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Is anyone on this forum into photography?....


Troy
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As Rant says

The depth of Field (DoF) is the amount of picture that is in focus.

This is controlled mainly by the aperture and to a degree by the focal length of the lens.

Years ago there was a depth of field guide marked on the lenses from which you could see the approx distances in focus.

To learn a little more on this you could download a “depth of field” app fir either Apple or android. Some of these show in diagram form the relationship between the actual focus point and the near and far points in focus.

Have a look here

https://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/depth_of_field_calculator.do

And here

https://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/infobank/lenses/focusing_and_depth_of_field.do


So in essence a small aperture eg f22 gives a big depth of field (lots in focus)

And a large aperture eg f2.4 small DOF not much in focus. Ideal for throwing a distracting background out of focus.


HTH.

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When I can get out I do enjoy photography as a hobby. Although I do use the phone (usually when I haven’t got my camera) my main weapon of choice is a Canon DSLR with a Panasonic LUMIX as backup

Just ask the questions and if folk can help they will.

 

Amazing snaps of the indigenous birds of Warwickshire <3

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When I can get out I do enjoy photography as a hobby. Although I do use the phone (usually when I haven’t got my camera) my main weapon of choice is a Canon DSLR with a Panasonic LUMIX as backup

Just ask the questions and if folk can help they will.

 

Amazing snaps of the indigenous birds of Warwickshire <3

 

:lol:

Puffins on Treshnish islands during a Scottish holiday and the others at an open day at EOS magazine headquarters in Oxfordshire.

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I have no special cameras or any clue about photography but thought I'd post this photo I took a few years ago on my phone. I've always thought it looked good :)

 

The covers are missing off the conduit boxes. :roll:


Phone cameras are generally quite good. :thumb:

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I have no special cameras or any clue about photography but thought I'd post this photo I took a few years ago on my phone. I've always thought it looked good :)

 

Why did you stand on your phone?


I swear, I’ll never understand people. :D

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I've dabbled for years (mostly with film, which is still my preference) without really getting any better. Then I went to a Don McCullin exhibition last year, which inspired me to give up completely.


Here's one of my better digital efforts, taken in the middle of the night a few years ago using a long exposure and an old flashgun with coloured filters that has been kicking around in the bottom of my camera bag since the mid 1980s:


 

IMG_1040.thumb.JPG.9ce84c752f7c81a0dedbf79bc15308c7.JPG

 


As I was flicking back through my photos to find that I noticed that I seem to have spent a considerable amount of my life photographing trifles for some reason:


 

IMG_0109.thumb.JPG.a48b1a7b5cfc77dfde9cb0a6bc1738fe.JPG

 

IMG_0733.thumb.JPG.6a5b79be82b65a97e51f7259ebe3aa9c.JPG

 

IMG_0814.thumb.JPG.c9f1e26d88ee0fd15926c87db221d6af.JPG

 

IMG_1448.thumb.JPG.99ed9278b5c8254407970b1bff42de4f.JPG

 

IMG_1456.thumb.JPG.9936b95ffdd6806f5a6f592886f1f778.JPG

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I've dabbled for years (mostly with film, which is still my preference) without really getting any better. Then I went to a Don McCullin exhibition last year, which inspired me to give up completely.

 

 

Don McCullin one of the true greats of photography. There was a recent documentary about him a few months ago on BBC4. Well worth watching if it comes around again.

Edited by Smithers
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[mention]MarkW[/mention] i agree with Bender on the sherry attraction.

I like the car I’ve tried Painting with light and never got it right.

Would love to do good black and white photography but whenever I see it in exhibitions it just encourages me to give up on it.

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I had a Polaroid Swinger in the 60's if that's any help.


 

And I expect none of the photos you took are suitable for here. :roll:

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I went to the beach yesterday for a walk with the family. Took some nice photos, but when I got home and viewed them on the computer, the photos didn’t appear as good as I thought they were when I originally took them looking through the lens. I was using my Sigma lens is that helps any?!


