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How to photograph your images

  • Post author By Ric
  • Post date

How to photograph your images

How to use the camera

Focus

The focus of your camera can either be set to manual or autofocus. The switch for this is often found on the side of the lens itself. AF = Autofocus MF = Manual focus.

There are two buttons with a maginifying glass on them that will allow you to zoom into the image to check the focus.

Zoom and Distortion

Be aware when shooting flat work that zoming in too much will cause lines to warp near the sides. This is called barrel distortion. To avoid this try to stay ner 50mm on your zoom lens.

Color (White Balalnce)

White balance will allow you to adjust what the camera will set as white. Often time auto white balance will work. Depending on the lighting conditions you may need to switch to one of the other options available.

  • Sun Icon: Sunlight
  • Cloud Icon: Overcast
  • Lightbulb: Indoor lighting
  • Rectangle: Florescent lighting
  • Square between two triangles: Manual, to use this you will

Apature

Much like your pupil a camera’s apature can increase in size (more open) to let in light or decrease (close) to block out more light. This also controls how much of an image can be in focus. If you shoot with a more open apature the amount of things that will be in focus will be less (think of a standard romantic movie when the two main characters kiss and everything in the background is out of focus). If the apature is more closed more things will be in focus and the image will be darker.

Shutter

A camera’s shutter speed represents how long the camera’s shutter is exposed to light. The thing the shutter speed controls is the amount of motoin blur we see. A higher shutter speed will result in less light and less motion blur. The longer the shutter is open the more light and more motion blur you will get.

ISO

ISO stands for International Standards Organization but that doesn’t really matter, the main thing to remember is the higher your ISO the brighter the image will be but also the more noise you’ll be introducing to image. So try to keep your iso as low as possible (around 100) and only raise it if you have to.

Things to think about when shooting work

  • Use a tripod.
  • Make sure your lighting is even on both sides.
  • Don’t use a flash.
  • If the piece is famed remove it from the glass.
  • Make sure the camera is not tilted down or up and the art piece are even with each other.