Camera Gallery: Northeast Oklahoma's resource for everything photographic.

# 1. Why won't my camera work?
The all time most common reason cameras fail...is dead batteries. Modern cameras are highly electronic; auto-focus, built in flash, digital LCD's; all of these use batteries. We highly recommend ALWAYS having at least one set of fully charged or brand new, still sealed-in-the-package set of batteries in the camera bag. Any time your camera quits or starts behaving strangly...change the batteries. Related to this is the problem of batteries put in wrong, or backwards, or dirty battery contacts. Yes, it seems too simple, but most every photographer has had this problem at least once.
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# 2. Why are my pictures too dark?
The main thing to remember about photography is that it is all about LIGHT. If you don't have enough light you can't take a photograph. Most consumer cameras have automatic flashes which pop up when the light levels are too low for a good photo, but those flashes are limited.They just don't have enough "fire power" to light up a large area or anything more than maybe 20 feet away. An on-camera flash just can't light up a concert hall, sports stadium, auditorium or a large church.
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# 3. How can I get rid of "Red Eye"?
Red Eye is caused by the flash on your camera being too close to the lens, and as a result the flash fires into the pupils of your subject's eyes, then bounces off the red blood veins in the back of the eyeball and reflects straight back into the lens, appearing as an ugly, bright red spot.

Professional photographers avoid red eye altogether by mounting their flash units on a bracket above their camera lens(we do sell those brackets if your interested). But this solution isn't very practical for most family snapshooters.

Many cameras have a "red-eye reduction" feature, which is usually a low-powered flash that fires before your actual flash, but we're not real crazy about that solution. Usually your subject sees this "pre-flash", and assumes you have taken the picture, then they look away just in time for the real flash to fire and you end up missing the expression you wanted to capture.

While it's not a perfect solution, for just a few dollars you can buy a "redeye-removal pen", which is a photo-compatible marker that will allow you to just color out the red. A more expensive (but not much) method is to have us use a software-program to remove the red eye. This is undetectible and very natural looking.
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# 4. Why are my pictures so "grainy"?
If your photos seem coarse and gritty (grainy) instead of smooth and natural it's probably the result of using a high ISO film or, on digital cameras, having the ISO set too high. In some situations you have to use these high ISO settings and in those cases, grain is just something you have to accept. But for the highest quality photos, use the lowest ISO setting you can. Before we go much further with this answer, let's combine it with the next question;
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# 5. What is "ISO" and which ISO film should I choose, or, on my digital camera, which ISO setting should I use?
ISO is a rating of how sensitive film (or a digital camera) is to light. The scale runs from a low of about ISO 100 to a high of ISO 3200 or more.

A HIGH ISO is highly sensitive to light: it will work in low-light situations.
A LOW ISO has a low sensitivity to light: it needs lots of light to work well.

Low ISO settings and films are smoother, have richer colors, tend to look more natural.
Hight ISO settings and films are more coarse, grittly, colors aren't as natural.

Therefore...for the best pictures use as low an ISO as you can.

Here are some general recommendations. For anything in sunlight, including action stuff, ISO 100 is good, 200 is okay and even 400 is passable. For situations in the shade or cloudy days, you usually need around ISO 400. For fairly well-lit indoor things (basket ball games, bright stages, bright offices)without a flash, you need at least ISO 800, maybe ISO 1000. For poorly lit situations, (football games, night street scenes, home interiors) you will probably need as high an ISO as you can get; 1600 or even 3200.

These are broad general recommendations, and there are certainly other alternatives, such as using a tripod or other aids, but this with these settings you should be fairly safe.
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# 6. Why are some of my pictures blurry?
While there are some technical considerations that are beyond this discussion...the two most common reasons for "blurry" pictures are: 1. The photos are out of focus. or 2. Camera Shake.

With modern auto focus cameras, the problem is usually that something is in focus, just not what you wanted to focus on. Classic examples of this are the "hand-shake" photo, or award-presentation photo; the person on the left side of the photo and the person to the right side are out of focus, but whatever is in the center of the picture(usually the wall behind the subjects) is in perfect focus.

