Live View versus optical viewfinder on your DSLR, pros and cons?

By Pascal

If you shoot with a DSLR you probably use the same method for taking pictures that most people do, holding the camera up to your eye and looking through the viewfinder before snapping the shutter button.

This tried-and-true method has several benefits, including letting you see precisely what you are going to take a picture of before you click the button. Also, allowing you to track fast-moving subjects without any lag time, and even stabilizing the camera due to the fact that it’s being held up against your face instead of away from your body.

Getting this shot using the optical viewfinder wouldn’t have been impossible, but it would have been much more difficult.

However, the Live View function that is built into most DSLR cameras has a few tricks up its sleeve that can greatly benefit you as well. While not useful in ever single photographic situation, Live View certainly is worth a second look if you are the type of person who normally casts it aside in favor of the traditional viewfinder.

#1 Make sure your subject is perfectly focused

When you look through the optical viewfinder on your camera, you will see an array of rectangles or dots which each represent points on which your camera can focus. This is a result of your camera’s phase detect focusing system which is present in nearly every DSLR. While it usually works just fine, there are situations in which it can present a bit of a problem.

For one, the subject on which you are focusing can sometimes be outside the boundary of your focusing points, which makes it quite difficult to get it tack sharp even with something like the focus-and-recompose technique. Also, even with using the built-in focusing points it’s not always a guarantee that your subject will be completely in focus, especially if it is very far away like when shooting landscapes or scenic vistas.

Live View helped me get this flower focused just how I wanted, and instead of laying in the mud I used the flip-out screen to help me compose the picture.

Zoom-in on Live View

Live View is the magic bullet in these situations, as you can use it not just to frame your shot, but to zoom in close on a specific area to make sure it is focused. Think of this as though you were holding a magnifying glass up to your camera’s viewfinder when focusing on your subject, and using that as the basis for judging whether it is tack sharp or just a bit fuzzy. This obviously works best if your camera is firmly attached to a tripod, but even if you just set it on a solid surface such as a shelf, rock, post, or other object, you should be fine.

Live View can be a good way to make sure your subjects are tack sharp and perfectly focused.

Each camera handles the zoom-in function a bit differently, but for most DSLRs there will be an option in one of the menus to enable a button on your camera to zoom in during Live View, and even set the percentage of zoom which tells you how much it will magnify the image. If your subject is not moving, and neither is your camera, this technique is one of the best possible ways to make sure everything is tack sharp precisely how you want it to be (using manual focus in this instance can be helpful also).

#2 See previews of camera effects in realtime

One fun trick that many DSLR manufacturers have added to their cameras is the ability to do various types of effects like selective coloring, miniature, and black-and-white, among many others. Think of them as though you are adding Instagram filters, but in realtime, as you are taking your pictures instead of on your phone afterwards.

Using Live View as you activate various scene modes is a fun way to experiment with different types of creative image effects. It also has the added bonus of allowing you to play around and see how the options affect your photography before you even click the shutter.

A common camera effect is “miniature,” which mimics a tilt-shift lens. It’s fun to play around with these built-in effects using Live View, which shows you a preview of what the final image will look like as you compose it.

Some photographers frown on this type of creative expression, and prefer to leave these effects and scene modes to Photoshop, where things can be endlessly controlled, changed, and tweaked to perfection (often ad nauseam). But, my own personal stance is, if you’re making pictures you enjoy by using simple in-camera effects, then why not keep doing it?

Some of the built-in modes are a little cheesier than others, and you usually can’t shoot in RAW format. But using Live View to preview the different sorts of photography effects you can explore, is a great way to try something new and add a little spark back to your creative juices at the same time.

#3 Depth of Field preview

This one piggybacks pretty well off of the previous item, but I wanted to list it separately because it is so useful on its own. When you change the aperture and focal length of your lens, you are also changing the depth of field, or area that is in focus. It’s a difficult concept to understand since it involves several different variables, including how close you are to your subject and how far away is the background.

This confusion can be compounded by the fact that your optical viewfinder doesn’t really show you what to expect when you click the shutter button. Some DSLR cameras have a Depth of Field Preview button that allows you to close down the aperture and see what it will look like when you take a photo (it also gets dark if you use a small aperture), but another way to do this is by using Live View.

It really helped to see a preview of the depth of field by using Live View when composing this image.

