Taking Better Photos'

by Anthony Parakka

---

Take picture on a nice and bright day.
Tke the picture with the sun behind you.  Evening shots
with the sun low and in backgroung works well too -more
photography than bike. If the bike is parked, put it on
the center stand or with the kick stand on the other side.

Show off whatever it is you want to show off the bike 
and its stuff.

If aperture is wide, background will blurr and really does
not matter unless it is multicolored and busy.  If apperture
is narrow, the background will be in focus too,  Give careful
thought to the background.

Background showing perspective works great, eg. street
winding off into the sunset -very photographic.  
Try to keep the horizon at 1/3 height in the frame.

If you appear in the picture, be sure to wear or hold a helmet,
else you will start another debate! ;)


Diffused lighting is the key to bringing to details.
 It softens the shadows, and cuts down the contrast.

Clear sunny days are good too if there are enough light
scattering objects around (like light colored tarmac/
gravel etc.), to send light into the guts of the bike.
2/3 clear blue sky and 1/3 terra-firma would make a great
background for a wine-red bike poised right and occupying
center frame!  Dont know about the grey ones -perhaps in 
front of an open meadow -lush green or golden brown, with 
1/3 sky and 2/3 meadow, maybe?. 

Color contrast makes a big difference. The 1/3 - 2/3 frame
technique works very well.

If using a flash, make sure there isnt a flat backgroung 
immediately behind the bike.. you might get some ugly shadows!

If the scene is stationary and you have a tripod, consider a 
slightly greater exposure time.  Can bring out the details and 
better colors.

Film speed is important too.  Weaker the light, faster the 
film speed needed (eg. 400)  Bright scenes - slower speed 
eg. 100 speed. If subject is moving, use faster speed film.  
for stationary objects, 100 speed works geat.  Low speed films 
bring out better color saturation.  High speed film are more 
grain-ier.  High speed films are prone to over-exposure.  

Slow speed films are prone to under-exposure.
All that may sound complicated, most modern point and shoot 
cameras adjust (to a degree) for all this stuff after automatically 
reading the film speed off the silver and black patterns on the roll 
and external lighting.  On hot days, keep the camera cool  
Else the picture washes out (like almost all my shots dring my hike 
down the Grand canyon).

Some brand of films are better than others too, but thats getting a
little too deep!

I would think, if a picture is to be scanned, consider developing the
film on glossy paper.  150 to 300 dpi may be a good compromise between
scaned picture clarity and file size.  Experiment with color bits to see
what works best.  Encoding in gif or tiff or compressed bmp format helps
reduce file size too.  Clean and uniform backgorund (like clear blue
skies for eg.) improves image compression, reducing file size.

And oh!, avoid taking pictures in front of ugly barns (like some of my
early pictures), trahses the picture!


Anthony Parakka

Taking Better Photos' appears on the XJ Picture Page courtesy of Anthony Parakka.