photography it’s about the light. also... high-speed sync neutral density filters white balance...

Photographyit’s about the light

also...high-speed sync

neutral density filters white balance

softboxesISO

“the decisive moment”radio triggers

bulb exposure specular highlightshyperfocal distance

mirror lock-updynamic range

polarizersRAW vs JPEG

bokeh

focal length“the golden hour”

trailing curtain syncnoise reductioninfinity sweeps

aperture settingsgritty contrast

EXIF datahigh-key portraits

depth of fieldsnoots, grids, and

bounce cardsintervalometerscolor saturation

“f/8 and be there”

We’ll get to that

•overview -- general expectations

•syllabus & calendar

•photoblog

•week 1 -- basic terminology

success in the course will entail:• attendance• completing assignments -- in-class work, field work, submissions to class blog, homework (starting tonight)• establishing and building a portfolio• final assessment

•comp

Good pictures are hard work

Good pictures are hard work...

...or pure, blind luck:

And a cameraOld saying #1: “the best camera is the one

you have with you”.

Meaning: you can’t take good pictures if you don’t have a camera. Make that ‘any

pictures’.

Message: Bring your camera to every class. In fact, take it everywhere, always.

Syllabus & calendar

embrace imprecision

Week 1 (today): thisWeek 2 (5 Mar): Taking Control: understanding and moving beyond automatic settingsWeek 3 (12 Mar): Extreme Closeup: intro to macro photographyWeek 4 (19 Mar): The Golden Age of Wireless: intro to off-camera lighting equipment & techniquesWeek 5 (26 Mar): Your Best Light: product photography and building a macro-studio softboxWeek 6 (2 Apr): The Fruited Plain: landscape and scenic photography

Syllabus & calendar

embrace imprecision

Week 1 (today): thisWeek 2 (5 Mar): Taking Control: understanding and moving beyond automatic settingsWeek 3 (12 Mar): Extreme Closeup: intro to macro photographyWeek 4 (19 Mar): The Golden Age of Wireless: intro to off-camera lighting equipment & techniquesWeek 5 (26 Mar): Your Best Light: product photography and building a macro-studio softboxWeek 6 (2 Apr): The Fruited Plain: landscape and scenic photography

Syllabus & calendar

embrace imprecision

Week 1 (today): thisWeek 2 (5 Mar): Taking Control: understanding and moving beyond automatic settingsWeek 3 (12 Mar): Extreme Closeup: intro to macro photographyWeek 4 (19 Mar): The Golden Age of Wireless: intro to off-camera lighting equipment & techniquesWeek 5 (26 Mar): Your Best Light: product photography and building a macro-studio softboxWeek 6 (2 Apr): The Fruited Plain: landscape and scenic photography

Syllabus & calendar

embrace imprecision

Week 1 (today): thisWeek 2 (5 Mar): Taking Control: understanding and moving beyond automatic settingsWeek 3 (12 Mar): Extreme Closeup: intro to macro photographyWeek 4 (19 Mar): The Golden Age of Wireless: intro to off-camera lighting equipment & techniquesWeek 5 (26 Mar): Your Best Light: product photography and building a macro-studio softboxWeek 6 (2 Apr): The Fruited Plain: landscape and scenic photography

Syllabus & calendar

embrace imprecision

Week 1 (today): thisWeek 2 (5 Mar): Taking Control: understanding and moving beyond automatic settingsWeek 3 (12 Mar): Extreme Closeup: intro to macro photographyWeek 4 (19 Mar): The Golden Age of Wireless: intro to off-camera lighting equipment & techniquesWeek 5 (26 Mar): Your Best Light: product photography and building a macro-studio softboxWeek 6 (2 Apr): The Fruited Plain: landscape and scenic photography

Syllabus & calendar continued

adapt & overcome

Week 7 (16 Apr): The Wider World: overview of photography on & for the webWeek 8 (23 Apr): Freeze Frame: photography of objects & people in actionWeek 9 (30 Apr): Smoke & Mirrors: options and potentials in post-processingWeek 10 (7 May): April Showers, May Flowers: macro revisited and fieldworkWeek 11 (14 May): Oh, The Humanity!: people pictures part I21 May: GRADUATION PICTURES

Syllabus & calendar continued

adapt & overcome

Week 7 (16 Apr): The Wider World: overview of photography on & for the webWeek 8 (23 Apr): Freeze Frame: photography of objects & people in actionWeek 9 (30 Apr): Smoke & Mirrors: options and potentials in post-processingWeek 10 (7 May): April Showers, May Flowers: macro revisited and fieldworkWeek 11 (14 May): Oh, The Humanity!: people pictures part I21 May: GRADUATION PICTURES

