Photography 101 - Assignment 3

Back after a little work induced hiatus.  Continuing our photographic journey, in this lesson we learn about proper exposure, manual metering, and the impact of film speed / ISO.

1. Choose a subject of interest to you, and photograph that subject in manual mode using the technique of bracketing as described in chapter 4 of the text.

2. Try shooting your subject from four or more directions, metering and bracketing from each direction.



3. Shoot one subject using all of your available ISO settings. 


4. Download your pictures or process your film using any film processing service that offers digitization of 35mm negative film so that the images can be displayed on the Web.

5. Review the pictures, and select four (4) images that you feel best demonstrate your abilities associated with this activity.

6. Post a brief self-critique of your photographic exercise (about 1–3 paragraphs). Describe the photos, how you carried out the exercise, what worked and what didn't, what you like about the photos you selected and what you would like to do differently.

Frankly, I found this exercise pretty boring which is part of the reason I took so long to do it.  Bracketing is pretty simple:  take three photos, one under-exposed, one at the correct exposure, and one over-exposed.  My camera can automatically perform the shift in exposure through a feature called auto exposure bracketing (AEB).  When shooting in manual exposure mode, the camera shifts the shutter speed to adjust the eposure.  Below you have the top photo one stop under-exposed, the middle properly exposed, and the bottom one stop over-exposed. The photos are straight out of the camera with no post processing.

The exposure level of a photograph (how bright or dark it is) gets determined by three factors: the lens aperture, the shutter speed, and the film speed or ISO.  Shutter and aperture, and their trade-offs (motion blur/stopping and depth of field) were covered in assignment 2.  The trade off in changing the ISO is noise.  Known as grain in film, noise shows up as black and white (or colored) dot patterns throughout the photo.  Noise is normally greater in the darker areas of the photo. Newer and higher quality cameras tend to have less noise, even at higher ISO settings.  In these images I really don’t start seeing the noise until the last highest two ISO settings. The below photos show the effect of increasing the ISO while maintaining the proper exposure and go from 100 to 12800 in one stop increments (100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800).     Again, the images have no post processing.

Photography 101 - Assignment 2

Next we learn about the impact of varying shutter speed and aperture on images we create.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

1. Choose a subject of interest, with buildings, trees, or other objects showing behind your subject. Place your subject four feet from the camera lens. Using the light meter on your camera, make three exposures. Select and adjust the lens to be wide open for the first exposure (e.g., f/3.5). Use the f/5.6 setting for the second exposure, and f/16 (the smallest opening) for the last.

2. Choose any moving subject (except the usual moving car). Review “Camera Care & Handling” at the Kodak Web site referred to in module 1 and the examples of using various shutter speeds in the text. Direct and photograph your subject to show (a) stopped action and (b) blurred action.

3. Download your pictures or process your film using any film processing service that offers digitization of 35mm negative film so that the images can be displayed on the Web.

4. Review the pictures, and select four (4) images that you feel best demonstrate your abilities associated with this assignment.

5. Post a brief self-critique of your photographic exercise (about 1–3 paragraphs). Describe the photos, how you carried out the exercise, what worked and what didn't, what you like about the photos you selected and what you would like to do differently.

Let’s tackle the moving subject first.  I am fond of flowing water photos, so I set up a stationary sprinkler on the lawn and took two photos.  In the first I used a high shutter speed (1/1000) and you can see the individual droplets of water.

For the second image I wanted as slow of a shutter speed as I could get and properly expose the photo.  By adding a three stop neutral density filter to the front of my lens I was able to get an exposure at 0.6 seconds.  For both shots I used a tripod so the images would have identical composition, but I would have needed one anyway to keep camera shake from ruining the exposure.

I chose a flower pot as the subject for the next set of images and in the background are the railings and random objects on my deck.  Again, I used the tripod for consistency in composition and took image at each whole f-stop on my lens (Canon EF 35mm F2.0 IS USM).  Starting at f2.0 the image shows some blurring of the background which gets clearer up to about f11 and after that the images are very similar.

I really enjoyed the exercise.  My favorite photo is the long exposure of the sprinkler.  There is an ethereal quality to the water trails that I find appealing.

Photography 101 - Assignment 1

 The first step in our photographic journey is about familiarization with the camera, self assessment and composition.  Here are the instructions (edited slightly to remove steps only applicable to the actual class students):

1. Choose a subject of interest to you, and under daylight conditions, place that subject at least 10 feet from the camera. Make two or three exposures.

2. Move nearer the subject (5 feet). Reframe, refocus, and reshoot. Then move 2.5 feet from the subject and shoot some exposures.

3. Download your pictures or process your film using any film processing service that offers digitization of 35mm negative film so that the images can be displayed on the Web.

4. Review the pictures, and select four (4) images that you feel best demonstrate your abilities associated with this activity.

5. Post a brief self-critique of your photographic exercise (about 1–3 paragraphs). Describe the photos, how you carried out the exercise, what worked and what didn't, what you like about the photos you selected and what you would like to do differently, etc.

For my photos I chose a flower bush in the bed in the side yard.  In the 10 foot distance photo I like the angle the bricks run across the photo and how it aligns with the angle the two bushes make across the siding.  I don’t care to have the electric meter in the photo, but oh well.

Moving into five feet, the composition suffers some.  The bush with the yellow flowers consumes half the photo and the siding and shadow create a negative space that pulls my eyes away from the the subject.  

At two feet the final photos show nice detail in the flowers and leaves and I like the contrast between the yellow and green.  In keeping with the spirit of the first exercise in the first photography course, I used Program mode on my camera and didn’t change the settings on my camera.  I think I would like the last photo more at a wider aperture and only the flower closest to the camera in sharp focus and less depth of field.

That’s all for this exercise.  Not bad, but not great.

Taking a Photography Course - Sort of

Wifey is working on finishing her degree and as an elective she decided to take “Introduction to Photography.”  For fun and practice, I am going to follow along with the exercises and post my inputs here.  The course runs for 8 weeks and culminates with a 20 photograph portfolio project.  

For the next few weeks I will post a summary of the assignment and what would be my submission if I was taking the course myself.  Feel free to follow along and provide feedback in comments or on Twitter.  

The text for the course is “Photography” Tenth Edition by London, Stone, and Upton, and my first submission will be up soon. There is an eleventh edition out, but the course specified the tenth.