Photography

Photography is the process of recording pictures by means of capturing light on a light-sensitive medium, such as a film or electronic sensor. Lightsilver halide based chemical or electronic medium during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically. Photography has many uses for both business and pleasure. It is often the basis of advertising and in fashion print. Photography can also be viewed as a commercial and artistic endeavor.







The word "photography" comes from the French photographie which is based on the Greek wordsphos ("light"), and γραφίς graphis ("stylus", "paintbrush") or γραφή graphê ("representation by means of lines" or "drawing"), together meaning "drawing with light." Traditionally, the product of photography has been called a photograph, commonly shortened to photo.

Photographic cameras

The camera or camera obscura is the image-forming device, and photographic film or a siliconimage sensor is the sensing medium. The respective recording medium can be the film itself, or a digital electronic or magnetic memory. electronic

Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light recording material (such as film) to the required amount of light to form a "latent image" (on film) or "raw file" (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Modern digital cameras replace film with an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on paper or film.

The controls usually include but are not limited to the following:

* Focus of the lens
* Aperture of the lens – adjustment of the iris, measured as f-number, which controls the amount of light entering the lens. Aperture also has an effect on focus and depth of field, namely, the smaller the opening [aperture], the less light but the greater the depth of field--that is, the greater the range within which objects appear to be sharply focused.
* Shutter speed – adjustment of the speed (often expressed either as fractions of seconds or as an angle, with mechanical shutters) of the shutter to control the amount of time during which the imaging medium is exposed to light for each exposure. Shutter speed may be used to control the amount of light striking the image plane; 'faster' shutter speeds (that is, those of shorter duration) decrease both the amount of light and the amount of image blurring from subject motion or camera motion.
* White balance – on digital cameras, electronic compensation for the color temperaturefilm stock. In addition to using white balance to register natural coloration of the image, photographers may employ white balance to aesthetic end, for example white balancing to a blue object in order to obtain a warm color temperature. associated with a given set of lighting conditions, ensuring that white light is registered as such on the imaging chip and therefore that the colors in the frame will appear natural. On mechanical, film-based cameras, this function is served by the operator's choice of
* Metering – measurement of exposure at a midtone so that highlights and shadows are exposed according to the photographer's wishes. Many modern cameras feature this ability, though it is traditionally accomplished with the use of a separate light metering device.
* ISO speed – traditionally used to set the film speed of the selected film on film cameras, ISO speeds are employed on modern digital cameras as an indication of the system's gain from light to numerical output and to control the automatic exposure system. A correct combination of ISO speed, aperture, and shutter speed leads to an image that is neither too dark nor too light.
* Auto-focus point – on some cameras, the selection of a point in the imaging frame upon which the auto-focus system will attempt to focus. Many Single-lens reflex cameras (SLR) feature multiple auto-focus points in the viewfinder.

Many other elements of the imaging device itself may have a pronounced effect on the quality and/or aesthetic effect of a given photograph; among them are:

* Focal length and type of lens (telephoto, macro, wide angle, fisheye, or zoom)
* Filters or scrims placed between the subject and the light recording material, either in front of or behind the lens
* Inherent sensitivity of the medium to light intensity and color/wavelengths.
* The nature of the light recording material, for example its resolution as measured in pixels or grains of silver halide.

Controlling the photographic exposure and rendering

Camera controls are inter-related, the total amount of light reaching the film plane (the "exposure") changes with the duration of exposure, aperture of the lens, and focal length of the lens (which changes as the lens is zoomed). Changing any of these controls alters the exposure. Many cameras may be set to adjust most or all of these controls automatically. This automatic functionality is useful in many situations, and in most situations to occasional photographers.

The duration of an exposure is referred to as shutter speed, often even in cameras that don't have a physical shutter, and is typically measured in fractions of a second. Aperture is expressed by an f-number or f-stop (derived from focal ratio), which is proportional to the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the aperture. If the f-number is decreased by a factor of \sqrt 2, the aperture diameter is increased by the same factor, and its area is increased by a factor of 2. The f-stops that might be found on a typical lens include 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32, where going up "one stop" (using lower f-stop numbers) doubles the amount of light reaching the film, and stopping down one stop halves the amount of light.

