Hello, everyone, my name is Sabine, and today's episode is all about creative
captures. One of the categories in the annual
Pangolin photo challenge is called Creative Captures.
And if you would like some inspiration, tips and techniques on how to create
unique and different looking wildlife photographs, stay tuned.
Plus, if you haven't already make sure that you enter this year's challenge
by following the link in the description and stand a chance to win some amazing
prizes, including a photo safari to visit us right here in beautiful Botswana.
Now, before I dive into my favorite
technique, I think we need to establish what creative
photography even means as the field and interpretation can be pretty vast.
Where some may consider an abstract out of focus photograph as being creative.
Others might say it is just another excuse to call a bad image creative.
And as much as the lack of photography
skills doesn't give a photographer a creative eye,
getting the exposure perfect on camera or following strict photographic rules does
not necessarily make a creative photograph either.
So, in my opinion,
a photograph only qualifies as being creative if the photographer intentionally
uses certain techniques or elements to reach a desired result,
setting the image apart from what would be seen as a common picture.
So let's adopt a few different approaches to get creative.
One of the most powerful tools for creative photography is using light
and manipulating it to achieve a certain effect.
This, of course, requires you to understand the exposure
triangle and be of the auto mode on your camera.
If you do not shoot in full manual mode,
exposure, compensation will be your new best friend as you can override your
camera's light meter and get exactly the exposure you want.
Check out Daniel's video linked on top if
you're not familiar with what exposure compensation is and how it works.
OK, let's start off on the dark side with what is called low key photography.
The low key technique can completely
change the mood of a photograph by adding lots of drama and a sense of mystery
because it predominantly contains dark tones.
So lots of shadows to create such an image.
All you need is a light source, preferably the early or late son
of the day that illuminates the animal or parts of it, and dark shade behind
the subject to eliminate most of the distracting background.
Since there is going to be lots of blacks in the image, you want to try and keep
the ISO as low as possible as noise shows easier and dark areas of an image,
that means shooting with the aperture wide open to let in as much light as possible.
While the shallow depth of field helps to blur any distracting elements
in the background that might still be visible, regulating the exposure and low
key images should not be left to the camera's light meter.
Unless you choose spot metering and you
are super accurate metering of the brightest part in the image.
If you use any of the other light metering modes on your camera,
you most probably will find that you not get the desired look because the majority
of shadows within the scene will make the camera try and balance
the lighting, giving you a far brighter image than you had in mind.
If you should inform in your mode,
no problem as you can take full control and either crank up the shutter speed or
lower the ISO until you get the background nice and dark while still retaining enough
detail on the subject when shooting in any of the auto exposure
modes aperture priority, shutter priority, even menu of auto
use, the exposure compensation tool
and expose to the left or the minus side to force your camera.
To give you a darker look,
I usually start out on minus three stops of exposure and check the result
on the back of the LCD screen to see if I need to make any further adjustments.
The highlight alert function is super
helpful for this because it shows if any highlights on this subject are blown out.
And if that is the case, don't hesitate to even go in the direction of the lighting.
And low key photography can create very different looking results and basically
describes the location of the light in relationship to the subject
front lighting where the sun is shining from behind you as the photographer
evenly illuminates the subject and eliminates shadows,
revealing all the beautiful details combined with a dark, shady background.
This can give the impression as if the image was taken in a studio environment.
However, it can look a little bit flat
because of the lack of shadows, and that is where side lighting comes in.
With side lighting,
the sun needs to be off to either side at an angle of between forty five
to ninety degrees, revealing the textures and profile,
giving the subject a three dimensional nature.
This generally adds interest and a strong emotion to a scene or portrait.
Plus, it often lends itself to a classic black and white processing.
The third option is to have the light source behind a subject called
backlighting or in combination with the low key method room lighting.
This technique works great with animals
that have long fur or even with feathers of birds where the sun can shine through
from the back, highlighting only the outline of the subject.
It is essential here to make sure that there isn't any overlapping
with other animals or elements, as we are capturing little to no detail
of the subject itself and the viewer has to recognize it by its shape.
Elements like dust, water, spray,
rain and even insects can create a wonderful setting for backlit animal.
And the background doesn't always have to be completely black.
If there is elements that can add to the mood to the image, leave them visible.
Another way to get creative,
having the light source behind the subject is a silhouette.
Short silhouettes are great because
of their simplicity and once again it is all about the shape of the animal.
This time, though, we need a bright background like the sky or even water.
Positioning yourself as low as possible
ensures that you can include as much sky as possible in the frame.
It also puts your subject higher and creates a unique perspective.
The easiest way to get the exposure right
is to meet for the sky using the exposure lock and then decomposing.
Alternatively, and expose until your subject is black and featureless.
Be aware and try to avoid any dark elements cutting through the subject
that will break the shape and might ruin the shot.
Shooting into the light can be a challenging affair,
especially when using autofocus a little trickier shoot with a single
focus point and move it into a position between the subject and the sky.
So in other words,
in a place with high contrast, this will make it much easier for your
camera to autofocus if you've enjoyed the tips and image examples so far.
