Fireworks Photo tips for the weekend.

http://www.nyip.com/ezine/holidays/firewks.html

http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/how-to-take-pictures-of-fireworks

http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/Photography-Techniques/fvttrrsx/1/The-Fireworks...

http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/qt_tips_photograph_fireworks_artic...

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0008080/article/Fireworks-photography-basics

http://www.aprilesque.com/2011/07/ndp-fireworks-with-black-card.html

http://www.trickphotographyideas.com/photography/2012/06/how-to-shoot-fireworks

http://james-brandon.com/nine-tips-for-photographing-fireworks

Week 12

On our final evening we walked the 300m to Strawberry Field and explored the rich possibilities offered by the wonderful bright red gates of the ex-salvation army children's home.  

I picked this location as a subject not only because they are five minutes walk from the classroom, but also that I see them being photographed everyday.  I just looked on Flickr and there are  381 images that come up in a search. Many are a full shot of the gates, which I can understand if you are a Beatles tourist and wish to document your visit, but it does not make for particularly interesting images.

So I encouraged you to look at the gates from different angles and perspectives.  Maybe we did not come away with any award winning shots, (maybe we did) but I hope that the exercise has made you think differently about how to approach a subject.  

I had two objectives for anyone taking this course. 

1.  To help you move off auto settings.

2.  To get the best from natural light.

I hope I've helped most of you to achieve these and if there were any more points you've learned then that's a bonus.

We only improve our photography if we try to push the boundaries beyond what we are familiar with. Many times I've noticed something that I thought was photograph worthy, walked over to the place and then discovered something completely different to photograph.  I would encourage you to get up, get out and practice, but also study the work of other photographers and get critique.

There are plenty of places where you can study other peoples work, so I won't bother listing them.  I have found a great place to gain critique and it is at ePhotozine.  http://www.ephotozine.com/critique-gallery  

You may feel more comfortable just looking at the photos in the critique gallery and seeing how tips and help is given.  I think this is a great way to learn.  When you've watched it for a while try uploading one of your own photos.   As I said in the class the help is very constructive and very gentle.

I hope to keep adding to this blog to keep things ticking over and I also hope that we could meet up for some photo excursions.  

Week 10

Apologies for not posting earlier. 

 

Flash Modes

Tonight after all these weeks of me telling you not to use on-camera flash, I asked you to look at the flash modes and force the flash on. If you're stuck, it is normally achieved by pressing the button with the lightning flash on it.  Successive presses of this button will cycle through the modes available.  The common modes are No flash, Flash always fires and Red eye.  I personally would not bother with the red eye setting.  Here's why.  The red eye setting normally fires pre-flashes to encourage the pupils of your subjects to close down, thus reducing the likelihood that their retinas will reflect light back into the lens.  You may find that your subjects think that the pre-flashes indicate you've finished taking the photo and start to move away just as the camera takes the real shot.  I'm also dubious about its ability to constrict the pupils.

Another mode that you may see is slow, slow sync, rear or rear curtain. These are all the same name for the function that is usually explained in this way.  Suppose you wish to capture the shot of a car at night with its tail lights streaking behind it.  You need a slow shutter to capture the streaked lights and a flash to capture the picture of the vehicle.  So the shutter opens, captures the lights, and  just before the shutter closes it fires the flash thus freezing the car.

Photo by Pianogram                               

 I'm sure you'll need to use this mode all the time, now you know about it. That said it is also useful for capturing a scene at night.  Suppose someone is standing in front of a city scene with lights lighting the buildings and you wish to capture the scene. The shutter needs to be open of a long exposure to capture the lights but that will not be enough light for the subject, this is where a touch of flash helps.  If you had just left the camera to us flash and fast shutter, you would capture the subject but there would probably be just a black background. 

Fill Flash

Fill flash is when we use flash during the day to fill the shadows with some light. Ideal if you subject is back lit.  So now  you know how to force the flash on, see if you can experiment with it in backlit situations.   Another thing we looked at was how to turn down the power of the flash.  By delving deep into the menus on some of the cameras that were present this evening, we eventually managed to find the flash compensation setting on them all.  Some compacts may not have this feature, but you can control the power of the flash by stepping back two or three paces and using the zoom to zoom in on the subject.

