Tips for buying a DSLR

This is not how you buy a DSLR by comparing different Manufacturer's model. You will get nothing but just stereotype feedback, Canon user will say Canon better, and Nikon user will obviously say Nikon better.
Its quite long time i did not share about the DSLR..so now,i give some tips from my own experiences in DSLR...my friends keep asking me,which DSLR was good,Canon,Nikon or other brand...its hard to me to answer its because i did not use all of the brand >,< hahaha, Buying a DSLR is very different from buying a compact camera. You need to look far more long term investment, because you are buying a photography SYSTEM, not just a camera.

First, you need to decide which brand you will go for by considering the following factors:
a. Your regular kaki that are into photography that you often hang out with, what do they use in general? Usually is either Nikon or Canon. Both brand is fine (at least to me). This is the most critical factor. If your camera brand is different, you and him may have off-sync conversation.

b. In general, each camera manufacturer has different kind of design feel. Like Nikon, looks like a BMW 5 series, it has a red underwear, two command dials, black paint job with microscopic embossed texture, premium lenses are black with gold ring. Canon, looks like a Pajero, it has a unique round shape command dial, flat black paint job, premium lenses are black and white with red ring. No point select a camera manufacturer that you don't even like the look of it.

c. go to camera shop, ask them to show you the same range camera but different manufacture, try to hold, and feel, which one feels better and looks better. Don't look too much into technical details yet.

After you have decided on which brand, then only decide on the model.

Usually DSLR does not has wide range of choice unlike compact camera. It is rather easy to decide on which model, depends on budget and how serious you want yourself involve in photography.

If you just want to play play, saja just want a better than compact camera, then pick the lowest priced DSLR is fine, usually is RM2k+-, which offer just nice basic features.

If you want to learn photography, and plan to go serious in this hobby, then pick the mid range, usually is RM3.k+, which offer more advanced features, great for beginner who keen to learn about photography. Be prepared to fork out RM5k budget.

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How to Take Care of a DSLR

1)Always store your camera in a hard case.

Soft camera bags are light and convenient--great for day trips and hikes. But at the end of the day (and especially when traveling) your camera should always go in a hard case. Accidents happen all the time, and when push comes to shove a little neoprene (or worse, a layer of poly fill) won't keep your expensive equipment safe.

A hard case can stand up to a lot more abuse. For example, I was in a terrible car accident a few years ago, and my camera (in a hard case) was in the front seat with me, sitting on the floor. When the engine block was pushed back it shattered my femur... but my camera case, and the gear inside, was fine. Three years later, the case is still in use. It did not require professional repair. The accepted standard for safety in hard cases is Pelican. Pelican cases are air- and water-tight, they float, and the cases and their contents are guaranteed for life against everything except meteor showers and small children.

2)Always cap your lens when you're not actually taking a picture.

Any time your camera is set down or there's a lull in action, put a lens cap on your lens. Lenses become dirty and scratched easily, and can be very expensive to replace. A scratched lens can result in scratches or spots appearing on photographs. Additionally a lens cap can absorb damage if something hits the lens or if the camera is dropped, but without the cap the lens itself is more likely to shatter.

3)Keep a lens cloth, brush, and cleaning solution with you whenever you have your camera.

Keeping lenses clean helps prevent scratches from particles and keeps images crisp. Always use cleaning supplies intended for cameras, and make sure to follow the directions on packages.

4)Keep a clear or UV filter on lenses at all times.

Filters cover the lens completely, so anything that would scratch the lens would instead scratch the filter. If the filter becomes too scratched to use, just replace it. Clear filters are generally very inexpensive, especially compared to the cost of replacing the lens itself.

5)Keep camera equipment out of intense heat and damp weather.

Heat can cause lenses to break and can of course damage any electronics. Never leave your camera in a hot car for long periods, and if you feel your camera or lenses becoming hot after a day of shooting in the sun, try to get into a cooler area and let them resume normal temperature.

If you live in a very humid area, make sure you store your equipment in airtight cases. When shooting in fog, rain, or near bodies of water where splashing might occur, use an all-weather bag or underwater housing. At the very least, put a gallon-sized ziplock bag around your camera with a hole for the lens.

6) Send your camera body in for professional cleaning occasionally.

If you shoot often, I'd recommend at least once a year, more if you shoot outdoors often or under harsh conditions.

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How to Photograph Silhouettes in 8 Easy Steps

1. Choose a Strong Subject

Almost any object can be made into a silhouette, however some are better than others. Choose something with a strong and recognizable shape that will be interesting enough in its two dimensional form to hold the interest of those viewing your image. Silhouettes can’t draw on the colors, textures and tones of subjects to make them appealing – so the shape needs to be distinct.

