When you are working on a photo (either for making a selection or doing some editing), work in full screen. This prevents other windows, menu bars, desktop backgrounds from distracting you. Working in full screen mode changes how you perceive the image. This is especially true if there is a big clash between the colours of your image and that of your desktop. Your image needs space around it. This is also something to keep in mind when you display your photos somewhere.
Happy shooting.
If you read about photography, you’ll often read sharper this or that. How to get sharper pictures that this is a sharp lens. In this assignment I want to explore sharpness in photo’s. How do you see sharpness in a photo? How does it influence the photo as a whole? How can you influence sharpness? How does it relate to focus etc etc.
Task: Experiment with sharpness
In about a week or two I’ll share with you what I’ve learned. If you are learning with me let me know what you’ve learned by adding it in the comments.
Happy shooting!
In a post two weeks ago I set myself an assignment:
Task: take a subject easy to reach and take many pictures of it at different times of day, so from dawn till dusk. Compare the results and see how the subject changes.
Here is the result of that assignment and what lessons I’ve learned from it.
I started out this assignment with the knowledge that light is important and that the best time of day to shoot is around the hours of sunset and sunrise. If you are anything like me, this kind of knowledge only really sinks in after you’ve seen it with your own eyes. I took photos of a leaf covered chimney which is visible from my apartment. The pictures are taken with the same camera and without any level adjustments. I will draw your attention to some aspects which got mine. Click the images to get a larger version. With each picture I added the RGB histogram. (click here to read about histograms) So without further ado, here we go:
This image is taken about 1 hour after sunrise. It has a lot of details in the leaves. The histogram shows a bit of blue being washed out, but all in all fairly balanced.
This image is taken about 4 hours after sunrise. Notice the vibrancy of the colours. Morning sky is in general more clear. There is however less detail in the leaves, it looks a bit more like a green blanket rather than individual leaves. This is also because the sunlit part is lit from the frot as opposed to lit from the side.
We are now 6 hours after sunrise. The contrast between the sky and object start to increase, and detail start to be lost. Also notice that due to the fact that the sun has turned. The light comes more from the sides. This reveals some relief in the leafcover.
Seven hours after sunrise closing in on midday. Notice how the left peak in the histogram (the object) start to be very narrow. This means less detail. Compared to the previous image the shadow side of the chimney has darkened (or the sunlit side and the sky have brightened).
Midday. Out is the detail and the blue sky is the same go. The histograms shows a narrow band on both sides. In short not a great time to take pictures.
Now we are moving to sunset. This is about 3 hours before. The detail is coming back. Notice also that due to the sun from the side, relief in the leaf cover is very visible. This is a great property if you are taking pictures of mountains; a sun from the side of the mountain will reveal substructures on mountains (smaller peaks, grooves, ridges etc.)
One hour before sunset. The blue in the sky is back and shadow side becomes brighter.
Half an hour after sunset. The sky is still fairly bright. The whole picture has a bluish look. This is also because the west north-western sky is blocked by a building. This means that the much redder light from the western sky is not reaching the chimney. I think that is there was no building there, the picture would look redder.
Past midnight. Sun is gone and the moon is up. The bright stripes in the sky are stars, making their progression through the night sky.
Summary
This assignment made it very visual to me how the different kinds of sunlight at different time of day affect an photo. Remember that the photos above are all of the same thing, with the same camera and from the same position, the only thing that changed was the sun! One thing I also learned was that a morning looks different than an evening and it might very well be worthwhile waking up early to take some photos.
Hope this was useful to you and let me know if you have any additions or comments in the comment section. Happy shooting!
In this review I will talk about my camera bag, the LowePro compudaypack (see product site here)
Specs:
The bag ha 3 main compartments: Camera, General and Laptop. Each compartment has its own zipper. The camera part has six compartments which can be rearranged to fit your gear. The longest lens which fits into a single comportment is about 18 cm. The laptop part is design to hold a 15″ laptop. The other compartment is fairly spacious and can hold your lunch, extra sweater etc.
My impressions:
When I set out to find my camera bag I had 2 requirements and 1 nice to have:
Based on these requirements I choose this bag, and I am definitely happy with it. The first requirement is easy to fill, many bags carry all the gear I have or was planning to buy in the foreseeable future. This gear is a nikon D60, 18-55 lens, 50mm lens, 70-300 lens, small stuff (battery, lenspen etc).
