Photography 101.4 – Exposure and Stops

By: Neil Creek

Welcome to the fourth lesson in Photography 101 – A Basic Course on the Camera. In this series, we cover all the basics of camera design and use. We talk about the ‘exposure triangle’: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We talk about focus, depth of field and sharpness, as well as how lenses work, what focal lengths mean and how they put light on the sensor. We also look at the camera itself, how it works, what all the options mean and how they affect your photos.
This week’s lesson is Exposure and Stops
So far we have covered the basics of turning light into an image, starting with the concept of the pinhole camera, then introducing lenses and how they focus light, and last time about how the qualities of the lens affect the size and brightness of the projected image. So far this has all been pretty theoretical, but it’s important groundwork to helping you internalise how the camera works. When you know these basics, you can get to the solutions of photographic problems that much faster.

Some Housekeeping Lesson naming
I’ve updated the naming scheme for this series to include the lesson number as a “point” value after 101. This will help you keep track of where you are up to in the series.
What happened to aperture?
Last time I said that this lesson would cover aperture and stops. I think introducing exposure and stops as a concept is important enough to dedicate a whole lesson to. Aperture will be now be discussed in Lesson 5.

This lesson we’re finally going to start getting a bit more practical. You will learn about the brightness of light, and how it is controlled. Of all the fundamentals of photography, this is probably the most important to understand, and can be the most intimidating because of the terminology used. But fear not! The mysteries of exposure and stops are about to be revealed!

What is “exposure”.

In the simplest terms, exposure is: “is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium during the process of taking a photograph” (Wikipedia).
Whether it is a digital sensor chip or grains of chemically dosed silver on a film, it is the same thing. The greater the amount of light that falls onto a particular region of the photographic medium, the brighter that part of the recorded image will be when reproduced, whether on screen, print or slide.

What We’ve Covered Introduction
Lesson 1
Light and the Pinhole Camera
Lesson 2
Lenses and Focus
Lesson 3
Lenses, Light and Magnification

The variation of brightness in the real world is absolutely huge, much more than you might think from your subjective experience of it. A subject lit by the midday sun on a beach looks over four thousand times brighter to your camera than the same subject lit by the quarter moon! (fredparker.com)
Brightness is measured in “Exposure Value” or EV.
You might recognize this acronym from your camera’s settings or manual. An EV of 0 is defined an image exposed for 1 second at f1. Steps of one up or down from zero are a change in the light by a factor of two. So an EV of 1 is twice as bright, EV 3 is eight times as bright, and EV -2 is one quarter as bright.

Fig 1.4.1: From a base exposure, the exposure is increased and decreased in one stop steps to +/- 4 stops.

The “Stop”

A step up (doubling) or down (halving) by one EV is called a “stop”.
If you only come away from this lesson having learned one thing, it is this. Photographers talk about light and exposure settings in terms of stops. In photography a stop can refer to different settings in any of the three points of the exposure triangle (more below). One of the most important and useful things you can learn as a photographer is to get an intuitive feel for light levels.
I’m not suggesting that you should be able to walk onto a location and immediately be able to assess the EV of the light and determine the correct exposure settings (although some very experienced photographers can do just that!) – that’s what your exposure meter is for. However, if you can learn to look at a photo you have taken on the back of your camera, and see that the exposure needs to be increased by say 2/3 of a stop, then you will become a much more efficient and successful photographer.

Controlling Exposure

To accommodate the huge variety of brightness levels we see in the real world, we need to be able to control how much light gets to the camera’s sensor. We do this by adjusting one or more of the three points of the “exposure triangle”. These three points are ISO, Shutter and Aperture.
The aperture is an adjustable iris or opening that can be made wider to let in more light, or narrower to let in less. The shutter is the “gate” that allows light onto the sensor, and it can be left open for different lengths of time, to let the sensor collect more or less light. Finally, the ISO once referred to the sensitive to light of the film in the camera. In digital cameras it refers to the “gain”, or amplification of the information collected by the sensor. In film days, changing ISO meant changing films. Today the ISO can be easily adjusted with a dial.

Fig 1.4.2: The exposure triangle.

Each of these points will be the subject of future lessons in Photography 101. For now, you need to know that they are there, and that they all work together to control the exposure. At the centre of the exposure triangle is your camera’s light meter. It is by reading this that you determine how to set each of the three points. We’ll cover that in a future lesson as well, probably in Photography 102 – A Basic Course in Taking Photos.

