This is a collection of useful tips from renowned nature photographer Yoshiaki Kobayashi. These will help users of the PENTAX 645Z medium-format digital SLR camera to take full advantage of the camera’s numerous strengths, including its exceptional imaging power supported by approximately 51.4 effective megapixels and its large CMOS image sensor (43.8mm by 32.8mm). In addition to the 645Z’s main features, Mr.Kobayashi explains the nine different factors he pays the most attention to when he takes photographs himself: focus, composition, color, lighting, height, shooting angle, angle of view, depth of field, and shutter speed. By familiarizing themselves with the ways in which professionals perceive subjects and scenes, and the techniques applied to each of them, 645Z users can understand the professional way of constructing final images, apply advanced techniques, and upgrade their own photographic skills.

645Z Professional Pointers
-Contents-
How to use the guidebook
006 Nine key factors of my 645Z photography

Yoshiaki Kobayashi’s photo-shooting pointers
010 Conceal artificial objects with mist
014 Capture shafts of light
018 Express the flow of water
022 Depict summertime clouds
026 Capture a pond in the forest
030 Capture a lake in the morning
034 Use the defocus effect
038 Defocus the foreground
042 Capture a tall flower
046 Capture the scenery with handheld shooting
050 Capture the silky flow of waterfalls
054 Capture wide-angle close-ups with handheld shooting
058 Capture the forms of nature
062 Use the HDR function
066 Use the CTE mode
070 Enhance a sense of depth with high-angle shooting
074 Use the medium-format camera’s defocus effect
078 Position the subject against a blue sky
082 Depict the gradations in a bright sky
086 Capture the flight of a crane
090 Focus on the light penetrating into waterfalls
094 Use manual-focus lenses
098 Capture a mother deer and her fawn
102 Express the traces of stars
106 Capture a starlit sky
110 Create a gentle image of flowers
114 Express the height of a tree
118 Use the SR function
122 Optimize the benefits of HD Coating
126 Freeze waterfalls splashes
130 Looking back at the shooting

Yoshiaki Kobayashi, photographer
Born in 1969 in Tokyo, Yoshiaki Kobayashi has expressed the beauty and gentleness of
nature through his photographic work, with subjects ranging from insects and flowers to
sweeping scenery. He is currently working on a photographic project in Hokkaido titled
Inochi-no-keshiki (The Landscape Full of Life). He has also published two photo books,
Inochi-no-Keshiki: Kushiro Shitsugen (The Landscape Full of Life in the Kushiro Marsh)
and Inochi-no-Keshiki: Kita no Daichi Kara (The Landscape Full of Life in the Northlands),
both of which are available from DLMarkt.