Although cameras with manual white balance measurement systems can provide almost cast-free colour photographs, there are times when additional colour reference tools should also be used to ensure you achieve a correct colour balance in any shooting situation. Including a colour balance reference target in shots is particularly handy if you shoot JPEGs. It's less important for raw file shooters because colour tweaking is possible when converting raw files to editable formats. However, having a target in a reference shot can make the task quicker and easier when you're editing image files.
... [more]From the Archive: Don's Editorial, Photo Review Issue 9 Feb/Mar 2003: The photographic eye. You can't buy it and some would say you can't even learn it, but if experience is any guide, you just might be able to earn it. ... [more]Different places and different times of day can affect the colours you capture in a digital photograph and all image sensors are designed to reproduce a wide range of hues and tones accurately. From the harsh desert sunshine to the misty rainforest; from sunrise to dusk; indoors and out; your camera should be able to produce pictures that capture the colours and atmosphere of the place and time of day. ... [more]The pictures below simulate the effects of common lighting types that can be corrected with the white balance pre-sets in most digital cameras. ... [more]Correct exposures make good photographs so it's important to understand the controls that determine image brightness. Exposure consists of two components: lens aperture (the hole through which light enters the camera) and shutter speed (how long the light is allowed into the camera). A correct balance between them creates pictures in which all tones in the subject are recorded correctly. ... [more]All digital cameras record images in JPEG format and JPEG is the only file format that can be viewed in all viewing devices and edited by all image editors. For this reason, JPEG is known as the universal file format. ... [more]Many cameras offer one or more bracketing functions. The most common is auto exposure bracketing (AEB), which involves taking a series of pictures of the subject while changing the exposure level. The normal practice is to take three shots, one under-exposing by 1/3EV, the second at the metered exposure and the third over-exposing by 1/3EV. This basic strategy is a kind of ‘insurance policy' for obtaining a correct exposure (there's a good chance at least one of the three shots will be correctly exposed). ... [more]Photographers often use the Japanese term, ‘bokeh' to describe the quality of the out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field. Though it's difficult to quantify, some lenses produce more attractive bokeh than others. ... [more] |