About Photography

A Little Something About your Camera and Still Photography. 

Editors Note: This page was previously published on 04/2017and has been currently revamped for your reading experience.
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Edited By: Fernando 10/17/2017


   
   For Starters we must say that the intention of this page is to somewhat give you a hint as to what it takes to create GREAT still photos. 

Whether you are taking photos for a Blog such as this one, or any particular reason not explained in this post,You must understand the basics, and it begins with the "BEST" camera possible your budget and intended use may allow.

   When we started blogging to increase online presence to our what we call "Our passion for life",in Interior home design/decor; We begun to take the quality of the photos we took very seriously. 

   If you are reading this you may already be well versed in your niche of interest but may want to know if there is any other relative information out there that could be constructively appropriate for you.
  Once again! we reiterate that this page will solely give some pointers on still photography because it speaks mostly to the content of our blogs. 

  If you are into Home design and or decorating Interiors,businesses etc; then you will want to reflect every detail of your work with the utmost quality. 
  
  When doing so, the quality of the camera you choose is also of great importance. Even though we would not be promoting any one camera as "The Best" on this page, we will look at some features that are essential to  great still photos. 
   
  You may or may have not done this yet, but find the best smart phone in your home and take the best possible picture you can. The results seem to be stunning as you view these images on a 5 inch or even a 10 inch tablet screen. Now lets upload that same picture to your Oh let say! 19' or 24' flat screen monitor. Yikes! not so cute anymore. The word used for this undesirable effect is sometimes referred to as pixelation.
  
  Notice that as your screen gets bigger the quality of that cell phone or tablet photo becomes less desirable. All things considered keep in mind that this can also happen with a dedicated camera. Hence here are some things that we researched and came across when we decided to go with a dedicated DSLR (Digital Single Lens-Reflex camera).  

1. Price is one of the major factors many of us deviate from the notion of investing in a quality piece. !Yes I said invest! Think about it, if your intentions is to get people to like Love your work and turn this passion of yours into something of possible income, then first impressions matter and is indeed worth the extra cash.

2. Type of camera is another animal in itself. All we have to say with regards to this is Research, Research and then Research some more.
After settling on a decent price range you are willing to sacrifice, you need to know what you will be using the camera mainly for and which brand and Type offers the features compatible to that need and price range.  
Having night mares about the process yet? Don't worry keep reading and hopefully we can help. 

3. The Features of the camera as you may know play an important factor in pricing. Features such as WiFi and a whole lot of so called "Free" accessories where not important to us as these are usually an indication that there may be something better on the horizon from which to choose from. 
Look for features like frame Rate and or frames per/second (fps)as all cameras these days are at the least 1080p capable. The higher number available being(60fps)seems to be the current highest available when shooting movies or photos. When it comes to frame rate, this could vary from camera to camera.
Our DSLR choice shoots photos at 5 fps which is pretty darn good for the price range we settled on which was below the $600 price tag (on a sale) I may add.

  If this camera had the ability to shoot anything lower than 5 fps it would have been by all means, continue to be a top choice for us considering still images were our main focus. Higher frame rates are mainly a concern if your main focus is on shooting fast moving objects.     

Megapixels are essential to having images remain at great quality after being blown up to 10 times or more its original size. Again the higher the number in most cases the better. Can the camera shoot Raw images, you definitely do not want to pass up on this feature as it gives you the versatility to post pictures at its utmost quality. Think of it this way, would you like to visit Fiji and have your eyes process the fullness of its majestic views ?. Or will you like to only see 1/4 of its actual beauty ?.

Image Stabilization is another of those must have great features we found helpful and it does exactly as the word states. This compensates for any involuntary movement that may take place while shooting the photo. 

Below we will show you some still photos taken in Fine Mode and 680p X 480p HD @ 30 frames/sec. 
Note: This camera is capable of Full 1080p HD @ 60 frams/sec. We chose to scale down the shots because high resolution images tend to need compression prior to inserting them into webpages. 
Here we wanted to give you raw unadulterated images without the trickery of applications.  

For this image we toned down the white balance feature of the camera, decreased the zoom of the lenses  and zoomed in by physically approaching the objects. By actually moving closer to the object physically you can diminish the blur effect that may tend to happen at times when using lens zoom. Again we remind you that we kept the image quality feature of the camera low at 480p X 640p @ 30 frames/sec. 

We did not want to have to adulterate the photo by using compression programs in order to apply it to this page. All the other images as you will see below were taken at the same settings. 

Note: We will post other images in the future with full 1080p @ 60 frames/sec (compressed) that will be adequate for this blog application. 

By: JoFer Interiors SMP

Same Image taken in Black and White. Here you can really notice the shadows of the stone and contrast of the other items. If you look closely, you can also notice the individual separation of the rice grains. 

A Real Orchid taken with close up shot in "Low" lighting and flash enabled.

Another closeup Shot. This time taken with "natural" ambient lighting and "NO" flash. You may also notice the detail in the petals and contrast of the nearest bud.

Here in this Photo of a Bengal Tiger and a Giraffe was taken in broad daylight with a 70-300 mm lens on Auto setting. Even though the animal is not completely still per say the photo was a great shot of the performance of this camera. Contrast and shades of the tree and the tiger are clearly noticeable on the grass, close to perfect. The high contrast values are also very noticeable in this close up of the giraffes. The different shades of its earthy tone spots are also very well differentiated.    

Provided By: JoFer Interiors

Another shot in order for you to see how the camera blurs out the nearest branch (twig) and focuses on the zebras on the background. A perfect Black and white photo, but without the Black/White setting enabled.

Here's another image of the same zebras shown in the former shot. Notice how this time the camera was able to focus on something as fine and small as a twig from the nearest branch.

The close up focus of the hanging twig was clearly contrasted, while blurring out the zebras in the background. 


Conclusion: When making a choice in this area always, always be an educated buyer before you take the step, as most stores will only give you 14 days on returns on electronic equipment. Serious cameras are for serious dedicated folks whom either want to see a delightful financial profit out of their business venture or getting the most out a pleasurable hobby.



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Note: To the right of this article we have placed a great short video clip [source:non-sponsored] shared on youtube on the subject of still photography. 

Bellow you will also find some direct links to 3rd party Articles we found very useful in making our choice possible and we hope it's of great help to you. Happy Searching :)

35 Examples of Still Life Photography

The Ultimate Guide to Buying a New Camera


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