SLR Photography Guide

Free photography PDF ebooks

Here are 3 useful O’Reilly PDF files for photographers to download. They are not the full text, however are still useful in the chapters that they do offer and are definately worth the download.

Note: You will need a copy of Adobe PDF reader to view the ebooks you download.

Digital Photography Expert Techniques

Professional Tips for Using Photoshop & Related Tools to Enhance Your Digital Photographs.

Here is a PDF download that covers chapter 3 of O’Reilly’s Digital Photography Expert Techniques. The chapter is useful in that it discusses:

Using Photoshop file browser
Using image management programs
Making accurate correction to your photographs
Keeping original photographs and images in tact
Using layers
Minimizing duplicate files
Using special names
How to maintain your photographs file information
Archiving your photographs

The PDF file is a 6.85MB download: Click here to download ‘Digital Photography Expert Techniques’

If you find this chapter useful, you can purchase the full text from Amazon.

Photoshop CS2 RAW

Using Adobe Camera Raw, Bridge, and Photoshop to Get the Most out of Your Digital Camera

This PDF download offers chapter 7 for photographers to read for free. Chapter contents include:

About noise
Using camera RAW to reduce noise in your photographs
How to use Photoshops reduce noise filter
About chromatic aberrations
Reducing chomatic aberrations with Photoshops lens correction filter
Diminishing or adding vignetting

The PDF file is a 3.86MB download: Click here to download ‘Photoshop CS2 RAW’

If you find this chapter useful, you can purchase the full text from Amazon.

Digital Photography Pocket Guide

This download offers chapter 3 of O’Reilly’s Digital Photography Pocket Guide (1st edition). It covers tips and trips for shooting and sharing your photographs.

The PDF file is a 2.09Mb download: Click here to download ‘Digital Photography Pocket Guide’.

If you find this chapter useful, you can purchase the full 3rd edition of O’Reilly Digital Photography Pocket Guide from Amazon.

Shutter Speed = Fractions

To understand shutter speeds fully, you also need to understand how fractions work. More specifically, it’s important that you understand the relationship between fractions and your camera’s shutter speed setting.

The faster or shorter your shutter speed, the less light that is let in to your camera’s sensor. Therefore, to use a fast shutter speed, you also need a lot of natural light (sunlight) or a flash, to ensure your images don’t turn out too dark or underexposed.

On the otherhand, the slower or longer your shutter speed, the more light that is let in to your camera’s sensor. This is great for low light situations, but not so good if you have a moving subject where you want to freeze action.

So how do you know if your camera is set on a fast or slow shutter speed? This is where understanding fractions is important.

For example, if you had your camera set on a 1 second shutter speed and noticed the photographs were too light or overexposed, you would need to set a faster / shorter speed. 10 times faster than 1 second is shown as 1/10 in fractions. Depending on your camera set up, it may display this as either 1/10 or simply as a numeral 10.

Now if you wanted to set a speed 10 times faster again, you would change your shutter speed to 1/100 or 100 on some camera’s. So from these examples you can conclude that 1/100 is a faster shutter speed than 1/10. The faster the shutter speed, the more natural light or flash light that will be required.

For more examples on fractions and how they relate to your camera’s shutter speed, I recommend watching the video tutorial below:

Flickr Group – SLR Macro Photography (digital)

There are now quite a few interesting discussions going up over on our Flickr Group, SLR Macro Photography.

1. Penny has started a challenge for members on a theme called ‘Threads’ which is becoming popular. Members have posted photo’s of material such as denim, cotton and woollen objects. While others have taken the theme one step further to include threads seen in spider webs, or threads of a leek while preparing dinner.

To see more of this challenge and submit a macro yourself, visit: Challenge #1 “Threads”

2. Another popular discussion is talking about members favorite macro shots and the reasons why. Shown below is a sampling so far:

The macro shown above, called ‘Making a pig of himself’ is one of my personal favorites because the grasshopper looks so comical when viewed large. Like one of the animation characters in ‘A Bugs Life’.

Photo above posted by smooveflava: I was walking down the steps to one of the beaches on the Central Coast and I saw a whole bunch of bees flying around the flowers. I stopped to take a quick pic, trying to stay steady as I was capturing it without a tripod and I also had two very scared kids attached to me pulling at my leg screaming (they absolutely hate bees!) and I got this shot…very proud considering how difficult it was.

To see more favorite macro shots photographed by members visit: Your favorite macro shot.

3. Photographers who use a Canon Twin Lite Flash for their macro work might be interested in this post called, Canon MT-24EX Macro Twin Lite Flash.

