Learn how you can do a panorama photo:

Posted on July 25, 2021 by 123photogo

Panorama photos are photos that are longer and skinny and seem to be a photo that were made to get wide, extra wide photos. Are they done exclusively for super wide angle photos? Usually!

I’d like to go over the history of Panoramas and then tell you where we are today.

Since the early days of film, panoramic photography has been synonymous with landscape and architectural images, and sometimes with other genres like street and wildlife photography. By combining two horizontal frames of film, typically 120 medium format, some film cameras actually shot panorama photographs by design. Most of these cameras emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century, bringing the panoramic format to the public eye. The panorama had existed long before this time, of course, but its popularity has only grown — and with good reason. Panoramas are fun and dramatic, and their subtleties are just as important in today’s mostly-digital age as they were during the heyday of film.

Notice how beautiful this looks with a sunset photo.

1- Composition

If you think about the major benefits of Panoramas, you will certainly think it’s easier to compose your photo. You don’t have to worry about if you have too much sky or foreground, it’s like you automatically cropped your photo to it’s optimum. It makes me wonder why we don’t see more panorama photos.

The compositional side of panoramic photography certainly is not the only reason for its popularity, but panoramas are useful for images that cannot be composed in more typical ways. Often, I use the panorama format simply because the spaces above and below my subject would boring with a 2×3 frame — other times, I do so to make my image easier to balance. Panoramas are not ideal for every composition, but they are crucial tools in more situations than you may think.

Larger Prints

Consider a typical (high-end) photo printer: the width of the print is set at a certain size (since, say, a 24-inch printer simply cannot fit anything larger), but the length of the print is essentially unlimited. The reason is that, past a certain size (typically 13×17), photo paper tends to come in rolls rather than sheets. These rolls can be tremendously long, often more than fifty feet (15 meters).

Above most sofas and beds, for example, the wall is wider than it is tall. Quite often, the difference is significant. And, for landscape photographers who want to sell their work, home decoration is one of the largest markets. It makes sense to cater to people’s needs, then, and panoramic art is disproportionately popular for bedrooms and living spaces.

Cameras today:

Most newer Android and iPhone models have a panorama mode built into the camera, but if you don’t wanna go that route, there are a number of panoramic photo apps available to download.

How to take a panorama photo with your phone:

Open your phone’s camera and put it in panorama (or Pano) mode.
Hold the phone vertically for a horizontal panorama, or horizontally for a vertical panorama.
iPhone users can tap the arrow to change the direction of the panorama. Android users can move left or right without specifying their direction.
Tap the shutter button to start your panorama.
Move the phone to capture the desired scene, keeping it as steady as possible.
When you’re done, tap the shutter button to finish. If you reach the end of the line/box that displays on your phone while taking a panorama, it may automatically stop taking the photo and save it.

Take your time, and find out from your camera how and if you can do panorama photos. If you find you can’t do it with your regular camera, see if your smart phone can do it. We would love to share your experience with Panorama.

This is 1 of 51 subjects in a series. Check out the other articles already done.

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Avoid overloading detail in your photos!

Posted on February 18, 2021 by 123photogo

As you look at the title, you are probably wondering what in the world am I talking about. Let’s get into it.

When you take a scenery photo, there is something called “detail overload” in which a photographer will think that they need more “stuff” in the photo to give it dimension, when in reality, it’s just the mountain that you should have in the photo.

Let’s give you an example of what I mean by showing you a video. Audio and Video are the best way to learn, I think. I have used video more and more in my blogs so you can really learn what I mean….

Click on the center arrow, and learn what we mean by overloading your photo.

What do you do when you’re presented with a scene that appears like a wonderland? You’re probably tempted to photograph all that you see, capturing everything in one frame, right? Well, as Popsys puts it, this is pure greed. A better approach would be to be selective and compose in a way to include only the things that are unique to that location. This draws the viewers’ attention to the unique qualities of the particular place, making the image more interesting. And no, this doesn’t mean that you should never take wide shots. Opt for wide-angle shots if the subject in itself stands out from its surroundings. This could be due to lighting, color, contrast, or any other factors.

“By including too much, you actually weaken all the other elements that could stand out if you focused on them more.”

And when it comes to editing an image, we’ve become used to recovering the shadow and highlight details too much. While doing so isn’t essentially a bad practice, keep in mind that sometimes an image can appear better if it doesn’t reveal everything. Take for instance silhouettes. In this case, you improve the image by not revealing all the details. Even an overexposed sky can look natural and give the image an ethereal look..

