Digital Photography Advanced Skills

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Digital PhotographyAdvanced Skills

• Class 3
• John Byersjbyers2_at_mail.com
• Class website www.notlong.com/c4d-dp

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Photo assignment results

• Portrait that reveals character of subject
• Evokes emotion
• Vocation, avocation
• Single or group
• Family, friend, pet
• Indoors, outdoors
• Formal, candid
• With or without props

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Class plan

• Portraits, lighting techniques
• Stills, macro techniques
• Landscape/nature, Architecture, low light
• Action, sports, wildlife
• Eclectic topics photo creations Editing,
  composition techniques

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Assignment for next time still-life

• Term derives from 17th-century Dutch still-leven,
  meaning motionless natural object or objects
• In painting art tradition, subjects are typically
  inanimate objects, such as flowers or fruit
• This assignment extends to animate or inanimate
  subjects, formal or found set, natural or
  artificial light, using background and/or props
  may be macro shots

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Set design generally requires a series of
adjustments to achieve desired look

• Placement
• Lighting
• Composition
• Camera angle

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Sets may be simple or complex

• Commonplace items benefit from a distinctive,
  visually-interesting set design
• Objects that are interesting in and of themselves
  can be treated less dramatically using a simple
  set design

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Sets may be small or large

• Photography of food, jewelry and other small
  objects can generally be accomplished in a small,
  tight set
• Some studio sets are huge in size

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Give 3-D depth to studio set by thinking in terms
of background, middle-ground and foreground

• Background should be simple, without a lot of
  detail
• Middle-ground should contain the props that
  contribute most to the atmosphere of the set
  generally includes subject
• Foreground is often thrown partially out of
  focus, or partially shown, so objects are only
  suggested

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Use a simple set design that contains just enough
to convey the illusion you are seeking

• Keep the set uncluttered
• Many props work best if only partially shown
• Choose camera angle and lighting that emphasizes
  subject

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The studio set is secondary to the subject

• The subject is the most important part of the
  scene, no matter how elaborate the set
• The set design should focus attention on the
  subject and be complementary

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Eliminating reflections and harsh shadows make
still life objects look their best
Flash produces harsh light, shadows
Simple open shade set produces soft lighting
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Lighting is critical to capturing detail in
reflective objects

• Use diffused light
• Light tent (small objects can use cut-open
  plastic gallon milk jug)
• Diffusing filter (tracing paper)
• Place lights close
• Hide shadows
• Multiple light sources
• Black (felt) background
• Camera positioning

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Lighting setup is determined by object material

• Transparent and reflecting objects require
  different lighting techniques
• Fabrics use combination of diffuse overall
  lighting and accentuated hard light
• Metals, plastics use diffuse light (can use
  dulling spray on glossy surfaces)
• Wood use two-dimensional lighting to accurately
  render natural grain structure

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Techniques for glass objects

• Autofocus may have problems use manual
• Placed in front of dark background emphasizes
  reflections (be wary of your own)
• Placed in front of illuminated white surface
  emphasizes transparency (watch highlight blow-out)

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Techniques for food shots

• Use backlighting, shallow depth of field
• Light backgrounds
• Dark containers
• Moisture adds sheen

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Photo composition follow traditional guidelines

• Decide what you want to show in your photo, then
  decide what you can remove from the scene without
  losing the essence of what you want to show
• Identify the center of interest
• Use rule of thirds to create a balanced
  composition, placing focal elements at
  intersections and along tic-tac-toe axes

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Basic equipment for still-life tabletops

• Stable tripod
• Small aperture required for useful depth of field
  dictate slow shutter speeds for proper exposure
• All-purpose, quality-made unit
• Proper weight
• Soft light, seamless background
• Lights, diffusing material
• Natural light, reflectors
• Florescent lights

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Commercially-available light tent is a practical
solution for frequent still set-ups
EZcube light tent
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Use plastic gallon milk jug for small objects
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Still life and macros
Challenges lighting and depth of field
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Macro extreme close-ups

• Classically defined as close-ups from half life
  size to 5 times life size on image sensor
• Also popularly defined as images shot close
  enough and edited so that subject is life-size or
  larger on hard-copy print

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Macro mode for close-ups

• Select Macro mode for close-up shots with lens
  positioned 12 inches or closer to subject
• May disable flash, autofocus
• Typically forces small aperture for adequate
  depth of field, and biases toward close focus
  point (or may be fixed focus at minimum distance)
  
• Point shoot camera wide angle zoom gives
  closest focus and maximum magnification
• For point shoot cameras, use LCD monitor to
  frame shot to avoid optical viewfinder parallax
  error

