General photo tips for shooting at the parks!

[NowInc]

Figured I would give this a try and see what sort of things we can share with one another. Have any pointers you want to share from your previous experiences? Post them here! I'll start:

Bring a tablet or a smart phone with you to the parks (I think we all bring at least ONE of those, right!?). Well, use it to help your photos! Here are a couple of ways:

Geotagging: Using a program like Google MyTracks (Android...sorry I am not an iOS user so I am not 100% sure what programs are best..but there are many) , you can have your phone (or tablet) passively record your GPS location as you shoot around "the world". Then later using Lightroom (or other similar programs) you can "sync" up the data to the time the photos were taken, and it will automatically tag them with the proper location! (See exactly how to do this in the LR tutorial I posted a little while ago on this forum).

Color Calibration: This one is so easy and so obvious I am actually very surprised more people don't do this. Your phone (and again..tablet) have really nice screens on them...with sharp colors. So download one of (or all) of the following images and put them on there and snap photos to help later set a color profile (and correct white balance) for when you edit later.

Gray Balance:
http://zarahkhanphotography.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/dsc_1864.jpg

Color Balance:
http://fs01.androidpit.info//x91/9354091-1363771824946.png
http://www.cs.utah.edu/~abhishek/cs7650/image.jpg

Side note: You may have noticed I keep footnoting "tablet". The reason is that I PERSONALLY use a 7" Nexus tablet and can not praise it enough for these things. Its the perfect size (fits in my camera bag) and has very very impressive battery life, as well as a really strong GPS reciever (All day of shooting with it in my bag while tracking GPS). Keep in mind, that the WiFi model iPad mini does NOT have a GPS chip in it, so it is not the best option for this.

 

[Master Yoda]

One thing I can add is the use of continuous shooting or burst mode. I am surprised at how many people do not even know their cameras have this feature. It is not very useful in low light unless you are using a high end DLSR, but I find in near indispensable in daylight. It is an absolute must when shooting fast action like Indy or LMA and it is also quite useful in pretty much every other situation. The link below is a series I shot using burst mode.

https://plus.google.com/photos/104412218042735862194/albums/4948671529663987729?banner=pwa

 

[Nemo14]

I use this often when shooting pictures of kids or animals (except for my lazy cat who doesn't move all day!). It helped get this shot at Sea World last winter:

 

[ddbowdoin]

Shooting in RAW eliminates the need to worry about white balance, concentrate on the subject material... not technical aspects such as white balance. Just adjust in post... pretty simple.

 

[sporadic]

The saddest thing I see are people with nice DSLRs locked into the greenbox.. You paid all that money for a nice camera, get out of auto and learn to use it!
http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/play/

This holds especially true for indoor / character shots -- shoot in RAW. Indoor meet and greet lighting is awful and if you're relying on ambient light, auto white balance will usually be way off. Shooting in RAW will not only give you greater latitude in WB adjustment, but give you a greater range of exposure adjustment as well. Highlight recovery in Lightroom 4+ does an amazing job increasing the dynamic range of your photos.

Learn your flash and use it. Learn basic fill flash for outdoor portraits and how to overpower ambient / bounce indoors when appropriate. Not many indoor shots where you can really bounce, but it works well in Bibbidi Bobbidi and the shots with Cinderalla when entering her castle for dining. Point your flash straight up to bounce off the ceiling and use your photopass card with a rubber band as a bounce card for some nice catch lights Bounce anywhere you can as it will soften the light and look much better than harsh direct flash. Using external flash? Take a coiled TTL cord (takes up minimal bag space) for some interesting off camera key light!

Meet and greets? Get some test shots in while they're switching guests to get your exposure dialed in. Hand it off to the assistant and jump in with the family! We were browsing our photopass pictures and weren't very impressed with the quality. The same shots the assistant took with my camera after I set it up looked better than the photopass ones..

 

[NowInc]

Another Tip...

What (not so obvious) to pack in your camera bag:
Avoiding the obvious things like extra SD cards, batteries, release cables....

Before your trip, go to Walmart, walgreens, target, cvs..etc...and buy a few $1 ponchos. Specifically ones that come in small packages. I always have at least 2 in my bag at all times, because...Florida. Typically the cheap ones are "one use", which is why I said pack more than one

Wet naps. Should be a given...but you will get hungry at some point..and yes..you will eat. No matter what you get, chances are you will end up with grease on your fingers. A wet nap comes in handy (get it!?) before you can make it to a bathroom to properly wash the junk off your hands.

Microfiber cloth. Again. should be a no brainer, but amazingly I've noticed far too many people using their t-shirts to clean (...scratch) their lenses. Even worse when they are using really expensive (prob rented) lenses.

Water bottle. Easy to refill at a fountain, saves you a lot of money on a hot day.

Extra lens cap. Even if its a cheapo one you get at walmart. Why? Because if you happen to drop yours and can't figure out where, you will be thankful. Its a cheap investment that takes up little space...but gives great peace of mind.

Garbage Bag. This one may not be required if your bag already has a cover, but for those that dont...this is great for if it starts raining, just wrapping your entire camera bag inside will keep things mostly dry.

Notepad and pencil (not pen!). It comes in handy to take down notes if you happen to take a shot you really like and want to remember the settings used. I say not pen because in florida heat, they explode.

