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....

Light--Cloudy sky, Night photography, cityscape, fireworks

In last blog, I talked about the day light with sun....That is not the end....One most important lighting is from the cloudy sky...This may happen any time during the year in our country, though rainy season is already there to provide the softest of light for good portraits outdoors, without squeezing the eyes (refer earlier blog).....The Angle matters and just look in the sky where sun's visibility is there....Let your subject's half face be towards the sun...If there is some difference in the light intensity, your subject get bright light from sun's side and some shadow at the other side saving it going as a flat light portrait...This will happen with some practice as here also sun's or your subject's angle is very important.....Not difficult?

ii) There is all round reflectance of light from sky, side buildings, even in the ground and the clouds too. I brought you the picture of school children, how comfortably they are moving under the light of overcast sky.

And there is even light on the faces.

2) You have seen much photography is done during night....the easiest example is the weddings and other functions -- as in a drama on the stage without use of flash....Yes you will say, that during night the photography is done through flash lights. Yeaaa...you are right, where there is less light, the flashes are being used. However, with the incoming of digital cameras, more of the dim light is covered with higher ISOs and it has become easy to photograph half of your images with sufficiently brilliant light on stages etc.....If you use tripod, there are good chances to photographing your town, in night lights with vehicles adding movement effect....The exposure many be in seconds...Therefore tripod or some solid support is needed.

3) Here is an example of night photography of town or cities....The camera was supported on a brickwall alongside of the lake....The lake is visible with trees in foreground....The exposure was auto counting 3 seconds...The sky too is well delineated.

4) Wow you won't miss the fireworks too....There are so many advantages in night also to continuing the clicking your camera....and learning a lot about photography....may become your bread-winner, perhaps........to continue....

DAYLIGHT TO SHOOT PICTURES

In the last blog, I was talking of the light during day time.....Here is a picture taken in the morning in a lake. The light is rendering good effect since the sun was at an angle, nearly 9.30 AM...What we see in the light during day or night....The features are clearly shown....Yes this example will take you to that direction...The water is sufficiently of deep colour giving the best of contrast between the bird and the surrounding...

2) Now recollect or go back to my last post where the guy's photo was taken at the time of overhead sun....Do you think the light is correct to find out clearly all the details needed in a good profile...there is all shadow from forehead to chin....So this time of day is to be avoided while doing serious type of photography.....For visiting tourist places, all light is good, since you are not to stay long there....Therefore this is a sort of emergency clicking....Or if you are at ease there and wish to stay longer, wait for nearly 3.00 PM onwards, when again the sun goes angled.....Besides one hint I would suggest to use your camera's builtin flash when the sun is high at noon time to fill in shadows...In other words reducing them to have better picture closeups---Pl remember the flash has a limited range of 10-15 feet and the intensity of light of flash is further reduced in front of the shining sun.....So upto 10ft coverage is sufficient.

3) You are at the evening time now....The picture at side was taken nearly 5.00 PM....The light evenly lits the faces...and shadows are making good modelling on the face.....Here and morning also you are at liberty to use cameras's flash....It won't kill the original skin tones but rather fill-in the shadows or lighten them.

4) So we can divide morning time from sun rise to 10 AM FOR GOOD PICTURE TAKING, be it portraits or landscapes......Noon time when the sun is high on head....Avoid portraits or use fill flash.....Evening 3PM to sunset the best time with or without using fill flash.....Yes in the morning or evening when your subject faces you with back to sun, the camera's flash will be of great help to light up the face or faces....BESIDES a good advice is to keep sun at your back, left or right side during morning or evening so half shadow on the face can be a tolerable feature of people you are taking photographs.

5) An old saying goes.....when photographing a person/persons, keep sun behind you...It was true, as the cameras had less inbuilt facilities....Not like today's advanced cameras...

6) To add good picture taking, you can use shadows of wall near houses, under the trees....so there is even light on the faces....Verandahs/porch are also good places...to avoid squeezing of the eyes...hahaha...and having plain lighting...GO on CLICKING.....THERE IS NO LIMIT.....to continue.

CAMERA does not take PICTURES but the PERSON BEHIND THE CAMERA TAKES THE PICTURES.

Photography is painting with light..!

Here  one photo is shown taken in sunlight...and another during evening in large shadow of evening in a park....The first picture tells you to avoid such sort of light as the eyes, the most important part of a portrait, look squeezed because of facing to sun..that has to be avoided.....In another though the child looking uncomfortable in order to reach to her mom, the picture is good in all respects...(skin tone,her pose, colour of clothes,diffused background etc)..I wish she cud see in camera....now you do not avoid.

We talked about cameras in last blog.....There is no limit to people's likings and no limit for companies to manufacture, as good as cameras.....You may have a compact camera or other with higher zooms and features including a DSLR.