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Macro options for DSLR

• Macro mode may force flash, AF, AE settings
• DSLR zoom lens may provide telephoto macro
  focusing
• Alternatives for achieving close focus, in order
  of cost and potential quality of results
• Attach supplementary diopter lens to front of
  normal lens
• Move lens further away from camera body by using
  an extension tube between the camera and the
  lens
• Use specialized macro lens that enables close
  focusing

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Macro lighting using flash

• Built-in flash units are generally not useful
  for close-ups disabled?
• Special external ring flash units fit around the
  lens to provide uniform circle of light on the
  subject, providing shadowless lighting
• Short duration of light prevents camera or
  subject movement from causing blur

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Depth of field becomes very narrow with close-ups
Select aperture-priority mode and stop down for
desired DOF
Compose close-ups using LCD monitor on non-SLR
cameras (parallax)
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Camera angle can produce illusions

• Small objects can be made to look huge and
  imposing by lighting, positioning and camera angle

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Composites using stills ( Photoshop)
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Auto exposure system limitations may require
using exposure compensation

• Sees a scene as if looking through a piece of
  frosted glass
• Measures only average reflected light
• Calibrated for middle gray tone
• Scenes with high contrast lighting will not be
  accurately metered

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Exposure compensation examples

• White plate
• Gray plate
• Black plate

EV1
EV 0
EV-1
Without compensation
With compensation
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High-contrast lighting use exposure compensation
Background

• 2 high contrast lighting with brightly lit
  areas and important shadow areas
• 1 back-lit, beach or snow scenes, sunsets and
  other scenes where background is much lighter
  than subject also predominantly light objects,
  such as white cat on white pillow
• 0 (none) scenes that are evenly lit and
  important shadow areas are not much darker than
  brightly lit areas
• -1 scenes where background is much darker than
  the subject, such as portrait in front of a very
  dark wall also predominantly dark subjects, such
  as black cat on black pillow
• -2 scenes of high contrast, with extremely dark
  background and important highlight details

Subject
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Histogram under/over-exposure examples
Underexposed (loss of shadow detail)
Overexposed (loss of highlight detail)
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One of the most useful digital camera features is
the histogram display

• it may also be one of the least understood
  features!
• Many digital cameras have a histogram display
  feature that provides exposure analysis

Many cameras can be programmed to display the
histogram on the LCD monitor immediately after a
shot is taken, or later when images are being
reviewed
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The histogram shows the brightness levels
contained in the image, from darkest to brightest

• An image recorded in 8-bit mode has 256 discrete
  brightness levels between absolute black (0) and
  absolute white (255)
• 18 gray (the calibration point for auto exposure
  metering) has a numeric value of 128 half-way
  between absolute black and absolute white

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Image detail is best recorded when light hitting
the sensor falls within a range of about 5
f-stops

• Each f-stop is a doubling (or halving) of the
  amount of light hitting the sensor
• Any part of the image that receives too much
  light will be blown out and highlight details
  lost too little light, its rendered as black
  and shadow details lost

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There is no such thing as a perfect histogram

• Auto exposure light meter computes exposure to
  render 18 reflectance gray card as a mid-tone
• Most appropriate" exposure places mid-tones in
  the scene roughly half-way between the darkest
  and the brightest values

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Histogram example (shots exposed about 3 stops
apart)
Lost shadow detail in trees
Blown-out highlights in sky
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Digital compositing using Photoshop
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There is no such thing as a bad histogram
Histogram indicates accurate exposure
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Mastering photo exposure

• If your camera supports histograms, set display
  for combined thumbnail and histogram for 5-10 sec
  after every shot
• Get in the habit of glancing at display
• Exposure bracketing

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Image will have a color cast if WB is set
incorrectly
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Playing with custom White Balance
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Tungsten WB (ambient light)
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Custom, White
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Custom, Red
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Custom, Orange
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Custom, Yellow
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Custom, Blue
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Photoshop color correction techniques

• Auto Smart Fix
• Adjust Smart Fix
• Auto Color Correction
• Adjust Color
• Adjust Hue/Saturation
• Color Variations
• Remove Color Cast

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Assignment for next time still-life

• Any subject
• Any focal length
• In natural surroundings, or studio set using
  props

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Example still-life photos

• e. michael rudman http//www.emrphoto.com/still_l
  ife/still_life.html
• Steve Solinskyhttp//www.solinskyphoto.com/form.h
  tml

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Learn more about photography

• Explore the history of photography take an
  online tour of the American Museum of Photography
  www.photographymuseum.com
• Visit local photography club
• www.planophotographyclub.com
• Meets 4th Monday of month at Grace Presbyterian
  church on West Park Blvd, between Coit and
  Preston, 7-9pm
• Next meeting 10/24