Trade-Offs

Each method of controlling exposure does so in a different way, and as such, has a different effect on the character of the resulting photo. Increasing the shutter speed reduces the light, and freezes motion. Decreasing it allow more light in, but blurs movement occurring while the shutter is open. Closing the aperture decreases the light, but increases the depth of field, meaning sharp focus over more of the image. Opening the aperture lets in more light, but decreases the depth of field, meaning a narrower window of sharp focus. Increasing the ISO amplifies the light collected, but also amplifies the random noise in the chip, which can become visible in photos at higher settings.
It’s important to note that all of these effects can be used for creative purposes in photography. Having a narrower depth of field for example can be an artistic effect in a portrait, a slower shutter speed can convey a feeling of movement. Taking a good photo is the result of the conscious choice of the three points on the exposure triangle in order to get a well exposed image which has a character pleasing to the photographer. Adjusting the settings is a balancing act that affords huge creative options to the photographer.

Homework

• Put your camera into manual mode, and find the controls to adjust each of the three exposure triangle points: ISO, Shutter and Aperture.
• Set your camera to full auto, find various scenes, and “half press” the shutter and see what exposure settings it recommends. Now go to manual, make the settings using the manual control and take the photo. Repeat until you feel comfortable adjusting the manual settings.
• Using the technique above, see what the camera recommends for various scenes, then adjust the photo up or down one stop of exposure with each of the exposure controls. Note the difference in the appearance of the resulting photos.
• For those already familiar with manual control, find difficult, high contrast scenes (eg: a wall with a window outside, or under a shady tree on a sunny day). Shoot the scene on auto, then looking at the result, try to guess how much you need to adjust the exposure manually to see detail in the over or under exposed areas. Practice to see how close you can get just by estimating.
• Apply these lessons artistically. Experiment with deliberately over or under exposing photos (high and low-key photos) or tweaking the auto exposed settings to emphasise otherwise under or over exposed areas.
• If you wish to share your homework photos, upload them somewhere (eg: your Flickr account) and post a link to them in the comments on this post below.

Resources

• Exposure (photography) – Wikipedia
• The Ultimate Exposure Computer – fredparker.com
• Master the Manual Mode – PhotoAficianado.com
• Bright Ideas For Shooting In Midday Sun – DPS
• BOOK – Understanding Exposure – Bryan Peterson
• BOOK – Nature Photography Field Guide – John Shaw

Next Lesson

Photography 101.5 – Aperture
An overview of the first point on the triangle: aperture, including creative applications.

Any Questions?

I want to help my students learn, so I am always happy to answer any questions you may have. I’d also love to make friends with you, and perhaps talk about better ways to teach what I know, and learn more myself. So far I have been answering questions posted in the comments on each lesson. This time I’d like to experiment with using Twitter to take your questions and suggestions. So if you’d like to tweet me, then please feel free to add me to your twitter ‘following’ list:
Follow me on Twitter, username: neilcreek
I also strongly encourage you to participate in some extra curricular activities to develop your photography skills, and the monthly photography projects I run at my blog are ideal for this! While you’re there, please feel free to check out some of my other photography posts, and if you like it, please subscribe to my feed! I also am part of the Fine Art PhotoBlog, where I sell my photography as high quality fine art prints along with six incredibly talented photographers.
See you next lesson and good luck with your homework!

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Photography 101.5 – Aperture

By: Neil Creek

Photo: Rainer Ebert used under CC license

The following post is from Australian photographer Neil Creek who is part of the Fine Art Photoblog, and is developing his blog as a resource for the passionate photographer.
Welcome to the fifth lesson in Photography 101 – A Basic Course on the Camera. In this series, we cover all the basics of camera design and use. We talk about the ‘exposure triangle’: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We talk about focus, depth of field and sharpness, as well as how lenses work, what focal lengths mean and how they put light on the sensor. We also look at the camera itself, how it works, what all the options mean and how they affect your photos.
This week’s lesson is Aperture.
Here’s What We’ve Covered Previously in this series:
Lesson 1: Light and the Pinhole Camera
Lesson 2: Lenses and Focus
Lesson 3: Lenses, Light and Magnification
Lesson 4: Exposure and Stops
In previous lessons we have talked about the basic theory of how a camera works, including some basic optics, and introduced the idea of exposure and how we control it with the exposure triangle. In this lesson we will be drawing upon what we have learned to understand the first point on the exposure triangle – aperture – and how it works to create your photo.

