Light, Lines & Color

Happy Easter

Taken with a Nikon D7000 on a tripod:  ISO 200, 0.5 second @ f/7.1

For those of you for whom this is a holiday, I wish you a very Happy Easter!

M is for Motion

Nikon D60: I chose Scene Mode = Sport and Auto ISO 
Camera's Scene Mode selected 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6; Auto ISO chose 160

Let's face it, our world is one of motion. We move, our vehicles move, and the elements around us move. Try to stop a plane in mid-air, a sailboat underway from another moving vehicle, horses stretching for the finish line, a flower bending in the breeze, or water cascading over rocks in a stream - our challenge as photographers is how to either stop the motion or portray the motion, and it's all a lot of fun.

Nikon D60: I chose Scene Mode = Sport and Auto ISO 
Camera's Scene Mode selected 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6; Auto ISO chose 125

Most DSLR's have programmed Scene Modes of which my favorite is Sport. Setting the camera to one of these modes, given a selected ISO and the lighting, the camera will make decisions for you to maximize the possibility of capturing an acceptable image for the situation you're in, like creating a portrait, shooting a landscape, going for a close-up, or capturing a moving object.

Nikon D90: I chose Scene Mode = Sport and ISO 200 
I was on a moving paddle boat, shooting a rapidly moving jet ski on a sunny day.
Camera's Scene Mode selected 1/640 sec @ f/5.6

It seems I photograph a lot of moving objects or I travel on a lot of moving objects while shooting, thus I frequently use the Sport setting. Sport will select a fast shutter speed, given the selected ISO and lighting, which will generally stop the action. It also will mean a fairly large aperture like f/5.6 and thus a shallow depth of field. The latter doesn't usually bother me because I really want the moving subject to be in focus and don't mind if the background is blurred.

Nikon D90: I chose Scene Mode = Sport and ISO 200 
I was on a moving sailboat, shooting a moving sailboat on a sunny day.
Camera's Scene Mode selected 1/640 sec @ f/5.6

Another mode for capturing moving objects and motion is Shutter Priority mode which allows you to select a fast shutter speed to stop the action or perhaps a slightly slower one to acquire some blur and sense of motion. 

Nikon D90: I chose Shutter Priority 1/800 second and ISO 200 
The camera selected f/5.6
I wanted to "stop" the horses "in their tracks" and figured the shallow depth of field at f/5.6 would work for "wall" of horses as they rounded the corner.

There's a fun technique that you can use to intentionally emphasize motion and it's called panning. You set your camera to a slow shutter speed, focus on your moving object and pan right along with its motion, thus creating a truly blurred background. Shooting in continuous mode, i.e. capturing multiple shots per second, can increase the likelihood that you'll capture an image you like. I practiced with this technique last summer at the races in Saratoga and am quite pleased with this result for my first time out!

Nikon D90: I chose Shutter Priority 1/60 second and ISO 200 
The camera selected f/7.1
I felt confident that I could hold the camera "steady" while panning at 1/60 second but nothing less.

Flowers are beautiful but shooting them can be a challenge when the wind is stirring. Selecting a shutter speed that will provide an acceptable aperture at the chosen ISO is a good place to start.

Nikon D90: I chose Shutter Priority 1/400 second and ISO 400 
The camera selected f/5.6
This iris was in the shade and a shutter speed of 1/400 second at ISO 200 resulted in the "Lo" error message in the aperture field. Given the breeze, I didn't want to shoot at a shutter speed below 1/400 second so my only choice was to increase the ISO. At ISO 400 and 1/400 second, the camera now produced it's largest aperture for the lens I was using, f/5.6.

Finally, when shooting flowing water like a stream or water falls, you can choose to stop the action cleanly and crisply, resulting in what I like to call "hard water" ...

Nikon D60: I chose Shutter Priority 1/800 second and ISO 100 
The camera selected f/5.6

or, you can choose to capture the feeling of flowing water by shooting at a slow shutter speed, resulting in what I call "soft water".

Nikon D60: I chose Shutter Priority 1/13 second and ISO 100 
The camera selected f/25
I wanted the greatest depth of field in order to ensure the image would be in focus, front to back, while intentionally showcasing the soft blur of the flowing water.

