I am newbie trying to get a good picture of my friends (contrasting skin color) with snow covered mountain in the background. I tried using aperture priority mode with f/11 and 1/100 sec, 28 mm. People in the picture looked okay, but the background appeared too whitish or the background looked okay but people turned out too dark. After that I came across metering modes online, and I'm wondering which one I should use (spot metering appeared correct). Shot is taken 8 steps away from the people with Canon 60D. What all things should I consider to get a decent picture in this scenario?  What mode? TC/AV/Manual. What metering mode? What settings?
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I took a picture once in a beautiful location with an awesome background, and a cool location to get the shot. The problem is, the location of the subject had substantially less light then the background, giving a silhouette effect. Without using an external flash, and on a low budget, what could I do to improve this picture?  Specifically, I shooting with a DSLR, outdoors. The DSLR has a small pop-up flash. The nearest good light source was maybe 5-10 feet away.   Thanks guys!    How do I avoid a dark subject when there's bright sunlight from windows?  by   I recently shot some photos at a friend's wedding. The location was lovely with lots of light — sometimes too much. The sunlight from the windows and skylights seemed to overpower the shot and the subject/people were very dark. What are some ways to avoid this without using fancy equipment? (I'm just starting out, I'm not a wedding photographer or anything!)  Here is one example I took — and this is after I've lightened it somewhat with Picasa:    I'm using a Nikon D5000 with a standard 18-55mm lens.
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What f/# do you use to photograph people, and why? I know this varies from shot to shot.  Let's suppose that you are photographing either a single person or a couple, that it it outside on a somewhat overcast day. What depth of field do you prefer to use, and why?  What about indoors in a more-controlled setting — what is typically used in studio photography?  What about in other conditions?
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Background  I have a Panasonic DMC-FZ20, however I would imagine this question applies to most point-and-shoot cameras with a built-in macro mode.  I accidentally left my camera in macro mode while taking some landscape shots today. Most of the pictures look "ok" from an initial glance, but I wonder if I actually have lost any potential sharpness in these images due to my mistake.  Question  In light of the above I'm curious as to what macro mode actually does in cameras such as mine. Is it perhaps simply biasing the auto-focus, or is something else mechanical happening in the lens?
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I'm really interested in getting into serious or even professional photography. I've read some articles about fundamental concepts like aperture, exposure, ISO sensitivity, etc., and I want to get the feeling of how changing different setting affects the resulting picture.  My point-and-shot camera has a manual mode but it seems like no matter what kind of settings I select, I always get worse results than if I shoot in auto mode.  Some people claim that manual mode on point-and-shoots is a joke. Should I get a "real camera"?
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I know digital cameras have ISO options, and that ISO is the camera's sensitivity to light, but if you set  higher ISO then you can get a noisy image. I also know there are two other camera options, shutter speed and aperture.   What is the relationship of between them? Is there any equation, or something like that?  For example, if I set the ISO to 640, then how should I set the shutter speed and aperture?
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I took this photo of the blood moon this morning and I am finding many of my photos, especially landscape photos, have a significant lack of clarity. I'm not looking for a photo critique because I know this particular photo is crap. I'm looking to identify my source of failure to nail a significantly clear photo.     Setup  Canon EOS 70D with a 100-300 telephoto lens (I'm sorry I don't know the exact model. It's from Canon but not one of their professional quality lenses.)   Aperture: f/5.6 Shutter: 1 sec. ISO: 1000 Focal Length: 300mm Metering mode: Spot White Balance: I manually set the WB to 5500 kelvin, it looked fine in live view. Focus Mode: Manual Drive: 2 sec timer delay   Mounted on a decently stable tripod  Process  I turn on live view, and square up the target in the display. I then set my focal length, focus in using live view, adjust the focus as sharp as possible and take the pic. I've noticed that in this case, the picture was incredibly grainy, which doesn't translate to the final photo, but wonder if it has anything to do with it.  This particular shoot I found it difficult to balance out the variables with a dark sky and a moving moon that starts blurring after 1-2 seconds of exposure, which is why I had the aperture wide open and the ISO cranked up.  I can't tell where I'm failing:  Equipment:  The 70d takes great photos but the telephoto is not great when it's totally zoomed in. My wallet doesn't hold enough cash for a motorized mount to track objects in the sky.  Circumstance: I've seen great photos of the moon with the use of a camera and a tripod, so I know this is possible. Although, I keep seeing pictures of this big gorgeous moon over the landscape, and when I use my wide-angle, the moon shows up as a dot. What the hell are people doing to get the moon so big?  Beginner skill level: I know this is the biggest culprit, but being the beginner, I'm unable to know where to adjust.
