Want to combine yard work with photography? In Today’s Photo Minute we present a simple and fun way to add that little extra touch to your flower and plant images.
The Assignment:
Find a couple of subjects and get your macro lens or close-up accessories ready for some fun. Spray down the flower with a spray bottle or nozzle on your hose. Use a fine mist for small droplets and more water for larger droplet sizes. Play with not only getting photos of the flowers or plants with water on them but get even closer if you can and focus in on a larger droplet and see what reflections you can capture. Finally, try different types of lighting such as shade but also direct sunlight to see what the effects are.
Added tip: Use a straw and dip it in the small cup of water covering the top end with your finger to keep the water held inside. Then you can release the water drop by drop or more exactly where you want to place it on your subject.
In Today’s Photo Minute, Brian discusses the benefits and techniques of using a flash for backyard songbird photography. Especially for situations with high contrast lighting or backlit backgrounds, the flash can be a valuable tool for better results.
The Assignment:
Try using the flash outside as a fill flash in your backyard bird photos. Get your camera or flash setup in high speed sync. mode and figure out how to get the proper settings (shutter speed, aperture and ISO) in Manual mode. It may take some practice to get the ambient exposure and the flash fill exposure balanced well, but can definitely improve your images.
In Today’s Photo Minute, Brian Osborne follows up on our Shoot and Share this past weekend and what he learned about using his least-used lens, the fisheye, for a variety of photos. In addition, he discusses the value in getting to know all of our lenses’ capabilities so we can get the most out of what we own. Below are some images I did with the fisheye lens over this past weekend.
Here are some other images I was able to create with the distinctive look of the fisheye lens for this past weekend’s challenge.
The Assignment:
Grab a lens that is either a prime lens (does not zoom) or use a zoom lens and keep the focal length the same and see how many shots of different subjects you can create with just the lens (or range). This not only helps us to become more familiar with our lens selection but also creates creativity as we start to learn to look for images that are ideal for whatever lens we have on at the time. (Below are two more real life examples from the past couple of years in how I used a fisheye for some creative images.)
It is time again for our weekend edition of Today’s Photo Minute which we call, Shoot and Share Remember the goal is to get the camera out, shoot images for the two challenges and then share those with the rest of the community. I am excited about this weekend’s challenges because I think it will get us experimenting and being creative.
The Assignment:
Challenge 1: Sports Equipment Certainly one of the losses during this crisis has been the opportunity to watch, attend or participate in current sporting events (who would have ever guessed we would be watching recordings of sporting games from years ago and actually enjoying them!). Anyhow, since there are no sports for us to photograph, I think it would be cool to capture an image of a piece of sporting equipment, etc. that you wish you could be playing or shooting the actual game right now. One example is above where I did a photo of a baseball glove and sent it to the Charlotte Knights where I would otherwise likely would have been shooting. If you have a creative way to represent a sport without equipment but that the viewer would know what sport you are highlighting, that would be even better.
Challenge 2: Least Used Lens (or least used focal length) For this challenge, the idea is to get you out shooting with a piece of equipment that you do not use often or are not as comfortable with. This can be a new lens to you, a lens that sits in your bag most of the time or if you do not have more than one lens, than try shooting at a focal length on that lens that is not your normal range. For example, on a 18-55mm, you might shoot different subjects at 18mm if you do not usually use the wide focal length. Make sure to try this chosen lens on various subjects not just one so that you build your familiarity and challenge your creativity.
When you get your images ready by late this weekend, please share those with the rest of us who are participating as well. If you are on Facebook, please post them as a comment to this particular post. If you are not on Facebook, feel free to email your entries to brian@thephotoclassroom.com and I will be glad to post them with your name. For the least used lens photo, include what lens or focal length you used for the shot. Happy shooting and have fun!
In Today’s Photo Minute, Brian Osborne gives a short image editing lesson on using Content-Aware Fill to remove an unwanted object in one of his hummingbird photos. He demonstrates it in both Photoshop Elements and Photoshop 2020.
The Assignment:
Pull up a couple of your photos that have an unwanted object in them (works well when that object is on a plain background away from your actual subject) and try out the Content-Aware Fill tool for yourself.