The second requirement was harder. Most bags which will carry the gear won’t carry much else. If you are going on a hike or short trip this means that you will need to carry two bags around. The LowePro was one of the few which had a good size camera part, but also room for other stuff and even a special laptop compartment for if your laptop needs to join you.
The bag is also comfortable to wear. I took it with me for long hikes in the Swiss alps (easy tracks though 
) and walked all day with it through San Francisco and I didn’t have any problems with it.
The only limitation I found was that the lens which is mounted to the camera body can’t be too long. I would have preferred to be able to mount my 70-300 while the camera is in the bag, in case an animal shows up unexpectedly.
Tripod:
The tripod I have (manfrotto 785shb) also fits into the bag. It fits nicely in the top compartment. To optimise the space I have the ballhead sticking out, but this is not required.
A good bag is important as it determines what gear you will have with you when you go out to shoot. I can recommended this bag without hesitation.
Happy shooting!
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In order to improve my photography I will set myself some assignments. In these assignment I will select a particular aspect of photography and create a task with it. After about 2 weeks I will look back on it and draw up my lessons learned.
Assignment 1 light
As light is the most important thing in photography, the first assignment is light and in particular different kinds of natural light. How does the different kind of light at different time of day affect the subject, how does it influence details, shadow, etc. I first heard this assignment suggestion (or something similar) at either photofocus.com or TWIP podcast, both are warmly recommended podcasts.
Task: take a subject easy to reach and take many pictures of it at different times of day, so from dawn till dusk. Compare the results and see how the subject changes.
Happy shooting!
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In this review I will talk about my Sigma 70-300mm APO. As with previous reviews I will let the technical detailed analysis to others and focus on how the lens worked for me. For this lens specifically I will also point out some alternatives I considered and the reason for choosing this lens in the end.
First the links to in depth reviews fro a quality appraisal.
The price is very decent around €180.
zoom
The main feature of this lens is the focal range 70-300mm. I bought this lens since I wanted to photograph animals and, as you have to stay away not to disturb them, a long lens is required. The sigma 70-300 comes in a number of flavours and you have to pay attention you get the right model. First of course make sure you have the right mount (Nikon or Canon,..). Secondly they come with or without motor. This is important if you own a D40 or D60 body. As they don’t have a autofocus motor in the body you need to have it in the lens. In online stores you often see it with a (motor) in the listing. Next there is the APO and non-APO variant. The difference is the quality. I got the APO variant.
My experiences
I am very happy with the lens except for some minor things. The lens is very diverse. A mistake, I was also guilty of is to interpret zoom as the ability to take pictures of subjects which are far away. Of course this is true, but moreover it narrows your field of view and compresses distance. This can be most clearly see when you take a picture of landscape feature which trails away in the direction of the line of sight. This can be a street (as can be seen in the last sample picture) or railroad track. A second to realize is that a long lens makes it easier to isolate a subject. As the field of view with a long lens is smaller (smaller angle) the background is less likely to contain distractions.
All in all I am very happy with the lens. The quality is good for its price. At least for me the quality of the lens is still better than my photography, so works me me fine. The only thing which annoys me sometimes is that it is not so fast to autofocus and that the autofocus is noisy. The autofocus being noisy matters as animals might be disturbed by the noise and run/ fly away.
Sample pictures
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| Cat portrait. 270 mm, F/5.6, 1/500s ISO 200 |
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| Pheasant. 300 mm, F/5.6, 1/400s, ISO 200 |
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| Flower buds. 300mm (macro mode), F/5.6, 1/250s, ISO 100 |
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| Street in Utrecht. 255mm, F/7.1, 1/50s, ISO 200 |
conclusion
Here is a number of alternatives I considered, but didn’t take. At the end of the day I picked the sigma lens because within my budget it was the best lens I could get with the features I wanted.
This lens is the natural companion to my 18-55 mm kitlens. When I tried it on in the shop on my own camera body however it was much slower to focus than the Sigma. On top of that the sigma is longer. The feature this lens had and the sigma hasn’t is the VR.
I prefer this lens to the one I bought but the price was more double. The VR is the main feature in favor of this lens. It would mean you’d be able to take sharp hand held shots at lower light situations.
