Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved

(Note the vulture above was photographed on a cloudy day. Had it been sunny, the contrast range would have been so great that there would be no detail in the bird’s dark feathers.)

As I write this, it’s a rare cloudy day on the beach at Estero Lagoon. Many photographers leave their camera at home on cloudy days. Wow what a mistake. Cloudy days can make for some tremendous photography. Here is just a short list of photo opportunities on cloudy days.

1. People/Portraits

Clouds mimic the nice diffuse light of a soft-box. This diffuse light is flattering, easy to work with, doesn’t cast harsh shadows and reduces the squinting caused by direct sunlight.

2. Forests

It’s very difficult to photograph a forest in harsh sunlight. You end up with splotchy, unattractive light. Cloudy days allow you to keep the contrast in check.

3. Tide Pools

If you’re lucky enough to be near the ocean you have probably seen tide pools. These are very tough to photograph during bright sunny days. The specular highlights blow out all too easily.

4. Waterfalls/Streams

Waterfalls and streams can be at their very best on a cloudy day. If you want to slow down the shutter speed and blur the water, it’s easier on a cloudy day since there’s less light to work with to begin with. Similar to photographing tide pools you control specular highlights and lastly, you avoid splotchy light.

5. Dramatic Skies

When you have interesting clouds you have interesting sun shots. Sunrises and sunsets are much more interesting on a cloudy day – just so long as the cloud cover has a few breaks here and there. The suns rays bursting through the clouds is also a nice shot.
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Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved

While teaching a field workshop, you’ll often hear me call out to the students – “Backgrounds, Backgrounds, Backgrounds.” Backgrounds matter. And choosing the right background for your subject can mean the difference between success and failure.

You can have a great subject in great light but a poor background will kill the mood.

Take the picture above. You’ll note the smooth background focuses your eye on the bird. There’s nothing behind the bird competing with the bird for your attention. The background also offers contrasting color which also focuses your eye on the bird.

The picture below, taken on the nest is distracting. The tree twigs and mass of different colors compete with the bird for your attention.

Photo Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved

Neither picture is going to win any awards, but the photo on top is much better. The cleaner the background, the better the chance that your photo will be successful. While this is particularly true in wildlife photography, it’s often true in other types of photography.

If you think the background needs to be full of stuff to make the photo sophisticated or cool, you’re missing the mark. Simple is often the best choice.

Whether you agree or not, at least make a conscious effort to scan the background of your image before you press the shutter.

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So I have a little game I first played with Elizabeth Pratt from Canon. The game is called “Guess that ISO”. We are going to play it here today. For those of you who are not professional photographers, ISO is the sensitivity rating of the film or chip in the camera. Lower ISOs are best in bright lighting conditions and higher ISOs allow for proper exposure in low light situations.

Here is the image we are going to work with. It was shot with a Canon 1D Mark IV. This is the final image with various adjustments and increased noise reduction etc. I just wanted you to get a feel for the image we are working with.

The Fine Print:

The zoomed in detail images below have only one adjustment applied. I have to be upfront here, I am not going to show you the original image with no noise reduction because that is not practical, no image is used without a default noise reduction. So, what I am showing you below is the image with absolute “normal” noise reduction in Adobe Lightroom. I have the NR set at 25, witch is the default for Lightroom for basically every camera on the market.

With the fine print out of the way, let’s play.

GUESS THAT ISO…

Look at the grain structure and noise levels and tell me what ISO did I use?

Now for a little lesson on color noise and grain.

In the beginning, was film. Film is made up of millions and millions of floating silver halides (little flex of “want-to-be silvers). These silver halides float in a gelatin emulsion (like jello but harder – made mostly of cow hooves etc…). So, no
film image is ever a continuous tone. Even the best film image has a grain structure to it. The image is made up of tiny little randomized dots that, when seen from a distance create the illusion of an image. George Seurat made paintings in this manner, which is known as pointillism. His paintings were constructed from random specks of paint placed in proximity to each other. Colors were mixed, not by blending pigment, rather, several dots of yellow and blue were mixed by the eye to create the illusion of green. As the dots got closer together, the tones became more dense and vice versa as they grew further apart. The further back you stand from a Seurat painting the better and more continuous the tones and colors in the painting appear. If you have ever seen a color newspaper or magazine up close, you have seen a very large and pattern based version of pointillism. Photographic grain (color and black and white) exhibits with the same principles.