2. Turn off your Flash

If you have your camera in automatic mode your camera will probably want to use its flash which will ruin the silhouette. Basically you want as little light on the front of your subject as possible – so the flash has to go (basic – but I’ve seen a few attempted silhouette shots with the flash firing).

3. Get Your Light Right

When it comes to lighting your subject you’ll need to throw out a lot of what you’ve learnt about normal photography and think a little backwards. Instead of lighting the front of your subject, in silhouettes you need to ensure that there is more light shining from the background than the foreground of your shot – or to put it another way – you want to light the back of your subject rather than the front. The perfect light for this is placing your subject in front of a sunset or sunrise – but really any bright light will be able to do the trick.

4. Frame your image

Frame your shot so you are shooting with your subject in front of a nice plain, but bright background. Usually the best backgrounds will be a bright cloudless sky with the sun setting. You want to position the brightest light source behind your subject (either so that they hide it or so that its in the background somewhere).

5. Make silhouetted shapes distinct and uncluttered

If there is more than one shape or object in the image that you’re attempting to silhouette, try to keep them separated. ie if you are silhouetting a tree and a person don’t have the person stand in front of the tree or even leaning on it as it will merge them into one shape and as a result your viewers could be confused about what the shape is.

Also when framing you’ll probably want to photograph silhouetted people as profiles rather than looking straight on. This means that more of their features (nose, mouth, eyes) are outlined and they are more likely to be recognized.

6. In Auto Mode

Most modern digital cameras have automatic metering which are pretty good at sensing how to expose a photograph so that everything is well lit. The problem with this is that most cameras are so smart that they will light up your subject instead of underexposing it to get a silhouette so you need to trick it. Most cameras work out the exposure levels in auto mode when you push your shutter half way down (at the same time that they focus). So point your camera at the brightest part of your picture and then press the shutter halfway down (don’t let go). Then move your camera back to frame your shot with the subject where you want it and then finish taking the shot. With most digital cameras this will result in a silhouetted subject. In effect what you’re doing is tricking your camera into thinking that the bright part of the image is the mid tone of it so that anything darker than it will be exposed as a nice dark shadow.

Some digital cameras also have ’spot’ or ‘centered’ metering modes that you can switch on which helps with the above technique as they will set the metering on the central spot of your frame rather than multiple spots. This means you can accurately tell your camera exactly which bit of the bright background you want it to set the exposure on.

7. Manual Mode

If this technique doesn’t work and your camera has controls to allow manual exposure or exposure compensation you might like to try some of your own settings. The beauty of digital is that you can experiment to your hearts content until you get the result you’re after.

A simple way to start using manual mode is to look at the shutter speed and aperture that it suggests in automatic mode and to start from there. If in auto mode your subject is too light (ie you need to make it darker) stop down the shutter speed a stop or two and see what impact that has. Use the ‘bracketing’ technique that I described in my previous tip on sunrises and sunsets to get a variety of shots at slightly different exposures.

8. Focusing

In most cases you’ll want the subject which is silhouetted to be the thing that is in focus most crisply. This can mean that the process described in point 4 can be a little tricky as pushing your shutter half way down to get the metering right also means that you’ll focus on that spot in the background. To get around this you can use two strategies. Firstly if your camera has manual focusing you might want to try that. Pre focus your shot before you meter your shot.

The other strategy is to use Aperture to maximize your depth of field (the amount of your image that is in focus). Set a small aperture (ie a larger number) to increase the depth of field – this means you’re more likely to have a sharper foreground and background in your shots.

One last tip on Silhouettes – while a total silhouette with a nice crisp and black subject can be a powerful shot, also consider the partial silhouette where some detail of your subject is left. Sometimes a touch of light on them makes them slightly more three dimensional and ‘real’. This is the beauty of bracketing your shots as it will leave you with total and partial silhouettes to choose form.

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-silhouettes#ixzz15hNrZjyF

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Lomography Tutorial.

Exam yang agak memenatkan aku..tetapi masih boleh meneruskan lagi...erm...ada member yang tanya pasal gambar"Chuah macam mana nak buat gambar gelap tepi tuh"* sebenar tu lomography....hahaha...mungkin dia malas pergi google belajar kot...tu la nak ambik gambar tapi malas belajar....Ok la..sebab member punya pasal aku tulis la kat sini..tetapi ni untuk PS(photoshop)sebab ni yang je yang aku reti....miahahhaha,,,


1. Open the image, you can check your level (optional)
2. Copy the layer ( Ctrl+J)
3. Select/click the top layer and go to Filter>Others>High Pass. Choose the radius between 5.0 to 7.0 (depends on the image)
4. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Option and change the blend mode into Vivid Light
5. Merge down the layer (Ctrl+E)
6. Select the top layer and go to Filter>Distort>Lens Correction. Changes made only in Vignette section. Change the amount and midpoint into negative value, this will make the picture be darker at the boarder/frame. example : Amount: -50; Midpoint: - 40
7. Click on Channel tab or Window>Channel.
8. Invisible all the color except Red Channel, by uncheck all the small boxes and leave only Red Channel with the eye.
9. Go to Image>Adjustment>Brightness&Contrass. Increase the Contrast. Example : +50
10. Now make only Green Channel visible.
11. Go to Image>Adjustment>Brightness&Contrass. Increase the Contrast. Example : +50
12. Now make all the channel visible.