For the majority of the photos I took them in full manual mode because I heard this is the best way to learn. (Don’t know if this is true or not)


Like a fool, I have deleted the bad ones so I have nothing to show you exactly what I mean. There was a photo which disappointed me the most and I’ll show you this one from the web because it will give you an idea of what it was like and what I was aiming for. It was shot a little like this one.....

 

2A5384C9-DAED-4376-AA89-A7075D2420BF.thumb.jpeg.6a207a5eea099df472ce844ae653d46a.jpeg

 

The problem I had with it (and it seems to be a running theme on my photos) is the Center of the image is sharp and in focus but then gets softer around the edges and makes the environment appear out of focus. I was aiming for something as crisp as the image above, that’s what I saw in my head when I took it. Also the movement of limbs were a little blurry too. I switched to sports mode on the hope this would help capture the motion better but it didn’t. I couldn’t pan much because the family was running towards the camera.


I could be wrong but what I think I need to do, is adjust my camera on where it focuses on if that makes sense? If I look through the eye hole, I can see several white boxes which I can select where the main focus point is. I have always left it on the central point. It looks this...

 

CC004C78-FABE-42F4-8ABC-AD9AFABCA084.jpeg.7aaa264e0d5d1d6ba8e8193483dafa43.jpeg

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[mention]Troy[/mention] my own opinion. I would leave using manual until you have an understanding of how the settings affect the picture. My camera is left on P (program )setting. This is so if something appears suddenly I can grab a snap shot and know that it is going to come out. If I have a little more time I can use the “wheel” to change the shutter / aperture relationship to get what I want.

I only tend to to use manual for static subjects even then not often.

For landscape I would use aperture priority (Av) to select the depth of field (amount in focus) I want.

For moving things shutter priority (Tv).

With regards to the edges of the picture being soft, this is a function of the lens. All lenses are pin sharp in the Center and the focus goes softer towards the edges. Generally the more expensive the lens the less this happens. This is also a function of the selected aperture. With f4 f5.6 the edges will be softer than using f11 f16 for example.

With the arms slightly blurred this is due to the shutter speed too slow. Sport mode may not increase shutter speed enough. This is where you may want to use Tv and set the speed manually. The aperture will then sort itself out. Watch for the warnings in the view finder in case a suitable aperture can not be found.

The centre focus point is the most sensitive and will follow focus quicker. If you move from this point for moving subjects it may be a little slow to update. Also if you use live view focusing can be slower.

I rarely delete poor photos until I have looked at them for a while to see what was not quite right.


I also shoot in JPEG and RAW mode and if the light is not quite right this can be better corrected in RAW mode rather than JPEG.

To view the RAW pictures you will need to download the software from Canon but if the discs Came with the camera it should be on there.

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Out of interest what is the best way to take a photo of the moon? Usually I end up with a bright white dot with no detail :|

 

It’s not easy.

34ABA8BE-DE9F-4321-ACCA-E6A3CFA11A5A.thumb.jpeg.3a91a6b397114befa1a6ba22f4430356.jpeg

 

This was at f9 1/40 sec manual taken with a Canon 7D using a canon 70 - 300 lens at 300mm.

That was a good lens wish I had not sold it.


I find a full moon hard due to the amount of reflected light.

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I would argue that Aperture Priority mode is the go-to for almost anything. Now, I should probably clarify that I personally prefer to go all manual at all times (and my camera choice somewhat reflects that), but that's largely because doing so is workable for the types of photography that I tend to do in my spare time. But, in all the time I've worked in the Photography industry (which is my entire working life), it's been common practice among almost all of my peers to rely on Aperture Priority for the majority of the time.