Exposures can be achieved through various combinations of shutter speed and aperture. For example, f/8 at 8 ms (=1/125th of a second) and f/5.6 at 4 ms (=1/250th of a second) yield the same amount of light. The chosen combination has an impact on the final result. In addition to the subject or camera movement that might vary depending on the shutter speed, the aperture (and focal length of the lens) determine the depth of field, which refers to the range of distances from the lens that will be in focus. For example, using a long lens and a large aperture (f/2.8, for example), a subject's eyes might be in sharp focus, but not the tip of the nose. With a smaller aperture (f/22), or a shorter lens, both the subject's eyes and nose can be in focus. With very small apertures, such as pinholes, a wide range of distance can be brought into focus.

Image capture is only part of the image forming process. Regardless of material, some process must be employed to render the latent image captured by the camera into the final photographic work. This process consists of two steps, development, and printing.

During the printing process, modifications can be made to the print by several controls. Many of these controls are similar to controls during image capture, while some are exclusive to the printing process. Most controls have equivalent digital concepts, but some create different effects. For example, dodging and burning controls are different between digital and film processes. Other printing modifications include:

* Chemicals and process used during film development
* Duration of exposure — equivalent to shutter speed
* Printing aperture — equivalent to aperture, but has no effect on depth of field
* Contrast
* Dodging — reduces exposure of certain print areas, resulting in lighter areas
* Burning — increases exposure of certain areas, resulting in darker areas
* Paper quality — glossy, matte, etc
* Paper size

Uses of photography

Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge's study of human and animal locomotion in 1887. Artists are equally interested by these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement. Military, police, and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used to preserve memories of favorite times, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to send messages, and as a source of entertainment.

Commercial advertising relies heavily on photography and has contributed greatly to its development.


Photography, like other graphic testimonies, can be used for a variety of purposes. The following are some of the most common uses.

The photograph by VIVERO, C. 212, D. 4. shows how these small picture frames were used like the old cameos, carried regularly in a bag or on the clothes.

History of photography

Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries. Long before the first photographs were made, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (965–1040) invented the camera obscurapinhole camera, Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) discovered silver nitrate, and Georges Fabricius (1516–1571) discovered silver chloride. Daniel Barbaro described a diaphragm in 1568. Wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694. The fiction book Giphantie (by the French Thiphaigne de La Roche, 1729-1774) described what can be interpreted as photography.



Photography as a usable process goes back to the 1820s with the development of chemical photography. The first permanent photograph was an image produced in 1826 by the FrenchNicéphore Niépce. However, the picture took eight hours to expose, so he went about trying to find a new process. Working in conjunction with Louis Daguerre, they experimented with silver compounds based on a Johann Heinrich Schultz discovery in 1724 that a silver and chalk mixture darkens when exposed to light. Niépce died in 1833, but Daguerre continued the work, eventually culminating with the development of the daguerreotype in 1839. inventor

Meanwhile, Hercules Florence had already created a very similar process in 1832, naming it Photographie, and William Fox Talbot had earlier discovered another means to fix a silver process image but had kept it secret. After reading about Daguerre's invention, Talbot refined his process so that it might be fast enough to take photographs of people. By 1840, Talbot had invented the calotype process, which creates negative images. John Herschel made many contributions to the new methods. He invented the cyanotype process, now familiar as the "blueprint". He was the first to use the terms "photography", "negative" and "positive". He discovered sodium thiosulphate solution to be a solvent of silver halides in 1819, and informed Talbot and Daguerre of his discovery in 1839 that it could be used to "fix" pictures and make them permanent. He made the first glass negative in late 1839.


In March of 1851, Frederick Scott Archer published his findings in "The Chemist" on the wet plate collodion process. This became the most widely used process between 1852 and the late 1880s when the dry plate was introduced. There are three subsets to the Collodion process; the Ambrotype (positive image on glass), the Ferrotype or Tintype (positive image on metal) and the negative which was printed on Albumen or Salt paper.


Many advances in photographic glass plates and printing were made in through the nineteenth century. In 1884, George Eastman developed the technology of film to replace photographic plates, leading to the technology used by film cameras today.

Nicéphore Niépce's earliest surviving photograph, c. 1826. This image required an eight-hour exposure, which resulted in sunlight being visible on both sides of the buildings.