There's a lot in this chapter but one or two of these examples may fit the exact motion you're trying to shoot, and to that end I hope this helps. If you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the comments section below. We love feedback and blogging is all about interaction.

Happy shooting!

 

L is for Light

Photography ... it's all about light. After all the word photography is derived from Greek words that translate to "writing with light". The more we can understand about light - its qualities, its source, its direction and how we can use this information to our advantage in creating an image - the more empowered we will be as photographers.

The direction of light is something I work on a great deal in the spring when the first flowers bloom and I'm clamoring to get out to shoot them. After a long, colorless winter indoors, it matters little to me that the sun is shining brightly in a cloudless blue sky - not the ideal conditions for shooting flowers. Given my impatience, I've had to learn more about the direction of light and how it can be used to enhance an image - perhaps.

Front light is usually the least appealing because it will highlight blemishes, if there are any, and tends to create a rather flat, bright, textureless image often with unwanted shadows.

Side lighting tends to reveal texture and can seem more three dimensional than front-lighting for sure.

Back lighting can be a useful tool if a flower is translucent or if a silhouette is the effect being sought after. Caution, if you're shooting dangerously close to the sun nasty flare is a possibility and should usually be avoided.

As passionate as I am about photographing these spring beauties, I now try to shoot when there's a natural thin cloud cover over the sun, on a rather bright overcast day, or early in the morning before the sun has truly crested the surrounding cover. Consistent light and color, with as much of the texture and character of the flower is what I seek these days.

The snow drops and croci are blooming here ... get ready and please share some of your spring flower images on the Light, Lines & Color Community on Google+, ask to join and I'll add you to the group - it could be a lot of fun. 

 

K is for Kelvin

In photography, there is so much to learn about light, for example, the source of light, the direction of light, and even the color of light - after all photography is "writing with light". In digital photography, the color of light is measured on the Kelvin temperature scale (K), ranging from 2000 to 10,000 - 2000 will cast a blue tint to your images and 10,000 will cast a red/orange tint to your images.

2500 Kelvin

5000 Kelvin

10000 Kelvin

This is a lot to take in and I, like you I expect, have no desire to become a scientist or a physicist. Suffice it to say:

1. Light has color and it's temperature is measured in Kelvins (K).
2. Rightly or wrongly, in digital photography color temperature and white balance are often used interchangeably. 
3. On most DSLRs, you can shoot on Auto White Balance and leave white balance decisions to the computer in your camera, or .... you could use one of the handy pre-sets.
4. Most digital SLRs have common white balance pre-sets which will allow you to shoot on a white balance that more accurately and consistently matches the light in your shooting environment, for example:
   1. Incandescent (3000K) - good for shooting indoors under artificial lights; cools the image down.
   2. Fluorescent (2,700-7,200K) - good for shooting under strip lighting situations; warms the image to compensate for the slightly green tint these images often have.
   3. Direct Sunlight (5,200K) - a mid-temperature setting good for shooting in daylight
   4. Flash (5,400K) - warms up light from a flash which is cool but not as green as fluorescent light.
   5. Cloudy (6,000K) - good for shooting on cool-color overcast days and provides warmth to the image.
   6. Shade (8,000K) - good for shooting in cooler-color conditions than even a cloudy day, like dusk; adds even more warmth.

Play with these pre-sets and as you do, you will begin to grasp white balance even if you never understand the Kelvin thing. AND, remember, if you shoot in Raw, you have a lot more flexibility in adjusting the white balance in post-processing than if you shoot in JPEG.

J is for JPEG

JPEG versus Raw is an important decision to make and subject to understand in this time of digital photography, and you make this decision either at the time you shoot the image or when you are importing it to your computer.

These days, photographs are very simply files of digital data - a JPEG file is compressed and a Raw file is not, making a JPEG markedly smaller than a Raw file.

If you were an artist with the vision of a painting in your mind's eye, you would first collect all of the paints and brushes you would need to create that image and then you would begin. You would not collect all these materials and then throw most of them away. In concept, that's what's occurring when a photographer decides to shoot JPEG images rather than raw. Look at the images below.

