Depth of Field Primer

As I've discussed before here, controlling background clutter and isolating your subject is absolutely crucial to making good pictures.

Getting that "fuzzy" background look can really make a picture pop, and it definitely pulls you out of snapshot territory.

Controlling how much of your photo is in focus comes down to two main things...

Distance
Camera to Subject... if you get closer to the subject, the background will get more out of focus. Seems simple enough, but it has to do with the physical distance, not zooming in. Get close!
Subject to background... the further your subject is from the background, the more out of focus the background will be. For example... if your subject is leaning on a wall, it will be hard to get the wall out of focus. Bring the subject for a little separation, and good things will happen. You also start to get layered composition this way, which is good.

Here, getting close to the bird was a pain, and I probably looked a bit goofy chasing it around with the camera... But it has a nice blurry background. Of course, the bird was getting a bit concerned about my intentions.



Aperture
This is easiest to control on an SLR camera... Smaller Aperture number = less amount of in-focus area. This is "Shallow" depth of field.

Here is a series of shots from a Canon 5D with a 50mm lens for demonstration...

The point of focus is the near side of the fourth (light orange) spool of thread. Look as each aperture change brings more depth into focus... eventually at f22, even the texture of the wall behind is clearly visible.


On a side note, at f11 and f22, you also see the dirt that has accumulated on my camera sensor... time for a cleaning!


Now what do you do with that information?

For Point and Shoots.... you need to get close, and, use the "portrait" setting. This will get the shortest depth of field available. For a variety of technical reasons, P&S cameras have a hard time getting short depth of field, so distance is what you have to work with most.

For SLR users... Try the Av (Aperture Priority) setting. With that, you are in control of how much depth of field you are using. Knowing that you can knock the background out of focus (or keep it clear if that is what you want), is a very powerful option.

In Aperture Priorty (Av) mode, you set your aperture, and the camera will adjust the shutter speed to compensate. It is almost exactly like shooting in all-auto (Green Square) mode, but you start to take control.

Most importantly, you have to practice with your camera so that when you want to control something like this, you already know what to do.

Happy Shooting,

Don J

Exposure Basics - Just a drop in the bucket

Ever wonder why the subjects of your photos are too dark or too light? It all comes down to exposure. There are entire books dedicated to getting proper exposure in your photos... I will try to keep this short, but it really is a complex subject.

To sum it up quickly, your camera cannot take in and process nearly as much range of brightness to darkness as your eyeball can. If your picture has both really bright and really dark areas, one part or the other will be lost. Until camera technology gets better, you have to work within the limits of the camera to get the subject properly exposed.

Proper exposure is getting the camera to allow in just enough light to see the bright and dark areas correctly. Too much light, and you lose detail in the white or bright areas. Not enough light and you lose detail in the dark or shadow areas. When it is right, your picture will look like the scene you remember.

The exposure controls....

Aperture - How large of an opening in the lens for light to go through. If filling a bucket of water represented getting to a proper exposure, aperture would be the diameter of the water hose. Inside the lens is a mechanism to let in more or less light, sort of like a door. The various opening sizes are measured in "F-Stops" i.e. 2.8, 4, 8, 11, 16... with smaller numbers being a larger opening. (Smaller Number = Brighter)

Shutter Speed - Is how long the shutter stays open. For the bucket of water it would be how long you let the water flow. Or, if a door, it would be how long the door is open. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second, 1/60, 1/100, etc. (Smaller Fraction = Darker)

ISO - This is the sensitivity setting of the camera. Lower ISO numbers mean less sensitivity. ISO also affects image quality, but we will get into that another time. In the water bucket example, changing the ISO essentially changes the size of the bucket. With a higher ISO (more sensitive) you would have a smaller bucket, because less is needed to get to a proper exposure.

It takes a bit to wrap your head around those three things, and how changing any of them also affects other aspects of your image, like stopping action (shutter speed), how much of the photo is in focus (Aperture), and overall image quality (noise). For now though, just know that they all work together, and changing one can be offset by changing another. For our bucket of water... you would get the same "exposure" with either: A. Large hole, short pour time or B. Small hole, long pour time.