Timeline

• ancient times: Camera obscuras used to form images on walls in darkened rooms; image formation via a pinhole
• 16th century: Brightness and clarity of camera obscuras improved by enlarging the hole inserting a telescope lens
• 17th century: Camera obscuras in frequent use by artists and made portable in the form of sedan chairs
• 1727: Professor J. Schulze mixes chalk, nitric acid, and silver in a flask; notices darkening on side of flask exposed to sunlight. Accidental creation of the first photo-sensitive compound.
• 1800: Thomas Wedgwood makes "sun pictures" by placing opaque objects on leather treated with silver nitrate; resulting images deteriorated rapidly, however, if displayed under light stronger than from candles.
• 1816: Nicéphore Niépce combines the camera obscura with photosensitive paper
• 1826: Niépce creates a permanent image
• 1834: Henry Fox Talbot creates permanent (negative) images using paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt solution. Talbot created positive images by contact printing onto another sheet of paper.
• 1837: Louis Daguerre creates images on silver-plated copper, coated with silver iodide and "developed" with warmed mercury; Daguerre is awarded a state pension by the French government in exchange for publication of methods and the rights by other French citizens to use the Daguerreotype process.
• 1841: Talbot patents his process under the name "calotype".
• 1851: Frederick Scott Archer, a sculptor in London, improves photographic resolution by spreading a mixture of collodion (nitrated cotton dissolved in ether and alcoohol) and chemicals on sheets of glass. Wet plate collodion photography was much cheaper than daguerreotypes, the negative/positive process permitted unlimited reproductions, and the process was published but not patented.
• 1853: Nadar (Felix Toumachon) opens his portrait studio in Paris
• 1854: Adolphe Disderi develops carte-de-visite photography in Paris, leading to worldwide boom in portrait studios for the next decade.
• 1855: Beginning of stereoscopic era
• 1855-57: Direct positive images on glass (ambrotypes) and metal (tintypes or ferrotypes) popular in the US.
• 1861: Scottish physicist James Clerk-Maxwell demonstrates a color photography system involving three black and white photographs, each taken through a red, green, or blue filter. The photos were turned into lantern slides and projected in registration with the same color filters. This is the "color separation" method.
• 1861-65: Mathew Brady and staff (mostly staff) covers the American Civil War, exposing 7000 negatives
• 1868: Ducas de Hauron publishes a book proposing a variety of methods for color photography.
• 1870: Center of period in which the US Congress sent photographers out to the West. The most famous images were taken by William Jackson and Tim O'Sullivan.
• 1871: Richard Leach Maddox, an English doctor, proposes the use of an emulsion of gelatin and silver bromide on a glass plate, the "dry plate" process.
• 1877: Eadweard Muybridge, born in England as Edward Muggridge, settles "do a horse's four hooves ever leave the ground at once" bet among rich San Franciscans by time-sequenced photography of Leland Stanford's horse.
• 1878: Dry plates being manufactured commercially.
• 1880: George Eastman, age 24, sets up Eastman Dry Plate Company in Rochester, New York. First half-tone photograph appears in a daily newspaper, the New York Graphic.
• 1888: First Kodak camera, containing a 20-foot roll of paper, enough for 100 2.5-inch diameter circular pictures.
• 1889: Improved Kodak camera with roll of film instead of paper
• 1890: Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives, images of tenament life in New york City
• 1900: Kodak Brownie box roll-film camera introduced.
• 1902: Alfred Stieglitz organizes "Photo Secessionist" show in New York City
• 1906: Availability of panchromatic black and white film and therefore high quality color separation color photography. J.P. Morgan finances Edward Curtis to document the traditional culture of the North American Indian.
• 1907: First commercial color film, the Autochrome plates, manufactured by Lumiere brothers in France
• 1909: Lewis Hine hired by US National Child Labor Committee to photograph children working mills.
• 1914: Oscar Barnack, employed by German microscope manufacturer Leitz, develops camera using the modern 24x36mm frame and sprocketed 35mm movie film.
• 1917: Nippon Kogaku K.K., which will eventually become Nikon, established in Tokyo.
• 1921: Man Ray begins making photograms ("rayographs") by placing objects on photographic paper and exposing the shadow cast by a distant light bulb; Eugegrave;ne Atget, aged 64, assigned to photograph the brothels of Paris
• 1924: Leitz markets a derivative of Barnack's camera commercially as the "Leica", the first high quality 35mm camera.
• 1925: André Kertész moves from his native Hungary to Paris, where he begins an 11-year project photographing street life
• 1928: Albert Renger-Patzsch publishes The World is Beautiful, close-ups emphasizing the form of natural and man-made objects; Rollei introduces the Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex producing a 6x6 cm image on rollfilm.; Karl Blossfeldt publishes Art Forms in Nature
• 1931: Development of strobe photography by Harold ("Doc") Edgerton at MIT
• 1932: Inception of Technicolor for movies, where three black and white negatives were made in the same camera under different filters; Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston, et al, form Group f/64 dedicated to "straight photographic thought and production".; Henri Cartier-Bresson buys a Leica and begins a 60-year career photographing people; On March 14, George Eastman, aged 77, writes suicide note--"My work is done. Why wait?"--and shoots himself.
• 1933: Brassaï publishes Paris de nuit
• 1934: Fuji Photo Film founded. By 1938, Fuji is making cameras and lenses in addition to film.
• 1935: Farm Security Administration hires Roy Stryker to run a historical section. Stryker would hire Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, et al. to photograph rural hardships over the next six years. Roman Vishniac begins his project of the soon-to-be-killed-by-their-neighbors Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.
• 1936: Development of Kodachrome, the first color multi-layered color film; development of Exakta, pioneering 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera
• World War II:

