Photography
How to take photos you can use
Now that all of us possess digital cameras, it may be timely to say that digi is not better, merely more convenient. My Canon (shown right) has vastly improved my efficiency of working. Five years ago I took a film, tore into Taunton, hung around for a 1 hour service, drove back, scanned the photo and emailed to the press. Now of course I can do the whole thing almost instantaneously.
Even with this 15Mb digital SLR (+ superb lenses) I still use a trusty Minolta film camera (Fuji Superia film) for large blow-ups and slide film (Provia) for really big blow-ups.
Digital cameras fall down on wide variations of light and dark (latitude): they just can’t cope with the range. Some say you need a 20Mg pixel camera to equal the quality of film – which at the time of writing is not available – so beware of some of the difficulties.
Tips for good photography
I can’t turn you into a professional photographer but the following may help:
- put people in shot: makes for added interest get them doing something, not just looking embarrassed and posed
- show the product in action, fill the viewfinder, most amateurs stand too far away. Remember that the eye is selective, the lens isn’t and you need as many pixels as you can grab
- bounce flash off a ceiling or white board out of shot. Direct flash generates hard shadows and flattens faces. Built-in flash has severe limitations
- be careful of photographing under indoor light and mixed light (tungsten and say open doorways: colour temperatures may turn shots yellow).