How do you take great photography of yourself?

[ph0toe]

my aim is to take great photography with myself (the subject) in it most of the time to upload on blogs, social media, etc. I know i can mount it on tripod and then hit the remote or do a self timer but is there another easier way?

for eg. say i am the swimmer. I want to take a shot of my head going above the water to take a breathe. How can i achieve this shot with no one helping me click the shutter button of the camera. is it impossible? Idk if any swimming pool facility would allow such device in their indoor pools so i'm not sure how a tripod, remote, dslr would work in that instant. i don't just want some bad shot, i need a crispy flattering shot. thanks

 

[Derrel]

For the swimming shot, it sounds like you are in need of a photographer. I think it would be very difficult to shoot a photo of yourself but it would be fairly easy for a decent photographer to make the same shot.

 

[weepete]

Selfie stick?

 

[Designer]

my aim is to take great photography with myself (the subject) in it most of the time to upload on blogs, social media, etc. I know i can mount it on tripod and then hit the remote or do a self timer but is there another easier way?

for eg. say i am the swimmer. I want to take a shot of my head going above the water to take a breathe. How can i achieve this shot with no one helping me click the shutter button of the camera. is it impossible? Idk if any swimming pool facility would allow such device in their indoor pools so i'm not sure how a tripod, remote, dslr would work in that instant. i don't just want some bad shot, i need a crispy flattering shot. thanks

Record a video, then take stills from the video. My video camera gives me that option.

 

[Overread]

for eg. say i am the swimmer. I want to take a shot of my head going above the water to take a breathe. How can i achieve this shot with no one helping me click the shutter button of the camera. is it impossible? Idk if any swimming pool facility would allow such device in their indoor pools so i'm not sure how a tripod, remote, dslr would work in that instant. i don't just want some bad shot, i need a crispy flattering shot. thanks

A few methods;

1) As noted a video, however you'd have to be able to manually set the settings for the video. The key problem would be that you want a sharp shot and that means a fast shutter speed, however most video is done at a slower shutter speed. So plucking out a frame would appear softer. If you can manually set the settings you might be ok in very bright light/high ISO setting. Of course you might still have to do several passes to ensure that you are in the right position for the system - focusing would be another trick though manual focusing, a smaller aperture (cutting down on light entering the camera though) and swimming past several times might work.

2) Laser trips exist, however the problem is that when you're swimming your arms and the water itself are going to be triggers long before your head appearing up high above the water. If you're keen on it though you could pre focus and pre set the camera to a specific spot, use flash if need be and then spend a good while doing repeat runs. In theory if you reach a standard speed when swimming past the trigger then you can possibly time a delay on a remote trigger so that your arms/water tripping the laser starts the counter so that your head is in the right place. However it might take a LOT of passes. Even more faff if you've got to swim over to the edge every time and check the camera/computer for the result and then swim back and get yourself lined up again.

3) A remote trigger in your hand, however you're again running on pre-setting things and then having to likely repeat it for the shot you want. Again you'll be going back and forth and you'd need some kind of trigger for you to know when you're in the right place to take the shot.



Basically its not impossible, but its not simple and might involve a LOT of time spend getting waste/close shots before you get the shot you want.

 

[stk]

If your camera has an intervalometer you could try that.

 

[ph0toe]

for eg. say i am the swimmer. I want to take a shot of my head going above the water to take a breathe. How can i achieve this shot with no one helping me click the shutter button of the camera. is it impossible? Idk if any swimming pool facility would allow such device in their indoor pools so i'm not sure how a tripod, remote, dslr would work in that instant. i don't just want some bad shot, i need a crispy flattering shot. thanks

Record a video, then take stills from the video. My video camera gives me that option.

Thanks, didn't even think of this!

Will the quality in a video be worst off than shooting stills? i always find that's the case and i'm not sure why. is it because dslr are meant for photos than videos? if so, i don't think i can compromise a bad photos taken from a video...

edit- also , when you said your video camera gives you that option what do you mean? i always thought you mean taking a video from camera and then take a still from it using premiere pro or other editing tool and then using that still file in photoshop to do some post processing.

 

[DanOstergren]

If you can take great photos of other people, it's simply a matter of applying those same skills to taking a photo of yourself. The difference is that you're using some form of a tripod, and a self-timer or shutter remote.

Specifically for the swimmer shot, I imagine you would need to practice a LOT with the timer, or find a waterproof shutter remote. The easiest and most practical option in that scenario however would be to have someone else operate the camera.