Showing posts with label Depth of Field photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Depth of Field photography. Show all posts

30.12.08

Take Better Pictures with Your Digital Camera

 
Photo credit: zoutedrop 


By Dan Feildman

Be smart with photography  Photography is both about knowing how to use a camera and also knowing how to make decisions. Today's media projects images that can be difficult to understand, and learning photography can help you to understand what you're being shown every day on television, on the internet, and in movies.

Photography is a good way to occupy your time, especially if you are a teenager, as it is fun and harmless. Besides that, it's a great way to bring a community together for a project, such as photographing activities and gatherings.

When you buy a digital camera, you have to know how to take care of it to keep it in its best condition. In order to have the clearest photos possible, you must make sure to regularly clean your optic lens and keep from leaving fingerprints on it. If this happens, parts of your pictures will be blurry, and dirt can build up over time. Not all cleaning products are suitable for a camera lens, so make sure that you don't use tissue paper, any household cleaning solutions, and definitely not saliva. Instead, you should buy the proper products at a camera store, in order to keep your camera at its best.

Understanding how your camera focuses will help you get better pictures. Just about all digital cameras these days have autofocus with two-step shutter release.

In dark lighting, you will notice that when you press the button halfway down, a red light appears for a moment, but not in areas that are lighter. Then, when you press the button down fully, there is a flash. When you hold down the button halfway, that focuses the image, and when you depress it fully, the camera takes the focused image. If you want the subject of your photograph not to be in the center but still focused, first center them in the middle of the picture and focus the frame by pressing down halfway. Without removing your finger, reframe the picture with your subject in the right position, and take the picture. Your subject will still be focused.

One aspect of taking a pleasing photograph is depth of field. When you look at a picture, you will notice that all the area surrounding the focused subject is also focused. This area is called depth of field. In order to change the way the depth of field in a picture is seen, focused, and lit, you must change the width of your lens. The wider the lens is, the smaller the depth of field will be. To decrease the depth of field you can also move closer to your subject. To increase it, you can use a smaller lens or move further away from your subject.

A great technique that helps photographers create eye-catching pictures is the rule of thirds. This is a composition technique, create a pleasing balance between the different objects in a photograph. In order to use the rule, divide your screen into six different parts: three horizontal sections, and three vertical. The focal points, where the eye is attracted when it first looks at a picture, are where the lines intersect. Placing the subjects of your pictures at or near the focal points can help create a balanced and attractive picture.

Landscape photos are very popular and can be very nice-looking. The whole photograph will need to be in focus, unlike some pictures where only a certain part is in focus. In order to have the picture completely focused, you'll need to have a short focal length. This will create a larger depth of field, and everything will be focused. In order to creating a pleasing balance between land and sky, or water and sky, you can use the rule of thirds. Furthermore, if you want a sense of three dimensions, you can have a subject in the foreground.

A tripod is a good investment in photography, especially if you want to take panoramic pictures. You'll have to set your tripod in a place where you can swivel the camera smoothly from left to right, and not up and down. You will have to figure out where you want your pictures to overlap, so that you don't have huge gaps in your resulting picture. Once you figure that out, you can swivel your camera in one direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, to take the pictures you want. Once you're done, all you have to do is put them together with a simple graphics program or photo-editing software.

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27.4.08

Know How to Control Your Depth of Field

A rocky vantage point of view from Mt Kinabalu - Photo by angela7dreams

Control your images  As you progress with your photography you'll likely "wake up" one day realizing that you need to have greater control over your images.

Basically, this means controlling the depth of field by adjusting the Aperture-Priority mode. That done, the camera will ensure proper exposure by automatically adjusting the shutter speed.

In the previous post, we touched on the Landscape mode which is the other extreme from the Portrait mode, the later being designed to produce images with minimum depth of field.
As we know by now, the Landscape mode produces images with maximum depth of field. In the following article, Al Sanchez explains further the meaning of depth of field and how a photographer can make the best use of it.


Sun Moon Lake - Photo: Enid Yu

Using Depth of Field - Digital Photography Easy Tips

Depth of field is something that you really need to know about in digital photography. It is something that you know about already but may not know the name of.

The depth means the distance from the closest part of the photo and the part of the picture that is the farthest away that are all in focus. This is the area of the photograph that is clearly in focus.

A general idea of the range of the photo that is in focus is to see that the one-third in front of the object photographed and two-thirds behind the object is in the same depth of field.

The depth of your image is based on a lot of things. It can be affected by various things such as using the zoom button on your camera or changing the lens to a different type.

The depth is influenced mainly by the lenses focal length, the aperture of the lens being used, and how far the subject being photographed is from the camera.

The depth of area in focus can be manipulated by you as a photographer. You can choose to make it very large and have everything in focus or have a small area of the picture in focus.

The lighting and the aperture of the lens will make a great impact on the depth that the photo has. A smaller aperture f-stop will make you have a much larger depth range whereas a larger aperture will give you a smaller range of area in focus.

If you want to have a shallow depth of field then use large aperture numbers like F/2.8. This will make the subject in focus but everything else very out of focus. A large aperture like this will make very extreme blurred backgrounds that are unrecognizable. You can also make it slightly out of focus by using something a little smaller.

An expansive depth can be achieved by using a smaller aperture like F/16. This will give you a picture where mostly everything is in focus. Be sure, however, when taking pictures like this to bring a tripod. Many landscape photos do require tripods since they use very small aperture values that require longer exposure times.

About the author: Al Sanchez has a great program that teaches you how to take better photos. He also teaches people how to sell pictures online.

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