Ahoj! This is Zdenka. Look what I've got?
Even though I was the world's slowest figure skater, I still managed to get
this and this is quite important in today's episode because in today's
episode I have whole bunch of tips and tricks for better smartphone photography
and by the way, lots of those tips and tricks apply to any camera.
And if you are new here, welcome. My name is Zdenka Darula. If you want to learn how to
take better photos and videos with the latest gear and possibly participate in
creative gamer challenges, stick around and consider subscribing. I
decided to take photo of this medal because it took many hours of practice
to actually earn it, to get it and it does deserve a better
shot than this one. This one is not even a shot. I can't even call it shot. Let's
just call it the accidental snap. Let's start with what we need. Styling the shot
will make a huge difference instead of just placing the medal somewhere on a
table. Whenever I grab an object, I study the colors and textures so here I see
obviously it's black, red and silver. Because it's silver, it's going to
reflect light and it is quite busy.... hmm... sure I could take photo of it just on a
plain black background but it's just gonna be a medal on a plain black
background and I want it to be very rich. I want it to be over the top. So I ran in
to the dollar store and I picked up few items. I got this red bag which will
reflect a lot of light and I can use it as a background. Then I have my skates
here which I didn't actually buy in a dollar store. I have some crystals here
which I found in a kid's room. I'll return them before they are back from
school. Is this a school bus? Just kidding. I'm planning 2 options. One option is
that I'm gonna actually shoot ii on the red background and then I also bought
this hard paper and glued this silver decorative rhinestone match on it so I
could use it as this metallic background. This is gonna be highly reflective. I was
actually thinking about using my dress as a background as well but the colors
are completely different so it's a no-go. Well, let's go ahead and start with the
natural light option. So the setup is ready. I cut the bag in
half, turned it the other way and using it as a background. I just placed it on a
table. The medal is hanging down as close to the bottom part as possible because I
see reflection and I just put some gems around. I'm not using skates here because
they are white and I simply don't like them in a shot. I might use it for the
second option. The whole thing is placed as close to the window as
possible because it is bright and sunny outside. Once I turn the blinds the other
way, it's going to get very bright. Let's grab the phone and obviously make sure
the lens is clean. Right now, the aspect ratio on my phone is set to full screen
so the photos are very noodle looking like very long. I'm gonna change that to
ratio 3/4 and actually most of the people would be taking shot just
standing kind of pointing with the phone down. No, we need to get to the level of
the medal so you may need to go down and if you don't want to bend, you can use a
chair or something like that. If your smartphone has only one lens, that's
obviously what you are going to use. My smartphone has three lenses. Wide,
standard and telephoto and since I have the option to use telephoto I will
because telephoto will separate the background and the object more. It will
give me more of a bokeh in a background, little bit more blur image. I'm going
to get very close to the medal and I want to make sure that the medal is
the main focus of the image, so it's going to be in the center. I want to have
the image very symmetrical so I'm gonna have the same space on the left and
right and a little bit on the top and bottom. Again, I want to make sure that
the medal is also reflected in a bottom.
Once I'm ready to take the shot I will tap with my finger on the medal to make
sure that the medal is nicely in the focus. I don't want to tap anywhere else
because then it would be blurry and then I have to adjust the brightness. I'm
finding that my phone is taking a little bit more brighter images than I want to
so I'm gonna turn it down a little bit and then I'm ready to take the shot. I'm
going to take few more photos, just adjust the gems around a little bit, move
it around to get more variations and once I'm done, I'm gonna edit the final
photo in Snapseed but I'm gonna show it to you in a few minutes once I will
shoot the second option in a studio. And set number two is ready. This time the
silver background. I have the skate and I have medal hanging down. I'm gonna be
lighting it with different colors. I have two of my favorites here. I did a review
on both, I will link it in video description below. It's actually Weylight
RBO8P LED light and Pokelite Falcon eyes f7. Those are very useful
for anything and on top of that I'm gonna be using just a regular flashlight
because I want to lit just a part of the medal. I wanted it to shine to the lens. Now,
when it comes to lights, there's no rules really. I always say, there are no rules.
When you feel the light is too strong move it back. When it is not strong enough
move it to the front, change different colors, move it around, see what works.
Don't be afraid to move the lights around, always play until you
find the final result which you will like.
First set is ready to be shot and if you noticed, I turned the phone upside
down the whole time because I need lens to get as close as possible
to the ground. And right now, I have the setting on standard lens. I'm going to
switch that to telephoto lens because just like I explained, I need to get a
little bit more depth of field. And I'm tapping on the medal to make sure it is
nicely in focus and again I see that the phone is taking it a little bit brighter
than I want to so I am decreasing the brightness. I'm moving a little bit down.
As I want the photo to be very symmetrical, I need to move the blades a
little bit in because I want them to almost touch the medal and again
decrease the brightness quite a bit and take the shot.
To make it look a little bit different, I changed the color of the background. Not
the background but the lights. Both lights are set to blue color and it's
creating very nice contrast with the red color. Once I import photo to
Snapseed, I usually try to go to last edits if it fits and then I try a few
different styles. If I don't like them I just go back to current and I start with
regular adjustments. So I usually go to brightness, then saturation, contrast
and if I still feel like I need to do changes with brightness I go back to it.
The same thing applies to saturation. If I feel that it's not right I go back.
Then I adjust ambience, highlights,
shadows and warmth. What I like about this app, that you just very easily
slide to right and left, that's how you're increasing and decreasing all
those little adjustments.
Next I look at details and structure and I see that I need to still adjust a
brightness so I return to it. Next I'm going to look at temperature and I see
that these are little bit, a little bit too warm, too much for me, so I'm gonna
cool it off a little bit to the blues.
Next section which is quite interesting is perspective. You can kind of turn
the image a little bit and I am thinking of turning it tiny bit to the side. One
of my other favorite features is lens blur. Here you can pretty much make the
background a little bit even blurrier, so I just select the medal. That's the
center of the image and with the help of transition, vignette and strength, I'll
make it a little bit blurrier, whatever is surrounding the medal.
One of the last steps would be vignette. I like to use it a little bit just
because I want the medal to pop. I want it to be a little bit brighter and the
edges a little bit more darker. That way the medal will pop and then I go again
back to lens blur and see if I can even increase it a bit more.
And the very last step would be crop. I'm just gonna crop it tiny bit to get a
little bit better framing.
And that's it. This is the final image.
So these are my final two images. I hope you like them. Hit the thumbs up button
if you liked today's video and subscribe to more and if you have any questions,
comments or simply want to say hi, you can do so in a comment section below.
I'll see you in the next one.... Cau... Ahoj...