Built-in Bounce Flash for Free!

I don't have a big fancy hot-shoe mounted flash, so I haven't spent much time taking flash photos. I don't like the harsh shadows cast by the built-in flash on my camera while taking photos in low-light situations, so I have pretty much only used the flash as a fill-flash for heavily back-lit shots. I have always said my next project would be to learn how to take flash photos and the opportunity, well really necessity, presented itself.

My wife loves to cook and so I suggested she make a blog about cooking. Everyone knows that blogs are no good without pictures, so I get to take pictures of her dishes. I don't mind, but its difficult to take pictures of food when all you have is a built-in flash and a poorly lit apartment!

I tried putting the food in the window and getting natural light. That works pretty well, but sometimes I need a little more light. After reading a few ideas and trying some things of my own, I have found that a simple index card does wonders.

There are different ways to deal with the built-in flash. Two common ways are to diffuse the light or bounce the light. I have sort of figured out how to do both. If you put a piece of paper in front of the flash you will see that the picture turns out a bit warmer and the shadows are softer. You can experiment with different thicknesses. I found that index card is nice, since it's stiff and a good size. If you hold the card further from the flash, the shadows will get softer, because the card is reflecting some of the light in different directions. If you hold the card about and inch or two from the flash and angle it toward the ceiling, the flash will be diffused and bounced off the ceiling. You can also use a mirror to bounce the light, but if you used a card, you get bounce and diffusing. Turn the strength of your flash up or down as needed and put the camera on manual so you can get a good exposure.

Stock Photography

Is photography your hobby? Want to make money off your pictures? You don't have to be a pro anymore. Now that DSLR cameras are affordable for most people, you can take high enough quality pictures to sell them even if you aren't a professional. I'm not saying it's easy. You still have to hold the camera still, crop the picture well and find an interesting subject. No one wants to buy a picture that's no good, but with the latest consumer affordable technology, quality won't be the issue any more.

So what's the next step? If you think you're ready to sell your pictures, here is the easiest way to get started. Stock photography essentially means you make your photos available for others to use in their designs. Just look around at the media catching your eye every day. Some of those pictures on cereal boxes, in magazines and on websites were taken by people like you who have a photography hobby. All you have to do is sign up, get accepted, keyword your pictures, upload and start making money! Sounds easy, right? Well it is and it isn't. Like I said, you have to take pictures people want to buy. You also have to get your photos accepted by a stock photography site.

Two of the major players in the microstock industry are istockphoto.com and shutterstock.com. I have found that these are the best known microstock sites, so that probably means your photos will get the best exposure. There are other sites that I will mention later. Microstock basically means it is stock photography for smaller players than the really high end professional stock photography. The really high-end stock companies like Getty Images are beyond the scope of this blog. Although these high-end companies get the accounts from top newspapers and magazines, there are still plenty of smaller publications and advertisement companies that use microstock. These two sites offer different models of how to sell your photos.

Istockphoto vs. Shutterstock: Istock basically caters to designers who want to buy individual photos and pay more or less depending on the size and the rights of usage of the photo. Shutterstock allows people to purchase in this way, but they also have a very successful 25-a-day plan that allows a designer to pay a monthly fee and download 25 high resolution images each day. The cost to the designer is lower because of the volume of his account, which also means the pay out to the photographer is lower. However, since the designer buys more pictures in general with the Shutterstock model, the photographer sells more pictures.

With Istock a beginning photographer tends to average about $1 per picture that gets downloaded.With Shutterstock the beginning photographer only makes 25 cents off each download, but remember there will generally be more downloads. I say “beginning photographer”, because as you get more downloads, each company offers more money at certain increments.

Getting Accepted: It's not easy to get accepted and don't get discouraged if you don't get accepted the first time. Istock asks you to submit three of your best photos to be reviewed. If they are accepted by their reviewers, you are then allowed to submit 15 photos per week to the site. These photos will also be reviewed before they get accepted.

Shutterstock asks you to submit 10 photos to be reviewed. They require a minimum of 7 out of 10 to be accepted before you can start submitting regularly. If you don't get 7 out of 10, you have to wait a month before you can try again. (It's discouraging, but try again if you don't get accepted the first time! It happened to me).

