Tutorials

This page contains links to tutorials produced by Club members, sometimes in response to a ‘how do you do that?’ question asked at a monthly meeting, but often to demonstrate techniques covered in one of the Knowledge Nights.

We hope to gradually increase the number of tutorials in the months to come. If you would like a tutorial on a particular subject, check to see if it will be covered in one of our forthcoming Knowledge Nights or, if not, email events@whphoto.club to let us know what you would like to see.

Click on a topic listed below to be taken to that tutorial:

Astrophotography – A Brief Guide

Camera Settings – The Basics

Changing File Sizes

Create a Fully Black (or White) Background

Drone Photography

Image Storage

Lens Filters Explained

Light Painting

Long Lens Photography

Macro Photography

Still Life Photography

Using High Pass Filter Sharpening in Photoshop

Photography Glossary

Astrophotography – A Brief Guide

Astrophotography is a huge topic and can produce some breathtaking images of deep sky objects (like nebulae), using equipment costing equally breathtaking sums of money. Luckily it’s possible to produce good images with just a camera, a tripod, a cable release, some practice and patience.

This pdf guide provides some bullet points of what you need to consider and how to go about taking pictures of simple to find deep sky images, like the Orion Nebula or the Andromeda galaxy.

Camera Settings – The Basics

Modern digital cameras, especially those in mobile phones, are packed with processing power and sophisticated software. You can often leave the speed and aperture decisions to the camera – just point and shoot and a beautifully exposed image is produced.

But sometimes the photo you see is not quite what you wanted. It is when you want to take more control over how you want the final image to appear that you have to understand how to alter your camera’s settings.

For one of our Technical Sessions we had an informal chat about how to make our cameras do what we want. This pdf guide was handed out to all those attending to give an overview of the more basic, but nonetheless powerful, settings available on most cameras and mobile phone camera apps that will allow you to take more creative control over your images.

Changing File Sizes

Some of the files that digital cameras produce can be quite large in size, even when in the compressed jpeg (or jpg) format. This can lead to problems when trying to email them or submitting them to WHPC Show and Tell meetings, when a filesize below 4Mb is required.

Conversely, if filesizes are too small the image displayed on the Club’s screen will similarly be small and, if magnified, the quality will be compromised.

There are many ways to change filesize, but to keep things simple, try these steps:

If your camera is configured to save your photos as jpegs, ensure they are saved using the highest quality (or size). Each manufacturer has different ways of doing this, so check your manual.
In your editing software (if you use one) when saving or exporting you can usually specify maximum filesize or image resolution in pixels (e.g. 4Mb or 2560px).
Use JPEG Optimizer. This runs in a browser and allows you to set size limits. For images to be displayed at Show and Tell meetings the recommended settings are: Quality – 100%, Max Size – 4000, Output format – JPEG, Max width or height – 2560.

Please note that the maximum resolution the WHPC laptop can display is 2560px x 1440px. If your images are larger than this, they will still be displayed, but the file size may be larger than necessary.

Creating a Fully Black (or White) Background

When photographing objects indoors it’s often desirable to do this with them in front of a plain background to give them a degree of separation and help focus attention on them.

Creating a dense black background, even when starting with something like a plain black sheet of fabric or paper, can prove troublesome as it nearly always shows up as a shade of dark grey or dark blue. But this method of post processing using Photoshop can help you deal with that.

Drone Photography

There’s something special about aerial photography – the way it can show the normal or mundane from a unique and unusual angle always engages our interest. In recent years the availability of drones has made this type of photography much more achievable.

But how easy is it to fly a drone and what types are available? More importantly where can you use them and what hoops do you need to jump through to fly them legally?

David Moorhouse, a keen drone owner, gave a us a presentation and demonstration at one of our Creative Sessions. He has kindly allowed us to make his presentation available – click here to download (it’s quite a large file).

Image Storage

One of the perils of digital photography is that if you store all your precious photos on memory cards or hard drives, you are at risk of losing them all if the device fails.

There are ways to mitigate against this, by backing up to different storage media, for example, and there are plenty of ways to do this.

Whilst this is a huge topic, it’s not complex, and the basics were covered by Adrian Chandler during a Knowledge Night talk. His Image Storage presentation slides are available for you to download. Alternatively, take a look at Tony Teague’s Image Storage Notes that summarise the points in a pdf.

