Find the right white balance

What we perceive as white light varies in color or temperature from cool blues to warm reds. Our brains are brilliant at processing these variations but an SLR needs you to set the white balance accurately.

It's important to select a custom white balance correctly to avoid ending up with unwanted color casts. So why not leave it permanently set to auto balance? Well, auto white balance has to calibrate and adjust for each frame, which means that temperature becomes inconsistent, causing a range of color casts across your photos. 

The best option is to select the appropriate custom white balance for lighting conditions. Some of the common color temperatures are available as presets, represented by symbols such as a cloud or a sun. These presets are surprisingly accurate and usually provide great results. Try switching to the cloudy setting when shooting under overcast skies or to the light bulb when shooting under tungsten light.

If your SLR has pre-white balance feature taking a reading of the scene will provide even better results. The most accurate white balance possible will come from measuring lighting temperature using a light meter and selecting the appropriate K value in the white balance menu.

Composition for landscapes

Tom Mackie by Digital Camera Magazine

Photography is about seeing. But it's also about what you don't see. For celebrated landscape photographer Tom Mackie this is one of the most important points to remember when shooting scenes. The first think Tom does once he's ready to take a picture is scour the scene, looking for any pattern or geometric shapes he can make a feature of in his composition. 

" I really don't like cluttered landscapes and composing for pattern is a good way of giving a sense of order to the natural world. This helps the views eye navigate more easily through the frame " 

For Tom, composition is a process of dissecting all the detail out of the landscape. 

Fig 1 - Examples Composition Landscapes

Fig 2 - Examples Composition Landscapes.

Landscape Tips - 

• If you're using a leading line, a common mistake is that any line will do. It needs to be engaging. 

• Before you mount your camera on your tripod, walk around with it and take a few sample shots to find the best position this saves having to constantly readjust your tripod.

• Use contrasting colors. You may have a nice twilight scene, but without some balance to the cool, blue tones, its impact might be lost. You might try to incorporate a warm glow of tungsten light from a cottage for instance.

• Be selective and ruthless with the elements in a shot. If you struggling to find good way of framing an awkwardly shaped tree, why include it at all? It sounds obvious, but only include something if it looks good.

• Get yourself a Lee Big Stopper ND filter. They smooth out water to help you capture better reflections in your foreground.

To see more of Tom pictures you can visit www.tommackie.com

Tips - The Best Out Of A Night Shoot

Fig : Example Night Shoot

4 Tips " How to produce images at Night" :

Plan your shoot - If you live in a town or city, it's best to get as far away from street lighting as you can. If you don't you'll find that sodium lights create a strong and disagreeable orange color cast. For the best results choose night scenes as far from urban areas as possible. 

Prefocus - Switch off autofocus and make sure the camera id focused at infinity. The slightest error will create soft-focused images. After you've taken the first shot, check that your focusing is correct by reviewing the picture on the camera LCD.

Find a solid base - Make sure your tripod is mounted on a solid base, preferably a rock surface. This will prevent any movement during the exposure times. If you don't have a heavy tripod, hang your camera bag from the centre column (most modern tripods should have a hook for this purpose ).

Disable in-camera noise reduction - In camera noise reduction takes a blank exposure, which doubles your exposure times and applies indiscriminate noise reduction. This can have a detrimental effects on image aesthetics. Use specialized computer software to handle the problem back home.

Here are some basic tips to produce images at night. I am sure you are a distance photography, if you have tip and techniques to produce images at night can leave the comment section.