Hello Everyone,
I’m so glad you decided to join me for this posting of Tips and Techniques Thursday.
This tips actually came from Zack Arias. I was watching his presentation on CreateLIVE a couple months back. Zack spoke for three days about all things photography. That was a great event. Zack is one on my favorite photographers. Many of the following notes come from the broadcast or Zack’s show notes. Gotta give credit where credits due.
Zack stressed that you have to know your gear. How it operates. When to use it. Why you would need it. Following are a few of the items that was discussed during the presentation.
Know you dials by feel. During a shoot is not the time trying to figure out what your buttons do or where things are in your menu. Trust me, you’ll feel a little embarrassed and stressed out if you don’t.
Know your reciprocals (F-stops vs shutter speed vs ISO). If you have to change your aperture from 5.6 to 7.1. Know automatically what your new shutter speed/ISO would be to get the same exposure. There’s no easy way to learn this, you just have to commit them to memory.
Example: Aperture + Shutter = Reciprocals
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2.8 @ 500th
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4 @ 250th
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5.6 @ 125th
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8 @ 60th
- 11 @ 30th
Shutter Speed - Memoerize these!
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8000th • 4000th • 2000th • 1000th • 500th • 250th • 125th • 60th • 30th • 15th • 8th • 4th • 1/2sec • 1sec
Aperture – Memorize these!
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1.4 • 2 • 2.8 • 4 • 5.6 • 8 • 11 • 16 • 22
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The larger the opening, the shallower DoF.
- Know what your lens will give you. Understand why you would use a 70-200mm for one look but use a 35m for another.
Test your ISO performance. One day, setup your camera and shoot the same object through your entire ISO range. Afterwards, review the results on the computer and decide what ISO is exceptable as far as noise. Now, when your out in the field, you’ll understand what noise this ISO on YOUR camera will give you and if its okay for this shot.
As artist, we love to be creataitive. However, if your still trying to figure our how to operate your gear. Spending precious brains cells trying to figure out where certain controls are, you are not being creative. However, if your gear are tools you have mastered, then you’ll have one less distraction to deal with while your with your client and be able to quickly and efficiently solve problems.