Being able to control the power of the flash is useful when you need to turn it up higher.  The situation came up in the next part of the session when we used some plastic drinking cups  to cover the flashes on the cameras.  A definite difference was noted  as can be seen in the two shots of the cello head here. 




The one on the left is with straight flash, and gives hard shadows, the one one the right is with a plastic cup diffuser. Over the flash and resulted with a softer light.  I did brighten the shot on the right in post – production, but equally could have turned the power up on the flash.

Next week we'll look at these techniques again and see if we can use them to our advantage.


 

Week 9

Focal Length

The focal length of a lens is the distance usually in mm from the lens to the ccd sensor when the lens is focused on an object at infinity. 

So what is the use of knowing this?  Well, If we can understand  focal length, it is one more tool to help us take better photographs.  Let’s start with what a standard lens is.  

Standard Lens

A standard lens gives a view similar to the human eye, about 53 degrees,  its focal length  is equal to the diagonal size of the sensor.  Unfortunately all cameras don’t have the same size sensor.  So there can be a lot to remember. 


For a 35mm   film   camera    the standard lens is 52mm   

For DSLRs owned by everyone in the class the  standard lens is 35mm  

For other  more expensive DSLRs the  standard lens is 50mm  


Bridges and some compacts   the  standard lens is 8mm or 9mm 

Wide Angle Lens

As we reduce the focal length below the standard size, we begin to see more of the scene, and objects appear further away.  This is similar to to what happens when we look in a wing mirror fitted to some cars,  we see more of the road to the rear and side, but we can be fooled into thinking a car approaching is further away.

There is an advantage to fitting more into the frame, for example it can be ideal for landscape shots and can give dramatic views of inside buildings,  but there is  the disadvantage that the lower we take the focal length, the more distortion will be  introduced.

Take care when using a wide angle setting and you’re up close to your subject, you can end up with some strange results.  Of course you can always use the distortion for effect. 



Photo by Brittney Bush

Photo by Childish Dave

Click here to see more examples of Wide-Angle Distortion

For DSLRs  Wide-angle range is 35mm -and below

Prime lens

You may see the term prime lens used,  this refers to a fixed focal length lens, that does not zoom.   They usually consist of  better quality elements that allow  wider apertures to be used.  We discussed the advantage of the prime lens that I have as an example.
It's a 35mm focal length, but allows 21/2  stops wider aperture than my 18-55 zoom lens.

In practical terms that allows me to use the camera indoors without a flash without worrying about camera shake.   It is the difference between being forced to use  a shutter speed of 1/20  and 1/120, bearing in mind that I've said all along that any shot below 1/50 can't be hand held.

Telephoto lens 

As we increase the  focal length, objects begin to appear closer, there is a lessening of the angle of view and a flattening effect takes place.

Zoom lenses gives the advantage of flexibility, but at the expense of quality and speed.

While looking for a shot to demonstrate the compression that takes place when using a telephoto lens I found this excellent example series.  And later even discovered an accompanying video.

For DSLR  Telephoto range is 35mm -and above

How the shots were done - youtube video

Exposure Compensation

 

I asked you to find the above symbol on a button your cameras.  If I'm not mistaken, all of the cameras owned by everyone in the group has such a button. 

Set you camera mode to anything except Auto or Manual (try Aperture or Portrait mode) Press the

 Exposure Compensation button and you should see a scale appear.  

use the Left / Right buttons or Dial  to adjust the pointer as far to the minus side as possible.

Now take a photo.  Adjust the scale again back to the centre and take another shot.

Take another photo of the same subject.  Again adjust the pointer to the highest setting and take another photo.  When you look back at the three shots you have just taken, you will see that the first is considerably darker than the last.  The last one will probably be far too bright, but I hope that this will be a valuable tool in adjusting the exposure of your camera in certain situations.

The example I would use is where Joyce complained that when she takes a photo of stained glass windows in a church, the colours look washed out. So by adjusting the exposure compensation down we can regain the saturation in the colours of the window.  Remember to turn the flash off in such a situation though.

We also touched again on the subject of portrait photography.

