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!

 

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!

 

F is for F Stop

I remember when I didn't know the difference between an F stop and a bus stop, and I was sure I was never going to "get it". Then one day I no longer thought about learning it, I simply knew it. I promise this can and will happen to you too.

In the first few weeks of this year, we've touched upon Aperture in nearly every post. It's one of the basic trio of tools (a.k.a. the triumvirate) used to create an image and it happens to be measured in these funny things called f-stops. Now I could try to explain exactly what an "f-stop" is but trust me after reading and re-reading technical explanations - I would fail. If you have a penchant for the technical by all means google f-stop and you'll find lots of definitions, all of which go over my head. I mention this because this means, you can use Aperture and its f-stops without knowing exactly what they are. Just recall from our A-post - A is for Aperture:

Aperture is measured in something called f-stops:

• a small f-stop number means a large opening,
• a large f-stop number means a small opening, and 
• changing from one f-stop to the next will either halve or double the amount of light entering the camera.

Schematic borrowed from Wikipedia

Also recall that a high f number like f/22 will give you greater depth of field than a small f number like f/5.6, i.e.more of the f/22 image will appear in focus than in the f/5.6 image. See:

Nikon D90: 1/60 second at f/22

 

Nikon D90: 1/125 second at f/5.6

Got it? Once you do you'll be well on your way to making the photographs you imagine in your mind's eye. 

E is for Exposure

Exposure - Photography is all about exposure to light and our tools to create an exposure that matches the image in our mind's eye are the triumvirate: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO. Let me focus first on Aperture and Shutter Speed.

I never shoot in the fully automatic setting available on my Nikon D90, rather I select Aperture or Shutter Speed depending on what I'm shooting. If I'm shooting a landscape or something static I will select aperture and then begin the thought process of how I want the image to look. If the background is messy I might want a shallow depth of field to throw the mess into a colorful blur so I'd select a low f stop number, or I may want as much of the image in focus as possible as it may all contribute to the story in the image so to maximize the depth of field I'd select a high f stop number.

Let me give a simple example of an image that is the same exposure but with differing results. For ease of demonstration, all of theses photos were taken on Aperture Priority with an ISO of 200. The only setting I changed was the Aperture; the camera adjusted the shutter speed accordingly to achieve a good exposure. Can you see the difference in the depth of field?

1/30 second at f/22 
Notice the blur of the moving palm fronds but the detail in the background. You can see the ocean especially in comparison to the last image below.

1/60 second at f/16

1/125 second at f/11

1/250 second at f/8.0

1/500 second at f/5.6
Notice the soft background resulting from the shallow depth of field created by the large aperture. You can hardly see the ocean.

"The same exposure can be achieved with different combinations of aperture and shutter speed. Fast shutter speeds and larger apertures freeze moving objects and soften background details [like the last image above], while slow shutter speeds and small apertures blur moving objects and bring out background details [like the first image above]." This is directly from my camera's manual and I can honestly say I "get it". Do you?

 

D is for Depth of Field

Depth of field (DOF) refers to the portion of a photograph that appears to be in sharp focus from the foreground to the background. A photograph with a large depth of field will be sharp from front to back; a photograph with a shallow depth of field will have a limited area of sharp focus with blurred areas in front and/or back of it. A photographer can select or determine the depth of field within a photograph by selecting the aperture, measured in f-stops. Choosing a large f stop number like f/22 will provide a large depth of field; choosing a small f stop number like f/2.8 will provide a shallow depth of field. 

This is just one of those things every wannabe photographer must learn but once you've got it you can start having fun.

On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I wanted as much of this image as sharp as possible. I focused about one third of the way in to the frame and then set the Aperture to f/18. This gave me a shutter speed of 1/60th second and I didn't want to shoot handheld any slower or I'd probably see shake.

Shot with Nikon D60 with Aperture Priority on f/18 at 1/60th second

In the Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee, we came upon these falls. I wanted the falls as sharp as possible front to back and this time I had a tripod! With my ISO on 100, I set my aperture to f/22 and happily found the camera set the shutter speed to 1/15th second. Happily? Because the very slow shutter speed gave a wonderful soft blur to all that moving water!

Shot with Nikon D60 with Aperture Priority on f/22 at 1/15th second

The most beautiful flowering bush we have in our yard is a blue-lace hydrangea. Every spring it blossoms with the most delicate light blue flowers imaginable. I love the details in each flower and wanted to set one off against the blues and greens of the bush which called for a shallow depth of field.