1. Development of multi-layer color negative films
2. Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Carl Mydans, and W. Eugene Smith cover the war for LIFE magazine.

• 1947: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and David Seymour start the photographer-owned Magnum picture agency
• 1948: Hasselblad in Sweden offers its first medium-format SLR for commercial sale; Pentax in Japan introduces the automatic diaphragm; Polaroid sells instant black and white film
• 1949: East German Zeiss develops the Contax S, first SLR with an unreversed image in a pentaprism viewfinder
• 1955: Edward Steichen curates Family of Man exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art
• 1959: Nikon F introduced.
• 1960: Garry Winogrand begins photographing women on the streets of New York City.
• 1963: First color instant film developed by Polaroid; Instamatic released by Kodak; first purpose-built underwater introduced, the Nikonos
• 1970: William Wegman begins photographing his Weimaraner, Man Ray.
• 1972: 110-format cameras introduced by Kodak with a 13x17mm frame
• 1973: C-41 color negative process introduced, replacing C-22
• 1975: Nicholas Nixon takes his first annual photograph of his wife and her sisters: "The Brown Sisters"; Steve Sasson at Kodak builds the first working CCD-based digital still camera
• 1976: First solo show of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, William Eggleston's Guide
• 1977: Cindy Sherman begins work on Untitled Film Stills, completed in 1980; Jan Groover begins exploring kitchen utensils
• 1978: Hiroshi Sugimoto begins work on seascapes.
• 1980: Elsa Dorfman begins making portraits with the 20x24" Polaroid.
• 1982: Sony demonstrates Mavica "still video" camera
• 1983: Kodak introduces disk camera, using an 8x11mm frame (the same as in the Minox spy camera)
• 1985: Minolta markets the world's first autofocus SLR system (called "Maxxum" in the US); In the American West by Richard Avedon
• 1988: Sally Mann begins publishing nude photos of her children
• 1987: The popular Canon EOS system introduced, with new all-electronic lens mount
• 1990: Adobe Photoshop released.
• 1991: Kodak DCS-100, first digital SLR, a modified Nikon F3
• 1992: Kodak introduces PhotoCD
• 1993: Founding of photo.net (this Web site), an early Internet online community; Sebastiao Salgado publishes Workers; Mary Ellen Mark publishes book documenting life in an Indian circus.
• 1995: Material World, by Peter Menzel published.
• 1997: Rob Silvers publishes Photomosaics
• 1999: Nikon D1 SLR, 2.74 megapixel for $6000, first ground-up DSLR design by a leading manufacturer.
• 2000: Camera phone introduced in Japan by Sharp/J-Phone
• 2001: Polaroid goes bankrupt
• 2003: Four-Thirds standard for compact digital SLRs introduced with the Olympus E-1; Canon Digital Rebel introduced for less than $1000
• 2004: Kodak ceases production of film cameras
• 2005: Canon EOS 5D, first consumer-priced full-frame digital SLR, with a 24x36mm CMOS sensor for $3000; Portraits by Rineke Dijkstra.

