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Environmental portrait tips

Be unconventional. Sometimes trying something out of the ordinary can really bring out your subject’s personality. Think outside of the typical poses and locations. Ask to see what the subject’s work involves so you can look for interesting locations or backgrounds.

Meet with your subject first.

Meet up with subjects you’re photographing and talk with them about their work or hobby to get a feel for who they are. Discuss with subjects what they would like to see in the portrait; they might have some great ideas that you hadn’t thought of.

Use a shorter focal length. If you generally use a medium telephoto lens for portraits, try a shorter focal length lens instead. If you choose a wide-angle lens, don’t get too close to your subject or his or her facial features may become distorted in your finished image.

Take breaks. Giving subjects a chance to take a break allows them the opportunity to go about their work or play, which gives you the opportunity to take some shots with the subjects more at ease.

Group Photography

Group photography is basically taking pictures of multiple people, ranging from couples to entire companies. With more subjects comes more responsibility. Now, instead of having to pose one person, you have to pose multiple people. Added to that, the challenge of managing people blinking, yawning, turning their heads, and a myriad of other details.

Posing groups in attractive formations is very important — try to stay away from having them stand all in a row. Ideally, you want to position them to create a flowing pattern. Geometric patterns, such as a diamond

shape, also work well when shooting four or more people.

Depending on the circumstances and location, you may want to have a few chairs or stools handy so you can have a couple people standing behind the people that are seated.

Before you are ready to begin taking shots, make sure that you have everyone’s attention. You can fire a test flash, use a whistle, or any other obvious action or noise that will garner attention. This should help to settle everyone down and let them know you’re about to snap the photo, which hopefully minimizes any unwanted actions by the subjects.

Inspiration

Family reunions and get-togethers are good place to start taking group portraits. You can find subjects at pretty much any gathering with a lot of people. Parties, nightclubs, and

social events can also be great places to photograph portraits of friends, couples, and families. And, not all portraits need to be formal; sometimes capturing the spirit of the moment or gathering is as important.

Group portrait photography tips

Watch for cover-ups. Before you release the shutter, be sure that no one is covering up someone else.

Get everyone’s attention. When you’re about to snap the photo, let everyone know — don’t’ surprise them or you’ll end up with closed eyes and turned heads. Tell them to look at the camera. If everybody knows you’re about to shoot, you have better chance at catching them with eyes open and looking directly at the camera.

Take more than one shot. Take multiple shots to ensure that you have everyone looking in the same direction, not blinking, with hands down, etc.

Bring an assistant. An assistant can help you keep everyone in their place and paying attention. They can also come in handy carrying equipment.

Macro and Close-up

Photography

Macro and close-up are easily some of my favorite types of photography. Sometimes you can take the most mundane object and give it a completely different perspective just by moving in an varying perspective. Ordinary objects can become alien landscapes. Insects take on a new personality when you can see the strange details of their face.

Technically macro photography can be difficult. Because the closer you get to an object, the less depth of field you get, and it can be difficult to maintain focus. When your lens is less than an inch from the face of a bug, just breathing in is sometimes enough to lose focus on the area that you want to capture. For this reason, you usually want to use the smallest aperture your camera can handle and still maintain focus. I say usually, because a shallow depth of field can also be very useful in bringing attention to a specific detail.

When using flash for macro photography, you want to get the flash as close to the axis of your lens as possible. You do this in an effort to achieve good, strong, flat lighting, which results in maximum detail. For this reason, Nikon has created a Speedlight setup designed especially for macro and close-up photography. This kit places the SB-R200 Speedlights directly on the end of the lens using a special adapter.

Taking into consideration that most people delve into photography as a hobby and don’t have a real need to purchase the kit, I focus on some techniques for using the SB600 or SB-800 for macro and close-up techniques, rather than with the kit.

While it is possible to use a Speedlight for macro photography while mounted on the camera, it doesn’t always work. When shooting extremely close-up, the lens obscures the light from the flash resulting in a dark area in the images.

In order to get the flash on-axis and closer to the subject when shooting insects or other small live creatures, I use the flash in the wireless remote setting, and handhold it next to the front of the lens. I hold the Speedlight to the left of the lens (because my right hand is holding the camera). I generally angle the flash toward the subject. I sometimes hold the flash near the top of lens to achieve an overhead lighting effect.

When photographing still objects, I set up multiple Speedlights using the AS-19 stands. I place two Speedlights angled at approximately 45 degrees. Depending on how I want the image to look, I either use both of the Speedlights at their TTL settings for even lighting or I reduce the exposure compensation on one light to get a more dramatic effect.

When shooting with the Speedlight very close to the subject, I use the built-in diffuser to soften the shadows a bit. Your Speedlight will show that the power zoom level is set to 14 or 17mm, but being so close to your subject, you don’t need to worry about any light fall off. You can also use bounce flash to soften the light, but I generally don’t, preferring to get the most light of out of my Speedlight in order to maintain a deep depth of field.

When using the SB-800 you can use diffusion dome that is supplied with the flash. You can also purchase a diffusion dome for the SB-600. Stofen makes an inexpensive one that works very well.

Inspiration

My favorite subjects for macro photography are insects. I go to parks and wander around keeping my eyes open for strange bugs. Parks are also a great place to take macro

pictures of flowers. Although these are the most common subjects, by no means are they the only subjects you can take pictures of. Lots of normal objects can become interesting when viewed up close.

Macro and close-up photography tips

Use Close-up filters. Close-up filters are like magnifying glasses for your lenses. If you can’t afford a macro lens or you’re not sure if you’d use one enough to justify the expense, these filters may be the way to go. They screw directly on the front of your lens just like any other filter and can be screwed together in order to increase the magnification more. They work fairly well and are usually priced in the thirty-dollar range. Using closeup filters can soften your image a little especially when using more than one at a time.

Try extension tubes. Adding extension tubes enables you to get a closer focus distance with your lenses. For many, this is a less expensive alternative to purchasing a dedicated macro lens. Extension tubes mount on your camera body in between the camera and the lens, an extension ring allows you to get closer to the subject by moving the lens forward thereby changing the focal range or the focusing distance of the lens.

Consider reversing rings. These attachments allow you to attach the lens to your camera backwards which means you can focus extremely close. Think this won’t work? Have you ever looked into the wrong end of a pair of binoculars? Flipping the camera lens around works the same way.

Nature and Wildlife

Photography

Photographing wildlife is a fun and rewarding pastime that can also be intensely frustrating. If you know what you want to photograph it can mean standing out in the freezing cold or blazing heat for hours on end, waiting for the right animal to show up. But when you get that one shot you’ve been waiting for, it’s well worth it.

Wildlife photography is another one of those areas of photography where people’s opinions differ on whether or not you should use flash. I tend not to use flash very often to avoid scaring off the animals. But, as with any type of photography, there are circumstances in which you might want to use a flash, such as if the animal is backlit and you want some fill-flash.