5 Steps To Learning Trick Photography
When I bought my digital SLR about 5 years ago (a Canon EOS 5D, in case you're wondering) I started to become interested more in special effects photography and photographic tricks in general
Recently I came across a photographer named Evan Sharboneau and his book “Trick Photography and Special Effects“.
One section of his book that really intrigued me was about taking
long exposures (at night) and using light to “paint” an image. I’ve
tried this many times before but always found it hit and miss. Evan,
though, provides these 5 steps to ensure that you can achieve great
results easily.
1. ISO Setting
This goes back to the days of film, and was used to rate how light sensitive a film was. For example, ISO 100 film has an average sensitivity and good be used for normal daylight photography. ISO 1600 film, though, was very sensitive to light and was best suited to either low light photography or where a very high shutter speed was needed (such as sports photography). Digital cameras have an ISO setting to give you the same functionality.
2. White Balance
This is a new term for digital photography and wasn’t really used much in film photography (where you could use coloured lens filters to compensate for artificial light sources). It’s important for low light photography
as different light sources have difference colour temperatures. This
means some light is more orange (like tungsten globes) while other light
can be greenish (like fluorescent lights). Our brains automatically
adjust for this but the camera’s sensor can’t unless you tell it what
it’s seeing!
3. Shutter Speed
The shutter is a simple mechanism that allows light to reach to
camera’s sensor (or film) during exposure for a set amount of time
(known as ‘shutter speed’). Many cameras have a maximum speed of 1/4000
of a second (although some go to 1/8000 of a second) and an unlimited
minimum speed, which is accessed by the ‘BULB’ setting. This is ideal
for recording light trails from the headlights of passing cars, or star
trails in the night sky, for example.
4. Aperture
The aperture is simply a hole inside the camera lens formed by a set
of metal blades. The bigger the hole, the more light gets through and
vice versa. Aperture is also known as ‘f-stop’ and appears as, say, f1.8
(large aperture) or f16 (small aperture). For long exposures, you
usually need a large aperture to be able to record enough light but
sometimes a smaller aperture is needed for bright spotlights or to get
everything in a scene in focus (known as ‘depth of field’).
5. A Good Basic Setting
If you’re not sure what settings you need to start with for special
effects photos, Evan provides a basic setting which should work most of
the time. These settings are: ISO100 (or as low as your camera goes), aperture of f8, and a shutter speed of 5 seconds.
Try this out and if the image is too dark, increase the aperture or
decrease the shutter speed. If it’s too light decrease the aperture or
increase the shutter speed. Evan also recommends setting your camera to
manual focusing to prevent the camera trying to autofocus all the time.
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