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Dreaming To Be A Famous Photographer

buttakkal

By buttakkal
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Guest iyukitakahishi
Guest iyukitakahishi

700D or 70D

Guest iyukitakahishi
Guest iyukitakahishi

Go for canon. Nikon after sales sucks and it sucks big time.

Guest iyukitakahishi
Guest iyukitakahishi

I suggest you buy a 70d with 18-55 kit lens or get the 18 -135 kit lens if you have the extra money to burn. Then enroll in a photog school. Budget will entirely depend on what type of photog you want

Missionary Newbie

Missionary

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I would like to share my observation and opinion...

 

1. Is it possible to be a successful (famous?? saka na yan..successful lang muna) photographer without turning pro? Why?

2. If not, then what's the best way to go about it on your spare time?

 

1 Yes you can be successful, even famous without turning pro. You can be a pro but starving and unknown.

It's been a habit by most Filipinos to say "chamba lang" or "mahusay lang chumamba" when praised for an exceptional work or body of works.

It doesn't follow that If you're famous then you're good (photographer, actor, artist, writer, dancer, etc.) and vice-versa. You can be famous kahit chambero ka lang, even if you don't have "what it takes". Kahit nangongopya ka lang ng style ng iba pwede kang sumikat. On the other hand, you may be the best yet die a nobody.

 

Medyo nakakalungkot nga. pero somehow sa mga nababasa ko, that's reality. Just a related article I want to share:

 

Maybe you can't make money doing what you love

 

The thing is, it's far easier than ever before to surface your ideas. Far easier to have someone notice your art or your writing or your photography. Which means that people who might have hidden their talents are now finding them noticed...

 

That blog you've built, the one with a lot of traffic... perhaps it can't be monetized.

 

That non-profit you work with, the one where you are able to change lives... perhaps turning it into a career will ruin it.

 

That passion you have for art... perhaps making your painting commercial enough to sell will squeeze the joy out of it.

 

When what you do is what you love, you're able to invest more effort and care and time. That means you're more likely to win, to gain share, to profit. On the other hand, poets don't get paid. Even worse, poets that try to get paid end up writing jingles and failing and hating it at the same time.

 

Today, there are more ways than ever to share your talents and hobbies in public. And if you're driven, talented and focused, you may discover that the market loves what you do. That people read your blog or click on your cartoons or listen to your mp3s. But, alas, that doesn't mean you can monetize it, quit your day job and spend all day writing songs.

 

The pitfalls:

1. In order to monetize your work, you'll probably corrupt it, taking out the magic in search of dollars

and

2. Attention doesn't always equal significant cash flow.

 

I think it makes sense to make your art your art, to give yourself over to it without regard for commerce.

 

Doing what you love is as important as ever, but if you're going to make a living at it, it helps to find a niche where money flows as a regular consequence of the success of your idea. Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it. Go find a job you can commit to, a career or a business you can fall in love with.

 

A friend who loved music, who wanted to spend his life doing it, got a job doing PR for a record label. He hated doing PR, realized that just because he was in the record business didn't mean he had anything at all to do with music. Instead of finding a job he could love, he ended up being in proximity to, but nowhere involved with, something he cared about. I wish he had become a committed school teacher instead, spending every minute of his spare time making music and sharing it online for free. Instead, he's a frazzled publicity hound working twice as many hours for less money and doing no music at all.

 

Maybe you can't make money doing what you love (at least what you love right now). But I bet you can figure out how to love what you do to make money (if you choose wisely).

 

Do your art. But don't wreck your art if it doesn't lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.

 

(And the twist, because there is always a twist, is that as soon as you focus on your art and leave the money behind, you may just discover that this focus turns out to be the secret of actually breaking through and making money.)

--------------------------------------

 

original article here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/20...e-you-cant.html

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mr. john Newbie

mr. john

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sir,problem ko minsan sa photography is minsan ung glare ng sun sobrang lakas.. helpful ba ung nilalagay na parang sun visor sa lens? ung parang flower in minimizing the glare? and any tips sa pag set up kapag sa outdoor na medyo sunny? minsan kasi ang dilim ng kuha..thanks. new in photography. thanks.. and anu tips para mag blur ung background ng subject mo? thanks!