What Your Camera Thinks...

The camera's auto exposure modes are programmed to find an exposure that averages the light and dark areas of the photo find a happy medium. Essentially, it wants the exposure to be this.

This is great most of the time, because in most pictures, there is a nice variety of light and dark areas.

Unfortunately, the camera does not know if a scene is SUPPOSED to have more lights or darks in it, and it can overcompensate. This is why shooting into a bright sky results in silhouetted subjects, or taking a picture of the moon results in a simple white dot with no detail. If you were shooting a white wall, it would try to cut the light down (faster shutter, higher f-stop) to make it gray. A black wall? It would adjust to let enough light in (slower shutter, lower f-stop) to make it gray.

The camera doesn't care what the subject should look like. Instead, it wants a nice average. In this case, it goes with the sky, which looks nice... if I wanted a silhouette. But I don't.

Now.... what does this really do for you?

As you consider the whole picture, think about the relative brightness of the subject and everything else. If there is a good mix, then the camera should figure it out pretty well. If not, it is tell the camera who is boss.

All SLRs and many point-and-shoots have some form of exposure correction. You may have to dig up your manual to find it, but it is worth it! To make your subject look correct in the photo, you have to force the camera to let in more or less light. There is usually a scale of -3_-2_-1_0_+1_+2_+3 with negatives being less light, positive numbers, more light.

Here is a P&S camera showing +2 on the exposure compensation circled in red.

Remember, identify the subject and then you can adjust the exposure for that.... everything else is less important.

Fill Flash...

If your subject is coming up too dark because of a really bright background, simply adding exposure compensation will help, but it will also over-expose the background. (remember, the camera cannot fill even close to the same range as your eyes).

To compensate, sometimes you can add light to the subject by forcing the flash to fire. This is usually the lightening bolt button on P&S cameras. Sometimes you get too much light, so it is a bit of trial and error, but you can adjust brightness by moving closer or further from the subject. On DSLRs you can adjust how much light you get from the flash manually (called flash exposure compensation, check the manual).

This one turned out about right. (with a P&S)

On-Camera flash never looks as good as nice natural light, but it can certainly help you even out the scene to something that the camera can handle.

The reverse is also true... the camera may try to use the flash because a lot of the scene is dark, killing the subject with glaring bright light.

Turning off the flash (same lightning button on P&S cameras) and using some positive exposure compensation will help correct this. Of course, you also lose some detail in the bright areas, but that is the tradeoff you make to prioritize the subject.

OK, that is a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo, and we did not even start playing with ISO.

The good news? Knowing what the camera is trying to do will allow you to take control of the process. Now go get the camera and play with exposure compensation! This is the beginning of making the pictures that are better than the "average" that your camera wants to give you.

If you would like this broken down further, just let me know. I will be addressing the other effects of shutter speed, aperture and ISO in future posts as well. This post has gone on too long already!

don j.

Don't Kill The Subjects

Ok, so identifying the subject is a bit obvious. Seriously, if there wasn't a subject, you would not have grabbed the camera, right? But now that you have identified the subject in your mind, you can start to do the fun creative part of photography and making intentionally good pictures.

Photos that create visual interest start with a good subject, but the rest of the image is what takes the picture out of the "snapshot" category. In this case, very selective focus draws the eye to the bell of this well-used horn. If everything else in the picture were in focus, the uniqueness of the subject (which in this case is the horn) would get lost in all of the other details.

Canon 5D, 50mm, f1.4, 1/250, Av mode, iso1000, no flash

Subject Killers...

When you start looking for things that detract from your subject, you can eliminate them.

Clutter in the background, especially if it is in focus, draws the eye away from the subject. Many times, you can eliminate background issues behind the subject by moving the camera. When you are really feeling sneaky, you can hide background distractions behind the subject's head, with the bonus of having a unique lighting effect at the same time!