Although we have tried out some portrait photography in the other classrooms in previous weeks,  

I haven't really set it as a task for "homework"  So I suggested that you try some photographs of people. You don't necessarily have to know the people, in some respects it can be easier if you do not know your subjects that well, but do talk to the person your shooting, ask a few open questions that will give them a chance to tell you something about themselves. 

Props are good

If your subject is involved in an activity, holding something or wearing something unusual this can help to tell a story or create questions in the viewer's mind.  It's only limited by your imagination.

Focus

To refer back to something that we mentioned a few  weeks ago, what is your point of interest?  If your photo contains a face, it will be the eyes of the subject that the viewer will look at first.  Ensure it is the eyes that are in focus, not the tip of the nose.

It need not contain a face

It does not  necessarily need to contain the face of the person,  hands, feet and other parts can make interesting subjects. 

Watch the background

Apart from the really obvious things like lamposts growing out of your subjects head, at the background for things that distract from the subject.  One subtle example is when a horizontal line such as the horizon cuts through the head of the subject.

A recent example I came across was on this website of a prominent solicitor. 

http://www.marilynstowe.co.uk/about/

Is she wearing a backpack?

See you next week with your people photos.......

Week 8

We spent some time this week visiting other classes, so we did not really cover any new material.

I encourage the use of natural light whenever possible, but sometimes I know we will need to resort to the use of flash.  

Remember.  to avoid having to use flash, follow this procedure.

Aperture  -  Wide as possible (so the smallest number)

Shutter speed. - Low as you can manage without camera shake, this will be down to the individual, but anything less than 1/50 will be risky.

ISO  -  As high as you need to go once the other two are set.

I'm hoping that following our visits to other classes, we'll have some shots that we can use for advertising material next year.

Week 7

This week we looked at photographing people.  This is an area that I probably feel the least comfortable with, but there are times when we are at an event and we need to be able to step up to the mark and deliver a photograph that will commemorate the occasion.

 

If you're indoors I would discourage the use of “on-camera” flash whenever you can get away with it.  The problem with “on-camera” flash is that  the light is harsh, direct and always comes from the direction of the camera so you will not get any shadow  and you will most likely create red-eye.  It is also impossible to remain discreet when using a flash.

If you're indoors I would recommend disabling the flash, setting the aperture as wide as possible, the shutter speed as slow as possible and the ISO as high as necessary.  Don’t forget the white balance.

Portraits
You will need as much light as possible so get close to your light source.  A window during the day is a great light source, but preferably not in direct sunlight.  A reflector can be used to fill in the shadows if necessary.  You do not need to go out and buy a fancy reflector a piece of white card, paper  or cloth  will do the job.  One tip someone mentioned was to use a fold-up windscreen heat reflector.

We want people to relax when having their photograph taken, so we need to be relaxed and confident ourselves.  It will be difficult to relax if we are getting stressed about which setting the camera should be on , so take time to know your equipment.  Practice changing settings while you have time to yourself, but also practice taking photos of people  in everyday situations. When the time comes at that special occasion, you will know the settings to use for an outstanding photo.

It may sound clichéd, but talking to and interacting with your subject will help them relax, take some time to get to know the person.  This is a really important point when taking photos of children.  It doesn’t have to be a half hour in-depth discussion, just ask two or three questions in a relaxed manner that allows them to talk a little about themselves.

Context
One particular aspect of portrait work is to place your subject in a situation where they are doing something or obviously in a situation where they have been taking part in an activity.  To this end  we spent a little time visiting some of the other classes and managed to get some interesting shots of cake makers, guitarists, artists, ICTers and spanish learners.  


Here's a link to my efforts ....    http://flickr.com/gp/timbalimber/278LZF/

No Classes on June 7th due to school half-term holiday.

Week 6

Buildings and Architecture

We spend the majority of our time in buildings, but how often do we take the time to stop and really take a good look at them? We have all taken a photograph of a building, often  we find that we're happy with the result.  This evening we explored some different ways of approaching this type of photography.

Lighting

It may seem that every week I have something to say about lighting, but every week I stress that when it comes to taking a photograph it is all we've got.  When we take a photograph we capture light that is reflected from different objects, so if we are aware of the light, where it's coming from and it's quality, we are more likely to know how to deal with it as it enters the camera.

