Photography Today

Rembrandt lighting

Many famous photographers take concepts and ideas from other artists, some study images as well as paintings in their goals to achieve better quality photographs that are compelling. Perhaps that is why there are only four basic types of lighting, fundamentally, and in those four types one is named after Rembrandt—one of my favorite styles of lighting often seen in photographers’ images of models for the Victoria Secrets catalog, Maxim and other magazines. The key in Rembrandt lighting is creating the triangle or diamond shape of light underneath the eye usually furthest from the camera lens. One side of the face is lit well from the main light source while the other side of the face uses the interaction of shadows and light, also known in college Art 101 classes as chiaroscuro, to create this geometric shape on the face.

White Balance

You may have spotted the lightbulb, cloud, electricity and woodshed symbols on your camera’s screen or menus. You may have also ignored them as being yet another degree of complexity that you don’t need to know about. Alternatively, you may have seen people on the Internet earnestly discussing colour temperature and swearing by all sorts of essential products that will guarantee perfect results, if you remortgage your house this one last time. And ignored it as another expense that you can probably do without. Well that thing you’re ignoring is one of the most powerful ways of making your photos convey the scene you wanted to capture: white balance (you will find the rest of this interesting post there :))

Wooden tripods

For any photography that requires telescopic telephoto lenses (1000mm or longer) such as the sun's green flash and mirages, you need a very sturdy tripod, preferably a wooden one. Wood damps vibrations better than metal, and any vibrations (even the shutter tremor from the camera when taking a photo!) will be noticeable when using such long telephoto lenses. Theodolite tripods work well for this, since they are rugged and generally not too expensive if you buy one used. You may need to adapt the tripod to accept a ball-head or camera screw (1/4-20 or 3/8-16 thread). Of course I have been stealing this information from the web but for you that is a good thing, those people knows what they are talking about  ;)

Choosing a tripod

There are many types of tripods available, but you have to use your wisdom to choose one. Some of which look really professional  while being made by plastic and costing about $30. These are actually quite useless (better than nothing though).I'd recommend that you get a metal tripod from a brand like Bogen/Manfrotto or similar. Choose a model that can extend itself to your own height, with height-adjustable legs. It is also good to have a tripod of which the legs can move independently from one another. Some tripods have legs that are interconnected, and these can be quite difficult and frustrating to level at uneven ground. You need to level the tripod at least a bit, if only to not have it balancing on edge and blowing over by wind. The second thing to look for  is its head (where the camera will connect). Get a tripod with a ball-head rather than a video-head. Ball-heads usually cost more, but allow the camera to point in almost any direction in any orientation and will allow you to aim and lock the camera quickly. This is particularly useful for subjects that require quick action such as lightning. In general, you may expect to spend US$150 or more for a decent tripod with ball-head. Consider this as a requirement for your photo equipment, rather than a handy accessory! When you buy a tripod, also buy a cable release or remote shutter control, so you don't need to touch the camera at all during exposures when it is tripod-mounted.

Holding by hand

I will post some well known techniques that I have found searching around (I am not a good teacher) and here is the first one.
A somewhat well-known rule in photography is that you can hold a camera by hand if the shutter speed is shorter than about the inverse of the focal length used (t < 1/f). So, if you'd use a 50mm standard lens to photograph a scene, you could handhold the camera when taking a picture if the shutter speed is about 1/50 second or shorter. If you use a too long exposure time without a tripod, the photo will appear to be blurry. This rule works fairly well, although with a bit of practice (holding a camera steady) you can usually do better. For example, by not holding your breath but rather slowly exhaling while taking a photo you will cause less camera shake. Also, by firmly supporting both arms by your torso, the camera will be more steady.