Canon 5D, 24-70, f2.8, 1/60, iso3200, no flash

If you would like insight about the importance of a good background, check out blog posts by the three top-notch photographers Newsweek sent to cover the Olympics last year. Many comments are made about locating a good background, and then using it to frame the action for beautiful shots. They give a lot of insight into the amount of thought that they put into making photos, which is inspiring or depressing depending on how you want to look at it!

Focus is another huge subject killer. I hate coming home from an event and finding an image that could have been really good, and seeing the focus was off. For those who have made the jump to an SLR, you have the greatest amount of control over where to focus. A little time with the instruction manual and some practice time will take care of that. Point and Shooters... this is a tough one, but you do have some options. Many P&S cameras have modes like center-weighted focusing that can help you select what you really want to focus on. You may have to dig in some menus to find it.

I wanted to like this shot, but it really ended up being a nice picture of the subject's hand (which was not intended) while her face is a bit out of focus. If I had been really looking at this, an extra second and I could have put the focus on her face, and waited for the background to clear.

Nikon D3, 300mm, f2.8, 1/200, iso6400, no flash

Other subject killers include distracting colors, chopped off limbs, bad hair days and overly harsh light. Just stop to think... identify the subject, then look at everything else. The "everything else" should be in some way enhancing the subject, leading the eye toward the subject or giving context to the subject. If it isn't doing that, just fill the frame with the subject and eliminate the subject killer altogether.

I will cover some lighting info in future posts, for the bad hair, I would be no help. Seriously.

don j.

Basic Composition #1- Know Your Subject

Have you ever had the experience of looking back through photos from a trip and finding some that you aren't really sure where you took them or what they are of?

I hope that isn't just me.

Sometimes it is the simplest thing that escapes your brain when taking a photo... the subject. Of course, when you are standing there with a camera, your mind has already taken in the context of what is going on. What gets captured in the image however, may not really bring back the feelings or experience of where you were that inspired you to get the camera out. This is also what makes vacation slide shows so boring for people who weren't there. If the photos aren't bringing back your feelings, they are really dead to people who have no internal reference to where they were taken.

What is this a snapshot of? Bus? Cars? Fountain? Building? Did something happen here?

Kodak v530, Auto, f3.8, 1/160, no flash, iso80

Actually, I was trying to get the parking lot full of Mercedes, Porsches etc. but failed miserably.

The first thing to consider when taking intentional photos is "What is the subject?" The rest of the why, when, where and how revolve around being able to figure out what the picture is about. If the picture doesn't have a defined subject (or subjects), it becomes more difficult to comprehend. It makes less sense as a photo and more sense as abstract art. Nothing wrong with that, just know what you are going for.

After deciding what the subject really is, the fun creative part can begin... putting that subject in a context that gives it meaning and feeling.

This is a bit better... still a snapshot, but at least we have something to look at. This was in 2005, before the Smart cars were being sold in the U.S.A. It made her Mini look quite spacious.
Kodak v530, Auto, f2.8, 1/100, iso125, flash on

I will write about separating foreground, middle and background later, but in thinking about the subject, you can also be intentional about where it is in the photo, and how it relates to whatever else you put in the frame. Too many unrelated details and you just get clutter, to few details and you leave unanswered questions when someone looks at the photo.

A little thought went into the composition here, with the car in the foreground, artist renderings on the wall and engines in the background... hopefully it gives a sense of place to the subject, which is the Ferrari Enzo.

Kodak v530, Auto, f2.8, 1/60, iso125, flash on

Yes I enjoy shooting pictures of cars, especially Ferraris.

When you have the camera in your hand, it is easy to assume that what you are seeing is what the picture will be. In reality, the resulting image is a small, two-dimensional, visual-only reminder of what you were looking at. Making sure that you know what you are trying to capture is the first step to creating an image that can take you back to that place, and even let other people experience it as well.

Please note also that I am not saying to stop shooting snapshots. Sometimes they turn out great, or that is all the time you have to capture a moment. When you do have a moment to consider the shot, all the better. The practice of intentionally selecting a subject will gradually become habit and the snapshots will get better too.

don j.