As with many photographic subjects, midday is not the best time to be looking for shots of buildings. You will fair much better by heading out early  for that clear, crisp light of morning or arriving late to catch the light coming from the side that creates  warmth and catches the highlights of the building. You will also get more interesting skies at these times of day.
As is so often the case, there's an exception and this is when the building consists of an expanse of glass.   Sun, blue sky and glass are a great mixture for colourful compositions.

Composition

It is tempting to try and get the whole building in the one shot, but you will not be surprised to find that that shot will have been tried many times before by other photographers resulting in dull and samey shots. By all means if that's what you want to record, take that photograph, but do try to obtain some other different shots that fewer photographers have attempted.  This is a particular favourite of mine. I took this shot in Chapel Street sitting on the step of the building looking straight up the side of it. 

The same building from a different angle

So set your camera on zoom, get in close and find some interest in the detail of the building. Explore the building from different angles.  Look out for interesting shapes and textures that you would not normally have noticed.  

Don't just take one or two shots, take dozens and when I say dozens you need to think about each one.  It's easy enough to fire off dozens of shots with a digital camera.  When we used to use film every shot needed to be considered, because each shot had a cost (film +developing) our cost now is in time of trawling through them and weeding out those shots that we don't need to keep.  But still consider each shot, is there a point of interest?  is everything in the frame relevant? is there clutter that can be removed?

Framing

We can use the edge of other objects to frame a shot, such as the foliage of a tree, an archway or the sides of some other buildings.  There are a few advantages here.

It puts the photograph in context.
It adds depth to the shot by providing a foreground layer.
It can lead the eye into the shot.

Eiffell Tower

Qutub Minar

Westminster Cathedral

Shutters

Night shots

Many buildings are lit at night, and look great but you will need to ensure that your flash is off, the camera is steady,  and you can experiment with the exposure.  For starters set the camera in a semi auto mode set your aperture and then try a shot.  The camera will probably keep the shutter open longer than necessary.  Look at the shot in the preview, it may look a bit washed out and not really how it appears to your eye, but it will give you a starting point.   Now set the camera to manual  and try the shot with a faster shutter speed, maybe reduce it by a quarter or third.  Take another shot and check the preview to see what it looks like.  If it starts to look too dark go for a slower shutter speed.

I took this one of South parkway station just after sunset while the sky was still lit, but it was dark enough for the building to be lit.  I started with an aperture of 22 and tried a 2 second aperture.  This was too dark so I doubled the shutter speed to 4 seconds, it was still just a touch too dark so I added another second and settled on that.  I did  tweak it in post-processing.  I've shown the original RAW image below it. 

I always go for an aperture of 22 because this gives a pleasing star effect around any light points and any movement, vehicles or people is blurred. 

Ugly can be good

Photos of buildings and architecture don't have to be beautiful. Buildings are lived in and get used and if not maintained begin to show signs of wear and tear.  So another tip is to look out for disrepair and decay, they're  all good subjects for our photographs.

A more detailed exposure triangle

The bold words within the triangle are the functions on the camera, at each side of these words are the extremes at which they can be set.  The bold words outside the triangle are the what is affected by what is inside the triangle. So  aperture  affects Depth of field (DOF).
At each side of  the effect is a word that describes the extent of the effect, small aperture - wide depth of field.

Funtography

This weeks task:  Detail and different viewpoints.   Be aware of where the light is coming from, look out for shapes and textures in buildings that are becoming dilapidated.

Week 5

Further Composition
This week we advanced further with some of the principles of composition and introduced the concept of balance.  In week 1 we studied the rule of thirds and in week 3 we considered how we
can use lines in our photographs.   This evening we began to look at how we can combine all of  these methods into our photographs.
When we visited  the rule of thirds, and asked  you  to practice using it I really asked you just to concentrate on one subject in your photograph, but photographs rarely consist of just one object.  If other objects are to remain in shot we need to ensure they are relevant to the or point of interest.  It is the way we arrange the elements in the frame in relation to the point of interest that will hopefully make a photo  pleasing to the eye.

Leading lines

We looked at the following  photos that contain lines that lead to to point of interest, note positioning on thirds and the lack of clutter and non-relevant objects.