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How can I take a photo like the ones below? The problem is that my photos (taken with a bridge, Sony H2) will get blown up at the highlights. Is it because I'm using a weak camera? Is it because I'm shooting in JPG (can't use RAW)?  Is this dynamic range achieved by greater cameras + RAW? Or is it by post-processing?  Is there a pattern to this type of photos like: wide apperture (&lt; f5.0), RAW, ...?  Examples:   or  or
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I've bought a  to use with my EOS 200D and while I love the wide aperture, it appears to be quite difficult to achieve sharp focus on people's faces when shooting at f/1.8. I've tried both using Dual Pixel focus in Live View and using the center focusing point in the viewfinder, but it doesn't get me perfect results.  Is this simply a characteristic of cheap wide-aperture lenses? Or is it impossible to get sharp focus with a fully open aperture?  When I'm at at home using a tripod and focusing on a still subject I do get good focus (so it's not a camera or lens issue). But it's hard to do with people who are slightly moving between shots.
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If I use a shutter speed below 1/30 on my Nikon P100, I get extremely dark images which are completely unusable. If I use the flash, it comes out fairly bright but just not natural.  My camera supports shutter speeds as fast as 1/2000 and as slow as 8 seconds. How do I use them correctly? What should I take into account before shooting, what else do I have to configure or use?
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I have a AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8. When I have the aperture setting on the lens to 22 I can take photos. But when I change the dial to anything other than 22(lowest f/stop) then I get a flashing fEE message and r09 where the number of exposure left is.  I don't have the manual for this lens but am just wondering if anyone knows what the issue is here.  My camera is a Nikon D70S.
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All my attempts to get a good shot of the full moon with my DSLR result in an overexposed circle on a black background.  I've tried using a tripod, remote shutter release, low ISO, and long exposure, but nothing has worked so far.  What combination of ISO and exposure time that will produce good results?   I particularly want to catch a full moon with the reddish effect when it is close to the horizon.
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I've read through several threads similar to this, but I'm looking for a comparison of two options here.   I currently take photos on a raised glass platform against a white foam board background and run about 300w of lights (3 100x LEDs @ 5000k, Home Depot Specials in softboxes and umbrellas). As you can imagine, it takes me about 15 minutes of post processing to achieve a perfect white background, and sometimes I have a particular photo that I am unable to get there.  I want to upgrade to either a photography table with a translucent background that I can place a speedlight under, or a cyclorama infinity background such as the MyStudio MS20. The latter option may require an upgrade to my lighting, which I am planning to do anyways.  The idea of course is to get a blown out 255 background with no post processing, other than color correction on the jewelry or product as needed. This would cut my time after the shoot to a ridiculously small amount of time.   Which option would make my life easier?   For reference, I currently use a D5300 with a Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro lens.  This is the best shot I got after quite a lot of effort, before and after processing:      Note that the silver is not shiny like it should be, and the sparkle on the gems is lost.
