Less is Better

I like to experiment every now and again and in this case I wanted to have a single concentrated source of light that I could direct onto the subject.  I chose to use a model helicopter but your imagination is the only limit.  The object I chose has lots of shape and therefore places for shadows to fall and light to strike.  Also it was small and easy to move around or to move around it.  The light source was a single flash unit with a snoot fitted, the snoot effectively channels a cone of directable light and it can be set to an strength appropriate to the shoot.  Because you can select a fairly high F-stop, you don't really require any background as it fades into darkness.

The settings I used varied depending upon how I felt, sometimes I would use the metered setting and sometimes I would underexpose.  It is a matter of taste.  I wanted to give the impression that the helicopter was looming out of the darkness, so not all of it was visible or in the frame.  The settings used in each photo are in the captions below.  Because both the light and the subject were being moved and I did not really have a fixed idea of the setting I wanted I just adjusted my settings once I viewed the image.  It was a bit of trial and error.

I maybe should have dusted the thing first!

F14, 1/250 Sec ISO 200

F4.5 1/60 Sec ISO 200

F14, 1/250 Sec ISO 200

F14, 1/250 Sec ISO 200

F18, 1/250 Sec ISO 200

F14, 1/250 Sec ISO 200

Self Portrait

Strangely enough, I dislike having my picture taken as I feel like a startled rabbit trapped in the headlights of a car.  I think I lack the ability to direct myself or perhaps because I cannot see what I look like I am not sure if the pose I am striking is okay or not.  I can, naturally, direct others and I have an idea of what to say and do to get the subject to get the desired pose.

I have recently bought some new equipment in the shape of a Lasolite HiLite background, which is a cross between a tent and a soft box.  The background I have is 2.5m x 2.15m, which is rather large and cumbersome.  It collapses down into a circular carry bag that is about 1m in diameter.  Putting it up is easy and you can find an online review here.  I was keen to test mine out and the results are below.

I set up the background with a single flash unit on the right hand side and I secured the top to points on either side of my studio area.  My 'studio' area, I should stress, is more of a multi-purpose room with gym equipment and drying laundry which changes my 5m x 7m room into a rather cramped working area.  Not great for health and safety but it is pleasing to see what can be achieved in such a confined space!

I set the F-stop to 22 in the centre of the background, which meant that it was weaker further away from the light and stronger closer to the light, this is obvious when you say it but they do not generally make it clear in reviews that you may get over-exposure on one side compared to another, perhaps they just expect you to know about this and then conveniently forget to offer solutions.  So in my images below on the left the light is weaker on the right it is stronger resulting in glare or over exposure on the right hand side of my subject.  To resolve this you can stand the subject further from the background, so that the over spill diminishes or compromise with your camera setting, in my case the main light was set at F11 but I closed to F13 to reduce the impact and angled my back to the stronger light source.  Another solution is to have two lights providing a more even strength, but this I think is a little excessive.

I had a single soft box placed high and in front of the subject set to F11.  On the floor I had my old white background.  I set up my tripod and then had the challenge of how to get the focus right on my camera.  The distance between the subject and the camera was about 8 feet, so I set the lens to manual and adjusted the focus ring to around 8 feet.  Unfortunately the lens is not that precise so another way of overcoming the issue is to set a higher F-stop which will give a greater depth of field and therefore more chance of the subject being properly in focus.  A higher F-stop is a smaller aperture and therefore more light will be required, you will need to re-set your lighting as desired.

The difficulty I had now was triggering the camera and then posing.  I could not frame the shot as I had nothing to go by.  Although I did put a penny on the floor to indicate where to stand and I placed a yellow post it note at eye level on the background immediately behind me to give me a clue about framing.  I have to say that although this helps it was trial and error.  The easy solution is to simply widen the frame and then crop down later in Photoshop., but I wanted to try in camera framing.  I used the timer on the camera to trigger the shutter release.

So in summary the issues suggested solutions:

The strength of light is uneven if you use one light from one side and stand too close to the background. Use two lights, stand your subject further from the background or compromise with the camera settings.