Photography Types:-

There's a wide world of different kinds of photography to be found on the Web. Photographic work can be divided into dozens of categories, many with lots of sub-categories. The following list describes some common types of photography.

Aerial		From a plane, helicopter, balloon or other airborne device.
Adventure, Action		Adventure sports, daring feats, etc.
Amateur		Any type of photography practiced by non-professionals.
Animal, Pet		Pets and their relationships with humans. Note that the human content is often as important as the animal.
Architecture, Real Estate		The art of making property appear attractive. Often involves panoramic photography.
Artistic		Photography in which creative composition is the goal.
Astrophotography		Space photography, through a telescope.
Aura		A controversial type of photography which some claim can photograph a person's aura.
Black & White		Not simply photography without colour, black and white photography explores shapes, tones and textures. Shadows and highlights become much more important.
Camera Phone		"Convenience" photography using a mobile phone's built-in camera. While not the best quality, camera phones have opened a new world of spontaneous, on-the-spot photo opportunities.
Commercial		Product shots, advertising, etc.
Digiscoping		Photography through a telescope or binoculars.
Documentary		Journalism, Events, Historical, Political, etc.
Event		Concerts, Parties, Festivals, etc.
Forensic		Police and legal photography.
Infrared		Photography in which the recording medium is sensitive to infrared light rather than the normal visible light spectrum.
Large Format		For use on posters, billboards, etc.
Kirlian		A type of contact print photography in which an object touching a photographic plate is connected to a high voltage source, creating an aura-like image. Often confused with aura photography.
Macro		The art of photographing very small and/or close-up objects.
Medical		Specialized photography for clinical purposes, i.e. to help reveal and diagnose illness.
Microscopic		Any technique for photographing objects too small to be visible to humans.
Modeling		Photographing objects to be converted into 3D models.
Nature		Landscapes, animals, plants, sea, etc.
Night		Any technique used to capture images at night. Often includes infrared photography.
Panoramic		Views of wide areas, up to complete 360° panoramas.
Paranormal		Ghosts, unexplained phenomena, etc.
People		Candid, Family, Fashion, Glamour, Passports & Visas, Portrait, Pregnancy, School, Sports, Wedding
Pinhole		Uses the most basic type of camera possible — a box with a tiny hole to let light in.
Scenic		Landscape, Cityscape
Satellite		Views of Earth from orbit.
Scientific		Any specialized photography used for scientific endeavour, e.g. electron microscopy photographs, medical photography, astrophotography, etc.
Sports		The specialized art of shooting people engaged in sports, games and adventure activities.
Stereoscopic (3-D)		Involves taking two photos simultaneously to simulate 3-D vision.
Stock		Photographs taken for distribution to other people, for use in their projects. These photos tend to be quite generic, e.g. people working, landscapes, places, etc.
Travel		Photography to showcase locations, illustrate travel literature, etc.
Ultraviolet		Photography in which the recording medium is sensitive to ultraviolet light rather than the normal visible light spectrum.
Underwater		Any type of photography taken under water with a water-tight camera housing.
Urban, Industrial		Emphasizing urban environments.
Time-lapse		Photographs with a very long exposure, used to illustrate something happening over time. A popular example is a street at night with car lights blurred into long lines.

Fine art photography

Fine art photography refers to photographs that are created to fulfill the creative vision of the artist. Fine art photography stands in contrast to photojournalism and commercial photography. Photojournalism is to promote an editorial point of view. Commecial photography's main focus being to sell a product or service.

'The final creative reason for a fine art photograph is the photograph itself. It is not a means to another end except perhaps to please those besides the photographer who beholds it.'

Fine art photography can be used to promote something. They are created most importantly to be true to the artist’s vision of beauty. We can see this by looking at Ansel Adams' work of Yosemite and Yellowstone. He is one of the least disputed fine art photographers of the 20th century. These images were done while he was trying to raise public awareness of these two locations and to have them protected. They were not created in order to raise awareness of anything. They were done simply to be true to the vision of the artist.

Fashion photography

Fashion photography is a genre of photography devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashionmagazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Allure. Over time, fashion photography has developed its own aesthetic in which the clothes and fashions are enhanced by exotic locations and story lines.It is also a form of advertisements for fashion related publcations and events.

Portrait photography

Portrait photography is the art of visually presenting a person or persons in an appealing and presentable manner.