Film’s inherent grain structure was a necessary part of the photographic image making from the the 19th through the 20th centuries. We accepted it and grew to love it, because it was the only option available. Slower films, which required brighter light, had less grain and more continuous tones; faster films, which could be shot in lower light situations had more grain and created a more pointillistic effect. We came to see grain as part of the art form. Larger, more prominent grain structures felt gritty and press like. They insinuated “documentary” and “reality”, while tighter, smother grain structures presented a cleaner, cleaner view of the world, so we saw them as more controlled. Landscape photographers and commercial photographers shot this way, so naturally the images were typically more perfect and therefore a little less believable than the gritty “documentary” style images with all that grain.

Originally, photographic emulsions were mixed in only one variety: the grainy, gritty kind. But, with the advancement of the science and the introduction of finer grain structures and faster emulsions, photographers began choosing film speeds, not just to deal with different lighting conditions, but also to create a different mood or feeling in their images. Selecting a 1600 ISO press film for a commercial fashion shoot was a choice specifically made by the photographer to suggest reality, documentary or art! Films were chosen based on their color bias and for their grain structures. Some photographers loved large grain, others loved fine grain. But grain was always a part of the photographic life and we all accepted its existence and learned to manipulate it to our advantage.

With the advent of digital photography as a viable photographic medium, photographers no longer had to accept grain. Unlike film, digital captures are made up of a grid of pixels, and those pixels are so close together that from one point of color or tone to the next there are no gaps. This means it is a truly continuous tone. Digital presented us with a grain-less option that was so clean and so flawless that the visual language began to change. Photographers expected more out or their image making tools and started seeing grain as a flaw in the image as opposed to a beautiful part of it and, to some degree, some clients have rejected that gain as well. Seurat would be agog at our negative reaction to grain in a continuous tone digital age. He went through great pains to create paintings completely out of this grain-like effect and here we come in 1010 thinking that grain is an eye sore? Strange indeed.

While it is great to know that I have the option for grain-less images, the fact still exists, that grain has a purpose in image making and when used well, enhances the photograph. But, one thing digital has not done well, in the past, is grain.

Our love affair with the cleanliness of the digital capture, only lasted in the lower ISOs of the camera. Digital cameras had a problem of color and luminance noise in the higher ISOs. I remember shooting with a Nikon D1x and then a Canon 10D. Both cameras were absolutely worthless at 800 ISO. Even if you could stand the blocky and offensive grain structure, the color noise was so atrocious, you could only keep the file if you were willing to turn it to black and white. Even just 3 years ago, when comparing film to digital, one would have to admit that while the digital capture did a better job at creating a continuous tone in the lower ISOs, films were far superior to digital in the higher ISOs with its beautiful grain structures. If a digital photographer wanted beautiful grain, he would have to shoot his image in a lower ISO and then digitally manipulate the image and render the grain into the image. This is no longer the case…

Recently, camera technology and image software technology together have reduced the color noise and randomized the grain structure in the higher ISOs to the point that a side by side film and digital grain comparison at 800, 1600, 3200 ISO will leave film in the dust for continuous tone and fine grain structure. Our little guess the ISO game proves this point. In a dimly lit room, the Canon 1D Mark IV can record details, brighter than the eye can see them, at a 100th of a second and yet the grain structure is tight and beautiful. It seems that with each new generation of cameras, film looses another unique feature. Beautiful grain in the higher ISOs is the just the latest.

I have never bought into the notion that grain is a negative thing. When I shot film, I loved the grain of 400 TMAX. I loved shooting with Fuji 1600 or Ilford 3200. Now, digital has matched the beauty of those grain structures without any heroic manipulations in photoshop. Say it with me again and again, “grain is beautiful!” And now, in digital we have every option before us: heavy grain, light grain or absolutely no grain. And we don’t even have to change film!

