WordPress

Alright, so it's only been a few weeks, but I figure if I'm going to switch, I should do it now...

I've moved my blog over to WordPress, so please check it out at:

fmycamera.wordpress.com

Natural Light Part II (a trend is developing...)

So, what you'll see in this sample photo that's the same as my first post on natural light is that it's relying on a big window as the light source. Even more specifically, it's a big window that is getting indirect sunlight so it's even softer.

Here's a photo of the room, so you can see just how much light was coming through the window.

I had my mom stand perpendicular to the window so that it gave a nice side light. Using natural light does tend to result in less detail and sharpness than a flash, but sharper isn't always better, and after all, natural is in its description.

Olympus E-620. 50mm @ f2.0, 1/250 sec, ISO 100.

Using Exposure Compensation

Sure, you can shoot in full manual and really control the exposure. But, if you're like me and generally shoot in aperture priority mode and use the matrix metering, then there are cases where using exposure compensation can really help.

If you're taking a picture that has a specific subject you want the focus to be on (like a portrait), then making sure that subject is properly exposed is more important than worrying about blown highlights (although Niels may take issue) or underexposed shadows.

Deciding when you should use exposure compensation is based on your subject and the background. In an extreme example, when someone is in front of a lot of snow, then the camera's metering might underexpose the subject's face, because it's trying to properly expose the entire image when the thing you care most about is small relative to everything else. Many point and shoot cameras actually have face recognition designed to meter a photo based on the faces for this very reason.

Something else to keep in mind is that the LCD screen on your camera tends to boost the brightness for readability in sunlight and in doing so, even underexposed images may look good on screen.

So, if you're shooting something that is darker relative to everything else in the frame, then you can adjust the exposure compensation in increments. Most cameras do it in 0.3 or 0.7 steps. I tend to do +0.7 at most, because anything more than that and it's likely that you really will be blowing highlights on more than you want to in the frame. A value of +1.0 would mean the camera is compensating for a full f-stop over what it was metering for the image. For a full definition of f-stops, you can check out Wikipedia.

Here's an example scenario where I used +0.7 EV, because I was taking a picture of Roxy on the light carpet. Because she's so dark, I often lose detail in her face, and by increasing the exposure compensation helps ensure more contrast and detail in her fur.

Olympus E-620 @ 50mm, f2.0, 1/200, ISO 400, +0.7 EV.

What using high ISO really means

Getting over my aversion to using anything over ISO 400 has meant understanding better what the implications are of using higher ISOs.

Yes, high ISOs are necessary to get shutter speeds in low light that are fast enough to prevent motion blur or camera shake.

Yes, the drawbacks to image quality when ISOs get high is that it introduces noise, decreases contrast and colors can start to get a little muddy--BUT, a properly exposed image can hide this.

What it really means is that when shooting high ISO, the margin of error is a lot smaller and the key is to ensure that it's properly exposed. More specifically, ensure it's not underexposed. When a high ISO image is underexposed and you try and lighten the shadows, the detail is usually not there, but a lot of noise is.

So, just remember for anything over ISO 400 (at least for Olympus cameras), be sure to properly expose your shot, and I even err on the side of overexposing to be doubly sure.

Here's a shot from today that I took at ISO 800. Roxy moves a lot and I needed ISO 800 to make it fast enough to try and keep it sharp. You'd have a hard time knowing that it was ISO 800 though, because it was well exposed and because so much of the photo is bokeh (the out-of-focus blur), which helps hide noise.

Olympus EP-1 @ 20mm, f1.7, 1/125 second, ISO 800,+0.7 EV.

Sunset Shoot Fail

Well, with daylight savings time there has been a lot more daylight to work with after work. So, I thought I'd take tonight as an opportunity to try a sunset shoot using fill flash.

The result failed for a few reasons:

1) The sunset wasn't very impressive. It was still a little early when I took the photo, but it was obvious it wasn't instantly going to turn into a good one.

2) The background is distracting. This was a composition issue and if I thought I'd be able to get a winner out of it, I would have tried something else, but it was clear it was a fail, because...

3) My poor choice of flash. I decided to try off-camera and bare. Either one on it's own might have been okay, but that combination plus poor flash position resulted in some hard shadows that made for an unflattering picture.

So, this post is all about what not to do. At least you can see the hard shadow a bare flash (at 1/16 power no less) produced when shot off-camera to the right and pointing slightly up. Shooting head-on with a flash on-camera would have helped with the shadows here--although a head-on direct flash usually doesn't produce very interesting results when it's the only light source in front of the subject.

