We recently featured a tutorial from the Great Big Photography World explaining why you may want to experiment with a camera’s Program mode even if you’re not a beginner. The episode below, discussing the convenience of Scene modes, is another installment in their series exploring the various options on your camera’s mode dial.
If you watched the earlier tutorial you’ll notice how Scene modes are similar to the Program mode, in that shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are all set automatically. But here’s the big difference: When a scene mode is selected, and there are several options from which to choose, the camera applies optimum exposure settings for the specific scene being photographed.
This can be a real timesaver when dealing with unfamiliar subjects—like when shooting nighttime portraits with an illuminated cityscape in the background. Rather than trying to calculate how to properly expose both your subject and the sparkling backdrop, simply choose the Night Portrait scene mode and the camera will do all the heavy lifting on your behalf.
There are other scene modes that can be equally helpful for quickly getting the light right in situations that you haven’t photographed before and you don’t want to miss a fleeting moment while you figure things out. Just choose the appropriate mode, concentrate on composition and focus, and the camera will automatically bail you out.
Another example is the scene mode labeled Sports. Here the camera will select a fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur of fast-moving subjects. In the Portrait mode (not to be confused with the Night Portrait setting mentioned above) your camera is programmed to select a wider aperture so that your sharply focused subject stands out against a softer background. Think of this mode as minimizing depth of field.
In Night mode the camera provides a high ISO setting so that you achieve accurately exposed photos under low-light conditions. The compromise you make in exchange for convenience when using the foregoing scene modes and others is that you give up control over exposure since you’re delegating that task to the camera.
But in certain situations this can be a reasonable tradeoff—especially when the alternative is missing the shot altogether. Or as today’s unnamed instructor says, “scene modes are designed to make using your camera easy—not creatively.” The choice is up to you.
There’s much more to be learned by paying a visit to the Great Big Photography World YouTube channel, so be sure to do that when you have time to explore.
And don’t forget to check out the tutorial mentioned above that explores the benefits and drawbacks of capturing photographs in Program mode.
What if we told you there’s a “secret” Photoshop feature that will take your landscape edits to the next level, and that it delivers epic results for beginners and experienced users alike? This is exactly what you’ll learn in the five-minute tutorial below from photographer Steve Arnold.
Arnold is an experienced landscape shooter and post-processing expert who’s always looking for unique ways to streamline his Photoshop workflow without sacrificing image quality. He kicks off this episode with an intriguing promise: “Today I’m going to show you how this secret Photoshop feature unlocks an incredible editing technique that will make any photo POP in three easy steps.”
As interesting as that sounds, there’s even more as Arnold insists that this method is so powerful that it almost makes images appear three-dimensional. Arnold explains why this trick boosts the “wow factor” of a photo in a way that’s contrary this popular misconception: “Many photographers think that for an image to stand out it has to be full of bright highly-saturated colors, contrast and detail.”
But there’s a problem with this common approach: When everything in a photo tries to grab your attention, nothing within the frame will really stand out. In other words, images can lack depth and appear flat even if they’re full of color.
So what’s the trick to this simple hack? It enables you differentiate between the foreground and background of a scene, so that viewers feel they can actually “step into the image.” The technique is so quick and easy to accomplish that we’ll let Arnold demonstrate how it works, rather than summarizing it here.
Suffice to say that this effective method enables you to modify color and contrast for an attention-grabbing effect. But here’s a clue: “Until now, nothing has given us the ability to automatically affect an images based upon distance.”
So pull up a chair, click the “play” button, and prepare to be amazed as Arnold walks you through a trio of straightforward steps. Then head over to his instructional YouTube channel where you’ll find many more tips and techniques for processing the images you capture in the great outdoors.
And be sure not to miss an essential tutorial we posted recently with a comprehensive beginners guide to editing photographs with Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop.
There’s nothing more frustrating that capturing a beautiful landscape scene, thinking that you totally nailed focus and exposure, only to return home, view the image on the computer, and discover that you didn’t get the light right after all. Sure, you can fix many exposure problems during post processing, but wouldn’t you rather get things right in the camera?
Landscape pro Ian Worth is a very accomplished photographer based in Wales, who says he’s “passionate” about helping others improve their skills by sharing the secrets to his success. In this episode he explains a variety exposure problems and their solutions, including the fact that your camera’s histogram, viewfinder and rear LCD may not accurately represent what’s captured by the sensor.
Worth introduces today’s lesson like this: I will discuss changing several camera settings that can help achieve more consistent exposure results when photographing challenging scenes.” His advice is very helpful because we all want predictable results that make the editing task as minimal as possible
Worth begins with an explanation of why it’s good practice to “expose to the right” in certain situations, and he quickly reveals when this technique is particularly useful and how it’s done. As he says, “I like to make sure I’m preserving highlight detail and not losing any information,” and why he takes a cautious approach when exposing images with this method.
Worth explains the aforementioned discrepancy between the Raw file captured by the camera’s sensor, as compared to what’s displayed on its viewfinder, histogram and LCD. As you’ll see, this disparity can easily result in under- or overexposed images in certain situations—especially when shooting with a mirrorless cameras. As you may expect, there’s a viable workaround.
The forgoing considerations are just a taste of the topics and techniques that Worth covers in the video. By the time you’re done watching and take his suggestions to heart you’ll be far more confident and proficient when it comes to accurately nailing exposure in the camera.
Ian’s instructional YouTube channel is well worth investigating because it offers many more important shooting and editing tips like those in the today’s video—especially if landscape photography is your thing.
In this regard, don’t miss the tutorial we posted from another top pro who demonstrates how to create more dramatic landscape photographs by perfecting highlights and shadows to give images more depth and dimension.
