Photography

Berlin 2014

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Berlin the capital city of Germany, the location of DCU FotoSoc's trip for 2014. Being to Germany many times before i expected a smililar expreancy to what Munich and Nürburg had given me. But what I got was far different, and the only way in which i can describe it would be alternative. Berlin is famous for its street art scene, its modern architecture and night life. On the first day we took an alternative tour of berlin, seeing some of the local street art, along with heading off to a street art work shop where were created our own stencils.

That night we headed out on a pub crawl getting to see bars that we wouldn't get to see anywhere else, sadly I don't have any photos other then iPhone shots that real don't do any of the places justice that we visited.

Day 2 and myself and another photographer got up early grabbed  a quick breakfast and hit the streets for some good streets shooting, trying to get no so touristy shots a tourists. The fun of jumping into tramlines to get shots and focusing on angles that aren't normally seen.

later that Day we all met up and head on a city tour of berlin, getting to see the berlin wall, checkpoint charlie and the jewish memorial and the brandenburg gate.  For this part I'm going to let the photos do the talking as really its best i show you what we seen.

As a portrait photographer, naturally i snook in time to capture some portraits during the day. The crisp cold, fantastic blue sky and historic setting really lent themselves to some spectacular shots not only on this day but later ib the week when we visited another part of the berlin wall.

The highlight of trip happened the second night, with a crazy idea to go out shooting during the night at around 2am, what happened that night really made the trip. Myself and two other decided to walk from our hostel to the brandenburg gate in -3 deg. C which took nearly an hour due to the constant stopping and starting to take photos. The brandenburg gate is rarely deserted enough to capture a shot that shows the whole gate and down the street on the other side of it. Taking the perfect opportunity to grab the shot I snapped off about 5 frames hoping that that would be enough as we had to move quick in the cold. I then decided to snap a portrait using a composite method taking around 10 photos for one portrait, Here are the results which really blew me away when i seen them.


If I only had

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If I only had “x,y,z” my photography would be so much better than it is now.
A line I hear a little bit too much in this profession.  It really bothers me that people think that the gear they own makes them better photographers.
 
Let me ask you this what mode do you use your camera in the most? One of the scene modes, Full Auto, program, Aperture priority, Shutter priority or full manual/Bulb.
If you picked any of the full auto modes, you don’t need any pro gear, you first need to lean how to use your camera!
In some sense yes having pro gear does make a difference but the difference is so small you don’t really notice, unless of course your  printing large size prints, or super high detailed fine art prints, and even then it might just be slightly more saturation on the unedited RAW file or a little less distortion, but its a RAW file your going to edit it before you print.  The main advantage of pro gear is reliability  I say this because that
 is it, hell most beginner and prosumer DSLR have amazing image quality  with some of the new beginner bodys matching and even exceeding the pro DSLR body’s.
If you don’t know what a RAW file is you defiantly don’t need pro gear. Your not unlocking your cameras full potential!  A RAW is basically the film of the digital world, you don’t need to shot using it all the time, but using it will give you the mist options in post production and editing.
Back to what I was saying , people buy pro gear and some immediately think “Oh I have pro gear, I must be a pro now”. This as most people know isn’t the case. Just because you have good gear dosen’t mean you are a good photographer. It’s a huge waste of money spending maybe €3000 on a pro camera body and €1200 on a pro lens.  When looking at that gear you should question what you need, what level am I at?
A good photographer will utilise what they have at hand, this could be a  Lego point and shoot or it could be their own pro level DSLR and Lenses. I will guarantee they will create great images using either system.  The point im getting at here is the gear is only a tool, it won’t make a huge difference, the thing that makes the biggest difference is that squishy thing behind the camera, YOU!
It takes years to develop your creative eye, in fact for some people they never develop it and can’t be creative and think outside that box, that is the typical cliché shot you get sick of.  No matter how good your gear is, if your creative eye isnt developed your images might not be the best. So go and buy that entry-level DSLR  kit, and develope it, let your mind wanter and test out the ideas you get, you will get great shots and you will get absolutely shocking shots. Trust me I’ve been there.
Once its developed enough that you can use your gear to its max, and its restricting you, that is the time to upgrade.
But try this first yourself, pick up that crappy point and shoot camera, or camera phone and think like you would a DSLR. Your most likely thinking I’m crazy right now but trust me. You’ll quickly realise to get the shots you want on that camera  you will have to be smart, utilise whats around you, hell you might even have to grab your ND filter and a Nikon speedlite, set into optical slave and use the on camera flash to trigger the speedlite.  To get that shot which was so easy to get on your DSLR.  This will test your creative eye and thinking, forcing you to think outside the box. Want some inspiration watch world renowned sports photographer Chase Jarvis utilize the lego camera in DigitalRev TV’s Protog Cheap Cam challenge here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX76k-chflo

