Photography Help

Anonymous asked

Not only do I love your blog ( heh found it ) but I also am secretly infatuated with you. K. here we go I got this idea from a spam msg I received on Facebook lol.. I know you like me but were always way too shy to say so :3 go hit up crushmasher(dót)com (uhh it wont let me do a regular link) then make an acct there. Search for the profile 'justmeandu33' ( obv me ) I posted body pix.. if u can figure out who I am msg me and we'll kick it. CC required for age but it is free. (annoying i know)

ashleytyrrell716 asked

i do enjoy your blog but maybe im just thinking to much into the aperature but if im not mistaken wouldnt a smaller fstop number lead to a bigger whole letting in more light to your picture? from what your blog said you made it sound like the smaller the fstop number the less light youll get.

I’m sorry for the confusion. Aperture took me the longest to figure out, but once you know it, it’s really easy.

The tricky part of this is that a small aperture is considered f8, f11, f22, and so on. And a big aperture is considered f4, f2.8, f2, f1.8, f1.4. So it’s backwards, if that makes sense.

The bigger the aperture (f2, f1.8) the bigger the hole is, since your shutter is wide open. A smaller f-stop of say f11 or f22 will give you a smaller hole, which lets in more light.

I just watched this video on youtube, since I have been trying to find an easy and cheap solution to having a Neutral Density filter, which is used for long exposures. Commonly used for landscape/seascape photography. You can also refer back to the shutter speed post for more information on long exposure photography, or if you have any questions that I have not answered, feel free to ask.

Now, I have a UV filter. It was the first filter I bought when I got my camera, because I thought it was something that you absolutely had to have. Truth be told, I only used it once, and was not happy with the results. It’s cheaply made and I got it for $10 at Best Buy. A UV filter really has no benefits, in my opinion. Unless, if you like losing detail by putting bad glass in front of your filter.

Watching this video pretty much gave me a good use for my UV filter now, and if you have one laying around that you never use, you’ll probably find this helpful, as well.

My son at 7 am this morning..shitty cell phone cam but the pic came out alright

He’s so cute, Ree. <3

I took this photo of my little sister, earlier. I used a main light at about a 45 degree angle with a silver umbrella flashing back towards her as my key light, and did not use a fill light.

I thought that I’d tell you guys my settings for this photo so you can see, and possibly play around with your settings, as well.

Don’t know the numbers. Shot on Kodak C-41 film. Shot with a Canon Rebel EOS K2 35mm slr. I developed/processed the film myself.

We both know that I’m no expert on film, but while editing this photo, whether it be in the darkroom or with computer software, I would bump up the contrast and saturation. I think you did good with putting a red flower in front of a green background, since they’re complementary colors, but I think adding in some contrast and saturation would make it pop a lot more.

Based on your composition, I already wrote a post on this. Rule of thirds. I think if you would have placed the flower in the bottom or top right corner, it would have made a stronger impact.

With flower shots, I recommend getting different angles. Lay on the ground and shoot from the bottom of the flower, shoot from a side angle. Show the angles of the flower, instead of just the inside of the flower. With how many macros there are of flowers, it’s really important to show an angle that isn’t really done much, or one that hasn’t been seen before.

I’m sorry if I was too harsh.

# photography

# photo

# submission

Don’t know the numbers. Shot on Kodak C-41 film. Shot with a Canon Rebel EOS K2 35mm slr. I developed/processed the film myself.

This is interesting. Is that a reflection at the top, where the twig is? I sat here a couple minutes trying to figure out how you got that effect. Did you shoot this through a window?

Also, I think your shutter speed might have been a little slow, by the looks of the running water. It seems a bit misty. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, by the way.

Have you ever seen those photo’s of waterfalls or moving water, and it looks really blurry/misty? That’s how you achieve that effect, with a slow shutter speed. Here’s an example photo.

If you would have had your shutter open for a bit longer, you would have gotten some really cool water blur.

Also, do you know how to dodge and burn? Personally, I would have burned the bottom right corner where the water ripples are to bring them out more.