The rocks lead the eye to the point of interest.
Lighthouse

The lines on the lawn lead to the sculpture, note how this is the case even though they are behind the point of interest.
Lawn Sculpture

The line of the road leads to the vehicle
Happy Car

The shadow lines lead toward the gate.
Brandenburg Gate

Balance

Similarly we looked at compositions that incorporate balance. 


The Sailboat in the foreground, the point of interest is balanced by the boat in the distance.
Boats


This one actually incorporates leading lines and balance.  The patterns of the clouds lead the eye to the rock on  the left, the point of interest.  The small boulder in the foreground leads the eye to it.  The pillar on the left balances the shot.
Balanced Rock 

 The echo of the bird in the distance balances the point of interest, the bird which is in focus.
Birds


The city of Vancouver  in the distance is obviously the poit of interest, but the rock in the foreground balances out the rest of the photo which potentially could be bland if there was just the expanse of water in the lower two thirds.  Notice the rock is on the intersection of thirds.
Vancouver

Editing

Later we had a brief look at Picasa.  which is one a few free tools available to us to edit our photos.  If you look in the external links section of the blog, you'll find some links to this and other free photo-editing software.  I would encourage you to think about how you can use this type of tool to improve your shots. 


I also mentioned my admiration of the work of Klaus Herrmann, one of his photographs (Brandenburg Gate) featured in my ponderings about leading lines. He uses a technique known as HDR which allows the representation of more contrast in a photograph without losing detail in shadows or bright portions.  The thing about the work of Klaus Herrmann is that he manages to achieve the final product without it looking false, the same cannnot be said of many other examples of HDR work. 
Klaus Herrmann's Flickr Page

Task

This weeks Funtography:

I encourage you to think before taking a shot.

• Decide what your point of interest is
• Ensure there's no clutter - move your feet or zoom in to reduce clutter, or move it with your hands
• Get Closer - ensure your point of interest is prominent in the frame
• Lines leading the eye to the subject - try this if possible
• Balance - try this if possible
• Keep the eye in the picture - don't have lines or objects that lead the eye out of the shot
• Ask yourself "Is everything in the frame relevant to the point of interest?"
  
  Don't forget,  the point of interest in a face would be the eyes, rather than the whole face. If you are taking a photo of a flower, find a point of interest within the flower.

Next week and in fact any week, please bring along shots that you took in the past, that you weren't happy about and we can look at them and perhaps look at ways of improvement.


Thanks
Mark

Week 4

Previously we looked at the three ways we can control light entering the camera to create the photo.  Remember the exposure triangle and how we have to balance the three exposure aspects of the triangle to obtain correct exposure.  
This weeks task was to try and incorporate lines into your photograph.  Well done to everyone for having a go.
Tonight I wanted to talk about light and where it comes from and some of the problems that can occur, but while thinking it through I decided that I needed to mention White Balance and the Histogram first.

White balance 


The light in our photographs has a colour temperature.  The diagram below shows different light sources and their associated colour temperatures.  

We normally do not notice the change in lighting as our brains adjust accordingly, but you may have noticed an occasion when an item purchased in a shop appears to be a different colour once seen in daylight.
To produce a photograph with a “true” white light the camera must know what type of light it is receiving.  This is done by setting white balance.  The camera will have a Auto white balance setting which on the whole does quite a good job, but if we set it manual we will obtain much more accurate results.
If you investigate the settings available for white balance you will find direct sun, flash,  artificial light, cloud & shade.
To understand this whole white balance thing try and set your camera white balance to Sun.  Now set up a shot indoors with some artificial lighting, preferably the type from a tungsten bulb with a filament.  Now change the white balance to artificial and take some more shots.   Hopefully you will notice  a difference.

Here’s some shots I took.

Shot 1
Artificial light and Daylight white balance.

Shot 2 
Artificial light and Tungsten White Balance

Notice the white flowers are actually white in the second shot.

Histogram
The histogram is available on many of the lower end cameras now and can be very useful in deciding if exposure is correct for a particular photo.  The histogram can be read easily, it represents the brightness levels in the scene.  The left hand side represents the very dark levels and blacks, the right hand side represents the very light levels and the levels in between are distributed between them.