Please take a sec to hit that like button. Thank you.
And let's transition to the bright side.
Unlike low key photos that are dark
and moody, a high key image conveys an eerie, upbeat and light feel.
Heikki lighting is bright and leaves almost no blacks or midterm's.
And essential for this technique is
to have to subject against a bright, uniform background.
This could be anything from the sky
to snow, send water or even light colored grass.
Overcast days are easiest for hiking
shorts, as you can basically shoot into any
direction as long as you have the bright background behind the subject.
If the sun is out, please make sure to shoot against a light.
Kind of like a silhouette.
In contrast, though, to the silhouette Heikki images need to be
exposed for the subject, only completely disregarding the background.
And you can achieve this once again by using either spot metering or pushing
the exposure compensation to the right, the plus side until the background becomes
perfectly white, almost looking like a fine art painting.
I personally always start out on plus three 3V and then take it from there.
The highlight allured function again on your camera can really help you
by showing where in the image detail has been lost.
For Ikki, image clipping in the entire background is the aim really.
But without clipping too much details on the subject itself.
What do you need to know, though,
is that heavily overexposing will increase the ISO and introduce noise in your image.
So keep your aperture also wide open
and slow down the shutter speed equivalent to the focal length.
If you are shooting a stationary subject just to avoid those extremely high ISO's.
Unless, of course, you do expect sudden movement
of the animal, then you would need to compromise and keep
the shutter speed up and just live with the higher noise.
And as another tip in post-processing
increase the whites and blacks boost the clarity and contrast sliders
and optionally convert the image to black and white for a more artistic look.
By the way, these type of shots make
for some really nice contemporary prints as well.
And of course, high keys can also be colourful.
This lilac breasted roller was photographed on an overcast day
and by overexposing one and two thirds, the sky got washed out,
building a stark contrast to the beautiful colors of the bird.
So now that we've covered some creative lighting techniques,
what other methods are there to capture unique looking images?
Well, playing with your camera shutter speed,
for example, and slowing things down can be another way.
Keeping the shutter open for a longer
period of time can be challenging and very bright ambient light.
So this technique will work best.
On the heavily overcast days,
or generally when the light is low, like early morning or late afternoon,
the first technique that uses a slow shutter speed is called pinning.
And the idea here is to pen the camera
with a moving subject while continuously shooting.
The tricky part is to match the speed
of the pending camera to the speed of the subject in motion to ensure
that some parts, like the head or eyes, are in focus while the moving parts like
legs or wings of a bird show the motion blur.
You also need to choose a subject
that moves parallel to you, not one that comes straight towards you or
heads away if you are not confident with your camera's manual mode.
I suggest using shutter priority with the eyes set to auto.
Then you select a slow shutter speed, which very much depends on the subject.
You shoot and fire away for birds in flight.
I like to use a shutter speed anywhere between 30th to 88 of the second.
The larger the bird just lower the shutter speed from mammals running about fifty
years to one hundred and twenty fifth of a second.
And if they are walking instead
of running, I suggest around a tenth of a second.
These are of course just rough numbers to get you started.
So experiment and see what you get.
Sounds easier than it is, though.
This technique certainly requires some skill and trial and error.
You might have to take hundreds of photos before nailing one.
So don't be discouraged if it doesn't work
straight away and keep on trying, especially when the light is low and you
anyway would have have to high ISO's using a fast shutter speed.
Instead, instead of penning,
you can simply also slow the shutter speed down if you anticipate a short movement
of the subject and keep the camera steady while shooting.
Like in this photograph of a male lion shaking its main.
I saw that the flies were bothering him
for a while and speculated that once he gets up, he would shake his head.
So I slowed down the shutter speed to four hundred of a second to freeze most of his
face while the motion in the main stayed visible.
I was simply guessing here, but I think it worked out pretty well.
Let me know in the comments below. What do you think?
If you find a subject that isn't in motion at all, you could create a motion yourself
by moving the camera or lens during the exposure.
In this image, I created movement by zooming in close
onto a point of interest, and as soon as I hit the shutter,
quickly rotating the zoom will back out, creating this tunnel effect.
It does help a great deal if you have to camera on a tripod or another support
like a beanbag, for example, because if you take too much during
the exposure by rotating the zoom will absolutely nothing will be in focus.
You could also reverse the room and go
from wide to close, getting a different look entirely.
Either way, make sure to be on continuous shooting once again and keep clicking.
Increasing your success rate.
I found the shutter speed between a fifth
of a second and the fifteenth of a second work.
Well, for this technique, and if you struggle with the zoom method
altogether, you can alternatively move the camera slowly up or down or left or
right during exposure and introduce some this way
with a slow shutter speed, you can really bring scenes alive.
So next time you go out, keep an eye out for such an opportunity.
I really hope you get inspired by these
few tips and perhaps you have some more to add in the comments section below.
As always, if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and collect about
Aykan to get notified for any upcoming new videos on our channel.
And if you like to join us
on an unforgettable photo safari, click the link in the description.
See you in one of the next episodes. Bye bye.