Camera Choices For Photography



In any discussion of IDEAL equipment, one of the most important points to consider, particularly for wedding photography, is weather or not the system you choose has a Focal Plane or Between the Lens shutter.

The most versatile is the Between the Lens shutter, as this system allows flash synchronization at ALL shutter speeds. Consider when you are taking photos outside in the gardens, or after the ceremony in front of the church. To ensure good photographs, virtually every shot you take should be with the flash as a fill light. This will help to eliminate shadows, overcome bright backgrounds (where the subject is normally underexposed, and therefore the brides face cannot be seen clearly), and ensures good tonal range throughout the image. Most digital and 35mm SLR cameras today are all Focal Plane shutters, some travelling vertically, most travelling horizontally. However, many of the more expensive models now have a higher flash synchronization speed up to 250th of a second. Olympus is unique in that its OM4 will sync at ALL shutter speeds, providing their specially developed flash is used.

Ideally, you should meter for the background light, and then balance the light on your subject with the flash. In other words, if the background light indicates an exposure of 1Dif the available light is f8 at 250th sec, then you need to expose for the subject about one stop lower at f4.6 It is usually better to have the flash illumination at about one or two ? stops less than the available light, for the most pleasing results. This prevents the flash from putting too much light on the subject, making it look unnatural, or from burning out any detail in the brides face or dress.

An interesting effect can be to deliberately underexpose the background. Lets say for the same lighting as above, you set the camera to ?11 or ?16, underexposing the background by one or two ? stops, and set the flash to provide enough light to correctly expose the subject. Experimenting in this way, can provide you with some interesting, saleable effects.

You can achieve different effects by trying several variations. Assume a background exposure of ?8, shutter speed remains constant at the metered value i.e. ?8 @ 1D60 for example.

So in effect what we are doing is under or over exposing the background by varying the aperture, and compensating the amount of light reaching the subject, by varying the amount of light from the flash.

The advantages of the 'between the lens' shutter, makes wedding photography quite straight forward. You meter for the available light, and set the flash to expose the subject about one or two stops less. If you are outside and moving around, and don't have time to set the camera on a tripod, you can use the higher shutter speeds, and larger apertures. The larger the aperture opening, is in fact, a smaller number, because it is the inverse of the fraction. If you have ever been confused by this, just remember that all values are given as a fraction, however, there is not enough room to print this on the camera or lens. So, an aperture of ?2.8, a small number, but a large aperture, is really ?1D2.8 . Conversely, a shutter speed of '500' is really '1D500'. By convention, the '1/' gets left off.

At the church, reception or hall, where there is little or no available light, you can also use the higher shutter speeds to eliminate any camera shake, while maintaining the correct aperture for the flash. The background, of course, will be underexposed (black), but in these situations, it is usually not of any concern. With a typical cameras however, you will be limited to 1D60 th of a second. This means you will need to take extra care when hand holding the camera to minimize camera shake.

The second situation to consider, is when using medium speed ISOs in the 200-400 range in bright daylight. You may be forced into exposures of 1D250 to 1D500 at ?8-?16. If we take the high side as an example, 1D500 at ?16, and our flash sync is only 1D60, we need to adjust the exposure by three stops, (500th-125th-60th), to maintain flash sync. So we need three stops of exposure compensation from f16 to f32. This is not possible on most cameras today. Further, we need more light from our flash.

Copyright (c) 2008 Tom Jackson

Tom Jackson has been photographing brides around the world for more than 30 years. If you are interested in making money with photography, then the course Tom has created can get you off to a great start. Please visit my website to learn all about starting your own studio.



Generation X - Will it Be the Hardest Working Generation in History?


Hard work, Good Music and Technology: That's Generation X!

It was intriguing to see Generation X featured on TV the other day, being part of that generation myself. When I saw how they were spoken of as probably the hardest working generation in history, that got me thinking if the generation would really deserve such an accolade.

In my grandparents' generation they worked hard all their lives, if they were lucky enough to get a job, and after retirement worked hard to live on a meager pension. More of them fought more wars than we did and the work was hard and uncompromising. Sure, there were those that swung the lead like there are in any generation, but most of them sure worked hard.

My father's baby boomer generation went to Vietnam, and then came back to what? He drove a truck for 30 years until he retired. It seemed the thing to do in these days: work all your life and then struggle during retirement on very little money. So in what respect could it be argued that Generation X might be the hardest working generation ever? That made me think about what I did and what I do now, and what people in general do that is different to warrant being described as such.