Thanks Canon!

Jared Platt

And the ISO is…

So now, are you ready to know the ISO? 12,800 ISO. I am still astounded. The Mark IV, together with Adobe Lightroom’s standard noise reduction creates a beautiful, tight grain structure with no offending color noise whatsoever. You can not beat that. It this point, every ISO from 50-12,800 is usable in digital without a second thought.

PS. Don’t get on me about Nikon v Canon, or Film v Digital. I’m not judging you if you shoot Nikon or Film. I used to shoot Nikon film cameras. To date, my favorite body I have ever shot with is a the Nikon F5. Film still has its place and still beats the pants off digital when there is no electrical outlets to charge your camera or when it comes to latitude of capture. I’m just talking about where we’ve been and how far we’ve come with respect to grain in photography. Think about it. We’ve come a long way.

We’re far more self-aware these days than in previous generations. We live in a world with very high expectations. We play in virtual or online worlds. Our minds wrap well around video games based on alternate universes. We text, and IM and e-mail and Tweet and it all makes it too easy to forget some of our more powerful human traits. Take empathy for instance.

When you set out to make a portrait of somebody, what are you thinking? Chances are you’re thinking about any one or more of the following things:

a. Gear, camera settings, technology
b. Lighting
c. Selling the portrait
d. Showing the portrait
e. Winning an award for the portrait
f. Having the portrait measure up to the subject’s expectations
g. Having the portrait measure up to your peer’s expectations
etc.

While I may be using a little hyperbole there to make a point, my guess is I am not far off for some of you.

What’s missing from this list?

Empathy.

While all the things on the list I just offered you may be reasonable to consider, the first thing I’d like to ask you to consider is your subject. How are THEY feeling? How’s this process going from THEIR point of view? Are they happy, sad, afraid, tense, angry, tired, thrilled, worried, anxious, etc.

If as the portrait maker, you’re not focused on how the subject is feeling, you’re missing a big opportunity to improve your work.

Seeing this experience through the eyes of the portrait subject is revealing. They may misinterpret much of what’s going on. If they are fearful of having their portrait made, they may be spinning out of control on the inside just about the time you say “SMILE!”

Try slowing down and examining the situation from their point of view. Stop looking at yourself in the mirror and look at them. Remember that most likely, unless the subject is a professional model, they may fear that they don’t “take a good picture.” It’s our job as photographers to reassure them that they measure up just fine.

Next, try to connect with the subject. I mean really connect. Come OUT from behind the camera. Come close to the subject. Shake their hand. Thank them for the opportunity to tell their story. Ask them questions that would help them understand that you really care about them more than the photo. After all, isn’t a human life worth more than any photograph?

Lastly focus (not your camera) but your mind on your subject. Listen to them. No I mean really LISTEN to them. Don’t fiddle with your camera or check your text messages or talk on the phone or type on the computer when they come in. Focus 100% of your attention on them. Put yourself in their shoes. They just walked in to your studio or met you on location to have their portrait made. See how they are doing. Deal with their condition first and then, set out to finish any other list you have.

How do I know this works? Simple. For the first 10 years of my career I was so focused on my work that when I made portraits I ignored nearly every one of these suggestions. Then one day I had a relative come into the studio. She was so nervous she was sick. Because I cared for her more than my previous clients (she was a relative after all) I paid attention to her. She relaxed. I made a portrait of her that she said was the best she’d ever seen. That lesson wasn’t lost on me. I hope it will help you too.

I recently built a little device which triggers my camera whenever a laser beam is broken – It’s about as simple an electronics project as you can pull off, but it’s going to form the base of a couple of other cool projects I’ll be working on going forward (stay tuned…), so I figured I’d do a quick post explaining how I did this.

Talking to the camera

This looks a lot like a headphone jack, but it isn't - headphone jacks are 3.5mm, this is 2.5mm.