Keywording: Keywording can be tedious, so I suggest that you use some software to keyword the file before you upload it. You can edit the metadata with many photo software programs to include keywords as well as titles and captions or descriptions. By keywording before-hand, you save yourself from having to do it again on each site you upload to.

Uploading: Most sites offer different ways to upload pictures. You can use the HTML browser, you can use browser plug-ins or you can use FTP software. Try out each to see which you prefer.

Payment: Both offer payment by paypal and other forms, but require a minimum amount of money to be made before they will pay you.

Before you Submit: Here are some tips before you submit.

-Make sure the picture is in really sharp focus, at least at the main subject of the photo.

-Make sure the photo is not too grainy.

-Make sure it is well framed.

-Make sure the colors and white balance are adjusted properly.

-You can “process” your image, but don't over process!

-Make sure it is an interesting and usable subject matter.

-Make sure you don't have any logos or people's faces without a model release.

Other Stock Agencies: There are many other websites that sell stock. If you really want to get into this hobby or business, then I suggest submitting to all of them. Most of them allow you to be a non-exclusive submitter.

Bigstockphoto, Fotolia, Dreamstime, and 123RF are some other sites.

If you found this to be helpful and would like to sign-up for any of these stock sites, please click through one of my links above. I will get a small commission, but it won't take anything away from what you make.

Also feel free to link a friend to this site if you know someone who might be interested in the subject. Thanks!

Digital SLR Cameras

Have you been to a National Park lately? Have you gone on vacation? Have you been to a kids' soccer game? Everyone is dropping their compact point-and-shot cameras for the larger, higher quality digital SLR cameras. These things are like your Dad's old Canon SLR but with all the bells and whistles of the modern tech age. Digital SLR's really became accessible to the public when Canon introduced the Digital Rebel (300D outside the US) in 2003. Canon was able to put a near professional quality camera in the hands of consumers for under $1000. Since then, Canon has put out five more cameras in the Rebel line, all starting under $1000 with a kit lens. A thousand dollars is still a lot of money, but it's a small price to pay for priceless photographs. The newest Rebel, called T1i (500D), even shoots HD quality video.

Besides Canon, Nikon is the other major player in the SLR photography world. Nikon has a line-up of similarly priced and similarly equipped "entry-level" cameras. The new D5000 was just announced, some would say, as an answer to the Rebel T1i. Nikon and Canon seem to bounce off each other, one answering to the other's latest endeavor. There are of course other camera makers worth mentioning. There are even higher end camera makers than Canon and Nikon who are pretty much unaffordable for the average user. I will deal more with the "affordable" brands in this blog. Makers like Sony, Pentax, and Olympus are real players in the consumer level market. Sony seems to be trying hard to break into the higher-end market as well.

I'm not an expert on the subject, I am just a DSLR fan. I have done a lot of research on the entry-level area of the subject and thought I would write some concise information for people who are curious about DSLR's and might be setting aside their compact cameras for a higher end, yet affordable DSLR.

Why?

Most people have made the switch from film to digital, but why switch to a 12 mega-pixel DSLR when you already have a 10 mega-pixel point and shoot? Are they really that different? The answer is yes, but there are of course some important considerations.

Money: Do you want to spend $500-900 on a camera body? (Body means just the camera part, not including the lens). In the DSLR world, the body is the cheap part. Lenses can cost thousands of dollars. Of course you can get cheaper lenses, but they won't be as good as what your camera has the potential to shoot. (I see this as a good thing, it means I can buy better lenses as I get more into the hobby).

Learning Curve: You can set a DSLR on automatic and get some pretty great results, but if you really want to use your camera to it's full potential, you will have to learn about things like : aperture, shutter speed, metering, depth of field, ISO, etc.

Size: DSLR's are large and some of the lenses are really large! The entry level cameras are a bit smaller, but they are still quite large, weighing more than a pound for just the body. Do you want to bring a separate bag for your camera every time you go out to take photos?

