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Sunday, 16 August 2020

How To Take Photos With Mobile Phones

This article shows slides from The Pink Place, Basingstoke, presentation held on 14th August 2020.

The presentation is on understanding mobile phones modes to take better photographs.

How to Improve your Landscape Photography

Good landscape photography is not just achievable by high end cameras such as SLRs, but very good quality photos can also be taken with a standard compact camera. The key point here is that it is not the equipment that makes the photograph, it is the photographer.

Compact cameras often do not have interchangeable lenses like SLRs, but the Landscape mode and zoom facility on most compact cameras will allow you to take landscape photographs.

Most compact camera should enable you to have some control over the aperture, shutter speed, the ISO, exposure compensation (+/-) and focusing. Some compact cameras will also allow the user to take full control over the focusing using the ‘manual’ mode.

Taking photographs of landscapes is fairly easy if you keep the following few tips in mind. These tips can be applied to both point & shoot compact cameras and SLR’s.

1) Maximize Depth-of-Field

In landscape photography, Depth-of-Field plays an important role: the normal rule is to make sure that the fore and background of the scene is in focus as much as possible, which is often known as maximising the depth-of-field. However, there will be times when you will want to be creative and experiment with ‘shallow’ depth-of-field in your landscape photography.

Keep in mind that when using smaller apertures (i.e. f11, f22, etc.) less light is hitting the image sensor/film, you may have to compensate by increasing the ISO or adjusting the shutter speed, in some cases you may have to change both.

Some lower specification compact cameras may not have the facility to allow you to change any of the settings; in this case it is best to use the Landscape mode.

The photograph below is taken using a compact camera set on Landscape mode:

Yellow

The photograph below is taken using a DSLR set on Aperture mode:

Trees

2) Use a Tripod

As you may be using longer shutter speed, a tripod is recommended which will minimise any camera shake

3) Include a Focal Point

All images need to have ‘point’ where the viewer’s attention is drawn into the photograph. Without the focal point, landscape photographs will look empty leaving your viewer’s eye wondering through the image without having the desired impact of the landscape.

Here are some examples of Focal points in landscapes and these can range from a building, structure, a tree, a boulder or rocks, a silhouette, etc. Using the ‘rule of thirds’ can be very useful here.

Place your points of interest on the either one of the green dots. Most cameras have the above grid; use the grid to frame your shot.

4) Include Foregrounds

Most landscapes images work well with a foreground; always think carefully about the foreground of your images and by placing points of interest in them. By including this element you give your viewer a way of looking into the image as well as creating a sense of depth in the photograph.

Photograph taken in Scotland

Scotland

5) Change your View Point

It is always best to take a little more time with your photography, especially in finding the most interesting view. Look around and find a different spot to shoot from than the one just in front of you: take a walk down paths, look for new angles, this means getting down lower to the ground, finding a higher up vantage point to photograph from. Explore your scene and experiment with different viewpoints and you will find something magical.

This photograph was taken looking up the cave, photograph taken at Peak Cavern, Castleton in the Peak District, Derbyshire

Peak Cavern

6) Look out for Horizons

It’s best that before you take a landscape photograph always look at the horizon on two points:

a) Is the horizon straight? It is easier to have your horizon straight in the camera viewfinder before pressing the shutter release, saving time to straighten the image later in editing software.

b) Where to place the horizon? The ‘correct’ natural spot for a horizon is on either the top third line or the bottom line of the ‘rule of thirds’, rather than completely in the middle. In saying this, rules can be broken if you are completely sure that your image with the horizon is very striking.

(See diagram below for where to place the horizon)

Jurassic Coast

7) Include the Sky

Including the sky makes the photograph more interesting. Most landscapes images will have either a dominant foreground or sky. If you your image does not have one or the other, photograph can end up being boring. If the sky is bland, boring sky, overcast, do not include the sky in your image and place the horizon in the upper third of your shot. However your foreground has to interesting. On the other hand if the sky is filled lots of clouds and colours include it by placing the horizon lower third.

Clouds - horizon on lower third

Lighthouse, Northumberland

Sky line on upper third

Boats - Northumberland

8) Leading Lines

You may have asked yourself this question, ‘how can lead the viewer’s eye of into the image’?

