Lenses & Depth of Field

Unblurred background



Blurred Background



 

Sometimes when you take a photograph the background appears blurry, but other times its crystal clear. Sometimes you want a completely unblurry photograph, but it comes out blurry and sometimes it’s the other way around. Do you wonder why this happens? Well this is called depth of field, which basically means the amount of blur your photograph has. Depth of field is affected by three important things, the space between you and your subject, the length of your camera lens, and the aperture. To describe this simply, if you are very close to your subject (like the flower shown above) then you tend to get more blur. If you stand farther away, then you will have less blur. The length of your lens is extremely important. You see, the photograph of the flower was taken with a 30-700mm lens and the one of the girl was taken with a 15-55mm lens. This means that the 700mm lens is a larger lens than the 55mm lens, so there is more blur. Your blur is also affected by your aperture.  The larger the aperture number is, then the less blur there is. This means that if your aperture is f/8.0 then there will be less blur than if you have it set to f/2.8. When you control these three elements, then you can control your depth of field. Of course it can be a lot more complicated than this, but this is as far into the subject as I dare go. Your depth of field also helps you gain the “bokeh” effect that everyone loves. Bokehs are the square-like lights that show up in your picture when it’s blurry. When you make your background very blurry, then you can achieve bokeh.  

 Bokeh

Positioning your subject

 One of the biggest problems that beginner photographers have when taking photographs of people is positioning. When your trying to position your subject you should always try for something that looks natural, not forced. As you see in the photographs to the right, the most natural pose is always the best. The top photograph was a pose that my subject sugested we try. The bottom one was a photo of her while she was caught off guard. The bottom one appears more natural and effortless while the top looks forced and uncomfortable. Using props always seems like a fun idea, but if that prop doesn't look like it belongs there (like the truck mirror for instance) than it can ruin the entire photograph. My advice is to go as simple as possible when you start out. Try doing photographs of only the subject and do as many simple poses as possible.

 When working with people you have to worry about their comfort levels. When your subject isn't comfortable with their pose, then you will see that in the photograph. As you can see, the girl on the right in the red pants looks very unconfortable as opposed to the girl on the left. Paige (the girl in the red) looks uncomfortable because, like a lot of people that beginners work with, she has had no experiance with being a photo subject and is nervous. As the photographer it is your job to make the subject feel comfortable with their poses or to change the pose if they simply can't do it. There is more than one reason that she looks more uncomfortable though. Not only was Paige not liking that pose, but the pose also looks more uncomfortable because she was closer to the camera. In Kendra's photograph shes very far away and being shot from above, while Paige is being shot from a straight on view which is really never a flattering view. Which brings us to our next position, which is close ups. The first rule of a close up, is to always keep the subject's chin down. As you can see in the center photograph, Paige's chin is pointed slightly upward (and she refuses to smile) which doesn't flatter the shape of her face. But, in the photograph on the left Addy Kaye's face looks dainty and pretty. Remember tilting the head slightly always looks good, but as Addy Kaye demonstrates in the photograph on the right, theres a limit to how far you should tilt.

Small things to remember:

-Don't chop off limbs when photographing and cropping

-Don't have your subject stare off dramatically into the corner of their eyes

-Don't add blur in photoshop

-Don't over saturate

-Don't let them slouch

-Make your subject smile naturally

-Don't stop taking photos until you've reached 200

-Try using cross processing

-Have fun & be creative

more good examples (or in my opinion good)

 

 Note: These last photographs were taken with cross processing. I would do a blog on it, but its simply a setting that only selected cameras have. You can create cross processing on photoshop by using color balance.

How To Use A Reflector

When your outside on a hot Summer day, taking pictures of a person, you may notice that there are a lot of shadows on their face. You may wonder how professionals remove these shadows and make their subjects face look bright. While there are many different techniques out there and some do work better than other, I think that all photographers would agree that using a reflector is the easiest and lcheapest way to remove shadows.

Reflectors are a flexible circle that can be used to reflect sunlight onto your subjects face.

When a reflector is held under your subject's face, towards the sun, it can project the sunlight back onto the subject's face, removing all shadows. As shown in the example below.

(not my photograph)

A real reflector is really cheap and can also be easily made at home. An ever cheaper version of a reflector that a lot of photographers use is a car sunshield. These have the same reflective properties of a reflector, and they even come in small circles and look exactly like a reflector.

Reflectors are a compact and easy way for anyone to lighten up their photograph and give it a little proffesional touch.

Light Streaks

As we talked about in my last post, long exposure photography can be used to create many different effects. One interesting effect can be created by moving lights. If you take a long exposure photograph of a moving light, then it will leave a light streak across it. You can create this effect by moving a flashlight in front of your camera while it takes your long exposure photograph. You can even use your flashlight to doodle crazy drawings in the air.  

A silly drawing of a rainbow I made with my cellphone on a 5 second shutter

You can also get creative and use things like glow sticks, fire, sparklers, fireworks, and glow in the dark spray paint. Taking pictures of headlights on a passing car can also create very abstract light streaks.

A car's lights going across a train track

 Remember that these have to be taken in the dark and with a tripod to keep your photograph from being too shaky. These can be very fun to take and don't require a lot of work. When your done the finished project will look like a unique work of art.

