Yawn at Zoo/Happenings in Photography world.(post no 93)

There were talk of lenses. If u go on shooting/clicking regularly,there are chances that u shoot sometimes with wide angle of ur camera or zooming it to telephoto....The above example is from Nikon D40x and Sigma 70-300 lens set to 200mm. The tiger was 25ft away inside a zoo. I was clicking on his moods...As he opened mouth for yawn, it as a good shot. Tripod is not possible as other people are also on the move around u to have a look of the king of jungle with children more excited....''See papa...oh mummy....there he is'', Papa ''there he comes....look'' and they are on the run as the animal moves with his grand gait, not minding them--as he has become habitual of daily 'darshan'.....Yea he obliges. Shutter speed 1/200 at f5.6, ISO 400.

HAPPENINGS:::::1) Polaroid is developing a new DIGITAL camera.  That will deliver instant prints. Wait-this year end. POLAROID had launched its instant print out Polaroid camera in before 3 decades...Was very useful for viewing instant prints in commercial studios before a final take, the lighting arrangement/sitting of person,model etc. Was good for tourist places delivering the tourists instants print outs, eliminating the role of noting down addresses of people,taking money and sending prints to destinations within a specified period.

2)  Italian tripod maker, Manfrotto has brought out Photography jackets and photo vests for women, called the Lino range.....Check at the nearby dealer,ladies. Most helpful in Safaries, outdoor shooting/photowalks.

3) In the first half of 2012, Japanese sale of Mirrorless cameras (ILCCs) was as below:

a) Olympus---30.7%

b) Panasonic---29.6%

c) Nikon---17.8%

d) Sony---15.4%

e) Pentax---5.9%

f) Others---0.6%

They may be the cameras of future..However, I doubt, as the technologies are changing every other day. AND what may be the next design of DSLRs/ILCCs.

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MACRO Photography with attachments (post no.92)

 One of the most important part of photography is ''macro photography''...As there are lovers of different branch of photography such as portrait,travel,landscape,wildlife,flowers,nature,digital imaging,street photography, there are a genre of photographers, who love Macro Photography.Otherwise as a subject,anybody can do frequently.

2) In general macro photograph is the closeup of a small thing. In other words, it is the magnification of small object, which cannot be covered by wide,tele,prime or zoom lenses in a normal way. That is made possible by attaching other photography instruments, which are made to attach to the above lenses to get closure to shoot small objects. With these attachments, you will hv to go closure to subjects for shoot, which may, many times, distracts them...Therefore to do independent macro photography, lens and camera mfg companies have made special macro lenses, which are so constructed to keep distance from the subject without horrifying them. However, they are costlier and unless one's aim is to be dependent on macro photography, it is not worth spending 25k and above for good macro lenses..

3) At left are the attachments, I use to do since long...LEFT is the extension tube.with 4 small tubes,threaded into one. This is hallow and has the bayonet mount attachment at back to mount in camera body. In front, I fit the normal lens,small zoom to get closure to small objects, e.g. insects, flowers and its stamens, coins,watches,water drops (as above),and an assortment of object.The pieces can be fitted in one, two or,three or all four in the lens mount. This will need exposure more by one to two stops to compensate the light thru the hallow rings...In middle is Lens Reversal Ring, which fits into the camera mount and u can fit prime or zoom lens in reverse and screw it into the front threads....Next are supplementary lenses, which come in 5 pieces, 1 to 4 nos in 1,2,3,4 diaptres and a thick piece of macro lens...These can be fitted in front of normal or zoom lens with 52mm,55mm,58 or so lens threads and are easy to view the subject closely without any exposure compensation.

4) The camera mfg companies are more wise now offering macro settings in compacts, prosumer cameras so u can go as near as 1cm from the subject....The above pieces are for DSLRs.......Go to macro photography. .....to continue.

Zoom Lens,combination of Wide and Tele---(Post no.91).

In plain language, zoom lenses are a combination of Wide angle and Telephoto lens. You are more acquainted with zooms nowadays, rather than fixed focal length Wides, Normal or Teles, which are costly and used by highly enthusiasts/pros  to get the best in wildlife and other types of photography....Zooms have moving lens barrels for zooming in and out and fouusing ring and have more elements. Thus some quality suffers in comparison with independent/fixed focal length wides and teles, having single lens barrel with focusing grip only and have wide apertures for low light photography. They light in weight., making them costlier. However branded zooms are a good buy, though independent lens mfg companies are also producing better zooms..

2) The zoom lens has variable focal lengths; which makes it possible to have quick change in distance, without moving the camera or yourself, moving back and forward. The zoom lenses are coming in different focal lengths e.g. 10-22mm, 13-20mm etc in wide, 24-70,28-80,28-200 in mid,wide to tele, range, 70-200, 70-300, 100-400 in teles, to mention a few.

