Videos!

Hey folks,

If you haven't noticed already I have been on a small video binge recently and have made a lot of videos for my youtube channel as of late.  This is because I have time now to and I had been slacking a little due to school and travelling however that is all over so I have time to make up for lost time.

I just posted four videos on the exposure triangle which include aperture, shutter speed and ISO as well as a summary of all of them together.  I hope this helps and if you are not a fan of listening to me or youtube videos, I still have the blog posts I wrote on the exposure triangle on my blog here.  Just search "exposure triangle" and you will find the posts.

Hopefully they are helpful and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask me in a comment on my channel or my blog or you can send my an e-mail to tomhoustonphotography@gmail.com.

Thanks again!

Update: Studio IV

Hey,


Amazing news!  The studio is up and functional.


So I wanted to make a studio with the least amount of money spent and pretty much all DIY.  So I tried duct taping (inexpensive I know) the paper to the ceiling.  I had a feeling it wouldn't work but I wanted it away from the far wall because I wanted to keep the heater on.  The paper didn't stay up so I went to plan B.  Turn the heater off and then tap it to the wall itself and not the ceiling.  This will then give better odds of the paper staying up since the force being exerted is perpendicular to the tape instead of how it was set up being taped to the ceiling.  So far so good haha.  It could fall but I don't think it will.


I put some tacks into the tape just as a precautionary thing so that they might hold it enough if it is falling to give me time to notice.


Since I have a studio now (unless it falls down on me again) I will start doing more photography as well as I will change my Model Mayhem profile.  I decided that since I have a studio I could help models with their portfolios as well as building mine own doing shoots.  I have been contacted by a couple of models to do shoot however they have not had ideas of what to do.  So I think I will set it up that if they want Time For Print (TFP) then I will decide on the ideas unless the ones they have are going to build my portfolio. If their ideas wont build my portfolio I will charge for building their portfolio.


Additionally I might do graduation photos to make back some money form building the studio (which wasn't that much) however making money back form photography is never a bad idea.


I thought the construction of the studio would be a little more complex however it wasn't haha.  So my Updates did not have as much detail about the construction as I wanted but oh well.  C'est la vie.  If you have specific questions for me about the studio please do not hesitate and send me an e-mail at tomhoustonphotography@gmail.com.  Or you can comment on a post and I will respond via a comment.


So here are two photos from of the studio however it is hard to capture all of it with my 17-55mm.  Just to give some dimensions, the paper is on a 8'x8' plywood floor.  So it is roughly 9 feet tall and about 9 feet long by almost 9 feet wide.  So a fair size if I want group shots or even someone laying on the floor.

My studio.

My studio from a lower angle.

I hope you are as excited as I am about this.  So yes, one can build a studio in their spare room quite easily.  I spent less than $500 for sure on the materials to build it (excluding flashes/stands/umbrellas).  Now I shall get some flower series shots done hopefully!

Tom

Update: E-mail

Hey everyone,

I just created a new e-mail for my photography so please send me any questions or comments you may have and I will get back to you quickly.  The e-mail is tomhoustonphotography@gmail.com.  Who would have thought haha.  Anywho, please do not hesitate to e-mail me with questions.

Hope all is well,

Tom

Focus: Depth of Field

Focus: Depth of Field


So I mentioned Depth of Field (DoF) earlier in Part I, on exposure using aperture.  Changing your aperture settings of your lens changes the depth of field in your photos.  Now, what is depth of field?  It is the width of area in your photo that is in focus.  The larger your aperture (or smaller the aperture number) the smaller DoF you have.  So I demonstrated this using my portrait shot of my friend at f/1.4 (wide open/large aperture) with my 50mm f/1.4:

Portrait - 50mm f/1.4 D

So, I mentioned that the area of focus is just on her eye that is closest to the camera.  That is a very small or "shallow" DoF.  Another example of this would be some of my hand held macro work.  I need to use a wide open aperture to allow the most amount of light in to allow myself to have a fast enough shutter speed to not have any blur.  Some of my macro photos demonstrate a very small DoF which happens when you shoot macro photos with a wide open aperture.  This example of the dragonfly demonstrates just how small of a DoF we are talking:

Dragonfly - 105mm Macro VR

The depth of field in this photo is roughly the width of this dragonfly's head.  And when you look into the background it is completely blurred out.  This blurred out background is call bokeh.  Bokeh is not so much a cool hip trait for dragonfly portraits but more so for people portraits.  The photo above has very nice creamy bokeh.  The bokeh or out of focus background allows portraits to pop out a little more.