Asprin. Perfect place to store them for the likely headaches a long day in the heat will give you.

 

[NowInc]

Focus mode:

SINGLE!!!! If you are going auto focus (especially on dark rides..which I also don't recommend as its faster to go manual focus in those situations), use a single focus point instead of cross type.

 

[ddbowdoin]

Here might be a less than popular one: sunny 16 rule.. in good light f16 w/ a shutter speed 1/your ISO setting.

Here is where this comes in handy, I see people shooting then after every shot they seemingly drop the camera and check their LCD screen, then you see them scurry back because they're missing something. Worry about the action, parade, character etc etc etc and leave the damn LCD screen alone.

 

[sporadic]

Lenspen! Never leave home without it!

 

[NowInc]

Exposure Compensation:

Remember kids, its always better to be UNDEREXPOSED than OVEREXPOSED. REALLY bright day out and you dialed in your settings? Do a quick EV between 1-2 stops down, and you can always recover some of that in post..PLUS..underexposure actually fools the eye into thinking an image is sharper.

 

[sporadic]

Exposure Compensation:

Remember kids, its always better to be UNDEREXPOSED than OVEREXPOSED. REALLY bright day out and you dialed in your settings? Do a quick EV between 1-2 stops down, and you can always recover some of that in post..PLUS..underexposure actually fools the eye into thinking an image is sharper.

I always expose 1/3-2/3 to the right and pull down in post (long as you don't blow anything out). Underexposing and pushing is going to push the noise as well.

 

[NowInc]

I always expose 1/3-2/3 to the right and pull down in post (long as you don't blow anything out). Underexposing and pushing is going to push the noise as well.

I guess I should have mentioned it depends on the camera. If you can shoot 14bit raw the noise level is very negligible (in my opinion at least).

 

[ddbowdoin]

I guess I should have mentioned it depends on the camera. If you can shoot 14bit raw the noise level is very negligible (in my opinion at least).

always shoot RAW

"but it takes up so much room..."

okay, so you spent 2 grand on a camera but aren't willing to spend a little extra on more memory cards?

 

[ddbowdoin]

Don't buy a 32GB card... break that amount into smaller, separate cards.

Cards will fail and become corrupted at some point in their life. The data can sometimes be retrieved but it's a pain in the rear.

 

[Allen C]

Don't buy a 32GB card... break that amount into smaller, separate cards.

Cards will fail and become corrupted at some point in their life. The data can sometimes be retrieved but it's a pain in the rear.

As a corollary to this:

Back up your image files at the end of each day at the parks.

After each park day I back up the image files to (1)the laptop hard drive then (2)a portable external hard drive. After double checking both back ups I reformat the SDHC cards for use the following day.

 

[ddbowdoin]

As a corollary to this:

Back up your image files at the end of each day at the parks.

After each park day I back up the image files to (1)the laptop hard drive then (2)a portable external hard drive. After double checking both back ups I reformat the SDHC cards for use the following day.

I just have to take that risk, no backups available for me =(

I don't carry an external nor do I have a laptop.

 

[leona mccauley]

I use this often when shooting pictures of kids or animals (except for my lazy cat who doesn't move all day!). It helped get this shot at Sea World last winter:

This photo seems so fresh.

 

[NowInc]

To add to the SD card discussion, here are some tips to extend the life and stability of your cards:

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS format your SD card in the camera THREE TIMES before using it. The first format will essentially only REALLY erase the data about 80% (even tho it will show 100), the second will do the rest, but just to be safe..go for a third time. This will eliminate any trace bytes that are left and will decrease chances of corruption when writing.

DO NOT fill ANY SD card to capacity. The "Exact" size of the media is not constant. Your camera will try to squeeze every last image on there, but if there isnt enough room on the card for the ONE LAST SHOT..it can make the rest corrupt. So when you see that you have 1 or 2 exposures left on a card, swap it out.

DO NOT delete pictures from your camera and then continue shooting. With SD cards being so cheap, you have no excuse to not just buy more and fill them up. Too many people tend to review their pictures on the camera and start deleting the ones they dont like in order to get more space. The problem with this is that it leaves traces of the deleted image file on the card and when you try to write over it...you guessed it..it can corrupt the rest of the images.

DO keep your cards in plastic cases. This avoids dust, scratches, static...or most other elements from physically causing damage to them.

and the no brainer:

DO NOT remove the SD card while its in the middle of writing. This also means DO NOT "run on empty". Is your battery really low? Its time to put a new one in..or if you only have one..then you are done for now. If the battery dies in the middle of writing an image (with on modern DSLRs can take up to 5 seconds)...youre going to have a bad day.

 

[NowInc]

I just have to take that risk, no backups available for me =(

I don't carry an external nor do I have a laptop.

Its for that reason that I absolutely LOVE the D7100 (and the D7000 for that matter). As you know, dual SD card slots on these...which should only be used as "tandum" writing...not spillover, not raw/jpg..not image/video.

 

[ddbowdoin]

Its for that reason that I absolutely LOVE the D7100 (and the D7000 for that matter). As you know, dual SD card slots on these...which should only be used as "tandum" writing...not spillover, not raw/jpg..not image/video.

I'm going to miss this feature, for sure.