I think I’m going to write a post on how to photograph water with motion blur.

# photography

# photo

# submission

My inspirations. Who are yours?

Photo by Sylvia Plachy that inspired me

http://www.sylviaplachy.com/

This photo book by Nick Danziger. I actually own this, and I love pretty much every single photo.

http://www.nickdanziger.com/index/home

Brief Encounter by Gregory Crewdson

http://www.aperture.org/crewdson/

http://www.artnet.com/awc/gregory-crewdson.html

Les Larmes by Man Ray. A man who, in my opinion, is nothing short of a fucking genius.

http://www.manraytrust.com/

I took this photo of my sister earlier. Just thought that I’d contribute to the weekend photo section to hopefully get you guys encouraged.

My son yet again, same settings as I stated previously.

My son, used a Kodak easy share digi AF 3x optical Aspheric lens 9.2 mega pixels. On black and white, self portrait mode.

Reminder

I would really love to see this blog become really active, and have you guys learn all of the things that you might not have known about photography.

The best way for me to know what information to offer you guys, is for me to see how you’re doing technically and how you’re all doing with composition. There are many ways for you guys to get active. For example, starting today, you can post photos that you take during the weekend. You can post photos specifically for constructive critique, take part in up coming photo assignments, and ask anything you would like to know more about, or what you’d like to see more of.

Halo Effect: What is it, and how do we prevent it?

A haloing effect is to not be confused with the angelic look that you get from shooting a subject directly into the sunlight or other light source. Like this, for example:

No, by haloing, I mean the light or dark halo around the subject in your photo.

Let me show you what I mean. Here are a couple of pictures that I’ve taken that have haloing, rendering them useless to me.

Notice the darker parts around the top of the buildings

And notice the light halo around the edges of the houses

This is caused by over processing a photo. Such as doing a HDR, like the first example, or by over sharpening/over processing a low resolution file, like the second example.

If you’re getting an effect like this, pull back on your editing. Also, always shoot in the highest resolution that your camera will allow, and shoot preferably in RAW (assuming you have the editing software to support it)

Chromatic Aberration: What is it, and how do we prevent it?

In the photography world, you may hear the terms fringing or chromatic aberration. The first time I heard of that, I had no clue what it was.

So, we’ll now delve into the science behind photography and explain what chromatic aberration is, how it’s caused, and what we can do to prevent it.

Chromatic aberration is an effect where colored fringes around high contrast areas. It is almost always found around the edges of subjects in your photograph, and gets progressively worse towards the edges of the actual photograph.

How does this effect occur?

Well, lenses work by refracting light. A good example of this is how we manage to see rainbows. Light gets refracted and depending on the wave lengths of the refraction, we will see either red or blue.

As you can see, if the wave lengths are shorter, we will see blue fringing, and if the wave lengths are longer, we will see more orangey red fringing. Though, blue/purple fringing is more common.

This is more of a problem with lower end cameras, and not so much with D-SLR’s, though it can occur. There are special achromatic lenses to help prevent fringing, and they work by having refractive indexes that vary with different wave lengths.

Fringing gets worse with focal length, because the magnification within the lens magnifies any aberration. With telephoto lenses, reflector lenses (mirrors) don’t have chromatic aberration, refractive (glass) lenses do. Glass lenses have higher contrast than reflector lenses.

Zoom lenses are more problematic than fixed focal length lenses (prime lenses), because of the changing variables.

If you still have slight aberration, it can be an easy, or a not so easy fix within Photoshop or Lightroom.

Here is an example of minor fringing, and how it was fixed with some photo editing.

So, make sure when you take your photo’s, that you’re looking at them carefully to spot any abnormalities like fringing.

Weekly Photo assignments?

I was wondering how you guys would feel if I started a weekly photo assignment.

You guys would take the assignment with minimal guidelines and express how you decided to interpret the assignment. I will give everyone feedback on how they interpreted the assignment, critique your technical skills, and critique your creative skills. All very constructive, of course. I will not tolerate any bashing.

What are your opinions, and would you participate?