The discussion has some really helpful tips on how to use Canon’s MT-24EX Macro Twin Lite Flash, how to tame down the harshness of the lighting, as well as the effectiveness of diffusers with this macro setup. Macro images taken by two of our members, Dalantech and mplonsky in particular, are a must see for inspiration.

How to get a pure white background in product photography

If you do a lot of product photography, either for stock or ebay listings, you’d have probably realised by now that items that sell the most, are those that have a pure white background. Many photographers new to this style of photography, start off by placing a white background such as a sheet behind the object they are shooting, then change the exposure until they achieve the look they are after.

However, this isn’t always very effective. For example, recently I tried photographing a shiny tin bucket using the method explained above. After each shot, I viewed the image in the LCD screen then overexposed the photo one stop at a time until I had a completely white background. Unfortunately, after viewing it on my computer monitor, I found this method also took away the edges of the bucket.

It was then that I came across this video on Utube, that explains nicely how using a gray card (grey card, exposure card) can help product photographers to achieve a pure white background. Note: The video presumes you already know how to use a gray card. For those that have never used one before, I have some quick tips explaining how to use them further down this page.

How to use a photographers gray card (sometimes spelt grey card or called an exposure card)

Using a gray card is easy. First set your camera to spot or partial metering, then place the gray card near the object you are going to photograph and look through your viewfinder as if you are going to take a photograph of it. Get in close enough to fill the frame with the grey card, then lock the exposure (check your camera’s manual). Remove the card and take the image.

Where to buy a gray card?

The #1 selling gray card at Amazon is called a ‘Digital Grey Kard Premium White Balance Card / Gray Card for Digital Photography’.

Customer Review:

Before I used this product I used white paper as recommended by Canon for my 30D. I put lines on the paper for focus and set white balance as custom. The paper was difficult to use and keep with me. Since buying the gray digital card, I have found it to be more accurate than white paper and easier to use. The digital gray card produces perfect custom white balance and works every time. It has a focus spot to get the correct image for setting up in-camera custom white balance. One time I used both the gray card and the white card (on the lanyard) and found the gray card produced the correct white balance over the white card. Now I never take a shot without setting the custom white balance to the gray card.

Flickr Group – SLR Macro Photography (digital)

If you love macro photography, we’ve started a new Flickr group called SLR Macro Photography (digital), where members win REAL prizes! To start the group off, this month we will be giving away a free book from Amazon called, ‘Close up shooting: A Guide to Closeup, Tabletop and Macro Photography’. The winner will be announced on the 27th of March to celebrate the groups first month anniversary.

More details over at: SLR Macro Photography (digital) Group

Who is this flickr group for?

This group is mostly aimed towards those photographers who own an SLR/DSLR camera and enjoy taking macro or close up photographs of smaller objects, insects and flowers. I say mostly, because we do also have members that enjoy taking macro shots with their compact camera’s as well. The reason it’s initially been called ’SLR macro photography’, is that much of the groups discussions and RSS feed will revolve around SLR camera’s and settings.

You don’t need to own a dedicated macro lens to join. The idea behind this group is to inspire and encourage a love for macro photography. Many photographers first start enjoying close up photography with the use of macro filters on the end of their lens, or with a telephoto lens and the macro setting on their SLR. Once the enjoyment sets in, it usually doesn’t take long before they are looking at purchasing a real macro lens.

Whatever equipment you use to photograph your macro’s with, we ask only that the image appears to be a detail shot of smaller subjects.

To help give you an idea, acceptable images would include insects, flowers, small birds, frogs, leaves, coins, water droplets etc. On the other hand, unacceptable images would include a closeup shot of a horse or cat and similar larger objects.

Group News

SLR Macro Photography (digital) Group is off to a fantastic beginning. Since starting 5 days ago, we’ve had 476 members join, who have posted a total of 732 macro images into the group pool. The most popular discussion in the forum is titled, ‘What do you love about macro photography?’

Here is a sampling of answers so far:

I love entering a world that i cannot see with my naked eye. The detail, the beauty, flowers, bugs, inanimate objects, it doesn’t matter, just macro! … (posted by belle’sbeauties)

Of all types of photography, macro has always been no.1 for me. Seeing an insect or bug at a higher magnification reveals such amazing details of that bug. “1:1 will let you see a bug’s nose.. but at 3:1 or higher, you’ll see what’s inside the nose!!” … (posted by Lordmint)

When I shoot macro,I feel like i’m an Alice in the wonderland, everyhing is real, but kinda unreal … (posted by Moczkos)

I love the ability of showing people things that most never even realize are there. Or have never given a droplet on a flower or blade of grass much thought. I love showing them that there is a whole other world they are missing out on … (posted by farmmommy5)

More over at: SLR Macro Photography (digital) Group