【Column】 What's trending at Flyme China? (Vol 2.0)

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2016-01-13 11:42

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Dear Flyme fans,


Here is the Vol 2.0 of column " What's trending at Flyme China?".

The Vol 1.0 is 【Historical Versions, Top Functions and UIs of Flyme】


How to take a photo in manual mode?


To me, photography means composition, lighting and post production.

1.Composition is the soul to be cultivated on a long-term basis.

2.Lighting creates an artistic conception.

3.Post production conveys feelings. There are many post production programs in the market. With Camera360 installed, even   
a ewcomer can take a good photo by adjusting the exposure and applying a filter effect.

Most of the night scenes, such as light tracks of car lamps on the road, starry sky’s, and light paintings, are captured with long-time exposure. It is important to keep your camera still when shooting at night. Otherwise, you will only get blurred images as your hand shakes like hell especially under the long-time exposure. So what you need here is to find a way to fix your mobile phone.
Start the Camera app on your mobile phone, click on the top center icon and select Manual to enter below interface from nine options popped up.

 

The first icon at the bottom is the Shutter that controls the exposure time.

The second one is the ISO that may reduce the shutter speed by increasing the ISO value when it is dark. In that case, you may not get a blurred image, but an image with particles as the downside of a high ISO. Low ISO values such as ISO 100, ISO 200 and ISO 400 outputs a fine and smooth image.  Under normal circumstances we prefer ISO 100.

The third one is the Focal Length Setting and you have to use it when capturing the facula as you might get a blurred background if you focus on the foreground or vice versa.

The fourth one is the Exposure Value (EV) to control the darkness.

I. Starry sky

Taking a beautiful photo of the starry sky involves many factors such as the weather, the month, and the shooting location, or you can just press the shutter button as you look up and see stars in the sky at night if you are not so critical.

First, stand at somewhere dark or with little light to prevent the interference of stray lights.
Fix your mobile phone with a tripod or any other devices that may do the job.
Manually adjust the ISO value to 50 and the EV to -2, keep the Focal Length unchanged, and adjust the shutter speed successively to 5s, 10s, 15s and 20s. Then press the shutter to see what you can get and adjust the EV and the ISO if you are not satisfied.

PS: Keep your mobile phone still without shaking at all when taking the photos. To ensure that, you can use a Bluetooth control device or the volume key on the wire control earphone to control the shutter.

 

This is a photo I took on the roof of a city building surrounded by many lights. You can add elements such as mountain silhouettes, reflections in the water and traffic flow to enrich your personal photo.
If you want to take a photo of star tracks that might need a exposure time of dozens of minutes, you may try it with the installation package of the Nubia camera that contains a unlimited exposure B shutter in the electronic iris. Check this out in the photo below of star tracks found online.

 

II. Light tracks of traffic flow

Follow the method as above and choose an overpass or a dark place without street lamps nearby the overpass to prevent the interference of stray lights. Or what is better, stand on the roof of a high rise (with dozens of floors) in the evening. It is artistic andpoetic to shoot a long traffic flow on the road with a long time exposure. I’d be better to do your shooting when the lights are on and the sky is colorful so you can get a beautiful background out of it. Or you can just do it when it is dark. A photo of trafficflow or curves is eye-catching, not to mention a photo of the crossing  flyovers taken from a high rise. The photo below of the overpass may not be good enough because I was not standing high enough when taking it and the long time exposure of the mobile phone resulted in a mass of blur. A single lens reflex camera may generate a better result. I am not sure if it was the setting problem or if it was the device itself. Please let me know if you figure it out.

  

III.Light paintings
Find a pitch black place and adjust the settings as the one shown above to set  the shutter speed at 10s or 20s as long as  you can  paint  out your words or pattern using a flashlight or other colored or white light source before the camera. Then you can capture the light painting. See below image found online for reference.

 

You may find various ways of capturing light paintings, just download it online yourself. But you have to remember that the key point is to slow down the shutter speed and use the low ISO and the low EV.

Now it is turn for the facula, or halo.
Go somewhere with lights on, for example, standing by the roadside. The more light colors there are, the prettier your photo will be. Change to the Manual mode, leave the shutter setting unchanged, adjust the ISO down below 400, the EV to negative and the Focal Length to minimize the distance.
Press the shutter and see what you get from these adjustments. If you do it at dusk, you would want to add more colors of the daylight to your background, so do not keep the ISO and the EV too low.
Photo 1 was captured with the Auto mode.

 

Photos 2-3 show different sky colors as a result of different EVs, ISO values and focal lengths.

 

Composition is also important, so show the Grid Line to figure it out for yourself. As for the heart shaped halo or something else, I tried it with both a hand made lens hood and a paper cut as the Aperture is fixed. However, the results were not as good. But maybe you can try it on a mirror less digital camera to see what the outcome will be.

Resource: Flyme.cn
Author: 木木心神