WELCOME TO PICTURE PERFECT ~ we are an amateur photography site which has a weekly theme challenge, and is open to all ~ RULES OF THE GAME:
Oct 26, 2007
TWICE A YEAR WE HOLD A COMPETITION, DURING THAT TIME THE VOTING IS OPEN TO CONTACTS ONLY.
*EACH WEEK A NEW THEME WILL BE POSTED HERE ON FRIDAY MORNING. YOU ARE INVITED TO PUT UP YOUR BEST PICTURE ON YOUR OWN BLOG WITH THAT THEME IN MIND, AND YOU DO HAVE THE WHOLE WEEKEND TO POST YOUR PICTURE. CUT OFF TIME IS SUNDAY AT MIDNIGHT!
REMEMBER IT SHOULD BE JUST ONE AND ORIGINAL, TAKEN BY YOU, AND NOT OFF THE INTERNET.
LEAVE A LINK IN THE COMMENTS HERE ON PICTURE PERFECT SO THAT EVERYONE CAN LINK TO YOUR BLOG AND SEE YOUR PHOTO. DON'T FORGET TO OPEN YOUR PAGE TO EVERYONE FOR THAT DAY.
BY ALL MEANS MENTION YOUR CAMERA AND LENS USED AND IF THE PICTURE HAS BEEN ALTERED OR ENHANCED IN ANY WAY, SO WE CAN ALL LEARN AND IMPROVE OUR TECHNIQUES.
TRY AND POST A DECENT SIZE PICTURE ON YOUR BLOG PAGE, EACH PICTURE SHOULD HAVE ITS OWN PAGE FOR EASY ACCESS AND FOR AN INCREASED WOW FACTOR. OFTEN SO MUCH IS LOST OR DISTORTED IF THE SIZE IS TOO BIG OR TOO SMALL. **WE DO NOT CLICK TO ENLARGE.**
TRY TO BE POSITIVE IN YOUR CRITIQUE, AND DIRECT ANY QUERIES OR COMPLAINTS IN A PM TO THE ADMINS AND NOT IN THE COMMENTS. WE WILL ATTEMPT TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES AT OUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE.
**NO DRAMA OR BICKERING HERE ON PICTURE PERFECT OR ON YOUR OWN PAGE REGARDING THE RUNNING OF THIS SITE, WILL BE TOLERATED AT ANY TIME.**
YOUR ADMISSION TO THE SITE IS SOLELY AT THE ADMINS DISCRETION.
ENJOY THE CAMARADERIE AND HAVE FUN, AND DON’T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR CAMERA WHEREVER YOU GO!!
Well done Harriet on being our first winner of 2012, your picture is delightful, here is your badge wear it with pride..you soo deserve (because we all said so)
We have 6 fun themes lined up for you, but before we start a quick reminder on the most important points to keep in mind during this competition time, esp important for any newcomers:
**General Rules of the game are HEREon the homepage**
*Sizing of your picture is vital, not too big or too small. We do not want to 'click' on pictures to make them bigger
*Open your post to everyone, and then leave a link here so we may visit your page.
*Anyone can join, but only contacts may vote on the poll..so add us to your contact list, even if its just for the competition.
*To be a valid entry for the competition, the picture must be one taken by you.
** The theme will be posted early Wednesday morning, you have until Friday midnight PST to post up your entries, the admins deliberate on Sat and the Top Ten will be posted later in the day, and you will get 24hrs to vote for the weeks winner. * Lets try and keep the drama stuff to a minimum. If anyone has any queries, suggestions or just needs a vent, please do it to the admins in a pm and not on the open page as this just encourages a generalized melee, and solves nothing at all.
With all that being said, here is to a happy fun filled six weeks and a special warm welcome to our newbies, we look forward to sharing in your creativity!
Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the second theme of the New Year. Before we get started there is some news. Most of you are probably wondering when the Winter Competition is going to kick off. The date is official now, next week we will be taking a break to allow you to get your thinking caps out and allow the Admins to gather our wits. The 2012 Winter Comp starts on Wednesday January 25th,2012. All the normal rules are in place, six weeks of mayhem errr I mean fun, as we go about our business of offering up our best shots.
Now, on to the business at hand. Once again I want to try and challenge you all to expand your "Out of the box" thinking. As artists we try and find various ways to express ourselves, through either literal or linear thinking, or to the abstract and non linear. For the admins each week our particular challenge is to challenge you, and with the skills that you all display here, that is a chore unto itself. So my thought process this week was to give you something a little harder to shoot.
My choice this week is "Inner Peace". So to start with I had to find something that brings "me" inner peace. I settled for my artistic ability (meager as they may be). For most of my life I have been a photographer, but until the last few years I never felt comfortable calling myself an "artist". I felt it was a bit presumptuous, I still do at times. However, I find myself at my happiest moments while I am creating. Two of the tools I use to create with is my camera, and Photoshop. So here is my version of "Inner Peace"
"InEar Peace" or "InEar Piece of Peace"
jgh/gator 1/13/12 "Keep on Shooting"
Here is something to help inspire you to find your inner peace.
Mine was quiet with a few friends and family over, I think we were all asleep at 1 minute past midnight, but I decided this year I was going to celebrate more, laugh more, be more thankful...and love more!
Dinner with friends and family
Share your New Year Celebrations (and beyond) pictures with us! Show us what you've been up to, or what your hopes are for the new year!
Wishing you all a wonderful, healthy and happy 2012
Surprise.... I know last week Heather said we were going to be on a little Christmas break for the holidays.
However the holidays are a time for sharing so my feeble little gator mind decided to give you one last chance to share your holidays with everyone.
So starting today through next week select a favorite shot that best sums of Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, Ramadan, or what ever your particular culture celebrates.
This week I thought this would be a fun theme to do right before Christmas. Post your weirdest/funniest pic so that we can add a caption to them!
It will be our last theme for the year as we all take our annual break during the holidays. Thank you all for your wonderful support and participation this year...its been a fabulous fun time for us all.
Wishing you all a very happy holiday season wherever in the world you may be, and which ever holiday you may be celebrating at this time of year. Peace, Love and Joy..to you all..
Didn't I just host? Seems time is off the chain right now. Over the last few weeks we have been working on learning new tricks and improving old ones.
This week I have set my DSLR aside and decided to use my Point and Shoot. So this week I think everyone should be able to join in with no problems.4 Im using a Olympus TG-810, this is my go everywhere camera. Other than the benefits of being water proof and shock proof its not a remarkable camera.
This camera at times gives me the same fits and pains in the scaly tail as any P&S will. However when I use it in the happy medium it likes it gives some very favorable results.
So get your cameras out, specially you that have P&S's and look at your controls. I know, you're probably thinking ohh god here we go again. Look for the little icon that looks like this
It may be located on a selector wheel or in my case I have to access it thru my menu button.
Most of you know what this little icon is some may be thinking DUH its for taking flower pics. Others may be new to this and not have a clue. This setting is called the "Macro" setting.
What is macro? and how does it differ from Micro? In essence they are the same and interchangeable. How do they differ from closeup photography? Basically by the amount of detail that is captured.
There has been no post processing other than one pic was cropped, and they were all resized to 900x for the blog.
So this week lets deal with MACRO/MICRO
And
Lets
Get
Small
The first was shot at full magnification from about 2 feet with a 5X zoom. As expected not a lot of detail is present. Soooo I cropped it and here is the results.
Now you start to get a few details but nothing remarkable.
Now to talk about and show a couple of macros. For those of you who have played with macro you have probably had mixed results and become frustrated . Personally I've been there many times myself. Most point and shoots have a mind of their own. So between that, and fighting very shallow depth of field. Meaning that part of the front and maybe the rear of the image may be much softer or even totally out of focus.