Even though it isn’t strictly necessary, I decided to use my Arduino (check out Arduino.cc) as the base for this project.

I say ‘not necessary’ because you can build this project using just electronic components, which makes it all a lot simpler – however, what I really wanted to do is to build a base on which I can build further in the future. If you want to get more advanced, it becomes a lot easier to use a programmable micro-controller like the Arduino, so I figured I may as well start where I mean to continue.

I stripped the wires from the remote lead. Connecting green and red triggers the camera.

To interface with the camera, I decided to keep things as simple as possible, and I used the 2.5mm jack port on the side of my Canon EOS 450D. If your camera has a different remote control port, you should still be able to use the tips described in this post, but you’ll have to source the actual plug yourself.

Using the remote control port has several advantages, the biggest of which is that it’s really easy to trigger the camera this way. All you need to do is to make a connection between two wires! I bought a couple of cheap remote controls from China and used one of ‘em to interface with my camera, but you can go into your local electronics store to pick up a 2.5mm jack for next to no money…

Triggering the camera with the Arduino

This is the most important part of this mini-project: As soon as you can trigger the camera with the Arduino, only your imagination will stop you from coming up with ways of using this. Because the Arduino will accept input from any number of sources, you can program it to take photos in just about any circumstance imaginable. Just a few ideas:

• Motion sensor (trigger the camera when it senses movement)
• Heat sensor (take a picture when the)
• Sound sensor (take a picture when the dog barks or the phone rings)
• Telephone trigger (Hook up the arduino to a mobile phone. Call or SMS the mobile phone to take a picture)
• Timelapse photography (Program the Arduino to take a photo every minute)

There are a few different ways you can use the Arduino to trigger the camera – I considered using a relay, but the problem is that even very fast relays are quite slow, so I decided to use a transistor instead:

You! At the back! no sniggering at my atroceous schematic drawing skills!

The Arduino sends a signal to the transistor, which connects the two leads leading to the camera, which triggers the camera.

Forgive the rubbish picture - I was prototyping, so it's less than clear what's going on here. The important bits are in the schematic above. Honest, it's piss easy.

Getting the laser trigger to work

I hooked up a LDR (Light-dependent resistor) with a pull-down resistor to ensure that it wouldn’t trigger randomly to the analog sensor pin 0 on the Arduino. The programme uploaded to the Arduino is as follows:

 int sensorPin = 0;
 int sensorValue = 0;
 int cameraTrigger =  13; 

 void setup() {
   pinMode (cameraTrigger, OUTPUT); }

 void loop() {
   sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
   if (sensorValue > 700) {
// trigger is quite low, might need to be higher in daylight
     digitalWrite (cameraTrigger, LOW);
   }
   else
   {
     digitalWrite (cameraTrigger, HIGH);
     delay(10);
     digitalWrite (cameraTrigger, LOW);
	 delay(1000); // Take max 1 pic per second
   }
 }

Pull-down resistor to ensure true readings, and a LDR to do the actual light measuring.

With the arduino all programmed, I just had to add the LDR.

Now, I rigged up a laser module aimed at the LDR, and I checked what the common sensor values were – turns out that it drops to about 200 when the laser beam wasn’t hitting the sensor, and goes up to about 900 or so when it is hitting the sensor. I set the sensor trigger to about 700 to give me some leeway.

In the above snippet of code, the interesting stuff happens in the loop: Basically, it checks if the sensor has gone ‘dark’. If it hasn’t, it simply checks again.

The bright pink bit in the photo here is the laser beam hitting the LDR.

If the Arduino detects that the sensor has gone ‘dark’, it triggers the camera for 10 milliseconds, then untriggers it. This is to ensure that the camera doesn’t continue taking photos for the duration of the beam being broken – I have my camera set to ‘one shot’ anyway, but by adding this line of code, it should still work if the camera is set to continuous shooting when the shutter button is held down.

When the Arduino detects a broken beam, it takes a photo, then waits for a second, before checking for a broken beam again. If it’s still broken, it’ll take another photo and then waits another second.

