Learned this from the Tech Guy Podcast: Go into your bathroom, close the door and shoot 100 photos of the inside of your bathroom.
The first 30 are easy. Then you have to work at finding new things and new ways of seeing the very familiar. I'd never heard of this exercise before, but thought it sounded cool, so I did it.
Now, I recommend you do it - this is one of the better exercises I've done.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
New Blog for the site - and "Depth of Field" vs "Sharpness"
This is a new section for BestPhotoLessons.com - we're adding a blog to add some new content to the site in ways that may not need a full article or stand alone page. By all means, leave a comment or otherwise let us know if there's anything you'd like to see on the blog or on the site.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Onto The Blog:
Might do a video of this - a viewer of our YouTube videos asked about sharpness of a lens and best aperture for that as opposed to depth-of-field. Great question.
As a rule, the highest sharpness of a lens is about 2 stops closed down from the maximum aperture - ie. if the maximum is f2.8, then f5.6 would be about as sharp as the lens will get (f2.8 --> f4 -->-f5.6 = two stops.)
Imagine you have a group of friends standing in front of you, about 7 feet away, and you want to shoot a picture of them. You're using the 24-75mm f2.8 lens that I have, and you set it all the way out at 75 mm to get a tighter image, and at f5.6 for "the maximum sharpness." In the group, the nearest person is 7 feet away, but the furthest is 10 feet away. You focus on the nearest person and take the shot.
However, when you later see the shot on your computer, the nearest person is very sharp. But, everyone behind her are all fuzzy. Hmmm. What happened?
At a distance of 7 feet with that lens and fstop, the total "depth" of the focus with that lens is only 8 inches. The near limit is 6' 7" and the far limit is 7' 6" - so your back person is now 2'6" out of the ideal focal range.
Being persistant - and doing a little research - you re-assemble your friends, and take the shot again. But, this time you set the camera to f16 and focus on someone in the middle - between the nearest and farthest people, about 8'3" from the lens. Now the near limit of focus is 6'10" which is closer than the near person, and the far limit is 10'6" which is just past the furthest person - the total depth of focus has increased to 3'9" (up from 8 inches before.)
Looking at the image on your computer you can see that the middle person is pretty much as clear as the front person was before, but now everyone is acceptably in focus and looking great.
Technnically the focus point is a little softer than at the lower f stop, but its so close you can't really tell without scientific instruments - and you've gotten the "out of focus" people back into the shot.
All of this, of course, changes with different focal lengths, different distances to the subject and so on. You can do some research online to find out more. If you really want to get technical, you can look up "Circle of Confusion."
I recently downloaded an iPhone app called PhotoCalc which gives you all these numbers, and a lot more information as well.
Hope this clears a few things up for those who need to know.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Onto The Blog:
Might do a video of this - a viewer of our YouTube videos asked about sharpness of a lens and best aperture for that as opposed to depth-of-field. Great question.
As a rule, the highest sharpness of a lens is about 2 stops closed down from the maximum aperture - ie. if the maximum is f2.8, then f5.6 would be about as sharp as the lens will get (f2.8 --> f4 -->-f5.6 = two stops.)
Imagine you have a group of friends standing in front of you, about 7 feet away, and you want to shoot a picture of them. You're using the 24-75mm f2.8 lens that I have, and you set it all the way out at 75 mm to get a tighter image, and at f5.6 for "the maximum sharpness." In the group, the nearest person is 7 feet away, but the furthest is 10 feet away. You focus on the nearest person and take the shot.
However, when you later see the shot on your computer, the nearest person is very sharp. But, everyone behind her are all fuzzy. Hmmm. What happened?
At a distance of 7 feet with that lens and fstop, the total "depth" of the focus with that lens is only 8 inches. The near limit is 6' 7" and the far limit is 7' 6" - so your back person is now 2'6" out of the ideal focal range.
Being persistant - and doing a little research - you re-assemble your friends, and take the shot again. But, this time you set the camera to f16 and focus on someone in the middle - between the nearest and farthest people, about 8'3" from the lens. Now the near limit of focus is 6'10" which is closer than the near person, and the far limit is 10'6" which is just past the furthest person - the total depth of focus has increased to 3'9" (up from 8 inches before.)
Looking at the image on your computer you can see that the middle person is pretty much as clear as the front person was before, but now everyone is acceptably in focus and looking great.
Technnically the focus point is a little softer than at the lower f stop, but its so close you can't really tell without scientific instruments - and you've gotten the "out of focus" people back into the shot.
All of this, of course, changes with different focal lengths, different distances to the subject and so on. You can do some research online to find out more. If you really want to get technical, you can look up "Circle of Confusion."
I recently downloaded an iPhone app called PhotoCalc which gives you all these numbers, and a lot more information as well.
Hope this clears a few things up for those who need to know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)