Long exposure

As I explained in my last blog, all cameras work by using shutter, ISO, and aperture to help you capture the correct amount of light. These things can also be manipulated to make creative effects in your photograph. One simple and fun way to manipulate light is to use long exposure. Long exposure is basically taking a very long photograph, so that it captures your subjects movement. Your shutter can do speeds anywhere from 1/100s to five or six hours. Of course, you need to change your ISO and aperture so that your photograph isn't too bright, and unless you have a neutral density filter (a ND filter is basically like a pair of sunglasses that takes your aperture down a few extra steps) then your photograph must be taken at night. When your shutter stays open for a long amount of time, like six seconds... then it is literally taking a photograph for six seconds and anything that moves in front of your camera during those six seconds is captured on your photograph as a movement blur. I'm going to explain a few different types of long exposure effects in my other blogs but today we're going to focus on blurring and ghosting people.

                      

The ghosting effect is created when your subject stands in front of the camera for a certain period of time and then moves. When they move, the light from the background shines through where the person once stood, and in the finished photograph you can see the background through the person. This creates a ghost effect. These can't be taken in front of a black background, because then there will be too much blur and it will be hard to see features. There's two things that can cause blur in these photographs; your person moving too slow or you moving the camera. I would recommend using a tripod and maybe ever a shutter release remote or you will never get your camera steady enough to capture a good long exposure photo. Sometimes your person's movements can be used in creative ways though, like in those examples photos of those dancers. If you plan on capturing movement then your photograph must be taken in front of a black background. It doesn't matter if your taking it in the dark at night or in front of a background, but it must be black so that your movement isn't covered up by light. You'll capture more detail the slower the person moves or the longer they stand still. These concepts can be hard to work with at first, but after you try a few times you'll find that its a really fun way to take photographs that involves a lot of movement and experimenting that both you and your subject will have fun with.

Using Aperture, ISO, and Shutter Speed

I bet you've looked at a photographer's picture before and thought "What are they doing that I'm not?" Well, most photographers don't take a compact camera outside and snap a photograph of clouds on auto and it just automatically looks amazing. Real photographers who take good quality photographs create them by using all types of special settings and manipulations that are created by their cameras, the lenses they use, and most importantly light. To learn how to take a real good photograph you must first learn how to use your camera's manual setting. Taking a manual photograph requires you to know how to use Aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. These three things depend on each other and work together to create good exposure. A camera is basically a light sensitive box, so when you take a photograph your camera lets light in and that light is written onto film or a digital sensor and that creates your photograph. The amount of light that you allow on your digital sensor determines how your photograph will turn out. Your camera has a small wall inside of it, called a shutter. This wall remains in front of your digital sensor until you press the shutter release button and your camera takes a photograph. When you take a photo you always hear your camera click, this click is how long it takes that shutter wall to move from in front of your sensor, collect all the light needed for a photograph, and move back in front of your sensor. You can change the amount of light that is in your photograph and how fast the photograph is taken by changing your shutter speed. Your shutter is shown on your camera screen by using measurements of time such as 1/100 s or 1/4 s. Sometimes you need your shutter speed to be really fast, like if your taking a picture of a moving ball and your shutter speed is 1/160 s. But, then you may find that your picture is really dark. To even out the amount of light that is taken from your photograph by your fast shutter, you would change your aperture setting. An aperture is a small circle inside your camera lens that determines the amount of light that enters your camera. Your aperture can be bigger which allows more light in, or smaller which allows less light. Your aperture is shown on your screen as numbers called F-stops. Now F-stops are a bit backwards, and they can be pretty comfusing. For example, if you want more light then you would want your aperture ring to be larger, but your F-stop would become smaller, like an f/5.6 or F/2.8. If you have a really long shutter speed like 1/4 s then you would have a small aperture ring which is represented by a large F-stop. The ISO also changes how much light you have. A little ISO such as 200 allows less grainy dots (film grain) and less light, while a large ISO such as 3200 brings in a lot of light but also makes your photograph look blurry. When you use all three of these together correctly, you should be able to take a photograph that looks exactly like the one your camera took on auto, and your probably thinking "Why do all this work when I can just have the camera do it for me?" Well, using your camera on manual will allow you to have more creative ablilty with your camera. I will be explaining how to use shutter, ISO, and aperture to achieve creative photographs in my next few blogs.

Capturing Water Droplets

This week, I have been working a lot on photographing motion and speed. My personal favorite is to photograph water droplets. I love how the end result looks very abstract and unusual. Though most of motion photography is really challenging and involves a lot of super complicated equipment, water droplet photographs can be created very simply. The first thing you want to do is set up the area that you'll be using. I generally use my kitchen sink. Since a droplet is so fast, your shutter speed is sped up to about 1/180 (with a flash) and that means you'll lose a lot of light. To compensate for this light loss you could do what I did and buy a f/2.8 lens, or you could simply flood your sink with light. I have two large studio lights that I prefer to use, which are basically oversized desk lamps. If you don't have any special lights, then a bunch of regular lamps will work just as well. When you take the photographs you'll also want to use your camera flash as well. Basically, you'll want to make your area as bright as possible; the more light the better. After you get your lights set up you need to fill up your sink a little over half way, and add dye to your water. You can use any color you want or a mixture of colors. The color not only adds creativity but it differentuates the droplet from the background, unlike clear water that blends in with its surroundings. You can also try different drinks like milk, because the different consistency creates different types of droplets. Before you start taking photographs make sure you have enough memory to store hundreds of photographs, and be prepared to take that many because its very hard to time your camera to catch a perfect drop. The better your camera is the easier it is to catch a photograph, if you have a compact camera it will be nearly impossible to get a good potograph, but if you have a pretty good SLR unit then you can set it to continuous shooting. This will allow you to take multiple photographs at a time instead of having to continuously press the shutter release. If your taking this in manual, don't forget to continuously check and make sure your exposure is right. Try to take at least five hundred photographs, and only expect two or three good ones. Once you've finally got your finished photograph it will look like a piece of art.