savannahibfothing

Many photography students like to shooting pictures and most will be trying to produce beautiful pictures but not all of them conscientiously considers and carries out all the processes that would significantly improve the technical quality of their pictures. Here are a few techniques you can put into practice.
1) Use of a solid tripod to significantly help remove camera shake that frequently happens when a camera is hand held.
2) Use of a cable release to cut down on the amount of shake that invariably otherwise happens at long shutter speeds. In the old days these were simple but nowadays they are electronic.
3) Use the option on your DSLR to lock up the mirror and significantly reduce the vibration as a picture is created. Any vibration that happens when a photo is taken produces image blur and should be eliminated.
4) When possible always try to use at the best aperture for the lens. This is usually around F11 on the majority of lenses. Small apertures such as F22 are generally softer. Wide apertures such as F4 are also frequently softer.
5) Make sure that your lenses are 100% clean with no dirt that might ruin the image quality.
6) Make sure choose the slowest possible ISO on your camera because this will lower the amount of file noise and guarantee the best possible image quality with the most detail rendering.
7) A lenshood will lessen any unwanted light from hitting the lens surface and producing flare, which would notably degrade the picture quality.
8) Purchase the highest quality lenses you can manage, since cheap lenses will always be quite poor in anything less than ideal conditions and using all the steps outlined above. The Schneider lenses are known for their excellent optical performace.
9) Try to take photographs when the light is crisp and clean on sunny days. Additionally it is a wonderful plan to shoot in the period just after dawn when the ambient light is particularly vibrant. Working in grey weather will heavily degrade the sharpness of your images. The light at sunset is soft and warm but not ideal for producing the most detailed possible files.
10) Obtaining the perfect light reading is vital to guarantee that your results are as good as possible. Over exposure may produce burned out highlights with little information. Under exposure can create unwanted file noise levels in the shadow areas. To get the optimum possible light readings I suggest making use of a hand-held light meter such as a Sekonic.
By following the steps above you will see a substantial jump in image quality of your photos.

Many photographers like to have a huge array of lenses covering everything possible from extreme wide angle to long telephoto. In reality though, this is usually a sign of equipment obsession rather than genuine need and most should find that shooting with just a few superb quality lenses is a far better plan.
When photographing a naked model, the majority of photographers will try to create an photo that is visually attractive without distortion or unflattering effects. With a distant scene such as a naked figure in the landscape it is very possible to use a wide angle zoom lens, but as you move closer that same lens is likely to produce undesirable distortion and this is especially prevalent with cheaper lenses. When shooting in an indoor location using a full frame 35mm digital camera, I tend to work with lenses no shorter than 35mm at most and even that is not ideal most of the time.
Rather surprisingly to most, one of the most useful lenses available for photographing a naked body is the commonly discarded standard 50mm lens, that is generally the most economical option in every camera maker’s lens range, but without exception of excellent optical quality, suffering from almost zero distortion or chromatic defects.
When pictured in relative proximity the female nude will frequently appear slightly more curvy than in reality with a 50mm lens however not in an undesirable or exaggerated way and the same rule would apply equally to glamour photography. This is roughly the same as the 80mm lens on a medium format Pentax, which is my first choice when photographing nudes or glamour images, since I generally prefer the less rectangular proportions of medium format pictures.
Another useful lens would be the 85mm, though frequently considered more as a portrait lens all the main camera manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon etc. produce an optically excellent version and this can be used in just about any situation successfully. Rather like the 50mm lens it also generally has a wide maximum aperture permitting the photographer to easily blur the background if required.
One alternative option that should not be forgotten is a good quality zoom lens, such as the Canon 24-105L for example, which covers all the required focal lengths for just about any requirements while removing the need to change lens every 30 seconds during an assignment. There was a period when zoom lenses were not really a usuable option for high quality professional usage however nowadays the better lenses are very good indeed and very convenient. Lenses with built in image stabilisation are also useful for hand held photography in dark conditions.
nude photography

Not many photographers have thought of using candles as a source of lighting in their nude photography; but it’s extremely useful source of lighting that produces a stunning and very particular effect. For obvious reasons you will discover that candles don’t create much light, so you will need a quite a lot to lift the overall light luminance to a reasonable level and be willing to shoot with long exposure times, so a tripod is almost essential and a cable release would also be useful. You may also use the mirror lock up facility if you have this option on your camera. Make sure those candles are placed in safe positions where nothing will catch on fire!
Given that your exposure will probably be several seconds, it’s very important that you locate a place for your subject that is comfortable and permits her to stay fairly still or you risk having photographs with unwanted blur from the subject’s body movement. It’s that slow exposure time though with the soft movement of the candlelight that gives us the special final effect.
When preparing your image, take a moment to look at the various lighting effects as you move your candles into varied locations and study the variations between highlights and shadows. After you discover the right balance try one or two test images to check how the picture looks and check if you need to make any changes. Since candles have a particularly warm colour balance you will probably want to do a custom white balance with your digital camera using a white piece of card.
A handheld light meter can also be useful for measuring light levels in various areas of the image. Precise measuring of the lighting is essential to avoid burned out highlights or shadows with no detail and if you have a computer available you can download some test shots to check them using Photoshop before you continue with the main shoot. Always work in RAW mode if you have this option available because it will produce better quality files and permit you to make more changes later on during postproduction.
After you have taken your pictures and saved them on a computer you now have the possibility to work on the final effect where you can decide if you want to have the picture in colour or black & white, along with other alterations you can make to noise levels, contrast and other areas. One of the incredible benefits of using candles is that the lighting is extremely flattering to female skin, so that should minimise the amount of skin retouching you need to do. Why not have a try and discover how amazing candlelight can be for creating professional nude images .
photography