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TheRealDeal Newbie

TheRealDeal

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honga mga veterans,,,, wala ba tutorials para sa mga baguhan??? puro usapang veterans wala na tutorials para sa mga newbie.......

 

pag aralan mo muna ung equipment mo....

 

nsa manual nmn un ng camera.....

 

kung para san ung mga keys or buttons....

 

then pag aralan u ung

 

ISO

 

ISO sensitivity expresses the speed of photographic negative materials (formerly expressed as ASA).

 

Since digital cameras do not use film but use image sensors instead, the ISO equivalent is usually given.

 

What ISO denotes is how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light present. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the image sensor and therefore the possibility to take pictures in low-light situations.

 

And, where you would have needed to physically change to a different roll of film if you wanted a different ISO speed, digital technology allows you to simply dial one in. In this way, you can record images taken at different ISO speeds on the same memory card.

 

ISO Speed & Exposure

 

ISO speed affects the shutter speed / aperture combinations you can use to obtain correct exposure.

 

Suppose your digital camera's light meter warns you there is not enough light to correctly expose a scene. You could use the on-board flash, but let's suppose again it's not allowed (like in a concert or indoors recital).

 

You would then need to use a higher ISO. Set on "ISO Auto" mode, your digital camera will automatically select a higher ISO. Otherwise, you can manually select the next higher ISO and see if the increased sensitivity allows you to obtain a correctly exposed picture. If it does, you can now take a correctly exposed picture.

 

Similarly, if you find the camera is using a shutter speed that is too slow (1/60 sec. and slower) to handhold the camera steady and shake-free (thus resulting in blurred pictures), and you cannot open up the aperture anymore, and you do not have a tripod or other means to hold the camera steady, and you want to capture the action, etc. etc. -- then you might select the next higher ISO which will then allow you to select a faster shutter speed.

 

ISO Speed & Noise

 

However, all this increase in sensitivity does not come free. There is a price to pay with your image appearing more noisy.

 

See, when you boost the sensitivity of your image sensor by selecting a higher ISO, the image sensor is now able to record a fainter light signal. However, it is also true now that it will record fainter noise, where noise is any signal that is not attributed to the light from your subject. Remember that an image sensor is still an analog device and it generates its own noise, too! The increased sensitivity allows the image sensor to record more light signal and more noise. The ratio of light signal to noise (S/N ratio) determines the "noise" in your resultant image.

 

An image sensor is usually calibrated so that it gives the best image quality (greatest S/N ratio) at its lowest possible ISO speed. For most consumer digital cameras, this value will be expressed as ISO 50, ISO 64 or ISO 100. A few digital cameras use ISO 200 as their lowest ISO speed.

 

Just as with its film counterpart, an image sensor will exhibit "noise" (comparable to "graininess" in film) at the higher ISO speeds. Unlike film, where graininess can sometimes contribute to the mood of the image, noise produced by an image sensor is undesirable and appears as a motley of distracting coloured dots on your image.

 

ISO Speed & Image Sensor Size

 

The size of the image sensor determines the ISO speed range that a digital camera can use without suffering from undue noise. One reason for this is because the pixels on the larger image sensor can be larger and therefore receive more light, and thus have a greater signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio (for more information on noise, see our tutorial: What Is... Noise?).

 

If we take two image sensors, each with 4 megapixels resolution, but of different sizes, the 4 megapixels image sensor that is smaller will exhibit more noise at higher ISOs than the larger one.

 

http://www.photoxels.com/images/18in.jpg

1/1.8 in. (7.2x5.3mm) http://www.photoxels.com/images/halfFrame.jpg

APS-sized (23x15mm) 4 million tiny pixels crammed into a 1/1.8 in. image sensor cannot compete in image quality with 4 million large pixels on an APS-sized image sensor. Most consumer digital cameras use 1/1.8 in. (and smaller) image sensors, so noise at high ISO is a problem. Though they will allow you to use a high ISO (such as ISO 400), the resultant image will usually be very noisy.

 

http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/noise.jpg A 100% crop of a picture taken at night at ISO 400 (1/1.8 in. image sensor)

Click on image for original size [warning: large file] A digital SLR (dSLR), on the other hand, uses a large image sensor, usually full frame (24x36 mm) or APS-sized (half-frame). Noise is rarely a problem and the use of a high ISO 400 results in images with barely noticeable noise.