Photo 1

The histogram shows a large peak on the right, this shows the blackness of the night sky, the small peak at the right is due to the small amount of bright levels in the skeleton and  white tree.

 

Photo 2

The histogram shows some peaks near the right, these are due to the dark foliage in the back ground. There is then a good distribution of levels and a tail off towards the brighter end on the right.

Photo 3

This photo taken on a sunny day part in sun and part in shadow gives a histogram shows a large peak of darkness on the left, a distribution in the middle but then a small peak on the right

 

Photo 4

This is a real example of what happens when settings are not correct.  I took this at a wedding a few years ago and had left a setting incorrect. ( Maybe I should have left it on auto)  Some of the faces and the detail on the white shirts are completely over exposed and nothing can be done on the computer later to fix this problem.  If you look at the histogram there is a large peak on the right which equates to these overexposed areas.

Photo 5 

The histogram for this photo shows a nice peak in the centre which conventionally  denotes a well exposed photo.

Direct Midday Sunlight

This light is harsh and does not create desirable shadows.  Photographers can potentially struggle with shadows and lit subjects to create exposure headaches. Try to get your subjects into shade if possible.   Flash can be used to fill in shadows or white reflective material can be used to fill-in the darker areas of your subject.

Afternoon / Morning Light.

Coming from a more favourable angle the light creates interesting shadows.

 

Sunrise / sunset - Golden hour. 

The hour before sunset or after sunrise.

With clouds lit from above and below this light creates skies in the background, but also a lovely soft warm light for your subjects.   But to capture the warmth of the scene you will need to ensure that you set your white balance yourself.  

Dawn / Dusk - Blue hour

 The hour after sunset or before sunrise.

Natural light levels are low so slow shutter speeds become necessary.  A tripod or resting the camera on a stable surface is essential.  If you allow the camera to set the exposure, it will probably overexpose the whole scene,  and we'll lose the saturation of the colours so we need to take control and tell the camera what we want.

Overcast

One tip is to leave the sky out of your shots if at all possible as it will just look white and uninteresting.  But at least you will not have to struggle with shadows.  Use this diffuse light to your advantage and pick subjects for their colour rather than texture / shape that would be better displayed with some shadow.

Indoor lighting

This is relatively low level, so slow shutter speeds are the order of the day.  Keep the camera steady.

You do have full control over this light so use it to your advantage.  Don't forget to set your white balance.

I've added a Printer Friendly Button 
John and Joyce noticed that if you try to print the blog, you end up with one long list of each weeks post.  Potentially this means that by Week 12 you could be using a lot of paper.
So after some poking around down the back of the internet sofa I found a button that is added after each weeks post.  Take a look. . . . .

Take a external links and have a look at Cheap Camera - Pro Photographer.

 

This Weeks Task

This weeks Funtography  (Task) -    find the white balance setting on your camera, set it on sunshine and take some shots  indoors with tungsten lighting.     This is so that you to notice the difference that  white balance makes.

Wherever you are, be aware of where the light is coming from. Can you move your position?, the position of the subject?, can you move the light source or wait until the sun/weather changes?

Indoors (get your white balance correct again)   try and set up a shot and control the light you use.  The light may be from a window or an artificial source, and / or use a reflective surface to compensate for shadows.

 

See you next week.

Mark

Week 3

Last week's task

I wanted to encourage you to use obtain a shallow depth of field.  To add a little challenge I suggested using a colour or colours and the number five.  It has probably not been easy to get outside  and take photographs because the weather has been so awful, but you don’t necessarily need to leave the house to take photographs providing there is enough light.  I hope that even just trying to take on the tasks will help you understand the settings of the camera even if you don't

As we learnt last week, aperture is the size of the hole that lets light through to the CCD .  The larger the number of the aperture (f-stop) the smaller the hole and  the less light will pass through.  The shutter speed is the time that the shutter is open to let light through to the CCD.  We normally see numbers such as 60 or 125 etc, but remember they are numbers that appear at the bottom of a fraction such as 1/60 and 1/125.

The third part of the triangle

As with aperture, the larger the shutter speed number, the less light passes through for the exposure.  It should help you to remember that  for aperture and shutter speed the larger the number, the less light is available for the photo.

