Learning to use a digital camera

[Bruce Nunnally]

I have been reading a lot lately on how to improve my photography. Digital cameras are designed to be user friendly and 'point and shoot'. The camera guesses what is best for most scenes and selects a variety of photographic settings that are probably best.

110% or so of photography is how much of an artist the photographer is. But there are some really basic things to keep in mind, and I am trying to work on those. For example, for car photography set the autoflash to always flash. This gives better highlighting of the vehicle underside. Shoot on unbroken dark pavement to provide a road background below the car so that the Cadillac is highlighted. Shoot with the sun to your back or on the sun side of the vehicle, so it is not in shadow. ISO = light (for this purpose) so move the ISO up to increase the lightness of the photo.

My 8 megapixel camera shoots at 3kx2k pixels or so. A good target for internet use depending on the purpose of the photo is 800x600 or so. So depending on the camera, you may need to actually turn the camera down to a lower res to save re-compressing the jpeg later and loss of image quality in recompression.

This CTS shot was done in the morning light, crouched, flash always, iso 200. I shot several images and then selected the one that looked better. None of them look best lol.

The flash reflection on the front of the image is bad. The rest turned out okay but not great.

Hopefully Marika and others will chime in with real info on how to photograph cars. I will say, based on what I have read and learned so far, that a lot of what you see in magazines is NOT well done. That surprised me quite a bit.

[Marika]

Hopefully Marika and others will chime in with real info on how to photograph cars. I will say, based on what I have read and learned so far, that a lot of what you see in magazines is NOT well done. That surprised me quite a bit.

OK, here's where I step in...

ISO, which used to be known as ASA is the United States and DIN in Europe, is the measure of the speed to which film, or in this case, the digital sensor, reacts to light. A higher ISO means that the "image recording medium" reacts faster to light, therefore, a lower ISO means that the image recording medium reacts slower to light. In the days of film, these differences were noted due to the size of the film grain, smaller film grain reacted slowly but also produced sharper images. Larger film grain reacted faster but produced less sharper images.

With digital sensors it's a different ballgame. The sensors on the chip always remain the same size so what changes is the amount of electrical signal that's gathered from the sensor. A lower ISO means lower electrical signals while a higher ISO means a higher level of signals. It's basically turning down or up the amount of electrical gain in the sensor. Naturally, turning up the gain also increases the "noise" and you see this in your images as red, blue and green mottling particularly in dark areas of the image.

Point and shoot digital cameras limit your ability to adjust the amount of light entering the camera, that's why they're called point and shoot. They are mostly designed for simple images on days where there's good lighting. Many models have pre-programmed shooting modes such as night, fireworks, candlelight etc. These modes are designed to alter shutter speeds, ISO and F-stop automatically to attain what the manufacturer thinks is the ideal formula for a particular scene.

DSLR or bridge cameras offer varying levels of sophistication. They can include everything imaginable which makes it more difficult for consumers to buy a good camera. I always tell everyone interested in buying a camera to shop by the optics and don't worry about everything else. A camera that has all sorts of bells and whistles will still take horrible pictures if the optics are substandard. It's the reason why I bought my Panasonic, it has Leica optics and takes razor sharp images. A camera that is noisy but still produces sharp images is better than a camera that produces noiseless but soft/blurry/smeared images.

The other factor to use when shopping for a camera is whether the camera supports RAW mode. RAW is important because when you shoot digital in RAW mode, you bypass the camera's built in processor and what you end up with is an image file that's completely RAW, nothing has been changed or altered by the camera. This leaves the adjustments completely in post-processing of the image using either Photoshop or Silkypix, to name the two best programs. If you can't find a suitable camera with RAW mode, then shop for a camera where you can turn down or turn off the in-camera imaging processor. If the camera offers TIFF, use that instead of JPG. Most of these in-camera processors deal with noise reduction by simply smearing the image to the point where the image looks like a painting instead of a photograph, making the image look soft and almost plastic-like.