Portrait as a very long history and has been around since the invention of photography..

This category differs from studio photography or photojournalism, which may include people, because its sole purpose is to capture the likeness of a person or a small group of people, typically in a flattering manner. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of photograph is the person's face, although the entire body and the background may be included. Many people enjoy having professionally made family portraits to hang in their homes, or special portraits to commemorate certain events, such as graduations or weddings.

Architectural Photography

Architectural Photography captures the elements and exteriors of buildings and other architectural installations.

Traditionally, professional architecture photographers prefer to use medium or large-format cameras to create their works. This often results in high quality output, which a 35mm camera cannot match.

Cityscape Photography

As the name imply, Cityscape Photography captures the elements of urban dwelling and city environment.

Traditionally, if the shot is taken in the day and under bright sunlight condition, cityscape parameters prefers fast shutter speed and relatively high F-stop value. This results in longer depth of fields or sharper details throughout.

On the other hand, cityscapes taken in the night are usually long exposure shots taken with the help of a tripod for stability.

Nature photography

Photography taken with the emphasis on nature, wildlife, flora and fauna.

Nature Photography is the genre of photography pertaining to the capturing of natural and wildlife scenes.

Advertising Photography

Photos generally done by advertising and design agencies or in-house design team that illustrate a service or product.




Advertising photography is only one of the many disciplines of professional photography. In major markets, New York, Chicago, Los Angles, San Francisco etc., the advertising photographer is truly a specialist. In small markets this type of photography is done by what is called ‘commercial’ photographers who do other types of assignments as well. Most of the photographers who are receiving those profitable advertising assignments have developed a reputation as a creative photographer over long years of training and experience. Advertising photography is not a discipline for the novice.

Aerial Photography

Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or triggered automatically. Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, balloons, blimps and dirigibles, rockets, kites, poles and parachutes.

Landscape Photography

Photographic interpretations of the land and its beauty.

Landscape Photography is the genre of photography pertaining to the capturing of sceneries. More often than not , people and animals are seldom shown in a landscape photo. If they do, they are relatively small in terms of scale on the photo.

There are three styles of landscape photography, namely representational, impressionistic and abstract.

Underwater photography

Photographs taken while underwater. It is usually done while scuba diving, snorkeling or swimming. Needs special equipment.

Underwater photography is often a very challenging form of photography which demands a lot from the photographer. It requires highly specialized equipment and techniques and therefore is not within the reach of most photographers

To take underwater scenes, one either gets a amphibious/waterproof camera or enclose the conventional digital or traditional camera into a watertight underwater housing.

Macro photography

Photography where the image is taken close up.

Macro or close up photography usually has limited sharpness other than the main point of focus. That means the depth-of-field (DOF) will be very shallow. The surrounding will usually be very blurring or soft. However, we can take advantage of this to give the subject a stronger focus.

Macro photography often requires macro lens or lense with macro mode. Many macro lens are often optimised for best performance at a magnification scale of 1:1. Some lens can even have higher magnifications than at.

Food Photography

Taking of food in an attractive and appetizing manner.

Food photography is often a type of close up photography. It is usually taken in a appealing and aesthetic manner to entice and make the food like appetizing and delicious. It is thus often used in restuarant and recipe menus.

Just by looking at the photo above, makes me hungry : )

When taking Food Photography, it is advisable to use a tripod to minimize movement. Set parameters for shallow Depth of field will place more focus on the food, by blurring out the surrounding.

Night photography

Photographs taken outdoors between twilight and dusk.

Night photography is one area where you can forget about multi matrix, spot, honeycombs any other metering system!

Why? Because the only good light meter for night photography is your eye and experience. Because we are no longer dealing with daylight, a metered reading can only be used as a "starting point". There are a few factors in night photography that make camera meters unreliable.An important factor in night photography is how the lighting is portrayed in the scene. When portraying rows of street lighting for example, the direct light source itself is being photographed, therefore the lighting being exposed is very bright. An image of a floodlit building on the other hand is an image exposed by reflected

light. This naturally is much weaker and would need a much longer exposure.

In many cases the two examples would be portrayed in the same image, this would lead to extreme contrasts and very difficult exposure metering problems. In a case like this it is always best to expose for the reflected light and ignore any lighting that is portrayed in the image. Doing this will no doubt lead to overexposure of the light fixtures, but this can look quite acceptable in the image.