Does it even work?

Yup. But a video says more than a thousand words so check ‘er out:

(forgive the crummy video quality, but you get the idea)

So, er, what the hell can you use this for?

It’s all a little bit theoretical at this point, because I haven’t actually used the trigger for anything useful yet. For one thing, it’s not very portable yet, but I’m planning to take a version of this and solder it all together so it’s a bit more sturdy. At least I know it works, which was the purpose of the exercise.

I have a couple of fantastic ideas for how I can create some pretty cool projects where the camera can just stand there and take photos automatically. Think birds on a bird-feeder, people walking through a doorway, balls in flight, etc.

If you plan to use the kit to take people by surprise, you may have to hide the lasers away a bit better. In a cleanish room, the red laser is pretty much invisible anyway (although it shows up in specs of dust etc), but if you want the sensor to be completely invisible, you can just use an IR laser instead – it’ll make it invisible to the naked eye.

Disclaimer

I haven’t broken my own camera equipment doing any of this, but if you balls things up, there’s a good chance you might. Be careful, know what you’re doing, and don’t come running to me if you blow up your camera, please!

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Thomas Lester is a Wedding and Event photographer based in Jacksonville, FL. When he’s not shooting couples and weddings, he’s knee deep into music and local events. Thomas is a self proclaimed geek and loves to share his knowledge openly with others trying to learn their craft.

“What lenses should I use and when should I use them?” I get this question a lot. Especially since many people know I’m exclusively a prime lens user. For those that are new to photography a prime lens is one that doesn’t zoom. It’s one focal length only. However, I think the “which lens” question applies to prime and zoom lenses. Before I get into the details of why I choose the lenses I choose, let me state that there isn’t really any right answer. This IS art after all. Let me also say that I’ll be talking about lens choice generically. I’m not talking about brands or specific models. I am talking about the internal dialog I have when I step into a situation and I ask myself, “what lens do I want to pull out of my bag?”

There are four fundamental lens characteristics I think about when reaching into my bag. Let me describe each one.

• Field of View & Reach – Field of view is how wide and tall you are going to see through the lens. The wider the focal length of the lens, the greater the field of view. Reach is how far away your subject can be and still fill the frame appropriately for your composition. Field of view and reach are inversely proportional (wow… just had flashbacks to Junior High math class). In other words, the longer the reach the narrow the field of view.
• Distance compression or expansion – Distance compression is the optical effect that makes objects in the frame look closer together than they really are. Distance expansion is the opposite, making objects in the frame look farther apart than they really are.
• Aperture or “brightness” – Aperture, measured in “F Stops” determines the amount of light that a lens allows into the camera. Lenses with larger maximum apertures (smaller F Stop number) allows more light to hit the sensor or film allowing the photographer to work in lower light scenarios. Aperture also affects depth of field. The max size of an aperture is often referred to as how “fast” the lens is. The larger the aperture, the “faster” it is. “Fast” really refers to the fact that at the same amount of light, a faster (larger) aperture will allow you to set your shutter speed faster to achieve the same exposure.
• Depth of Field – This is the amount of area in the fame that will be in focus. Managing depth of field can allow a photographer to isolate a subject or on the other extreme get everything in a room sharp. Depth of field is affected by three factors. Aperture, focal length, and distance from the subject. The smaller the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. The longer the lens, the shallower the depth of field. Lastly, the closer the camera is to the subject, the shallower the depth of field.

Next, let’s understand how these characteristics apply to our lenses.