In landscape photography, as I also mentioned in Part I, needs a small aperture (or large aperture value) to create a large DoF so everything in the landscape is in focus.  Here is an example:

Boardwalk - 17-55mm

This photo just demonstrates that the depth of field is good because you can still make out the grass in the background and the boards going off into the distance.  In landscape photos you want the most detail you can get usually.  However in this photo the background isn't completely sharp because I focused more on the foreground because I wanted that area of the photo to be sharpest.  This was so that you looked at the bottom of the boardwalk first because it was sharpest, and then were led to the top of the photo.  The boardwalk gave your eyes a path, literally through the photo.  So you don't always have to follow photography rules especially if you have a game plan with what you are doing.

Depth of Field can be changed by Tilt-Shift lenses.  These flatten the DoF a little so that the DoF is more horizontal than just vertical.  This allows landscapes to have more detail because the DoF is flatter to the horizontal axis.  I personally have not used a TS lens so I have no examples and the photos would just look like a very sharp landscape photos from the foreground to background.  

Other manipulation of optics or in post-processing can blur the photo more to make the aperture effect on the DoF different.  Lensbaby lenses alter the effects of the DoF to blur areas of the photo while keeping certain areas of the photo in focus.  Again I have not tried one of these lenses so I am not an expert witness but that is the gist I have gotten from seeing the photos from those lenses.

So DoF can be a factor that makes or breaks a photo.  But just like most rules in photography, they can get tossed out the window from time to time.  It's art, who cares.  I am sure you can find an audience to like your photos even if you don't do the normal things with DoF.  But more often than not, DoF is a good thing to pay attention to since it is a large-ish part of photos.  

And with that I will wrap up my focus on DoF, I hope that helps and again if you have any questions or things you would want me to cover on my blog, do not be afraid to send me off a e-mail @ tomhouston7@gmail.com.

Focus: ISO. My Take On The "Exposure Triangle" Part III

Focus: ISO.  My Take On The "Exposure Triangle" Part III


So, first I will recap.  Part I covered aperture and how it effects exposure as well as shutter speed in part II. Now in Part III I will cover the third and final part of the triangle, ISO.  Once I am done with ISO, I will put them all together.


Now last but not least, ISO.  To be honest I have no idea what ISO stands for but do not fear, I know what it does.  So ISO is from the film days (not that they are gone but..) where ISO was the sensitivity or "speed" of the film.  So different film had different sensitivity to light which means different film would be better for different lighting situations.  ISO numbers that are low (100, 200) are not very sensitive to light so they would be used for a bright sunny day because it would take a lot of light to effect the film.  ISO speeds of 1600 and around there are very sensitive to light, so they would be good for dark situations because it does not take a lot of light to effect the film.


Now I am guessing for most of you reading this post are probably using a digital camera, so how does this effect you?  Well it is the same thing but a little more artificial since digital cameras have a sensor, not film. So ISO for the digital age is the same but you don't need to buy different film for different light now.  You can just go into your settings and turn up or down your ISO which increases and decreases the sensitivity to light.


So if you have your camera's ISO on 200, it will allow you to take well exposed photos during bright sunny days.  If you use ISO that is high like 1000-1600, you will have a very sensitive camera sensor that will be good for very dark situations.