Also the advantage of macro is that the details are much greater. You will notice this in the next two shots. down to the bits of dirt and scratches on the coins surface. As well as the ridges and depth of the engravings as well
All of these were shot for this theme, I chose this theme due to two reasons. I'd like for you to shoot pics for this one and not use archive. You dont have to go outside, you don't need a lot of time. You don't need a glitzy subject, I chose common quarters straight out of my pockets. For those not familiar with an american quarter it is just under 2.5 centimeters or about 7/8-15/16 of an inch across. So its not very large.
Now what types of things work well for macro? Flowers, insects, coins, basically anything in miniature that you want to capture detail.
Things to remember is try and pick something nearly or completely stationary. However it doesn't have to be just makes it easier most times..Find things that are well lit, but not to brightly. Find things with many details as it will give more depth and character. But above all have some fun.
So now, off with the lot of yah, and capture us some really kewl macros
Last week Heather taught us about motion blur using shutter speeds, light and again taking your camera's settings off auto.
This week I think I've got a fairly simple technique but my second favorite after bokeh and one I only ever got by accident before this week when I was researching the theme.
I remember the first time I was introduced to silhouette I was in second grade and it was around Washington's birthday in February . The teacher used a light to put our shadow on a piece of black construction paper and outlined our profile. We cut the construction paper out and glued it to another piece. I thought it was fabulous.
When I began shooting photos I would often at sunset get a silhouette of the object as a "mistake" but I loved the results. When we decided to do six weeks of technique themes I knew this would be one I'd use if only so I could find out how I was getting the accidental snapshots with silhouette.
What I found was fairly simple. It's mostly about lighting placement, distinct but simple lines and shapes of the subject(s) and focus.
1. Turn your flash off.
2. Choose a subject with a distinct, recognizable shape with interest but uncluttered. A profile shot is a simple one, also a roofline or mountain, one tree against the sky etc. Keep it simple in the beginning.
3. Place your subject (or yourself if shooting a non movable subject) with the brightest light from behind what you're shooting. You want to make sure there is more light shining from behind that from in front but with the subject blocking the brightest part of the light source.
4. Try to frame your shot with the least amount of clutter...a plain bright sky, sunsets and sunrise are good times to get great silhouette shots.
5. Tricking your camera to do what it's not programmed to do. Cameras on automatic (especially a point and shoot like mine) are programmed to sense lighting so everything in the picture is well lit. You need to trick it into underexposing the subject and thinking the brightest part is what you're focused on and is the middle light of the scene. I found the easiest way to do this with my p&s was to aim the camera at the brightest part of what I was shooting (in my case the sun) and press the shutter button halfway down and hold it halfway down then move the camera to frame the subject with the sun blocked mostly.
6. A simple way to do this in manual mode is to look at your shutter speed and aperture that it suggests in auto mode and start from there. If in auto mode your subject is too light and you want it darker stop down the shutter speed a stop or two and see how that turns out. Experiment until you have the result you desire. Some digital cameras have spot or centered metering mode that you can turn on to help with the technique of focusing on the bright part of the shot and tricking it. They will set the metering on the central part of your frame rather than multiple spots, so you can tell your camera exactly which part of the bright background you want to set the exposure on.
Post as many pictures as you like this week...practice practice practice. and please don't be afraid to post your failures as well as the successes and what you believe you did for each so we can all learn from your practice.
your host this week is
Cherie
These are my attempts including my abysmal failures and almost there's...
Last week Gary spoke about Shutter Speed and Apetures, and there were an amazing amount of diverse subjects posted, using various settings on your camera's.This week I want you you to concetrate on creating that soft motion blur..used to emphasize movement.
I dont think just a weekend is enough time to really master the effect..so you have ALL week to post your blur pics!! *These pictures below are not mine but taken off the internet.
Capturing movement in images is something that many photographers only think to do when they are photographing sports or other fast moving subjects.. however almost every type of photography can benefit from the emphasis of movement in a shot – even when the movement is very small, slow and/or subtle.