When you’ve reached that stage I’ll let you away with saying “I need this and that for my photography”, because yeah you have reached a stage that them pro lens and pro body’s will help, with advanced features, which you will now be able to take full advantage of. And you will see that the difference as I said before is reliability of the gear, and the thing that make the difference is you , the squishy thing  behind the lens.
So in summary what I’m really saying is that you really don’t need pro level gear to take pro level photographs. Just get your gear out and shot! I really Believe that Henri Cartier-Besson said it the best in terms of developing your creative and photographic eye.
Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst. Henri Cartier-Bresson
 
Remember gear isn’t everything; learn to use what you have. Most importantly, As always get out and shoot! Enjoy your photography!

Lenses - Photography 101

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So you’ve got your new fangled DSLR camera and most likely you have gotten a kit lens with it,  but what is so special about a DSLR lens when compared to a point and shoot? The simple answer is the lens on your new camera can be changed, and on your point and shoot it can’t be, although it can be zoomed, so can certain lens made for DSLR cameras.

As im sure you all know there are hundreds of lenses out there for your DSLR, They can be broken down into three categories: Wide angles, standards and telephoto lenses. These three categories can be broken down onto two sub categories: prime lenses and zoom lenses.

I’ll start by talking about my favourite lens, that is the nifty fifty, This is “the standard lens” so-called because it looks natural and emulates closely what the human eye sees. At the moment this is the only lens I use and own, why because I can do everything with it and its is so limiting it forces me to think about my shots.  The 50mm is a prime lens which means it can’t zoom, to zoom you simply have to step closer to your subject.

There are however standard zoom lenses, these are in between wide angels and telephoto lenses, with one of the most common kit lenses being Nikon 18-55mm, giving you a nice range from wide-angle to standard.Canon offer a slightly different lens from 18-135mm giving you from wide-angle to telephoto

Canon 18-135mm kit lens

In the standard focal length range, prime lenses tend to be cheaper than zoom lenses. They also tend to have larger apertures then zoom lenses letting you shoot in low light without a flash. Saying this though, it will depend on what type of photography you are going to be doing, which will ultimately determine if you buy a zoom or a prime.

The next category of lenses is my second favourite, these are the telephoto lenses. These are great for taking photos of distant objects and subjects. They too come in prime lenses and zooms. A telephoto lens can be just as versatile as a 50mm lens, with many photographers using them to take portraits as they give nice out of focus backgrounds. The most popular telephoto lens on the market is the 70-200mm give a great magnification.  The downside to these lenses is generally the price, here primes tend to be more expensive than zooms. This is generally due to the precision needed in making the wider aperture glass. The zoom lenses don’t have as wide apertures but give greater zoom range as the name suggests. Cheaper telephoto lenses such as the Canon 18-135mm will have a variable aperture, meaning as you zoom your aperture gets smaller. Where as the more expensive, popular 70-200mm lenses from both canon and nikon have fixed apertures. Such as the 70-200mm ƒ4 and the 70-200mm ƒ2.8

From left to right Canon 70-200 ƒ2.8 IS ii, Canon 70-200 ƒ2.8, Nikon Nikkor 70-200 ƒ2.8 VR

The final set of lenses which are a landscape photographers best friend, and these are of course the wide-angle. These lenses can be so exciting to use, giving you wondrous distortion creating funky and out of this world effects. But sadly the can be your worst enemy for the same reasons that makes them great.

I dislike super wide angels due to the distortion and warping the lens gives, although it can be corrected in editing software at a later stage, it is a pain, but saying that I have gladly had one and needed it for a specific corporate shoot I was on  and had to fit a stage in frame without stepping back, due to the audience behind me. Here is that Image.

Wide angle lenses are the king of getting everything in the frame and keeping everything in focus. I’m sure you have all seen the wonderful and wacky fish eye lens, this falls under wide-angle, and so do lenses with focal lengths less than 35mm which is border line wide-angle/ standard.  Like all the other lens types these too come in prime and zoom lenses. Pricing here is a bit tricky as with all the telephoto the focal length and aperture size will increase the price the wide the focal length and the wider the aperture opens.

As I said I dislike them, but when it come to creating amazing unique pictures, that show a different perspective these lens are absolutely king.

