1. The holiday season

2. A recent addiction to SPORE, the video game.

Again I apologize – tomorrow we will continue with the zone system and photography.

The zone system was originally created by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer, for black and white film and paper photography, as a way to guide exposure for there aesthetic results.  The scene was divided into various photographic elements which were separated out by their relative brightness.  As we discussed last week, there is only a certain range of brightness that our camera’s can see.  This brightness range is what the zone system is designed to help us recognize.  The zone system helps us to recognize the limits in the capabilities of our camera’s and as a result helps us to find ways to overcome these limitations.

Enough of why, let’s get to what the zones are.

In the days of black and white film there were actually 11 zones defined, but current digital technology does not really allow us to use nearly this much tonal range.  In current digital camera’s we can use about 5 of these zones effectively.  Each zone represents one full stop of exposure.  Actually, last week with our assignment with the wall photographs we were effectively looking at the range of these zones.  We were also looking at how to use them, when we talked about our exposure compensation.

Lets take this basic look a little further, and actually define these zones in our images.  In this discussion keep in mind that this is a tool to help us understand our photographs, not a photographic result. When you expose for colors and tones you want them to appear the way they were when we saw them so to make this easier we define them.

Since we are only looking at 5 zones lets start with the lowest at zone 3, this is our black wall.  It’s not really black is it? It is black with detail.  That detail is what we want in our photographs (usually), because we want our photographs to give the impression of blackness, when we see “blackness” with our eyes there is detail there.  In our photographs we usually want to show some detail in the dark area’s.

The next step up is zone 4.  Here we are looking at our dark tones and colours, like navy blue’s, and deep forest greens, chocolate browns.  These colours are rich and deep, and if we photograph them it is important that they show as these colours

Zone 5 is our mid tones, these are the average colours, sky blue, bright red, lawn green — this is our middle grey that we have already discussed.  These are the colours that our camera’s are designed to give us right away without adjustment.

Zone 6 represents our bright colours.  Zone 6 is for pastels, like bright yellow, baby blue, pink,

Zone 7 is our whites.  Whites with detail, like the blacks, the detail is important.  With our eyes, when we look at something bright and white like snow we see more than just a blank whiteness we see the detail and texture of the snow, and in our photographs we usually try to show this as well.

Knowing the zones is great, but . . . ?

How do you use them?  Lets go back a little to using our meter.  The zones, are represented by stops of exposure. Zone 3 are objects that should be 2 stops underexposed, Zone 4 should be one stop underexposed, zone 5 should be exposed exactly right at zero, zone 6 should be overexposed by one stop, and zone 7 should be overexposed by two stops.  Now you are just checking colours (or tones of brightness of those colours) and adjusting your exposure accordingly.  Move your camera around your scene and check the exposure levels in it,  start with something in the mid-tones — set your exposure for that and lock it in (either using manual exposure, or with your exposure lock), now point your camera at the white area’s, are they no more than two full stops over exposed? If so, great, if not then you know that in your final image you will not have much detail in your white area’s.  Now check the blacks are they no more than two stops under exposed? If they are more you will not have detail in your blacks.

If you want detail in your blacks then you may have to bring your exposure up a little bit, if you want detail in your whites, you may have to lower your exposure down a little.  It all comes down to what the subject of your image is and what you want your photograph to show your viewers.  Maybe the detail in the black does not matter, maybe the detail in the whites does not matter, maybe they both matter.  What the zone system does is help you understand the choice you are making.  The zone system helps to show you what will and will not be exposed properly in your images, and when you may need to change the framing of your composition to make your image work.

Don’t forget, this shows you the limits of your camera with the light the way it is, but it does not show you the limits of what you can photograph, you may just have to get more creative.  Can you add some light to your dark area’s to decrease your contrast?  Can you use a fill flash, or a reflector/ Can you take away some light from your bright area’s? Can you use a diffuser to tone down the light, or close a curtain? Do you need both the bright sky, and the dark cave to show the scene? Can you come back at a different time of day? Can you take a HDR composite image?

For now lets focus on the different zones, and let’s think about keeping our image tones in the range that our camera can see, from two stops under exposed, to two stops over exposed, we will look at different problems and solutions later.  If you do not fully understand yet ask some questions, tomorrow we will start with the assignment.

For some more information on the zone system try the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_system

Happy shooting

Jason

So as you can see from the following photo’s the basic exposure mode of the camera doesn’t really expose black as black or white as white.

The camera was tricked.    It’s easy to trick your camera into exposing your images incorrectly,  it’s also easy to fix if you understand how this works.  Like we said in the last section, your camera exposes your image for middle gray.  If you look at the middle photo, the color and tone are pretty close.  The black and the white are way off.

Manual alert!