JPEG file 6.07MB

Original Raw File 18.29 MB

These images may not look significantly different but look at the size of each file. Despite the files having the same pixel dimensions - 4928 x 3264, the JPEG is significantly smaller than the Raw file - in this case it's ⅓ the size of the Raw file which means that ⅔ of the data has been discarded. In the process of making the image into a JPEG, the camera or your computer software has made many decisions for you about brightness, contrast, sharpening, color, etc., applied those decisions, compressed the file, and thrown away data that wasn't needed. Sounds terrible, but is it really? Are JPEG images all that bad? What can be said for JPEGs?

1. Compressed JPEG files are smaller than Raw files, thus a chip and/or computer can hold many more of them.
2. Cameras generally process JPEGs faster which can be helpful when shooting in a burst or continuous mode.
3. JPEGs make great snapshots, and are easy to import to any number of apps and upload to the internet.

What are the downsides to shooting JPEGs rather than Raw files?

1. Significant amounts of digital data have been discarded.
2. Additional data is also discarded EVERY time a JPEG is re-saved often rendering an image that has been saved 4 to 5 times unusable.

At the end of the day, which format to shoot will probably depend on what you want to do with the image. If the image is going in a family album whether that's on the shelf in the living room or on the internet, if it's part of a slide show or presentation, or if you want a good print to be framed for Dad's desk, then a high quality JPEG is probably just right for you. BUT, if you think you might want to make a large print of an image or to publish it somewhere, then Raw is the way to go.

I would argue that, like the artist, you will want maximum control over the look of your final creation utilizing as much raw resource material as is possible, and shooting Raw gives you that control. You will have to process every image to some extent - at a minimum just converting them to JPEGs but you retain the original data for all time.

Shoot in Raw and process the images in software like Lightroom, and create a JPEG only when you - the photographer - are satisfied with the brightness, contrast, sharpening, and color. This, in my opinion, is the best of both worlds - you retain the original data and can make any number of JPEG renditions according to your artist's eye.

 

 

Flowers and Snow

With all the weather we've had, it's been very busy . The next weekly chapter will be J Is For JPEG, but .... in the meantime, I hope you all can enjoy this image that I was able to capture on this very snowy day. 

Nikon D7000, 170mm, ISO 400, 1/250 second at f/18

 

CHEERS EVERYONE, SPRING MUST BE NEAR!

 

I is for ISO

In our very first post, A is for Aperture, we noted that the three basic elements of the triumvirate of photography are aperture, shutter speed, and ISO and these elements are our tools to create a good exposure.

ISO is a measure of the sensitivity of the light sensor in our digital camera. A low number, like 100, means low-sensitivity, and a high number, like 3200 means high sensitivity. Generally speaking the lower the ISO, the better the quality of the image will be because with increase sensitivity comes increased noise. What is noise? It's a graininess in the image introduced in increasing amounts as the ISO is cranked up. These two images don't look terribly different at first, until you zoom in ... see the noise in the ISO 3200 image?

ISO 100, Aperture f/11, Shutter Speed 1/1.6 sec 

ISO 3200, Aperture f/11, Shutter Speed 1/50 second

ISO 100 and slow shutter speed (1/1.6 second) at f/11

ISO 3200 at faster shutter speed (1/50 second) at f/11

So as a general rule shoot at the lowest ISO possible. You might ask if the lowest is the best, why would you change it at all and the answer is circumstances. For example, shooting early one slightly breezy morning I saw this great red barn out beyond a huge field of bright yellow mustard flowers and I just had to capture that image.

ISO 400, Aperture f/20, Shutter speed 1/80 second

I wanted most of the image in focus, so I set the camera to Aperture Priority and I set the aperture to f/20. At an ISO of 100, the camera set the shutter speed well below the 1/60 second I felt comfortable with - handheld. Even at ISO 200 the shutter speed was still too slow to feel confident of a shake-less handheld image, so I set the ISO to 400, the shutter speed came in at 1/80 second, and this is the result. This is how the triumvirate works together - give and take to get a good exposure.

Let's try a weekend project: Get To Know Your ISO. We all have different cameras and they will perform at higher ISOs differently. For example, on my first camera, the Nikon D60, I found through experience that I could comfortably take pictures up to ISO 400 without undue ugly noise, take some pictures at ISO 800 but at ISO 1600 images had too much grain to be any good. Test your camera this weekend and let us know how high you can go without too much noise. Post your results in the comment section here to share your gear's performance. We all need to understand not only the capabilities of our cameras but also their limitations, so we can use them effectively. I look forward to reading your results.