Photography has got to be one of the more expensive hobbies to be in to. It's not enough to have a decent camera and a kit lense. No matter what you buy on your first trip to the camera store, you will want more the minute you get home.
It's tempting to impulse buy everything you see, ofcourse, unless you have endless pails of cash burried in your yard you won't be able to.
I have put myself on a self-imposed ban from my favorite camera shops. I still stop in from time to time, but I leave my credit cards far, far away when I do.
Don't get me wrong, you can do a lot with the lense kits that come with entry level camera's, and most SLR's these days have pop up flashes that can capture the moment in a pinch. This post is about how to have some fun, and get some great shots by improvising with stuff from around the house.
I enjoy shooting outdoors, which means lighting is cheap. Afterall, there is a giant fireball in the sky that is responsible for how our eyes evolved to see the way they do, so its natural that it provides the perfect light for exposing film.
The problem with sun light, especially direct sunlight, is it tends to wash out the exposure. Meaning, you get an awesome photo of your subject, but the sky and all its details are washed out in white (or grey). A lot of times, you don't even capture your subject the way you would like to. People are wearing sunglasses, so you lose a portion of their face. Without sunglasses your subject is squinting, so you lose their eyes. Harsh shadows are cast by hats, and facial features. It's not a lost cause however, understanding a few positioning techniques and properly setting up your camera can transform the scene in to one worthy of hanging on your wall.
Firstly, on the sun. Shooting on slightly overcast days, or during sunrise/sunset can make a huge difference. People aren't squinting and have a more natural look on their face. Hazy days make for no shadows, which is great for portrait photography or capturing the kids playing in the yard. Sunsets and sunrise make for really interesting pools of light, and long shadows that give great depth and atmosphere. I could go on and on about sunrise/sunset, but the only way to understand is to set the alarm, get outside and play.
During direct intense sunlight, its best to find a shady spot for your subject. Under a natural shade like a tree is great, as your subject will be in a shadow, and not cast their own harsh shadow. This hides some of the imperfections we all have on our skin. In direct light, the slightest wrinkle or pimple casts a shadow that creates depth. This amplifies the imperfection, the shot may look awesome, but the subject will no doubt dislike how they 'look' in the photograph. Our eyes ignore these things when we look at people, but the camera doesn't ignore anything.
There are ways to shoot in direct light, and hide imperfections. Using a off camera flash (or on camera flash if you are close enough) will provide fill light that eliminates shadows... I know, I said this article was about being cheap. Off camera metered flash stobes start at around 200 dollars and go up... WAY UP... from there. Again, the bright bulb in the sky is the answer. A cheap way to get fill light is to reflect it. For 7 dollars a bought a pair of reflector dishes, actually they aren't reflector dishes, they are pop-open windshield sun visors. They are desiged to reflect the sunlight out of your car to keep it from heating up, why not use them to reflect light, from down low, on to your subject?
Place the reflectors (you can also use those mylar emergency blankets) out of the frame at an angle that will provide fill light. This will take practice, and time, move them around.. enlist a helper to hold them, or use whatever your imagination can come up with to get them at just the right spot. Instant fill light, for 7 dollars (or less if you already have something shiny).
Ever enjoy a day out on a boat, or canoe and notice how awesome the pictures of people turn out? This is becuase the water is reflecting the light back up at them, erasing those shadows.
A key aspect of getting great shots in natural light is white balance. You can buy grey cards for this, but on a nice clear day you don't need one. Again, that bright ball of fire provides what we need. On a clear day, point you camera to the darkest blue portion of the sky (no sun, or clouds in the frame) and set the white balance on your camera from that. Its not perfect, but you'd be suprised how close it is. "HEY, THE SKY IS BLUE" you say, "and just a minute ago you said use a grey card!". Well, your camera meters white balance in scales of grey. It just so happens that blue sky is about the same gray (when you take away the colour) as an 80% grey card. This is perfect for capturing fun moments and hit and run photography. Grey cards are affordable, but you dont want to be carrying one around all day... and its hard to capture a candid moment if you ask your subject to hold a grey card.
About grey cards. Get one. Most decent camera shops should have them, and they cost about 15 dollars. This may seem like a lot for a piece of grey plastic, but they serve a great purpose. Essentially, the card is 80% grey (between black and white). They are calibrated, so that in an RGB spectrum they are 80% red, 80% blue, and 80% green. When you start a shoot, get your subject to hold the card (or somehow get it in the first frame). There should be no reflection on the card, but it should be capturing the same light as your subject. During post processing (in Lightroom, photoshop, aperaturem, etc), use the colour selector and click the grey card, adjust the colour levels on the image so that levels on the grey card are 80/80/80... Voila, perfect colour correction everytime... you don't even need a decent calibrated monitor to know your prints will look good.
So much can be done in post processing (use the RAW setting in your camera). Everything can be tweaked, since you are working with raw censor data. You can fix vignetting from cheap lenses and adjust exposure and white balance settings without affecting image quality. The problem with JPEG is it is compressed, everytime you save a change, it is recompressing the image, losing a little bit of quality everytime. Keep your RAW files, and only save as a JPEG once... for print or sharing puposes. This way you can retouch the same photo, crop subjects and add filters over and over again and always have the best quality. If you plan to get prints, save in JPEG 10. This is the print quality jpeg. If emailing or sharing on the web, use a lower quality to keep file size down. Just ALWAYS keep your print JPEG 10s and RAW files. So you can always reprint, or re-edit. You never know, down the road a photo you may not enjoy today could be your favorite in 10 years.
Thats all for now, get out and shoot. The only way to be a photographer is to shoot.