Post as many pictures as you like this week...practice practice practice...think out of the box..be creative!
your host this week is
Heather
*have fun*
TIPS FOR CREATING MOVEMENT BLUR
1. Slow Down Your Shutter Speed
The reason for movement blur is simply that the amount of time that the shutter of a camera is open is long enough to allow your camera’s image sensor to ‘see’ the movement of your subject.
So the number one tip in capturing movement in an image is to select a longer.
If your shutter speed is fast (eg 1/4000th of a second) it’s not going to see much movement (unless the the subject is moving mighty fast) while if you select a longer shutter speed (eg 5 seconds) you don’t need your subject to move very much at all before you start to see blur.
How long should your shutter speed be? – Of course the speed of your subject comes into play. A moving snail and a moving racing car will give you very different results at the same shutter speed.
The other factor that comes into play in determining shutter speed is how much light there is in the scene you are photographing. A longer shutter speed lets more light into your camera and runs the risk of blowing out or overexposing your shot. We’ll cover some ways to let less light in and give you the option to have longer shutter speeds below.
So how long should your shutter speed be to get movement blur in your shot? There is no ‘answer’ for this question as it will obviously vary a lot depending upon the speed of your subject, how much blur you want to capture and how well lit the subject is. The key is to experiment (something that a digital camera is ideal for as you can take as many shots as you like without it costing you anything).
2. Secure Your Camera
There are two ways to get a feeling of movement in your images – have your subject move or have your camera move (or both). In the majority of cases that we featured in last week’s post it was the subject that was moving.
In this type of shot you need to do everything that you can to keep your camera perfectly still or in addition to the blur from the subject you’ll find that the whole frame looks like it’s moving as a result of using a longer shutter speed. Whether it be by using a tripod or have your camera sitting on some other still object (consider a shutter release mechanism or using the self timer) you’ll want to ensure that camera is perfectly still.
3. Shutter Priority Mode One of the most important settings in photographing an image which emphasizes movement is the shutter speed (as outlined above). Even small changes in shutter speed will have a big impact upon your shot – so you want to shoot in a mode that gives you full control over it.
This means either switching your camera into full Manual Mode or Shutter Priority Mode. Shutter Priority Mode is a mode that allows you to set your shutter speed and where the camera chooses other settings (like Aperture) to ensure the shot is well exposed. It’s a very handy mode to play with as it ensures you get the movement effect that you’re after but also generally well exposed shots.
The other option is to go with Manual mode if you feel more confident in getting the aperture/shutter-speed balance right.
How to Compensate for Long Shutter Speeds When there is too Much Light
I mentioned above that one of the effects of using longer exposure times (slow shutter speeds) is that more light will get into your camera. Unless you compensate for this in some way this will lead to over exposed shots.
Below I’ll suggest three main methods for making this compensation (note – a forth method is simply to wait for the light to change (ie for it to get darker). This is why many shots that incorporate blur are taken at night or at dawn/dusk):
1. Small Apertures So how do you cut down the amount of light that gets into your camera to help compensate for a longer shutter speed? How about changing the size of the hole that the light comes in through. This is called adjusting your camera’s aperture
If you shoot in shutter priority mode the camera will do this automatically for you – but if you’re in manual mode you’ll need to decrease your Aperture in a proportional amount to the amount that you lengthen the shutter speed.
Luckily this isn’t as hard as you might think because shutter speed and aperture settings are organized in ‘stops’. As you decrease shutter speed by a ‘stop’ you double the amount of time the shutter is open (eg – from 1/250 to 1/125). The same is true with Aperture settings – as you decrease the Aperture by one stop you decrease the size of the shutter opening by 50%. This is great because an adjustment of 1 stop in one means that you just need to adjust the other by 1 stop too and you’ll still get good exposure.
