Live Founder Steve Brooks.

We had a bad run but didn't come off empty handed.

Mobile Photography

This post is going to be a little longer than normal, as I have a point that I really wish to drive home:
Use that tiny camera! Whether it be a latest and greatest iPhone or Android Flagship, or a simple Nokia with a 2 megapixel camera.

Just one thing to remember before we start. I cannot stress this enough, and failure to follow this simple instruction will render this post useless.

NEVER USE DIGITAL ZOOM, EVER!

If you use the 'zoom' function on your phone. Stop right now (Unless you own an 808 Pureview). You are destroying your image quality. You are turning your 8 or 5 megapixel camera into a 0.3 or 0.1 megapixel camera. The results might look good on the phone's screen, but if you try to print that photo or look at it on your computer, you will want to poke your eyes out with a medieval battering ram. That is all.

Introduction

Everyone I know who is passionate about their photography owns a decent compact, DSLR or Mirrorless camera. They get great results from these cameras. But not because of the cameras themselves, but because of way they compose their shots and handle their cameras. But, when they go out and leave home, they usually only bring their mobile phone with them. Sadly, none of them use that little onboard camera to its full potential.

Sure it might have awful to plain nonexistent:

• Manual control (Though Nokia may buck the trend soon)
• RAW Format shooting.
• Resolution
• Lens quality
• Signal-noise ratio
• Output quality
• Lens Capabilities (No zoom)

But it does have one thing that a large platform doesn't have that is enough to overcome nearly all of its shortcomings; The ability to go everywhere you go.

I have an example right here. Last year I went for a bike ride and saw an awesome afterglow. I pulled out my phone and got this photo:

I wasn't deliberately out to get photos, and at that point, I only had a Film SLR at my disposal. I certainly wasn't going to take such a fragile photography solution out and about on a bike ride!

However, because I had my phone on me, I was able to get that shot. Sure, there is a metric ton of noise slathered on the photo, but it is forgiveable considering the sensor is less than 2 mm across.

Yeah, there's a ton of noi- hey look! Ducks!

How to get the most out of your phone's camera

There isn't a lot you can do to overcome the limited options and quality afforded to you, but there is lot you can do to improve the composition, and the lighting.

Composition

I first and foremost apologise for not already doing a post on this. It is the first thing anyone should ever think about when about to take a photo of any kind. To put it very simply, composition is made up of a set of rules. But, for the purposes of this post, I'll only explain the most common one:

The Rule of Thirds.

Note, GIF source here here

The Rule of Thirds is one of the easiest and most simple rules to follow as it allows the photographer to find the correct ratio of ground, horizon, subjects, and sky. This ensures that the eye can scan across and find context immediately, allowing the viewer to actually enjoy the photo, not leave them guessing as to what the photo is meant to convey. 

Photo by Wikimedia User Moondigger.
Licensed under the Creative Commons.

Following it is as simple as it looks. If you have a smartphone using Belle, Bada, Android, or iOS, you will have the option to use a gridline. You don't need it on, but it sure helps.

To follow the Rule of Thirds simply:

1. Align the horizon to the top or bottom gridlines. Usually, if you are up on a hill, you will want to align the top line to the horizon to show what you can see, while out on flatlands you will want to align the horizon to the bottom line to show the distance. You should never put the horizon in the middle. A common mistake that ruins the photo, as it splits the view in a manner that is not very pleasing to the eye.
2. Place your subject in a cross area, if you can see the image, you can see how the photographer places the tree in an area that is pleasing to the eye. The image seems natural, and allows your eye to relax and take in detail.

Shot from a bus in Adelaide, this image shows a little bit what I mean. The ''horizon' is actually the top of a hill.

Lighting

It is a well known fact that phone cameras are awful at collecting light. DSLR's have big lenses and big sensors for a reason: They collect and capture light a lot more efficiently. With a mobile phone, we have a tiny lens and a tiny sensor. So we have to make sure that it can capture as much light as possible.

With a phone's camera, you usually can get some very decent photographs when it is bright outside. The reason for that is that the sensor is set to a low ISO, and a higher shutter speed (1/250 or higher) , meaning that the photo isn't very grainy, and that any motion in the frame is frozen reasonably well.

I took this photo with my phone during the Perth 2011 Sailing Regatta.

Unfortunately, on the other side, when indoors and with low lighting, it can seem that the camera can't cope. Because of the crippled lens, the ISO has to be raised to a higher level, and the shutter speed dropped to some really low values (1/10, 1/5 or 1/2). The only real things you can do to improve the situation is see about turning up lighting and/or bracing the phone against a wall, chair or an elderly person.

I braced the phone against another cannon to take this photo in a museum.

Indoor action photos are totally out of the question with phones. You might get lucky, but you probably won't. Try it anyway, and you will see what I mean.

Shaking it up a little

If you really want to try something different with your phone's camera, go find a pair of binoculars and point your phone's camera through it.

These are the results I have obtained by using the digiscoping method.

I wouldn't consider any of these perfect, they all have some level of artefacts, but it's pretty damn good for a <2mm sensor. 

In Conclusion

What you carry around with you every day is perfectly acceptable as a camera, if you follow basic composition, and not push the boundaries too far you can get some really good results, even if you don't enjoy photography

Thanks for reading!