Aperture

Fig 1.5.1 The iris opens and closes to change the aperture.
Based on (source-http://www.camerarepairer.co.uk/Glossary.htm)

The word aperture simply means “an opening” (reference.com). In the case of photography, the aperture is created by an adjustable iris that can be opened or closed to control how much light enters the camera. This iris is made of a series of thin metal blades that move together to create a roughly circular opening of variable size. In most DSLR cameras, the iris is built into the lens itself. It is the opening in this iris that is actually the aperture.
When adjusting the size of the aperture, we describe “opening” the aperture up and “stopping” it down. That simply refers to making the hole wider or narrower. A photographer may say they are “shooting wide”, meaning they have opened the aperture a lot, or they may say they are “stopped way down”, meaning the aperture has been closed a lot.

f ratio revisited

In Lesson 3, we discussed the f ratio, and described that as the focal length of the lens divided by its diameter. This is the focal ratio. For a single lens, the f ratio is always the same. However, with our adjustable aperture, we can do a very neat trick. The aperture acts on the lens as if it is cutting away the part of the lens which is covered. So as we stop down the aperture, we effectively make the lens smaller, and thus change the f ratio of the lens. As such, the size of the aperture is described by the f ratio that it creates. A wide aperture may be f2.8, a narrow aperture may be f22.
As we discussed in lesson four, we measure the change in exposure with stops – a doubling or halving of the light, and fractions of stops. As such, the same measure applies to aperture. To double the light getting through a lens, we need to double the area of that lens which is uncovered. The area of a circle is determined by the formula πr2, so a doubling of the area increases the diameter by approximately 1.41. From this figure we get the sequence of f ratios:

The f ratio sequence in stops.
1 – 1.4 – 2 – 2.8 – 4 – 5.6 – 8 – 11 – 16 – 22 – 32

Depth of Field

Fig 1.5.2 A narrower aperture has a much greater depth of field.

If we look again at the exposure triangle diagram in lesson 4, you’ll see that the aperture influences the depth of field. The depth of field is the region of the photo which is in focus when the image is captured. It is a range of distance from the camera where objects look to be in focus. Aperture influences the depth of field by widening or narrowing this range, thus bringing more or less of the photo into focus, based on its distance from the camera.
Recalling what we learned back in lesson 1, the larger the hole that the light passes through a pinhole camera, the blurrier the image will be. When a lens is added to the camera, the image can be brought into focus, no matter the size of the hole, however, objects just either side of the focus point will be affected. If the hole, or aperture, is large, only objects very close to the focus point will be in focus. If the aperture is small, then the depth of the focus field is much wider, and more remote objects will be in focus.
Depth of Field can be pretty complex when you look deeply into it (such as: hyperfocal distance, airy discs and diffraction), but for an introductory course, the most important thing to remember is that a wide aperture (low value) means a shallow depth of field with less in focus and a narrow aperture (large value) means a broad depth of field with more in focus. We may return to discuss the more complicated issues in a future course.

Examples

Creative use of DOF isolates subject from background. Photo: annia316 used under CC license

The highlights on the strings clearly shows the changing DOF. Photo: Paul J. S. used under CC license

A narrow aperture gives a very wide depth of field. Photo: wili_hybrid used under CC license

These images show focus from the closest objects to the horizon. Photo: Neil creek all rights reserved.

Homework

• Find a scene with interesting stuff at many distances from you. Photograph the scene with different apertures (keeping the photo exposed correctly by changing shutter speed), and see the difference in the depth of field.
• Find a small subject that stands against a background a few meters away, like a flower. Try adjusting the aperture to isolate the subject from the background with depth of field.
• Find a view. Try and photograph a vista with something in the foreground, such as a rock at a lookout. Try and adjust the aperture to keep the whole photo in focus.

