Photography ideas, camera & image editing

Photography is usually a compulsory topic in many a design school. Black and white photography is one of the main photography type learnt.

Black and white photography involves creating images without colours. Black and white photos often exude a nostalgic or historic feel. Interestingly, when using lower-end compact cameras, Black and white mode often creates a more pleasing range of tones than when using the color modes.

For better control, it is ideal to shoot the image in colour mode first. We can always do the conversion to greyscale or black and white later. With digital photography, one can now easily convert a colour photo to black and white. However, it is not as simple as just using the desaturation tool on the image editing program.

It is always a good idea to use low ISO setting for the camera. This is to prevent the result from being overly grainy.

If possible, shoot using RAW format. This will allow better control over the black and white manipulation.

Panoramas or Panoramic photography is a type of photography that purposefully creates images with exceptionally wide fields of view.

The followings are some tips for shooting panoramas:

1. Turn off auto white balance. This is to prevent the white balance setting from changing.

2. Turn off auto exposure. This is to prevent the exposure from being automatically adjusted.

3. Use only one exposure setting. Determine an aperture-shutter speed combination and stick to it for all the shots.

4. Use only one focal length. Use just one focal length for all the shots.

5. Use a tripod. A tripod allows for a more stable and sturdy panning of the camera when taking the shot. It also aligns the shots horizontally with one another.

6. Overlap the shots. An ideal range for overlapping is between 25 to 50 percent.

7. Do not use flash. Flash will affect the exposures.

That’s all for the tips. Thanks for reading.