 

ISO 400 ISO 800 ISO 1600 http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/noise400.jpg http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/noise800.jpg http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/noise1600.jpg Pictures taken by Canon EOS Digital Rebel at different high ISOs

(APS-sized image sensor)

Note that here noise really starts to be a problem at ISO 1600

Click on image for original size [warning: large files] Practical Considerations

 

  • You obtain the best image quality by using the lowest ISO possible on your digital camera. If you want to ensure your digital camera always uses the lowest ISO setting, switch the ISO setting from the default "Auto ISO" (this setting is usually found in the Menu) to the lowest possible on the camera, say ISO 50.
  • If you mostly take pictures where there is enough light for a correct exposure, i.e. sunny outdoors, then using the lowest ISO on your digital camera will give you the best image quality your digital camera is capable of.
  • If you want to take pictures indoors where light may not be sufficient and in other low-light situations, then you would need to supplement existing light with flash or studio lights. Either that, or select a higher ISO. Of course, depending on your digital camera, a higher ISO may mean a noisy image.
  • A large image sensor (APS-sized and larger) means that you are able to use a high ISO speed without unduly worrying about noise. This means that you can take pictures in low-light situations without your pictures being under-exposed. It also means that in situations where it is required, you are able to use a fast enough shutter speed to prevent camera shake. All, again depending on your camera, without much noise.

Should You Use A High ISO?

 

Until consumer digital cameras start adopting the larger image sensors, noise will continue to be an ever present fact of life at high ISOs.

 

Another category of digital cameras for advanced amateur photographers -- commonly known as "prosumers" (professional consumers) -- attempt to bridge the gap between consumer and professional digital cameras by using a slightly larger image sensor (at 2/3 in. or 8.8x6.6mm).

 

However, the "megapixels race" has meant that ever more pixels are being crammed into a small area. Where before there were 5 million pixels on a 2/3 in. image sensor, now we see 8 million pixels crammed on the same sized image sensor. It is therefore not surprising that noise remains a problem. And which is why you should not be fooled by the "more megapixels is better" mantra.

 

A little bit of noise may not be a problem depending on the size of your prints or images for display. There are also a number of noise reduction software (Noise Ninja, Neat Image) that you can use to clean up the noise, though there's quite a bit of post-processing work involved, and you might want to reserve this for the special pictures you want to print large format.

 

If it is a matter of choosing between not being able to take a picture and suffering a noisy image, I'd rather be able to take the picture at a high ISO and then try to clean up the noise afterwards in a noise reduction software.

 

But remember, to be able to do this, your digital camera must allow you to select a high ISO (ISO 400, ISO 800). Some entry-level digital cameras have only one ISO, usually ISO 64 or ISO 100.

 

 

Aperture

The aperture, also called an F stop, on a camera is the setting that controls your depth of field (background and/or foreground). For example, say you are photographing a group of people in front of a line of trees or a building and of course you want your group of people to be the focus, you would shoot at a lower aperture (i.e. 5.6,8 or anything up to about an 11), this would make your line of trees or the building more out of focus but still identifiable. If you want the line of trees or the building more in focus you would shoot with the aperture at anything higher than an 11 (i.e. 16 or 22). Your group of people will still be in focus and the subject of the picture but the line of trees or buiding will be clearer (depth of field).

 

The word aperture simply means 'opening'. The aperture of a lens is the size of the opening that allows light to pass through the lens onto a surface behind or below the lens. The smaller the opening the finer one is able to focus an image. In other words the smaller the opening (aperture) the more items in the image are in focus. Some more expensive cameras have the aperture built in the shutter of the camera rather than the lens. These usually do not have 'stop' points that one has to shoot at. The aperture of most lenses have preset 'stop' points that you must use. Lenes and camers operate on what is called 'Field of Depth'. This is acheived by both the focus range of the lens and the aperture opening that is acheivable either in the lens or the cameras shutter. When one sees 'FD' marked on a lens it simply referrs to the field of depth that one can acheive. Generally the the smaller the aperture setting the longer the image must be exposed to achieve ones goal. Of course the faster the film speed (ISO) the more sensative it is to light therefore facilitating shorter image exposure to achive similar results. Unfortunately most photographic film is designed us such way that the faster the film speed the larger the grain. Therefore when one attempts to make larger photos one will see the graininess of the film.