The problem is that the auto-focus sensor in the camera is in the center of the viewfinder/image frame, and because of that the camera focuses exactly on whatever is in the center of the frame, which in these cases is something other than what you were actually taking a picture of. With most cameras you have to put that auto-focus sensor on what you want in focus; then lightly press the shutter release button about half way, this will activate the auto-focus, then; keeping the button held down, reframe your image (the focus will remain on your original subject) then push the button down the rest of the way to take the photo.

The camera shake reason is a little different. Your camera creates images by opening a shutter to allow light to strike the film or image sensor. If the light level is too low, the camera has to leave the shutter open longer to allow enough light to enter the camera. But if the elapsed time is longer than perhaps 1/30th of a second (which isn't very long) the motion of your body will move the camera, resulting is a "smear" or blurring of the image. And even if you hold the camera perfectly still, during that shutter time, your subject, especially if it's alive, may move, again resulting in a blurred image.

While it's not a perfect solution, your camera's flash will "freeze" both your motion and your subject's. Another solution is to set your camera's ISO to a higher setting, which will result in a shorter shutter speed and less of this blurring.
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# 7. Why are the colors so off?
Color is a very complex issue and there are several reasons why the colors in your photos appear incorrect, or at least different than what they should be.

The number one reason is that the settings on your digital camera or film in your film camera didn't match the light at the scene.

For instance; if you have daylight balanced film in your camera (or a daylight white balance setting on your digital) and you are shooting in daylight...your colors will be correct or at least very close. But that same daylight film or setting will not produce correct colors in a flouresecnt-light office, or under household tungsten light bulbs or under stage spotlights, or even under sunset or sunrise conditions or cloudy skys.

Digital cameras have an automatic "white balance" that does a pretty good job of adjusting for different light sources, but under some fairly common situations it can be fooled. Digital cameras also have several "presets" to accomdate different light sources, such as flourscent, tungsten, cloudy and even a custom setting. It takes a little effort to understand this, but it's not rocket science and it can certainly make for better photographs. So dig out the camera manual, or come in and we can explain it a little better in person, on your particular camera.

The good news is that in the lab, the colors can be corrected (to some degree, with some exceptions) in the printing process. This takes a little more time, and a lab technician that cares enough to deal with it, but hey, that's what we're here for.
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# 8. What's the giant white spot in my photos?
You have to be careful when using your flash inside a room with windows, glass or mirrors. If you shoot perpendicular (pointed toward) a window or any highly reflective surface and use a flash, it is very common for the flash to make a giant, pure white reflection right in the middle of your photo, obliterating everything else. If you can be aware of this, you can usually shoot at an angle to the reflective surface and the flash will not relect directly back into your photo.
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# 9. Why are the faces so dark? The rest of the photo is fine.
If you take a photo of people in front of a lighter area, such as people in front of a window, or people in the shade with the background in the sunshine, your camera will adjust the exposure for the bright scene; rather than for the people. As a result the people will be underexposed; too dark.

There are two possible solutions to this, the first is to use your flash in these situtation; even in the daylight, the flash will brighten the faces while still correctly exposing the background(generally speaking). The more advanced cameras call this "balanced fill-flash" and these nicely and naturally balance the scene lighting with the flash.

The second solution is for the lab to lighten the entire photo, but this may result in the background being too light and appearing washed out. While this may not be justified with every photo, if it's an important shot to you, we can also use a computer program called Adobe Photoshop to lighten just the faces without making the background too light.
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#10. The people just don't look good in my photos; what's wrong?
The most common reason the people in don't look "good" in amateur photography is because the people are shot in direct sunlight. People standing in the bright sun will always "squint" which makes their eyes smaller, exaggerates their wrinkles and kills their smiles. The bright sun also makes the shadows much darker resulting in black eye sockets, and harsh shadows under their chins, noses and hats. For better people photos take your subjects into an area of open shade. They will smile, their wrinkles will go away and their eyes will open up. They will look good and photograph beautifully.
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