Resources

• Aperture – At wikipedia.com
• Understanding Depth of Field – At Cambridge in Colour
• Depth of Field Calculator – At dofmaster.com
• Introduction to Aperture – At digital-photography-school.com
• DoF group – At flickr.com

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Photography 101.7 – ISO

By: Neil Creek 

Photo: Rainer Ebert - CC license

The following post is from Australian photographer Neil Creek who just launched a free background image site featuring his photography, and is developing his blog as a resource for the passionate photographer.
Welcome to the seventh lesson in Photography 101 – A Basic Course on the Camera. In this series, we cover all the basics of camera design and use. We talk about the ‘exposure triangle’: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We talk about focus, depth of field and sharpness, as well as how lenses work, what focal lengths mean and how they put light on the sensor. We also look at the camera itself, how it works, what all the options mean and how they affect your photos.
This week’s lesson is ISO.
Here’s What We’ve Covered Previously in this Series:
Lesson 1: Light and the Pinhole Camera
Lesson 2: Lenses and Focus
Lesson 3: Lenses, Light and Magnification
Lesson 4: Exposure and Stops
Lesson 5: Aperture
Lesson 6: Shutter
In previous lessons we have talked about the basic theory of how a camera works, including some basic optics, and introduced the idea of exposure and how we control it with the exposure triangle. In this lesson we will be drawing upon what we have learned to understand the third point on the exposure triangle – ISO – and how it works to create your photo.
ISO is probably the most mysterious and complicated aspects of modern photography. ISO simply stands for International Organisation for Standards, and refers to – in simplest terms – the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor. Confusingly, there are several different standards, some which measure different things, and only a few completely agree with each other. To understand how to use ISO in your photography, you don’t need to know anything about that. You should understand how the camera’s sensor chip works, however.

The Sensor Chip

Fig 1.7.0 A typical digital camera sensor and mount.

The sensor inside your digital camera actually works on the same principle as a solar cell. When light hits the chip, a tiny electric current is generated: the brighter the light, the stronger the current. Instead of there being one giant solar panel generating lots of electricity, there are millions of extremely tiny solar cells collecting very small and precisely measured amounts of light. These photosites will eventually create the pixels in the image you capture.
It should be noted that a photosite is not the same as a pixel. Several photosites will add their captured light, which is filtered and processed and eventually combined to make a pixel. That’s a complex topic for discussion in another lesson.
All of this carefully measured electrical current, which reflects light intensity, is measured and stored by the camera’s circuitry. This data is called the signal. The signal, however, must compete with the noise inherent in all electrical equipment.

Signal vs Noise

Fig 1.7.1 Noise is at a contstant background level to the signal.

An unavoidable fact of electronics is noise. While the sensor is measuring the tiny electronic currents generated by the light, there is also a tiny electric current that comes from other places. This unwanted current is called noise, and it mostly comes from the ambient heat of the sensor. The difference between the value of the signal and the value of the noise is called the Signal to Noise Ratio. When the ratio becomes smaller, the noise is more apparent, and the signal may get lost in it.
There are two ways that the signal to noise ratio can become low: by a drop in the signal, or an increase in the noise. In modern cameras, the noise is mostly a constant value, so we only need to worry when the signal drops – that is, when we’re photographing a dark subject. The graph to the right may help to visualise the situation.

The ISO’s Effect on your Photos

Sometimes we aren’t fortunate enough to be shooting with enough light to be able to ignore the noise. When we need to keep a fast shutter speed, or there’s not enough light even with the aperture wide open, we can increase the ISO setting on the camera. When we do so, we are increasing the signal gain. Essentially this is like turning up the volume. All of the values of the measured current (whether from light or noise) are increased. Each doubling of the ISO value, is a doubling of the gain: a doubling of the measured current in the chip.

Fig 1.7.2 - As the ISO setting increases so does the noise, until it overwhelms the signal.

Doubling the light in your photo is a pretty easy way to make an otherwise under exposed photo bright enough, but it comes at a cost: you lower the signal to noise ratio, and the noise becomes more apparent. Imagine you’re in a candle-lit room, and to take your photo, you have to set your camera to ISO1600 to get a correct exposure. You have now increased the noise value – which at 100ISO would be invisible – sixteen times, resulting in a noisy, grainy mess.
Shooting at high ISO settings is one of the most challenging technical issues in photography. Noise can look ugly and obscure detail in your photos, but sometimes the light is so poor that you have to accept the noise or get no photo at all. The newest breed of cameras are able to get incredibly high signal to noise ratios, and let photographers get clearer images than ever before in very dark conditions. Compact cameras, with their tiny sensors are always going to perform relatively poorly at high ISO.
Much can also be done about noise in your photos in the processing stage, but that’s a topic for a later lesson. As always, one should struggle to do the best one can in the camera, before resorting to post-processing to fix problems.

