Thursday 31 March 2011

Panning with Different Shutter Speeds

To demonstrate movement for this exercise I decided to use travelling vehicles, by varying the shutter speed and following the vehicles movement will be illustrated by the introduction of motion blur within the back ground.

f/5.6-1/500-100-40mm
Panning with the vehicle here at a shutter speed of 1/500 freezes the action of the vehicle and the surrounding.





f/6.3-1/320-100-40mm
Slight motion introduced in the surroundings and wheels of the vehicle at this shutter speed.







f/6.3-1/200-100-40mm
More motion is detected in the surroundings at this shutter speed.





f/10-1/100-100-40mm
More motion is detected in the surroundings at this shutter speed.





f/18-1/60-100-40mm
The appearance of movement is now more apparent as the scene illustrates more motion blur while keeping the vehicle in focus.





f/16-1/40-100-40mm
More motion is detected in the surroundings at this shutter speed.






f/20 -1/30-100-40mm
More motion is detected in the surroundings at this shutter speed. Vehicles are now becoming more difficult to keep focused while panning free hand. 




f/22-1/20-100-17mm
Large amount of motion is detected in the surroundings at this shutter speed. This gives the appearance that the vehicle is travelling fast.





While taking the photo it should be noted that the effect on the surroundings differed significantly depending on the speed the vehicle was travelling at. At Shutter speeds of 1/20 each shot became more difficult depending on the vehicle approaching and amount of movement that was involved while panning. 

Looking at the exercises involving movement I am drawn more towards the lower end of the shutter speeds which in "Shutter Speeds" was around the 1/50 mark as this gave the appearance of the jet of water in smooth lines and the splash around the base of the fountain was still slightly in focus and not overly blurred. I like the rainbow effect through the fountain, which was very dependant on light and wind.

Moving on to the panning exercise its nice to illustrate this principal with fast moving objects. However the faster they go while shooting at slower shutter speeds made getting the right photograph very challenging. Again here I prefer the speeds of 1/20 which make the foreground and background nicely blurred while the vehicle remains in focus. 



Monday 28 March 2011

It's Dark Day!

There's nothing like a set back that puts a damper on your day, and makes you think twice about how you are doing things!

Over the weekend, while working on my next post and set of exercises, the hard drive I kept all my photographs on decided to give up and die!
No amount of effort or well basically anything could retrieve the data, so I eventually lost everything. To my own admission and fault, I hadn't gotten around to backing my work up.
The next 6 exercises were lost as too where were a fair few photos :(

Thankfully this has given me a kick up the behind and I've now sorted a dedicated lap-top for my work and photo editing, together with an additional Portable Hard Drive for backing all my work up!
My equipment was new, who thought it would die on me .... Moral of the story .... Back it up!

6 weeks behind schedule, BUT I refuse to let this set back, deter me, we learn from our mistakes and battle onwards

Friday 25 March 2011

Exercise: Shutter Speeds

This exercise illustrates the effect on the photo by varying the shutter speed from the very fast 1/4000 to the slow 0.5 second.
On a visit to Marwell Zoo, I noticed a fairly high powered water jet/fountain which in the available light had a stunning rainbow effect shining through it and decided that this would make a good subject for my next exercise.

Photos with varying shutter speeds
f/5.6-1/4000-800-194mm
This shot freezes the jet of water from the fountain and all other detail around.









f/5.6-1/3200-800-194mm
Shutter speed is still fast enough to capture the jet and spray from the fountain.









f/5.6-1/2500-400-194mm
Shutter speed is still fast enough to capture the jet and spray from the fountain, however the base is becoming blurred and ISO has changed to keep the photo at a constant exposure.







f/5.6-1/2000-400-194mm
Shutter speed is still fast enough to capture the spray from the fountain but here you can begin to see the base of the jet is blurred.









f/5.6-1/1600-400-194mm
Shutter speed is now beginning to show signs of movement through the entire stream of the water fountain.








f/5.6-1/640-100-194mm
The water jet is becoming more blurred as the voracity of the water fountain becomes too fast for the slower to capture.








f/6.3-1/400-100-194mm
Note a change in aperture to keep exposure a constant.









f/9.0-1/200-100-194mm
Note a change in aperture to keep exposure a constant.