2. Decrease Your ISO
Another way to compensate for the extra light that a longer shutter speed lets into your camera is to adjust the ISO setting of your camera. ISO impacts the sensitivity of your digital camera’s image sensor. A higher number will make it more sensitive to light and a lower number will make the sensor less sensitive. Choose a low number and you’ll find yourself able to choose longer shutter speeds.
3. Try a Neutral Density Filter These filters cut down the light passing through your lens and into your camera which in turn allows you to use a slower shutter speed.
It is sort of like putting sunglasses on your camera (in fact some people actually have been known to use sunglasses when they didn’t have an ND filter handy).
For instance, if you’re shooting a landscape in a brightly lit situation but want a shutter speed of a second or more you could well end up with a very over exposed image. A ND filter can be very helpful in slowing the shutter speed down enough to still get a well balanced shot.
It is the use of ND filters that enabled some of the shots in our previous post to get a lot of motion blur while being taken in daylight.
Another type of filter that can have a similar impact is a polarizing filter. Keep in mind however that polarizers not only cut out some light but they can impact the look of your image in other ways (ie cut out reflection and even change the color of a sky – this may or may not be the look you’re after).
Two More Technique to Try – one more technique to experiment if you’re wanting to capture images with motion blur is to experiment with slow syn flash. This combines longer shutter speeds with the use of a flash so that elements in the shot are frozen still while others are blurry. Read more about Slow Sync Flash. Another technique worth trying out is panning – moving your camera along with a moving subject so that they come out nicely in focus but the background blurs.
Even if you have a point and shoot, creating a blur motion affect is still possible without changing your settings...give it try, mention your settings if you wish to. **Right click on any picture to access exif data and see what settings have been used.
Yep thats right, Heather our dear illustrious leader here at Picture Perfect turns 21 today. Why 21 and not 16, well cause then I'd be contributing to the delinquency of a minor and we cant be having that.
So everyone have a piece of cake,
a glass of champagne
And help us all celebrate Heathers birthday, feel free to stop in and wish her a Happy Happy at
Good day viewers, this weekend is hosted by the gator, so hang on.
Last week our precious Cherie offered us all a chance to learn and have fun with the Bokeh theme. It seems you all like learning new things and getting a better grasp of the various techniques associated with becoming better photographers.
So this week if you will indulge me I want to build on the "learning" portion of what goes on here at Picture Perfect.
This week we are going to work with shutter speeds and learn what works best for what.
In essence photography is nothing but the manipulation and capture of light on an object. If we capture to much light on an object for example the object tends to be "hot" or "blown out". To little light and the object is dark.The wrong amount of sensitivity to light and things can become blurred. So two things we will look at is the shutter speed and the ISO settings. Now before you freak out and say "I only have a point and shoot and cant control these things" I will preface and say "Yes you can".
Now light theory can take years to master, but what I want to do Is help you with a little understanding and simple exercises to make for some better shooting. Starting with shutter speed or on your camera they may refer to it as TV (time value). These are the numbers you see when focusing or looking at the exif data (open a pic,right click and select properties, this will give the info) on the computer later when reviewing your pics. They will shown like this, 1/8th, 1/13th/, 1/25th or even lower when doing longer exposures "3" "5" "30" these usually denote full seconds (ie: 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 30 seconds). The faster the shutter speed the bigger the number 1/125th, 1/250 th 1/500th. The bigger the number the more light you need as the shutter is only open for a fraction of a second. The lower the number the longer the shutter stays open allowing more light to enter the sensor/film.
The second is a hold over from film shooting but still applies, and that is ISO which is the International Organization of Standardization. Why isnt it IOS, ummmmm i think its a European thing. But in the days of film the amount and size of the silver halide on the film allowed it to be more or less sensitive to light. For instance an ISO of 100 is less sensitive to light than an ISO of 400. Now the trade off for the light sensitivity is graininess and that still holds true today in digital shooting. So a higher ISO means you can shoot in less light, but it also allows you to shoot at higher shutter speeds to capture motion.