How it works

When you look through the viewfinder on a DSLR camera you are seeing through the lens while it is opened to its widest possible value. But, when you click over into Live View the aperture blades close down to the value you’ve specified, or that which the camera thinks is appropriate, depending on the shooting mode you are using.

This makes it possible to see precisely what the picture will look like when you press the shutter button. So, if you focus on an object while in Live View, you will see a more accurate representation of the depth of field than looking through the viewfinder. This is incredibly useful when shooting macro photos, because it’s difficult to understand just what is in focus and what is not unless you can see it yourself using Live View.

Depth of field can be extraordinarily thin when shooting macro pictures, and using Live View to see a preview of the final result is a good way to get the photo to show up just how you want.

#4 Tap to focus

One final trick that Live View offers, is the ability to actually use it for the act of focusing itself. As more cameras start implementing touch screens, manufacturers like Canon have started allowing users to tap on the screen itself to actually focus the camera, much in the same way you do on your mobile phone.

While this feature is not available on all DSLR cameras, and though some with touch screens don’t have focusing enabled, if you do have a camera that allows you to tap-to-focus you might find it incredibly useful and well-worth your time. This won’t do you any good if you are shooting sports, action, or wedding photos, since the touch-based focusing isn’t as quick. But if you are out shooting casually it’s something you might really enjoy trying.

It even has some advantages over traditional viewfinder-based focusing if you are shooting at extreme angles, such as very low to the ground. More and more cameras are offering flip-out screens so you can swivel it, instead of crouching down, and then tap it to lock focus.

If you have a touchscreen, using Live View can be a great way to make sure your subject is focused exactly how you want by simply tapping the area you want to be in focus.

Summary

These are just a few of the options available to you if you use Live View on a DSLR. If you are more of a traditional shooter who prefers the optical viewfinder I hope you at least give Live View a chance. It’s not going to be the best option in every situation, but you may find it to be more compelling and useful than you realize.

If you do like shooting in Live View and have your own tips to share, please leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Eiffel Tower. The Statue of Liberty. Redwood trees. Not all the world fits into our horizontal frame of it. Some of it climbs up and up! For those images you need to learn a new technique; vertical panoramas, or vertoramas as they are known.

What are vertoramas?

A vertorama is simply a panorama, but shot vertically. It is for the tall things of the world, and uses much of the same techniques as a panorama, but with some important considerations I’ll touch on later in this article.

They are as simple as two shots combined to capture more foreground, or a chance to capture the tallest of the tall things on the planet without a wide-angle lens. They are a great option when you don’t have a super-wide angle lens, or you want to capture more detail than that wide angle lens will provide in one shot.

Picking the best subjects

Tall things are the obvious choice for making vertical panoramas, but also look at your normal images to see what can be included in the foreground.

For instance, this view of Mount Lassen in Lassen Volcanic National Park is pretty enough.

But what else is going on in the foreground? And not just the foreground, but the extreme foreground?

A Vertorama can take your normal landscape image and give it depth, like this image of Delicate Arch in Utah.

I pick subjects where my vantage point gives me something above and below a level view of the subject. This view of a temple in Bhutan is such a location, as I was on a balcony with subjects below and certainly above.

Vertoramas are also used to emphasize the enormity of an area. In this case I used my iPhone’s panorama mode, turned the phone sideways, and kept panning up and up, and then back over the top of my head (flexibility is a key with this format!) to show the grandeur of the structure. Shot inside the amazing Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris.

Waterfalls, statues, buildings, trees, landscapes…they are all ripe for the format.

How to shoot vertoramas

Shooting vertoramas is not much different than shooting panoramas, but there are some important considerations. First, if you need help with panoramas, dPS writer Barry J Brady has a good article on them here: How to Shoot Panoramic Photos. The settings are the same for vertical panos, but you need to make sure you can pan all the way up with your subject, which is sometimes hard to do with a tripod.

Where it gets a little trickier is in the distance of your subject. This is fundamentally different than panoramas, because for the most part, panoramas have a roughly equal distance from the camera to all parts of the scene. Roughly.

But a vertorama often has a subject leading away from it and this can cause distortion.Can you imagine the truck of this redwood tree being much closer than the 200 foot tall top?

In which case, give yourself plenty of room at the bottom of the image as that will be your constriction point when you go to crop. I shoot landscape orientation (camera in horizontal position) for almost all of my vertoramas, in order to have enough space to crop.

Editing Options

I find more and more that the PhotoMerge -> Panorama feature in Adobe Lightroom works just fine for vertoramas. So does the same feature in Photoshop proper, maybe 80% of the time. Where it comes up short is in the variety projections.