* you can play with the colour balance to make the photo more interesting.

Ni sample yang aku buat...korang boleh buat kalu ikot tuh...selamat mencuba

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What is Aperture

Put most simply – Aperture is ‘the size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken.’

When you hit the shutter release button of your camera a hole opens up that allows your cameras image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light.

Aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’. You’ll often see them referred to here at Digital Photography School as f/number – for example f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6,f/8,f/22 etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the size of the amount of opening in your lens (and the amount of light getting through). Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also – this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in – very handy to keep in mind).

One thing that causes a lot of new photographers confusion is that large apertures (where lots of light gets through) are given f/stop smaller numbers and smaller apertures (where less light gets through) have larger f-stop numbers. So f/2.8 is in fact a much larger aperture than f/22. It seems the wrong way around when you first hear it but you’ll get the hang of it.

Most SLR cameras provide automatic aperture control, which allows viewing and metering at the lens’s maximum aperture, stops the lens down to the working aperture during exposure, and returns the lens to maximum aperture after exposure..

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/aperture#ixzz11geVB2li

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Understanding ISO

Photography is built on the three pillars of exposure: shutter speed, aperture and sensitivity. Shutter and aperture are controls for adjusting how much light comes into the camera. How much light is needed is determined by the sensitivity of the medium used. That was as true for glass plates as it is for film and now digital sensors. Over the years that sensitivity has been expressed in various ways, most recently as ASA and now ISO.

The "normal" range of ISO is about 200 to 1600. With today's digital cameras you can sometimes go as low as 50 or as high as 102,400. The number chosen has two important qualities associated with it. First, it sets the amount of light needed for a good exposure. The lower the number, the more light required. The more light that's required, the more likely a slow shutter speed will have to be used. That means low ISOs, like 100 or 200, are most often used in bright situations (like sunlight) or when the camera is mounted on a tripod. If you don't have a lot of light, or need a fast shutter speed, you would probably raise the ISO.

Each time you double the ISO (for example, from 200 to 400), the camera needs only half as much light for the same exposure. So if you had a shutter speed of 1/250 at 200 ISO, going to 400 ISO would let you get the same exposure at 1/500 second (providing the aperture remains unchanged). This is why high ISOs are so often used indoors, especially at sporting events. Needing a fast shutter speed to stop action, photographers regularly choose ISO 1600 or above.

The other important quality tied to ISO is the amount of noise in the image. In the days of film, as you used film with higher ISO values (often referred to as ASA then), your images had more visible grain. Film grain is what made up the image, and higher numbers resulted in larger grain, which was more obvious. Most people found visible grain objectionable and so photographers worked to avoid it when possible.

In digital cameras, raising the ISO means a similar decrease in quality, with an increase in what's called "noise." It's the digital equivalent of grain and results in a sort of "chunky" look to the image. Very early digital cameras had objectionable levels of noise at ISOs as low as 800. Today most digital SLRs can make good quality images at ISOs up to 1600 and above. However, several variables affect this.

One important factor affecting the amount of digital noise in an image is the size of the pixels used on the sensor. Large pixels result in less noise than small ones. That's why digital SLRs perform much better at high ISOs than compact cameras. The SLRs have larger sensors and larger pixels.

Another factor is the amount and type of noise reduction being applied in the camera. Because all pixels collect some noise, every digital camera runs processing on every image (although with a NEF, or RAW, file that can be changed later) to minimize that noise. Newer cameras use newer technology to reduce that noise, with the result being less noise at similar ISOs than what earlier cameras could achieve.

All of this means photographers are constantly doing a balancing act. They want to keep their ISO low for high quality images (low noise), but also they need a fast enough shutter speed to get a sharp picture. That's why there's such high value placed on groundbreaking cameras such as Nikon's D3, D700 and D3S that allow photographers to shoot at higher ISOs with less noise than ever before.

Auto ISO was introduced into digital cameras several years ago to help photographers manage that balance. Turning on that feature allows the camera to push the ISO up when it decides the shutter speed is getting too low for a good picture. Even better, newer Nikon cameras have added "ISO Sensitivity Auto Control" to the menu choices. This takes Auto ISO and lets you have some say about what happens. Using it, you set the limit for how high it can go (800? 3200?) and at what shutter speed it should start raising the ISO (1/125? 1/30?). The amount of control this feature allows means more photographers will start taking advantage of it.

