For the first post in this series, I'll be talking about the camera and lenses I use and the apps or programmes I use for editing. This isn't really a "tutorial" but I feel like this is essential to mention :)
I use a Canon 650D or T4i (it is the same camera, with different names in different countries.) together with the 18-55 mm kit lens that came with the whole package, and a 50mm f1.8 lens.
On the left: Canon 650D with the 50mm f1.8 lens attached
On the right: 18-55mm lens
I practically have the 50mm lens on my camera all the time, because I'm a bokeh junkie and the large aperture of the lens produce some pretty good bokeh. Also, this lens is really good for portraits and close-up nature shots, which I absolutely adore. The large aperture also makes this lens really good in low light conditions. The shallow depth of field can also give landscape/cityscape photos a pretty interesting look as well. The 50mm f1.8 is really light compared to other lenses, and I think for its affordable price it is a really good lens. :)
However, as I'm using this lens on a cropped-sensor camera body, it is sometimes a bit too tight, or "zoomed-in". It is definitely not a lens to take group photos or landscape photos, unless you're standing really far away. And the auto-focus is really noisy, but I don't really mind that hehe :) Also, it is a prime lens and it lacks the range of focal length which makes it a bit inconvenient to use at times. But I definitely prefer the photos taken with this lens to the kit lens in terms of sharpness and colours.
That doesn't mean that the kit lens is worthless! It is my only zoom wide-angle lens, hence I use it all the time when I'm travelling. I wouldn't risk missing photographs, and hence I always have my kit lens attached on the camera body. With a zoom lens, I could take photos of a building really close to me and a building far away from me as well. Because even if the framing of the photo is bad, you could crop the photo when you reach home, if you took the photos with a wide-angle lens. I think this is a good enough lens for beginners or teenagers with no source of income (like me) :)
18-55 mm kit lens, aka the neglected lens.
I edit photos on my phone and on the computer. If I'm feeling lazy, or I want to put a specific filter over the photos, I'll edit the photos in iPhone apps. Below are the apps I use.
VSCO Cam is my favourite app when it comes to filters. It can give photos a really film-y and vintage look, especially iPhone photos. I adore the black & white filters on this app!
Another app that I frequently use is Afterlight. It has more filters, and it comes with textures as well. Finer adjustments to photos (such as colour balance) can be done on Afterlight. However, it is a paid app. But I think it's totally worth the money. :) Snapseed is another good app to edit photos in :)
I use Over and Phonto to put text on the photos. Over has some really cool artworks which you can add onto the photos. I downloaded Over when it was free, but some of the artwork packages only come with purchases. In Phonto, you can import your own fonts from the computer via iTunes.
I use Diptic for collages. It is a paid app, but it has many functions. PicsArt is a free app, and great for overlaying textures or images. However, it does not retain the original resolution of the photos.
For the more "major" and complicated edits, I do them on Photoshop CS3 on the computer. I got this for free as my mom's friend gave it to me. I use it for levitation edits, expansion, double exposures, major colour adjustments etc. As I'm still a beginner in Photoshop, there are a lot of functions and tools that I have yet to explore :) I used to edit my photos in Gimp, a free editing programme. If you don't have Photoshop and don't intend to buy one, I would recommend downloading Gimp. My friend uses it and apparently it is capable of doing expansions and double exposures too!
And yeah that's all for this post. I hope I haven't missed out anything...but I can't really think now as it is past 1 am here. So good night/day everyone! Stay tuned for the upcoming posts :)
- Elsa who's really tired now
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