Below is a picture of the Nikon 6.00mm ƒ3 Fish Eye lens. I believe that this is the widest fish eye ever made. Giving a 180° view.

And as always most importantly, get out and shoot! Enjoy your photography!

Want to contribute your tips trick, and show some shots leave a comment and link to your photos. Feel I’ve missed something? Well drop me a comment and I’ll write a blog about it.

Signal & Noise

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Photographer Zack Arias, an editorial and commercial photographer based in Atlanta, GA. His fascinating  story  of both failure and successes, is quite inspirational. In this video for KelbyTraining.com he show us how many of us think. He then shows us what we should be thinking, and how we can easily be lead off track. What goes on in your head when thinking about your photography? Share your thoughts..

And as always most importantly, get out and shoot! Enjoy your photography!

want to contribue your tips trick, and show some shots leave a comment and link to your photos.

Exposure - Photography 101

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So you have your camera, but you want to get out of full auto, and make your pictures look spectacular. There are a few things you need to know, Composition and exposure are the main ones. In this guide I’m going to walk you through the basics of exposure. To do this we first must know three key elements which help determine your exposure, These are;

  1. Shutter Speed
  2. Apature
  3. ISO

Getting the perfect exposure is a balancing act between these three variable.This might sound difficult but as you progress through this guide, it will become easier to understand.  I will teach you some technical terms which photographers use, fear not! These terms are used by every photographer and will make perfect sense when I explain them. Before we dive into the list above, I’d like to explain the concept of stops of light. You may have heard this term before and you have most likely heard photographers using it. A stop of light is half or double the amount of light being captured. I will explain this in context with the list above.

1. Shutter Speed.

Shutter speed is exactly what it says, it is the speed of the shutter. The shutter is a curtain that sits in front of your cameras image sensor or film.  When you press the button to take a picture, this causes the shutter to open which allows for light to hit your cameras sensor, after a short period it closes again, stopping light from hitting your sensor or film. The length of time the shutter is open is called the shutter speed. It is measured in seconds or fractions of seconds. You can have a slow shutter speed such as 30s, which allows a lot of light to hit your sensor or film, or you can have a fast shutter speed such as 1/8000th of a second which allows very little light to hit your sensor or film.

exposure-tutorial-7

A secondary effect of shutter speed is motion blur, A slow shutter speed will have more blur in the final image and a fast shutter speed will have less. Below from left to right is a fast to slow shutter speed image.

A stop of light in terms of shutter speed, is either halving the shutter speed for half the light, e.g. 1s -> 1/2s

Or doubling the shutter speed and doubling the amount of light, e.g. 1s-> 2s

2. Aperture 

Aperture is the size of the opening at the front of the lens.  The size of the aperture is measured in ƒ-numbers or ƒ-stops, I’m not going to go into the complex maths involved in finding this number, but I will explain the basics. A wide aperture is denoted by a small number and a small aperture is donated by a large number, below is a graphical representation of different apertures.

Apature is used to control the amount of light entering the camera, wide apertures such as ƒ1.4 will allow lots of light to enter the camera, and small apertures such as ƒ16 will allow only a tiny bit of light into the camera.

A secondary effect of aperture, is what is called depth of field, this is the amount of area of your photo that is in focus. A wide aperture like ƒ1.4 will give a very shallow depth of field, with very little of the image in focus  and a large aperture such as ƒ16 will give a large depth of field with a large area of your photo in focus.

A stop of light in terms of aperture is a bit more complicated then shutter speed. Below is a list of full stop apertures starting with the smallest aperture, to the widest. Each number doubles the size of the opening as you go down the table, allowing a stop of light extra into the camera.

3. ISO

ISO is how sensitive to light your camera sensor or film is to light. The lower the ISO the less sensitive the camera is, and the higher the ISO the more sensitive to light your camera is. This is great now days with digital as we can change this at anytime to allow us to shoot with faster shutter speed, smaller apertures, both or even the opposite and lower it so we can shoot with slower shutter speeds and wider apertures. I’m sure you have all heard of film grain, this is like little specks on your image. This is normally caused by your ISO. A low such as  ISO  100 has little to no noise while as you go up to higher iso’s you will see some to a lot of noise, e.g ISO800 or ISO1600.

Smilar to shutter speed the stops of ISO are either half or double the ISO number, so ISO200 is twice as sensitive as ISO100 and will capture twice( one stop) more light, and the opposite is true.