This lens is as far as I know alone it its range. It is a fast lens F/2.8 throughout the range, but very compact, not much larger that my sigma 70-300. The fact that it has a constant aperture throughout the range suggest better quality. The price was the killer again, also because to make it as long as the 70-300 a 2.0x teleconverter would have been required (making it F/5.6 100-300 or F/4 70-210)
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As you could have read in a previous post I was planing a trip to Switzerland. I also tried to think a bit in advance what kind op pictures I would like to come home with.
The results you can find here: Switzerland Gallery
What I’ve learned:
I hope you have also learned something from my trip. Let me know if you have any comments by leaving a comment.
Happy shooting!
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About a month ago I decided it was time to buy a tripod. I was going on a trip and I didn’t want little light to stand in the way of a good shot.
Why need a tripod?
You need to use a tripod if your shutter speed is getting in the area of 1 / the focal length of the lens. So if you have a focal length of 50mm you stand a good change of shooting a good picture at a shutter speed of 1/50s. If you use an image stabilizer you might be able to get a sharp image at 1/30s or slower, but if you need to shoot at slower speeds or want to be sure of a sharp picture, use a tripod.
D60 sigma 70-300mm at 170mm F/7.1, 1/50s, ISO 200
Which tripod?
Of course tripods are a pain in the <insert body part of choice> to carry around. You might be tempted to leave it at home, especially when you are just stating out and are not yet so sure if you really need a tripod. So the most important thing is to pick a tripod you will actually take with you. Any tripod in your bag is better than the one at home. However they should still be able to carry the weight of the camera. So with this in mind I started to hunt for my tripod; small enough to fit in my bag, yet strong enough to support my camera and lenses.
After some looking around and trying them out in the shops I settled on the Manfrotto 785SHB.
Manfrotto 785SHB
It is a small yet sturdy tripod. Collapsed it only measures 36.5 cm. It is small enough to fit into my backpack! So no problem to carry it around. The ball head and joystick grip is handy and easy to operate. It also comes with a bubble so you know when it is level. Extended it reaches 114.5 cm which is high enough for almost all situations. As you can screw off the lower part of the center column it can go very low as well, 15.5 cm.
The big question however is if it can support my camera with lenses. It is rated for 1 kg. This means that my Nikon D60 with my 50mm prime or 18-55 zoom should work perfectly fine but the D60 with my Sigma 70-300 zoom would exceed the weight limit (with about 200g).
And true to the spec I had no problem whatsoever with the 50mm or 18-55 zoom. It carried is nicely. It also carries my D60 with the 70-300 zoom lens fine, but with some limitations: It will not lock when the camera is in vertical mode. The weight will simply make it point down. It does however work when the camera is horizontal, though you have to push the lock tight so it does not slip. With the 70-300mm zoom it is also recommended to use either time delay or remote shutter press as it is sensitive to vibration. The price is about €70 so not expensive
Conclusion
I recommend it without hesitation if you keep the limitation in mind. It works very well for me.
pro:
cons:
Hope this helped you, if you have any comments well put them in the comment
Happy shooting
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Here is a simple technique to make creative images by adding zoom blur. You most likely can achieve a similar effect in post editing, but here I’ll explain how it is done ‘in the field’.
First composition: First pick a suitable subject. The subject should have a good contrast to the background so it sticks out. Set up your camera on a tripod. The subject needs to be placed in the center.
Now set the focus and switch to manual focus. What you will be doing is zoom and press the shutter at the same time. In order for this to work best the shutter speed needs to be long enough. So lower the ISO setting to 100 or lower, set the aperture to the highest F number. Also set your camera to continues shooting, so that if you keep the shutter pressed it keeps taking pictures.
Now the tricky part is to time the shutter press and the zooming. The easiest way to do this is to go back and forth so that you continuous zooming in or out. In this way in the 1/30st of a second that the shutter is open you are most likely zooming in or out. And if you keep the shutter pressed you for sure have one with the right effect.
In your favorite application you can crop the image so the subject is off center.
Hope you’ll have fun trying this out. Let me know if you like it by adding a comment.
Happy shooting!
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So you’ve got your (first) new dSLR and wandering what kind of additions to get next to get started. Here are 3 items which helped me most in improving my photography, enjoying my new dSLR and which I recommend you to get first. If you disagree or have some additional must haves, leave a comment.
I bought these things based on recommendations from Scott Bourne’s website and podcast Photofocus site and Alex Lindsay’s podcast This Week In Photography. Both great podcasts ad I suggest ou check them out.
Hopes this helps you in deciding what to buy next. Happy shooting.
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