3) As the zoom lenses are heavy in weight, while shooting without tripods, there are chances of getting blurred or shaky pictures. To avoid this, the simple method is to use the shutter speed matching with that of the focal length. For example, if u use focal length of 200mm, better use the shutter speed of 1/250 or higher or at 300mm, 1/500/in case of 90mm use 1/125.....In low light, set higher ISO to be able to use higher shutter speeds.

4) In compact cameras, there is inbuilt zoom of 3x to 5x, which can be used conveniently on auto setting. In prosumer cameras there is tough competition to maximise focal lengths as 15x, 20x,26x, 30x, 42x...But in maximum focal length the image may be softer.....Anyhow all the best with zoom photography capturing children,pets,birds,street views, nature,wildlife and many more subjects you face or think of.............to continue

Normal,Standard Lens 50mm/Focus,Focal Length.(Post.no.90).

I have let u know about the wide angle and telephoto lenses. However these lenses came later in 35mm SLRs. The first interchangeable lens which was originally introduced with these cameras was a 50mm Lens i.e. Prime ,Normal or Standard lens, as it was called.....LET US SEE the 'focus' and 'focal length'.

ALL PARALLEL RAYS COMING THROUGH THE LENS MEET AT A POINT THAT IS CALLED 'FOCUS' AND THE DISTANCE FROM THE CENTRE OF THE LENS TO THE FOCUS IS CALLED 'FOCAL LENGTH'

Why 50mm lens is called a normal, prime or standard lens? Because the way it produces the perspective, which closely matches that of the human eye. Therefore, the images made with a 50mm lens have a natural and uncontrived look, that is better for available light photography with wide apertures, such as f1.4, f1.8. These lenses are useful because of:

Greater speed;

More Pro results;

Superior optical performance;

Greater compactness and light weight; &

Lower cost..

This lens is in contrast to wide angle lens which has shorter focal length and telephoto lens which has a longer focal length than 50mm, as mentioned in previous posts.....In all these three types lenses, you have to move back and forward to adjust the distance you would like to shoot by covering desired areas.

This picture was shot by a 50mm lens..

........................................................................to continue on next post.

GS Photography: Telephoto lenses.(post no.89).

TELEPHOTO LENS: In the last post, I discussed about the wide angle lens....The telephoto lens is opposite to that....I come to those lenses here. For example,even u shoot with a compact or a kit lens's wide angle effect of the scene....There is lurking a telephoto image in that picture...Yeaa..u can get that telephoto effect of ur photo by cropping the image to the desired portion....However, we do it but only if our camera has good MPs of 12 MP,14 MP etc. Despite getting the cropped telephoto image, if higher ISO was used by camera or u set for low light, the effect will not be satisfactory and noise(grain) may crop in, making image less sharp....Therefore, the companies have manufactured prime telephoto lenses from 85mm to 1200mm and above. As U must hv seen on the cricket matches on ur tv, a bunch of photographers are occupying a good angled venue with their telephoto lenses for the optimum good result...You say wow, when u see the closeup of the batsman, baller,fielder or the cricketer catching the ball in magazines, newspapers...These are the results of those great telephoto lenses....

A telephoto lens has a narrow depth of field and shows the object larger, i.e. more closer, making them useful for nature, candid, wildlife,sports, portrait and press photography.

As in the picture above, the cruise face come larger with 200mm focal length and the background of the hill,seen in the back, goes out of focus, because of the shallow DOF of the lens.

GS Photography:Interchangeable Lenses.(Post no.88)

Many of you are acquainted with compact and bridge (prosumer) cameras. They have fixed lenses. However focal length zooms in and out, as is the trend - 3x,5x to 42x built-in zooms in various models of cameras of different companies/mfgrs.....As some of you may have seen the DSLR cameras, with interchangeable lens facility, as shown in the picture.They help going pro, or a better enthusiast with good photography skills, with fast focusing capability and facility of changing different focal length lenses as the occasion requires.....Which are those different interchangeable lenses....Let's know that:

1) Wide Angle Lenses....These are fixed focal length lenses as 35mm, 28mm,24mm and more wider and fish-eye come in range of below 24mm to as low as 8mm...These lenses have a larger field of view and short focal length as mentioned. They cover more of the view and the image becomes smaller...Thus more of the subject matter is included. These lenses have much greater depth of field, as the focal length is reduced the depth of field increased....For creativity they are very useful creating unusual effects, while shooting in narrow spaces...Many photographers use 35mm,28mm, 24mm as their standard lenses since most of the time they need shooting in narrow places....However being shorter in focal length, they are required to go more nearer to the subject....which is a boon and hurdle, both...............................to continue in next post.