The camera (if doing self portrait on your own) has nothing to focus on when you use a white background and this presents the issue of getting the subject in focus. Pre-set the focal distance in manual focus by measuring the distance between the lens and the subject or increase the F-stop (higher number, smaller aperture) to increase the depth of field.

Framing subject and triggering the shutter is challenging if you are on your own.  Use the timer feature on the camera or a wireless remote if you have one and place markers that indicate where to stand.

Pre-editing with the background, you can see how close it is to the ceiling
and there was approximately 4 1/2 feet of fabric in the floor.
Lens used was the standard 17-70mm at focal length 19mm, F14, 1/125sec, ISO 200.

Post editing in Photoshop

Pre-edit shot using a 105mm macro.
Focal length 70mm, F14, 1/125sec, ISO 200.

Not much in the way of post shoot editing, just
whiten background and stroke outline.

I must learn to smile and be more relaxed!

Night Shoot

With my wife being away for the evening I decided to get my kit together and go for a walk to take some night time shots.  I have recently been shown that a long exposure with a small aperture can get some quite good results with the images being sharply in focus. 

There are a number of things though to look out for.  When taking a night shot the exposure, as usual, depends upon the amount of light you have available and the technical restrictions of your camera.  In my case my camera will only keep the shutter open for up to 30 seconds before switching to bulb, this means that if there is not enough light around for a 30 second exposure then I need a shutter release that can hold the shutter open for as long as I need to, you do not want to be pressing the button for that length of time.

On my expedition I took the following bits of kit: a tripod, the standard 17-70mm lens, grey card, light meter, spare batteries, flash gun, remote shutter release and remote for the off camera flash.  I did not use all of this kit, I took it to keep my options open.  I did have in mind a location but in the event I was a bit disappointed with the results.  Technically it was fine but artistically it did nothing for me.  Most of the evening was a leg stretching exercise and also noting other future locations for possible shoots.

So at the first location, the one I had wanted to shoot, I walked across a road bridge to get a view of the church in town, this was only a partial view and at first I wanted to get the line of the road with the church in the background.  The problems I found with this were the number of streetlamps which would cast too much light on the scene and effectively overpower the main subject, which for me was the church.  I decided to remove the distraction of the lights and re-frame just the church with the houses in the foreground.

The next thing I did was to assess the light using the ambient light reading from my meter.  At first when I took a reading (under the street lamps) the machine gave me an error.  I then adjusted the time until the error corrected itself.  I had already set the ISO to 3200 (in order to allow a higher sensitivity to light).  I adjusted the time to 1/15 sec which gave me an FStop of 4.5.

With the settings above the next task was to get the white balance sorted out, the streetlamps cast a rather ugly orange glow.  In my case I took the picture using the grey card and settings above then switched the camera to custom white balance and used the image to calibrate the sensor.  When doing this I always focus on the centre of the grey card making sure that the circle in the viewfinder is over the card.

Now the next thing was to re-adjust the settings on the camera as I did not wish to shoot at ISO 3200.  So first of all I reduced the ISO to 200 and in doing so the FStop automatically compensates.  It is not enough to let the FStop compensate as in all likelihood there will not be enough range in the lens to cope with the very large aperture required or it will be off the scale (not technically possible).  So in tandem with knocking the ISO down I also decreased the shutter speed and continued to do this until I could shoot at F22 (I wanted depth of field).  the final settings after adjustments was F22 at 25 seconds and ISO 200.  I then mounted the camera onto the tripod.

To summarise the camera was tripod mounted, the white balance had been set using  grey card, the FStop was set at 22, which is a small aperture for maximising the amount of the picture in focus (depth of field).  The ISO could have been raised to 400 if required (ie not enough light about) and in my case I had a further 5 seconds to spare if I wanted to hold the shutter open for longer without using the bulb feature (again to let more light in).