Of course, shutter priority seems like the logical choice if you need to ensure a fast shutter speed - after all, you can dial in the speed you're after and let the camera do the rest. But, this can lead to failed exposures when the camera cannot use a wide enough aperture to achieve your desired exposure. The range of flexibility available to the camera in shutter priority is quite limited when compared to aperture priority, and the more basic the lens the more likely this is to be the case. And of course, even if you're using a lens capable of impressively wide maximum apertures, there is a high likelihood of the camera using a setting that offers less depth of field than your desired shot would require. Whereas, even the most basic camera bodies have a fairly colossal amount of flexibility at their disposal when it comes to varying shutter speed - and it doesn't vary according to the lens.


Achieving the fastest viable shutter speed in any given lighting scenario is far easier when you can just dial in the minimum aperture that will work for your desired shot, the maximum ISO that you are comfortable using (and I would encourage being very realistic about just how much it matters that your image is noise free at 100% crop...), and then allow your camera to fill the gap. Just like that, you have the maximum viable shutter speed and a perfectly balanced exposure under any setting. Better still, on an SLR you don't need to check the screen to confirm an optimal shutter speed was used - if the actuation of the mirror unit is too slow for your liking, you know that maybe a further compromise on Aperture or ISO is needed.


Clarification on ISO:

photography-shutter-speed-aperture-iso-cheat-sheet-chart-fotoblog-hamburg-daniel-peters-11.jpg

(For context: things on the left of each scale mean less light is making its way into the final image, and so if you're off to the left on one scale you'll likely need to be off to the right on at least one of the others)


ISO is the third thing you're balancing in any exposure equation - it's the light sensitivity setting of your camera's sensor. Higher sensitivity settings will allow you to use higher shutter speeds without having to shift your aperture, and vice versa. But in trade off, your images will have more noise/artifacting (or if your camera has noise reduction switched on, which I do not recommend, it'll get increasingly blurry). This comes in two forms; luminosity noise (i.e. grain), and color noise (pixels of incorrect color, often giving darker areas a weird magenta/blue tint).


Of course, there is one scenario where Shutter Priority does still have the edge, and that's panning shots or other shots where you specifically want/need a certain degree of length to the exposure in order to achieve a desired effect. In these scenarios, yes, shutter priority is clearly the only way to go as all other exposure modes (besides Manual) offer no guarantee of the desired outcome. But within the greater scope of ways that one might use the camera, Shutter Priority has a far smaller niche of applications. Furthermore, Aperture Priority has the nice little benefit of forcing you to really think about the impact that different depths of field will have on the final image, something that translates incredibly well into using Manual once more comfortable with the effects your camera can achieve.


[mention]Troy[/mention] if you're aiming to recreate the look of that stock image you shared, you want a high shutter speed so as to freeze not only the motion of the subjects but also a relatively sharp (or at least, not motion blurred) background. A panning shot isn't going to give you this effect. You also don't want too high of an aperture so that the background is defocused as seen in the example. Luckily, these go hand in hand - a low aperture will in turn grant flexibility to use a higher shutter speed.


Also, it looks like in that image they've thrown the focus a little in front of the family; you can see how the child is sharper than the parents, but more telling is when you look at the floor. Focus continues to be relatively sharp up to the bottom of the frame, whereas it falls off incredibly rapidly behind the parents. Focusing just in front of the subject like this is a great way of maximising focus fall-off behind the subject, so long as you know for sure that the subject will fall within the depth of field of your chosen aperture. The spot in the sand roughly half way between the woman's feet and the child's feet looks like the sharpest spot, which suggests that the camera was either pre-focussed (manually) here and then the shutter released as the family reach that spot, or the camera's AF spot was relocate to there. Either way, in a set-up shot like this, focussing where you want the model to be when you take the photo, rather than on the model themselves, is a great way to set up a shot like this.