 

WB(white balance)

 

<h1 class="main">Understanding White Balance</h1> If you come from the world of films, you may remember using filters to correct for incandescent or fluorescent lighting. Most people don't bother and their indoors pictures invariably come out with a yellow/orange or bluish cast. In the digital world, these correction filters are no longer necessary, replaced by a feature found in most -- even the entry-level -- digital cameras called, "White Balance."

 

Light Colour Temperature

 

The reason that pictures turn out with a yellow/orange cast in incandescent (tungsten) lighting and bluish in fluorescent lighting is because light has a colour temperature. A low colour temperature shifts light toward the red; a high colour temperature shifts light toward the blue. Different light sources emit light at different colour temperatures, and thus the colour cast.

 

By using an orange or blue filter, we absorb the orange and blue light to correct for the "imbalance" -- the net effect is a shift in the colour temperature.

 

In digital photography, we can simply tell the image sensor to do that colour shift for us. But how do we know in which direction of the colour temperature to shift, and by how much?

 

Manual White Balance

 

This is where the concept of "White Balance" comes in. If we can tell the camera which object in the room is white and supposed to come out white in the picture, the camera can calculate the difference between the current colour temperature of that object and the correct colour temperature of a white object. And then shift all colours by that difference.

 

Most advanced digital cameras therefore provide the feature to manually set the white balance.

 

By pointing the camera at a white or gray card (angled so that it is reflecting light from the room) as a neutral reference, filling the screen completely with it, then pressing the White Balance button (or set it in the menu), the camera does its WB calculation.

 

From then on, any picture taken will have its colour temperature shifted appropriately. It's quite simple, really, and you should not be afraid to try it out and see your indoors pictures improve considerably (assuming there is enough light for correct exposure).

 

[A "neutral" gray is 18% gray and will reflect all colors equally.]

 

Caution:

 

- Ensure the card is not in shadows, but illuminated by the artificial light in the room

- If you are bouncing light off the walls, ensure the card is reflecting the bounced light

- Beware of mixing artificial lights -- in this case, you might want to use RAW and adjust in post processing for each light

- Beware of fluorescent light: since fluorescent light does not contain all the spectrum of light, you may obtain unexpected results

 

Preset White Balance

 

To help us in those special situations without having to go through the trouble of manually setting the white balance everytime, cameras provide preset WB settings such as, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Sunny, etc. Using preset WB can improve on a picture, especially under indoors lighting.

 

In the above example, the picture on the left is taken with the camera set to Auto WB. The indoor lighting is by two ordinary incandescent (tungsten) bulbs from the ceiling. It's not bad, but the fan should really be white. By dialing in a preset Tungsten WB, the image gives a truer representation of the scene. Usually just selecting a Preset WB setting appropriate for the lighting situation is enough.

 

Auto White Balance

 

Since the days of the Kodak Brownie cameras, manufacturers have tried to automate everything for us. Hence, today's digital cameras also all sport an Auto White Balance (AWB) function. Depending on the camera brand, some AWB works better than others. On the whole, though, AWB works very well in sunny and cloudy outdoors, and fine for most indoors situations (a little orange or bluish cast does sometimes contribute to the mood of the picture anyway, e.g. the warm orangle glow of a candle).

 

Set your digital camera to AWB and take pictures under tungsten, fluorescent, and mixed lighting (i.e. tungsten or fluorescent, plus natural light coming through the window), and see if the results are OK. If they are, you can just use AWB.

 

Snow

 

Pictures of snow scenes typically reproduce the snow not as white but with a bluish tinge. Sometimes, the blue adds to the mood of the picture, but at other times you may want to remove the blue.

 

If your digital camera allows custom WB, then set the White to the snow and the blue should disappear.

 

If your digital camera does not allow custom WB, then post processing can be as effective. In Photoshop Elements, I used Enhance - Color - Color Cast... to specify the snow as being white, and the resulting image is as good as the one using custom WB.

Special Effects

 

Once you've selected a WB setting, just remember to reset this white balance setting when you head back outdoors into natural light, or you may end up with some strange, out of this world, colours.

 

In fact, by dialing in a WB setting inappropriate for the lighting situation allows us to create some special effects.

