Crop Corner

"Your page is excellent and it's already in my favourites." We often get asked at BetterPhoto.com how to shoot videos. Whether you are recording the growth of your children, family fun during the holidays, or the sites you see on your long-awaited vacation, you want to capture home movies that are fun for people to watch. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when shooting. Follow these guidelines and you will be well on your way to making more professional, fun-to-watch home movies. Simple keeping your audience in mind when shooting is one of the best ways to improve your home movies. Even if your family members will be the only likely ones to view your video, help them think the best of you and your work. Imagine how you would feel watching your film. Sympathize with their needs as a viewer. Shoot for others as you would have them shoot for you.

Remember the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words? Keep those words in mind when you are composing your own photographs. What is it you are trying to relay with your photograph? Will someone else recognize it? Is there a clear subject? If so, what is it? If you cant answer these questions, look a little longer before you press that shutter button. One of my photographic mentors says that when you are taking pictures, your main job is to see. Once we master the art of seeing, we can then attempt to capture what we see on film. Not always an easy job!

It truly caught me off guard, and in a moment of madness, I said OK. That's what happened when my niece asked me to photograph her daughter, Kori, for her first birthday. I immediately questioned my response and went into a panic. Me, photograph a child?! I hadn't been photographing for very long in the first place, and my subjects had been mostly flowers. Had I ever even pointed my camera at a person? What was I thinking?!! What was my niece thinking?!! How come everyone thinks that because your camera is more expensive than theirs, that you can take great pictures of absolutely anything?!! Never mind the fact that I had actually started referring to myself as a photographer. Wait a minute . . . I had to settle down. I told her I'd do it, so I'd better start figuring out how I was going to do it.

When I began to photograph more than 25 years ago, I felt I found a way of expressing myself that met something so deep inside me that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. Walking with my camera, the city streets seemed transformed--friendlier, more interesting, and I spent hours searching for dramatic situations, trying to capture the right moment. Looking through the viewfinder, what I saw had new value for me, boredom and loneliness seemed to vanish, and I wished I could feel that way all the time. And hoping to learn what made a photograph successful, I avidly studied the history and technique of photography.

For more photographs, you can successfully use a name-brand, 200-speed print film like Kodak Gold or Fuji Super G Plus. Let's look at these three factors - speed, brand, and print vs. slide. The numbers - 100, 200, 400 - refer to how quickly the film reacts to light. A 400-speed film reacts twice as fast as a 200. Higher-speed film is used for action shots, because it helps reduce blurring, and for low-light, indoor settings. But higher-speed film also results in weaker colors and grainier images in your finished photographs than slower films. If your prints are blurry, try using a faster film. If you want better (less grainy) resolution for enlargements, try a slower film.

Q: What are some tricks and special effects I can try with my basic camera? A: Even if you have the cheapest, most basic camera, you can still do many of the special-effects that professionals do with more expensive cameras. You can use any filter (colored or distorted glass or plastic that camera shops sell for about $10-$20) but make sure it covers the lens and, if you have one, the exposure window (a small window near the lens) so that your pictures get exposed correctly. Red, orange and blue filters can make striking images while a soft-focus or fog filter adds a romantic touch to faces and water. You can even make you own filter with a colored plastic bag or glass.

"Great site, and thanks for the response to my question." In the past, photographers had only a few painful and/or expensive options when it came to removing distractions from a photo after the film had been processed. If a tree branch, thumb, or stranger was unwittingly included in the image, the photographers' choices were limited to retouching the photo with paints, cropping out the unwanted part of the picture, or tossing the whole thing in the trash. With an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop or ImageReady, photographers are no longer as limited when it comes to removing extraneous elements. Such programs feature tools to help make winners out of these marginal shots.

We often get asked at BetterPhoto.com how to shoot videos. Whether you are recording the growth of your children, family fun during the holidays, or the sites you see on your long-awaited vacation, you want to capture home movies that are fun for people to watch. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when shooting. Follow these guidelines and you will be well on your way to making more professional, fun-to-watch home movies. Simple keeping your audience in mind when shooting is one of the best ways to improve your home movies. Even if your family members will be the only likely ones to view your video, help them think the best of you and your work. Imagine how you would feel watching your film. Sympathize with their needs as a viewer. Shoot for others as you would have them shoot for you.