f/13-1/100-100-194mm
The jet of water is now beginning to become streamlined, adding to the appearance of fast moving water/spray. Note a change in aperture to keep exposure a constant.








f/20-1/50-100-194mm
Note a change in aperture to keep exposure a constant.









f/32-1/25-100-194mm
The fountain now appears as streams/jets of water, more appealing to the eye. 
Note a change in aperture to keep exposure a constant.








f/32-1/10-100-194mm
The fountain now appears as streams/jets of water. 
Due to the light, constant exposure was now getting tricky, stopping down the camera internal exposure setting was one method I used here to try and keep exposure constant.
Note the water droplets from the top of the fountain falling around the base are now becoming blurred.




f/32-1/4-100-194mm
The fountain now appears as streams/jets of water and the water droplets are blending into one.
I used an ND4 filter here to try and lengthen the exposure time/shutter speed while keeping the exposure 'near' constant! 






f/32-0.5-100-194mm
The fountain now appears as streams/jets of water and the water droplets become a blur of movement. 
I used an ND4 filter here to try and lengthen the exposure time/shutter speed while keeping the exposure 'near' constant! 






Altering the shutter speeds, on moving object can help in portraying movement. Personal preference will vary depending if you like to see the fountains water captured still, or flowing as a stream or jet of water. On reflection increasing the shutter speeds can lead to over exposed photos (see 0.5sec - last one) so choosing the correct lighting environment is critical. 

Exercise: Focus at Different Apertures

Here I had to choose a subject that would demonstrate the effect of focus and depth of field through different apertures. The central object would be in focus all of the time, the camera must remain still (mounted on tripod) then by changing the aperture from largest f/1.4 to the smallest f/22 its effects (focus) would be noticeable.

Photo 1
f/1.4-1/4000-400-50mm













Photo 2
f/11-1/80-400-50mm













Photo 3
f/22-1/20-400-50mm













Photos above demonstrate that when shooting with a large aperture the effective area that remains in focus is relatively small and centred around the focal point. When decreasing the aperture number (stopping down) this effective focal area becomes larger and the definition between the smaller 'f' numbers becomes more difficult to distinguish. The smaller the 'f number i.e. f/22 the more "in focus" the entire photo will become.

Thursday 24 March 2011

Exercise: Focus with a set Aperture

The idea here is to take 3 photographs of a subject where you can set the focus at different distances to demonstrate a change in depth of field.
Set 1









Set 2










Final Set
CLOSE FOCUS - f/5.6-1/1250-100-250mm

MIDRANGE FOCUS - f/5.6-1/1250-100-250mm

FAR FOCUS - f/5.6-1/1600-100-250mm













I enjoyed taking these photographs and changing the appearance of the photo by setting the focal point at different distances. Hence the reason I decided to include several sets.
I decided to put more focus on my photographs of the cats eyes and carriageway, perhaps partly because of my engineering background, although as the road bends away to the right I felt the depth of field and simplistic detail/structure of the photos blends itself together very well here.

With this arrangement I found myself drawn towards the 'Far Focus' photograph. I feel it gives more depth to the photo and a sense of personal journey.
However looking at the previous sets I prefer the 'Close Focus' shots and sharpness it brings to the forefront of the image. To my mind different subjects will give different results, different opinions and overall likeability and feeling towards the photograph.

Exercise: Focal Length and Angle of View

In this exercise I've had to take 3 photographs, one standard view (as our eyes see), one wide angle and one zoomed. After printing these on A4 the exercise was to take them back and check and measure the distance at which these image become true to life.

I decided to carry out my first exercise on Harting Down while out on a walk one day.
Photo 1
Image held 70cm from eye to achieve true to life composure 
Standard view, taken 10m away from fence and gate at 55mm
f/5.6-1/1000-800-55mm

Photo 2
Image held 20cm from eye to achieve true to life composure
Wide Angle view, taken 10m away from fence and gate at 18mm
f/4-1/2500-800-18mm

Photo 3
Image held 300cm from eye to achieve true to life composure
Zoomed View, taken 10m away from fence and gate at 250mm
f/5.6-1/640-800-250mm

Final thoughts ... I was surprised that even though my camera 'Canon 550D' which has a 1.6x crop factor that the standard view was recorded at 55mm focal length. I would have thought it would have been less.