For those of you shooting with P&S cameras you can still often manipulate one or more of these values. You can usually set the ISO manually and many have a TV setting on the selector dial.This allows you to set a shutter speed and then the camera will set the proper f/stop for those values. As always when I teach at gatherings the first thing I urge is use your manuals, to read and understand what controls and buttons do what, so I will do that now as well.
Some examples of what shutter speed allows for you is listed below, This week you can post up to three images, one depicting slow shutter speed, the other high shutter speed, and the final one will be ISO of greater than 200.I will endeavor to give as many details on my three as I can to let you see the values and will try and translate what those numbers really mean.I really hope you dont find all this to long or boring and have some fun with this.
Shutter Speeds
The first image is a high speed shot of Pelican taking off It is shot at 400ISO this allows me to run a higher shutter speed. The shutter speed is 1/5000th of a second and the fstop is wide open for this lens at 5.6. by combining higher iso and higher shutter speed the drops of water and little rivulets running off his wings are frozen in time.
In this shot I am playing with shutter speed to create a double exposure. This time I left the ISO at 100 in order to allow less light in so I can run a longer exposure time. The f/stop is high at F/22 again allowing less light in which allowed for a 27 second exposure time. Notice there is no motion blur as i moved from one position to another. This is due to the exposure being so long and me moving fast from one place to the other that it didnt capture.
The last is one that uses a high ISO of 400 but this time using a lower value of F/5 on the f/stop.The thing I am fighting here is light and dark and motion. The higher iso helps with the dark and motion but becomes a problem with the light as its easy to get to much light.
So I ran a little less shutter speed than I did on the Pelican in order to control light, but still high enough to capture the finger and body motion of the player. The shutter speed here is 1/200th of a second.
The value of a photographer to control all these elements is what moves each of us to a higher level of art
I hope this makes sense and now its your time to freeze or slow time.
Since Heather, Gator and I have been talking off and on for a while about doing some overviews of photography techniques and the other two have done some in the past this seemed to be as good a time as any for me to jump in because it's something I really wanted to learn more about.
Before I go any further I do have a disclaimer....that is....
I'm the least qualified of the three hosts at Picture Perfect to show any of you anything about photography techniques. I'm totally a "shoot 200 photos and hope one will be what I see in my mind" type of photographer. That being said hopefully someone will learn something they didn't know before and the rest of you won't find this overview too awfully boring and unprofessional. Sometimes by accident when I download my photos off the memory card I would come across one that caught my eye because of the wonderful creamy blurry background with great focus on the subject. This same type of photo would always catch my eye when viewing photos by other photographers.
Never realizing what I was seeing could be done at will, until one day I came across an overview of a photography technique called "Bokeh Effect". There was a name for this magical "accident"!!! I was thrilled to find out how to make it happen on purpose!!
Bokeh, which as far as I can tell can be either pronounced bow-kay or bow-keh, refers to the magical fairy world like out-of-focus light and shapes and colors you find in the background of many photos. It's created by light along with the glass in your camera lens, distance and air movement and focus. The effect compliments the images with airy effect; and gives a dreaminess and romantic feel to wedding photographs, or beautiful imagery of circles of unfocused scattered lights in the background of focused subjects and can be manipulated by the experienced photographer into wonderful works of art.
I enjoy learning about photography techniques even though normally they are geared much more toward the DSLR camera than the simple point and shoot which is what I use....but I always think someday I'll have that big girl camera and I'll be able to use all that stored knowledge and until then I do my best to apply it to what I have now.
I do want to add that.....in my opinion... there is just no substitute for really knowing your camera and all it can do....whatever type of camera you use.... which means taking it off auto pilot and experimenting with all the settings, in all sorts of settings.
Then of course there are those photographers who have the eye for a shot and that artistic talent that no amount of expensive equipment or knowledge will ever make me one of.
When I chose this theme for picture perfect this week I did a lot more research about Bokeh for both a DSLR and a P&S. I know we have professional and semi-professional photographers in our group with all the latest and best equipment and more knowledge about photography than I'll ever have, so this obviously isn't for you, and you can skip it. Just go shoot me some of those wonderful creamy, magical photos....show me your art at it's very best.