Do you know what? I think it's true! I didn't come to that conclusion easily, but if you think about everything you do in your normal day: the multitasking we carry out almost automatically, without even realizing it or thinking about it and then the jobs we do on top of that, then it sure makes you think.

We talk to each other and text to each other, send emails, log on and find out what we need to know online, we plan and buy vacations, buy travel tickets, listen to music or an audio book and get directions on how to get to our destination: all without getting out of the car, and we aren't even at work yet! Then we get to work, put in a full day of 10 hours or so, and then back home and finish our reports till the early hours. Is the world a better place for us? I think so.

It all started when I realized that I would always be just a Nirvana fan: I would never be them or like them. I would never be the great Kurt Cobain, and would have to find some other way of realizing my dreams. My mechanic job wasn't part of my future so I dropped the spanner and went off to the army.

In my 11 years I learned a great deal about leadership and about myself, and have never regretted a single day. But I still wasn't settled, and had all these ideas whirling around in my head: dreams of owning my own business, of inventing new things and of doing things better. Of being 'Better Than All The Rest', in the words of Tina Turner. Before long it occurred to me that this was entrepreneurialism, and that I was born to make it in life. No corporate job for me, no sir! I was going to go further than a 9-5 job or even the corporate boardroom.

When I thought of these things it occurred to me that was the spirit of Generation X. Our parents were forced to be tied down to a job for 30 years or more, and then retire on a meager pension because that was the way things were done in these days, unless you had rich parents or was born into a business. But not now. We created our own opportunities and a desk or factory job was not in our frame.

Gen X'ers are going our own way, and making changes as we go. We work from home, and develop online businesses that give us the money that allows us to do as we wish without fear of retirement. We are developing the technologies that we need to enable us to achieve all that, and we are successful at what we do. The old ways were not for us - we refused them and marched to our own drums.

And yes, we were hard working and were disciplined, because without these qualities we would not have achieved what we did. We understood business and how technology could be used within it to make us rich. Rich not only in cash but also in self-sufficiency and self-reliance, and we worked hard to get there. We noticed our parents get old and look old, and we decided not to let them, and so we applied our skills and ingenuity to the health and wellness industry in order to help them stay younger and look and feel younger. The baby boomers are still the majority of the population, and are a vast market for us to help to get what they want: to be healthy and look it. They are like us: they don't want to get old. We can help them and it gives you a great feeling when you help people. Especially people you love.

This is a massive industry, worth billions every year, and will continue to grow for as long as people get older. Work that one out! The time to take advantage of this vast resource of potential business is right now, and the business model most suited to doing it is network marketing. That is a great way to get your product out to all of these people that need it, and also a way of enabling everybody that wants it to have their own business that can be run from their own homes.

Network marketing can provide many rewards for the hard working, and the harder you work the more money you will make: just as it should be. If you don't want to do the work, then you will earn less than those that do work hard. There can be nothing fairer than that. Your income is not dependent on how well others do, on how much your company is willing to pay you, or even on a tiny percentage of the sales that you worked so hard to secure. You get paid according to how much you put in: put in the effort and you get the reward.

You can make from zero to seven figures every month depending upon your own personal effort. You have nobody to blame and nobody to thank except yourself in network marketing. You have no doubt heard of a lot of network marketing scams, and I am not going to try to pull the wool over your eyes. There are scams, and you will have to look hard to find the right company to join. Such a company will have a good product to sell, top class training in how to sell it, and perhaps even a website to sell it on. Get that and you are made.

You can get these things for as little as $50 a month. Some spend more than that on a meal whereas you can spend it on securing a great future, bringing you in residual income every single month of every single year. That is what we Generation Xers have achieved, in addition to the great music, the great movies and the multi-tasking that allows you to do so many things and communicate with people faster and cheaper than ever before.

We have also changed the way you do business, so that 30 years in a dead-end job and then retirement on next to nothing is not in your book. No bosses to fire you and no struggling through traffic for years on end. Yes, perhaps we are the hardest working generation, but we are also the cleverest, and know the best way to make money and live our lives.

Join us.

Doug Lee-

Doug is a proud Gen X'er and Professional Business Building Coach who specializes in Helping People Make Their Lives Better. He does this by personally teaching them to build a lucrative home business. To learn more about Doug Lee and his team visit: WhoIsDougLee.com


[m a s h e d]