This is All Too Confusing

I warned you! ISO and noise are difficult concepts, but the good news is that there’s a simple take-away lesson from all this:

Noise is ugly. Avoid noise by shooting at low ISO settings. Only increase your ISO if there is no other way to get enough light for a good exposure.

The good news is that most DSLRs are very good at handling noise at low ISO settings (100-400) so you don’t need to worry about them too much. When you start to get into the medium (800-1600) to high (1600+) ISO settings, does noise begin to become obnoxious. If the alternative is missing a great shot though, don’t be afraid to crank up the ISO.
The forward march of technology is very exciting, as new technologies and techniques ever improve the sensitivity of camera sensors. Even though ISO is a bear the photographer must wrestle, it’s getting friendlier and cuddlier every year.

Examples

Fig 1.7.3 A series of images taken with the Canon 5D MkII, changing the ISO and other setting to keep a constant exposure. Noise increases dramatically at higher ISO settings.

High ISO was required to balance low ambient light with flash, to fill in shadows. © Neil Creek

In order to get a bright photo of the stars without trailing, high ISO was necessary. © Neil Creek

Without a tripod, this shot in very low light was only possible with high ISO. © Neil Creek

Homework

Homework for this lesson is fairly simple. ISO is simply a matter of “turning up the brightness” on your photos, so it’s not really complicated in practice. What you should do, however, is experiment with your camera on various ISO settings and get a feel for how images look. If you know that ISO 1600 looks terrible on your camera, then you’ll be more likely to try to find other ways to get more light on the subject than just be lazy and increase the ISO. On the other hand, you’ll also know when it’s worth pushing it all the way just to catch the photo that can’t be missed.

Resources

• Film Speed – On Wikipedia
• Digital Camera Image Noise – On Cambridge in Colour
• Image Noise and Noise Reduction Review – On Digital Camera Reviews
• What Are CCD Image Sensors? – On Ezine Articles

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Photography 101.8 – The Light Meter

By: Neil Creek 

Photo: Rainer Ebert - CC license

The following post is from Australian photographer Neil Creek who will soon be teaching a class in portrait photography in Melbourne Australia, and is developing his blog as a resource for the passionate photographer.
Welcome to the seventh lesson in Photography 101 – A Basic Course on the Camera. In this series, we cover all the basics of camera design and use. We talk about the ‘exposure triangle’: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We talk about focus, depth of field and sharpness, as well as how lenses work, what focal lengths mean and how they put light on the sensor. We also look at the camera itself, how it works, what all the options mean and how they affect your photos.
This week’s lesson is The Light Meter.
Here’s What We’ve Covered Previously in this Series:
Lesson 1: Light and the Pinhole Camera
Lesson 2: Lenses and Focus
Lesson 3: Lenses, Light and Magnification
Lesson 4: Exposure and Stops
Lesson 5: Aperture
Lesson 6: Shutter
Lesson 7: ISO
In previous lessons we have talked about the basic theory of how a camera works, including some basic optics, and introduced the idea of exposure and how we control it with the exposure triangle. Now that we have covered each of the points of the exposure triangle, it’s time to bring them all together with the tool at the core, the light meter.

What is the Light Meter?

A challenging scene to meter

For as long as people have been taking photos, there has been a need to determine how bright a scene is. Any method of recording light can only work in a relatively narrow band without over or under exposing the image. To find the correct exposure that will record the image without over or under exposing it too much, photographers need to know how bright the scene is. An extremely talented photographer may be able to guess a near-enough exposure, but a light meter is a far more accurate and convenient way to do it.
Light meters in cameras react to how intense the light is as seen from the camera. SLRs measure the light (called metering) through the lens – TTL. They collect light that has actually passed through the camera’s lens and measure its intensity. There are problems when the scene has parts that are much brighter or darker than others, for example shadows on a sunny day. This can trick the light meter into measuring the intensity of the light incorrectly, depending on which part of the scene was illuminating the sensor.
Modern SLR cameras use multi-point light meters, meaning that several light meters are actually scattered around the projected scene, each measuring the light intensity at that point. Very sophistocated cameras may have dozens of metering points. How much the measured intensity of the light at each point influences the final meter reading depends on the metering mode selected by the photographer.
For a more detailed look at metering modes, you can read: Introduction to metering modes.

