If we gather all names and terms used in digital photography we could say it’s too much, but it’s nothing that complicated, actually it is as simple as “hello”.

Hyper-focal distance a tiny detail that can make the difference

The distance named this fancy represents a distance setting that allows capturing of the greatest depth of field. In other words, all the objects from half this distance to horizon will not be blurred.

When you need to take landscape photographs, the only technique is to focus on hyper focal distance and the result is everything in the photograph, from some near distance to infinity will be sharp.

No difficulty is encountered while obtaining the sharpest photo because the common lenses can handle focusing at hyper-focal distance very well with the help of manual focusing.

Take a hyper-focused picture

When taking a landscape picture the hyper-focal distance is what we need to have in mind. Some lenses have a scale that measures the depth of field and lucky photographers that are blessed with them won’t need to do any calculations.

Anyways, these types of lenses are a little expensive so it is better if you know how you can determine the correct hyper-focal distance for perfect landscape photography.

You can use hyper focal distance equation which is a function of focal length, f- number and circle of confusion.

Don’t worry, photography will not transform into a Math’s session so to avoid this geeky thing, you can refer to the tables of values provided with the digital camera because it’s very tedious to calculate hyper focal distance each time you went out for photography. That would be more than sufficient to calculate this hyper focal distance.

When you’ll focus on hyper focal distance, initially nearer objects will be seen blurred because the lens aperture is wide open and the depth of field does not remain same while taking the picture.

Most of the people have tendency to focus on nearby objects due to which they lose focus from hyper focal distance and the image gets blurred. So believe in your photography and don’t lose focus on the distance to avoid image getting blurred.

In the middle of the nature or in the heart of a busy city, from the top of a skyscraper or up in the mountains, the landscape photo will look just perfect, now that you know what the hyper-focal distance is.

When photographing a dynamic scene like people running, cars, bicycles, planes or animals moving, usually random scenery can turn in the most frustrating photo experience.

If the focus is not set properly a picture can turn into a mixture of foggy shades and colors, resulting in a mess.

When focalization fails the photography becomes a torment. If the camera is focused on a certain point the subject is going to reach, with a bit of synchronizing the photo will be better than if you use manual focus.

When taking pictures through glass the auto focus of camera will not function well because the auto focus will get “confused”. The manual focus will fix the problem so if you just ignore the glass and focus on the subject beyond it you can get the best shot and with a little skill ignore completely the glass.

As portraits are concerned the picture must emphasize a certain face feature, the eyes, the lips, the nose and the focalization must be very accurate.

With manual focus the photograph will control the picture completely and capture the exact feature the digital photographer intends to make memorable.

It is just how things work, every photograph taken is post processed and enhanced.

The breath taking images that appear in every magazine, commercial or catalogue, are the proof for all of this.

But what makes one photographer better than another is the skill that allows making a photograph that will look the same with the one that has been digitally enhanced after taking.

In the fashion industry what comes before Adobe Photoshop is the focus of the light. That is the secret of the world’s best photographers.

Light manipulation has become an art rather than a technique that is taught in school. Although it may seem easy for those who never tried it, it is one of the hardest things to master, and for those that are in the fashion photography business it might be considered the most important one.

Different angles result in different photos. Every light beam accents a part of the image and every shade covers one. So, creating a perfect set for a photo shoot and finding the right angle that will visually express the goal of the image is not an easy thing to do.

It is different every time. Photographers use different settings and methods depending on what should be the first thing that has to catch the eye of everyone that will see the picture.

If, for example, the photographer needs or wants to emphasize the clothes more than the model that is wearing them, then he will need to put all the lights and focus on them.

For this the set has to be arranged perfectly. There must be no reflections that could ruin the photo and a bit too much light will damage the colors.

Everything has to be balanced perfectly and every beam should be focused on the right spot no matter if the goal is to emphasize the clothes, the shoes, the face, the eyes, or the lips.

In some cases and different photographer styles light manipulation may become shade manipulation because hiding an object of the photo behind a shade will bring in front the rest of the objects in it.

On the other hand, if the shade falls on the part that has to be accented, then that particular photo will not be of any use. So, sometimes, shades are good but sometimes they are bad.

Every fashion photographer knows this and that is why light manipulation comes as the key ingredient before Photoshop in the fashion photography business.

Even an amateur can spot the difference between two images of the same objects taken with different cameras or taken by using a different setting.

To ease this process every camera has some presets that will allow the photographer to get the best of what he shoots, but sometimes they are still not enough.

When it comes to taking photos of castles, making a really good image could prove to be harder than it looks.

Every one wants to catch the beauty that his eyes can see in a photo and make it last forever, but still this is rarely the case. This is mostly happening because of the digital resolution of the camera.

It is a fact that a larger resolution will result in a better image. This is because of the textures that every castle has. Every stone has been marked by the hand of time and in order to capture this, the camera needs to have a large resolution.

Luckily, nowadays, most of the advanced digital camera models have a resolution large enough to capture the whole beauty and glory of a castle and preserve it, while making it come alive in the process.

It usually troubles the amateur photographers making them believe it has to do with the distance measuring.

This setting is not present in all the digital cameras but it is good to know that the metering feature of the camera measures the light amount reaching the sensor and helps with the exposure time of the subject.

The spot metering measures only a small portion of the frame, around 3-8% depending on the camera, represented only by a little circle in the viewfinder.

Through the qualities of this type of metering you can find out the accuracy of exposure measurement without the influence of another frame area and it is generally used for the frames where the light is behind the subject.