• Normal lenses – For the purpose of this post, let’s say that a normal lens is 50mm for full frame DSLR cameras and 35mm for crop frame DSLR cameras. These lenses are considered “normal” because they see the world very similarly as our own eyes. They don’t really do any distance compression. They have a field of view similar to our own vision. This is also subjective. Many will tell you that normal is a little bit wider or possibly a little bit longer. But we’ll use 50mm as our watermark today. If you are shooting a crop frame camera you can use 35mm as your “normal”.
• Wide angle lenses – These are lenses that are wider than 50mm. For zoom users, you could have a lens that can zoom out wider than 50 and zoom in longer than 50. When you are zoomed out, consider your lens as a wide angle. Wide angle lenses have a “wider” field of view. The shorter the focal length, generally means the wider field of view. Conversely, this means it has less reach. This means you may need to be closer to your subject. Wide angle lenses exaggerate distance (distance expansion) making objects look further away from each other in the frame. Wide angle lenses also inherently have a deeper depth of field. This makes it a bit harder to “isolate” the focus on your subject, but makes it easier to get your subject sharp.
• Telephoto lenses – Can you guess? Yep, lenses that have a focal length greater than 50mm. These are also referred to as “long” lenses. The longer the lens, the narrow the field of view. Inversely, the longer the lens the greater reach it has. This is great if your subject is far away. Long lenses tend to “compress” distance making objects look closer to each other than they really are. Last, the longer the lens, the shallower the depth of field. This makes isolating your subject easier with a longer lens, but can also make getting sharp focus a bit more difficult.

Let’s look at some rather boring photos of my daughter (who was less than thrilled to be my model) that illustrate these characteristics. For each of these photos, I tried to position her eyes in roughly the same part of the frame to illustrate how the different lenses effect the look of the image. For the gear heads, I’m using a Canon 24L, 50L, and 85L as well as a Canon 5d mkII.

First up, depth of field. In these three shots I’m using the 50mm lens. The camera is on a tripod and both the camera and model stay in the same shot for all three images. The only change is the aperture and inversely the shutter speed/ISO to keep the image exposed properly.

In the above image, you can see that there is a very shallow depth of field. Here eyes are even a bit soft. I almost went to reshoot this, but I left it in. It illustrates that while shooting at this small of an aperture can look really cool, you are likely to have less keepers because depth of field is just a sliver. The background is oh-so-creamy though! When shooting this shallow, put a focus spot right on the eye or the most important element of your subject to keep it sharp. One last thing to notice. Every lens has it’s strong points and it’s weak points. Most lenses distort and vignette the worst at either ends of it’s aperture range. As you can see with this lens at f1.2, there is considerable darkening around the edges. I personally dig it, but it’s good to know how your lenses will react at their extremes.

This second images is at f4.0. Model and camera is in the same place. The background is still soft, but not as soft as at f1.2. However, the face is now much shaper. The hair is sharp. At f4.0 there’s a lot more room for error with your focus and still wind up with a sharp image. For people in motion, I’ll usually shoot between f2.8 and f4.0.

In this last of the three depth of field examples, I’m shooting at f11. The tree in the background is only slightly out of focus. You can make out details in the background, trees, and grass. The depth of field at f11 is pretty large on a 50mm lens.

Next, I made some examples to demonstrate field of view and distance compression/expansion. In these shots, my model stayed in the same spot for each shot. However, I shot the first one with a 24mm lens, the second with a 50mm, and last with an 85mm. The exposure and aperture remains the same in each picture. The only thing that is different is that I move the camera for each shot. Just as in the depth of field examples, I try to keep her eyes in about the same spot in each picture.

In the above shot, look at how far away the tree appears behind her. Also notice how much of the road is in the shot as well as the bird bath on the right. The 24mm lens is exaggerating the distance. It even makes her face face look further from her body. It’s good to note that this is not the best lens to use if your subject has a large nose. Wide angle lenses tend to “stretch” objects in the image. The further to the edge, the more stretched they’ll appear. So, a wide person placed near the edge will be made to look wider. So, use wide angles with care.

Look, the tree just got closer to the subject! Not really, but at 50mm this is where the tree really looked to be to my naked eye. The subject is in the same spot. However, I have moved the camera back to keep her composed the same. Notice that we lost a lot of the street and the bird bath is now gone. This is a good way to eliminate distracting elements that are at the edges of the frame.

In the last of these demonstration shots I’ve put on the 85mm at f1.8. Now the tree is right up on the subject, but she’s in the exact same spot as all the shots. Not only is the bird bath gone, but so is the window on the house and we only have a sliver of road left. Much narrower field of view from the 24mm. Facial features are also compressed a bit. 85mm to 200 mm lenses are often used for portraits because the distance compression is very flattering.