Here is the answer; there are a number of ways of doing this.

Include foreground
Blur the image to create a sense of movement
Changing your view point
Colours in the landscape: i.e. a field of poppies against the blue sky

Leading lines are one of the best ways into an image which lead the viewers into the photograph. Lines give an image depth, scale and can be a point of interest and create patterns in your image.

Miner's Track - Snowdonia National Park

Tyre tracks leading on

Snowdonia National Park

9) Capturing Movement

When most people think about landscapes they think of calm, peaceful and passive environments – however landscapes are rarely completely still and adding the movement creates the mood, drama, and create a point of interest.

Examples of movement in landscapes are:– moving trees, waves on a beach, water flowing over a waterfall, birds flying overhead, moving clouds, stars etc.

Capturing movement generally means a longer shutter speed, which means more light hitting your camera sensor. For this reason you will need to use a small Aperture, use a Neutral Density or a Polarization filter or photograph your landscapes at the start or end of the day when there is less light.

Below: Zoomed while taking the photograph

Pamber Forest

Fast Shutter Speed

10) Weather

A landscape can change dramatically depending on the weather conditions; choose the right time to photograph.

It’s great to get out on sunny days and photograph landscapes; however an overcast day that is threatening to rain may provide you with a much better opportunity to create an image with great atmosphere and mood.

Look out for storm clouds, mist, sun shining through dark skies, sunsets, sunrises etc. and work with the different elements rather than just waiting for the next clear blue sky day.

Sunset on a misty evening

Trees in the mist

After the storm - photograph of the beach after it had stopped raining

After the storm

Foggy morning

Foggy Morning

I hope this brief insight into Landscape Photography assists you in taking better Landscape photographs.

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

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Monday, 24 June 2019

What is an Aperture?

Understanding Apertures

What is an Aperture?

Aperture is one of the three main functions in photography along with the shutter and the ISO.

The aperture is a ‘circular hole’ within the lens and is known as the ‘diaphragm’. To create an image, light passes through the ‘diaphragm’ and travels into the camera image sensor/film creating the image. The amount the ‘diaphragm’ is open to allow light through is measured in f-stops, i.e. f2.8, f4, f5.6, f11, f16, etc.

Beginners often get confused on what ‘f’ numbers mean and how they work. As a general rule: the smaller the ‘f’ number, the larger the opening of the aperture. The larger ‘f’ number, the smaller the opening of the aperture.

Therefore, f2.8 is considered as a large aperture. At f2.8 the diaphragm of the lens is larger and allows more light to come through and fall on the image sensor/film.

At f16, the aperture is small. The diaphragm of the lens is small limiting the amount of light passing through the lens and falling on the image sensor/film.

The below diagram shows the aperture in relation to its ‘f’ numbers: (not to scale)

How does the aperture work?

Just think about the human eye; the pupil controls the amount of light passing further into the eye by shrinking or expanding.

The aperture works exactly the same way. The amount of light is controlled by changing the f-stops on the camera. As you can see from the diagram, f2.8 allows much more light in than f32.

If the aperture is changed from one ‘f’ stop ‘either way’, it doubles or halves the size of aperture as well as the amount of light passing through.

Moving from f2.8 to f4 the amount of light is halved.

Moving from f8 to f5.6the amount of light is doubled.

When changing the aperture either way, it also affects the shutter speed (the amount of time the shutter is open) and the ‘Depth of Field’- (DOF is what controls the image sharpness).

Aperture and Focus

Choosing a large ‘f’ number such as f22 or f32 will bring all the foreground and background in focus. This aperture setting is always best to use when you want everything to be sharp and in focus.

This photograph has been taken using f22, as you can see everything is in focus from the foreground to the background.

On the other hand, a small ‘f’ numbers such as f2.8, f4 and f5.6 will blur the background, isolating the subject. This aperture setting is useful to use when you want to have parts of your photograph blurred to add impact as well as for photographing close-ups.

The 1^st photograph has been taken using f2.8, as you can see the purple nail varnish bottle is in focus and the rest of the image is blurred. The 2^nd photograph has been taken on f5.6.