Problems: The sources of bright light could become over-exposed in the image, moving traffic and people will cause further distraction by leaving a trace on the image, glare from sources of light may leak onto the sensor, so a lens hood or some improvised screen to stop the glare is handy.  The tripod needs to be steady and left alone during the 25 seconds otherwise you will get camera shake.  You may also have to focus in manual if the camera has difficulty in auto focus due to the lack of light.

Once you have your base settings and are content it then becomes a case of experimenting with adjusting the time that the shutter is open.  You can do the above without a light meter but you just have to 'guess' with the settings a bit more before you zero in on your preferred settings. F16 @ 15 seconds and ISO 400 is a good start.  The camera by the way was in Manual.

The image above shows the 'natural' light cast by the street lamps as I calibrate for daylight to get rid of the orange glow.

This image is a test shot and there is some camera shake as I was taking it at 1/15 sec.  You can see the huge difference between this and the previous image.  It really depends upon what you want to capture but in this case I prefer the nice blue sky and cleaner light than the orange glow.  As it happens you can see the overpowering effect of the streetlights (I think this is a little too bright) and you can see that when a long exposure is used you end up with sources of light making stars (this is to do with the construction of the lens.  I did not have a lens hood on but I am not sure how effective it would have been in reducing the glare.

The image above is the one I wanted to capture, although I elected to remove the road as the streetlamps would have been too bright.  You can see the lights on the building to the right, these were burning out on the image and so, depending upon what you want to do you can shorten the exposure which will darken the image and produce a more prominent effect from the lights.  The impact of the lights in this case is not great.  If I wanted to use this image I would edit the very small section of the barrier on the left hand bottom corner.

On my wanderings I also took a couple more but I was not inspired.

In this image I had to avoid a large green bin on the left hand side of the image and a very bright light on the right hand side of the image.  that said there are still a number of lights burning out, such as the bank on the right and indeed the pharmacy just to the right of the stage.  I could have taken a picture using a faster shutter speed but I did not see any merit in the image.  The thing that drew me initially was the rubbish on the ground and the lights on the building behind.  There was quite a few people around as well, in some cases moving across the image.

Flash & Blur

As part of my portrait portfolio for the recent course I attended I decided I wanted to include some flash and blur photographs.  I have to say that I am not a fan of it but then I suppose it depends on what the customer wants and what you are trying to do.  We did do some shots of a boxer in the studio using this technique and I wanted to replicate it to show that I have grasped the concept.

So what is meant by flash and blur?  Well in this instance it is taking a slow speed shot to accentuate movement using a fixed constant light source and a single flash to freeze the last part of the picture.  It is not a straightforward shot as the flash, which fires for a fraction of the time that the shutter is open, is triggered as the shutter is about to close.  Sometimes this is referred to as the second curtain, the first being when the shutter begins to open.  The fixed light is on for the duration therefore the sensor is receiving light for the whole period from this one source, which then causes the blur.

The equipment that you need to do the shot below is: camera, remote trigger (not essential), tripod, fixed light with stand, softbox flash unit with stand, camera mounted flash, black background or plain curtain, light meter and a model naturally!

 

The diagram above shows how I set up the studio, in this case my loft!  The  fixed light was at 90 degrees on the left hand side, the flash was facing the model alongside the camera.  The light meter read the fixed light at F18, 1/4 sec and ISO 200.  I used this setting to tune the power on the flash unit.  The next part was setting the on flash camera, a speedlite 550EX.  There is a feature on this unit that allows you to fire the flash as the second curtain is closing (the end of the 1/4 second exposure).  In the user manual it is referred to as second curtain synchronisation and I had to look it up to press the right buttons on the flash unit to make it work.  The flash itself was pointed to the rear of the camera as I was using it to fire the main flash unit via it's photo sensitive cell.  So on flash camera is set to fire as the curtain closes and it in turn triggers the main flash unit to freeze the image.  As I began to take pictures I slowed the shutter speed to 1/2 sec and increased the F-stop to compensate.  This is a question of taste and the speed at which the subject moves.