One last tidbit to mention. Camera shake! Camera shake is evil. I mentioned that the larger the maximum aperture is, the more light is let into the lens. More light, means you can shoot at a higher shutter speed. Higher shutter speed means the potential to have sharper images (less shake). For me, I try to buy lenses with the largest maximum apertures I can find (warning… they can be expensive). Another thing to consider is that the longer the focal length of the lens, the more camera shake is amplified. As a general rule you should minimally shoot at 1/. So let’s say you are hand holding a 180mm lens (or a zoom lens, zoomed to 180mm), you should shoot at no slower than 1/180th of a second. Twice that (1/360th) if you really want things sharp. There are a lot of aids that can help you shoot at slower shutter speeds like a mono-pod, a tripod, or built in Image Stabilization. Each person is different, though, so practice hand holding at different speeds to determine where your “breaking point” is.

Now that you know the character of your lenses, I’ll run through some typical scenarios. Before I do, I’d like to say that I love my 50mm lens. It’s my go to lens and gets used probably 75-80% of the time. I usually start there and choose something different only when it’s characteristics aren’t working for the scenario. I think every photographer should have a fast 50mm lens in their bag.

A portrait session with a nice, but busy background. In this scenario, I like the general color and tone of a background, but i don’t want it to interfere with my subject. My thought is that I want to isolate the focus to just my subject. This means I want a shallow depth of field. Some factors to think about… The faster the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. Also, the longer the lens, the shallower the depth of field. I may pull out my 50mm f1.2 lens. If the background is still too distracting, I’ll use my 85mm f1.2. Still too much, I may pull out my 200mm f2.8, provided I can get far enough back to still frame my subject like I want.

I need to get a full shot of a dining hall all set up for a reception. For a shot like this, you need a large depth of field as well as a wide angle of view. A wide angle lens would be my choice to fit the whole room in the image as well as maximize my depth of field. I’ll usually reach for my tripod and set the aperture around f16 or greater. With my 24mm at f16, you don’t even really need to focus. Everything is going to sharp.

I was just been told that Madona is going to be leaving her hotel in a few minutes. There’s already a crowd by the front door. You have a close spot, but you are going to have to hold the camera up over your head to get the shot. If I’m close enough, I’m going to pull out my wide angle lens and put the aperture at around f11 or greater if it’s bright enough (or I have flash). Then prefocus your lens in manual to have the to focus around where the front door is. You’ll have a huge depth of field. When she comes out the door, point your camera in her direction and fire away. She’ll be in focus and you’ll be capturing a wide enough field of view that even if you aren’t pointing directly at her, you’re still likely to get the shot.

I’m shooting a senior session down town. I stumble upon a fantastic old door with amazing color. However, the wall surrounding the door is really ugly and distracting. My very first thought is, I need to narrow the field of view. The longer the lens the better in this scenario. A 200mm lens will allow me to shoot my subject and the door only.

A concert venue hires me to get a shot of the audience during a show that they can use to advertise the room for rent. However the night that they booked me had very poor turn out and the room looks fairly empty. If I can focus in on a group and “compress” the distance, it won’t look like there are 3 empty rows between the full rows. I would grab a long lens, get low to not see the empty chairs. The compression will make the rows of people look closer together, therefore more crowded.

I’m shooting a wedding. It’s the scenario and I need to get a shot of the kiss, but I don’t want to be in the way of the guests. This is the perfect scenario for more “reach”, so I grab the longest lens I have and step back to compose my shot.

The wedding reception (or any party) is at full tilt. Drinks are flowing and I need to capture the energy. For me nothing puts the viewer in the middle of the action like a wide angle lens. The wider the better. Fisheye’s work well. Warning… to do this, you have to put yourself into the action. The reason it feels like the view is there, is because your camera was there.

