composition – Page 4 – CanonBlogger

Setting bracketing exposures – aperture priority

March 3, 2009 Jason12 Comments

Over the past few years, I’ve had several people ask me how to set bracketing exposures on camera bodies for multiple exposures. When I say multiple exposures here, I am talking in excess of 3 shots. The reason for this is because by default, most Canon cameras (at least all the ones I’ve put my hands on) only have a single over and underexposure allotment on each side of the initial exposure settings.

Let’s take a look at the numbers…say we meter a scene and it says that according to the center point, we should be at f8, with an ISO of 100 and a shutter speed of 250. So, if we want to expose this multiple times over and under that initial group of settings, since Canon only allows 1 over and 1 under, we will need to make additional adjustments if we want more than the 3 exposure set.

Here’s the entire f-stop range (well, not all of it, but enough for our purposes):

fstop

So, in order to get the full range of exposure, our aperture would need to manually be set to f2.8, f8.0, and then f22 and then let the camera capture the over/under.

For ease of manipulation I always start at the lowest end and work my way up, so in this scenario, I’d start with f2.8, press the shutter 3x, then move up to f8, repeat the shutter press 3x, then finally to f22 and press the shutter 3x. That would give me a nine stop range of the same image at different exposure settings. It goes without saying here that in such scenarios, you would want to:

Be shooting on a tripod
Be using a remote release (or timer)
Be using mirror lockup
All other settings remain constant
and that lighting conditions aren’t changing appreciably
You are set to manual focus
Your lens is set to its hyperfocal distance

Things that are problematic with bracketing in aperture priority are:

Your depth of field is changing considerably as you move from f2.0 to f32.o so much of what is out of focus at f2 will be considerably sharper at f32 even though you are set at your hyperfocal distance.
Lighting conditions will change. Unless you are in a studio environment and flash is the only light source, ambient light is constantly changing,and this will have an impact on your exposure values. Granted if you move quickly and methodically, this can be minimized, but due to the ever-changing values of light, this is something to consider!
Weather conditions will change. The scene that was perfectly still 30 seconds ago while you did the first bracket may not have perfect stillness for the second bracket set. Changes in wind speed, direction, and intensity can blur things like flowers, branches, grass, and even some objects that you otherwise would consider fixed. (Ever see a lamp post in a strong gusty wind? Or a street traffic signal?)

Any other mechanics, pros and cons or points of discussion I missed here? Feel free to chime in with your thoughts on bracketing exposures based on apertures. Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow too for the backeting exposures on shutter speed, along with its pros and cons. Happy shooting and don’t forget the Twitter v bloging poll from yesterday! If you’ve already voted, tell a friend!

The Lensbaby Composer

February 25, 2009 JasonLeave a comment

For those of you that are regular podcast listeners, you know I talked recently about the Lensbaby Composer and what it can do for your photos. In the podcast you heard the terms “selective focus” but the term is kind of hard to explain without a visual, so I thought I might be able to do it better justice with a visual here today. Take a look at this setup:

lensbaby1

So, if you are looking at a scene from camera view 1, and you want the sharpness of your image (your viewers attention) to focus on something at point B, it’s easy to do this. Simply drop your aperture wide open and the depth of field will throw points A and C out of focus naturally. Pretty easy, no photo editing, no trickery or anything involved – the mechanics of apertures and depth of field handle this for you.

Well, take a moment to consider things from the viewpoint of Camera Two.

lensbaby2

You still want the focus to be at point B, but because both A and C are also positioned relative to the camera at the same place (they are not in front of or behind the point of focus, they are merely off to the sides of the point of focus), dropping your aperture wide open will not throw A and B out of focus – they still there, just as sharp as point B. Well, up until now, you’ve always had to take images taken under situation 2 and bring them into image editing software to blur, dodge, burn, and otherwise minimize the attention that points A and C got from the viewer eye.