As for others who like me may have thought "I wish I could do that on purpose" when you come across one of those shots with surprise blurred background and wonderfully focused objects. Honestly, for me, it never even has to be a wonderful subject it's the magic quality of the "blur" adding depth and interest in an otherwise blah photo. That's what I am so fascinated by.
I'm not even going to pretend be technical about this because really....truly....honestly without a doubt I'm not qualified to be and I'd be foolish to act as if know something I honestly don't understand completely enough to explain to someone else.
Basically the first important thing about bokeh is where the focus is. The second important thing about bokeh is your Aperture. The wider the aperture, the better and more frequently you will make beautiful bokeh. What I've learned is to get good bokeh you need:
Out of focus pin point light sources in the background
The largest possible aperture setting your lens will provide (f number)
A medium to long focal length (zoom in)
A short focal distance to the foreground subject
Significant distance between the foreground subject and background points of light
Some suggestions as how to obtain these requirements are....
For a DSLR Camera:
Larger aperture works best, so use a low f-stop number like f1.4, f1.8 or f2.8 (or so they tell me in all the instructions)
Set your camera to aperture priority (again per most directions I've read)
You would need to set the shutter speed faster than 1/50 second. Any slower the background lights blur together instead of being small circles. If it’s too dark, increase the ISO level rather than the f-stop number.
Get as close as possible to your subject of focus. If you’re using a zoom lens, extend it to the longest focal length
The further away the background is from the subject you're focusing on the better the bokeh
Make sure your background is lit. Sparkly or glowing lights like street lamps and traffic lights or Christmas and fairy lights work best. A consistently lit background like a room light or large lamp or spot light lighting or natural daylight the of the entire background creates a regular (non circle lights) blur of the colors of whatever your background is.
If you don’t have a subject and want to create the bokeh effect with car head or tail lights, city lights, Christmas lights etc then you will need to manually focus your camera on the lights you want to be focused.
Play with those settings then come back and show us your best shot!
For a Point and Shoot camera:
The point and shoot type camera can get Bokeh with some knowledge, experimentation and determination. Depending on the type of P&S camera the following is what I found.
My camera won't let me change much besides the auto settings and opening of lens and length of time the shutter is open and even for those things I've had to learn to manipulate the factory settings.
First, turn off the flash.
If you can, change your camera setting to Aperture Priority, or set the iso sensitivity to 200 and use the macro, flower, or portrait setting on the dial or menu.
Turn on image stabilization if your camera has it...if not then use a tripod or if you don't have a tripod then use a firm surface or hold your camera as close to your body as you can while still taking the photo to eliminate the shake as far as possible. Even the steadiest of hands will have some shake and remember the exposure is going to be slow so the camera needs to be steady.
I've read two different ways of doing this. The first one is you should shoot outside during a sunny day to use low sensor sensitivity or ISO and to get lots of light reflections/highlights and color blur into the image, or indoors, do it during the day in a well-lit area with large windows behind you if possible or use a tripod on the night setting with Christmas lights in a dark room as I did in some of my photos which turned out ok but not nearly as well as the daylight outdoors ones did.
Choose a smallish subject to be able to focus on it easily at a close distance....if the subject is too large you'll have to move too far away from it in order to get it all in the picture and the camera will want to focus on both the subject and the background.
Make sure that your subject is physically apart in distance and separate from the background. For example, if you are taking a picture of a flower, make sure that the objects behind the flower are relatively far away. If you have objects close to the subject, they will be in focus, which is not what you want, while placing objects at a distance will make them more likely to be out of focus.
Try to have the objects in the background with reflective surfaces. Glass and metal surfaces are great surfaces for your background.