Take action before it’s too late.

Lens Filters Explained

Lens filters have been part of some photographers’ equipment for many years, but relative to the number of people who take photographs their use is quite niche. You don’t need one to take a good photo and, arguably, many of the effects that filters create can be replicated in photo editing software.

However there is still a role for filters to play in modern photography, especially, but not exclusively, in landscape photography. For example, neutral density filters to create dreamy, silky water effects and polarising filters for rich, saturated colours.

David Kallmeier gave an illustrated talk about filters to club members, describing the types available, how to fix them to your lenses and explaining their use. To accompany this he produced a useful guide – Lens Filters Explained – that you can view and download by clicking on the link.

Light Painting

Photographers are always reliant on light to be able to produce images. The quality of light, like an epic sunset, can make or break a photo and in that respect painters have an advantage – they can create any light they choose, limited only by their skill and imagination.

Light painting offers photographers a way to have the best of both worlds. By using our own light (torches, flashguns, strobes, lasers, etc.) we can light our subjects however we want, in ways that would not normally happen naturally, limited only by our imagination.

For one of our Knowledge Nights we held a session for our members in the local church, which was suitably dark with the lights out and had plenty of interesting things to photograph. To help those attending a handout was prepared that covered some key points about equipment required and suggested camera settings to obtain the best results. A copy of the handout is available to download if you fancy trying out this technique for yourself.

It’s worth saying that all those attending the session had a great time and were surprised at the results they achieved.

Long Lens Photography

Telephoto lenses are an essential tool for wildlife photography; few animals are considerate enough to allow us to come close enough with non-telephoto lenses. And there are some animals where it’s prudent to maintain a healthy distance. This type of lens is also widely used for motorsport photography and they have their place in landscape photography too.

However, telephoto lenses have a number of properties, advantages and disadvantages that are worth understanding in order to maximise their use and help achieve the image you’re after.

Chris Bowers presented a well-attended Technical Meeting on the theory behind, and use of, telephoto lenses and a copy of his presentation is downloadable as a pdf.

Macro Photography

Macro photography, sometimes referred to as close-up photography, is generally defined as capturing images of objects at close range so that they appear at life size (i.e. a ratio of 1:1) or greater.

Macro photography doesn’t need any specialist equipment – a telephoto lens can achieve suitable magnifications, but to really unlock this subject you will need additional hardware. This can range from cheap reversing rings to ring flashes and studio lighting rigs.

To help guide you through this fascinating subject David Kallmeier has kindly supplied the slides he used for his presentation, together with a useful and informative leaflet explaining the use of flash. Click on the links to download the pdfs.

Macro Photography Presentation Slides

Macro Photography Using Flash

Still Life Photography

Still Life Photography follows the genre started by Dutch masters in the 17th century who painted arrangements of inanimate objects. This basic description underplays the artistry of those painters and also the photographers who now use the latest technology in their art.

This subject requires the photographer to arrange their own compositions, using their own subjects, providing their own lighting and choosing the focal length. The possibilities are endless and can become daunting.

Luckily David Kallmeier and Tony Teague gave WHPC members a presentation to break down this subject into manageable chunks and have kindly provided the Still Life Photography slides they created that you can download and work through at your own pace. There are many examples of still life contained in the slides that show what is possible and will act as a jumping off point for your own experimentation.

Using High Pass Filter Sharpening in Photoshop

There are many ways to sharpen images – all image editing software offers at least one. Many photographers use the tool within Lightroom, others rely on those offered by Photoshop. This software provides many ways of sharpening photos: Smart Sharpen, Unsharp Mask etc., but the High Pass filter is a great way to target sharpening a bit more precisely and it is a subtle, powerful and effective method.

David Kallmeier has written a brief illustrated guide to applying High Pass sharpening using Smart Objects in Photoshop which is available as a pdf file.

Photography Glossary

When first starting photography the number of names and terms can be bewildering and daunting. Even those of us who have been doing this hobby for years don’t know everything, or, more embarrassingly, may have been misusing a term due to a misunderstanding of what it actually means.

Luckily David Kallmeier has written a comprehensive glossary of photography terms, so if you don’t know your IBIS from your ISO or think Red Eye is caused by excessive drinking the night before, download a copy of the pdf.