Wednesday, December 19, 2012

How To Master Your Camera's Features

By Vanessa Smith


Weddings are all about telling impactful stories, and wedding photography is one of the ways to document a wedding's fleeting moments. In a wedding photographer's quest to capture these moments, he faces one critical challenge: to make his camera work as quickly and as precise as his eyes do.

This is where mastery of camera gear comes in. A photographer needs to work very hard in order to master his camera and its accessories so they work together smoothly to come up with stunning and significant photographs. For the budding photographer, here are several of the most relevant things about your gear that you must master. Always remember that with constant practise, you would soon take your photography to even higher levels.

White Balance: the white balance of your camera would dictate the accuracy of colours' appearance in your photographs. Once the whites come out accurately, every other colour will follow. Using the Auto White Balance setting will usually help, although if you want to understand how varied lighting conditions affect your photo, tweak via Kelvin. The lower the value you indicate (around 3,350), the colder the photo looks. If you shoot it up (such as 5,260), the warmer it gets. Play around the values until you get the best one.

Sharpness: unless you are aiming for action shots, your photos should always look sharp. Using a tripod will help, but this has the tendency to blur movement too. If you want to freeze action instead, shoot up your ISO or else lower your aperture.

JPEG or RAW: pictures taken via the RAW format contain more data, which makes RAW perfect for image post-processing. Since you're most probably printing these wedding photos, opt out of the JPEG option and shoot using RAW to guarantee maximum versatility.

Flash: more often than not, weddings are held in low-light spaces. When shooting up the ISO or widening your aperture doesn't do it, use an external flash unit instead to catch up on the lack of light. In addition, bounce flash is preferred over direct flash since the latter creates harsh shadows and unbalanced lighting. Get a good flash unit and a couple of trusted rechargeable batteries to make your shooting more convenient. You can also browse through works of seasoned wedding photographers and studios to further enhance your very own craft.




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