CITY SCAPES

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

Many large cities have top-floor observatories where you can see the city from an aerial view. Tokyo is no exception, with many options for viewing the world's largest city.

Although I have talked about photographing through windows in a past lesson, it was from the outside of a window looking in. This lesson deals with the opposite.

When you are at an observatory, you will need to use a tripod and a lens hood. If your lens does not have a built-in hood, you can make one out of black construction paper. Your goal is to eliminate all interior light shining between your lens and the window pane. So place the lens as close to the glass as possible, and if necessary, use a jacket or other dark fabric to completely surround the lens.

When you feel that you have no reflected light between the glass and the lens, you can take the shot. If the window is dirty, focus your lens to infinity, and use a small F-number. If the window pane is clean, focus to infinity and use an F-8 aperture.

This photo of Shinjuku, Tokyo was taken by me a few days ago from the Park Hyatt hotel bar. This was the bar where much of the shooting took place for the film "Lost in Translation", by Sofia Coppola.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

TEXTURE PHOTOS

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

Most of the photographs that people take have a subject and a background. Even if there are multiple subjects in the image, there will usually be a separation between the subjects and the (preferably) subservient background.

Texture-style photos are different however. They have no subject nor a background . . . the only defining element to these images are color variations, and a multitude of small and uniform objects. In the case of this foliage photo that I took last week, the small and uniform objects are the individual leaves.

The key to getting good texture shots is to back up, and allow a lot of the scenery into the camera lens. The individual objects (leaves) should be small enough so that they lose their identity amongst their neighbors. The result is a painterly image, often inducing calm and tranquility in the viewer.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

VIBRATION REDUCTION

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

I was doing a job last week for a major ski and golf resort, set in the beautiful Laurentian Mountains in Quebec. While walking around the various properties we came across a family of deer. We were at a distance such that a 200mm zoom lens was required, and luckily it was already on my camera.

You may have noticed that the longer your lens is zoomed to, the shakier your photos become when not using a tripod. This can really be demonstrated by looking through a telescope; one minor vibration of the tripod, and the whole celestial scene shakes for a few seconds! For wildlife photography, using a tripod is usually not convenient, so the latest solution is to purchase an Image Stabilizing lens, or sometimes called a Vibration Reduction lens.

Even though the sample photo of the deer seems nice and bright, my shutter speed was slow enough that the photo would have been shaky and blurry. I turned on the image stabilizing feature on my lens, and immediately the scene became stable, and I was able to get a sharp photo. Although I am not an expert on the mechanics of vibration reduction, my understanding is that a gyroscope with sensors tells the lens to move the opposite direction of your camera shake, thus canceling the unwanted movement. These corrective lens movements happen in milliseconds . . . incredible technology!

Although more expensive than normal zoom lenses, if you enjoy nature or sports photography, an image stabilizing lens might be a worthwhile investment. Depending on the brand, they often go by the names IS (Image Stabilizing Lens) and VR (Vibration Reduction Lens).

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

EXTERIORS

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

Have you ever wanted to take a photo of a building, or maybe your own house, but when you got the photo back the sky was pure white instead of blue? The reason for this exposure problem is that the sun is not shining on the side of the building that is being photographed.

If the sun is shining behind the building, the camera needs to increase the exposure in order to take the building "out of the shadows". By increasing the exposure, the blue sky becomes white, or over-exposed.

The most natural looking solution to this problem is to photograph the building when the sun is illuminating the the side that you are photographing (often morning or evening light). Because the house will be bright and well lit, the camera will not need to increase the exposure. This will result in a nice deep blue sky, and a well exposed building.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com