What is the purpose of manufacturing a camera? Yes to take pictures.....But how you will take pictures? They are not made to shoot aimlessly......To take a good picture you will have to depend upon 'Lighting'....As is said , without lighting there is no picture....How true it is said....In general terms a picture is 'painting  with light'....Shutter and aperture acts as brush and thru correct recording of light a good painting....errr, sorry , a good picture is made.

As photography in itself is a vast subject it may take months to understand the lighting....But for simple and good pictures, simple and good lighting will be required....As you all know daylight is the best light source....but depending on the sun's position....It is not that we come out with camera in one hand and find out lots of sunlight spread over the atmosphere....Does it good for photography? Yes, if you have a vast field and beautiful scenery, it will be delight to snap good pictures then and there....More pictures of the same area you need....Yes, that is possible....you will have to move to change angles and you will be amaged viewing through LCD panel or viewfinder that the beauty was so near to you and you never noticed.. YOUR INTEREST IN PTOTOGRAPHY MADE IT POSSIBLE..

THERE ARE MANY SITUATIONS OF LIGHT BUT HERE I AM TALKING OF BRIGHT DAY WITH SUNLIGHT from morning to evening...And you will wonder that 99 percent of the photographs are made using this light, throughout the day.

Here I am talking of India of sunlight where sun is bright almost round the year otherwise in many countries the sun shines for few months only...So the best advantage is taken there also of the sunlight.......to continue

More on Cameras

The cameras used for Studio, Fashion, Modelling, and Commercial photography have lot of difference from the cameras, we were talking hitherto, I mean in last blog.....They are good for home and occasional function photography, and if you area good hand at photography, you can make immortal photographs from them.....that is your creativity...There was a price tag with these cameras for people who cannot afford cameras more than 10k....Above 10k, their versatility increases and the cost too...There are good cost cameras i.e. above 15-20k and more, which even the Professionals keep as a standby camera.......Please do not be disheartened as the DSLR cameras start 30000 and above, they are entry level cameras and pro cameras will normally be 60000 & above., however rendering great results with their kit lenses...(In the pic is a DSLR with 18-55 kit lens).

That is why I told not to be disheartened as the small compact cameras take good photographs, which I showed of a baby and let u know more from them......Yes the DSLR cameras are made for professional and interested enthusiasts. They have the facility of interchanging lenses from 18-55 kit lens to 70-300 zoom lens, macro lens, and all sort of lenses the company has released for their cameras and besides. subsidiary companies are mfg them with less price.

The changing of different lenses make use in wildlife photography, bird photography, studio portraits, in weddings,stage programmes...So with one DSLR and a good telezoom you can cover lots of subjects.....Yes the cost will increase to nearly Rs.40000/- or above.

Before getting into commercial, industrial,product,fashion photography etc....the two companies are more popular since many years. The are Nikon and Canon....Best consult your photography friend or expert, which camera to buy...In small towns the cameras are not immediately available. Get to authorised dealer, and learn which camera fits your pocket and which is more selling....Or go to yourself Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai to choose the best from long ranges they have on display.

Yes previously I told you about compact cameras with less money, still giving good results....Now there are pro range cameras for purpose of money-making or for livelihood, as there are many coming generation gals and guys to make  photographty a bread earner, like selecting RJ,VJ..........continue

How to shoot hussle free pictures & camera's capacity.

3 days son of my nephew(in picture)......Who wud like to miss this opportunity, once in life time?...Next AS TIME PASSES your child is grown up....I heard of a parent who took one photo each day of his son....With digital it is just only possible....For example IF YOU USE YOUR CAMERA's MEMORY CARD REGULARLY AND FORMATTING EVERY MONTH....IT CAN TAKE THOUSANDS OF PICTURES. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BENEFITS FOR PROFESSIONALS, WHO USE 10000 TO 1 LAKH FRAMES EACH YEAR with their cameras.......Then they can buy another cameras, as there is a change of model every 3-4 months...with good capabality....No this is not our intention at present to talk top gears....lest my new friends are threatened by their prices.

The compact cameras have a small body, which can be slipped into the pocket, handbag or briefcase.....The lens comes out when you press a start button and after taking pictures, it will go back into the body by pressing same button...So no hussle....As soon as the lens comes out, there are beep signals for focusing and you squeeze the button thus capturing the pic....One important thing to understand is that when the lens comes there are focusing signals in the form of squares on LCD panel when you HALF PRESS the shutter button and keeping the button half pressed you can compose picture and when satisfied, just fully press the shutter button slowly to take the picture.....The picture is recorded and viewed on the LCD panel...If you feel dissatisfied take many shots for no cost?...and select one or two...In case of children, there may be many, so your heart fills with pride and you are able to make a good album...OR buying a digital frame, just insert the memory card in it and view slide show, individual pictures, enlarging them also.

There is a zoom lens facility in your camera  so you can shoot distant subject's photographs, just turning zooming button towards left and right.which is generally located around the shutter button.

There is no definition of a good camera...Every camera that takes sharp pictures and renders good colours is  the choice of the users.

.........more with camera features.....aperture/shutter................next............