Common mistakes made by photography beginners

After a recent wedding shoot (early February 2012), viewing the images captured afterwards and the resulting criticism / complaints / discussions with photographers involved, I got the idea to write a brief post about the most basic mistakes every photographer can make...

Do you really know your camera well? Do you know how to shoot in different lighting conditions? Do you know the relationship between shutter, aperture (aka f-stop) and ISO that will allow you to have artistic control over DOF (depth of field)? I do not think so....


1.  See these icons on your camera's dial?
It is not for decoration. Read (and learn) from your camera manual (yes, that thick white booklet which you threw aside, when unbundling the brand-new camera from its box) what these icons stand for and use these manufacturer pre-sets to learn what photography is all about! After some time you will, hopefully, understand from these images' EXIF how the camera worked out what is an ideal combination of shutter speed, aperture and ISO setting.

My advice to you? After experimenting with the pre-sets, start thinking creatively and change the camera to another mode, such as Aperture Priority ("Av" for you Canonians, or "A" for you Nikonians) and try to improve on that automatic setting(s).


2. What is white balance?
This is the most common mistake amongst beginner photographers. What one should understand is that all light sources have a specific colour cast and the camera can "see" this BUT the camera must be configured to balance the colour to "white".

In other words, when a WB (white-balance) icon like "sun" is selected, the camera is told that it is being used in light with a blueish tint (ie, outside) and therefore it compensates by adding a bit of orange in order to achieve a white balance.  What happens if you leave the "sun" setting, goes indoors and start shooting under incandescent lights? Your images turn out orange because of the wrong WB setting!

My advice to you? Always return your WB setting to Auto after manually choosing a setting. If you shoot in RAW, your WB should remain in AUTO (never mind if you are inside or outside).

Another tip: when shooting a sunset, choose a "cloudy" WB. Why? Figure it out for yourself...
That is why you should experiment with WB settings in various light scenarios :-)


3. Exposure compensation!
There is a setting on your camera that some would call "a lazy man's control". It is the exposure compensation control (EV) on both the Canon and Nikon cameras, in which you simply move a vertical pointer with a plus / minus symbol into figures like +1, +2, or -1, -2, etc.

If you do understand the "deadly triangle", aka triangular formula, of shutter speed, aperture and ISO, an user can force a camera to brighten or darken an image. It is basically like opening or closing the window blinds (those horizontal / vertical strips). The "-" symbol will darken the image. The "+" symbol will brighten the image.

My advice to you? It also works inside, not only outside scenery. For example, lock on a bright object inside house (like a pot plant), then recompose to something else, maybe on that hairy dark dog, focus and take the shot.

Another sun-set tip: when shooting sunrises, reduce your EV to -2 to deepen your exposure. If the sun goes down, increase it and the sun light will diminish...


4. Focus points
The wrong use (or accidental setting) of a focus point can cause lots of grief for the user by having that shot out of focus. It is those red blocks inside the viewfinder of your camera. If you activate all the focus points, the camera will always focus on the closest object even if you don't want to. If using only the centre focus point, you have more control by moving the centre point around and focus where you point it.

My advice: after a photo-session, always return all focus points to ALL points.


And lastly,
5. Composition!
It is basically framing, positioning or whatever action you would call it, to place the image you see through the view-finder to a layout you personally like.

Nothing wrong with that because everyone is creative in their own unique ways and see things different from others. But it still does not mean you can place the horizon of a sunset scene totally skew or slap-bang straight in the middle.

Use "rules of third" and move the horizon to the top or bottom third of your image. Improve your composition even more by putting the object (eg. sun) to the left or right. And if it is a macro shoot, do it closer (as well as moving the focus point of object to the left or right, upper or bottom third). Take care to look for natural lines that will lead one's eye to the object.

Remember, horizons always but always should be straight. Use your camera's viewfinder grid (or even a bubble level, if equipped) to draw lines straight.

And that is it...if you follow these basics, you will always be ready and prepared.

Sorry...!

The past month or two was quite a bit hectic for me that I did not got around to post something (even a photo or two)  on my blog these past days / weeks / month(s).

Occasional excruciating and numbing pain (in upper-back), with gradual lost of strength and feel in right arm and fingers, with which I have been struggling with, from November 2011 to early January 2012, had me later in desperation go to a neurosurgeon, with almost immediate neck operation, that the huge pain relief afterwards, as well as the full recovery of right arm, had me in disbelieving laughing good mood.