For reasons I don't entirely understand, digital cameras are much more sensitive to handshake and body shift than film cameras so my BEST ADVISE to everyone is to USE A TRIPOD. It's much easier to produce a blurry picture from a digital camera than a film camera and the smaller the camera, the lighter the camera, the more susceptible it is to shake and shift problems. INVEST IN A GOOD TRIPOD. Choose one that will be able to easily support the weight of your camera. Get one with a removable head so you can switch between using a ball head or a three-way pan head. You'll be amazed at how improved your images become with using a tripod. Use a shutter release cable if your camera supports one.

Shutter speed vs. handshake has a rule of thumb: Shutter speed should be at least equal to or greater than the focal length of the lens you are using. Example, let's say you are using a zoom lens to take a picture and the zoom lens is set to 200mm. Then your shutter speed should be set to AT LEAST 1/200th of a second in order to avoid noticeable blurring in the final image. Naturally, some folks shake more and some shake less, that's why it's called a rule of thumb.

Taking pictures of shiny objects and other ways to fool auto focus.

It seems that all cameras now have auto focus. It's a wonderful invention but it has limitations. It can be fooled easily. What I see a lot in digital images is a problem called "back focus". For example, you're taking a picture of a friend standing in a field with trees in the background. The camera signals that its in focus, usually a little green light glows. You take the picture and view it on the tiny screen at the back of the camera and it looks great. You take the camera home and download the images to the computer and discover that your friend is out of focus but the trees in the background are nice and sharp. You've just experienced the horror of back focus. Some cameras use contrast to focus, some use infrared, some examine polarized light to focus. All can be fooled. Read your camera's manual to find out what type of focusing system it uses and then learn to work within its limitations. Newer cameras now use face recognition to focus and even these are not foolproof. Experiment with the camera and again, learn its limitations to avoid disappointing surprises. Other cameras have an adjustable "spot" which forces the camera to focus only in one area of the image. If you consistently find your camera experiences back focus, and you can adjust your cameras focus point, try this first before you contact the manufacturer. Back focus problems can sometimes be corrected at a repair center. The Nikon D70 is famous for having back focus problems as well as some Canon cameras as well. There are tests available on the Internet that you can perform to determine if your camera has a back focus problem that needs to be corrected. One such site: http://www.focustestchart.com/chart.html

Shiny objects, such as car paint almost always will try very hard to throw off the focus of a camera. Experiment until you discover what works best for your camera. Many times aiming at a dark section of the car, such as a tire, locking the focus and then moving the camera up to take the entire picture of the car will help.

Metering for proper light.

Point and shoot cameras meter for an average of the overall scene. This works for average scenes. Looking at Bruce's image of his car, I see what is called "blown highlights" on the front bumper, driver side of the car. Digital cameras, especially point and shoot cameras, don't have the same dynamic range as slide film or in many cases, print film. You are limited to the amount of light that can be accurately recorded by the digital sensor. On point and shoot cameras you are pretty much limited to what the camera wants to do so you end up with these blown highlights. If your point and shoot allows you to shoot for a snowy day, that might help because it will do two things; adjust the exposure to avoid blown highlights and adjust the white balance for pure white. On cameras where you can lock a meter reading, take a reading from a less shiny and darker area and use that exposure value to avoid blown highlights. Highly reflective surfaces sometimes create the problem of causing the camera to underexpose the image so it comes out too dark. Again, meter from an area of the car, close up if possible and lock that exposure, then take the picture. Be aware of where the sun is since you don't want to take a meter reading with you casting a shadow on the area being read. When I suspect my camera's built-in meter is lying to me, I pull out my old faithful WESTON meter and take readings and compare them to what the camera is telling me. How can you tell if your camera's built-in meter is lying? For me, it was years of practice.

The images I took of the Cadillac concept cars were taken under nightmarish conditions. The backlighting was horribly bright so I had to take readings off the car body, on it's shaded side and then bracket my exposures. That's why when you look at the images, some are brighter or darker. It's the bracketing effect which is useful when you want to print an image, you can choose the effect and adjust accordingly in post-processing.

Any questions?

[Marika]

Here are the images of the concept cars in case anyone has not seen them yet. You can look at the background and see all the sunlight glaring through the large plate glass windows of the dealership.

http://s80.photobucket.com/albums/j162/gir...adillac%202006/

[Bruce Nunnally]

Thanks; I hoped you'd participate.

