While I haven’t discussed real estate photography here much during the last several weeks, I have been extremely busy photographing houses. The market has definitely picked up and I now photograph at least one or two houses a week – even though I currently only work with two agents!
While I am happy that I made the switch to HDR, I have still been working on getting the colors right and improving my photos. In this post, I will discuss some things I have learned during the last few weeks.
Lesson 1 Windows do not always need to be the correct temperature
Macro photography is easily my favorite type of photography. Given that travel is also one of my great passions, it makes sense to combine the two. After having taken macro equipment on my last several trips – to Thailand, Israel/Jordan, and Mexico, I have learned a bit about what equipment to bring and what not to bring.
First of all, you have to be very realistic about the place you are going to? What types of macro pictures will you really take there? While macro photography can be done anywhere, some types of trips make certain types of macro photography difficult. For instance, my wife and kids generally will not sit around and wait while I setup a tripod to take a picture of a flower. While I occasionally use a tripod for my flower pictures in gardens around Seattle, I never use a tripod for macro photography on vacation (I do use one for sunrise/sunset and night shots though). The following are my experiences on different types of vacations.
In general, I expect most of you already know how to use a camera. However, there are some aspects of shooting a photo that I believe you must pay specific attention to when shooting photographs that potentially will be sold as microstock. First, RAW is your best friend. When I first started I shot only in JPG, then switched to RAW after the advice of some coworkers. Once I started shooting in RAW I never stopped. Today, I always shoot in RAW+full JPG. While this does fill up my hard disk easily, this also means I do not need to post process every picture – just those that I feel are worth it. RAW gives much more flexibility in terms of changing the exposure (to a limit) and white balance.
Always account for camera shake either by using a tripod together with a remote release and mirror lock, or use a high enough shutterspeed. The rule of thumb is to use the reverse of the camera lens – so a 400mm lens should have a shutter speed of 1/400, but with today’s lenses that contain IS and various optical tricks there are often exceptions to this rule. Still, keep your shutterspeed high if you are not using a tripod.
I always try to stay at ISO 100, even on the Canon 5D. With some of the newer cameras capable of better high ISO handling, you may be able to go higher without risking the possibility of requiring noise reduction.
Finally, always check for blowouts when taking shots. These will almost always cause your image to be rejected. Proper exposure will often fix this but sometimes you may need a diffuser or need to create an HDR.
Since it is getting to be that time of year again, I thought I would repost a short article I did for a private forum on photographing fireworks.
While I have rarely taken professional fireworks photos myself, I grew up in the fireworks industry and have worked on numerous professional fireworks shows in the past. Both of my parents work in the fireworks industry – my mother (who has sold fine art prints of fireworks for some time) full time and my father part time. I am also a member of the Pyrotechnics Guild International, where my father has won several international competitions.
1)Use bulb – no one shutter speed will work for all shots
2)Use a tripod – should be obvious
3)Place the tripod on stable ground – bleachers do not work
4)Photograph away from any lights – particularly street lights. Often they turn them out just before the show but sometimes they do not.
5)If you are photographing from a popular place, get there early because you don’t want people in front of you and the best spots will be taken quickly.
6)Don’t try to get too much in one shot. You want to be able to recognize the shells – this is especially relevant during the finale.
7) You can get more fireworks in a shot by putting a piece of black paper in between shots while using bulb mode. In my opinion the effect looks a bit fake and you can tell it was done by the smoke patterns, but a number of people do prefer the photos.
Recently I gave a presentation on macro photography for several of my coworkers. I have been trying to figure out how to easily get it into blog format, but it’s rather difficult converting a Powerpoint presentation into a blog. The following are some tips I placed at the end of the presentation on macro photography.
Tip #1 – Keep in mind the orientation of the subject
The following are two pictures I took recently. Note that the first isn’t very interesting. You can easily make out that it’s a hoverfly but other than that the shot brings no emotion. The second picture is quite a bit better – not only due to the reflection of the bug but also because the bug is facing forward. In general always try to find a pose that is interesting – don’t just take the bug unless you are trying for an identification shot.
I have decided to add to the hundreds of pages out there that detail how to take panorama shots. Some of these descriptions are extremely good, while others are less so. However, over time I have developed my own technique – which is very similar to many other techniques discussed on other sources but differs in a few slight ways. For one thing, many of my panoramas are not landscapes. For instance, take this real estate panorama I shot recently.
Panoramas like these require changes to the standard technique with landscapes. In this post, I will discuss how I go about both.
![](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2070/2513267173_ba15734e7f_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="Hoverfly" /></a>)
![](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2378/2510801719_12b0c40a71_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="Green Stink Bug" /></a>)
