Through the lens: exposure

Showing posts with label exposure. Show all posts

24 July 2011

What is the Best Time for Taking Images?

24 July 2011

Photographers refer to the best times as “the golden hour”. This refers to the first and last hour of sunlight. Some call it the “magic hour” and others simple call it the “best hours”.
This is for outdoor photography, documentary, travel, nature, people and culture, architecture, and panoramas.

Why is this so?
Because the quality of light, color and the special “glow” you see at that time of the day. Most of the time, the advantage is that you will not get overexposure's with your shots! The colors are not drained, or washy as in high noon image taking.
shadows compared to the shots taken when the sun is at its full height.

The sun is in its lowest position, so the shadows become more pronounced with a warm soft glow. At these times, you will think that you will not be able to capture any better shot that what you see, but if you are patient, you will have plenty of time to capture the soft glow, as the sun rises or sets. The light changes quickly and will fade into the night.

For sunsets, I have found that waiting until that last moment, is when I capture the best images.

Camera settings

1) Experiment with your settings. Switch off that Auto Mode!
2) Turn off the auto white balance and adjust manually the white balance to your desired mood.
3) Slow down the shutter speed a bit.
4) Bring a tripod with you when taking shots during the Golden Hour is important to avoid camera shock.

Check the Weather

You must always check the time of sunrise or sunset in your local area. Never assume. Always check for the weather forecast. If it’s too cloudy or it will rain, then there’s no point going out. Try again tomorrow.

Documentary Photography Lesson 1

Documentary Photography Lesson 2

Street Photography Lesson 1

Street Photography and your Camera

Street Photography Tips

Holga Camera

F/16 Rule and Apertures

What is the difference between Street Photography and Documentary?
Four Easy Steps to Learn panning

Tips for Night Photography

Aperture and f/16 Rule
Shutter Speed Basics

Bracketing

Rule of Thirds

Depth of Field

Photography Basics

Common Photography Terms

Focused Bracketing or Photo Stacking

22 July 2011

Exposure

Susan Brannon

22 July 2011

Exposure is how much light is absorbed into your cameras sensor. If the shot is exposed for too long, the image will be “washed out”, by letting too much light exposed to your film or digital sensor. If the image is too dark, then the exposure was too short.

Most cameras have a “light sensor” with a meter inside of your camera that you can see when you look through the lens. This meter will tell you how much light is being exposed to the sensor. Normally, there is a middle line which is telling you that the exposure is just right, if it is to the right, then it is too much, or to the left, there is not enough exposure.

If you learn how to control your exposure, you can create some beautiful images.
To do this, you will need to control your shutter speed (The amount of time that your shutter opens to expose the light) and your aperture (The size of the lens opening to let the light in)

Example: Lets say you are near a fountain in a garden and the correct exposure is f/8; 1/250s with a ISO of 100. You decide that you want to freeze the water coming out of the fountain, but you cannot make your image any darker (underexposed) or too bright (over exposed) What do you do?
a) Change your shutter speed to 1/500s, this allows ½ of the amount of light in. But you cannot stop there, because then your image will be underexposed. You must compensate to do this
B) Change your f-stop to 5.6, which will give you a larger aperture to let in more light.

Now you have the same exposure for the image, but your shutter speed is faster that will allow you to freeze the water!

Example: You are inside and the light is too low to obtain the correct exposure but the problem is that you camera will not be steady and your image will be blurred. Your settings are: f/5.6; 1/60s and ISO 100. The largest aperture for you camera is f/4, one stop faster that will result in f/4; 1/125s/ ISO 100. The shutter speed is still too slow and you will have camera shake. Since you cannot change the aperture anymore you will have to change your shutter speed and ISO to compensate. Change your ISO to 200 and up one step to f/250s. This will allow you to take your image and be sharp enough to take a photograph.

See? All three parts are related to each other the ISO, shutter speed and aperture. If you change just one, then your image will be either overexposed or underexposed. If you change both, you can keep the balance.

Instead of falling water, i included falling snow! This was taken at f/7.1; 1/25s and ISO 640

Overexposure:

This occurs when the sensor is exposed to too much light. The result will be white images or white around the areas of the light source. Sometimes it is impossible to expose the image without any overexposed areas.

Underexposure:

This is the opposite of overexposure, the sensor does not pick up enough light creating dark and black areas.

Note if you are using a digital camera, it is always easier to bring back shades and color from an underexposed image, than the other way around. (Using PhotoShop)

Documentary Photography Lesson 1

Documentary Photography Lesson 2

Street Photography Lesson 1

Street Photography and your Camera

Street Photography Tips

Holga Camera

F/16 Rule and Apertures

What is the difference between Street Photography and Documentary?
Four Easy Steps to Learn panning

Tips for Night Photography

Aperture and f/16 Rule
Shutter Speed Basics

Bracketing

Rule of Thirds

Depth of Field

Photography Basics

Common Photography Terms

Focused Bracketing or Photo Stacking

16 July 2011

Depth of Field

Susan Brannon

15 July 2011

The depth of field is the amount of your image beyond and before your focal point that will be in focus. Normally, for landscape, you want a large depth of field and to have everything in focus to capture the beauty of the scene. In portrait photography, a small depth of field is often used to limit distractions of the background from the main subject.

There are a few factors to determine your depth of field:

1) Your aperture
2) Your lens
3) the distance from your subject.

The Aperture
The aperture controls the depth of field, which is what is in focus in your image. You can draw attention to one subject, with a blurry background using a low f/stop or to focus everything in an image with wide f/stop.

This is f/5.6 with a close distance

Here I widened the apurture to 7.1 and stepped away a few feet. Notice how the baby's hand is not in focus, this is because my focal point was broader than the movement of the hand.

Remember:
• The higher the number for your f/stop the wider your depth of field (f/16) the lower the number for your f/stop the more shallow is your depth of field. (f/8)
• The closer to your image, the shallower is your depth of field as in using a micro lens for nature photography.

Here are some other shots, showing the depth of field using higher/lower f-stops.

This image was taken at f/16 a smaller aperture. Notice how you can see more details of the dark Cyprus trees in the background compared to the image below taken at f/13. This image has a "broad depth of field"

Taken at f/13 you can still see the background, but the trees and wall are not as "sharp" in focus as the f/16 shot. I call this a "medium depth of field".

This image was taken at f/8 you notice how the garden in the front is the main focus, while the background is blurred. This image has a "shallow" depth of field"

Your lens:

• The longer your lens (200mm) the more shallow will be your depth of field. The shorter your lens (55mm) you will have more depth of field. This is termed as Focal Length.

The Distance:

• The closer you are to your subject, the less amount of depth of field you will have. The farther away, the more depth of field. (as described in the image of the baby's hand and other image with the mother above)

Documentary Photography Lesson 1

Documentary Photography Lesson 2

Street Photography Lesson 1

Street Photography and your Camera

Street Photography Tips

Holga Camera

F/16 Rule and Apertures

What is the difference between Street Photography and Documentary?
Four Easy Steps to Learn panning

Tips for Night Photography

Aperture and f/16 Rule
Shutter Speed Basics

Bracketing

Rule of Thirds

Depth of Field