What to do when things get tricky A blue lobster at the Sea Life Centre, Oban, Scotland One really rainy day I found myself in an aquarium (the Sea Life Centre just north of Oban, Scotland). I was surrounded by fish tanks lit up by artificial lights, with their reflections shining from every glass surface in the room. Photographic instincts took over my thinking and I settled on this blue…

18% grey exposure

Black 

no exposure compensation  

-1 exposure compensation

-2 exposure compensation 

White 

no exposure compensation control

+1 exposure compensation 

It all started because I really wanted to capture the moments of my son with those “pinterest” cute portraits, but my husband and I are really watching our pennies since cutting down to just one income (that way I can stay at home with our son! best decision btw). We can’t afford a photographer right now…so what’s a mama got to do, but take out her “handy dandy” smartphone camera and start learning portrait techniques herself.

I currently have an iPhone 6 and I am by no means a tech-savvy person, but I love to learn! After doing a little research and following just these five adjustments I have captured some pretty astounding pictures. I can’t believe the changes in the photographs I take! If you gain anything from this blog just remember these five techniques:

Use your focus/exposure control (visit my previous blog iPhone 6 camera features  to understand how to use this feature)

Find the right lighting 

DO NOT ZOOM IN 

Change the perception of your photos 

Be steady

Follow along as I go into more detail about these techniques. I’ll post some before and after photos to show you what a difference they make. Join me in my learning experience about diy portraits.

That’s me just pulling up my camera app! I swear this is a very informative blog post. Sometimes humor just helps along the way!

Learning from your mistakes and studying from your photos is the best way to learn.

Johnny was such a trooper with my diy portraits. I’m still learning and I have a long way to go, but I’m having so much fun doing it!

Here are my results:

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart,

I’ll stay there forever.”

-Winnie the Pooh

“People let me tell you ’bout my best friend” -Harry Nilsson

Exposure Control

From this…

To this…

I used the exposure control to focus and increased the lighting on the book so it would stand out more. My perception did change a bit as well.

This feature in simple terms means how light or dark an image will appear when captured. It helps for certain features/objects to stand out in your photographs. To get more advanced there are three items that work in conjunction to express exposure. It’s called “the exposure triangle” which all three items work in together and are never separate these are called aperture, shutter speed, and IOS. If you want to learn more about “the exposure triangle” click on the link above. After researching I have found this page to be the most valuable in explaining the meaning of the “exposure triangle”. 

I found this while researching on google, which helped me to understand the terminology and how these three variables work together.

Aperture= depth of motion

shutter speed=motion blur

IOS=image noise

Lighting

One of the most valuable things I learned so far is the importance of lighting. I mean that simply is what photography is about, right?  It truly is a learning process in how to “train your eye” to understand how the lighting will affect the photos. If you click the lighting link above it will take you to a more detailed blog that focuses on tips for proper use of lighting.

From this…

To this..

What I found most valuable about lighting is that it’s easy to adjust by simply just playing with it in your photos. You can use certain aspects of the lighting to incorporate highlighted features. If you speak to any photographer I’m sure that they would recommend to take outside portraits during the golden hour (first hour and last hour of sunlight), but as a mom sometimes that doesn’t always work out. So, I make do with the light that I have and try to incorporate it in different ways. The way your subjects are positioned play a big part in this.

Zooming In

You know that “zoom in” option on your camera app…yeah well try not to use it. This is a tip that came across multiple websites when I was researching photography with iPhones. The reason behind this is that anytime you “zoom in” it causes the pixels to become more visable and in that case becoming a blurred image.

Instead, get closer and try out different angles. You can always go back and make little tweaks by editing anything you do not want in the photo.

I use to zoom in all the time, instead of just getting closer to the image I wanted to capture. Since learning about this I have not touched my zoom button, and it has made a huge difference.

Perception

From this…

To this…

When you change the way things are looked at sometimes there is a whole new beauty to it. This has been my favorite learning experience with photography. I really enjoy getting in the moment and giving others a different view of something that is such a familiar object. When I was photographing Johnny, I was literally laying on my stomach trying to get ta great picture. I’m sure it was hilarious to view as a bystander. When taking pictures it’s our natural instict to take that straight shot, so when we see photos with a different perception it makes just a good picture into a really good picture.

 Here’s how you can be creative with exploring different perceptions.

get high and and get low with your images

use a stool or ladder to get the “top views”

explore different angles

tilt your camera ever so slightly either up or down

lay on the ground to take pictures

take “upside down pictures”

Be Steady

Johnny said “be like me, don’t move a muscle” 

We all know that the more steady you are the less blurry and the better quality you will have with your photographs. It can be pretty tricky though at times. Here are a few tips I learned that have helped me to capture better photos.

keep your elbows in

lay down if you have an opportunity to

use your knee as a tripod

Printing Your Photos

I usually print from either Shutterfly or upload them to my Walgreens photo app and send them off to the store. The convenience about Shutterfly is that they will mail it right to you, unlike Walgreens you have to go yourself to pick them up. Always google coupons for these two stores, they always have some available. Gosh…I love google! Here is another helpful website that really goes in-depth explaining the process of printing your photos from your iPhone. 

If you are printing very large images, you’ll have to understand that it may be a little grainy due to the tiny pixels that are used to capture the colors of the image. Also, the iPhone is a jpeg file, unlike a raw file. Meaning that the camera is already processing the features in the jpeg file and it is more difficult to edit certain attributes. I cam across a great video that explains the difference between a jpeg file and raw file. You may want to view it just to understand what type of file you will be shooting in and the advantages and disadvantage of it.