Syllabus & calendar continued

adapt & overcome

Week 7 (16 Apr): The Wider World: overview of photography on & for the webWeek 8 (23 Apr): Freeze Frame: photography of objects & people in actionWeek 9 (30 Apr): Smoke & Mirrors: options and potentials in post-processingWeek 10 (7 May): April Showers, May Flowers: macro revisited and fieldworkWeek 11 (14 May): Oh, The Humanity!: people pictures part I21 May: GRADUATION PICTURES

Syllabus & calendar finalized

uncertainty is certain

Week 12 (28 May): People pictures part IIWeek 13 (4 June): Revision and portfolio work; final examWeek 14 (11 June): Final portfolios due

The bucket analogy

fill it fast, fill it slow

Light-gathering is governed by three basic factors:

• sensor sensitivity• shutter speed• aperture size

That’s it. Every picture’s exposure is a combination of these three elements

EVERYTHING IS A COMPROMISE

The need for speedCamera terminology is full of ‘speed’. Sometimes

it’s literal (e.g. a “fast shutter speed” happens very quickly). Other times it’s more metaphorical (“wow, that’s a fast lens!”). We’ll deal with this a little at a

time.

STOP!Another word you’ll see a lot of is ‘stop’.

Briefly, ‘stop’ is used as a noun meaning ‘any way of doubling the amount of light’. More

on this to come.

photo courtesy of Flickr user norm_p

Sensor sensitivityThe sensitivity of your camera’s sensor is

expressed with an ISO number. This number tells you how much light your camera’s

sensor can capture in a given amount of time.

ISOs usually range from around 80 to 6400 or so. For example, my Pentax K10D’s range is:

100, 200, 400, 800, 1600

general rule: lower is better

trade-off: high values allow shooting in low light but produce noise -- you’ll rarely want to go above ISO 400. Unless you like noise.

Noise:

ISO 1600 at f/4.5, 1/100th of a second, 140 km/hr

Useless fact #1‘ISO’ stands for International Standards

Organization. Another term for the same idea is ‘ASA’ (American Standards

Association).

You can forget that now.

‘Speed’ and ‘stop’ revisited

Remember ‘speed’ and ‘stop’? Here’s an example of the terms in use:

ISO 400 is one stop faster than ISO 200 -- it can collect twice the light in the same

amount of time.

Useless fact #2In the days of film, ISOs were determined by the film’s chemical coating. Once you loaded a roll of film, you could shoot only at that film’s ISO until you finished the roll. If you had a night-time shoot and your camera was loaded with daylight slide film, say, you had to finish that

roll (or waste it) before you could load with 800 or 1600 speed film.

For reasons like this, many photographers stuck mainly to one versatile film, like 200 color or

400 black and white.

Yes, black and white!

Shutter speed

The shutter is like a door that opens and shuts (get it?) to allow light to enter your camera.

Shutter speeds are expressed in fractions of a second -- or in whole seconds for long (like night

time) pictures.

Very high numbers, like 4000 (i.e., 1/4000 of a second) are used in extremely bright conditions -- like bright sunshine on a beach or snowfield --

and to freeze action. Low numbers (that is, whole seconds) are used with a tripod in low light.

general rule: faster is bettertradeoff: fast shutter speeds usually require big

apertures and/or high ISOs.

CompromiseSlower shutter speeds allow more light to

enter in dim conditions...

...BUT...

...slower shutter speeds blur moving objects

EVERYTHING IS A COMPROMISE

Shutter speed limitations

Handheld (which means ‘without a tripod or other support’), you can’t really go slower than 1/30 of a second without blurring.

Shake reduction technology is changing this, but not by much.

Every camera has a maximum sync speed (the fastest shutter speed you can set when

using a flash). Faster sync speeds allow more flexibility.

What do 3,600 seconds look like?

photo courtesy of Flickr user manyfires

Aperture means ‘opening’

This is where we move from camera body to lens. Lenses have an adjustable diaphragm that lets light through a hole. This is called

‘aperture’ and on the surface is simple:

a bigger hole lets in more light.

Aperture valuesThis is where simplicity goes the way of the dodo.

Aperture numbers seem to make no sense. This is because they are expressed as a ratio of hole area (∏r2) to focal length (more on this later).