So how do we fix it?  If you want to stay in automatic mode, or aperture priority, or shutter speed priority you will need to use exposure compensation.  For my camera (a Canon D30) there is a dial on the back, you spin it clock wise and it increases the exposure, spin it counter clock wise and it decreases the exposure.  You will need to check your manual to learn how to do this.  So how do you know how much to increase or decrease?  Try to expose for your subject, when you take your meter reading get as much of your subject in the frame as possible.  If most of your subject is white, increase your exposure by two full stops (keep in mind most newer cameras adjust in either 1/3 or 1/2 stops), if your subject is light colored then increase your exposure by one stop.  If your image is black you will need to decrease your exposure by 2 stops, if your subject is dark then decrease your exposure by one stop.  What do you do if your not sure?  Bracket! Most modern camera’s can be set to automatically take different shots at different exposures.  If you’re not sure then use this feature, check the different outcomes and pick the best one.  Remember, photography is a creative process and you need to take control of your exposure.

And, don’t forget about manual mode.  It may not be as fast in all situations but if the light is fairly constant where you are shooting you can take a few test shots, set the correct exposure on those shots and forget about it.

Jason

Well kind of, but what we have really looked at are three of the 4 components of exposure: ISO, Aperture, and Shutter speed.  But, exposure is really the combination of these 3 elements with the existing light of our scene.  Our goal, for the most part is to have the brightness of our image be similar to that of what we see.  I say similar because cameras are limited in the amount of brightness that they can see.  Even though, when we look at a scene with our eyes, we can see detail in the darkest shadows, and in the brightest highlights, our cameras do not “see” the world in the same way.  If there are portions of your image that are very dark, and other portions that are very bright, in our photograph may only show white in the bright and black for the dark.  We can only expose for a certain portion of our image.

Wait, doesn’t the camera take care of this stuff?

Well, yes and no.  Modern digital camera’s do a pretty good job of exposing for average scenes, with average light.  But, photographic scenes are a lot like people, there aren’t very many that are actually — average.  Now, our goal in this site is to move away from average photographs.  So, we have to learn a little bit about how our camera light meters work, and more importantly how, and how often they are fooled.

Fooled?

Yep, fooled.  To be clear, a camera’s meter does a very good job doing what is designed to do.  A camera’s meter is designed to expose your image to what photographers call “18% gray” — what does 18% gray have to do with any of this — 18% gray is an average tone.  If you were to look at a nice fresh green lawn (ignore the color of the lawn), the tone of the lawn is 18% gray.  If you are taking a photograph of something that is average (18% gray) — then your exposure for that subject will be pretty close to perfect.

So, what if our subject isn’t 18% gray?

Your meter will get fooled!  So now what?  Well you adjust.  You over or under expose your image based on what the tone of your subject should really be.  So, for now lets leave it here, and move on to a little mini assignment.  Take your camera, set it on automatic, and lets take some pictures.  Don’t get too excited, we’re just going to take three images.  A white wall, a black wall (or as dark as you can get), and a medium toned wall.  Fill the frame completely with white, then black, then something in the middle.

Simple — talk with you tomorrow

Jason

If you have a dog this will be really easy.  Otherwise, go to your local dog park.  What we are looking for is something to photograph that, well, runs, and quickly.  If you don’t have a dog or a dog park you can even do this on the side of the highway taking pictures of the cars driving by, but I find dogs are much more fun.

Set your camera to shutter priority mode.  Start with a fairly slow shutter speed 1/15th of a second.  Now if you can get into a position, where the dogs will be running past you.  Follow along with your subject with one of your focus points on the dogs shoulder,  as the dog runs by pan along with it.  Photograph, as fast as you can, keeping pace with the dogs speed.  Do this for several sets of photos.  Then move up to progressively faster shutter speeds, doubling the shutter speed each time you change until you’re down to your largest f-stop.  You can also increase your ISO, so that you can get progressively faster shutter speeds.  If you have any questions — just let me know.

Simple.

When we look at the world around us, it is in constant motion.  Things happen not  in 3 but in 4 dimensions.  To take a good photograph of our subject we must choose  both where and when to frame our subject.  A photograph frames a subject in both time and space.  When we frame our photographs, we are taking our subject from the real world and separating it from its environment.  Composition, is how we choose to arrange the elements of our photographs.  We are choosing not just what to photograph, but when to photograph it.  This goes back to an earlier discussion on “the golden hour” in a previous post about lighting.  We are also changing how long we photograph our subject for.  This is our shutter speed.

Shutter Speed – the duration of our exposure

From the standpoint of the exposure triangle, shutter speed is purely a matter of how long we allow light to enter our camera, and subsequently how bright we choose to make our exposure.  But changing our shutter speed changes much more about how we compose our images than how dim or bright they are.  Changes in shutter speed can have a dramatic impact on how we perceive an image.  Because we are taking our subject out of context in time, we have to choose how we want to convey the dimension of time in our photographs, similar to how we would portray depth and perspective of the third dimension on a two dimensional print.  We can’t actually show motion (unless we are using the movie function on our new camera), so we must convey the feeling of motion (or stillness) within the frame of our photograph.

