I was searching around for places to photograph around Houston, abandoned buildings and other good places to shoot as I'm new to Houston, and stumbled upon this site. When I started cruising the site, I found this discussion and decided I'd join as I think I may be able to help a little. Just a little background on me: I received a BFA in studio art emphasis in photography in Dec 2011 and I am currently working at the Houston Center for Photography in the education and outreach department, which is why I'm now in Houston. I've been really photographing since 2004 and was always helping my dad shoot weddings and other events for his friends. In short, I've been around photography for a while now. (I'm not trying to sound pompous or anything, I just wanted to let you all know where I'm coming from.) And if I make any mistakes on quoting or anything really, just let me know. Now, for the help... I hope.
I thought this was aweseme:
"The f/stop controls how much we see and don't see in the background. F/3.5 means only "three things" will be in focus. F/22 means "22 things" will be in focus. (Not really but I'm using that as a visual cue to help you remember the concept.)"
I have to say I'm not particular to this teaching method of f/stop and its functionality. The f/stop does not control how much we see and don't see in the background. The f/stop is the aperture in the lens and controls how much light is let in to expose the medium (film/digital sensor). The way I like to teach f/stop is that it controls the aperture of lenses. It acts just like your eye does. When you open your eyes up as wide as you can, you let in a lot of light. Skwint and you let in less light. But, and this a big but, f/stop does not alter the depth of field, i.e. blurring and creating bokeh, all that much with standard lenses (non-telephoto and non-macro).
One cannot magically change what is and is not in the background by simply changing the f/stop, though that would be awesome if it were possible since it'd make life much easier. The f/stop does control depth of field, and in macro and telephoto lenses you will get bokeh, as samagon explained. But, you can achieve this effect fairly easily with any lens depending on the focal length of the lens and where you are in relation to an object. Every lens has an effective focal length letting you know how close you can be to an object for that object to be in focus. So, for example, with a 50mm prime lens the closest you can be to an object and retain focus is 1.5ft. Anything out of that 1.5ft sweet spot will be out of focus. Likewise if you were to be closer than 1.5ft but chose to focus on a different object outside that 1.5ft, the foreground object would then become out of focus. This creates that blur, or bokeh. Bokeh is easy to achieve but not as simple as changing the f/stop outside of macro photography.
Also, an f/stop of 3.5 does not mean only three things will be in focus and an f/stop of 22 does not mean 22 things will be in focus. A good example is Ricco's photos. As you can see he has a low f/stop but everything in the images is in focus because he is within the focal length of his lens (everything in the images are within the distance that the lens can clearly focus on) despite shooting at a low f/stop. This is because the f/stop is the aperture which is how much light is let in to expose the film/sensor. In this regard, a low f/stop, wide aperture and long shutter speed is necessary because he is shooting at ISO 100 in low light. For a good, although tedious (he calls it that himself!) explanation on f/stop, check this site out: http://www.uscoles.com/fstop.htm
Aug 10, 2011
ISO: 100
Exposure: 30.0 sec
Aperture: 18.0
Focal Length: 18mm
This is an example of one of my first attempts at full manual, adjusting the armature, white balance, and focus. There is the "starring" we talked about previously, but I was also using the 17-50mm kit lens.
This was me using my new (to me) 28mm 2.8 lens. Note: No starring.
ISO: 100
Exposure: 2.0 sec
Aperture: 3.5
Focal Length: 28mm
The trick I found with not finding someplace to focus on is to simply aim to a viable object to focus, move to your object and shoot. the other is to simply learn how to focus manually, or set the lens to Infinity and you should be able to get decent results.
I took an opportunity to sneak a camera into a concert and was able to take good pictures, problem was that I had to really push up the ISO.
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 28mm
I am by no means an expert at it, but practice and tips always help.
Edit: Just realized I essentially did a double post and already covered this. Good god, how will I be when I get old(er)?
Ricco, first I think your pictures are really good (yours too samagon). I wanted to address your issue with starring in your long exposure images. The reason you are getting that starring effect is because of the long exposure time. With long exposures the shutter remains open for a set amount of time, in the case of the above "starry" image, 30sec. All this time light is streaming in to the sensor exposing that area with all the light coming from the streetlights and essentially what is happening is because of all that light, all that exposure, the sensor is overloaded with data (or in the case of film, the film is essentially overexposed). The digital sensor is made up of many small squares that record the data, since it's digital it's 1s and 0s, and basically what happens is that data overflows to other squares on the sensor because of the time the shutter is left open causing the starring effect. A factor to this is the ISO. With digital the ISO is reversed from film ISO. Digital ISO requires a higher ISO for lowlight exposures whereas film requires a low ISO for lowlight exposures. The second image you took, the convenience store on Dowling, you had an ISO of 1600, which allows the sensor to gather more light data in lowlight situations. In your long exposures though, you were shooting at an ISO of 100, causing you open the shutter for a longer period resulting in the streetlights starring. With the last image before the singer, though, you were much closer to your light sources and therefore had more light available to make the image without having to boost the ISO and leave the shutter open. As a side note, the focal length also comes into play in determining available light to properly expose an image. The longer the focal length, the longer it takes light to travel to the sensor and the more light is required to get a properly exposed image. Samagon, you did a fine job explaining this in the first post .