Aperture numbers generally look like this:

f/1.2, 1.4, 1.8, 2, 2.8, 3.5, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22

learn this: big number means small holesmall number means big hole

photo courtesy of Flickr user norm_p

There’s that ‘fast’ again

A lens that’s capable of opening up very wide is called ‘fast’. It makes sense -- a big aperture allows you to use a very brief (i.e.

‘fast’) shutter opening.

f/1.4 is considered very fast.

Why aren’t all lenses ‘fast’?

Lenses with big maximum apertures tend to be heavier and bulkier than ‘slower’ lenses.

Oh, yeah, and more expensive to manufacture.

An exception to this is the cheap ‘fast 50’ -- most major camera companies make a fast 50mm

lens that is small, affordable, and takes gorgeous pictures. Many photographers consider

this the second lens everyone should buy.

(I might be one of those photographers.)

Some ‘fast 50s’

Aperture effectsBig aperture lets in more light, but it’s not as focused -- f/1.4 will yield a background that is

fuzzy, diffuse, blurry, ‘blown out’. People who like this (especially portrait and macro

photographers) call it

‘BOKEH’

Small aperture yields sharp focus in both foreground and background of the ‘picture

plane’. This is especially desirable in landscape photography. It’s called

‘DEPTH OF FIELD’

Fairly small aperture at hyperfocal distance for focus both shallow and deep --

aka ‘stopping down’.

Taken with a 17mm zoom lens at f/8

‘Bokeh’(previous photo)

Big aperture to ‘blow out’ potentially

distracting background detail, aka ‘opening up’.

Taken with a ‘fast 50’ at f/1.4

‘Speed’ and ‘stop’ revisited again

Here’s another example of ‘speed’ and ‘stop’ in use.

In terms of aperture:

f/8 is one stop faster than f/11 -- it can collect twice the light in the same amount of

time.

Remember, with aperture the numbers don’t make as much immediate sense as they do

with shutter speeds and ISO.

Stupid math.

Compromisef/8 falls in the middle of most lens ranges --

it’s a good compromise setting. Some photojournalists fall back on it, rather than

spending time worrying about what aperture setting they use. The key to getting a good

shot, they say, is

“f/8 and be there”

CompromiseFill the bucket.

At a high ISO it’s a small bucket and fills quickly.

At a low ISO it’s bigger and takes longer to fill.

A big aperture lets the water (‘light’) flow quickly.

A small aperture means a slower trickle.

Time is time, whether we’re transferring water or light.

RecappingYou must control three variables.

Sensitivity.

Time.

Opening.

Balancing these three variables is all there is to making decent pictures.

also...high-speed sync

neutral density filters white balance

softboxes ISO

“the decisive moment”radio triggers

bulb exposure specular highlightshyperfocal distance mirror lock-updynamic rangepolarizers

RAW vs JPEG bokeh focal length “the golden hour” trailing curtain sync noise reduction infinity sweepsaperture settings gritty contrast EXIF data high-key portraitsdepth of field snoots, grids, and bounce cardsintervalometers color saturation“f/8 and be there”

Okay...Not ‘all’. But the most fundamental

stuff you can control.

∞Given the settings of the average DSLR and lens today, the number of potential combinations of

ISO, shutter speed, and aperture for any photo you take is around

1000Multiply by angles of light, compositional decisions

you’ll make, and subject matter to arrive at a virtual infinitude of possible photographs.

IntentionsToday’s cameras can perform many

important functions for you.

Autofocus? Sure.

Auto white balance? Of course.

Multi-segment center-weighted exposure readings? Absolutely.

IntentionsBut these are functions, not

decisions.

IntentionsWhat do you want the picture to look

like?

IntentionsDoes the camera have a creative

vision?

IntentionsDo androids dream of electric sheep?

Old saying #2“It’s a poor carpenter who blames his

tools”.

Meaning: an informed photographer with a decent camera will always

take better pictures than an ignorant photographer with the best gear.

Message: whatever you’ve got, it’s enough to take great pictures, if your

intentions are good.

Write this downyou are taking notes, aren’t you?

Homework for next week:

1) email me at j.stephens@acs.bg2) following links contained in my reply, register on the blog. Read ‘About this site’ and the first two posts; establish a Flickr account; join the Flickr group ‘Elements at ACS’;3) Read “A Tedious Explanation of the f/stop” and “Dean Allen’s DSLR catechism” (both accessible via links on the blog’s sidebar)4) Bring your camera and its user’s manual next week*

*If you’ve lost the manual, Google

[(your camera make and model number) + “user manual” + pdf]

and download.

No.

Do this even if you haven’t lost the paper manual. Who reads paper stuff anymore?