Shot with Nikon D90 with Aperture Priority on f/5.0 at 1/100th second

Along the "highway" near our home on Long Island, I saw these sunflowers just beginning to flower. I'd never seen them as they were forming and was captivated by their demonish looking blooms. I wanted the bloom to be the center of attention, but I also wanted the image to show what it would become. I focused on the bloom and set the aperture to a shallow f/5.6, allowing the other flowers to remain recognizable and yet to fade into a blur behind the bloom. BTW the fast shutter speed (1/250th sec) helped with the breezes created by the cars and trucks rushing by behind me.

Shot with Nikon D90with Aperture Priority on f/5.6 at 1/250th second

How do you approach shooting for depth of field? Any suggestions?

C is for Camera - Think Like One

Think like your camera ... This is often the only way I know how to set the camera's aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I ask myself (as the camera), "What do I need to do to make the image she wants to make?" The basic tools in our arsenal are the triumvirate: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.

Aperture, the size of the hole allowing light to enter the camera, is expressed in something strange called f-stops. The smaller the f number, e.g. f/2, the larger the hole and the larger the number e.g. f/22, the smaller the hole. (Note: the choice here also determines an image’s Depth of Field, but more on that later.)

Shutter Speed, how long the shutter will stay open, allowing light to enter is expressed in seconds, or fractions thereof.

ISO, the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor to light is expressed in round numbers from 100 to 6200 and higher. The lower the number the less sensitive the sensor, the higher the number the more sensitive.

Lower ISOs create the least amount of "noise" in an image - trust me on this for now, that's bad - so I most often start by setting the ISO on the lowest setting the camera allows, usually 100 for my Nikons. Now, how do I choose between Aperture or Shutter Priority?

If I'm shooting a landscape, I know I want as much of the image to be in focus as possible, the flowers in the foreground, as well as the barn in the background, so I know I want the greatest depth of field and thus a fairly high aperture. Set to Aperture Priority, the camera allows me to select the aperture for the greatest depth of field while still shooting at a shutter speed that would be safe for a handheld shot (which this one of a foggy field in early morning was).

 Taken with a Nikon D60 on Aperture Priority - f/18 for 1/100th second

If I want to capture a child running at the beach, my camera will need to stop the action and thus I'll set it to Shutter Priority and choose a speed that I think should work like 1/1000th of a second. The camera might then give me a wide aperture which will result in a shallow depth of field, but I really want to focus solely on the child's action so depth of field means little to me here.

Taken with a Nikon D60 on Shutter Priority - 1/1000th second at f/5.6

 

B Is For Brightness

Photography is all about light and capturing it in a manner that expresses what you, as the photographer, see and feel. To that end, we are always working with Brightness - trying to tame it, redirect it and/or extract it. Exposure to light/brightness is determined by the triumvirate described in the last post "A is for Aperture" - Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO. Trust me there will be more on that later - "E" is not so far away.

Every year around the holidays, the village of Montauk, on the far east-end of Long Island, NY, decorates its historic lighthouse beautifully and it stands out incredibly against a dark late-day sky. On a recent shoot at Montauk Light, it was brutally cold as the sun was setting and as much as I wanted to stay to capture the lighthouse at its stand-out best, it was just too painful. When I took my first shots, I could see that they were just too bright and I knew I wouldn't last to shoot later, so I decided to adjust the brightness of my images by adjusting the Exposure Compensation - the EV (Exposure Value). 

Exp: ½ second @ f/11with 0 EV shot at 5:42:14 p.m.

Exp: ¼ second @ f/11 with -1 EV shot at 5:42:28 p.m.

Exp: ¹⁄₆ second @ f/11 with -2 EV shot at 5:44:21 p.m.

Exp: ¹⁄₆ second @ f/11 with -2⅔ EV shot at 5:48:29 p.m.

All of these images were shot with an ISO (sensor sensitivity) of 200 which I chose because it's fairly low and I wanted to avoid "noise" in the images at nearly any cost. As the shot was a landscape of sorts, I shot on Aperture Priority and I chose f/11 as it's a "middle-of-the road" aperture which would give me an "average" depth of field. f/22 wasn't needed for extra depth of field in these images and would have forced me to shoot with longer shutter speeds which most likely would have caused blur given the gale force winds; and, a larger aperture like f/5.6 would have exposed the image to less sharp focus throughout the image from the sign in the front to the lighthouse in the rear, so f/11 seemed the right choice to me at the time. As I took each picture and looked at it in the monitor, I began to reduce the brightness by "stopping down" the EV taking it from 0 EV to minus 2⅔ EV.

