Shooting Techniques

Hello,

Just some simple tips on how to shoot.

#1 - Custom White Balance

This differs from camera to camera so do check the manuals on how to do this. But once you find where to set the custom balance, all you have to do is to fill up 70% of the frame with something that supposed to be white and snap. After that just go to ya white balance settings and set it to the custom that you have created.

This is because even if you shoot in raw, if the blue channel is clipped, which happens often especially indoors with warm lights, it will be hard to retrive the blue due to the lack of information that channel. It is easier to minus off the blue in post processing intead.

If you are shooting in sunlight, then I suppose that all cameras do pretty well on auto white balance. No worries on that!

#2 - Light and Metering

If you are out to get moody images, This is what you do.

Step 1 - use the spot or center weighted metering on the camera and get an exposure value on the brightest spot in your frame. After that you can either switch to manual with the setting you got or just do an exposure lock. For nikon cameras its just holding on to the AE-L button next to the viewfinder after you have half pressed to get the exposure on that spot.

This will enable you to expose for light. Since the lighted part will not be overexposed, that means you get pretty nice shadows in ya image. This will help make the photo look more 3d.

#3 - Composition

No fixed rules on this. But when in doubt, just shoot wider, we can crop later anyway.

That's all for now!
Just msn me @ gerald.tay-at-hotmail.com if you need anything.

Cheers!
geraldtay