QUESTIONS AN IMAGE HAS TO ANSWER?---(87)

We talked about the Depth of Field in a photograph.....An artistic photograph has many things to tell....Let's find out some relevant questions, which the attached photograph may answer, or you will find answers in other images while viewing them prudently. Here I made a silhouette of three leaves.

2) Silhouette is the term used for an image where the subject is photographed against a lighted background. The subject will come dark with bright background, for example may be sky, particularly in morning and evening, when the sun is angled...may be a lighted wall, white cloth, cardsheet etc. Besides, in the photograph, the three leaves make a triangle...Their own shape is also in triangle form.That is a geometrical design....The leaves tell about nature's fury

3) Now let's us find out the questions, which an image has to answer:::

a) Is it a story-telling picture?

b) Has the picture got the required impact?

c) Is there too much inclusion of elements?

d) Is it vertically or horizontally fit?

e) Has the picture all tonal values?

f) Is the main subject well placed which stands out from its surroundings?

g) If the dark and light areas are well balanced?

h) Does the image has inclusion of unnecessary elements, which distract attention,

and should have been excluded?

DOF- Landscapes,Portraits,Macros with Compact and Prosumers.

I have not discouraged the compact and prosumer camera owners....I am just to say that they can take good pictures with their cameras....They will get nice DOF by these cameras in landscapes....Compact  (P&S) cameras do have 4x and 5x zoom. And prosumeras too have extended zoom facility. Therefore good portraits can be shot by zooming the lenses and composing the picture horizontally or vertically....Reg closeups and macros..these cameras have focusing capability upto 3cm to 1cm...As I said  closeup and macros are magnification of an image...They can shoot the image of an insect, butterfly, flower etc at these focal lengths. THEN comes handy is your PC or laptop. Crop the image to the desired magnification....as shown above....I took this flower shot with a compact camera focusing upto 3cm.....Then as I thought to have the inner to be macroed, I cropped the centre portion of the flower and adjusted it to face the petals at right, leaving some space at right to spread them, while the middle ones are more closed and the stamen too facing in petals' direction(compositionally important).....Here is made the macro, which we long for shooting with lens reversal ring, closeup filters and extension tubes (which are for dSLRs)......As the cameras are coming with more MPs such as 12 MP,14MP,16MP etc, the cropped area will not be pixellated. It may be at 6 MP or more..... Now you can think, what do you want - to get it into digital album, have a 4x6'' print to gift.....as u wish.....gshroti@gmail.com

Click image to view larger.

GS Photography--DOF in practice-Examples (Post no.85)

Scaling DOF or DOF in practice:   Here I kept these 3 items at 10'' distance. Camera nearly 1 ft....These are taken with the kit lens of dSLR.....This shot is at wide aperture of f4.5....focused on the yellow bottle in all three (2 to follow)...You can see the shallow DOF 'PONDS' more out of focus...I used the bed sheet to view further the sharpness increasing as the aperture goes narrow.

2) Rest of the things as above, changed the aperture to f5.6 and the 'PONDS' become more clear and the bed sheet too became sharper.

3) This was shot at f11 and you can notice the increasing DOF on 'PONDS' and on the bed sheet......If you go down more to f16,almost it will be full sharp.....So you can understand when to increase the DOF with narrow aperture or to decrease using the wide aperture depending the the subject.....

4) If you shoot landscape, use f11 or f16 and focus in middle to get the picture full sharp till infinity. In portraits, f8 and f5.6 works well with dSLRs focusing on the eyes.(show u in next picture)....In closeups, and macros use of narrow aperture is essential i.e. f11 and f16 to have maximum DOF, which is still less or enough subjectwise. 

5) With compacts and prosumers (with extended focal lengths of 20x,30x etc), you will get more sharpness despite using wide apertures, since they have small sensors in comparisons to dSLR.....YOU HAVE TO BEAR WITH YOUR LIMITATIONS in these cases.

6) This pic was shot with a dSLR mounting 70-300 zoom lens at 105mm....You can view here the DOF on the front and back grill which is out of focus and the attention remains on the portrait....This may be an example of leading lines as the grill's middle line is leading to his face from right of the frame and at left also from collar to his face

Click pic to view bigger.

GS Photography: Depth of Field.

The Depth of Field of a lens is the zone of sharpness. This zone extends in the front and back of the subject in which the image is sharp. The DOF of any lens depends upon the focal length of the lens, the relative aperture and the distance between the object and the lens....DOF increases:

a) the distance between the object and the lens increases;

b) the focal length of the lens decreases;

c) the aperture is stopped down.