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First of all I came across these questions already:     And they really surprise me because it's basically the opposite of what I experience. I've tried the Yongnuo EF 35mm and the Canon EF-S 10-18mm IS STM, and with both I experience the same: Using the optical viewfinder, I always have blazing fast, accurate AF. However using liveview, it is most of the time impossible to get a focus point at all, forcing me to move around and what not.  The camera is a Canon 70D, supposed to have a good AF system.  In a bright light condition both work perfectly fine so I doubt it's a defect, but in lower light situation I can never get a focus point with LiveView at all - No matter which AF method I select. This surprises me as the answers to the questions I've linked suggest that in low light, the LiveView AF should work even better. Does my camera and its dual-ISO make a difference? If anything I'd assume it'd make it better.  Especially the video AF (which I assume does always use LiveView's CDAF?) for the 70D is praised to be outstanding, compared to its previous models. Again: Can't confirm. I haven't tried video in bright light (I'd assume that'd make it better though), but in low light (it's not that low by the way, it's a single, but bright and close-to-subject lightbulb spotlight) the AF in video is just as bad.  Any explanations/insights/tips/tricks for a DSLR newbie like me?  Additional info: When focusing manually, Magic Lantern's  is able to draw in where the focus is too, and it works by detecting contrasts too. Unless I'm missing something doesn't that mean that Canon's CDAF should be able to find a focus point with CDAF too?  Here is a screenshot of the scene:  It's really not that little light!  Here is me putting the aperature up to F/2 for testing:   Here is my F/11 setting with manually focused:   As you can see, ML has no issues drawing the focus peak into the right spot instantly. In addition to that: I'm sorry I didn't notice this earlier, but the camera actually does drive up the ISO while focusing when in LiveView. I couldn't get a screenshot of that but the subject was clearly visible (and in focus for a split second) during the AF attempt of the camera in LiveView. It just went past the focus point, and back again. Everytime I'd try to focus. The distance to subject is ~0.35m and my lens can focus up to 0.25m (even tho with the viewfinder I can focus as close as 0.15 sometimes). Just to make sure I've tried a longer (~0.5m) distance - Same results.  I've also just tried to AF on my desk keyboard in absolute low-light (on the LCD, I see nothing but pitch black). The camera was able to focus in LiveView properly and it turned up the ISO to the max. during the focus process.  Here's a screenshot made during the AF attempt - The camera sets the ISO to a guessed ~4000 during the failed attempt:    Conclusion: It's not the lowlight environment. What else could be the cause?  Some more hints to "it's not low-light":  The camera is perfectly capable of focusing on this in LiveView.    I couldn't get the screenshot timed right, but this is during focus attempt. The camera was able to find focus on first try, even though the light situation is a lot worse.
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I'm just getting started - in my last shoot, I was using a 6D with a 50mm/1.4.  In low light, the pictures looked fantastic on the viewfinder but on the computer screen, appeared extremely grainy.  For future shoots, if I want to achieve something like this:     Should I shoot with way more light / lower ISO to retain clarity, and then just darken in post?  What kind of setup would be needed to achieve the above?    With my setup -   Camera Canon EOS 6D  Lens EF50mm f/1.4 USM  Focal Length 50mm  Shutter Speed 1/40 s  Aperture f/1.8  ISO/Film 6400  I was getting very grainy results that I had to soften in post (in case you want to see my attempts):      Any tips would be much appreciated.
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I sometimes find I want to photograph a room showing the view outside the window. This is tricky — either  you adjust the shutter speed so that the the window is so bright  you can see no detail, or the room looks very dark and gloomy.    Are there any techniques I can use to get the best photo showing as much as possible of both room and view?   My camera is a Sony Nex3, and for this sort of thing I usually use it with an elderly Pentax-M 1:2.8 / 28mm manual focus lens with an adaptor, although I would be prepared to buy another (cheap manual!) lens.
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The second half of  says      Notice that I only shot full-stop ISO which is important with Canon DSLRs because the gain to obtain the 1/3 stops in between is applied in software by the processor which amplifies noise more than the on-sensor gain which is used to get the full stops.   Is that true? I spent some time looking online, and opinions really differ on it. Some people claim that it doesn't matter because increasing ISO is just increasing the electrical gain on the sensor, and it is a linear curve. Other people are convinced it does matter.  I am not really looking for opinion or "home brew" test. The best answer will be one that is based off of a reputable study.  If full frame vs. cropped sensor matters, please make sure to point that out.
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I've read   here on Photo SE, as well as the  on CA.  I understand that it is inevitable that some amount of chromatic aberration shows up for a particular lens, especially on the extreme cases: high contrast of colors/luminosity, etc.  But I'd like to know if there is any technique one can do to -minimize- this when some photo opportunity arises;    eg: if i'm visiting some place and want a picture of a building, for example. i can't go "meh, too contrasty, results won't be good."     Would stop down the aperture help? I haven't tested it, but according to the causes of CA, it could help (bigger DoF, more things in focus, less specific color in different focus).   Other than that, nothing comes to mind..   I already got a prime lens for the extra oomph of image quality, but i want more :)  please no "buy better gear" of "fix it in post" answers.. Obviously, i can fix stuff in post, AND I DO. But i'd like to make the most of my gear, and spend maybe a bit more time taking a picture, and less on lightroom.