I'll ring amazon for a tripod.

I had found the autofocus targeting selection on my Kodak C875 and set that for the center frame target. I don't think I'm going to improve enough to need a light meter, but I'll keep that in mind as how one should select settings.

I was also thinking of adding some portable lighting to help with mechanic work, which I think could also help light the car for photography.

Are there any specific issues in capturing automobile paint and details that suggest some camera settings/approaches work best?

This shot shows a great view of the Sixteen, but all the reflected objects in the paint tend to distract:

Is there a great way to capture a car image that shows the gloss of the car paint without reflections of the environment or does it just depend on composition and location?

[Cadillac Jim]

You summarized the basics of contrast control and composition. You use fill flash to keep contrast in the range you will see online or on a print by using fill flash, and most modern cameras will automatically use on-board or dedicated flash for fill flash when it is enabled. You can use ASA adjustment or over/underexposure compensation to lighten the shadows even further -- the highlights are usually glints in auto photography and you can safely overexpose them.

You summarized some of the elements of composition, too. A parking lot can provide a uniform color and texture that lets the car attract the eye unabated, although a seam or two, even with a little grass, gives the photo a more natural look without distracting from the car. The background is tougher, since *something* is necessary to give the photo a natural look but if you want to make a photographic projection of an automobile as opposed to an automobile-in-the-city or -in-the-park or whatever, this is a more subtle task. In the flesh, the human eye-brain masks away the background but this is far less effective in a print or online, so things appear when you look at the photo that you don't notice when you take the picture. One little-known trick: get as close as you can and still get the perspective that you want and use a standard or wide-angle lens to fill the frame with the car as much as you can to get the effect; this will make the background look farther away, and give a sharper rendition of the car itself. This isn't as simple as it sounds because it has implications of depth-of-field and uniformity of coverage of the fill flash and change of fill with distance, but it can be very effective to minimize the effect of busy backgrounds.

Outdoor side lighting can give a contrast effect that is difficult to deal with but it can be used to advantage to emphasize looks of the car that you want to render. Top-lit outdoor photos have a natural look but it's difficult to make the lighting work for you in a big way. Back-lit is best, but watch out for your own shadow; you may have to give up the wide-angle closeup, at least somewhat, to keep your shadow out of the picture.

Watch out for your reflection in the windows, chrome, or sheer body panels. Or, the reflection of something else that changes the photograph in a way that you don't plan on, such as the SUV or Corvette that you drove up in.

Colored materials will cause a color shift on parts of the car that "see" a lot of them. Blue paint in a parking lot will cause a blue color cast on the shadowed areas of a car parked -- or moving -- over that painted surface. Grass will also do so , as will a brick wall behind the car, and a blue sky will do it too, so shadows will be bluish on a clear day but not on a cloudy day, so shooting on overcast days is best -- and shadows are less stark or even absent on overcast days.

A lot of what you observe about photo quality is due to news photographers who do essentially documentary photography, as opposed to photographers retained for advertising workups who do essentially art photography.

[Marika]

Thanks; I hoped you'd participate.

I'll ring amazon for a tripod.

I had found the autofocus targeting selection on my Kodak C875 and set that for the center frame target. I don't think I'm going to improve enough to need a light meter, but I'll keep that in mind as how one should select settings.

I was also thinking of adding some portable lighting to help with mechanic work, which I think could also help light the car for photography.

Are there any specific issues in capturing automobile paint and details that suggest some camera settings/approaches work best?

This shot shows a great view of the Sixteen, but all the reflected objects in the paint tend to distract:

Is there a great way to capture a car image that shows the gloss of the car paint without reflections of the environment or does it just depend on composition and location?

The way professional photographs take pictures of cars depends on the location but they all do one thing in common, they use a telephoto lens which flattens the image and keeps reflections out of the pictures by keeping the photographer and equipment far away from the car. Car paint will always reflect what's around it, it can't be avoided unless you set up the car on a platform and cover the entire backdrop with something black and flat.

