Complete Digital Photography, Sixth Edition

691 Pages·2011·37.56 MB·English

by  Ben Long

Complete
Digital Photography
Sixth Edition
Ben Long
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Complete Digital Photography © 2012 Course Technology, a part of Cengage Learning.
Sixth Edition
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are a lot of changes and additions in this revision of Complete Digital Photography, Sixth Editionand many
of them are there because, once again, my dad, Jim Long, did such a thorough job of technical editing.
I was also thrilled to again have the production team of Marta Justak and Jill Flores, who applied their considerable
talent and care to making this such a nice book. Finally, thanks to Stacy Hiquet for giving us the go-ahead to move
this book forward ahead of schedule.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Longis a San Francisco-based photographer and writer. The author of over a dozen books on digital pho-
tography and digital video, he has been a longtime contributor to many magazines including MacWeek,
MacUser, Macworld UK, and more. He is currently a senior contributing editor for Macworldmagazine, a
senior editor at CreativePro.com, and has created several photography instruction courses for Lynda.com. His
photography clients include 20th Century Fox, Blue Note Records, Global Business Network, the San Francisco Jazz
Festival, the Pickle Family Circus, and Grammy-nominated jazz musicians Don Byron and Dafnis Prieto. Long has
taught and lectured on photography around the world. He also dabbles in computer programming, and has written
image editing utilities that are in use in the Smithsonian, the British Museum, and the White House.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xix
1 EYES, BRAINS, LIGHTS, AND IMAGES . . . . . . . . . 2
Understanding How You See
How Your Eyes See. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Transmitting Color to the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Light and Dark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Summing Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
How to Learn Photography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CAMERA . . . . . . . . . .10
Using Auto Mode for Snapshot Shooting
Camera Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Point-and-Shoot or SLR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Compact Interchangeable Lens Cameras. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Battery, Media Card, Power Switch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Shooting in Auto Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Setting Your Camera to Auto Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Framing Your Shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Focal Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
How to Press the Shutter Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Adjusting the Focus of the Viewfinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Practice Shots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Shutter Speed and Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Reading Shutter Speed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
When Shutter Speed Can’t Go Low Enough. . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Playing Back Your Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Using Scene Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Snapshot Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Pay Attention to Headroom—Fill the Frame . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Don’t Be Afraid to Get in Close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Lead Your Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Remember: Your Knees Can Bend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Watch the Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Watch Out for Backlighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
vi Contents
Watch Those Joints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Understand Flash Range. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Coverage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3 CAMERA ANATOMY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Holding and Controlling Your Camera
Point-and-Shoots and SLRs Revisited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A Very Fancy Box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
What an Image Sensor Does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Point-and-Shoot Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
SLR Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Camera Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
The Lens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Basic Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Mode Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Status Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Shooting Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Menu Activation and Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Flash System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Playback Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Configuring Your Camera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Date and Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Image Size and Compression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Image Processing Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Other Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Holding the Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Grip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Feet, Elbows, and Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
More Practice with Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Shoot with a Fixed Focal Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Camera Care and Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Batteries and Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Lens Cleaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
UV Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Sensor Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Cleaning Your Sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Water and Digital Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Cold Weather. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Hot Weather and Digital Cameras. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Contents vii
Media Cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Laptop Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Portable Battery-Powered Hard Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Netbook Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Tablet Computers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Blank Discs, Cables, and PC Adapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4 IMAGE TRANSFER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Building a Workstation and Transferring from Your Camera
Choosing a Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Backup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Backup Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Preparing Your Monitor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
A Little More Color Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Profiling and Calibrating Your Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Two Approaches to Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Browsing and Cataloging Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Image Editing Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Workflow Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Raw Converter Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Other Software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Importing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Card Readers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Transferring Images to a Windows XP or Vista Computer. . . 87
Transferring Images to a Windows 7 Computer . . . . . . . . . 89
Using Adobe Photo Downloader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Transferring Images to a Macintosh Computer. . . . . . . . . . 90
Configuring Your Mac for Image Transfer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Transferring Images Manually Using Windows or a Mac . . . 92
Renaming and Organizing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Moving On. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5 IMAGE SENSORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
How a Silicon Chip Captures an Image
How an Image Sensor Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Counting Photons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
A Little Color Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Interpolating Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
viii Contents
Turning Data into an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Colorimetric Adjustment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Color Space Conversion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Gamma Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
White Balance and Image Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Sharpening and Noise Reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
JPEG Compression and Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
How JPEG Compression Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Meanwhile, Back in the Real World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6 EXPOSURE BASICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108
The Fundamental Theory of Exposure
Stops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Over- and Underexposure Defined. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Exposure Control Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Shutter Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Aperture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Less Is More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Why There Are Two Ways to Control Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
How Shutter Speed Choice Affects Your Image . . . . . . . . 115
Depth of Field—How Aperture Choice Affects Your Image. . 116
Shutter Speed/Aperture Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Reciprocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
ISO—The Third Exposure Parameter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Reciprocal ISOs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
ISO and Noise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Fractional Stops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Summing Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Returning to Auto Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7 PROGRAM MODE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122
Taking Control of Exposure, Focus, and More
Switching to Program Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Focusing Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
How Autofocus Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Autofocus Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Evaluating Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
The Golden Rule of Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
White Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Auto and Preset White Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Manual White Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Assessing White Balance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Contents ix
White Balance Shift. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
White Balance Bracketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Avoid White Balance Concerns Altogether. . . . . . . . . . . . 141
White Balance Aids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Drive Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Shooting in Drive Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Self-Timer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Remote Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Manual Override with Program Shift (Flexible Program) . . . . 152
Calculating a Safe Shutter Speed for Handheld Shooting . . . 154
Stabilization and Shutter Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Do You Really Need to Calculate Handheld Shutter Speed 155
Changing ISO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Fractional ISO Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Putting It All Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
8 ADVANCED EXPOSURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160
Learning More About Your Light Meter
and Exposure Controls
The Light Meter Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Locking Exposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
What Your Light Meter Meters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
The Risks of Over- and Underexposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Adjusting Exposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Exposure Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Exposure Compensation and Program Shift. . . . . . . . . . . 170
Controlling Exposure with Your Light Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Priority Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Manual Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Which Method Should You Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
In-Camera Histograms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Histograms Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Assessing Contrast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
The Three-Channel Histogram. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Bracketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Auto Bracketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Scene Modes Revisited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Image Processing Parameters Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Exposure Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Enough with the Button Pushing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189