 

Let's say you are taking a picture outdoors and you want to make the light warmer, perhaps creating a late evening, sunset effect. To do that, we dial in a Fluorescent WB, in effect telling the camera that the light is too cool. The camera responds by shifting every colour toward the warm, red values. Dial in a Tungsten WB, and the camera shifts all colours toward the cool, blue values. Lots of trial and error recommended here.

 

RAW File Format

 

A discussion in WB would not be complete without a mention of the RAW file format available in many advanced digital cameras. When you save an image in RAW file format, you are saving it the way the image sensor sees it -- without applying any adjustments (including white balance) to it. In fact, the camera ignores any WB setting you dial in.

 

Later, in an image editing software with the appropriate RAW plug-in, you can convert the RAW image to JPEG, and apply any colour temperature shift. Undo your change and try again, ad infinitum, in as fine an increment as you wish, until you obtain perfect colour balance.

 

Some professional photographers always use RAW file format. Saving in RAW file format comes at a price because it takes so much longer to save a RAW image that it might not be practical in many picture taking situations. Professional dSLRs (and some prosumer models) have internal buffers that allow RAW images to be taken one after the other in quite rapid succession without having to wait for the saving of one image to be completed before you can take the next picture.

 

If you are taking landscapes, and it's early in the morning or late in the evening, or you are not too sure of which WB setting to use, try it in RAW.

 

A few digital cameras even allow you to save an image in both RAW and JPEG simultaneously, though time to write to memory card is proportionally increased.

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TheRealDeal Newbie

TheRealDeal

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Exposure Bracketing

 

 

Exposure bracketing is a simple technique professional photographers use to ensure they properly expose their pictures, especially in challenging lighting situations.

 

When you expose for a scene, your camera's light meter will select an aperture / shutter speed combination that it believes will give a properly exposed picture.

 

Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera's light meter.

 

The reason you do this is because the camera might have been 'deceived' by the light (too much or too little) available and your main subject may be over- or under-exposed. By taking these three shots, you are making sure that if this were ever the case, then you would have properly compensated for it.

 

As an example, say you are taking a scene where there is an abundance of light around your main subject (for example, at the beach on a sunny day, or surrounded by snow). In this case, using Weighted-Average metering, your camera might be 'deceived' by the abundance of light and expose for it by closing down the aperture and/or using a faster shuter speed (assuming ISO is constant), with the result that the main subject might be under-exposed. By taking an extra shot at a slight over-exposure, you would in fact be over-exposing the surroundings, but properly exposing the main subject.

 

Another example would be the case where the surrounding might be too dark, and the camera exposes for the lack of light by either opening up the aperture and/or using a slower shutter speed (assuming ISO is constant), then the main subject might be over-exposed. By taking an extra shot at a slight under-exposure, you would in fact be under-exposing the surroundings, but properly exposing the main subject.

 

Now, most digital cameras have auto exposure bracketing (AEB), meaning that if you select that option before taking your shot, the camera will automatically take three shots for you: one which it thinks it has perfectly exposed; a second one sightly under-exposed; and the third one slightly over-exposed. The amount of under- and over-exposure usually defaults to -1/3EV and +1/3EV, but can also sometimes to specified in SETUP, e.g. you may want to use -1EV and +1EV instead.

 

When should you use exposure bracketing? Anytime you feel the scene is a challenging one (too much highlights or shadows) as far as lighting is concerned -- e.g. sunsets are usually better taken slightly under-exposed so use exposure bracketing there -- or whenever you want to be sure you don't improperly expose a fabulous shot that you may not get the chance to go back and take again.

 

Remember, you are not using film anymore, so there are really no wasted shots (unless you are severely constrained by the size of your storage media).

 

Digital Dodging & Burning

 

Should you delete the extra shots right away? No, if storage permits, keep all three shots until you get home and upload them to your PC and into an image editing software, such as Photoshop. By using the layers feature of Photoshop (or similar feature of another image editing software), you can load all three shots into different layers and then carefully erase the under-exposed or over-exposed part of one or more layers to end up with a final shot where both the main subject and the surroundings are properly exposed!

