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A Lens Hood* is helpful to keep your lens in shade by avoiding direct light hits to your lens. If lens hood is not enough use your hand or a cap to avoid direct hits. You can cast shadows with your hand or any other object by placing that in front of your lens and above.

*“Lens Hood is a device used on the end of a lens to block the sun or other light source in order to prevent glare and lens flare.” Wikipedia

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Light

Light is important in close-up portraits. Soft and balanced lights are preferred in order to avoid any sharp shadows in the models face. But also you can accent on different expressions in the model’s face by using a direct stronger light and sharp create shadows on the face on purpose.

Lens

Do not stand too close to the model use a normal – short-tele lens instead. 50mm-90mm will do just fine for close-up portraits. Reason for using this kind of lenses and shooting the model from distance is de-emphasizing the subject’s nose. If the camera is close to the model, her/his nose will be even closer and will look bigger than normal in the picture. So to avoid this, take the picture from a significant distance.

Settings

Use low f values which means a wide aperture. That helps us to isolate our subject from the background by making the background blurry.

As an example if you are shooting a race using a fast shutter speed, your shot will be clear and sharp, car is not blur, background is not blur, wheels are not blur, road is not blur…. Your picture will look like picture of a stopping car. But it is a race car, your theme is SPEED, so you should make the viewers feel the speed. How? Well with a relatively slow shutter speed and sometimes (as in the example of race car) by following the moving object with your camera. Most of the time, a tripod and a slower shutter speed will be enough to create the feeling of motion in your pictures. When shooting a waterfall use a tripod and take two different pictures from the exact same spot with two different shutter speeds (lets say 1/250 sec. and 1/5 sec. ). You will see the difference, in the first picture that you took with a faster shutter speed, the waterfall looks like it is frozen in time but in the second picture that you used a slower shutter speed you get a picture with silky surface of smoothly flowing water. Some examples

In the picture above ; i followed the movement of the footballer with my camera while i’m taking the picture. As you see pitch, hands and legs of footballer and ball is blurry but head and torso of footballer is not. Pitch is flu because i moved the camera, footballers legs and ball is blur because of their own movement but torso and head of footballer are not flu because i followed the footballer’s movement with almost the same speed.

When taking the picture above; i zoomed in and focused on #9 and suddenly zoomed out while i’m taking the picture. This is why everything is blur but the #9.

And last one; this is an example for using different shutter speeds, i already told about it in the beginning of this writing.

Soccer pictures are also added to my Photography Page -> People and Portrait

It is really hard to keep our lenses clean no matter how careful we are. Actually the problem is not cleaning the lens, the problem is cleaning the lens properly and without damaging the lens. Do not clean your lens with ordinary clothes; to not deform the special layer on the lens it is important to know the right cleaning tools.

Air Blower

Air blower is a simple air pump that blows air from a thin pipe. It helps you to clean the dust on lens or on sensor (if you are using Digital SLR) without touching it. There are types that have brush on them so you can also sweep the dust out of lens. But i think having blower and brush separately is better because hairs of brush will definitely reduce the air pressure, thus creating a less powerful blow. You can also use blower for the dust inside your camera so this is a useful tool, get one.

*When you are using a blower inside your camera, you may move the dust from somewhere else in your camera, directly onto your sensor. And believe me you don’t want to deal with the dust on the sensor. Dust will appear all of your pictures with high f values. It is hard to get rid off and if you scratch it , it will cost you quite much…

Wash Leather

Wash leathers are basically animal skins that are used for for cleaning and polishing. You can use them for cleaning your lens or filter. However it loses its antistatic feature after couple of uses, because there’s no chemical on wash leather. That means instead of cleaning the dust, it may carry the dust on it and leave them on your lens. So be careful with these…

Antistatic Clothes

These are like wash leathers but there are two main differences that makes them better. First antistatic clothes carries a chemical on them which prevents the dust hang on to your lens, even if there’s dust on your lens after cleaning it with antistatic cloth you can easily blow it out with air blower. The second; they don’t lose their antistatic ability as fast as wash leather does. Keep it in a bag away from dust and do not leave it under direct sun light (chemical vaporizes under direct sun light). And throw it away as it gets dirty, antistatic clothes can not be cleaned or washed.

Air Spray

Air spray are based on same principle with air blower but air spray creates much more air pressure than blower. It is basically compressed air in a can, just like a deodorant (of course it has no chemicals inside, only air). Some say it lefts stains on lens if you apply it too close, so be careful with it. It is mostly advised to use air spray for removing the dust on the body (not sensor) and rings of lens , but not directly to lens or sensor of D-SLR’s.

Lens Cleaning Liquid

Lens cleaning liquid is a special solution that removes dirt and oil (that your hand leave on lens when you touch it). Especially it is hard to get rid of oil on lens but you can do that easily with lens cleaning liquid. Apply the liquid on lens and wait for until lens dries. You can use cleaning swabs to apply it on lens or you can just use the spray lens cleaning liquid.If you are using cleaning swabs (two cotton headed straws) there are two things that you have to be careful; first try not to leave any cotton pieces on lens and second which is more important than first; check for any plastic pieces coming out of the cotton tat may scratch your lens. If you are using spray just do not spray it all over the camera (it can harm plastic parts) , use it just on lens and let lens dry.

Optical Tissue

Thin fibres for single use that have chemicals on them to clean lenses and filters. Do not use them more than once because optical tissues loses their sensitivity and chemicals on them moreover they may left some particles of fiber. Just throw them out after using once.

Lens Pen

An equipment specially designed for cleaning dust on lenses. There’s antistatic brush at one side and lens cleaning pad on the other. There’s also reservoir for chemicals inside the pen which prevents brush losing its antistatic ability. It is highly effective against dust but not so useful against oil and finger prints on the lens. When choosing a cleaning pen; try to buy ones that have soft and quality brushes.

Some Extra Tips

• Use a filter; using an UV filter will help protecting your lens and has not so much effect on your photos (but try to choose quality ones). When using a filter you will be cleaning the filter instead of your lens and as you know lenses are a lot more expensive than filters so even if you scratch the filter, you will not be sorry as much as you scratch the lens.
• Use lens caps; while you are carrying your camera inside your bag a cap will keep your lens safe and clean
• Face the camera down when changing lenses; that way you will decrease the risk of letting the dust enter inside your camera

Still if you believe that you are not experienced enough to clean your lens or sensor (especially be careful about sensor) please take your camera to authorized service of your camera’s brand. Because making a mistake may cost you a lot of money.

Note : The article above is informative, please clean your sensor or lens with your own risk. Ermany Photography is not responsible for unexpected and unwanted results of your actions (such as scratching your lens or sensor.)

*(More cleanly we are not responsible for any damage you have done to your camera, lens or any equipment you have.)