Cambridge in Colour Tutorials – Beginners

Cambridge in Colour is just one of the best sites for HDR tutorials but it also has some of the most in depth tutorials covering all the areas of photography. If you really want to understand your photography Sean McHugh’s site should be a major bookmark on your browser. Over this holiday period maybe you should take an hour or two and get some real learning in. He has broken  his tutorials  down into sections to match your existing skills, if you don’t know where to start then I guess start at the beginning. Today the links are for beginners. If you prefer you could take one of our courses, I would recommend our Understanding your DSLR camera, dates for next term are on our site

These are a good place to start if you’re looking to understand fundamental concepts and basic came

Camera Exposure: Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed
Image Histograms: Tones & Contrast
Camera Lenses: Focal Length & F-Stop

©Ana Cura Intermediate Photography Course 2011

Overview of filters for use with digital cameras

This excellent tutorial on the use of filters with digital cameras from the always helpful Sean McHugh at Cambridge in Colour is another in the series of must read tutorials from CIC

“Camera lens filters still have many uses in digital photography, and should be an important part of any photographer’s camera bag. These can include polarizing filters to reduce glare and improve saturation, or simple UV/haze filters to provide extra protection for the front of your lens. This tutorial aims to familiarize one with these and other filter options that cannot be reproduced using digital editing techniques. Common problems/disadvantages and filter sizes are discussed towards the end.”

Fill Flash – reducing shadows in harsh light

Today is sunny as was yesterday and we are promised more of the same over the weekend. So if you are taking portraits outside you may wonder how you can best reduce shadows on your subjects face. On our DSLR and Portrait courses we explain this in detail however if you just cannot wait here is a tutorial from Cambridge in colour, a great site with technically excellent tutorials, whilst you are there check out Sean McHugh’s tutorials on HDR and Monitor calibration. So fill flash and or a reflector

Here are a couple of pictures to explain the effect and here is the article from Cambridge In Colour

I find this technique particularly useful at weddings. I don’t want my subjects standing in the full glare of the sun, eyes squinting, so I position them with their backs to the sun and use fill flash to kill the shadows. You have to be careful about lens flare but the results can be spectacular

Keith Barnes Wedding Photography

Graduated Neutral Density Filters for landscape photography

One of the things I teach in our Understanding Your DSLR Camera course is the use of graduated neutral density filters. There are very few filters that we need for dslrs probably a gnd and a polariser are about it. This excellent tutorial from Sean McHugh at Cambridge in Colour explains how and why you should be using a gnd. more here…….. If you would like to read Sean’s tutorial on using a polariser go here