Both aperture and shutter speed affect exposure, but these are only two points on a triangle which we call the exposure triangle.  The third point is ISO.

ISO

 ISO is like a  joker/ trump  in a game of cards, we can use it to gain an advantage when aperture  and shutter speed try to beat us.  Non SLR cameras may have little or no control over ISO, it may be that the ISO is purely automatic, but understanding that is working behind the scenes  will help you use it to your advantage.  In an ideal world we would keep ISO  on its lowest setting, because as we increase it we begin to see noise in the photograph. Although there are times when you may want to introduce noise for effect.

Evesdropping

To try and explain what is happening, imagine this:
If we place a microphone in the next room to listen to what’s being said through an amplifier and some speakers in this room,  we’ll hear clearly if the person speaking is within a metre or two of the microphone.  If someone speaks who is right across the other side of the room, they’ll sound faint.  So we can turn up the volume on the amplifier in our room and their speech will be louder, but there will be an element of noise amplified also.  Some of this sound will be a hiss or a rumble.  Even if the room is completely quiet there will still be some noise because the amplifier is amplifying noise generated in the circuitry.

This is exactly like  what happens when we increase the ISO of the camera we are turning up the amplification of the CCD, the resulting photo begins to lose detail and we begin to see tiny specs of colour that were not present in our subject and are actually generated inside the camera.

 
Look at these two photos:

The picture at the top was taken at 200 ISO and a 2.5 second shutter speed.
The picture on the bottom was taken at 3200 ISO 0.6666 second shutter speed

You can see  that the lower  has lost the fine detail in the petal and has coloured speckles.  The one above  is well detailed.

All the settings of the camera, aperture, shutter and ISO are related so that we need to balance the settings to get correct exposure.  

Suppose the meter in our camera has  set the camera at 200 ISO, the aperture is 2 and shutter speed is 15.  This shutter speed is slow for a handheld shot, but if we take the shutter speed up by two stops to 60, we’ll be able to get a shot without shake, but we’ve reduced the light coming into the camera  so we can compensate by increasing the ISO by 2 stops to 800. This will give the same exposure.

Or perhaps we wish to catch something moving, we know that the shutter will have to be no less than 500.  When we set our aperture to 5.6 we see the light metre is telling us that the exposure is underexposed by two stops.  we can increase the ISO by two stops to 800 ISO and this will give the correct exposure.

Exif info.

Exif info is data that is stored by the camera with the photo.  It will include  shutter speed, exposure compensation, F number, what metering system was used, if a flash was used, ISO number, date and time the image was taken, whitebalance, auxiliary lenses that were used and resolution.

Camera Simulator

This website has a fantastic simulator with which you can try out your camera settings

 http://camerasim.com/

 Lines Lines Lines

We had a quick look at another compositional  technique, that of lines.  Follow the links below to see the examples that I drew together.



Vertical Lines

Vertical lines create a sense of power and strength, this can be emphasised by framing in a portrait format.  Keep the lines parallel with the sides of the frame.

Horizontal Lines 

Horizontal lines convey a feeling of peace and calm.  It's important to ensure that  horizontal lines remain parallel with the  frame. 

Diagonal Lines 

Diagonal lines can convey a sense of action or make an image more dynamic.  They may grab the attention of the eye and can be seen  in  roads, streams, waves and branches.

Curved Lines 

Curved lines present a sense of grace,  smoothness, and dignity  They don’t create as much action as diagonals and other straight lines. When the eye follows a curvy line, it’s a slower, more relaxed pace. 

Leading Lines 

Leading lines can be curved or straight and are used to draw the viewer’s eye through a photograph. They work well when a point of interest is positioned at the end of the line.

Implied Lines 

Implied lines are not actual lines, but exist because of the way things are arranged in a photograph. We can also imply a line when an object views another object. e.g. in the example photos, the girl taking a photograph we are interested in what she is photographing so our eye is drawn up the line of her view.


This weeks task:

Look out for lines (there are six examples above) and try and incorporate them into some shots.
You can even leave your camera on auto if you want.  But you could try to incorporate using a centred focus. 


See you next week, enjoy the extended weekend. 


Thanks
Mark