my [JOE] blog: the dailies of a documentary photographer.

Camera, SI, and What’s really there

This is kind of an unusual format post for me, but it's just kind of worked out like that.  And I took a walk through the park in my neighborhood and took pictures.  I've inserted those throughout this post.  They have absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote.

First up, Donald Page, who you might remember from this post, shot the NFC championship game in the Superdome.  And one of his shots from this game appeared as a full page in the SI Superbowl Commemorative Issue!

Kind of not bad.

Next, earlier this week, Joe McNally (who is one of those photographers that bumps the scale up to 11 and everybody in the industry simultaneously hates and loves him for it) posted on his blog about what's going through a photographer's mind.  If you haven't read this, or if you're not a photographer, it's worth the three minutes it takes to read.  Not only is Joe a great writer, but I've heard several people bring up the authenticity and accuracy of this article in the last week.  It's one of those posts that buzzes.  Don't miss it!

And Camera.  From here out it turns into a Just for Photographers post.  Be warned.

Random image of clovers:

Here's the low down on Aperture: the best times to shoot wide open, moderate, or really small (high f-stop numbers); the deal with shutter speed; and how to combine all that to use off-camera flash.  Something, by the way, that's pretty simple once you get the basic principles in your head.

Aperture.

When most people get a DSLR, they tend to always have their aperture wide open.  That is, it's always at the smallest f-stop number possible.  For instance, if you've just bought a 70-200 f/2.8, you'll probably be very tempted to shoot everything you can at 2.8 because of that awesome blurry background.  And that's all good, but here's what doesn't get circulated as much: wide open is not the sharpest part of your lens.  Usually you can find the "sweet spot" about two stops up.  NOTE: In case you're not familiar, aperture is a measure of area, so the full stops are: 1, 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, etc. For test results on your specific lens, you can check out DPReview.com.

It's popular right now, and for good reason, to do single-subject portraits at your lens' largest aperture, because if you focus on their eyes, by the time you get to their ears, it's already blurry.  But what this also means is that if you're shooting two people in the same frame, the person you don't focus on will be out of focus.  Badness.  Easy fix: use f/5.6 or f/8.  You'll have a sharper image and everybody will be in focus, but you won't lose your blurry background.

Speaking of sharper, I've been shooting my go-to lens during daylight between f/5.6 and f/8 and have seen noticeably sharper images!

A thing in the water:

Then there's the point and shoot setting of f/22 (or f/32 if your lens goes that high).  This aperture particularly shines for creating story-telling pictures when you need your foreground and background interests to all be in focus.  A lot of people miss these shots because they never stop down their aperture this far.  Of course, this blocks out a lot of light, so it has to be a bright day for this to work.  If you're shooting at night or dusk, you'll probably have to stay as wide open as possible.  And that's okay, because in the end, you're a photographer who gets the shot.

Shutter.

A bit simpler than aperture, I'll start with full stops.  When measured from the shutter pov, they are a little more intuitive: 1/120 is a full stop faster than 1/60, which is a full stop faster than 1/30.  Get what I mean?  It's all linear on the shutter side.  NOTE: In case you don't know: a "stop" is a doubling of light, as shown above.

If you're not on an automatic mode that's choosing your shutter (e.g. when using off-camera flash, or needing a specific shutter for action), here are some rules of thumb to help you form a base starting line.  Your shutter shouldn't be smaller than your focal length when shooting handheld.  For instance, if you're shooting a 50mm, your shutter should be around 1/50; if you're on a 200mm, then 1/200.  The reason for this is the further 'zoomed' in you are, the more detail will show, and, therefor, smaller shakes from handholding will be perceived in your final shot.

Here are the exceptions: IS for Canon or VR for Nikon will give you several stops advantage.  So, if you're shooting a 200mm, you can, possibly get a sharp image from handhold at as low as 1/25!  ...if you hold your breath (not kidding, that really works) and your subject is still, that is.

A mushroom smoking on a house:

Tripodding is the other exception (in which case, you need to turn OFF your IS/VR so that it doesn't ADD vibrations).

Okay, that's all good for low light and long shutter speeds.  But if you have lots of light, and you're trying to capture some gritty sports shots with all the dirt specs suspended in the air, you'll not want to go below 1/1000.  You can fudge it down to 1/500, but 1/1000 is better.

Off-Camera lighting.

If off-camera lighting scares you, and you're even feeling a little scared to just read this, then this next section is for you.  What scares most people is that small flashes don't light continuously so they can't see where the light is going.  That combined with their model getting impatient, or misunderstanding some critical, technical components.  Forget it.  It's too much work.

But it's not really.

Here it is:

Aperture controls how much of the flash light comes through.  Since flash happens so fast, it's already come and gone before your shutter even thinks about moving.  That said, if you set your flash to full power, and set your aperture to f/5.6, you might see that you're nuking your subject into oblivion.  If you stop down your aperture (move it down to f/8 or f/11 or more), you'll find the light from the flash decreases, and you start to have a pleasing effect.  NOTE: You can also leave your aperture set and change the power on your flash (same result), but as things get complicated, you might not be able to do that, OR it might just be a pain to go back and forth each time.

I have no idea what I was thinking when I took this... :

Shutter controls how much ambient light comes in.  Since the light from the flash happens so fast and so intensely (and is regulated by aperture), you can freeze your subject and keep them sharp while shooting as low as 1/10 to allow fading daylight (the ambient) to saturate and fill up your background!  Also, here's a very important fact to remember for shutter.  On Canon the maximum "sync" speed is 1/200 (1/250 on Nikon).  The shutter is made up of a front and rear curtain.  Above these speeds the rear curtain begins to close before the front curtain has completed it's cycle.  That means above 1/200 or 1/250 the entire sensor is no longer exposed at a single time (causing black bars on your picture if you try to use off camera flash above these speeds).  The inverse is below these speeds the entire sensor is exposed at the same time.  Ultimately, it's a way for the camera to get to really high shutter speeds, like 1/8000, without setting itself on fire.

So, once you get these simple principles straight in your head, you're ready to start shooting off-camera.  At this point, if you still don't feel ready, that's okay, it takes practice and the experience of seeing it in action for the real off-camera-lighting confidence to come.  Plus, you'll need radio triggers.  I purposely am not going into these details because there's another website that does it better.  As a matter of fact, this is the single website that taught just about the entire internet how to light off-camera. That is David Hobby's the Strobist.  A photojournalist for twenty years with the Baltimore Sun, he took a leave of absence in 2006 to start this website.  And hasn't looked back since.  He's a beast.  Go to his website and start with "Lighting 101," and it will take you as far as you're willing to go.  Plus, it's easy and fun to read.

I've written a similar post like this before but from a different perspective; for a while I've been meaning to write this post because it's where a lot of photographers sit, staring, not really knowing how to jump in.  I hope this helps clear up some of the murkiness that goes along with all that.  Ultimately, the more you know, the more consistently you can take better pictures.  P.S. I wrote this late, and I have a feeling it's a little disjointed, but I'm too tired to fix it.

If your interested or want to talk (apparently there are a lot more synapses than I anticipated between my brain and my keyboard) about it, let me know.  "Doing" is gold.

Park bench view: