Sometimes it is all about Focusing

Almost all cameras these days have AutoFocus- AF. I am sure you know that pressing the shutter release button half way, you can tell a camera to focus for you. 

Probably you may not know this part. When you press it half way first time, camera will focus on the nearest object. This is how most cameras work. Here is the first photo I took of the Moon today with my Panasonic FZ200 fully extended- 24x zoomed.

Focusing issue in a camera

As you can see, it focused on the closest tree branch and hence it is in focus but the Moon is out of focus. My interest was in capturing full moon.

Second time, I kept pressing the Shutter Release button half way multiple times until the lens had it focused on the moon. Most cameras have these feature. If you do not want it to focus on the closest object. leave the shutter release button and then press it half way again. This time, it will focus on some other object in the frame. Keep doing it until you see the object you are interested in in focus.

See the second picture I got when I was sure the focusing area- the green square on most cameras that indiacate the focus lock- was on the Moon!

Take photo of Full moon

I hope this small lesson helps you take better photos. Most cameras have this Trial and Error sort of feature built into it to help you select the right object to focus on!

If you are still not able to focus properly, you can change the AF to MF.- from Auto Focus to Manual Focus and do your own focusing!

Enjoy photography!

How to take photos of Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

Some tips on how to take photos of Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

On Monday, August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will be visible within a band across the entire contiguous United States; If you are not within that band in the USA, you will still be able to see a large portion of the Sun covered by the Moon. 
 A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon's apparent diameter is larger than the sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometers wide.

Now let us get to the main topic: How to take photos of the Solar eclipse.

Sun photo in Auto mode.

To be ready for the Solar Eclipse photos this Monday, I wanted to run a quick test. I have few SLRs but I took out the fixed lens Panasonic FZ200 which offers easy convenient 24x zoom. Also, when there is abundant light, or too much light in this situation, any camera would work almost equally. The Bokeh of SLR is not possible as you can't take photos with wide open aperture. Also, SLRs are good for low light but here we are in a situation which has too much light.
So I turned on my camera, pointed it to the Sun and tried to take a photo. Here is what I got: 
Probably you wouldn't be able to see the photo on the right because it is all white! The Sun is the brightest object for any camera so in Auto mode, all I got was a perfect white photo! (I had to add a border on it so you can at least assume that there is a photo!)

I needed to reduce the light getting into the camera. I changed the camera mode to Manual from Auto. To minimize light, I set up the fastest shutter speed of 1/4000, smallest aperture of f/8 and lowest ISO of 100 on my Panasonic FZ200. This is the best this camera would go to take the least possible light. I zoomed to 24x- around 600mm equivalent on a full frame camera. I took another photo. Same result. I couldn't take a photo of the Sun. It was all white! 

Now to be able to take photos of the Sun before and during the Solar Eclipse, I had to do something. I needed to find a way to reduce the light getting on to the sensor. On a summer day, to reduce light getting into our eyes, what do we do? We put on sun-shade or goggles. This is was I needed to do for my camera. I have few natural density filters but my son, Miraj, took them with him on his trip to Sweden and Iceland to photograph water falls. Also, I am not sure if 2x, 4x, 8x ND filters would be able to block enough light. I thought of putting sun goggles in front of the lens but it is not convenient to hold both the camera and the goggles same time. Suddenly an idea stuck into my head. I searched for some old X Ray in the house. Luckily (LOL) having two sports loving boys in the household, it wasn't a difficult job.  I cut a piece and put it in front of my camera. Look at the photo of my camera below! 

Panasonic FZ200 for Solar Eclipse

I went out in the backyard, pointed at the bright noon Sun, zoomed the lens all the way to 24x and voila, I had limited most of the light and I was able to capture the photo of the Sun. I am excited with this camera jugaad and I am sure I would have fun taking photos of the eclipse on this Monday. I am all set!

There is one side benefit I guess for people who are not in taking eclipse photos. You can use your camera and this X ray film to watch the solar eclipse safely on the camera LCD instead of risking your eyes to look directly at the Eclipse. (Disclaimer: I think this should be safe but I can guarantee the safety. I am not an expert. Please ask my smart friend, Google!) 

Here is the photo of the Sun I just took with the X Ray film in front of the lens! 

Sun photo at noon in broad day light!

As I say on this blog, in most of the situations, you can take better photos with some easy to follow tips. Possibility of Trial and Error photography is the biggest blessing of digital cameras. Take a trial photo. Find the issue. Try to fix it. Here, the issue was too much light. The solution was to try to reduce the light!

Taking best photos at the Top of the World- 124th floor at Burj Khalifa in Dubai

Currently, Burj Khalifa in Dubai holds the world record of the tallest structure or building in the world. There is always a long line of visitors who pay from $30 to $100 to go on the 124/125th or 148th floor of it. Naturally, every visitor of the world famous building tries to take some photos. Most of the time, the photos do not come out well. The reason is the high dynamic range. In Dubai's desert like condition, outside is mostly very bright compared to inside the observation gallery.
If you take a photo in an Auto mode, the face will be too dark so your friends would not be sure if that person is you or someone else. Or if your camera decided to expose your face properly or used Flash, it is very likely that you will look great in the photo but the background will wash out! Your friends wouldn't know if you are on the top of the world or looking the window of your office building LOL.
Photo 1: Exposed for the face will wash out the background.

Photo 2: If you want to expose for the background, the face will be too dark.

So what is the trick to take nice photos at this Top of the World?

Trick#1. Use Trial and Error. Take few photos in landscape modes and in Auto mode. Now turn on the Flash and take a photo first in Auto mode, then in Program mode and then one in Landscape mode. It is possible, one of the photos will come out good.

Trick#2. If you want to take a great photo in such situations where you want to capture background as well as subject nicely, here is my trick.

Take a photo in landscape mode of only the background.

Burj Kahlifa

 You can see that the photo came out nice! Now I read the 3 important numbers that the Camera had used. The shutter speed was 1/640 second, aperture was f/4 and ISO was 100. Bingo!
I changed the camera mode to Manual mode. Set shutter speed, aperture and ISO to these values! Had my family sit in front of the glass and I took a new photo with Flash. As I turned on the flash, there was enough light to brighten my family! The shutter-speed of 1/640 second, aperture of 4 and ISO of 100 was enough to bring in the background!

 What do you say? With some trick, I was able to take a nice photo at the Top of the World, 125 th floor of #BurjKhalifa !

How to turn okay outdoor photos in the Sun to nice photos? It is easy. Just use Exposure Compensation or meter it on the dark object!

How to turn okay outdoor photos in the Sun to nice photos? It is easy. Just use Exposure Compensation or meter it on the dark object!

Here is the original photo:

Photo in Auto mode

As the photo was too dark in the Auto mode, I used Exposure Compensation and set it to +1.5

Here are new photos! 

New photos with Exposure Compensation of +1.5

Focusing on smartphones!

When you are taking photos with a smartphone or a camera, it is important to focus properly. Luckily, these days, focus is built into most cameras, if not all, and it is very easy to use. On most cameras, you press the shutter release button half way to tell the camera to focus.If you are using a smartphone camera to focus, just touch the area of the photo on the screen to tell most cameras where to focus. 

Proper focusing can make your photo look great. 

Here are two photos that I took with a Samsung Note 4 camera. I wanted to focus on the flowers closer to my phone camera.

I didn't like blurry flowers in the center of my capture. Also, I wanted to highlight these flowers in the center and have the tree in the background- a bit blurred.

Here is a photo I took by tapping on the flowers.

As I keep telling on this blog, most smartphone cameras or real cameras are smart but often times they act dumb ;) If you don't like the photo that is taken by the camera, help your phone or camera a bit. Tell it what you are looking for and it will give you a better photos. Photography is so simple these days with Trial and Error way!! Take a photo, if it does not come out well, tell your camera by pressing a button or two and you will be able to take a much better photo.
#Trial&ErrorPhotography

The Sun can make or break your photos! Use it to your advantage!

Some parents and I were taking photos of kids in my son's school on Super Hero day. We wanted to

capture kids wearing super hero clothes. To get better light on the face, the natural instinct was to have kids face the Sun. However the morning Sun was coming in the eyes and kids were barely able to keep eyes open. See the first photo below. One could barely recognize any kids. It was a disaster.

To get better photos, I asked kids to keep the sun on the back so they can keep the eyes open. However, as there was significant back light, I knew the photo will be very dark. So I quickly changed Exposure Value compensation on my Samsung Note 4 phone. As the bell had rang, kids were rushing to get back into the close so I didn't have lot of time to fine tune exposure. I just move it to some positive value and took the shot. As you can see below, the photo came much better. YOu can see kids and their super hero t shirts better. It is not a perfect photo but it would work to share with other parents and save the photo for memory

Isn't Trial and Error photography easy and effective?

A beginner photographer- how much money should you spend on a tripod?

It all depends. If you are a beginner photographer, I am going to assume that you have got an entry level DSLR camera and a kit lens for few hundred bucks. On that assumption, I am going to give  you some practical advice.  It does not make sense to spend a hundred or so dollars on tripod in my opinion and that money can be well spent on some lens to improve quality of your images.

The real question is where and how do you want to use a tripod. How serious are you about photography. I have bought and used 10 plus DSLRs so far- from mirrorless to full frame. I am not a professional photographer. I shoot for fun and I think I am a  serious enthusiast. I started with a cheap $30 tripod (I have a good quality Vanguard tripod with ball head for last 6 months but I have not yet used it!). The fact is I rarely carry a tripod with me. I use tripod in very limited situations. For indoor photos of family, gatherings, events, a tripod is not that useful as most people move within 1/50th of a second. Shooting slower than that, even on a tripod, will give you blurry photos most of the time. Plus for events and gatherings, unless you are hired to shoot, carrying a tripod is a bit of overkill IMO. Now for outdoor or travel photos, most of the time, the light is enough so you do not need slow shutter speed and hence a tripod is not needed.

When and where I use a tripod. I use a tripod when I am shooting sunset or in low light WHEN subject is not really moving much. (In this kind of situations too, I am generally able to find a place or a thing to put my camera on to keep it steady. However it is a compromise and you have to sacrifice angle/level etc but it does come handy when I don't have a tripod with me). I use tripod when I am shooting stars in a dark night, or when I want to capture silky look in moving water or a waterfall. Or sometimes, I want to take photos of myself, or a group with myself included, and in that case, with a remote control/timer, I would put my camera on a tripod. There may be few more instances but a cheap tripod has worked for me, for quite a few years.

Now coming to the main question: how much should you spend on a tripod. A cheap tripod works fine in indoor use. It works fine outdoor too but when it gets windy, you would need a good tripod. A cheap tripod also gets you shake when you use the shutter release. To overcome that, you can use 10 seconds timer so that shake is less of a problem. In case of wind, you might need to take 5-10 photos to get one usable photo with a cheap tripod but it can work.

Here, I am not trying to say the expensive tripods are useless or bad. If you can spare 100 bucks, you can get a decent tripod- new or on Craigslist/eBay. If you don't want to spend that kind of money, you can probably live with a $30 tripod. After some time, if you see a need, you can upgrade. Expensive tripods are great (I love how my new Vanguard feels!) but they are expensive, they are bulky to carry and may not suit well for many beginner photographers. If you are into family/people photography, you can buy a Canon or Nikon 50mm F1.8 lens with the money saved on a tripod and that will give you better ROI IMO.

How to capture lightning photo with a cell phone or any camera.