A solid understanding of ISO will help you make smart decisions about how to set your camera. And that, in turn, will lead to better pictures.

::credit from http://www.nikonusa.com/::

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Light Drawing

Mulo2,kawe nok woyak ikot loghat kelate deh...kalu pok2 mu orge luar dop pehe gi tanyo orge kelate hok nga sep mu...kawe ni buke panda sgt dale bide ambik gamba ni..tp kawe boleh ar share sikit sal goni....bendo ni pon kawe tgoh wut kajie sal lukih nga lampu..kalu orge putih gak panggil"light drawing"miahaha...sedak kawe kecek kelate...

Ramue2 atau resepi nok buat kue "light drawing"ni
1)keno ar ado kamera...xdop ghoni nok wut gano kalu dop nyigak gambar..miahahaha....ikot la kamera cap ghodio pon..asal bahagio...
2)bare keduo,kaki tigo"tripod" ni kalu wut sore ar..kalu ado saing xpo xdop dio pon...
3)ni bare penting lampu..cari ar lampu gapo2 pon..lampu LED kalu nok comel gak..kalu boleh gak cari banyok warno lampu....
4)cari kawase gelap ar...kalu ceroh xnampok gapo satu pulop...hahahahha.....

caro-caro dio,on kamera demo,tukar mode M-Manual ar...check shutter speed demo,ko lamo ko molek...boleh lukih banyok.....pahtu tu check ISO demo tukar rendoh sekali kalu molek ado 100 letok 100...tutup flash nga exposure dale 10-30 saat*atah demo lukih banyok mano....
siak blako demo,pecek ar bute ,pahtu start nukih.......kalu xleh gak..kawe pon xtahu ar gano..hahaha..selamat mencubo blako....


::p/s::maaf kalu ado silap gapo2...kawe bui hok terbaik...tu pon sifu kawe dop ajar agi..kawe belajor sendiri....semo gamba hok bowoh xdop edit gapo2 eh....

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sekian....gambar atas tu buke edit deh,

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Macro Photography Tips

Much has been written on the topic of Macro photography for those photographers fortunate enough to own a DSLR with macro lenses – but what about if you own a compact point and shoot camera? Can you get great macro shots too?

While the results achievable with a point and shoot camera in macro mode probably won’t compare with a DSLR with a purpose built macro lens I’ve still seen some remarkably good shots with compact cameras (all three shots in this post were taken with compact cameras).

Select Macro Mode – this is a fairly obvious first step but I’m always surprised by how many digital camera owners haven’t explored the shooting modes that their camera has. Macro mode is generally symbolized with a little flower and when selected it will tell your camera that you want to focus on a subject closer to your lens than normal (the minimum distance allowed will vary from camera to camera – consult your instruction manual to find yours).

Aperture – once in macro mode some cameras will not allow you to make many other adjustments but if you are able to play with your aperture settings it can be well worthwhile to do so. As we’ve covered in our Aperture tutorials, the main thing that aperture impacts is the depth of field of your shots. Choose a small aperture (big number) if you want a large depth of field with everything in focus or a large aperture if you just want your main subject in focus. In macro photography you’ll probably want a shallow depth of field so select the largest aperture available.

Focusing – I find that in macro photography it is helpful to have full control over focusing – especially when you have shallow depth of fields where it is all the more important to make sure the right part of your shot is in focus. If your camera allows manual focusing select this option and manually focus on the part of our subject that is the main point of interest.

Composition – remember some of the basic rules of composition like the Rule of Thirds. Make sure your image has a main point of interest and place that focal point in a smart position in your image in order to draw the eye of your viewer. Try to select a non cluttered or simple background for your main subject so as it doesn’t compete with it visually

Flash – in many macro shots having some artificial light is important. The challenge with compact cameras is that most give you limited control of your flash. As a result choosing a good time of day when there is plenty of available light is probably your best bet. If you do need more light check to see if your camera allows you to pull back the level that your flash fires at. Alternatively you might like to try diffusing it in some way (tissue paper or cellotape over the flash for example). Another option might be to use some other source of artificial light or to invest in a reflector to help make the most of available light. Experiment with different methods of lighting your subject.

Take Your Shot - once you have your shot lined up and in focus take your shot. Make sure once you’ve taken it to take a good look at it on your LCD, zooming in to make sure that your focusing is sharp. Try shooting at slightly different apertures, with different compositions and focusing on different points of your subject to see what works best.

Macro Lens Attachments – some compact cameras actually have accessories available to help with macro/close up photography. These will enable you to enlarge your subject and/or decrease your minimum focal length. These might be worth investing in if you intend on doing a lot of macro work.

::P/S::Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/macro-photography-tips-for-compact-digital-camera-users#ixzz0zE2QmsKz

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