But the medical bills was not so funny :-)

 

And, on top of that, the unexpected retrenchment (which was actually quite a relief as I was literally stagnating for the past year or so at my job) finally forced me to take a fresh look at my life, career and future with new ideas. One of these is to see if I can do something about my photography hobby as a business. 

So, here I am, back with a bang, full of  ideas.

Exciting times ahead...

blog / bear with me...

As readers / followers (the few there are! :-)) of my blog can see I am still fine-tuning my blog, slowly but surely. The only changes, for the moment, are some text formating as well as new sections at the top, some of which I want to lead to another section(s) on my blog itself (but no success there...yet!), and some of which links to other sites.

Actually, I have started my own blog on Blogger back in 2007 but stopped due to lack of time and interest and started anew with a personal WordPress blog (circa early 2011), the effort of which can be seen here (warning: right-click to open it in another window!) but after nth days of struggling with WordPress, which had me frustrated to no end with its lack of customisablilty, I went back to Blogger.

Yes, I know that WordPress can be a powerful marketing tool if one can succeed in designing a fully working one but I simply cannot get my head around how WordPress functionality (themes and other stuff) are integrated. Plus a large part of these stuff are not always free or easy to implement (as they appear to be). On the other hand, Google's Blogger have, in stark comparison to WordPress, a simplistic design approach (though somewhat buggy - thankfully it has improved over time from last when I was on it in 2007!), with a nice integration to Google+ services, that will make one's blog go far in social networking.

The important part for me (and I guess for many others out there) is that it is should be easy to create a blog immediately, complete with an unique custom theme, and be "A" for ready and finished in a short period.That is the "selling factor".

So, for now, I guess I will remain continuing polishing my blog template code and theme design until I am 100% satisfied with it. And then, when I have more time (and money! :-)) will I consider WordPress again!

Deaf people are like you!

Yes, you read that correctly. We are normal people in all kinds of shapes, colours and sexes, except that our ears may not work too well :-) The only difference is that it takes us more effort to listen and communicate (in our own unique ways).

Actually I do not like to use the word “deaf” as modern society are ignorant and usually associate “deaf”  with something negative, like being mentally disabled. How do I know? Simple! From my personal experience and from what I hear and see from other friends with the same disability. 

Relax! There is nothing to be afraid of. We do not bite nor are we contagious with some horrible disease. We do not explode with gooey stuff that will eat your innards inside out and spit out your digested bones. At worst, we only make some of you act stupid :-)

I prefer a more friendlier term “hearing-impaired” because I feel it more accurately describes the three kinds of hearing-impaired people out there: hard of hearing, partially “deaf” and completely “deaf”. All of these have varying degrees of being able to hear sounds. My point is that the "deaf" person you met at work may be quite different from your aging grandfather / -mother who are gradually losing their hearing ability. 

What no one realises is that we hearing-impaired people do not have the sense of instinctive direction / responsiveness / interpretation of all kinds of environmental noises that normal people pick up from their infant days. Without that ‘ability of sense’ we are at a disadvantage that can be overcome by ourselves and with the help of others.

How? Here is some personal tips from me to you, to help with communication with hearing impaired people.
 

Get their attention:
Make eye contact. Wave or make any gesture that will get their attention. If the hearing-impaired person is not in a position to get the visual cue, it is OK to lightly touch them on their shoulder. You can also ask them how they would prefer to communicate, be it lip reading, writing or sign-language.

Stay in their field of vision:
Stay on the same level as their eyes. Sit down if they are sitting, stand up if they are standing. Those height differences do make a difference. Remain in normal speaking distance (no further than roughly 2m away) from them. 

If indoors, make sure that there is plenty of light to see you clearly. If outside, face the sun so that there is no shadows on your face (as speaker) and light in their eyes (as lip-reader).

When talking to a lip-reading person, keep facing them. You may not be aware of it but turning your face away during conversation makes it difficult to follow what you are saying. Even with our expensive high-end hearing aids, we still rely heavily on facial expressions and mouth movements.

Talk in a normal tone of voice:
Believe me, we do pick up the differences! Whispering or shouting distorts your lip movements (and your face). Exaggerated slow mouth movements frankly makes you look silly :-)  All of these are hard to lip-read.

Shouting or talking very loud attracts attention from other people around the “deaf” person, or make the social group uncomfortable, which in turns make the “deaf” person feel self-conscious. Not good.

Be aware of the background noise and and do something about it if you can. Do not put anything in your mouth or put your hand in front of your mouth while talking.