2) Previously in cameras using film, DOF scale was given on the lens for each aperture setting....But the dCams do not have the scale. The DOF plays a very important part in picture making. With the increase/decrease of DOF the character of the picture is entirely changed. The DOF is maximum when the aperture is minimum and it is minimum when the aperture is full open. Therefore by decreasing the DOF, unwanted things in the foreground or background can be thrown out of focus. So isolation of any subject is possible. A 3D effect can be created; illusion of different plains can be achieved and above all, a picture can be softened.

3) On the other hand if the DOF is increased (using small aperture), everything in the background or foreground including the main subject will be sharp and in focus. The picture will have good contrast and sharpness.Therefore before you shoot pictures, decide the effect you want to get, then accordingly select the aperture..

The use of DOF is an essential tool in the hands of a creative photographer.

4) IN THE PICTURE above, I used wide aperture to soften the flowers and get the desired DOF in the middle two flowers...Thus the foreground flowers and bg flowers are out of focus...By using the wide aperture, the attention or the eyes of the viewer are stopping on the middle flowers and the foreground and background flowers are out of focus besides, the distant background has gone total OOF.

GS Photography...Compositional elements....

In my previous blog. we discussed Rule of thirds...that is one part and most essential  in pictorial photography....Other aspects include : Simplicity (not including many or irrelevant things in the photograph), Angle to shoot from, Framing the picture, Leading lines, Horizontal or vertical composition, Focal Point, Fill frame, Technical excellence, Exposing correctly, Converging lines, Tonal range, Depth of Field, Perspective, Sharpness, Background, contrast, Texture, human element (where necessary), correct focus, unity etc.....which will come further in my other posts......haha Are you scared to read so many features in a composition?....No, no..When once the eyes are accustomed to picture taking, these elements come automatically into the picture...and with practising on various objects , you can become an accompalished  photo-artist.

Closeup or Long shot.....Yeaa...here I place a close up of a duck....Closeup can be made directly from camera at shooting time or they are made on photoshop by cropping the image. Image should be large enough to allow cropping e.g. in full 10 MP, 12 MP,14 or 16 MP, whatever your camera has to avoid showing pixels when the cropped image is enlarged........next....

Composition in Photography-Rule of Thirds-To Break.

There is a saying that Rules are made to be broken....In previous blog I took you to the Rule of thirds from an indoor shot....Here I placed the bird in the middle. In viewing the principle looks broken here....Still, if you see from the diagram, the bird's feet are touching the below intersecting line, if you view the diagram vertically. The wings up are touching the another upper line of 1/3rd portion of the dia....The bird is steady here, as it has just landed on the tree branch. This is not the flying position. Therefore, according to rule of thirds, the picture needed more space in the front of the bird. But still the picture has appeal to be treated as a complete image with sufficient space left in all three sides of the sky...The base is the tree branches and flowers...and the birds looks in a restful mood.

There are more small things in composition to be discussed....Your opinion is solicited.

Expo.: 1/2500, f8, ISO 1600 at 300mm. (The picture is cropped to have the bird comfortable for viewer than more of the surroundings.)

Composition in photography.-Rule of thirds.

RULE OF THIRDS: Before going deep into the art of photography....there is some homework which every photographer who wish to be an artist-cum-photographer, should do to make images pictorially/artistically appealing....Composition in photography is the art of arranging an object and various objects and forms harmoniously within the four lines of frame of a picture area to have an impact which will hold the viewers attention and appreciation for you.

2) Here I posted a rectangle (to be taken as a frame of an image)......portraying the RULE OF THIRDS. If your subject is point no.1 or 2, there is two third portion is left at the Left side...And if your subject is placed at points 3 & 4 of the intersecting lines, two third portion is left at Right side...that is the theory of Rule of Thirds in photography and in painting also.

3)  Whatever  the composition may be in theory, it is only in practice that it will be of benefit to use by studying the picture that is pleasing...To hold this principle would be necessary  first step for all those who wish to make pictures...In the picture of still life in the bowl...I placed the apple at the points 3 & 4, thus leaving almost two thirds space at right for supplementary objects.....Here,the eyes remain still on the apple, which is red and red is always is a dominating colour...to be used carefully.  Your eyes cannot go out of frame since there is green colour cucumbers and dark purple brinjal...Your eyes stay in the bowl...Now let's think, what can supplement these  three coloured objects...Necessarily a knife, that links to the objects...So now your eyes come to the knife....Then there is some active space is left at right for framing the picture...and for the hand to pick up the knife....1 & 2 points are also occupied by brinjal and the cucumber and the remaining space by knife....Now, you hide the knife and see the bowl with occupants make a full picture...It looks that something is lacking and that place is filled by the knife...The knife's handle is placed in conjunction with the main object i.e. apple...This is the simplicity in the picture...not too many things to view. And there are no distractions....The middle shadow in the bowl gives depth. The dark background compresses all to be within the frame....