 

 

So now the hard part, composition.  What did I want the model to do?  To be brutally honest I didn't know other than to move in some direction.  I decided to go for a head shot for the sake of framing and the lack of space to get a full length shot in.  During the shoot there were a few times the on camera flash did not fire, the batteries were getting low so it was taking longer to refresh the charge.  In the end I opted for the model to side step from left to right of the image, this way I got the movement but also a clearly defined image.  If you imagine a sheet of paper that you have already drawn a face on, once you have used the free space then you either can't use it again or you have to draw over the top, which gets a bit messy.  In this case the paper is the camera's sensor and the blur is the multiple times which you have drawn over the first face.  It took a few attempts before I was happy with the shot.  I forgot to mention that I used the remote shutter release to take the photo, you can do this by hand or using the timer.

 

The first image is the planned shot the second is one that I took and the flash failed to fire.  I had to adjust the second image in RAW to set the white balance to flash, I had forgotten to set this earlier on the camera.  RAW is a format that you can set on the camera and it essentially saves all of the data so that you can do a lot more with the computer later on.  I rarely use the RAW file but I do have my camera set to capture both RAW and the JPEG image.  RAW takes up a lot of space so it is a personal choice you need to make.  My memory card is 16GB so there is always plenty of space.

The accident when the flash failed to fire is below, the model was adjusting her hair.

This last image was getting the model to look up and to the left.

 

For the next round I want to try out the strobe feature of the flash.

Shutter Speed

Of the three attributes of the camera used to obtain a correct exposure, shutter speed is perhaps the one that can really catch you out.  In this respect if you remember the F-Stop and ISO are the other attributes that play a role in getting the right exposure.

The function of setting the shutter speed is to: freeze moving objects, accentuate the movement of an object, give more time for the light to hit the sensor or allow less time for the light to hit the sensor.

I have taken a couple of shots below, which although they do not quite freeze the movement it does give you an idea of what the shutter speed will do.

The image above was taken using the following settings: F4.5, 1/60sec and ISO 800.  I shot this without flash and took a meter reading of the ambient light to obtain the correct exposure.  So what does this mean, well at 1/60sec you can see that the rotor blades are moving as they are blurred.  I bumped up the ISO (sensitivity of the sensor) and opened up the F-stop(hole) to let more light in.  The camera was on a tripod and I used a remote shutter release to take the picture.

 

In this image the settings were: F2.8, 1/160sec and ISO 800.  I compensated the increased shutter speed by opening up the aperture to 2.8, allowing more light in.  Although I have not frozen the movement you can see more clearly the rotor blades.   In order to capture the blades clearly (apart from not spinning them in the first place) I could introduce more light by either using flash or increase the ISO thereby making the sensor more sensitive.  I would then be able to increase the shutter speed to freeze the blades.

Things to think about when doing this: you may not see this clearly but the first image will have a greater depth of field, more of it is in focus because the aperture is smaller.  You will have to trade off between depth of field and shutter speed in this case but you can also trade off between graining or noise (quality of the image) by adjusting ISO settings, higher being less quality.  It all depends upon what it is you are trying to capture.

The last thing to keep in mind is that as you get to 1/60sec and below then you might experience camera shake.  You can overcome this by using a tripod and remote shutter release or resting the camera on something and using the timer feature that most cameras have.  Some lenses have image stabilisers and if you have a steady hand then maybe you can get away with hand holding the camera at slower speeds.  I used to be happy to hold the camera at 1/5sec but that was bracing myself against a wall or some other solid object.

Studio - In The Chair

Following on from my earlier post Studio Shoot and Photoshop, I thought I would add the following images that were taken as part of the same shoot.

In essence I wanted to try out a number of poses from a recent book that I bought (Photographing Models:1000 Poses A Practical Sourcebook For Aspiring And Professional Photographers by Eliot Siegel).  One of those that I saw used a classic looking chair.