How to Use the Light Meter

As we now know, the correct exposure is created by juggling the three points of the exposure triangle: aperture, shutter and ISO. The light meter is the tool that puts us in the right neighbourhood for how these should be set. If you are shooting on full auto, then when you meter the scene – usually done at the same time as focusing, by half pressing the shutter – the light meter gives its best guess for each of these variables.
If you want to take creative control of the photo, you can manually set each of the three variables yourself. Typically ISO is left at the default, or previous setting, and you take control by choosing aperture priority or shutter priority. On most DSLRs that’s done by turning the exposure mode dial. If you set the dial to Av – aperture priority, the photographer chooses what the aperture will be, and the light meter adjusts the shutter speed to mantain the correct exposure. The reverse is true for Tv – shutter priority.
When using these modes, it’s useful to refer to the exposure meter display on the camera. The exposure meter (display) shows the result of the measurement taken by the light meter (sensor). It will typically look something like this:

Exposure meter display on LCD

Exposure meter display in viewfinder

Each number represents a stop change in the light, as indicated, with the central mark being the “correct” exposure, as determined by the light meter. Each pip between the numbers represents one third of a stop. The arrow underneath indicates how close the current settings are to the correct exposure. Usually in priority modes, the arrow will stay in the middle as the light meter will be able to set the exposure correctly. However, if for example you set your aperture to 1/400sec in Tv (shutter priority mode) and the light meter indicated that you needed an aperture of f4, but your lens was only capable of f5.8, then the exposure meter will display one stop of underexposure. You will need to compensate for this by setting a longer shutter time, or increasing the ISO.
The juggling act becomes more complicated, and the light meter’s assistance more valuable, when you go to full manual control of the exposure. Here the exposure meter simply displays whether the current settings will under or over expose the image, according to the light meter. The photographer can freely change any of the values on the exposure triangle, and see the change to the predicted versus recommended exposure.

Exposure compensation

Even though the light meter in your camera is pretty sophistocated, sometimes it can get it wrong, especially with harsh contrasts, or highly reflective surfaces. Changing metering modes may help this, but a more controlled approach is to use exposure compensation. Imagine you are photographing a person against a large bright sky. The light meter thinks the sky is the most important part, and exposes correctly for that, leaving the person a dark silhouette. By using exposure compensation, you can tell the camera to take the metered exposure and make it brighter by a chosen amount. This will then allow the photographer to correctly expose the person. I’ll look at exposure compensation in more detail in a future post.

Examples

To show you how the different exposure modes might work in real world situations, here are some scenarios. The settings given below are what they happened to be for the examples shown. Settings for your own photo will be different.
Scanario 1 – Sports

• High speed is needed to freeze action
• Use Shutter Priority
• Set shutter speed to 1/800sec
• The light meter sets the aperture to f10
• If under exposed, change ISO to compensate – ISO400

Scanario 2 – Portrait

• An artistic narrow depth of field is desired
• Use Aperture Priority
• Set aperture to f5.6
• The light meter sets the shutter to 1/160sec
• If under exposed, change ISO to compensate – ISO100

Scenario 3 – Night scenery

• Ambient light is too low to accurately meter
• Use full Manual
• Set aperture to suit scene, erring to wider – f11
• Set a long shutter speed to light meter’s best guess – 20sec
• Set ISO to lowest possible for correct exposure – ISO100
• Take a test shot and adjust settings if the light meter got it wrong

Scenario 4 – Off-camera manual flash

• On auto, meter the scene and note settings
• Set camera to one or two stops under exposed
• Set up flashes and tweak power to expose correctly
• Tweak the flashes exposure by adjusting aperture
• Tweak the ambient light by adjusting shutter speed
• Settings for example shot: 1/160sec f8 ISO125, click image for flash details.

Homework

• Put the camera in auto mode and half press the shutter. While looking through the viewfinder, pan around a scene and see how the automatically selected camera settings – f ratio and shutter speed – change. This preview will disappear after a few seconds, so half press the shutter again for another look.
• Set the camera in shutter priority mode and choose a shutter speed for effect, eg: short for sports, long for motion blur. Shoot different scenes and note how the camera adjusts the aperture to balance the exposure.
• Do the same as above for aperture – wide for shallow depth of field, narrow for focus detail at all distances.
• Get adventurous and put the camera on full manual. Adjust the camera settings yourself, and watch the arrow below the exposure meter. Tweak the settings to get the arrow in the middle of the meter – half press the shutter while looking at your scene to take a meter reading.
• Try to apply what you have learned to make creative photos that take advantage of the different exposure modes.