Now I have a question for anyone who might be listening and interested in participating in this new forum. If "a one-stop change in aperture will change the shutter speed also by one stop", should the same be true for Exposure Compensation? In Aperture Priority with a fixed aperture of f/11, between the third and fourth pictures I stopped the EV down ⅔ of a stop and yet the shutter speed didn't change from ¹⁄₆ second. Any idea why? The images were taken 4 minutes apart, could it be attributable to increased darkness, or could it possibly be attributable to the extreme cold? Weigh in here, we all want to learn.

At the end of the day, I was disappointed that the weather chased us away before we were able to get the shots we wanted, but these are a fair representation of what the Lighthouse looked like on that blustery winter's afternoon. Now the question is, which is your favorite?

A Is For Aperture

"A" is for Aperture, one of three basic elements that make up the triumvirate of photography: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. An analogy that has always helped me grasp these seemingly confusing mechanics of cameras is the human eye.

Aperture is the size of the opening in the lens on a camera at the time a picture is taken, which is similar to the size of the opening in the pupils of your eyes. On a bright sunny day, your pupils contract and become quite small, limiting the amount of light that enters your eyes; and when you enter a dark room at night, before the lights are turned on, your pupils dialate allowing much more light in so you can discern what lurks there in the dark. Aperture on a camera works the same way. Small openings limit the amount of light entering your camera and large openings enable more light to reach your camera's sensor.

Aperture is measured in something called f-stops and every photographer has to learn:

• a small f-stop number means a large opening,
• a large f-stop number means a small opening, and 
• changing from one f-stop to the next will either halve or double the amount of light entering the camera.

Schematic borrowed from Wikipedia

And lastly, you should know that the Aperture setting on your camera will determine the depth of field in your image, which is to say how much of it is sharp from front to back. An image with a large depth of field will be sharp from foreground to background; an image with a small depth of field will be sharp in parts and blurred in others.

There will be much more said about the other two parts of the triumvirate later but for now here are some fundamental explanations of Shutter Speed and ISO.

• Shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter is open. Think of when you blink quickly as fast shutter speed, limiting the amount of light that reaches the retina or camera sensor, and think of when you force your eyes to stay open and to blink less often as slow shutter speed, increasing the amount of light reaching your sensors. 
• ISO measures how sensitive a camera's sensor (or its retina) is to light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to light; the higher the ISO number, the more sensitive it is to light.

I know this all sounds terribly confusing but understanding these basics of your camera will open worlds of creativity down the road. As we progress down this road together this year, we'll shoot with different apertures, shutter speeds and ISOs and see the results first hand. In the meantime, here's something I didn't know until recently: the word photography is derived from two ancient Greek words that can be translated as writing/drawing with light. Learning the mechanics of your camera enables you to control this light to create images of the world as you see and perceive it.

 

Light, Lines & Color - The Photography Blog

As the tag line says in the heading of this blog, Light, Lines & Color is going to be about the ABCs of photography for photographers and wannabes.

Learning photography can be a daunting endeavor no matter how passionate you are about light, lines and color. First there's the terminology like aperture, shutter speed, ISO and depth of field, then there's understanding the numbers that go with those things, and of course then there's how to use them to create the images you want. But in this digital age, it doesn't stop there. The learning curve is even steeper now as photographers have become their own Kodak lab. Processing images is a big part of being a photographer these days and if you're going to process all your own images, then you must also learn some method of "inventory control" so you can find the images you want when you want them. It can all seem overwhelming - and this is from one who has been wrestling with this learning curve for several years now. 

I have always learned best when I've written down what it was I was trying to grasp, so I've created this blog as a "52 Week Photography Project" to cover what I call the ABCs of photography. Over the next 52 weeks, I'll be covering the basics of cameras, tools, and techniques, and creating images using them all as I go. At the end of the year, I expect we'll all be far more comfortable with this craft of photography with the hopes that we will then be able to create those images that are in our mind's eye. I invite you to join in on this photographic journey. It should be fun and I hope that we will learn from one another. Sharing is a wonderful teacher.

Let's begin with "A is for Aperture" ... in the next post.