Now before I put these all together... how does ISO effect you photos?  Just like aperture and shutter speed, ISO also has an effect on your photos.  Depending on your camera/film, the higher you crank your ISO, the more grain there is into your photos.  This grain is called "noise" because you can see all the pixels and it usually makes your photos not turn out so well.  To demonstrate noise I will bust out a old photo from a Weatherthans (Amazing band by the way) concert I was at when I had my old Point and Shoot camera:

The Weakerthans - Noisy Image Exmaple - P&S

So yes, that is a bad photo.  But I am posting it to demonstrate grain.  You can see all the pixels and it just isn't a great photo because of it.  This is what happens when there is not enough light so what my camera did was it automatically cranked up the ISO.  It was high enough that the photo had a lot of noise.  But it was a good concert!

Digital cameras these days are getting better and better at having minimal noise at higher ISO's.  My Nikon D90 is decent, but the D700 is known very well to be one of the best cameras in low light.  The new D3s can "shoot in the dark" or whatever the slogan was.  But they can, they can pick up light without noise from the environment that your naked eye would be hard pressed to see.  So depending on how current your camera's sensor is and the quality of it, you can have noise in your photos near ISO 1000 to 6400 haha, or never if you have a D3s.  But I am guessing if you have a D3s, you may not need to take advice from myself but if you are, I am honoured. 

So with ISO and noise, you just have to take photos at different ISO's and figure out what ISO your camera starts getting grainy.  I will quickly go over how it can be used.  So you increase your ISO if you need to keep your shutter speed and aperture fixed (or is you are already as wide as your lens can get).  So if it is dark and you need a fast shutter speed to capture action but also need a large DoF with a small aperture, then you are left with ISO to change to get a well exposed photo.  If you use a fast shutter speed and need a large DoF in a dark situation, you need to have a higher ISO to have a properly exposed photo usually.

So if you are doing star trails, or long exposure photography, having a low ISO is what to do so that your sensor is not sensitive to light which allows you to have longer shutter speeds.  If your shutter needs to be open to for a long time, you do not want your sensor to be sensitive to light or else it will look like you are being summoned to heaven again.  Also having some grain in your photos and some good post-processing (editing after) you can get a photo that looks like it was film.  This can be a desired look for some.  

Now to put it all together.  As I covered with the concert example, ISO can be used to brighten or darken a photo if you cannot use aperture of shutter speed.  So these three things are used to get the proper exposure of a photo.  So if your photos are too bright or too dark, these three things can help you depending on how you want your photo to look.  Personally I always leave my ISO at 200.  That is the lowest ISO my camera can do.  This allows me to not have any noise in any of my photos.  I rarely up my ISO because I do not want to risk noise in my photos.  But as I mentioned, if I cannot change my aperture or shutter speed more to get the right exposure, I will play with my ISO.

So depending on what you want to control in your photo, you use ISO, aperture or shutter speed to compensate for proper exposure to get the look you want in your photos.  I can't tell you how to have your camera settings for everything shot because each camera has different sensors and each lens has different apertures and every shot is different.  What I can tell you is to keep those three things in your head as you shoot.  If you are always practicing those things and actively thinking about how to control the light you will probably get better at taking photos.  

I hope my take on the exposure triangle helped in some way.  Sure you can read all of the basic foundation information for photography but you can't stop there.  You have to go out and practice.  Sometimes you only have a small amount of time to capture a great shot and you have to know your stuff to get the photo.  Sure sometimes you can take a couple of test shots before you get the one you are looking for but usually life goes easier if you can get it right the first or second time.  Saves you from taking a bunch of photos you know you are going to have to delete later.  Anywho, practice, practice and practice is what I am trying to say.

Hope that helps!  I will keep thinking up more helpful things to blog about.  I decided for me to help you better I will open up my e-mail for questions and ideas.  So you can e-mail me at tomhouston7@gmail.com if you have any questions for me on photography or an idea you want me to write a post about.  I will start checking that e-mail now to see if anyone has any questions or ideas they want me to cover.  Please don't hesitate to ask questions.  I was always asking questions on gear and photography knowledge and I still am to this day asking other photographers questions.  So thank you again for reading and I hope to hear from people now with photography questions, I hope I can help!

Thanks again,

Tom

P.S. Just made videos for understanding the exposure triangle and here is the one on ISO: http://youtu.be/h0V4SqBi6HU