I set up the lighting for high key which involved having a white background and floor covering, with two lights fixed onto the back wall and two further lights set up on the model.  The settings for the lights at the back was F22, meaning that the power was turned up to allow a correct exposure at F22 on a speed of 1/125 sec and ISO 200.  The settings for the lights on the model was F11 to allow a correct exposure at a speed of 1/125 and ISO 200.  The camera was set initially to the settings matching the lights on the model.  What this means is that the wall would end up over exposed and this is because the hole/aperture setting is smaller for the lights on the wall meaning more light is required to get the correct exposure and the camera setting is to allow only enough light in to correctly expose at F11 which is a larger hole.  The effect is that it bleaches out the white wall at the back. 

It is difficult to try and demonstrate the effect.  Another way to think about it is that the two wall lights are independent from the two model lights and to get a similar, if exaggerated effect outdoors, it to compare a sunlit patch of ground with a patch in shade.  If you take a picture of the two patches of light you will find that either the shadow will be under exposed or the sunlit patch will be over exposed.  Outdoors we use fill in flash to get rid of the shadow or a diffuser to tone down the sunlight.  More blogs to come in later! Anyway getting back to the shadow and sunlit patches, the wall lights are the sunlit part and the model lights are the shadow, it is the same effect caused deliberately in the studio.

Quite an explanation for that so I best move on to the photos.  There were a number of images which I quite liked from this shoot for different reasons.  All of them had to be cleaned up as the high key effect was not sufficient to leave the photos as they turned out.  My aim was to show the curves and shape of the model.  Although the camera was set to F11 at 1/125/sec and ISO 200 I adjusted the F-Stop to either 14 or 16 for most of the shots.  What I maybe should have also done is adjusted the lights at the back to ensure that the wall remained bleached out.

I gave no particular direction about the clothing, but occasionally I would adjust the scarf, I like the combination of black and red against the white background.  In terms of camera angles and poses I got the model to look down over her right arm and to cross her legs as I did a low level shot.  I just like this image as it is a formal appearance but yet a thoughtful look.

 

With this image I turned the chair 90 degrees and got the model to look towards the camera, the hand struck me as being a bit 'lost' on the end and I took a further picture with it lying flat although I didn't process it as she was looking forwards with that image.

 

For this image I again adjusted the angle of the chair and then I stood on another chair to get a downward shot with the arms crossing over.  In a lot of cases I waited until I saw the shot before getting her to pose.  She would often keep changing her position without being asked, but this sometimes resulted in me liking a position and then capturing it.

 

I then set about doing some close in shots.

 



ISO - Film Speed or Sensor Sensitivity

The ISO is supposed to stand for the International Standards Organisation but this covers more than just photography so it is rather meaningless in this context.  The ISO number ranges from 100 up to 6400 and sometimes higher on some cameras.  On my Canon D50 I have 100 up to 3200 then H1 and H2 (which I am presuming double each time).

The ISO number is one of the three variables to obtaining the correct exposure, the others being aperture and shutter speed.  So when adjusting the ISO you must remember to alter either the aperture or the shutter speed or both.

What is the effect of a low ISO such as 100?  Well this means the sensor is less sensitive to light, meaning you need more of it.  Also it will give richer colours.  An ISO of 3200 will be much more sensitive to light (5x) and will produce less rich colours.  When we had film this difference was referred to as graining, the graining increased in size when increasing the ISO number.  With digital cameras it is referred to as noise but has a similar if less noticeable effect.  In simple terms you will get better quality with a lower ISO.

For most of us you would not notice much of a difference unless you zoom in on the image some considerable distance.  The images below show the difference in quality shooting with different ISO settings.

 

This image was shot with the settings: F2.8 1/3sec ISO 100.  You will notice that the colour is stronger in this image.

 

This image was shot with the settings F2.8, 1/100sec and ISO 3200.  There is more noise or less quality with this shot.  I adjusted the shutter speed to compensate.

Just for scale the full sized image would normally be 168 x 112cms or 66 x 44 inches and is shown below.

So after all of that what is the main uses in digital photography.  Well for me it is to increase or reduce the sensitivity of the sensor to control the light.  In general terms though the advice is that you should not shoot above 400 to maintain quality of the image.  I now shoot at ISO 200 and I used to shoot at ISO 400.