Well, what the Lensbaby does, through it’s unique combination of lens elements that include an actual curved optic and a curved field of focus, giving you a round spot of focus, so that it allows you to set point B as a single point of focus, so that A and C will fall off in sharpness, bringing the viewer back to your desired point of what to look at. (The eye will almost always naturally look for sharpness and light in images…)

So now, dodging, burning, blurring and other darkroom and software techniques are no longer needed! The Lensbaby allows you to create these visions in camera, not afterward in post processing. What does this mean for you? More time shooting, and less time photo editing! Who doesn’t want that?

The coolest part of the new partnership with Lensbaby is that they’re also offering anyone reading the blog or listening to the show an opportunity to get a 0.6x wide-angle/macro conversion lens for the Composer lens totally free! Imagine taking your creative visions to a whole new level with the Composer lens from Lensbaby – and then add the macro capabilities, and literally, the sky is the limit! Your creativity knows no boundaries with lens-work like this! So, if you are looking at adding the Composer lens to your gear bag (and you can purchase it from any retailer), then look no further, because from here you can get a free 0.6x wide-angle/macro-conversion lens from Lensbaby as a way of saying thanks.

Expanded creativity + Free gear = lots of fun

Sounds like a perfect equation for me! So, stop on over to the partner website they made just for Canon Blogger listeners and readers to get your free lens today. This is a limited time offer, and I am not sure when it will end, but the Composer and the companion 0.6x wide-angle/macro conversion lens (which you can get for free) would have been very useful this last weekend on the Eldorado shoot. Remember the rock fissure? Imagine if I had a chance to fade the DOF out away from the rock completely? What about the rear window reflection? Imagine if I could have faded the front window part out of focus completely? Both of these shots might have ended up in my portfolio! As they are, I’ve got two snaps that while interesting, will likely never get added to the print portfolio…

Does this help clarify how the Lensbaby works and what it does? I know it’s a very simplified version, and the folks at Lensbaby have a lot more resources to help explain it than I do so be sure to visit their partner landing page here to learn more about it! If you’d like to see some samples of the lens at work, (my lens hasn’t arrived yet) make sure to stop over to the gallery page here too! Got some pics you’d like to share? Link them here in the comments section (or even share then with the good folks at Lensbaby – they like to hear feedback from the field so share your thoughts and shots with them too!) Finally, to learn all the details about this promotional offer, stop over to the page the folks at Personal Life Media have set up here.

If you do have pics and thoughts to share here, feel free as always to drop me an email, and you could be on the show! For those interested in buying the composer, make sure to visit this link here to get the free macro conversion lens! Questions, comments, feedback and ideas are welcome at my email address (as always) is jason <at> canonblogger <dot> com!

Check them out today – then get back out and keep on shooting! Hope all your shots are good ones and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Wanna Get Lucky?

February 11, 2009 Jason2 Comments

How many times have you seen a picture where it just made you say “WOW! I wish I could capture something like that!” And, you ask the person, “How’d you get that shot?” Typically you’ll get an answer like “Just got lucky I guess.” Well, I am not sure I buy into that. Does luck really factor into taking good pictures? Perhaps on rare occasions it does, because as the old saying goes, “Even a blind squirrel can find a nut occasionally”

But consistently taking good pictures requires more than luck. It requires certain key elements that anyone can incorporate to increase their “keeper ratio”. Today, I’ll look at 5 ways to increase your keepers. So, here’s 5 ways to get lucky!

Plan ahead. Just the mere act of planning for a shot can help. If you know you’re going to be in the mountains, take a wide angle lens with you. If you know you’re going to be at a party, take that nifty fifty. Wildlife? Take a zoom! Remember, prior planning not only prevents poor performance, but it also can help you take better pictures.
Learn the technical stuff. Know the technical stuff. Memorize it. There are certain fundamentals you just have to know, and by taking that sundry stuff and migrating it to a point where it’s in the back of your head and you don’t even have to think about it, then they can become tools. If you understand apertures inside and out, then you can really use depth of field to create better pictures. The same goes for planes of view, angles of view, composition rules, and all that other stuff.
Take lots of pictures. As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. So, stop reading forums, blogs, magazines, books, and all that stuff from time to time (except for my blog of course!), and get out there and practice, practice, practice!
Look at the pictures of others. Not only is appreciation of others work inspiring in its own right, but you can also train your eye to see what makes some images just “work”.
Dedicate some time each day to do something related to photography. It can be any of the above, from taking pictures, to editing pictures, looking at the works of others, studying your manual (learning about apertures, shutters, etc.), or any other photography-related ideas. You can only improve your skills by repeated use. Since I’ve referenced other idioms, another one could apply here: If you don’t use it, you lose it. Just like musicians who practice every day to get better, if you don’t practice your craft regularly, you won’t get better.