If you are looking for a little more power, try AutoPano Giga by Kolor (now owned by GoPro). There are a number of projections that can help with vertoramas, including Hammer. Plus it has the fun Little World projection that helps make those funky, little world images.

Both programs are run just as they would be for a horizontal panorama.

Things to consider

Sometimes I look at vertoramas and I think they have no place in our digital world. When so much of what we view is on a horizontal screen, it’s hard to see their full beauty. You can turn your phone sideways, but you’re still missing the scale of the shot. Have you found yourself scrolling a lot in this article, and maybe not even seeing the whole images?

That being said, I love how vertoramas look when they are printed. Printing can be done at Costco, Walgreens or any place that prints panoramas.

Vertoramas can be trickier to shoot than a regular panorama as your tripod doesn’t typically pan up and down as smoothly as side to side. I suggest getting more acquainted with shooting these images handheld. It’s not hard to do.

Also, use your smartphone camera. That panorama mode works perfectly fine when you pan the camera skyward. Most newer phones even realize you made a vertorama and flip the image so it looks proper.

Lastly, vertoramas don’t all need to be skinny and tall. They are also used to create a more formal aspect, even a nice square, of a subject hard to capture in a single frame. This image of Central Park in New York is an example as it was shot with a 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera, far from being wide angle. But the result is a nice, wide image that gives more depth to the scene. See also: 5 Steps to Rock the Brenizer Method.

A vertical panorama of trees and tourists in Central Park, New York City, New York, USA

Conclusion

Vertoramas are a fun way to explore the world. They stretch our normal view, and force us to think creatively to capture what we are after. I personally love the format for what the extra foreground can bring to the story.

If you’ve shot vertoramas before, what are some of your favorite subjects? Any other advice you might give to beginners? Please share in the comments below, along with your vertical panorama images.

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When you begin doing portrait lighting for the first time, the general advice you get is to put your light at 45º to your subject, and aim it down at 45º. It’s a quick way to get something reasonably good, without a lot of understanding. With a little more knowledge, you can make better lighting decisions, and get more dramatic images.

Light has four main properties:

1. Quantity
2. Quality
3. Color
4. Direction

In this article, we’re looking at direction of light only. If you look at the work of the Masters in painting, you’ll notice that they go to great pains to create light and shadow through their brush strokes. You can of course translate these to your own lighting. So let’s look at the different portrait lighting styles or patterns you can use.

To be able to see these patterns, your subject should be facing the camera. The key to seeing what’s happening is to pay attention to what the shadow is doing, especially the nose shadow.

Short lighting style

For this setup, I’ve used an Elinchrom BXR500 with a 44cm white beauty dish. The deflector is translucent, and I’ve added a grid to control the spill of the light. The Camera was a Fujifilm X-T10 with a Fujinon 18-55 lens.

The Portrait Lighting Styles

1. Butterfly Lighting

Butterfly lighting refers to the shape of the shadow under the nose that this pattern creates. It’s meant to look like a butterfly in flight, viewed from straight on. It’s also called Paramount lighting when used with guys to sound more masculine. If you look at the work of 30s and 40s Hollywood photographers like George Hurrell, you’ll see this lighting style in operation.

The basic butterfly portrait lighting, with no reflector.

First you should place your light on a boom stand, and position it so it creates a line between you, the light, and your subject. Your light should be high enough to create the butterfly shadow. If it’s too low, you won’t get a shadow and the light will be too flat. If it’s too high, you’ll have the nose shadow will cut into the lip.

As you look into the eyes of your subject, make sure you can see a reflection of your light. This reflection is called a catchlight, and helps give life to the eyes. If you cannot see the catchlight, lower your light a bit.

The basic butterfly portrait lighting, with silver reflector.

With Butterfly Lighting, it’s common practice to put a reflector (or even another light at lower power) underneath the chin to bounce light back up. This helps soften the look, and reduces the shadows caused by your light position. You’re not trying to overpower the light from above, as doing this will cast shadow upwards on the face, which isn’t particularly flattering.

Behind the scenes shot of the basic butterfly lighting, with a reflector.

2. Loop Lighting

For Loop Lighting, you’re looking for a loop shaped nose shadow. Move your light to the left, or light from the centre. You’ll see the shadow change shape. With Loop Lighting, the nose shadow shouldn’t touch the shadow side of the cheek.