OKAY in plain English — Shutter speed goals

1. Freeze camera motion.  You know the photographs where you just can’t figure out why things are just a little bit out of focus.  You know that you took the time to focus your camera correctly but everything is a little bit fuzzy (or a lot fuzzy).  If you are hand-holding your camera, there is a certain amount of camera motion that you impart on the image.  You breathe, and you have a heart beat, and you sway in the breeze, and your hand shakes because you are excited or nervous.  If you have to hand-hold your camera, for whatever reason there is a general rule of thumb — your shutter speed should be at least equal to the focal length of the lens you are using (don’t forget the focal length multiplier effect of many digital cameras).  If you are using a 50mm lens on a 1.6x camera body – the actual focal length is closer to 85mm so your minimum shutter speed for handholding should be 1/85th of a second.

2. Freeze subject or background motion.  Sometimes you don’t want to convey motion in your subject.  Most portraits for example we want a nice clear precise representation of our subject.  You will want to use a faster shutter speed to freeze the motion of our subject. This will really depend on how fast your subject is moving, a race car for example will need a much higher shutter speed than say someone walking. Start with 1/200th of a second and go faster if necessary.  Check out the following Flickr group for some idea’s: Stopping Time

3. Motion blur.  At other times, we want to portray that our subject is in motion.  Take a race car again as an example — if you take a photograph with a fast enough shutter speed, it will not look like the car is moving at all, but is this what you want to convey in your image?  If it is, it might be a whole lot easier to take a photo of the car while it is sitting still.  Choose a slightly lower shutter speed and you may get only some parts blurred in the motion — the spinning wheels maybe, or go slower and move the camera with the image, and with some practice you may get the background completely blurred and the car mostly in focus.  This will give the impression of motion.  Start with a slower than usual shutter speed and experiment. Take a look at the flickr group for some inspiration: Deliberate Motion Blur

As with our discussion of aperture  there are many different factors to consider.  Like the rest of photography the shutter speed you decide to use has to be balanced with other factors in your image such as your ISO and your overall exposure but you are in control of framing your subject in time — so think about what you want to convey.

For some inspiration follow the links above to the flickr groups.  Tomorrow we will start with an assignment to practice with the effects of shutter speed in our photographs.

Using a small aperture, with your extended depth of field, what portion of the depth of field is increased?  Where is your depth of field added to, the foreground or the background?  It really depends on where, in your photograph, you are focusing in the first place.  It also depends on the focal length of the lens you are using.  I could go over so many different formulas to discuss depth of field and where and how.  For now just concentrate on changing the depth of field and using the depth of field preview button to check.  Concentrate on your composition, not the mechanics of the camera.

via www.georgelepp.com.

The button near the lens base on the right hand side of the picture is the Depth of field preview button, check your camera manual to find yours

Using this button is simple.  Set your aperture, compose your picture, press the button and look through the viewfinder.  Keep in mind, that, if you are using a small aperture your screen may get very dark.  Remember, this is what closing down your aperture actually does — it lets less light onto your image.  But if you look very closely you can see what in your image will actually be in focus in your final picture.

f32 and 8 seconds

f11 and 1.0 Second

F5.6 and 1/4 Second

We were focused on the salt shaker in the middle of the objects.  With the lower ambient light levels we had to use a tripod to get steady shots.  There are two main things that happened with the images.  At the very small aperture (f32 you can clearly see both the foreground and back-ground images are in focus (as well as the background plug-in, and the fridge and well, just about everything).  As you move to larger and larger apertures, less and less of these things are in focus, at f5.6 there is much less in focus.  Look at how less distracting the background in the f5.6 image.  An f4 or larger also has much less in focus.  If your image needs the information in the background use the small aperture.  If not, use the large aperture.

What else changes between the images?  In fact, it is not actually evident in these images but if you look at the exposure information the image, the difference is there.  The shutter speed.  Changing your aperture will always make a corresponding and opposite change in shutter speed.  Always keep in mind that the two are related.

Now to move on a little further we are finally moving on to this weeks actual assignment.  Use your aperture.  Take your camera out to an area where you usually like to take photos.  A park or a section of the city — anywhere that you find interesting subjects to photograph.  But go over several days and photograph the first day with a large f-stop (remember small aperture).  You may need to increase your ISO speed or more effectively use a tri-pod in order to deal with the slower shutter speed.  Shoot so that what you have in the photograph is supposed to be in your picture.  A large f-stop will require you to really concentrate on your foreground and background.

The following day work exclusively in a small f-stop (a large aperture).  Use this f-stop to help isolate your subject in your images.  When you change your f-stop you change how you photograph.  Learn, what the different f-stops do in your photographs and pay attention to the differences.  Soon you will be using this incredibly powerful tool to help improve your photographic compositions.

Good luck and happy shooting.