Hold the camera as close to the subject that you want to appear sharp in your image as possible (which again is why we want the subject to be smallish)
I zoomed in on my subject of focus while pointing the camera at the object (I found this doesn't work if you zoom then point the camera at the object) then I focused on my subject by half-pressing the shutter button trying to make sure the subject itself is in focus. (I found with some experimentation if I move the camera while half pressing the shutter button then hold the camera still and click I get better bokeh)
Take your camera off auto and play and experiment with it. You'll be amazed at what even the baby camera can do for you.
I am really excited about the theme and hoping you'll all work on shooting some fresh photos for me this weekend using this technique....and I know we normally hold you to one photo but I'm going to raise that just for this weekend and actually ask you for more than one photo....(but a maximum of four photos) just because I do enjoy this so much. I'm really hoping some of you can get those circle-y lights effects in some really artsy shots. I tried but ran out of time. I'll keep working on it though.... you can bet on that!!
Thank you for playing along with me and if you made it through this excruciatingly long blog....thank you for still being here and bearing with me about my newest passion.
Here are my favorite shots from this week. I did them all with my point and shoot a fuji finepix f20. They have not been cropped, enhanced or altered in any way, and are just as they came from the camera. (not that it's a bad thing to edit just so you know what I've done is what I said in the overview). I think they are not bad for my first try and our theme this week.....
First we want to thank and congratulate everyone that came out this week for this Special Competition. The votes have been tallied and this weeks winner is
Monica (Secclux or Moni)
with her gorgeous shot of a single flower as it slips past its prime.
This was one of the most difficult comps we the admins have had to try and choose from. Sooooooooooooo.... As you all know, we like to keep throwing surprises out on you, so here is this competitions surprise..
All top ten will be featured as the header pic for one week till we enter Winter Competition in January. So many comments were made that so many of these images could and should be the winners that we the Admins agreed and decided that this time we would make that happen.
So for the next ten weeks we will have a lovely reminder of what makes Picture Perfect so special...That is YOU.. the players that come out each week and share your world with everyone.
So Till next week remember
"Keep on Shooting"
Here is your award for this competition please download it and display it on your homepage as a memory of a gorgeous shot
Annette 3 Amalie 5 Danette 9 Luxy 16 Val 4 Rita 7 Sophie 4 Catherine 7 Vanessa 5 Mo 4
What a fabulous round of viewing I've had this week..lucky me! Not so lucky choosing only Ten though, but its been a great way for you to showcase your favourite pictures and we all benefit fom that. Its also been interesting to see which fonts you've used, and how you've placed them.
Soooo..same old process..here are your Top Ten, one vote each and the winner will be announced in 24hrs from now:
I think a mini competition is in order don't you? We also need a new header...so we thought why don't we let you decide which picture to put up there. The theme is open, so post your favourite picture of the year, the words 'Picture Perfect' should be on the pic, and make sure the format fits the header, which rules out 'upright' shots unfortunately.
You have until Friday midnight to post, the Top Ten selections will be posted on Saturday and open to voting for the day. The winner and the new header will be posted on Sunday.
Well looks like a late post this am, and you have the gator with you today. I struggled with coming up with something this week With fall in the air and All Hallows Eve upon us it seemed natural to go with that. However Im not sure if this custom is observed worldwide so I played it safe this week and went with a theme I think we have used in the past. Today is the number three so hit us with your best shot and shot and shot.
This week is coming a little early due to a full day for me tomorrow starting very early. This will also allow you a little time to think and shoot for this if you are so inclined. Words.. words are very important to us, not only in how we understand others, but in how we communicate with them as well. Many of those that play here in Picture Perfect also participate in one or several of the various writing venues. I also host a small weekly get together that combines original writing, images, and music, three of my favorite art forms. Words for us are our "friends" our "tools" and sometimes our "enemies".
The premise of this weeks event is to take a word and twist it and I also want you to use the twisted word in a sentence to show it off. The one I chose is one that many people use, so its nothing original by any means.
So
Here
We
goooooooooo
Fungi is Fun Guy
" Gator tries not only to teach but tries to be a fungi as well"
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