Loop Lighting

You should aim to have the bottom of the nose shadow about halfway between the lip and the nose in position. With Loop lighting, you’ve got two main options for filling in shadows. You can use a reflector, or a second light from the opposite side of the face as the key light, or you can use an on axis (behind the camera) fill light (like a ring light or an Octabox).

3. Rembrandt Lighting

If you move the key light around a farther, the nose shadow will meet the cheek. Some refer to this as closed loop lighting, with the normal Loop Lighting being referred to as open loop lighting. From a technical standpoint, Rembrandt Lighting usually has a higher light position than closed loop lighting, but for most the term Rembrandt refers to any light that creates a triangle of light below the eye opposite the light source.

Rembrandt Lighting

You can probably guess that the name is based on the work of the painter Rembrandt. A lot of his portraits were painted while the subject was lit from a skylight or high window, giving that famous look.

Behind the scenes making a Rembrandt Lighting.

4. Split Lighting

You’ve moved the light slowly from straight on, and your final light style is when the light is perpendicular to the camera. You’re lighting only one half of the face. One of the most famous uses of this is The Beatles album ‘With The Beatles’, where all four members are split lit. You should only be able to see one eye in the shot for this pattern (the other will be in shadow).

Split Lighting.

Behind the scenes for Split Lighting.

Broad and Short Lighting

To show how the patterns work, you’ve shot straight on to your subject. In real life this is only one view that you’d capture. By turning the face to the side you get even more options. When the face is at an angle, there are two parts of the face visible, the broad side, and the short side. The broad side is the one nearest you, from the ear to the nose. The short side is the small bit of the side facing away from you, that you can actually see.

By aiming the light at the broad side of the face, you see the face in detail, with very little shadow. On the other hand, if you light the short side of the face, you get more shadow. These lighting positions are referred to as Broad and Short Lighting respectively.

You can use Short Light to flatter heavier subjects, as the shadow tends to hide weight in the face. Broad lighting is better for thinner people, and is often used in fashion. For the Short Light example, the light was in the same position as our Split Lighting, the model has just been turned towards the light. For Broad Lighting, you can have it any where in front, though for this example, it was off to camera right.

Broad Lighting (main light is to camera right).

Short Lighting (main light is to camera left, closer to the background than the subject).

Creating Drama

The trick to creating drama is to use shadow effectively. For this reason Short Lighting is the best option. You can use each pattern in a short light fashion.

Remember at the start, you were told to pay attention to the nose shadow? For Butterfly, you’re still looking for the butterfly shadow. The light will be directly in front of your subject’s nose to get this. As you move the light away, towards Loop position, it’ll start to become more dramatic. You can even do a Rembrandt portrait for really dramatic effect.

Rembrandt Lighting, Short lit with no fill.

Rembrandt Lighting, Short lit with silver reflector fill.

So that’s how to use common portrait lighting styles or patterns. You should get familiar with them, and as you look at magazines and online, you’ll start to see them in use.

Examples of Portait Lighting in photos

Short Lit Loop Light

Split Lighting

Butterfly Lighting

Short Lighting with a Butterfly pattern.

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Getting started in photography can be quite scary. We all start by investing in a DSLR, and think we are going to take amazing images. In reality it is a bit more difficult, because if it was easy… well everybody would sell prints, quit their day job, and live off photography.

Just like any art, photography has to be learned, and practiced – a lot. It is a trial and error process, we all start at the bottom and build our way up.

If your images do not look like you imagined them, then try a different approach. Just do something. Einstein said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

#1 – Gather information and knowledge

Photography is the best hobby you could have, but it is a lot of hard work. I personally don’t believe in talent. The first tip I can give you is to absorb as much information as possible. How do you do that ? Well you have so many free resources on the internet, the only need to take advantage of it. Since you are reading this, then you’re on the right track.

By resources, I mean articles online, magazines, and YouTube tutorials. You can learn so much in less than 30 minutes. One other tip I can also give is to check multiple resources for the same topic.

Read photography magazines. They have amazing stories and tutorials.

For example you want to learn how take portraits – don’t read or watch only one tutorial. The more you research, the more you will learn, because sometimes one article won’t give you all the answers to your questions, but another article will.

You should also anticipate. What I mean by that, is to learn about it, before trying to do something.

For example, say you want to buy a new DSLR. You should learn how to use it before you actually buy it, read reviews and tutorials. If you are planning a trip to the sea, then learn seascape photography before travelling.

