PHOTO TALK
Prepared by the staff of Marshall’s Camera -A02
Auburndale, Florida

So you want to create pictures that will amaze the world and startle your friends. Maybe some of the ideas presented here will start you on that path.

QUESTION: I have a telephoto zoom lens that will not give consistently sharp pictures. I focus the lens correctly every time I take a picture. Some of the pictures are extremely sharp and clear but a lot of the pictures are fuzzy. What is happening?
ANSWER: This sounds like the bane of all photographers; camera shake. Yes, unlike Superman, Spiderman, and other super heroes, normal humans shake enough to affect the sharpness of a picture. If the shutter speed is sufficiently quick then the shake effect is minimized and is usually not noticed. If electronic flash is used the light of the flash is extremely short in time and no shake is seen. A long focal length lens (the big zoom) used without flash magnifies this shake effect and the picture looks blurry just often enough to be aggravating. Correcting this problem may or may not be possible with the conditions under which the pictures are taken. Either the shutter speed has to be increased or the camera shake has to be reduced.
The shutter speed can be increased by using a more sensitive film (higher ISO). If you are using ISO 400 film then you can try either 800 or even 1600 film to improve the sharpness. Of course the apparent grain effect of the pictures will increase. If the pictures are taken at night a powerful flash might do the trick with slower film.
The camera shake can be reduced by putting the camera on a very stable tripod and using a remote release cord. If this is too confining a monopod (one legged tripod) can be used for some small improvement.
As a final note, according to Doctor Thumb (Rule of Thumb), for a hand held camera without flash the numerical value of the shutter speed should not be less than the numerical value of the focal length used.

QUESTION: I took pictures the other night at an awards ceremony and the people that were close looked ok but the people further away had a greenish appearance. From their happy expressions I know they were not sick. I used the flash on my camera and I have never had this problem before. Why do I have these different colors and what can I do to make everyone look normal?
ANSWER: We can answer the first part of your question without difficulty The answer to the second part is not so simple. We are assuming that the awards ceremony was held indoors in a large meeting room with bright fluorescent lights. We are assuming this because the greenish color you refer to is the typical color cast given by such lighting. The light from your flash was the strongest light for the people close to you and their color looked correct. However, the light from a small on-camera flash is not very bright past about ten to twelve feet. The people at the fifteen feet and beyond range were lighted primarily by the room lights. This situation is typically referred to as “mixed lighting.”
A mixed lighting situation of this type cannot be corrected in processing unless digital magic is used. Your processor might be able to take out the greenish cast from the people in the background but this will change the color of the people in the foreground, usually in a less than pleasing direction. One way to not have this problem occur is to get very close to all the principal characters involved to take the pictures so that your on-camera flash is the main light. Another solution is to flood the scene with a very strong external flash (used with an advanced camera). Or you could accept mixed lighting as an unavoidable photographic fact of life.
One additional note: there are filters that correct for fluorescent lighting but these are useful only if all the lighting is of one type.

Conclusion: See announcement of photo classes at
MarshallsCamera.com. If you have questions or comments please email us at marshall@marshallscamera.com or write by letter to Photo Questions, P.O.Box 1217, Auburndale, Fl 33823
Copyright 2004 by Marshall Ledbetter