Make discussions easy to follow:
If we “deaf” people know the general topic, it is easy for us to follow that conversation. Do not change topics suddenly – even the best lip-reader can only follow between 30% to 50% of the discussion.

If in meetings, and lots of questions / opinions are voiced, pause the discussion occasionally and ask if the “deaf” people are following, repeating important issues if necessary. And more importantly, allow for differences of opinion from those “deaf”people.

When discussing notes on white board or via projector, make sure that the “deaf” people are following the discussion by pointing to the diagrams / notes on white board or projector with a visible cue (do you know how difficult it is to find and tracking an almost invisible red laser pointer?!?) what is currently being discussed, and wait until they are looking at you before resuming the meeting. In most cases we would greatly appreciate it that notes are made and given to us afterwards.

If you were in a 1-to-1 (work-related) discussion with a "deaf" colleague, ask if they want a short summary of what was discussed, as to make sure that we have not missed anything. Actually, it is better to send an email / give them a note afterwards. They will greatly appreciate it as it will make their work easier (especially in cases of misunderstandings).

Do not refuse to re-communicate if they miss something or show your irritation when you need to repeat yourself. Sure, it takes time (and lots of patience) but there is no reason to alienate these “deaf” colleague(s) even more! Just as there are good and bad hearing people, there are also good and bad "deaf" people.

Lastly:
All hearing-impaired people can be quite untactful, direct and/or blunt and won’t be afraid to call it as they see it. It is because of the visual world we live in. We see facial expressions and body languages that usually belies your oral communication. We experience communication in difficult and different scenarios that a normal person take for granted.

There is an unwritten rule in the deaf culture: “if you can see it, you can comment on it”. So, don’t take everything personally. We don’t meant to offend you :-)

And that is it. A fairly lengthy piece of advice based on my own personal experience (and in my career in various directions) as well as out of frustration, as you cannot imagine. There might be more items to be added but I have been at it so long that I have learned to live with it. I hope that this post of mine will help some of you to remember how to communicate / work with a hearing-impaired person. They will truly appreciate your efforts, believe me.

After an revealing quote from Steve Jobs: “Stay hungry, stay foolish”, allow me to phrase one of mine (quite common amongst us hearing-impaired folks): “I am not stupid. My ears are” :-)

PS: A big "Thank You" to J.G and E.H and E.V (and some others) for proof-reading this. Greatly appreciated!

One day a chicken will learn how to fly

(sincere apologies to Terry Pratchett for using - and mangling - one of his funny quotes, out of "Small Gods") :-)

Ooh Yess! Fly! Fly, free, free at last! :-)

What say you? Or more importantly, what do you think I am all about with this blog? Firstly, a bit of monologuing about myself, like a vain super hero, if I may :-P

My name is Thys, using the handle “groen hoender” (Afrikaans - a South African language - equivalent for “green chicken”) when I am using the internet. If I sign up somewhere on the internet and my nickname has been taken (very rare!), I then use the English equivalent “green chicken”.

The history of where I got the nickname “groenhoender / greenchicken” was during my early Java developer days at a small company, with co-developers / colleagues / geeks / nerds which have a weird or no sense of humour at all; an incident involving a very tight and bright green T-shirt (with funny cartoonist chicken as logo) which I got from an attractive (but mischievous) close girl-friend; which in turn invoked some risque tongue-in-cheek ribaldry from said colleagues. So, the name got stuck, to my misfortune (or not!) :-)

Ahem, uhm, I digress....now where was I? Ooh yeah.

Why this blog? Simply because I want do. No ifs or buts or whatever. Because I am an amateur photographer, with a keen interest in creativity and 'painting with light'. This blog is my canvas. My express board. And I would like to show some of my works, along with interesting posts. Senseless stuff like how to capture and process this boring photo into this awesome work of art. Or just expressing opinions on whatever that got my attention for longer than 5 minutes.

Just like that. And if you are curious, like me, on how this blog will unfold, well, ladies and germs, please hold on tight for the ride of your life! :-)

I also joke a lot. Even sometimes I don't get it....

freebie Google Gmail accounts!

yep, you read it here...got plenty Gmail invitations for free (web-based) Gmail accounts.

you want one? gimme a shout!

"by jingo!"

"by jingo!"

*cracks knuckles* *wipes sweat from forehead*

at last...my e-blogger are now finished & ready....!

now for some blogging to be added, over time.