As people say the best camera is the one that is with you. It was time to go to sleep and my 8 year old told me about lightnings in the sky. We rarely get lightning in California sky. It is even rarer commodity than the rain in California LOL. I watched out the window and saw it happen 2-3 times. I took out my cell phone and tried to take a shot.
The first one I shot without changing any settings. It was a disaster! Camera fired flash and the flash reflected back to the lens so the photo was a waste. I immediately got in to trial and error method.
Turned off flash. I knew I need to have a dark image. Any camera, including smart phone cameras, try to make photos bright so I went to settings, tapped on Exposure value and told camera to set it to -1.5. Once  you click on Exposure Value, a line will come up with values from say -3 to +3. You set it to more negative when you want to tell camera to take in less light. You can set it to positive to tell camera to take in more light. Here I wanted my Samsung Note 4 to take less light. This setting has one more important side benefit. As I asked camera to take in less light, it resulted in faster shutter speed. This can reduce any chance of shake due to holding the camera in hand. This is a big benefit in low light so I often underexpose my photos when I don't have a tripod.

smartphone screenshot

Then I started taking photos. The first photo was as much dark as I wanted but there was no lightning.

Photos with -2 EV

Now comes the real Trial and Error. You don't know when lightning will fire so I kept clicking photos. After 10 or so trials, I was able to catch it in the photo. Though quality wasn't great but I was able to get a photo of lightning which I though I would never be able to take!

Lightning photo with cellphone

One more alternative for lightning photos:
There is another way to take photos of such uncertain things. Many new cameras which record 4K videos also let you save individual frame as a photo! Many new Panasonic cameras have 4k video so to make it easy, shoot a video and then take the best frame and save it as an image.

As I keep saying, it is not difficult to take good photos with any camera.

Light- How much light is around us and what does it mean for photography

While deleting some images on my computer, I came across this old image/graph that mentioned typical light intensity for different situations. This can be helpful to know limitation of cameras in low light. If you want to take good photos in low light with your iPad or iPhone and if you are not able to do so, it is not your fault.
In graph below, we are not supposed to remember various numbers but this one does show how dramatically light varies from situation to situation. In outdoor under mid day Sun compared to a bright indoor room, light intensity is 500 times more! When you compare this bright mid day under Sun to an indoor dim room, the light intensity is 6000 times more!

Clear Full Moon light is around .03 Lux. Typical Starlight is around .001 Lux.

So up to 500 Lux, a handheld camera can take good sharp photos IMHO (my guess). However to take good photos in situations with lesser light, we need either a tripod or faster and/or bigger sensor cameras and a stationary

Practical considerations for Light and Exposure in day to day use:

* iPhone 6 has widest aperture of 2.2. Assuming ISO of 400 (beyond 400, images will be grainy) and very stable hands, you can take shutter speed of 1/75 seconds.
With this, the lowest light you will need to take sharp good photos with your iPhone 6 is around 226 Lux. This means in brightly lit homes or in offices to outdoor photos, an iPhone or any latest smartphone camera can be useful.
If you like to use ISO at 100 only, you will need 907 Lux of light intensity.

* On the other extreme, high end full frame SLR with a fast lens of f/1.2 can take good photos even at ISO 3200. Assuming same shutter speed of 1/75 seconds, it can take good photos in light as low as 9 Lux!

If you have a Lux meter, you can use this equation (Lux= Square of F number * 1/shutter speed * (250 /ISO)) for determining the variables like Shutter Speed needed, or ISO needed for a given aperture. The discussion in this post is  mostly to get a feel about what is going on when you press the shutter release button in any camera. In reality, when you press the button, the sensors and computers inside you camera, takes the reading of the light in the frame and uses some equation like above to set up aperture opening, shutter speed and/or ISO depending on the mode. If you shoot in Manual, you provide the numbers and camera stops thinking. If you are in A or Av mode, you tell camera what value to use for aperture. If you have set up ISO too, camera will determine shutter speed based on some equation like the one above.

So ignoring bokeh or image sharpness with faster lens and bigger sensors on DSLR, an iPhone or any smartphone or a fixed lens camera can take good photos in light that is 200 Lux or more. This means well lit indoor or bright outside. With bigger bodies and more investment, you can go down as low as 10 Lux hand-holding your camera which would be Family living room lights, relatively dim indoor, office building hallways or very dark overcast day.

Now with a tripod and if you subject is stationary, you can go and shoot in almost any situation. If you want to shoot stars though, you need only a high end DSLR as if you go beyond exposure of 10-20 seconds, you will capture movement of stars.

Hope this helps.

Sources:
If you want to get into technicality of exposure, here is a nice summary on DPReview chat. Not sure if it is accurate but it mentions that

N^2/t = L*ISO / (10/0.67)

....for ISO = 100, N = 2.8, t = 1/100, and a calibration constant K = 12.5, the required luminance would be about

L = 2.8^2*100*12.5/100 = 98 cd per sq. meter

to produce a middle grey tone in your final image. Illumination is trickier, and a typical calibration constant is 250 for incident light measured in lux. So for this same example we would need

L = 2.8^2*100*250/100 = 1960 lux.

I know LUX is very confusing measure compared to meter or centimeter for length, pound or kg for weight or second/minute for time. Lux measures intensity of light. Instead of getting into technicals of it, I would rather remember relative values so you can understand how it affects photography.

If you want the definition of Lux, here it is from Wikipedia.

"The lux (symbol: lx) is the SI unit of illuminance and luminous emittance, measuring luminous flux per unit area.^[1] It is equal to one lumen per square metre. In photometry, this is used as a measure of the intensity, as perceived by the human eye, oflight that hits or passes through a surface. It is analogous to the radiometric unit watts per square metre, but with the power at each wavelength weighted according to the luminosity function, a standardized model of human visual brightness perception. In English, "lux" is used in both singular and plural.^[2]"

Here are some examples of the illuminance provided under various conditions:(Source: Wikipedia

Examples
Illuminance	Surfaces illuminated by:
0.0001 lux	Moonless, overcast night sky (starlight)[3]
0.002 lux	Moonless clear night sky with airglow[3]
0.27–1.0 lux	Full moon on a clear night[3][4]
3.4 lux	Dark limit of civil twilight under a clear sky[5]
50 lux	Family living room lights (Australia, 1998)[6]
80 lux	Office building hallway/toilet lighting[7][8]
100 lux	Very dark overcast day[3]
320–500 lux	Office lighting[6][9][10][11]
400 lux	Sunrise or sunset on a clear day.
1000 lux	Overcast day;[3] typical TV studio lighting
10000–25000 lux	Full daylight (not direct sun)[3]
32000–100000 lux	Direct sunlight

Mobile phone camera versus a regular camera: Something your mobile phone camera can't do!

Want to join for this hike today (September 16, 2015)?
Some, generally rich, folk will gather at this place today and talk about how to make rich richer in this country. Cursing but not offering any viable solution on immigration or healthcare... Millions of us will tune in on CNN (Crap No News) to watch them and get brainwashed.. They will tell you that unless you give tax breaks to rich, no jobs will be created (I know this will be left for Presidential debates and may not be here on this GOP debate) though the fact is Bush's tax breaks caused more job loss and pain for the economy..but anyway, I am planning to go on Mt McCoy today evening and take few more shots with some zoom lens. At least, I know I will be able to enjoy beautiful sunset. Interested in joining for a hike and taking photos?
#GOPDebate #RepublicanDebate #simivalley#ReaganLibrary

Here are two photos that show you what your mobile phone can't do. It can't zoom in!

Here is a photo taken with a mobile phone. You can barely see the Presidential Library in the photo below. It was almost a mile away! See the next two photos taken with a regular camera- Panasonic FZ200. You can not only see the library but also the Air Force 1 plane inside!

Samsung Note 4 photo

Zoomed in photo

How to take wide angle photos with a cell phone: Hollywood Sign- from a good to a great photo in 5 seconds.

This weekend, I took a friend to hike on the Mt Lee which has world famous Hollywood sign on. This is a very nice, popular hike in LA. It is sad that the residents of the area, near Beachwood Rd, have made parking a nightmare. Most of the spots require permit so you really need to know me well to get some inside tips on where to park when you are thinking on hike on the Hollywood Sign hike- Mt Lee. Anyway, this is a photography blog so I don't want to bore you with hiking details.