So, there you have it, 5 ways to improve your luck. And this is just from my own perspective. As is always the case when it comes to opinions, there are probably many more out there. Got your own ideas about ways to “get lucky”? Share them in the comments section or via email. In the meantime, Happy Shooting – hope everyone can “get lucky”!

The Crop Factor…

February 6, 2009 Jason5 Comments

First off, my apologies for the absenteeism yesterday. After a really fun photo shoot with some friends in downtown Denver (more on that next week), I got home super late (by working standards – my shift is 7-4 and I need to take a bus an hour to get there…so I leave at 6, which means I am up at 5!), and went almost straight to bed! Hopefully the content today will make up for this, because it’s time to talk about (cue fanfare music)…the crop factor!

Now, before anyone gets all uppity because sensor crop factors have been discussed ad infinitum, just relax, because this isn’t about sensors (well, a little, but indirectly). I am talking about cropping your pictures in camera. We all do it, often to improve composition, or to focus in on one area of an image – but what about those undesired crops? What am I talking about? I am talking about images where it looks really great “in camera” but when you go to print it, the native aspect ratio won’t work for the size you want to print to. See, most SLR cameras (non-full frame anyway) have roughly an aspect ratio of 2:3. This means that you can print at this ratio without losing anything in your image. But, if you want to print at a different aspect ratio, then something has to be cropped out.

So, what aspect ratio will work with the 2:3 proportions? Who all remembers their grade school math? All you have to do is multiply each side of the ratio by the same number. So, prints that work are …

2×3″ prints (2:3 x 1:1 = 2×3)
4×6″ prints (2:3 x 2:2 = 4:6)
6×9″ prints (2:3 x 3:3 = 6:9)
8×12″ prints (2:3 x 4:4 = 8:12)

You get the gist…but here’s the thing – the only “standard” print size that really fits our native camera aspect ratio is the 4×6″ print. What if we want an 8×10″ print? Well, cropping is required then. This means losing some of your image. So, this also means that you need to think about this during image composition in camera – if you like it – and want to print it – remember to frame things so that the crop won’t lose key elements of the picture. Here’s a perfect example:

isla_original

I took the above shot on a trip down in Isla Mujeres. I absolutely love this shot. The problem is that my proportions are lost when I crop to print an 8×10. Take a look at the 8×10 crop:

isla_crop

It still looks pretty good, and I love the colors still, but some of the impact has been lost by cropping out the frame on both the left and the right. See how the brown “framing element” has been lost? I could have cropped less on that side and more on the orange side (even though the orange side is still cropped to a degree), but hopefully you’ll see the difference easily enough because it’s really the orange, yellow and blue that I think are the fundamental colors that hold my eye for this shot. Suffice to say, I still loved it enough to print and frame an 8×10…but that’s not the point here.

The point is to try and remember to frame your composition in camera with “the crop factor” in mind. By taking these measures into consideration, you can really have many more printable memories. So, when you go out shooting this weekend, keep the crop factor in mind. Happy shooting, enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

Defining Your Image Composition

January 27, 2009 Jason4 Comments

Composition in photography can have many origins. You can take a pretty concrete subject and place it in an interesting environment. The Rule of Thirds is one that is often used when creating photographic compositions. Other times, the way that lines or curves within a scene are the compelling factor. Architectural images use the idea of linear direction to compell the viewer. Finally, the nature of light can also be a huge factor when composing an image. After all, when looking at the word “photography”, it’s pretty clear how integral light can be to capturing your vision. The Greek root “photos” literally means “light” (while “graphos” means to draw or paint – so photography really could be pretty succinctly defined as “painting with light”.)