Photography is spending hours and hours on research.

#2 – Try all kinds of photography

This brings me to my second tip: don’t focus on only one type of photography. Of course, if you like portrait photography then do that. What I’m trying to say, is that you should explore all the possibilities, before focusing on only one type of photography. Try to add variation by learning about macro photography, landscapes, portraits, wildlife, etc.

You may be surprised by the results you get, and if you never try, you will never know if you actually like photographing birds or not. From my experience, the more you learn, the more you’ll be able to do things. It’s better knowing how to do five things than only one. Starting photography and only wanting to take portraits is not the right mindset. It’s just like food, if you don’t try new food, you will never know if you like it or not.

#3 – Photography is an investment

The third thing you should know is that photography is a big investment. You will need to buy lenses, camera bodies, tripods, and filters, which will end up being quite expensive. If you are not smart with your decisions, then your bank account can end up in tears.

It may seem confusing when I tell you to try different types of photography, but then warn you about buying too much gear. If you want to try macro photography, don’t buy a macro lens right away. Just buy extension tubes (or close-up filters) until you know if you are serious about macro. They cost a lot less, and increase your focusing distance dramatically.

A very inexpensive $30 ND Filter.

For filters, you can buy $20 Neutral Density filters for your landscape photography. Of course they won’t have the same quality as the professional ones, but it’s a good place to start.

I started photography with a phone, then moved up to an entry level DSLR, and now I own a full frame camera. But, it took me four years to go from my phone to full frame, so don’t go out and buy the best DSLR ever, find something that will suit where are you starting first.

Phone photography

Make smart decisions, a normal kit lens is enough to get started in landscape photography.

#4 – Post-processing is a good thing

The fourth tip is about post-processing. Most beginner photographers underestimate the power of post-processing. It can make or break an image, that’s why my first point is important. You have to learn and fail in order to succeed – once you learn how to master software like Lightroom and Photoshop, your photography will become more like a process, because you will automatically think about post-production.

For post-production, I also recommend learning about the same topic from different sources. There are a lot of different ways to do the same thing, you just have to find which way works the best for you. It doesn’t matter how you do it, the important thing is the end result.

For example, for dodging and burning an image I prefer using a curves layer with a mask, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to dodge and burn using grey layers.

Post-production can be quite scary because there are so many tools, but once you master a certain software, you will be able to work on your worst shots and get the best out of them.

I would say that post-production is almost indispensable. There are a lot of photographers who want natural photography, but that doesn’t exist. Your colours will get interpreted anyway, it’s up to you to decide if you want your camera to do it automatically, or if you want to take control over everything.

Simple snapshot with my own interpretation of colors.

#5 – Good photographers create depth in their images

The last thing you should know is that photography is all about creating depth. There are many ways of creating depth; you can do it with light and contrast, colours, movement, a solid composition, and with depth of field.

You should aim to have at least one of these elements in your images. If you can mix all these elements in one image, then your result will be even better.

With light and contrast you can play around with shadows, and dodging a burning. The main purpose is to have uneven lighting on purpose – try to avoid flat lighting. Some area should be lighter than others, and some darker. You also want to know which lighting conditions will give you the best results. For example, if you like shooting landscapes then you will want to know that you get the best light during the magic hour (blue hour).

Composition is the most important thing, try to use a foreground, middle ground and a background. The rule of thirds is also really useful to frame your subject in a pleasing way.

With colours, the main purpose is to have tones that go together. Always look at your colour palette and see what works best. This is quite difficult to do, but one tip I can give you, is that when the colours do not look good, convert your image to black and white.

For movement, try long exposures, they are a good way to create a surreal images.

The last thing is depth of field. This is very important if you’re taking portraits, the amount of background blur can completely change an image. If you want to learn about it here’s another article I wrote: How to Achieve Background Blur or Bokeh where I explain three easy ways to achieve a nice bokeh.

Summary

So if you’re just getting into photography, consider these five things as you begin your journey. Learn everything you can from multiple sources, try different kinds of photography to see what you like, don’t get caught in gear envy, don’t be afraid of post-processing and remember to add depth to make more interesting images.

Are you further along in photography? What other advice would you offer to new photographers? Please share in the comments below.

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Sourced by Time Trap Photography sharing the best photography tips, news and tricks throughout the industry. Time Trap Photography is dedicated to freezing those special moments in life that can be revisited and admired for generations to come. - Shannon Bourque
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