When reached the top of Mt Lee, we were above (behind) the famous Hollywood sign. We want to take a photo but when I took a photo with my camera, unfortunately my camera did not have wide angle necessary to get the whole sign in the background. Immediately, I had an idea. I took a regular photo with my Samsung Note 4 camera.

Hollywood Sign hike

Still the cell phone camera was not wide angle enough. So I changed the setting to Panaroma and moved my camera left to right. Within 5 more seconds, I had the whole sign in the background. It is all trial and error photography. Once I found what problem I had, I tried to find a solution and I had a nice photo.

Beautiful Hollywood sign photo

Trial and error photography- one easy way to take great photos.

Take a better photo by moving people around with Trial and Error Photography

Yesterday I was taking photos at my son's school - Vista Fundamental Elementary School in Simi Valley. 3rd Grade classes had Apple Valley days and there was graduation ceremony. After the event was over, my wife and some of other moms asked me to take there photo. It was a mid day with harsh Sun. Luckily they were standing under a tree. I knew that under the shade, I had better chances for taking a good shot. However I didn't know in which direction to stand them. As most of us know, light is a very important factor in photography. In open space, there are variety of things that reflect light of different quality and in different directions. Brighter surfaces reflect more light and some surfaces make light even softer. I didn't know which direction which spot will work the best. As I wasn't sure, I decided to stand them in 2-3 different directions and take photos.

Here is the first photo.

Daylight portrait

I made them face South direction. Probably the background was too bright or may be the grass below didn't reflect back light well. Photo didn't come out good. I wasn't happy plus I like to try to take a better photo. I moved them to face the East. Look at the second photo:

Facing East.

When this group of ladies faced East, the photo got worse. Now I knew if I ask them more times, I would get in trouble. Other 3 moms would probably not show their annoyance but I wasn't sure about my wife. Anyway, I wanted to take one more chance. I asked them stand facing the West. Somehow it worked very well. I took 2 quick photos. I showed photos to them and I know all 4 of them were happy. They complemented me for being a good photographer. Photos did come out bright with natural skin tones. We were able to use natural light to make a nice group photos for these 4 moms. For me, it was just a Trial and Error way of photography.  As I keep saying, photography shouldn't be that tough. We don't need to take classes or get into technical theories. Follow two simple steps of Trial and Error Photography. Take a shot. Find an issue and try to correct it.

Enjoy photography.

Trial and Error with quick cell phone photography

When you take a photo with a cell phone and if you want to take a better photo, Trial and Error Photography can help you quickly and without too much effort.

It was a nice rainy day in Los Angeles. When I looked outside through glass window, loved the clouds, blue sky and soft light on the trees and building structures. I wanted to take a good photo. So first I took a photo in default mode. Then, thankfully on my phone camera, I can use Exposure Compensation. I changed it to EV 1.5 and took a photo. Then turned on HDR (which automatically brought EV back to zero) and took the third photo. Look at these 3 photos taken within 30 seconds. Then I compared them and kept the one I liked.
Here are 3 photos. Tell me which one you like!
Don't you agree that it is easy to take better photos with Trial and Error method?

Photo in default Auto mode:

Photos in Auto mode

Photo with Exposure Compensation:

Photo with Exposure Compensation

Photo in HDR mode:

HDR mode

RAW vs JPG image- which format is better?

I never shot in RAW format...until yesterday. It was sunset time and the colors were coming very saturated in photos I was taking with Panasonic FZ200. I decided to try RAW format. Here are two photos- one out of box with Jpeg and the second one is converted from a RAW image. In RAW vs JPEG comparison, I am sold to RAW format now. Wish I had started using RAW format earlier :(

Photo in JPEG format out of the camera.

Image shot in RAW format


Here is one more example of Raw vs Jpeg.

Out of camera jpeg image

Jpeg from a raw image.