Resources

• Light meter – at Wikipedia
• Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure – At Cambridge in Colour
• Ultimate Exposure Computer – At fredparker.com
• Aperture and Shutter Priority Modes – at Digital Photography School

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What’s in my camera bag?

By: Kav Dadfar 

Undoubtedly the question that I get asked the most is what camera equipment I carry with me when I go on an assignment. My first bit of advice is to only carry what you need. After all, who wants to walk around all day with an extra 10kg (20 lb.) on their back? But at the same time you don’t want to be caught short so, as always, planning carefully and creating a shot list before you travel can be invaluable.

You should try and get together a basic set of equipment which will cover you for most situations. You can then add more specialized equipment depending on the nature of the shoot.
Here is what is in my camera bag:

Camera

My camera of choice is a Canon 5D MK II. It is a exceptional camera that won’t let you down, and stands up very well at high ISO settings. I usually carry an extra body with me, which I leave in my hotel room in the event that anything happens to my main camera. The last thing you need when you have limited time at a place, is to have to run around to try and find another camera so a spare could be essential.

Lenses

Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 II USM zoom lens

The Canon 24-70 f/2.8 is my work horse and is what I use the majority of the time. The focal range means it is perfect for landscapes and is also a wonderful lens to take portraits with, as it means you have to get close to your subject. It is also fast enough to use in low light conditions, so it’s ideal for places such as markets.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

 Canon  EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens

This is a wonderful telephoto lens which comes with a hefty price tag but is definitely worth the cost. Great for portraits and close-ups, the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 is also fantastic for landscapes in which you want to isolate a small section of the scene.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – focal length: 100mm

Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM lens

Someone once asked me if I could carry only one lens what would it be? My head would say my 24-70mm Canon lens but my heart would go for the 50mm f/1.2. The great thing about prime lenses like this is that, as a photographer, you have to move and get up close to what you are photographing. This becomes especially powerful when photographing people as it helps build a connection with your subject. It is also fast enough so that you can photograph in low light conditions without having to bump up your ISO too high.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM – exposure: ISO 640, 1/250 sec at f/2.0

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM

For anyone interested in travel photography, one of the most important parts of a destination is the local food. Although not essential, macro lenses are great for photographing food as they allow you to get really close and pick up the beautiful details of what is on the dish. The Canon 100mm f2.8 IS is my macro lens of choice.

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM – focal length: 100mm

 Flash

One of the common misconceptions about flashes is that they should only be used in low light settings. However, they are extremely useful when you need some fill flash (for example: if you are taking a portrait of someone in intense light which is causing harsh shadows on their face, a flash can help minimize the shadows). For this reason I always carry my Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash with me.

Tripod

A tripod is essential if you are planning any shots which require long shutter speeds. But a tripod is also what’s going to support all your expensive camera equipment, so choose it wisely. The Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 is a sturdy carbon fiber tripod which is lightweight to carry. I also use a Manfrotto 327RC2 light duty grip ball head to connect my camera to the tripod.

Filters

All of my lenses are fitted with a Hoya Pro 1 Digital UV filter. This helps protect the lens glass, especially in very harsh conditions such as the desert. I also carry a range of Cokin Neutral Desity filters and Graduated Neutral Density filters which are extremely useful for landscape photography.

Other bits

Memory cards, hard drives and laptop – I take enough memory cards with me so that I can cover each day I’m away on a separate card. I also take a few additional ones in case I need more than one in a day. However, at the end of each day I still back up my card on two separate 250GB hard drives so that all my photos from that day are saved in 3 different places.
Lens and camera cleaning kit, spare batteries and chargers – You should get into a habit of giving your camera and lenses a wipe at the end of each day and charge your batteries so everything is ready for the next day.
This is the basic set of equipment that I carry with me wherever I travel, and I add to it as I see fit. For example, architectural photographers might want to take a tilt and shift lens, or wildlife photographers a 400mm lens.  But remember try to only take what you are going to need.

Further reading on “What’s in your bag?”

• Portrait Gear Essentials
• Photo Nuts and Gear – a dPS ebook by Neil Creek
• Show us your gear – weekly challenge
• 5 pieces of gear to consider for your first upgrade
• What’s in my bag – landscapes

What’s in your camera bag? Tell us in the comments below what is in your essential kit.

