C.C.G - Mobile Phone Photography

02/05/2019

Amazing colours from the sunset.


(cropped)
C.D. - GS10

02/05/2019

The Golden Hour

Often the difference between a good picture and a not so good one is the lighting. Photography depends so much on the right amount of light, and the quality of light. Golden Hour, or Magic Hour, is when the sun is low on the horizon and the light gives off a warm glow.

This happens twice a day, dawn and dusk.

It is at this time that you'll find great opportunity to get some amazing photos. The light is soft and diffused, the light and shadows can look incredible, and you can get some of the best colours not only from the sun and sky, but it also brings out some stunning hues and effects on your subject.

When you think of golden hour, you probably think of that gorgeous, soft, warm lighting at...

26/03/2019

The tranquility of the waves at the beach.


C.L. - iPh SE

26/03/2019

What better way to end a hot day than spending time down at the beach.


C.L. - iPh SE

17/02/2019

ISO: The Third Pillar of Photography
The term ISO refers to the brightness or the light used for the photos. The lowest ISO is generally ISO 100, and the number doubles with each step, to ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, and so on. With each step in ISO you are essentially doubling the brightness of the photo.

Use ISO in conjunction with the Aperture and Shutter Speed to control the amount of brightness you need for the picture. If indoors using Aperture priority and find the photo too dark, increase the ISO to brighten the picture. Or if you have a need to use a high shutter speed, the increased ISO can help with the quick shutter action not allowing enough light for a sharp photo.

But there is always a trade-off with selecting the wrong ISO. Too low and the picture will possibly be darker than you want. Too high and you introduce digital graininess or noise to the resulting photo. But a bit of practice with when and where to use ISO could make all the difference to your photography.
Play around with settings and see how you can improve.

For beginning photographers, one of the hardest parts of learning photography is figuring out...

23/01/2019

The Exposure Triangle - Part 2

We'll have a look at Aperture.
The aperture of a camera controls the amount of light that enters the lens and works similar to an eye. It expands and contracts to let in more/less light, the wider the aperture opening allows more light in, a small aperture restricting the light.

The size of the Aperture opening is represented in f-stops. The larger opening is shown as a smaller f-stop number, and a small opening is a larger f-stop number. Diagrams of these are shown in the article and the comments below.

The aperture size and f-stop determine the depth of field for your photo. Depth of field is the area of the photo that is in focus. A shallow depth of field will have a small area of the photo in focus (the subject), while the rest of the picture becomes blurry. This is what is used to draw attention to the subject. A large depth of field will keep the majority of the picture in focus, think immersive landscape photos. Some good examples in the article here.

It is a good experience to try taking the same photo with a number of different Apertures and compare the changes to the resulting pictures. You begin to learn when and where the aperture can improve your photography. Enjoy.

If you've spent any amount of time reading photography tutorials or talking with photographers,...

12/01/2019

When working with cameras (or camera phones), and wanting to take some excellent shots, it is useful to have a good understanding of Shutter Speed, ISO and Aperture - the Three Pillars or Kings of Photography. Also known as the 'Exposure Triangle'.

Lets have a look at Shutter Speed.
Shutter speed refers to the amount of time the cameras shutter is open to allow the camera sensor to be exposed to light. This time can vary from a very small fraction of a second (1/8000th of a second), all the way through to 30 seconds or more. The longer the shutter is open, the more light is exposed to the sensor, less light for shorter shutter speeds. Sharp action photos are shot with short speeds, motion blur or light trails are obtained with longer speeds.
But with each variation of Shutter speed, you need to understand the relevance if ISO and Aperture also.

The next coming weeks, ISO and Aperture will also be covered, but here we have an explanation of Shutter Speed.
A couple of diagrams help to discuss the ideal situations for certain shutter speeds.

One of the obstacles that beginning photographers face is understanding exposure controls - that...

29/12/2018

Need a bit of inspiration for some subjects, ideas on what would make a great photo - there are some brilliant shots from excellent photographers here. The pictures taken here have been created using a Nikon DSLR so look amazing.

But the ideas, the subjects, the framing of shots.... could always be replicated as best as possible with a mobile phone camera. There are limitations to the phone camera, and knowing what can and cannot be achieved can help you to create similarly stunning photos.

Enjoy! ☺️📸❣️

My Nikon Life is an online photography community for beginner, enthusiast and professional photographers from the digital camera specialists Nikon Australia.

16/12/2018

Here's a few tips from Canon Australia's site to help with landscape Photography.
In this article they do talk about some camera features, but these things you can generally also utilize on your mobile phone camera.
There are quite a few tips and tutorials on the Canon website. This is by no means an advertisement for Canon, but these can be very useful.
Have fun getting some pictures outdoors.

Ever wondered how to take the perfect landscape shot? Have a look at these insightful tips from Emma, one of our Canon Collective Ambassadors.