Creative photography

[campbell]

Is there anything special that I have to do when I am going to be taking pictures of lava?  I went to Hawaii a few years ago, and was less than impressed with the photos that my point-and-shoot digital camera took.  But, now I'm off to Costa Rica with a Canon XTi and am hoping that with help from this board I will come back with better pictures.  

[bdery]

Hi and welcome!

Are you planning on taking pictures by day or night? By day, you will probably find that the lava is much less bright than sunlight, so it's hard to capture the colour of the flowing lava. Using spot metering (I believe your camera has it) if possible, but you run the risk of overexposing the rest of the scene.

for night photography, get a fast lens (wide maximum aperture) or a tripod, and again try to expose the lava correctly.

The beauty of digital is that you can experiment to get the results you want. the basic thing to experiment with is shutter speed, so play with this parameter to get the picture you see in your mind.

[ShutterbugGail]

Lucky you. Costra Rica is a wonderful place to photograph.

In addition to what bdrey recommended, I highly recommend that you bracket to get a variety of exposusres.

http://www.digicamhelp.com/taking-photos/advanced-techniques/bracketing.php

I don't know if you've discovered it yet, as I recently have as a new digital single lens reflex camera user, but you have to watch depth of field a lot closer with a DSLR than a compact digital camera.

This article, and the links within it, explain a bit about lens "sweet spots" and their relation to depth of field:

http://www.digicamhelp.com/camera-logs/12/soft-images.php

Experiment a bit with the recommended techniques before your trip. And, if you have futher questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

[campbell]

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I actually don't have the Canon yet, that's jsut the one that I plan on getting soon.  I looked at the specs and compared it to some of the other "beginner" DSLR's and deemed it to be the one that I'm going to pick up.  After all, the key is to start getting all the lenses and upgrade body later from what I can tell.

Thank you two for the techniques and lens recommendations for me.  The lava shots will be during the day.  Any night shots that I would be doing would be from a distance, and would hopefully look much like this:
http://www.lostiguanaresort.com/gallery5.html
Can you think of anything special that I would need in order to accomplish this?

Also, is there any way I could practice the lava shots with stuff from home?  That is, use candles, flares, etc?

[ShutterbugGail]

>> I actually don't have the Canon yet, that's jsut the one that I plan on getting soon.

Get it so you have enough time to become familiar with it before your trip. Believe me, I can give you examples of when I took photos with a brand new camera before giving myself time to practice with it. UGH!

>> Can you think of anything special that I would need in order to accomplish this?

These articles will provide you with lots of good information and tips about photographing lava:


http://www.photovolcanica.com/PhotographyBeginnersGuide.html

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles1102/ej1102-1.html

>> Also, is there any way I could practice the lava shots with stuff from home?  That is, use candles, flares, etc.

Yes, give them a try. You should be able to use high ISO settings with a DSLR without too much concern for noise; still, use the lowest possbile.

I'd also practice using different shutter speeds. For example, if you select a slow shutter speed, you can catch some movement (but I recommend you use a tripod); you can freeze the action using a fast shutter speed.

http://www.digicamhelp.com/camera-features/advanced-settings/shutter-speed.php

Finally, when you're at the scene, take some test shots and check the images. See if your settings, such as white balance, need adjusting.

For sure, use a tripod or other camera support for night photographs.