Kav Dadfar is a professional travel photographer, writer and photo tour leader based in the UK. His images are represented by stock agencies such as 4Corners Images and Robert Harding World Imagery and they have been used by clients such as Condé Nast, National Geographic, Lonely Planet, and many others. Kav is also the co-founder of That Wild Idea, a company specializing in photography workshops and tours both in the UK and around the world. Find out more at That Wild Idea.

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Interview with Ross Ching – Time Lapse Photographer

By: Chas Elliott 

Mr. Ross Ching is at it again, this time working is time-lapse magic with a stop-motion twist. It’s an unofficial video clip for a song called ‘Little Bribes by a band by the name of ‘Death Cab for Cutie’.
Death Cab for Cutie – Little Bribes from Ross Ching on Vimeo.
You can see the video at full resolution here.
If you haven’t seen the previous work that Ross has done, check out this article on time-lapse from last month. Ross has agreed to answer a few questions for curious DPS readers on this new project. If his question isn’t answered here, post it in the comments below and well see if we can get to it.
What are your primary tools (camera, software, accessories….)?

• Canon 5D Mark II (Just recently upgraded from a 40d)
• Manfrotto fluid head tripod
• Canon TC-80N3 Remote Timer
• 24-70 mm F/2.8L, 70-200 mm F/2.8L and Canon 17-24mm F/4L
• Quicktime Pro, Final Cut Pro
• Google Maps

Went to an arts and crafts shop and found a lot of useful props to make words out of for about 20 bucks

Was the video shot completely with an SLR or did you also incorporate standard video as well?
The entire video was shot using a SLR. I’ve realized that there are waaaaay too many videos on the internet that were shot with standard video cameras. It’s just impossible to stand out and be noticed in that saturated field. People seem to be more awe-stricken when they find out it was all shot using an SLR. Not to mention it’s a style that is not nearly as crowded.
For those of us how have attempted time-lapse and photography we know how long it can take for just one short clip. Can you give us an estimate on the time it took to complete this?
I spent about 2 weeks on this project. It’s actually takes considerably less shooting time to create this piece because I don’t need to spend an hour waiting for a time lapse to finish. Some shots were as little as 3 frames. The difficult part was putting together the words. At times I was sitting on the side of a road trying to find pebbles that will spell something out. I’d get very strange looks from people passing by.
Of all the words you created for the video, which one was your favorite? The M&M’s?
My favorite words were the ones I created at night time. Specifically the glowing words. I think that’s because it takes a bit of my background work (time lapse) and my current, new ideas and blends them together. There’s something about night time photography that I absolutely love despite having to sit out in the middle of nowhere in the cold. Photos at night don’t look the same as what we see with our eyes.
We’ve had a few articles here on light painting, which you used for some of the words. Can you illuminate the technique you used?
The hardest thing about time lapse and light painting is that the background moves. So if I begin painting something out I don’t have too much lee way to make mistakes. (Keep in mind I have to paint these words mirrored to look correct for the camera) If I make a mistake there will be a jump in the background and have to start over. After writing about 20 words over and over mirrored I’m now a pro at writing things mirrored. A lot of it is trial and error. I studied the technique a lot, but nothing much came of it until I got out there and started testing it.
Have you heard from Death Cab and got their opinion on the video?
I didn’t want to show it to Death Cab when I first released it because I was afraid they might not see it as a cross promotional deal and more as a copyright infringement. I’m a huge fan of their music and I wanted to at least show it to the world first. If I went to them first and they said “No don’t post it” those two weeks of work would have gone down the drain. I’ll send it to them soon though. Through twitter 🙂
Any protected trade secrets you’d like to share with DPS readers?
New ideas don’t come easily. Time lapse (and tilt shift) photography is beginning to become an every day occurrence on the internet, and I’ve had to think of new ways to stand out. I spent a whole month and a half thinking of how I could change my style and move forward and yet still make impacting movies that keep the viewers on the edge of their seats. When this idea came to me, I scoured the internet so see if it has ever been done before, and surprisingly I wasn’t able to find very much work to the degree that I went to. Almost everything I’ve learned about photography has come from sitting hours in front of my computer on the internet. If you love photography, you should also love the internet and technology.
Further Reading: How I Made a Time Lapse Movie with my DSLR (an article Ross guest posted here at DPS last year). See more of Ross’s work at his website rossching.com.

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This Octopus won't let go.



Viral video - Cell phone video, Inspiration for you videographers considering a topic for your next project.   867,625 views on Facebook. Your video may receive more.

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