The key to getting the correct exposure is to balance these three variables, seems daunting but you only need to use two of these at a time. Put your camera into auto, Check what ISO your camera sets itself too, now change it back to manual, set it to that ISO, Now we only have to worry about shutter speed and aperture to get that correct exposure,  we have a tool built into to our cameras to help us do this. This tool is a light meter, you may find this on the back of your camera’s LCD, a top LCD and you will always find it in your view finder.

The light meter allows us to see if the image is under or over exposed. If it is under exposed you can either slow the shutter speed down, open the aperture or a combination of each  till the meter is centred meaning the image is going to be properly exposed, if this fails, try increasing the ISO.

If the meter shows that the image will be over exposed, you can make the aperture smaller, speed up the shutter or a combination of both till the light meter is centred, if this fails similar to the under exposed we can change the ISO, but this time we must decrease the ISO.

The more you get out and shoot trying different combinations of ISO, Shutter speed and Aperture the more you will learn to create the vision you want, and knowing how to control each variable is a key skill.

Composition - Photography 101

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In the last tutorial of this series we talked about exposure, missed the post check it outhere. In this tutorial we are going to cover the basics of composition. Composition is extremely important, and is another key skill that a photographer must know. In this tutorial we are going to cover composition using the rule of thirds. The simplest and one of the most effect ways of making your pictures look great is to use the rule of thirds. This involves dividing up your field of view through the view finder into a 3×3 box like below.

To get a pleasing and interesting composition we place the subject on either one of the lines vertical or horizontal,  on an intersection shown with a red dot, these are power points and will create a nice pleasing composition most of the time. Experimenting with this is great, but remember it is a rule of thumb and might not work perfectly each time. Below are a few examples of its use. This rule can be used for any type of photography and will become second nature to you in no time!

Cameras - Photography 101

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Thinking of getting into photography as a hobby or as work? There are a few things you need to know and do. I’ll not to bore you too much and keep it short and sweet for the first post.

Starting with the type of camera.

There are a few types of cameras and as the pro-photographer you so long to be, you should be looking at getting a decent mirror-less or DSLR camera.

 

I’d recommend getting yourself a starter DSLR kit, from Canon, Nikon or Sony. It really doesn’t matter which brand you pick, just go into your local camera shop and pick one up. Make sure to test it out and see if you like what you feel. I started out with a HP point and shoot camera (something I would not recommend, ever!), which was a christmas present. I have to say it was awful to use when compared to the old film SLR I had lying around. Eventually I managed to get my hands on a Sony A300 DSLR with a whopping 10MP sensor (top class for the time 2008), and built in-body image stabilisation, still one of Sony’s better points.

But back to the main point. I Currently shoot with a Canon 5Dmk II, which is a pro DSLR and will most likely be way beyond what you need when starting out. Below are 3 starter DSLR kits that I would recommend. All are very similar with advantages and disadvantages to each. I’m going to be as neutral as possible but as I’ve shot with all three makes. I am slightly preferential towards Canon, but I’m not going to open that can of worms.

All three cameras come with a lens, have a pop-up flash and are easy to use and perfect for beginners.

First is the Sony A37-STL

Canon 650D

Nikon D7000

 

The advantages of these systems are huge, as lenses can be swapped for different situations.  Many of the starter DSLR’s will teach you to use and shoot great pictures with their many automated modes.  Although with these modes I found myself getting complacent and not using the camera to its best. Once you have the basics nailed, take it out of full auto and try one of the other modes. You’ll find your photography will take on a new lease of life.

Not to baffle you with hundred’s of facts about cameras, but here are a few useful ones.

  • Most DSLR will now shoot video in full 1080p HD.
  • Most take a memory format such as an SD card or a CF card, which you may have lying around if you own any type of camera.

               There are thousands of accessories available to customise your camera to your needs.

As a rule of thumb not many pro photographers will shoot with brands such as Sony, Pentax and Sigma; this is simply because the range of lenses and their performance aren’t as good as the Canon and Nikon counterparts.

A tip that all pro photographers and I will give you is to invest in good glass. (The kit lens is a great starting point, but generally are, well junk compared with other lenses you can buy that are slightly more expensive) Camera bodies come and go, but lenses can be used on all or most of your camera bodies.

So if you have the choice between a Pro body with a cheap lens or a cheap starter body and a pro lens, go for the cheaper body and pro lens.

One thing I will briefly say is with modern DSLR cameras; high megapixel counts are pretty much pointless unless you are creating huge prints.  1080p HD video is only 2MP; most new DSLR’s have megapixel counts of over 12.0MP. I say this just to give you some perspective on what you can see and what your eye can distinguish.

Remember gear isn’t everything; learn to use what you have. Most importantly, get out and shoot! Enjoy your photography!