Portable lighting is good but buying reflectors actually does a better job of directing natural light sources to the area you want lit without creating glare. Reflectors can be hand held or mounted on stands.

When I took the photos of the concept cars I was pretty much disappointed but I was also a victim of the environment. Stupid dealership didn't even have curtains to cover those massive pane glass windows and they had over head spot lights that created spots in the paint. I couldn't do anything about the environment, unfortunately.

[Marika]

Here is an 8 part series on studio photography which deals mostly with portrait photography but pay close attention to his explanations of how lighting is used and what equipment he uses to accomplish his goals. His explanations can be applied to any lighting situations with small variations.

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6

part 7

part 8

Another general video on photography.

[Bruce Nunnally]

I think your Sixteen photos look great given the situation / environment.

I think the best course for me is to try to do the most with the gear I have (except add a tripod). I don't have a great eye for composition or color, so I think my snap camera matches my skill set well enough. I am trying to pickup thumbrules and guidelines that will help optimize photos for the website etc.

One interesting note I read on one site was that the goal is NOT photorealism, but rather to capture the feeling or emotion of the scene.

[Marika]

I think your Sixteen photos look great given the situation / environment.

I think the best course for me is to try to do the most with the gear I have (except add a tripod). I don't have a great eye for composition or color, so I think my snap camera matches my skill set well enough. I am trying to pickup thumbrules and guidelines that will help optimize photos for the website etc.

One interesting note I read on one site was that the goal is NOT photorealism, but rather to capture the feeling or emotion of the scene.

Look at car photos on the Internet and if you find one you like, just try to duplicate the effects with your own car. If you get even close to duplicating the effects then you'll already have started to learn and understand what it took to get that image.

[WarrenJ]

Excellent thread! Thanks to EVERYONE for the questions and informative answers. This is info I can really use.

Regards,

Warren

[Bruce Nunnally]

A lot of what you observe about photo quality is due to news photographers who do essentially documentary photography, as opposed to photographers retained for advertising workups who do essentially art photography.

I was reading lots of online advice about how to shoot automobiles, then looking at one of the car magazines to study the photography. They may have the same real-world type issues I have though -- they have the car for a limited amount of time at the time that they have the car. So you can't plan ahead for the 'perfect' 10 seconds of sunlight, but rather just have to shoot as many photos as you can while the editor is testing the car and hope for the best.

[Cadillac Jim]

The requirements for results of journalism photography are different from those of advertising photography. What they have in common is that the photograph must be well executed, which is to say that sharpness, contrast, and subject matter must support the goal of the assignment. This amounts to technical excellence in the use of the equipment, and the differences begin when you proceed beyond simply the correct use of the camera. If you must show just the style and nature of a new car model, but have no opportunity to control the circumstances in detail, then all that matters is that the car more or less fills the frame, and things like foreground, background, and razzle-dazzle camouflage of some vehicle lines is unimportant. In an advertisement, you want an attractive rendition of the automobile that emphasizes some aspect of its styling without distraction, but sometimes with specified point or counterpoint, which may be part of the background or added with software.

Marika's examples are an example of a middle ground that is often what we must deal with: an environment that is basically as constrained as a journalistic requirement but a required result that satisfies artistic criteria, so that the results can be used in advertisements or other media where the audience expect artistic quality. Her comments on restraints on lighting and resulting reflections are painfully appropriate, but in point of fact most of her examples in the link of post #3 have vast possibilities. She shows how a journalistic environment with artistic requirements can be used to advantage -- a triumph of art over adversity.

You have put your finger on the essence: "you can't plan ahead" for some shoots where you need artistic quality, but you can draw on your experience and "eye" as Markika did in her examples and use what you do have to produce what you need, which may turn out to excel over what you think you want. The 013.jpg evokes a mystique and attraction to the Sixteen that... words fail me here. This car is an apex of dream cars for the ages, and Marika has shown it to us. There are others in this same photobucket package.

[Marika]

I can't wait for my Holga to arrive!! I ordered a Holga (without a flash), 5 rolls of Rollei 120 film, and a shutter release for the Holga from B&H Photo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holga

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_camera