The above article was mostly written by Sunny Shrestha, from Picture / Correct

Here is a few great examples of what you should do in your landscape photos: Keep it simple.

Learning about negative space or minimalism in your photos:

Posted on February 1, 2021 by 123photogo

There seems to be a new trend in photography often called minimalism, or negative space. It happens when there is a lot of background and very little subject. It reminds me of putting a photo in a frame that has a huge matte around the photo. It is very appealing and I think a lot of people will enjoy this type of photography.

If this is something you would like to try, read this below from fellow photographer: MANGO STREET, as posted on Picture/Correct.

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Negative space draws more attention to the subject by simply isolating it. At the same time, negative space lets your photos breathe and also conveys a mood of solitude. When used correctly, negative space itself can be the subject of your photograph. The following are things to keep in mind when working with negative space:

1. Location

Get to a location where you can find plenty of open space or unobstructed sky. Locations like the beach, an open field, or a place where you can see hills work great.

2. Light & Time of Day

The lighting and time of day dictate the mood conveyed by the negative space. For instance, during foggy conditions, the grey negative space will convey a moody feeling.

But, if you take a similar photo during the colorful hours of sunset or sunrise, the feeling will be more joyous.

“Think about what type of light will reinforce the mood you want for your photos.”

3. Perspective

The perspective from which you shoot plays a huge role in isolating your subjects. For instance, if you want to isolate your subjects with the sky as the backdrop, shooting from a lower perspective will help. Place your subjects on higher ground and shoot from below.

On the other hand, if the ground is clear of distractions, you can shoot from a higher vantage point with the subject placed below.

4. Focal Length

The choice of focal length will entirely depend on the location and the style you’re going for. A longer focal length will let you photograph subjects that are farther away. Another advantage of using a longer focal length is that the compression will draw the background closer to the subject and make your work a bit easier.+

That doesn’t mean wide-angle lenses aren’t fit for the job. If the background is clean, you can shoot with a wider perspective to place your elements against that background.

5. Post Processing

If time and resources are constraints, it’s always best to get the images right in camera. By photographing in locations that are free from distractions, you’ll save yourself a lot of time. But since conditions aren’t ideal every time, you can get away with editing the images.

Use Lightroom or other similar software to adjust parameters like exposure, white balance, and contrast. But, to do more of the heavy lifting tasks like removing elements from the image, you can switch over to Photoshop. The clone stamp tool and healing brushes in Photoshop work great to get rid of distractions.

Notice the distracting elements in the background.

Distractions in the background removed in Photoshop.

In Photoshop, you can even create some extra negative space by extending the background. This works best in images that have a really flat and uniform background. Here’s how to do it:

Using the Crop tool, extend the crop in the direction of the background.
Then, select the blank extended area and hit Shift + Delete.
Choose Content-Aware fill and hit OK. This will do most of the heavy lifting and fill the empty space with similar content to the background.
If you notice hard lines along the fill, use the healing brush tool to give it the finishing touches.

6. Bonus Tips

Feel free to break any traditional rules of composition. Rather than investing your time in abiding by the rules, see how you can convey your message. The image below doesn’t comply with the rule of thirds but shows the openness and the vastness of the sea very well.

If your subject is colorful, it will stand out better from the background.

If there are lot of elements in your image, have the subject placed closest to your lens. This will help in directing viewers toward the subject rather than leaving them wondering.

These simple yet effective tips will definitely help you make better use of negative space to draw more attention to your subjects.

If you like a video version of this example, click on this link:

Click on this video to get even more information.

Here are some more “Minimalist” or negative space photos:

Understanding the MM in your lenses, and what you might need:

Posted on January 11, 2021 by 123photogo

When you first own your new dslr camera, most people buy it in a kit form, where it comes with one lens, strap, bag, camera, etc. And at first, most people don’t really understand all the numbers on their lenses. Today, I wanted to talk about 1 of the numbers on your lens, so that you understand it, what it can do, and what you might need next.

person holding film strip — 35 mm film….. Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Back when we had 35mm film, the standard lens was then: 50mm. What defines the standard lens, or what I liked to call it, the “normal” lens? When I worked at a camera store, the one thing we used to tell people was, “your 50 mm lens, is about the same as what your eye sees. We would take the camera with the 50mm lens, hold it up so the customer could look through the lens, then bring it down, and look with your eye at the same subject, and then back with the 50mm lens on the camera, and you found that the lens was the same as your eye, as far as magnification. There was none with the 50 mm lens.

