Vincent Laforet and Don Henderson

Also see and hear:

Tami Brass attended the same session and took notes on her blog.
Larry S. Anderson's recording of this session and the session on Aperture.

Things to remember:

• Think of your frame as a rectangle.
• Determine what's important visually.
• Think about what to include and exclude when composing. Most people are good at including, but the important part is what to exclude.
• Think about your position, aperture, shutter, film speed, etc

Capturing an Image

• Research the site and try to only bring the equipment you need.
  
• Shoot RAW to maintain data.
  
• Rule of thirds.
• Light
• Looks totally different from every angle, so move around to get the best light results for the effect you are looking for.
• Use your hand as your "free" light meter.
• An eye is much more sensitive than a camera, so squint your eyes to better approximate what the camera sees.
  
• Hard, unfiltered vs soft, diffused.
• Try to use natural light as opposed to flash.
• Go off the automatic settings, but auto-focus is fine, usually.
• ISO
• Low ISO -----> sharp : High ISO -----> grainy
• SLRs do much better at high ISO as compared to the point-and-shoot.
• Shutter Speed
• How steady you are able to hold your camera, and the movement of the subject are both important important when choosing shutter speed.
• Slow = Blur : Fast = Freeze
• A tripod recommended at slow shutter speeds.
• Try using walls, pillars, your elbows, and other objects to steady your hold.
• 1/4 of a second is about the slowest for hand-held shots.
• The goal is 1/125 - stops a bicycle — 1/500 stops the rotor blades of a helicopter.
• Try for 1/60 to 1/125
• Bracketing - use several settings for both F settings and shutter speeds to find the best results. Some cameras have an auto-bracketing feature.
• Going down (increasing F number) by one stop, shutter speed decreases by one setting.
• F number goes up (less light) , shutter speed goes down (more light).
• Sunny 16 rule - F16, use a shutter speed of the reciprocal of the ISO setting.
  
• Wide shots.
• High aperture to give a full DOF (Depth of Field).
• Wide angles makes what is closest to the lens look bigger than what is at a distance. Close shrubs as compared to distant mountains.
• Mid shots
• Action shots
• When shooting a moving subject that requires you to swing to track the subject before shooting, place your feet in such a position that you will not be twisted at the waist at the end of the swing when you need to be steady while making the photograph.
  
• Close-up
• Change lenses to compensate when you can't move.
• If you have to choose between under, or over-exposing, choose under-exposing to make post processing more effective. RAW is important for this.
  
• Don't look through a camera as you would through a rifle scope. i.e. you often won't want your main subject to be in the centre of the frame (bullseye). Related to rule of thirds.
• Photography speak to your subjects: Don't "shoot" or "take" (aggressive in some countries), but "make" a photograph.
• Perspective lines - lines (like a fence, telephone or power lines, and road markings) that come out of the corner of a frame focus the eye on the centre of the image.
• Change the perspective by kneeling, moving up, down, left, or right.
• Avoid using the zoom - move closer if you can. Moving closer to the subject may be more effective than using zoom.

Choosing Lenses and Using a Lens

• Choose the lens for the effect.
• Wide angle less emphasises the foreground and makes the close subject/objects look bigger than they actually are.
• The most important thing to know about a lens is how to work with compression factor/perspective with the camera settings.
• For portraits, use 50 mm or up, preferably 85 mm.
• If you can afford an F2.8 lens, get it.
• Image stabilized lenses have 2 settings - setting 2 is for panning; i.e., it only stabilizes vertical movement.
  

Scope out the Scene

• Think about the sun - where will it rise compared to where you can/could be located?
• Think about the background.
• Use DOF to emphasise or de-emphasise the background.

Lighting

• Angle of the light is crucially important.
• Sharp facial features - light from above.
• Chubby face - from the side.
• Never light a face from below, unless you want them to look scary.