Black & white photography by Jakob Jelling

Black & white photography by Jakob Jelling

Photography is a diversified field of creating a spectral variety of art. It is a specialization that deals with different experimentations with colors, however it is also a fact that only shades of black and white can also do wonders in this zone of creative art. With the advent of the digital camera the scope of this wonderful business has opened up new horizons for the users and photographers who seek to explore new lands and trod the ground of innovative creation and thus it can be aptly said that black & white can become more creativity with the boon of digital photography and digital camera. This discussion is primarily aimed at exploring the incipient information regarding the blessing of the digital camera in black & white photography so that the novice as well as the expert photographers can become richer in knowledge!

The exploration can be further extended in defining that a lot of modern digital cameras contain a series of mono modes in the advanced menu settings. These can be used to become more creative with digital photography and in the areas of black and white too. For example some of the modes are as follows: Black & White that takes black and white photographs encompassing of a spectral range of gray tones. This gives the black and white photographs a serious and ethereal look with the richness and grandeur of the past, present and future captures in just two tinges! Another mode is Sepia that again takes pictures in varying tinges brown tones. Looking into a matter a bit more technically, it can be stated that as the digital camera is switched into any of these modes then the color LCD becomes grayscale. The technology proceeds as in the process the pictures are taken the color signals get recorded by the CCD, but the image is later de saturated when processed to remove all color.

A lot of interesting points exist in the area of black and white photography using the digital cameras. For example shooting in black & white becomes more interesting with the use of filters. Experimentations can be done by the enthusiastic photographers as to how a particular color would appear in black & white. This can be demonstrated by the fact that perhaps a red filter placed over the lens lightens any red color in the picture making them appear as lighter shades of gray in comparison to other colors like blue green. This process can be very challenging and in the same time very interesting! It is true that digital black and white photography can be used often for the purpose of portraiture and taking pictures of landscapes and can also become very effective in abstract shoots offering a graphical view of the subject to be photographed. The ultimate truth is that the black and white digital photography can make the world look complete different from what it is through the human eyes.

The graphics software from Adobe - Photoshop - with its more advanced options a person can edit each of the colors in the image to lighten or darken and provide the effect of brightness in varying intensity too. Becoming an expert in this can make a person versatile in techniques of adjusting the tonal range of a black & white image. This is the liberty that the digital camera provides in the field of black and white photography. Thus the users can make much more efficient and richer quality photographs.

The above lines of this discussion has explored the incipient ground of interest and information of black and white photography using the digital camera, however it has to be noted here that to get the real taste of the honey the users or photographers must not waste time and take up their digital cameras and get going into the cool new and most beautiful world of digital black and white photography! It is out there for everyone.
About the Author
Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com. Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to take better pictures with your digicam.

Exposure compensation by Jakob Jelling

Exposure compensation by Jakob Jelling

The digital camera is in reality a great possession with many facets of its utilities and not only that knowing these utilities makes the understanding the digital camera complete. The utilities are also so very diverse that they too offer further introspection of details in their varying applications. Such an area is digital camera exposure compensation. Only knowledge of digital camera exposure is not enough, so the digital camera exposure compensation requires some amount of exposure in itself! This discussion is focused towards that cause itself.

Looking at different digital cameras, even temperately costing digital cameras have arrangements for exposure compensation settings. To explain in a bit detail, the exposure compensation allows the users to control the amount of light entering the lens. And thereby the illumination of the photograph is decided. Exposure compensation can be altered manually or by the help of a digital camera's exposure compensation setting that lets one override the metered exposure set inside the digital camera itself. Strictly speaking, the exposure values provide an expedient line of attack to put a figure on the available light intensity and therefore exposure.

As per general norms of the users of digital cameras, certain standards exist for selecting such values. These values are specifically known as Exposure Values (EV). Selecting an up to standard Exposure Values (EV) helps maintain the details contained in dark areas of a photo, or diminish the more than usually bright areas. Again, looking from technical point of view, the Exposure Values are numbers that refer to an assortment of combinations of apertures of lenses and shutter speed respectively. They have a selective range of values, ranging between -2 to +2 Exposure Values (EV). As a general rule positive exposure settings are used for cases where bulky areas of a scene are especially bright such as taking pictures of a snow scene and also during times of photographing when the background is a good deal brighter than the focal area under consideration. Also, negative exposure settings are used for cases where bulky areas of a scene are especially dark and also during times of photographing when the background is a good deal darker than the fore area under consideration.

One point that is worth noting is that light meters cannot see color. They deliver every scene as 18% middle gray and become accustomed to the exposure accordingly. And most digital cameras will allows a photographer to compensate the exposure by 1 to 2 EV plus or minus in 1/3 or 1/2 stop increments. A very important realization for any photographer is that the right exposure is only "correct" in the eye of the photographer; Exposure Value compensation can also be used as a creative tool.

With this information available to the users of the digital camera, the knowledge of digital camera exposure as well as digital camera exposure compensation becomes. But it is only knowledge, the proper acquiring of the whole feel comes only from personal experience.
About the Author
Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com. Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to take better pictures with your digicam.