The White Balance setting you choose will change the colour balance in your pictures, making it warmer or cooler depending on how the sort of light you're shooting in affects things. Using Auto White Balance is the simple option, but your camera's White Balance presets give you more control over colour
The colour of the light will affect the colours in your photographs. That's why pictures taken under household lighting have an orange colour cast, and pictures taken at dusk or dawn have a cold, blue look. Digital cameras have 'White Balance' controls to correct these colour shifts. For example, if you take a picture under incandescent lighting, the camera can reduce the amount of orange in the colours and boost the blue to produce more neutral colours. |
Shutter speed is the 'amount of time your shutter is left open'.Your shutter speed controls how long your shutter stays open for an exposure. If you have a lot of light on a subject, the shutter closes fast, if you have low light, the shutter speed is slow. The faster the shutter speed, the sharper your images.
Here we captured the fast movement of a water balloon popping and feathers falling. When shooting I used a high ISO to enable me to access the right amount of speed on the camera shutter. I used continuous shooting setting to capture every motion of the subject and chose the best images.
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Imagine that your image is divided into 9 equal segments by 2 vertical and 2 horizontal lines. The rule of thirds says that you should position the most important elements in your scene along these lines, or at the points where they intersect.
Doing so will add balance and interest to your photo. Some cameras even offer an option to superimpose a rule of thirds grid over the LCD screen, making it even easier to use. Studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot – using the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it. |
Composition is just as important in photography as with any other skill. IT is the technique of having awareness of the art elements, such as line, shape and the balance within the image. It's useful to put the camera on its manual setting rather than using it in automatic mode. This puts you in control of the aperture, focus and shutter speed which gives you more control over the final photograph. Here are pictures I took when using composition to frame faces and objects, positioning the models to make the picture more appealing. When using the skills of composition, you should take into account:
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Depth of field means how much of the image is in focus. You can have a narrow depth of field, where only a small part of the image is in focus, or you can have a larger depth of field, where everything is in focus. Depth of field is controlled by the aperture. A larger aperture means a narrower depth of field. Here are some pictures of a flower I took using depth of field. On the left I used a smaller aperture (around 5.6.f) to create a large depth of field, in the middle I used a slightly lower aperture (12.f)to create a narrower depth of field and on the right I used a very large/high aperture (around 22.f) to create a narrow depth of field, only focusing on the flower which created a blur around the outside.
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Here I was experimenting with Aperture. I used the White Fluorescence white balance and used 7.1 F.Stop. By adjusting the aperture I can play around with the levels of depth of field in the image.
Aperture refers to the access given to light from the lens to the camera sensors. The size of your aperture (the diameter of the hole through which light enters the camera) controls the amount of light entering your lens. Using the aperture (f-stop) of your lens is the simplest way to control your depth of field as you set up your shot. Large aperture = Small f-number = Shallow (small) depth of field Small aperture = Larger f-number = Deeper (larger) depth of field |