The rings (or other detail shots) at a wedding. It’s hard to beat a macro lens for the little details, but I’ll often use my 50mm as well. Either way, I like to break out the tripod. When you are really close and like to use wide open aperture (shallow depth of field), just breathing can throw the detail out of focus. A tripod will ensure the sharpness of the details.

I want to exaggerate how tall someone is or the size of an area. Wide angle. The wider the more exaggerated. Get close to the subject and angle down (or up) to make the scene stretch out.

I’m shooting a wedding in a dark church. I’m told that I’m forbidden to use flash. In this scenario, I’m going for whatever lens I can get enough light through the lens to get a sharp, properly exposed shot. I have to options: Fast or Image Stabilized. A 50mm f1.2, or f1.4 can be a life saver in these scenarios. f1.2 or f1.4 will usually allow enough light set your shutter speed fast enough to get sharp focus and freeze ceremony action (i.e. people standing relatively still). You can also use an Image Stabilized lens, but they don’t make the shutter any faster. IS (or VR) will usually allow you to get sharp focus, but may not give you a fast enough shutter speed to stop motion.

So, next time you are working a shoot instead of choosing your lens or your zoom factor exclusively on the framing of your composition, think about the other characteristics of your focal length. Visualize in your minds eye how you want the shot to look and then choose your lens or your zoom focal length based on the character you want for the image.

Here’s some real world examples from some of my shoots:

Web:                http://thomaslesterphotography.com

e-mail:             thomas@thomaslesterphotography.com

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Spend more time on one shot versus spending little time and moving on.  Don’t take 100 photos in 30 minutes when you can take 5 in the same amount of time.  Do this and you will see your results gets better and better!

• Get Closer
• Adjust settings
• Try different exposures
• Try different focal points
• Try a new filter
• Change lenses
• Try an HDR and if you’re camera doesn’t have auto bracketing, try doing an HDR manually

Have something to add?  Comment below and share your “Be Selective” tip with the readers.

• Credit: Scott Wyden Kivowitz
• Copyright: Scott Wyden Kivowitz | www.scottwyden.com

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Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved

Even in Florida in the winter, the weather is not perfect. We had great weather, 70-75 degrees and sunny all week. Then today we were socked in. It was so foggy I couldn’t see 100 feet.

We decided to get up and go shoot no matter what, so I met Marc at his hotel and went looking for SOMETHING and came upon this foggy dock.

Now when you’re working in fog you have both challenge and opportunity. Let’s first concentrate on the opportunity. Fog offers the change to create moody, soft scenes. The challenge? Fog is reflective. It can fool a camera’s meter just like snow can. I find that using plus 1/2 to one full stop of plus exposure compensation will usually give you the best results.

The main thing to remember when shooting in the fog is that you don’t need to concentrate as much on detail as you do shape, form, and balance.

I suggest you avoid using filters when photographing in the fog and consider using a tripod since the fog usually means less light.

Lastly, if there ever was a time to use your camera’s auto-bracketing feature, this is it.

Don’t be afraid to go shoot in the fog. You might end up with something you like.

____
This post sponsored by WHCC – White House Custom Colour – Get Five Free 8×10 Prints From WHCC

Roberto talks about composition and gives the following guidelines:

• Choose a selective focusing technique
• Placement and composition of your main subject
• Use converging lines
• Use repetitive elements
• Use Framing techniques

http://www.robertovalenzuelaphotography.com or follow Roberto on twitter at http://twitter.com/robertophoto

Roberto also mentioned the Magic Lantern Guides Camera Books that help your learn your camera and what the controls do.

Show Host

Kerry Garrison
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Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved

If you want to elevate yourself from snap shooter or picture taker to picture maker, here are seven questions you should consider asking yourself before you make your next image.

1. What is the subject of the photograph?

2. What story does the photograph tell?

3. Am I taking this photograph because I care about the subject or because I just want to justify owning a camera?

4. Will this photograph matter to anyone?

5. Will this photograph help (or hurt) anyone?

6. Will this photograph move you as a photographer or move the viewer or both?

7. Will this photograph stand the test of time?