 

With this layers feature in mind, you may now fearlessly shoot in very extreme lighting situations where there are many parts in different intensity of light and shadows such that you are losing details in the highlights and shadows. In this case, you might need more than two extra shots to obtain details in the different parts. Without moving the camera (a tripod is essential here), take as many shots as you need, exposing for the different parts you want details to be visible. Then you would load them all up into Photoshop, each into its own layer, and by erasing the under- and over-exposed parts in each layer (granted, this equivalent of film 'dodging' and 'burning' can be a very tedious and challenging task in itself, but done properly it can be well worth the effort), you can end up with an 'impossible' shot where every part of the cave is properly exposed.

 

In a studio setting, again with camera on tripod, you move a portable studio light around to different parts of a subject (e.g. a car) and work your magic in your image editing software to produce an image that is "impossibly" perfectly exposed all around.

 

Used judiciously, exposure bracketing is a simple technique that can ensure proper exposure of a difficult lighting situation.

 

To read more about this technique (also called 'Blended Exposures'), visit Max Lyons Digital Image Gallery.

 

RAW File Format

 

Many digital cameras targeted to advanced amateur photographers provide a RAW file format. This option allows you to save your image data as nearly identical as it is captured by the image sensor -- theoretically with no processing applied (though in practice, a minimal amount of necessary processing may be applied, depending on the algorithm used).

 

It is equivalent to a digital negative and allows the photographer to manipulate this RAW image data after the fact in an image editing software (with the appropriate RAW plug-in) to produce a picture that is correctly exposed and with faithful colour reproduction.

 

If your camera provides that option, you may want to experiment a bit -- you'll see that it pretty much allows you to perform some exposure bracketing after the fact.

 

Some professional photographers only takes pictures in RAW while others don't. It all depends on how much control over the final image they need. The downside of using RAW: saving images in the RAW file format takes much more memory space and takes longer to write to memory -- plus you need to process every single image.

 

Depth of field

 

Depth of field (DOF) is the distance wherein objects are in focus.

 

This is the pragmatic explanation.

 

To be technically correct, DOF is the zone of acceptable sharpness, the area in front of, and behind, a focused subject that appears in focus.

 

Circle of Confusion (COF)

 

Technically, only the subject in focus -- and all other objects at the same distance -- are in focus; everything else in front and behind are out of focus. How much out of focus depends on a term called the "Circle of Confusion (COF, or COC)."

 

Let's see if we can make that term clear, but if you don't understand it, don't worry. Many photographers take superb pictures using depth of field to their advantage never having heard of COF. I never did until I started researching this topic. And, I find that it just confuses the hell out of most people, so if you want to skip to the next paragraph, here is your chance to do so.

 

OK, back to the COF.

 

Imagine we are photographing three (3) dots. They are the tiniest dots the human eye can clearly make out, and of course, we are assuming perfect 20-20 vision and ideal light condition.

 

So, here we have these 3 dots, arranged one behind the other (with the closest dot to the right of the middle dot, and the farthest dot to the left of the middle dot, so a camera can take a picture of all 3 dots).

 

Now, we focus our lens on the middle dot, which comes out in perfect focus. The two other dots also appear in focus, but peering closely at the resultant photograph, we notice, however, that the dot in front of and behind the middle dot appears as circles instead of perfect dots. I.e., technically, they are out of focus, but to our naked eyes (at a "normal" distance), they "appear" in focus.

 

It is this circle that we call the "Circle of Confusion." So the COF is the diameter of a dot such that when we view it with the naked eye, it appears in focus. If this circle gets past this diameter, our eyes tell us it's out of focus.

 

Lens manufacturers have to decide what that diameter is going to be and design their lenses accordingly to be able to resolve a dot within that COF so that it appears sharp to us. For a more technically detailed explanation of how COF is determined by lens manufacturers, read Michael Reichmann's excellent tutorial: Understanding Depth of Field.

 

That is about all I am going to say on COF. Do you need to understand COF to use DOF? Personally, I don't think so. But if you are one of the people who absolutely must understand COF, its history, how lens manufacturers calculate DOF based on the COF, etc. etc., just check out the link above or do a search on Google. There's enough material there to keep a technical mind happy for many hours.

 

What Affects DOF

 

What we really want to know as photographers is what affects DOF so we can control DOF in our pictures. For a long, long time, photographers have gone with the following three criteria:

 

  • lens aperture
  • distance from subject
  • focal length

While the first two are technically correct, the third one has raised somewhat of a storm of controversy among certain circles. Why exactly, we will make clear later. Let's look at each of the three criteria in more detail.