Congrats! You made it to the end…

I hope this information was useful! I know I have learned so much, and with just following the 5 tips I have captured some great photos! I love learning about photography! There is so much to understand, but when you take it slow and focus on just a few features at a time, you’ll start to understand just how it works. Don’t forget to keep practicing! I listened to a podcast that stated once you get into photography you won’t truly get any better until you start taking your first “10,000 photos”! Well, I sure am on my way to that!

Now, go capture those great moments…

Happy Photographing!

P.S. If you have any other tips you would like to share, please comment below. I would love to hear about them!

Bonus Tips!

find anything with a textured look (the outdoors works great for this:trees, grass, flowers, fences, stone, brick, walkways, basically anything with a type of pattern)

make sure to look at your captured shots every now and then to see if any adjustments need to be made with positions, perception, or angles

take multiple photos in one session

DO NOT edit until you’re done capturing the photos

DO NOT focus on perfection (sometimes the best photos turn out to be the ones you thought would be put in the “trash bin”)

LESS IS MORE- sometimes just one simple prop makes for a great picture. Don’t over load your picture with too many things.

change the scenery up if you can

HAVE FUN doing this! There is no right or wrong way, you may even surprise yourself! I know I sure did!

I actually have two copies of this camera because I bought one as a ‘spares or repair’ model from ebay just for the lens (a Pentacon electric 50mm f/1.8), and then I bought one in almost perfect condition a week or so later because I remembered that my brother had a praktica camera many years ago. I can’t exactly remember the model he has although I’m pretty sure it is not a PLC3, but being a bit of a camera collector, and also for nostalgia’s sake, I thought it would be nice to own a good one. (I must phone my Brother up and ask him which model it is as I’m pretty sure he still has it).

Praktica PLC3

Top view of lens and shutter release

Battery compartment, shutter release and Auto/Manual switch

Electronic aperture contacts

Contacts on the bottom of the lens

Film rewind and on/off switch

Vertical focal plane shutter

Battery compartment and tripod mount

Film advance lever

Shutter speed and Film ISO setting

Shutter release and self timer

Front view

Praktica PLC3

This camera is what I think of as a ‘mechanical’ 35mm SLR made sometime between 1978 and early 1983. I think of it as mechanical because there is no motor drive for the film or autofocus mechanism, everything is driven by the photographer. However the exposure meter system is electrical, driven by a small battery in the bottom of the camera.

I think in their day Praktica were considered a sort of up-market zenith; They weren’t in the same league as a Pentax or a Nikon but better than the soviet cameras. I know I was always envious of my brother’s Praktica when I was trying to take pictures with my Zenith B!

Camera description

This is a 35mm film Single Lens Reflex camera with an M42 screw thread lens mount and an electronic exposure control system. There is a flash hot shoe fitted to the top of the prism  housing and a mechanical self timer mechanism. My example is fitted with a Pentacon electric 50mm f/1.8 lens which was the standard lens fitted to the camera, although of course any M42 screw mount lens would work (although in order to work the exposure system the special pentacon electric lenses need to be used). It’s a fairly light camera to carry around, weighing about as much as my Nex 6, and is the size of nearly all cameras of this vintage and design. It wouldn’t be too uncomfortable to carry it about all day. My example came with an almost pristine Ever Ready Case and cost my the princely sum of £13.99

Exposure system

One of the special features of this camera was its exposure system.

The Praktica PLC3 was an advanced camera for it’s time because it has electrical communication between the lens and the camera body so that it is possible to adjust the lens aperture for the exposure meter whilst the actual aperture remains fully open. There are electrical contacts built round the lens mount which make contact with small sprung loaded contacts on the bottom of the lens. Obviously, the camera needs these special lenses for the exposure system to work in the correct way, but it will also work using the normal ‘stop down’ technique using any M42 mount lens. It worth noting that the contacts just carry the information about the aperture the lens is set to, the aperture itself is not electronic and is still closed during the exposure by the small pin protruding through the bottom of the lens when the shutter is fired.

The actual exposure is read in the viewfinder using a small needle which shows on the right hand side. When the exposure is correct the needle sits in a small circle and there are + and – signs above and below to indicate under and over exposure. The ‘match needle’ exposure system was fairly common at the time this camera was made, but the electronic communication was not universally used. In use, the aperture could be adjusted without actually stopping the lens down, so the image in the viewfinder remained at full brightness. This of course is common today, but was quite a novelty in the late 1970′s.

Viewfinder.

In common with all 35mm SLR cameras, the viewfinder is quite big and bright (assuming there is a fast lens fitted which most camera’s of that era had). There is a split image rangefinder in the centre of the viewfinder to assist with focus, which until I had a camera with focus peaking, I thought was the best way to rapidly manually focus a camera. Because the exposure is set with the aperture fully open, the depth of field shown in the viewfinder is alway shown as the shallowest. If you want to see the real depth of field, you would need to switch the lens into ‘manual’ mode.

Another fairly novel feature of the camera is a small black flag which appears on the left hand edge of the viewfinder when the shutter isn’t cocked. This gives a good indication that the camera won’t fire and probably stopped many missed shots.

Camera Specs

35mm film camera

Shutter range 1sec to 1/1000sec + Bulb

ISO 12 to 1600

Self Timer

Cable shutter release

Center mounted tripod bush

M42 lens mount

Flash sync 1/125sec

Mechanical exposure counter

Metal strap lugs

coaxial flash sync socket

purchase price in 1980 c £115