So, we have three elements that can contribute to image composition:

Positioning your subject
Directing viewer via leading lines
Compelling the viewer via light

While there are no hard and fast rules in any form of artistic expression, these are three fundamentals that I try to keep in mind when capturing the world around me. Sometimes I’ll find my images successfully utilizes only one of these elements. Naturally, there are also times where two are executed well. Naturally, I am luckiest though, is when all three are effectively brought into an image.

Here’s an example of what I am talking about. Can you identify which elements of image composition are present? Is there a defined subject that is well positioned? What about compelling lines to define the image? Finally, is there anything that draws your eye from the light or shadows? Sound off in the comments, and let me know:

: Brick Circle

Look for Lines

June 5, 2008 Jason1 Comment

Shapes

For this week’s edition of “Thursday Thoughts”, I’d like to take a look at the subject of composition. We always are striving to enhance our composition, either by understanding the rules of composition better, or by pushing the envelope in new directions. With the explosion of digital photography, the decreased price of entry, and the abundance of opinions, now more than ever, if you really want to succeed in photography, it helps to get a jump on the learning curve by a better understanding of what works consistently over time. There’s a reason why we often refer to the Rule of Thirds, or the Golden Mean when talking about classic composition – because they work. Time and time again, when photos are composed along these rough guidelines, the results are more pleasing than the same subject without the rules of composition applied.

One of the interesting things though about these rules is how they all use some form of linear movement through pictures. Whether the lines are vertical and horizontal, diagonal or even curved, the way you compose your pictures along these imaginary lines will have an impact on the final result of your image. So, rather than looking at the rules of photography, let’s break it down into a more elemental context: usage of lines.

As I mentioned above, there are four ways in which lines can take you through an image, vertically, horizontally, diagonally, and curved. Knowing the impact each of these types of lines will have on your pictures can really help as you look for scenes to capture and share with the world. And, as the old saying goes, “knowing is half the battle”…

Vertical lines – What creates vertical lines in images? In nature, things like trees are great examples of vertical lines. Architecture also provides excellent material for including vertical lines in your images. Are you a people person? Try taking pictures near someone’s feet, looking up. The vertical lines of their legs will have a tremendous impact on your pictures. So, what does this mean? Usually, vertical lines are connoted with stability and power. These lines will anchor your images at the base (or top) of where the lines start (or end.)

Horizontal lines – What creates horizontal lines? Horizons are great examples, and architecture also can provide horizontals. Looking for portrait examples? Try imagining a horizontal line across the bottom or top of someone’s eyes or teeth. We all love shots of sleeping babies too. Their bodies are usually horizontally composed. Horizontals usually are associated with peacefulness and tranquility.

Diagonal lines – What creates diagonal lines? This is a little trickier, because linear progression usually occurs (both in nature and in man-made objects) horizontally or vertically. This requires actually re-positioning your camera from its traditional position to find diagonals. Some examples that are easier to see include bridges, piers, and docks. Also, try looking at things at a different angle, or just looking in new directions. The sail lines of a boat are good examples of diagonals. Pitched rooflines work for architecture too. In people photography, the nose provides angles as do some jaw lines. You can also position people’s arms and legs to give an angular line in the picture. Diagonal lines are lots of fun because they make things more active and dynamic. I’ve even read about diagonals creating tension and suggesting motion.

Curved lines – What about curved lines? Curves are great at leading the eye through a picture. Imagine winding roads and curvy paths or ripples in waves ax examples in nature. For portrait work, the curvature of some cheekbones is a great perspective to base an anchor point of an image. Eyes also work here, as do smiles and facial expressions. Overall curves suggest motion because the eyes are always following the path the curve takes them on, but this motion is usually a smooth one, so there is also an association with grace.

Lines are fun to find, especially if you mentally take note to look for particular instances. Take a day and say to yourself “today I am going to find curved lines” and see how many you find. Take notes and return with your camera (or take the shot if you have it with you!). With time you’ll find which types of lines speak to your preferences as well as where to position them in camera to yield the best composition.

Anyway, that’s the Thursday Thoughts for this week. I hope you all enjoyed it, and perhaps you’ll find new lines as you go out, cameras in hand this weekend. Happy shooting, watch those apertures, and find the lines!