I hope this helps a little and it wasn't too long winded.
Photography: tips, tricks and equipment!
in Photographing Houston
Posted · Edited by bdimit
Hey guys,
I was searching around for places to photograph around Houston, abandoned buildings and other good places to shoot as I'm new to Houston, and stumbled upon this site. When I started cruising the site, I found this discussion and decided I'd join as I think I may be able to help a little. Just a little background on me: I received a BFA in studio art emphasis in photography in Dec 2011 and I am currently working at the Houston Center for Photography in the education and outreach department, which is why I'm now in Houston. I've been really photographing since 2004 and was always helping my dad shoot weddings and other events for his friends. In short, I've been around photography for a while now. (I'm not trying to sound pompous or anything, I just wanted to let you all know where I'm coming from.) And if I make any mistakes on quoting or anything really, just let me know. Now, for the help... I hope.
I have to say I'm not particular to this teaching method of f/stop and its functionality. The f/stop does not control how much we see and don't see in the background. The f/stop is the aperture in the lens and controls how much light is let in to expose the medium (film/digital sensor). The way I like to teach f/stop is that it controls the aperture of lenses. It acts just like your eye does. When you open your eyes up as wide as you can, you let in a lot of light. Skwint and you let in less light. But, and this a big but, f/stop does not alter the depth of field, i.e. blurring and creating bokeh, all that much with standard lenses (non-telephoto and non-macro).
One cannot magically change what is and is not in the background by simply changing the f/stop, though that would be awesome if it were possible since it'd make life much easier. The f/stop does control depth of field, and in macro and telephoto lenses you will get bokeh, as samagon explained. But, you can achieve this effect fairly easily with any lens depending on the focal length of the lens and where you are in relation to an object. Every lens has an effective focal length letting you know how close you can be to an object for that object to be in focus. So, for example, with a 50mm prime lens the closest you can be to an object and retain focus is 1.5ft. Anything out of that 1.5ft sweet spot will be out of focus. Likewise if you were to be closer than 1.5ft but chose to focus on a different object outside that 1.5ft, the foreground object would then become out of focus. This creates that blur, or bokeh. Bokeh is easy to achieve but not as simple as changing the f/stop outside of macro photography.
Also, an f/stop of 3.5 does not mean only three things will be in focus and an f/stop of 22 does not mean 22 things will be in focus. A good example is Ricco's photos. As you can see he has a low f/stop but everything in the images is in focus because he is within the focal length of his lens (everything in the images are within the distance that the lens can clearly focus on) despite shooting at a low f/stop. This is because the f/stop is the aperture which is how much light is let in to expose the film/sensor. In this regard, a low f/stop, wide aperture and long shutter speed is necessary because he is shooting at ISO 100 in low light. For a good, although tedious (he calls it that himself!) explanation on f/stop, check this site out: http://www.uscoles.com/fstop.htm
Ricco, first I think your pictures are really good (yours too samagon). I wanted to address your issue with starring in your long exposure images. The reason you are getting that starring effect is because of the long exposure time. With long exposures the shutter remains open for a set amount of time, in the case of the above "starry" image, 30sec. All this time light is streaming in to the sensor exposing that area with all the light coming from the streetlights and essentially what is happening is because of all that light, all that exposure, the sensor is overloaded with data (or in the case of film, the film is essentially overexposed). The digital sensor is made up of many small squares that record the data, since it's digital it's 1s and 0s, and basically what happens is that data overflows to other squares on the sensor because of the time the shutter is left open causing the starring effect. A factor to this is the ISO. With digital the ISO is reversed from film ISO. Digital ISO requires a higher ISO for lowlight exposures whereas film requires a low ISO for lowlight exposures. The second image you took, the convenience store on Dowling, you had an ISO of 1600, which allows the sensor to gather more light data in lowlight situations. In your long exposures though, you were shooting at an ISO of 100, causing you open the shutter for a longer period resulting in the streetlights starring. With the last image before the singer, though, you were much closer to your light sources and therefore had more light available to make the image without having to boost the ISO and leave the shutter open. As a side note, the focal length also comes into play in determining available light to properly expose an image. The longer the focal length, the longer it takes light to travel to the sensor and the more light is required to get a properly exposed image. Samagon, you did a fine job explaining this in the first post
.
I hope this helps a little and it wasn't too long winded.