For example if the back of the subject is strongly illuminated –like a sunrise- and the front of the subject is underexposed, spot metering can measure correctly the light exposure reaching the subject’s face, calculating exposure so the subject will be captured clearly. The only thing worth mentioning is that the items around the subject will be still overexposed.

Another practical use of spot metering is the moment of photographing the moon because the very dark nature of the background will tend to overexpose the moon. The spot metering will expose the moon accurately and underexpose the rest of scene.

Center-weighted average metering concentrates the sensor between 60 and 80% of the sensibility in the center of the frame losing the sensibility for the sides. Some of the photo cameras allow the user to adjust the sensibility from the center to the sides.

This method has a great advantage because it does not allow the metering system to be “tricked” by the small light areas on the sides of the frame. Most of the times this type of metering brings up the best results in the photographed scenes.

The average metering calculates a media of the whole scene luminosity and sets an exposure without considering a certain area of the scene.

The partial metering is very similar to the spot metering the difference being the frame area used to measure the scene, because the partial metering covers 9-12 % of the scene. It can be used when you have areas with very strong light or on the contrary very dark areas.

The metering can help a photographer capture original frames and can turn the art of digital photography in a trip beyond the mere view of a subject into the light manipulation that can result an amazing photograph.

Every photographer even if it is just a hobby knows photography in general but especially digital photography is essentially all about capturing light.

And, we know that there are different types of light sources that can drastically change the way the finished product of our digital photography looks.

When you are dealing with indoor photos you are also dealing with indoor light sources. And it is obvious that the light provided by the sun is far brighter and more pure than any light that could be provided by a table side lamp or a ceiling fan light.

The more light you add to your indoor photography the better your lighting in the digital photography will appear. There are many different sources for alternative and additional lighting in indoor photos.

In fact you will most likely prefer to have complete control over your lighting sources and make the environment as bright as possible to avoid having to use the camera flash on your digital camera.

By not being able to get indoor lighting right we mean you may not be able to grasp the kind of control you want on your indoor lighting sources or maybe the indoor lighting sources are too close to your subject or too far away from your subject.

Oftentimes we are photographing a subject in an area that is just too small and enclosed to get the proper form of indoor lighting under control.

In these cases we will need to utilize the flash on our digital camera. While this isn’t an ideal choice it can be successful and deliver beautiful photographs if used properly and with the correct techniques.

Did you know that the reach of a flash on the standard and even advanced digital camera is only 10-15 feet? This means that if your subject is further away than 10-15 feet of your camera the flash will not properly do its job. In these cases you may need to use the properties of an external flash.

The way in which your controlled photography lighting sources ‘hits’ the subject of your photography can drastically change the feeling of the final product.

If the controlled lighting sources in your photograph will hit the side or profile of your subject then your final product will result in many contrasting elements between the shadows and the features of your subject.

If your subject is a person, the lighting source hitting the profile of the person will result in contrasting shadows in their profile and facial features.

Another way to play with controlled lighting sources is to have the lighting ‘hit’ the back of the subject. When lighting hits the back of the subject your final product will produce a very well-lit background and a quite dim foreground. Or, you could hit the subject from the front to ensure everything in the final photograph is visible.

Most of the times the winter photography will turn out underexposed due to the lack of known information and rules. In this type of digital photography the rules are very important, and if followed will create a festival of light inside a digital picture.

The main problem in the case of winter photography is the fact that the system measuring the digital camera exposure is “tricked” by the large quantity of light coming from a frame filed with snow.

Generally the measurement system of the camera “reads” the snow as a grey tone –most of the cases in a quantity of 18 % – and this way in the photography the white will stand out as grey. In order to avoid this inconvenience the exposure needs to be compensated.

In conclusion it is wise to avoid setting the camera on “auto” mode in order to get the correct exposure for a frame containing a lot of snow. The best choice is to over expose manually, verifying the result by taking several compensation shots until you reach the correct exposure rate.

The things are changing if you need to take the picture of a person or another subject positioned in the snow. The exposure correction advised above will over expose the subject.

In this case you need to decide what the main topic interest of the photography is: the subject or the snow. If you want to take a portrait picture then create the right exposure so the face will appear in natural tones forget the rule of extra exposure.

If you can’t measure the subject’s exposure, for example when your subject moves quickly skiing or sleighing, the right way to measure it, is do it on your own skin for example on the hand, and keep the setting for the picture you are about to take.

As long as there are conditions for luminosity and your skin tone is similar to the one of the subject, you will get a perfect photo.

Another important aspect of the winter photography is the texture of the snow. If the photography is done in a cloudy day, the light will be “plain” and the texture will fade.

There is need for side luminosity in order to go creating shadows and bringing forward the texture to create an interesting surface. The light can be natural or artificial but it requires attention during the setting of the balance of white.

Usually the best moments of the day for taking digital pictures of a snowy landscape is very early in the morning or in the evening.

Think of the lens of the camera like the iris of our eye and when you squint you control the amount of light that gets into your vision which completely alternates the way the objects you see will look to you.

When you use a smaller aperture number you will be able to use a shorter shutter speed which as we all know will allow you to take many pictures and better fast action shots.

When you use a larger aperture number you will be able to use longer shutter speeds which of course will be appropriate for bright lights such as a bright and sunny day outside.

Aperture also affects the depth of field in your photographs. If you are shooting a landscape you will want to use a small aperture which will result in a greater depth of field.