 

Lens Aperture

 

The aperture is simply the size of the opening that allows light to go through the lens. It is expressed in f/stops (also referred to as f/value or aperture value), and a typical aperture range is f/2.8 - f/8, giving the range from maximum (large at f/2.8) to minimum (small at f/8) aperture.

 

A small f/value (e.g. f/2.8) indicates a large aperture.

 

A large f/value (e.g. f/8) indicates a small aperture.

 

So, f/2.8 is a larger aperture than f/8.

 

Generally, a large aperture gives a shallow DOF, and a small aperture gives great DOF.

 

http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/dof.gif

f/2.8

f/3.5

f/4

f/5.6

f/8

large / max

aperture

 

 

small / min

aperture

less DOF

 

 

more DOF

great for

portraits

 

 

great for

landscapes

Putting Aperture into practice:

 

If you want only the subject the lens focuses on to be sharp, and everything else to be out of focus -- such as a portrait with the background nicely blurred -- then you would "open up the aperture," i.e. use a large aperture.

 

If you need most of your picture to be in sharp focus -- such as a landscape scene -- then you would "stop down the aperture," i.e. use a small aperture.

Shallow DOF Great DOF http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/PICT0236_md.jpg http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/PICT0235_md.jpg Note how the use of a

large aperture

throws the flowers in the background

out of focus.

Focus has to be precise. Using a

small aperture

extends the DOF from the foreground

all the way to the background. 49.8 mm, Av, Spot,

1/30 sec., f/3.5,

+0.7EV, Macro, Tripod used 49.6mm, Av, Spot,

1/5 sec., f/11,

+0.7EV, Macro, Tripod used Minolta DiMAGE A2 In most consumer digital cameras, you may not be able to directly control the aperture. Many, however, provide a Portrait scene mode and a Landscape scene mode that basically do what we are after, i.e. use a large and small aperture, respectively.

 

As most of you have found out by now, it is quite difficult to obtain a shallow depth of field with most consumer digital cameras even with the aperture opened up wide. Why? See the section on focal length below.

 

Distance From Subject

 

 

When you focus on a subject close to the camera, the DOF is less than when you focus on the subject farther away from the camera.

 

Putting Distance From Subject into practice:

 

Step away from your subject to obtain greater DOF, or move in closer to decrease DOF.

 

http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/DSCF0077_450.jpg

Moving In Close:

Even though we use a small focal length (35mm, 35mm equivalent) and

a small aperture (f/7), by moving in close (macro),

we are able to isolate the subject from the background.

If we had used a larger aperture, we would have obtained even shallower DOF.

Fujifilm FinePix S7000

Focal Length

 

Set your subject in front (say, about 3m or more) of a bush (or a tree with lots of leaves, or some other kind of busy background). Use wide-angle and take a picture. Both your subject and the bush would most probably be in sharp focus.

 

The background may distract from your main subject -- unless you're aiming for a Product Shot where you want to situate your subject in his or her environment, and do want both subject and background to be in sharp focus.

 

Now zoom in and fill in the screen with your subject's face and shoulders. Look at the resulting image and you'll probably notice that, though your subject is still in focus, the bush now appears out of focus, giving a nice blurred background that does not steal attention from your subject.

 

Photographers use this technique very effectively to "affect" DOF.

 

So, a wide-angle lens has greater DOF than a telephoto lens. Most consumer digital cameras have very short focal lengths and that is why it is so difficult to obtain shallow DOF, even with the aperture opened up wide.

 

I promised to come back to the storm of controversy brewing in some circles that disputes that focal length has any effect on DOF.

 

The contention is that, for a fixed image size in your screen, the DOF is unchanged irrespective of focal length used. And they have <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/dof2.shtml" target="externalSite">pictures to prove it!

 

However, photography is part technics and part art. The technics part may well tell us that DOF is the same at all focal lengths for a fixed image size on screen. What this is saying is that we achieve the same DOF whether we fill the screen with the face by walking to the subject, or backing off and zooming in.

 

The art side, however, tells us that a long lens (i.e. long focal length) reduces the distance from the subject and thus provides a shallow DOF. Yes, we can achieve the same narrow DOF by walking close to the subject. However, the results look very different! Why? Because a long lens also provides a "flattened" perspective which makes the narrow depth of field much more prominent than walking closer to the subject using a lens with normal focal length does. The link above with all the pictures prove it.