Anyway, if I were really determined to try and salvage the shoot, I'd have made the aperture smaller so the sky wasn't as overexposed as well as either moving the flash so the shadows weren't going up and across her face, or pointing it up more so that it wasn't as hard a light. But instead, I decided posting a failure was just as good.

Olympus E-620 @ 50mm, f2.8, 1/200, ISO 100. Strobist: Bare 285HV low camera right @ 1/16 power.

Of Course, Natural Light Works Too

I was prepared for another gray day today, so I wasn't expecting the sun to be showing through this morning. While my recent focus may have been on shooting with a flash, the morning light was a chance to use the windows in our living room using the same principles.

Here's a shot of the corner of our living room with windows on two sides. The smaller window on the right is where more light was coming in through since it faces East.



The upside to natural light is that it's constant and makes it easier to meter. The downside is that indoors, it's often not as strong as a flash, so I had to open the aperture up as far as it would go as well as using ISO 200 to get a shutter speed that would be fast enough to keep the image sharp.

In this first shot, Jenny was facing the brightest window, with the larger window to her left. You can see it softens the light a little bit so that the shadows across her face aren't too hard and she's still well-lit from the front. This is similar to using a big umbrella camera right.



This second shot was taken with her back to the large window and light from the bright window coming from her left (obviously). Here, there are more shadows on the right side of her face (and hard shadows around her smile), while the left side has parts that are almost blown out. This is similar to bouncing a flash off a close wall.




Both shots were taken with my Olympus E-620 @ 50mm f2.0.

Strobist: Day 1

One key to becoming a better photographer is understanding light. And when most of my free time is spent after the sun's gone down, it's even more important to understand how to use a flash. So far, I've been experimenting with bouncing a flash, but based on posts by Laurence Kim and having lurked the Strobist.com group on Flickr, I've become inspired to try using a flash off-camera. This has been popular for a while and a blogger several years ago coined the phrase "Strobist," which stuck. Strobist.com is still extremely popular and it contains several tutorials that are very helpful for starting out.

Honestly, there's so much information out there, it's actually a little overwhelming on knowing where to start. An initial setup can actually be pretty easy and inexpensive when you get down to it. If you already have an amateur level of gear, including a tripod and a flash, then really there are only 3 things you need:

1) An umbrella. This is to diffuse the light and is what's called a "modifier." A soft box is another modifier that controls the light better, but is more expensive and isn't as quick to setup or tear down. I went with a white, shoot through, which is closer to a soft box. The bigger the umbrella, the softer light. They're measured based on the arc, not the diameter, and I went with a 43" white satin umbrella from Westcott. Umbrellas can be had for around $20.

2) A swivel holder (with a shoe for the flash). This is the part that connects to the tripod (or light stand), holds the umbrella, and the flash attaches to it, pointed at the center of the umbrella. There are a lot of options out there, but the biggest thing is to make sure it has a shoe for the flash (preferably with a screw to lock it in place) and that it has the adapters to ensure it fits on your tripod/stand. Here's one from Adorama, although again, there are a lot of different options out there all around the $15-$20 price range.

3) A way to trigger the flash off-camera. Many cameras can optically trigger a flash by using its onboard flash to send a quick pulse. Any "slave" flash that can be optically triggered (sometimes called wireless triggering) will respond to this little pulse and in turn it'll fire. If the camera/flash combination cannot be optically triggered, then it requires a wire or radio trigger, which come in a breadth of options as well.

Well, today my new gear arrived and tonight I was able to give it a try with a simple setup. Using the 43" white shoot-through umbrella set up in our bedroom, I took some shots of Jenny (and a couple with Roxy, too). The umbrella was set up camera high left pointing at Jenny at about a 45-degree angle. Some shots had the light angled more from the side, but always from her right (camera left).

One challenge I had was with focusing. Even with all the lights turned on, the auto-focus struggled and would hunt. When I switched to manual focus, I had a hard time finding the right focal point given the E-620's dim viewfinder. So it goes. I started with my 40-150mm, but switched to my 14-54mm after focusing issues. I also shot a couple with my EP-1/20mm Panny.

Here's one from the "shoot." It's actually harder than I had made it out to be in my mind, so I'll need a lot more practice. I also struggle with having a place to shoot without distracting backgrounds. Oh well, practice is the fun part, right?

Something else I found interesting is that between the 3 lenses I used, there were some noticeable differences. The 40-150mm was sharp, but it didn't have the nice tones that the 14-54 did. The 20mm on the E-P1 was really sharp, and had really strong contrast. Here's a set with some other pictures from tonight where I'll keep adding more as I practice.