Basic differences

Live View: Up until recently DSLR users had to use their viewfinder to take a picture. For the last few years, “Live View” has been available in cameras. This means you can now compose your picture like you would with a digital point and shoot camera. Realistically, most DSLR users still don't use Live View and prefer to use the viewfinder.

Movie: Most DSLR's don't offer the ability to shoot movie clips. This is changing very rapidly, however, the very newest cameras have the ability to shoot video and the technology will definitely be available in all DSLR's in the next few years.

Replaceable Lenses: Lenses can be removed and replaced with other lenses. You can put on a wide angle lens for landscapes or a zoom lens for action or a macro lens for close-up, etc. Recently the camera makers have been introducing lenses that provide over 10x zoom in one lens. These lenses are great for the average user who wants to take one lens to the park or on vacation. 18-200mm is a common size for this range and is offered by both Canon and Nikon as well as some third party lens makers. The down side is that these lenses do not produce the highest quality images, although they are still quite nice.

Advanced Differences

Aperture: With a DSLR you can control how much light to let in through the lens. Higher aperture means a more closed iris on the lens. Different lenses have different specifications, but the average consumer lens starts at f3.5 and goes up to f22 or higher.

Shutter Speed: How much time the shutter remains open to let light onto the sensor.

ISO: Simply put, it allows you to take a picture with a faster shutter speed, but you sacrifice a bit of image quality. The picture will become grainier and grainier the higher the ISO. 200 ISO lets you take the same picture twice as fast as 100 ISO, 400 is twice 200, 800 is twice 400, etc. Most entry level cameras allow up to 1600 and some of the newer ones offer 6400 or higher. Since the sensor on a DSLR is much larger than on a point-and-shoot, the higher ISO is not as grainy as on a point and shoot. With newer technology comes faster ISO that still offer usable pictures. Entry level SLR's can take 400 ISO pictures that are quite good quality, even 800 and 1600 can be used with a little noise reduction software.

Depth of Field: The amount of the picture that is in focus (from foreground to background). A picture can be taken to have a large depth of field (everything in focus), or a shallow depth of field (only one small part in focus).

Metering: Cameras take a reading just before you take the picture so that they know how to set the aperture, shutter speed, etc., but sometimes you want to take a picture that the camera can't figure out how to meter, so you can change how it meters. An classic example of this is a picture of a person standing with their back to the sun. The default meter setting would make the persons face too dark. With a little know how, you could change the metering or add a little flash.

Flash: You can determine how much to flash if at all. You can even buy an external flash that mounts on the top of the camera for when you need more distance out of your flash.

Breakdown for entry level DSLR's

Canon and Nikon: Canon and Nikon are the most commonly seen cameras hanging around someones neck, from the wedding photographer or professional sports photographer to the mom at the soccer game. There are reasons they are so common. Canon offers a very high quality camera for the price in the Rebel line of cameras. Nikon has the D60 and the new D5000. The newer models have nice big LCD screens for reviewing photos. They can shoot pretty well at high ISO (for fast action or low-light photography). They have many of the professional features and functions. Canon Rebels are compatible with all of the EF lenses that Canon makes for their very expensive cameras as well as the EF-S lenses made for the more entry level and semi-professional cameras. Nikons are a little more compatible with older lenses, but some of the newer high quality lenses are not compatible with the entry level cameras as far as I understand. The most important thing, I think, is that they are good at keeping the price affordable while offering high quality. The new Rebel which will be available in May is supposed to be priced at $899 with a kit lens.

The biggest con, I think, is that they don't offer in-body image stabilization. Both Canon and Nikon as far as I know, do not offer body stabilization on any of their DSLR's. They offer stabilization in many of their lenses (at a cost). The argument is that lens stabilization is better. While this is probably true, neither company offers their full line of lenses in IS (Canon - Image stabilization) or VR (Nikon - Vibration Reduction).

Sony, Pentax and Olympus: These camera makers offer in-body stabilization. This is probably better for entry level users who are not planning to purchase many expensive lenses. The con for many of these cameras is that there are fewer available lenses. They also tend to not do as well at higher ISO. Picture quality is hard to rate since it depends on the camera and lens used.