 

Putting Focal Length into practice:

 

Use long focal lengths to achieve the effect of a shallow DOF.

http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/PICT0151_450.jpg

Long Focal Length:

Bu using a long focal length (380mm, 35mm equivalent), we are able to

"throw the background nicely out of focus"

Minolta DiMAGE Z1

Putting It All Together

http://www.photoxels.com/images/Tutorial/P5260211_450.jpg

Putting it all into practice:

A large aperture (f/3.2), moving in close to your subject (macro) and using a long focal length (112mm, 35mm equivalent) has thrown the grass into a nice green blur

Olympus Camedia C-8080 Wide Zoom

A Word On Aperture

 

Following our rule of thumb on using a small aperture to obtain a great DOF, does this mean that we should always use the minimum aperture if we want the greatest DOF?

 

It sounds logical, but because of diffraction that comes into play when the aperture is too small, this may affect the quality of the image, giving the appearance that some objects (especially light sources) are not in focus (but hey, use this to your advantage to obtain starry effects when photographing light sources!). So you don't have to stop down to the smallest aperture for maximum DOF. For example, on 35mm cameras (where the aperture stops all the way down to f/11 or even f/16), f/5.6-f/8 are usually the best apertures to use for maximum DOF. On digital cameras, try f/5.6.

 

Pseudo DOF

 

A word of caution. Some use post-processing and apply a Gaussian (or other type of) Blur to achieve a blurred background effect. Depending on your skills, this may be quite effective but, to a trained eye, this is almost always apparent and looks "false." So never try to pawn off a processed blur as naturally obtained shallow DOF. Also, be careful not to apply this blur effect to all your pictures, but only to a few whose subject matter will benefit from it and where it won't matter that the blur is processed, not natural.

 

Summary

Even though the subject you focus on is the only thing technically in focus, some objects in front and behind your focused subject also appear to our eyes to be acceptably in focus (thanks to the COF). This zone of acceptable sharpness is the DOF.

 

We can increase the DOF (or the appearance of it) by using a small aperture, moving away from our subject, or using a wide-angle lens.

 

We can decrease the DOF (or the appearance of it) by using a large aperture, moving closer to our subject, or using a long focal length.

 

We hope you have enjoyed this Photoxels.com tutorial. If you have any questions, spot any errors, disagree with any aspect of the tutorial, or have a subject you want us to cover next in a tutorial, please give us your feedback on this tutorial. [ email tutorial to a friend ]

 

Our Readers Write Back

 

From: Richard Crossley

 

Feb 8, 2006

 

Differences in perspective are not the result of focal length, but of physical distance, as [we] move the camera from shot to shot.

 

The truth is that focal length does not affect either the DOF or the perspective, at least technically. A 50mm shot and a 300mm shot from the same spot would of course appear different, but that is the result of magnification. If the 50mm shot is blown up until the image of the 300mm shot could be cropped from it, they would be identical. The longer focal length does not change the DOF: it is simply magnifying the out of focus area.

 

In the movie making business, it is critical to understand that, so we don't automatically just run back 100 feet and create audio problems, and also so that we focus on the framing and desired image size, knowing that even though our small LCD display may not be giving us that 'soft background' we want, that when the entire picture is blown up, the true effect will indeed be seen.

 

Also, as a filmmaker, I find you miss a large and important factor in your DOF discussion. Whereas you list focal length as a true determining factor when in fact it is not, you fail to mention target size at all, which is a huge factor, and represents the single biggest reason why it is harder to get a shallow DOF from a digital camera. The relationship of the physical target size (1/4 inch CCD as opposed to 35mm film) makes a HUGE difference.

Edited by TheRealDeal
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agxo3 Newbie

agxo3

Posted
Posted
di nmn ganun ka helpful.....

 

 

pinakamganda tlga ay mag lagay u ng circular polarizing filter....

 

un ang da best....

 

????? Adding a filter adds 2 more air/glass transitions which are the primary cause of flare in the first place! The best solution to flare is to avoid light shining directly on the lens - and for that a good lens hood is helpful. A polarizer of any type is helpful in removing or reducing reflections from shiny transparent surfaces like glass or water, but for flare? Nope. A polarizer is also useful in darkening the sky but you have to learn to use it the right way to do that.

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