As far as the issue you describe with sharpness falling off to the edges - as JRH says, all lenses are sharpest at the center of the frame, with falloff towards the edges. However, use of higher apertures doesn't just offer greater depth of field - it also combats this. Furthermore, wider lenses are far more prone to this issue. And the fact that one of the lenses you have (the 18-55) is designed explicitly for use on the sensor size that your camera has (1.5 crop) whereas the other two lenses you own are designed for a full sized sensor is going to be another consideration - the softer parts of the image circle cast on the focal plane by your 70-200 and 70-300 aren't even going to be overlapping the sensor, and so fall off in sharpness likely won't be much of a concern for these. In contrast, the 18-55 has some pretty severe fall off at the wide end.


To clarify:

304480962_ImageCircle.thumb.jpg.03b56a917ac8d58db51292d693abc0f5.jpg

The left circle represents a lens that has been designed for use on a full sized sensor, like your 70-200 and 70-300.

The right circle represents a lens designed for use on a crop sized sensor, like your 18-55. And of course, your camera has a crop sensor.

As you can see, in order to cater for the larger sensor size, a lens has to cast the light over a much larger area. What this means is that the less-optimal parts of the optics around the edge of the lens (the bits I've tinted red) fall way outside of the sensor itself when used on a crop sensor camera. Whereas, when you use a lens designed for a crop sensor on a crop sensor camera, you can see that the light is cast on the focal plane over a much smaller area. The red (soft) areas are now inside the frame! This is why crop frame lenses often appear lower quality than full frame lenses when used on a crop sensor camera; you aren't using the lower quality parts of the optics! When used on a full sized sensor they'll start showing their shortcomings.

And of course, if you use a crop lens on a full size sensor, the image circle doesn't even cover the whole sensor. On a Canon you just plain can't use a crop lens on a full frame sensor body, and on a Nikon it'll automatically crop the images to remove the areas outside of the image circle (effectively making the camera into a crop sensor, but also losing a lot of resolution at the same time).


So, a few thoughts on recreating that shot:


- Compression of depth and perspective (well, lack thereof) indicates that it's clearly a wide shot, not a telephoto. Avoid the 70-200 and 70-300, and keep at the wide end of your 18-55. You won't have to stand too far back if shooting at 18mm, which will have the handy side effect of shortening your depth of field and making it easier to throw the background out of focus.


- A high shutter speed is going to be key to getting a background that is free of motion blur like your example, so consider trying Aperture Priority mode and setting a reasonably high ISO so that the camera can automatically pick out a nice high shutter speed. If it doesn't work out, try a slightly higher ISO (within reason).


- To create that kind of depth of focus you'll need a relatively low aperture. But, too low on the aperture and you'll see that focus fall off at the edges of the frame - instead of having the aperture wide open at 3.5, close it up a little bit (5.6 or 8). This will bring more of the background into focus, so experiment with focusing on the ground where you expect the subject to be at the time when you take the shot, then manually bringing the focus ever so slightly closer to the camera. A tripod is handy for this so that the camera doesn't move after you've set up the focus.


- That sample has absolutely had a lot of post production work done. There is flat out no way the child's face would be that well exposed - as bright as the sand - when he has his back to the sun while the sand is catching direct sunlight. Unless using flash, but there are no hallmarks of this in the images (the shadows being the big clue). Also the child's skin tone and color is wildly different to that of the parents, and it looks like he may even have a slight halo around the left side of his face (his left, our right). Looks like someone either used a highlights dodge or a levels correction to brighten him up, a curves or midtones dodge might've achieved something that looked a bit more natural. But tl;dr: don't assume that a result like this is ever possible straight out of the camera, stock images (like all of the internet) lie.

Edited by RantMachine
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[mention]RantMachine[/mention] have you got a TL:DR version?


All I do it point and shoot! if its shit I delete it and move on with my phone :lol:

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Guest Swagman

@RantMachine have you got a TL:DR version?


All I do it point and shoot! if its shit I delete it and move on with my phone :lol:

 

Yeah me too Stu to complex for a thick o like me. :D

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