[MissChievous]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hundove

Thanks so much, MissChievous!
I REALLY needed this tutorial as I'm having problems taking pics.
I have a question: how do you take your own pics, without anyone taking them for you?
If you use the self-timer, how do you make the foucs on you and not on the background? How do you make the ofcus on you AND the background?
THX!!

- All my make-up pics I take the pictures myself by just stretching out my arm as far as I can and cropping the image in Photoshop later. It's just the easiest way for me to get pics.

- Self-timer on yourself is almost impossible unless you have a manual focus camera. There's just no way you can focus a point&shoot camera manually, unfortunately, which is what you need to do to get a good self-timer photo if there's no subject to measure first. What pro photographers do is set up a "dummy" at the place where they will be standing/sitting, then go behind the camera and focus on the dummy, then press the shutter. Then they run back around and go in the place of the dummy. That's pretty much the only foolproof way of focusing a camera correctly. You can do it by measuring the distance as well, but it's more arbitrary. But again, these options are not really available on a p&s anyway. If you want to invest, you can also buy a tripod and a cable release, which is a cord that connects to your camera so you can sit on a chair, set up the camera, and use the cable from where you're sitting to release the shutter. However, this type of gear is expensive and not really necessary for the amateur.

The only way you could do it is with a dummy method. Or get someone to sit in the chair where you will be sitting, press the shutter, and then exchange places. The major issue is that the p&s camera needs to have a subject to focus on, and if there is no subject in place when you are behind the camera on the self-timer, the camera will lock in on the background, not you. That's why pictures like that are sometimes blurry. Self-timer mode is better when you're taking a group photo and everyone wants to be on the picture, that way 1 person can adjust the camera to focus on the people, then join the others on the pic.

If you want the focus to be on you AND the background, you need to adjust the aperture, which takes into consideration the depth of field. A higher aperture number will increase the depth of field, making the focus point wider. You can do this by using the Aperture priority mode and setting that on maximum (ie a high number). The smaller the number, the narrower the point of focus and smaller depth of field.

However, p&s cameras are all limited with the usefulness of these functions, but you can try your luck.