Child

Although children are arguably the most difficult subject to photograph, in my opinion, it is the most exciting and rewarding.

Megan (She's very shy. Who would have guessed)

If you have your own or have been around young children long enough, you will know what I'm talking about. The term "Never work with animals or children" often come to mind when doing photography or film making. However, when done right, you will end up with photographs that will last forever and really capture the spirit of the moment.

Nicholas & Amanda (Two figure skaters. And she is not shy)

I have seen mothers (and fathers) in tears of joy when they have seen some photographs of their children, and you cannot put a price on that kind of reaction!

Nathan (A smart boy but he's a Redskins fan)

Some tips on children photography:

1. Have them smile. (A smile is worth a million bucks, well not quite, but probably close)

2. Be ready. (Children are one of the most spontaneous and unpredictable subjects you can photograph, you never know what they will do next.)

3. Focus on the eyes (keep the eye contact and perfectly in-focus. They eyes can tell a story or reveal the character/personality of the child)

Avery (Diversity)

A walk in the park

© Sidarta Tanu

Flower

Flowers are one of the most popular objects of photography because of flowers are beautiful and colorful (and will make great pictures).

The keys to good flower photography are focus and diffuse lighting

Red Rose

Proper Focus
Set the focus to spot focus mode. The normal focus mode of most digital cameras is some sort of average focus mode. That means that the camera will try to look at an area and base the focus on an area of what it sees. It's better for close up photography to put the camera into spot focus mode, this will allow you to see exactly what the camera will be focusing on. For those who are an expert in using manual focus, it is very useful when we want to highlight (or blur) a very specific area which is hard to achieve with the auto focus settings.

Purple Tulips

Soft Lighting
Another key to good flower photography is the lighting. You have probably already discovered that an on-camera flash does not lead to good flower photos. Not only is the camera's flash too bright at such a close distance, but it is probably in the wrong position to actually light up the flowers properly. Daylight balanced compact fluorescent bulbs is a good choice for lighting as they provide nice natural colored light. Natural sunlight is also another source of light suitable for flower photograpy (example below)

Pink Gerbera (with sunlight and shadow)

Tripods
The use of tripods will help a lot in flower photograpy. As you get closer to an object any motion of the camera is greatly magnified. Even a surgeon probably doesn't have hands steady enough to take a good product photo without using a tripod. A sturdy tripod is essential for sharp images.

Yellow Rose (close up/macro)

Exposure
One way to ensure you get the best exposure is to take at least three pictures. The first exposure using the default camera setting of (0). The second, exposure is increased (+) to make the image lighter. For the third, exposure is decreased (-) to make it darker.

Camera position and flower arrangement
Try to position the camera from different position (elevation and angles). Also try to take several pictures from diferent sides of the flowers to see which one looks best.

Yellow Tulips (top view)

Aperture selection
Whatever lens you use, it's the selected aperture that will make or break a flower. Too small and the background will be too focussed, competing with the main subject. Too wide and there may not be sufficient detail to make the image work. For environmental plant portraits close down a long way to capture some detail in the background, but still leaving it slightly out of focus to enable the subject to stand out well.

Purple Orchid (with blur background)

Let nature be nature
Unless you're in your garden, don't garden the shot! Sometimes it's very tempting to remove any vegetation and stems that have the cheek not to help our compositional plans.

Colorful Gerbera

© Sidarta Tanu

Portrait

A portrait is a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person. Portraits are often simple head shots or mug shots and are not usually overly elaborate. The intent is to show the basic appearance of the person, and occasionally some artistic insight into his or her personality

According to Peter Marshall, a portrait is not simply a picture of a person. One can photograph a person and be interested in the way light falls on the different surfaces of their face or body, or the various colours of their skin and clothes, or the particular design of the tattoo on their chest. None of these is really a portrait.

Nathan, a Redskins fans (showing his sympathy for my Packers. After making fun of me, that is. So I made him wear my hat)

What makes a photograph into a portrait is the intention of the photographer to disclose something about the character of the person they are photographing. If you are trying to convey something about a person's nature in your photographs you are making a portrait; if you are simply describing them you are perhaps photographing a still life that happens to be in human form.

Amanda, telling me about her dreams (to be a figure skater)

Standard settings for portrait photography:

Focal lengths
The most useful focal lengths if on a 35mm equivalent are from 28-105mm:
28-35mm: Groups, interior shots.
50mm: Small groups, full-length pictures
85-105mm: Great for close-up and big close-up shots of heads.

Save your longer focal lengths for nature pictures, sporting events and concerts and rallies where you need to photograph people on distant stages. For most people pictures you want to work as close as possible. Zoom lenses are fine for people pictures, but generally single focal lengths will give you wider apertures, useful for using selective focus or working in low light.

Shutter speeds and exposure
If people are walking, talking, gesturing - anything other than posing or sleeping or otherwise keeping still, you will get more usable pictures at speeds of 1/250 or greater. If you ask people to pose, then your movement becomes the problem. Unless you are using a tripod, the 1/focal length rule applies: - for a standard 50mm lens use 1/50 (or 1/60) as your slowest speed.

I told her, she could be a hockey player instead

Zone Focus
When working with a wide-angle lens, set the distance to roughly what you need (perhaps 1.8 metres or 5 foot) and check on the depth of field scale on the lens to find out what distances are covered by depth of field. Auto focus sometimes focus on the distant background rather than the subject you want

Lighting and Flash
Flash on camera - including built-in flash - is most useful when working in bright sun to put some light into the shadow areas. Some cameras allow you to adjust the amount of this fill in to get the effect you want - it is rather easy to overdo the effect.

Using natural or available lighting means learning to look at what light is doing to your subjects. Generally for most people pictures you will want to be sure that faces (and eyes in particular) are not in deep shadow. Working in overcast light is often easier than in bright sun, where you will often need to use flash to fill in, bringing the shadows closer to the lit areas.

© Sidarta Tanu

Bokeh

Bokeh (from the Japanese boke, which means "blur") is a photographic term describing the subjective aesthetic qualities of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens. For example, causing an out-of-focus background image may reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject.

Bokeh Mickey

Although difficult to quantify, and hence open to debate, some lenses are believed to enhance overall image quality by producing more subjectively pleasing out-of-focus areas (bokeh). Bokeh is especially important for large-aperture lenses, macro lenses, and long telephoto lenses because they are typically used with a narrow depth of field. Bokeh is also important for "portrait lenses" (typically medium telephoto — 85–150 mm on 35-mm format) because the photographer would typically select a shallow depth of field (wide aperture) to have an out of focus background and make the subject stand out.

Some more example of Bokeh:

Bokeh effect can be achieved using narrow depth of field (wide aperture) .

The wider the aperture is (for similar focal length), the narrower of the depth of field will be (i.e. the area in focus will be narrower)

Bokeh Plant

Notice that you can blur both the front and the back of the main object.

Bokeh Cat

My favorite lens for creating Bokeh picture is the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF (prime lens).

I also often use the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto lens to create Bokeh pictures

Bokeh Plant 2

Other Nikon lens that produces great bokeh pictures: Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR

Technical definition of Bokeh is taken from wikipedia website.

© Sidarta Tanu