Today we have the digital camera. And the 50mm lenses you had for your 35mm film cameras are just not the same. Every time you change the format of a camera, you change the “standard lens” or normal lens. So, the normal lens for a dslr camera is: approximately 28mm. Why would I say approximately? Because it depends on the format of your new digital camera’s sensor. Ha, you thought they were all the same, but, they are not. There is an APS-H sensor, An APS -C sensor, a FoveonX3 sensor, and a Four-thirds sensor. You would have to look at the specs of your camera to find out which one it was. But, the normal lens for a APS-H sensor, for example is roughly 30- 38 mm, where a normal lens for an APS-C sensor is: 25-32, and so on.

For sake of making things easy, let’s say all cameras’ normal lenses are 28mm. So, when you look through this 28mm lens, it looks about the same as what your eye sees: no magnification, just the same thing. Now, let’s play with this number:

Anything greater than this 28 mm, will be a telephoto lens. Everything smaller than the 28mm lens, will be a wide angle. Now, look at this:

A 56 mm lens (or closest to that number) is double the magnification of your normal lens (28mm). Or in other words, the 56mm lens will pull something that you would normally see, twice as close to you now.

Architectural Photography on M4/3 - 9-18mm vs OM 28mm with shift adapter: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review — If 28mm lens is the new normal lens, then at 50mm (56mm is close enough), you also will lose the area that you would see, but, it would enlarge that area by double. And at 18 mm, or even 14mm, you would see twice the area as your normal lens.

Now, let’s look at other lenses. I have a lens that is 75-300mm. If we go by that magnification scale, it would be a lens that brings things closer by 3X to 9X magnification. At 300mm, that lens is now hard to handhold and get a sharp picture, unless I increase the shutter speed significantly. But, I have got used to putting my camera on a tripod when using this big lens.

Just for giggles: Olympus just announced a lens that will go from 300mm to 1000mm using the teleconverter it comes with.

The Olympus 300 – 1000mm lens is not for the faint of heart. The new super lens for sports and wildlife.

Focal Length and Angle of View — The Photo Video Guy

Notice in the diagram above, that by going from 28mm to 14mm you get twice the area in your image as the normal lens, even though the degrees of what you can see is going from 75 degrees to 114 degrees. Have you ever heard of a “Fish-eye” lens? Now, that is a super wide lens, and you get about a full 180 degree view. But, the lens may look like this:

You know what would make me nervous about using this lens, is you cannot protect the front element of your lens with a UV filter or Skylight filter. There is no way that it will fit.

Most camera manufactures today, make something called: A full-frame fish-eye lens:

Image shot with a 16 mm full-frame fisheye lens before and after remapping to rectilinear perspective.

Conclusion:

A 28mm, is your normal lens, anything larger in number is a telephoto. A telephoto pulls things closer to you, much like binoculars do, only this is a single lens, pulling the image closer to you. A 280mm lens is 10X magnification.

Anything of a smaller number than 28mm is a wide angle, meaning it gives you “more angle” in your lens, and by so doing, pushes it back further. So, a 14 mm, would, theoretically give you twice the angle as your normal lens, but pushes your main subject back twice as far in order to get that angle.

Tomorrow: we will talk a bit about those other numbers on lenses, and why some are very desirable to have.

A wide angle lens is usually the best for scenery or landscape photos.

Photos of the Week: Minimalized Photos

Posted on January 6, 2021 by 123photogo

Minimalized Photos? Is this a new word? In your auto spell check, it doesn’t exist, but, in Photography and Art, it is a real important type of photography that almost everyone loves it. If you haven’t heard of this, then read on, because we are going to introduce the best minimalized photos I have been able to find. Comment at the bottom how you feel about these photos.

light sea dawn landscape — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The idea of minimalization is to have an important subject, but lots of surroundings around it, like you see above. There have been a few great photos lately that have really been loved on the internet. Check these out:

Portrait of couple taken off the reflection in water.

Minimalist photos are often called: NEGATIVE SPACE PHOTOS. See how you have so much space in all these photos? That is Negative Space, or Minimalist photos.

I hope you found some photos that you liked. This seems to be a trend of photography that is just coming to life now. Stay tuned for more great photos !

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