Cell Phone camera vs DSLR camera in landscape/ day light photography

When it comes to landscape photography in good day light, it really does not matter what kind of camera you have. With abundant light, there is no need for a fast lens or a big sensor. Also, in landscape photography, you want to keep most of things in nature. Smaller sensors and tiny lenses are naturally capable of keeping everything in focus.

I was at Mary Lake in Mammoth Lakes area. I have a Pentax K-30 dSLR, Panasonic FZ100 24x zoom and Samsung Note 4 mobile phone camera. Here are some photos. As you can see, they all took good/comparable photos.

Here are two more photos of taken around same place same time:
Here is a photo with a cell phone:

Here is a similar photo with a camera/DSLR:

Photography tip: How to take a nice photo of the Moon?

Photography tip: How to take a nice photo of the Moon?
I wanted to test my new camera (Panasonic FZ200) so decided to take a photo of the moon. Out of the box, like 99% other cameras, the photo was bad. I changed Metering Mode to SPOT and took the photo again. Metering mode is in Set Up for any camera and usually gives three options: Smart/Evaluative/Matrix, Partial/Center-weighted, Spot. When you select Spot, camera looks at the light in the center only. Bring the Moon in the center of your screen and camera will do the job correctly. Try with your camera and let me know.

Most cameras use by default Smart/Intelligent/Evaluative/Matrix based logic for metering. That works well in most situation where light is more or less uniform. However if you have some very dark and some very bright spots in your photo, try switching to Center Weighted or Sport metering and you will see what you would like to see in your photograph. Also metering off of faces can get you better skin colors in portraits and in photos of people. Normally, I rarely use Maxtrix/Evaluative/Smart metering mode on my cameras.

Now here is a photo with Metering mode set to Spot:

Motivation for photography??

SLR vs Compact (Fixed Lens) cameras

SLR Cameras:
Advantages:

·         Normally better image quality which stands out indoor or in low light compared to small compact cameras

·         Provides to ability to control Depth of Field (or selective focusing) to keep certain things in focus everything else out of focus. The kit lens are limited in this capability but you can achieve greater control with fast or wide aperture lenses.

·         You can change lenses and use many accessories like external flash, remote control, filters, extension tubes, macro tubes etc.

·         Better build, better life.

·         Normally they offer lot of manual controls

Issues:

·         Bulky and difficult to carry around

·         Normally expensive. Accessories like lenses etc can also cost significant money.

·         In good light or in outdoor use, there is not much advantage unless filters are used.

Compact Cameras:
Advantages:

·         They are cheaper.

·         Easy to carry around. Compact in size.

·         You can get tremendous zoom up to 60x in some of the cameras. This comes vary handy in outdoor photos and in travel. It is difficult to get this kind of zoom in SLR cameras.

·         In outdoor, good light, they are as good as any camera. They work great in landscape cameras or in situations where you want most things in the scene in focus.

·         Compact cameras offer macro shots. In macro mode, camera can focus on things very close to camera. To get similar ability in an expensive SLR, you will need a dedicated Macro lens. By nature, compact cameras offer great macro photography.

Issues:

·         Many models do not offer enough manual controls

·         They struggle in low light or in indoor photography

·         Don’t have options to use many accessories like different lenses, filters, external flash etc.

·         It is difficult to achieve bokeh or background blur with small sensors and tiny lenses.

Camera comparison iPhone5 vs iPhone6

Looks like in Auto mode (without any setting), iPhone5 and iPhone6 have more or less very similar picture quality. One noticeable difference is that iPhone6 camera is more wide angle.
Here is a photo taken with iPhone5:

Photo with iPhone5

 Here is a photo with new iPhone6

Photo with iPhone6

Besides being wide angle, looks like iPhone6 lets you control exposure right on the screen. Tap the screen and a metering circle will come up with a + sign. Touch it and it it will let us increase or decrease the exposure. The cool part is you will be able to see the impact of it live on the screen so you can decide which exposure level to use.
If you have just iPhone5, don't worry. You can still set us exposure by touching various parts of the screen. Touch a darker object/part in the screen to make the photo brighter or touch a brighter spot on the screen to make the whole photo darker. For details, please see my last post.