The *Official Photography Thread*

X2 on m3bassman's photos. And everyone else for that matter!

Yeah it has been in the teens below zero F and colder here for the last couple of months on a regular basis. Headline of the newspaper is how to keep your pipes from freezing, frost line is now down below 6 foot. I use a think tank digital holster and harness so my camera body is facing upwards as I look down at it. I put a chemical heat pack on top of it if I'm going to be out long and there is a cushioned flap that folds over on top of it that helps hold in the heat. Also a spare battery on an inside coat pocket where it stays warm. And of course the obvious normal stuff like turning off live view, picture preview, etc. Good luck it should start to warm up sometime in the near future. I hope...

 

I got back a couple rolls of Tri-X 400. Just a few samples:


A37250_011.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr


A37251_036.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr


A37251_030.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr


A37251_018.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr


A37250_031.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr


A37250_023.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr


A37250_014.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr


A37250_004.jpg by AdelphosChaz, on Flickr

I really love film ha so many limitations and it really forces me to grow. More on my Flickr. Thanks for looking and any feedback.

 

Do any of you guys know a good resource for understanding exposure and the math behind it. I find some of the how to's online not very clear.

For things like the ratios, of shutter speed and f stop. How there are multiple ways to get the same exposure.

Where did you start?

 

Equivalent exposure (all else being equal) is really a lot easier than it seems.

If you have the camera giving you a shutter speed of 1/30th and aperture of f/5.6 then they have an inverse relationship if you want the same exposure.

So you can go up "one stop" on the shutter speed and down "one stop" on the aperture.
Same goes for any amount, +1/3 stop on one and -1/3 on the other, or +3stops on one and -3 stops on the other. Look up the scales on wiki or wherever and just know that how ever much you go up on one you have to go that much down on the other.


Try this first. Set your camera to Aperture Priority mode, and then as you change the aperture see how the camera chooses a shutter speed. So if you pick a smaller number like f/3.5 it lets in more light and the shutter speed will get faster, say 1/500th or something. If you close it down to f/16, see how the shutter speed gets slower. etc.

Then set it to Shutter Priority mode and do the same. Change the shutter speed and see how the camera changes the aperture for you. Once you get how each piece works independently you can start doing them all at once yourself. Just do one at a time first. (At least that's how I taught myself ha)



THEN, when you need your sensor to let in even more light (actually be more sensitive to the light) then you can up the ISO, or if you want to slow down the shutter speed an have a wide open aperture you can lower the ISO.

Aperture and Shutter speed are directly inverse to each other. ISO can then be adjusted when you can't get what you want just by changing Aperture and Shutter speed.

I hope some of that made any sense at all haha

 

Good summary man

 

Actually most of what you said I understand. I understand that they work inversely. I can usually do a decent job of messing with the settings to get where I need to be. By one stop you mean like on click over on shutter and one click the opposite direction on aperture is equal to the same exposure. I think I was thinking there was some scientific way to skip guessing where I need to be. The answer appears to be just taking pictures and getting a feel for it.



Okay so these are all things that I'm trying to understand better. I have been reading about all them all, but I feel that it's just complicating everything.
- lenses and their meanings.
- metering
- exposure triangle
- histograms (shadows, midstones, highlights)
- Dof
- focal length
- Raw photos
- managing giant libraries photos.

... So I think after reading about all of this I'm like... Ugh okay time to start over at the basics.

One thing that really gets me is lenses. I see someone say "such lens has two options. 4.6 or a 5.6. Which ones better?"

Why would someone even want choose a 5.6. If the 4.6 has a bigger aperture and has the most potential for letting in light. Why not get the 4.6 and just raise the F stop if need be.
You can always close an aperture more than open it. Right?

But then I see people talking about it being faster. Faster at what?Focusing? Is that a particular lens feature. What does that have to do with the 4.6 vs 5.6.

Or like is a prime 1.4 vs 1.8 that different? I am sure they are but why.

 

Shutter speed, F-stop, and ISO are all related to one another. A "stop" in photography simply means a doubling or halving of light. When you go up one "stop" you are doubling the amount of light onto the film or sensor. This can be done by:

• Slowing the shutter speed - a 2-second shutter speed exposes the film or sensor to double the amount of light than a 1-second shutter speed
• Increasing the aperture by lowering the F-stop number - an aperture of F/2.8 allows double the light coming through the lens than an aperture of F/4 allows
• Increasing the ISO - ISO 200 is more sensitive to light than ISO 100

This is a good explanation of it and helped me to understand, especially the bucket analogy: http://www.uscoles.com/fstop.htm

 

Took this earlier. This was actually taken in the day and edited it to look like it was at night. Shot with an 80-200 1.8 at 200mm. Since it's an FX lens on a DX camera, it was 300mm. I thought it turned out well.

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Okay so that's one thing I was looking for. A stop is half or double the "light" not just the numbers. I guess I don't understand how an f/4 is half the light of f/2.8. Is that a memorize type thing or a math type deal?

I am going to take deep breath and go read that link you posted.


Thanks for the help everyone. I know this is super new guy stuff. I am having trouble finding where to learn this info.

 

Lenses have two numbers, focal length (50mm) and aperture. When it is a zoom lens it often has two aperture numbers given (f/3.5-4.5). What this means is zoomed all the way out on my 10-24mm, at 10mm the max aperture is 3.5, and zoomed all the way in at 24mm the max aperture is 4.5, so each of the two numbers given is for the two extreme ends of the zoom range.

Depth of field is going to be effected by your aperture. If I shoot at f/1.8 I may have a plane of say 1 inche wide in focus. So my subject will have eyes and in focus and ears out of focus. If I shoot a landscape that sucks so I can shoot at f/16 and get, just for the sake of an example, everything from 5 feet to infinity in focus.

Many other things effect DOF. Sensor size, focal length, distance to subject, etc, but for the purposes of understanding aperture's effect, with the same lens, subject, etc. a smaller number = very little in focus and a larger number means a lot in focus. This can actually be an "advantage" of having a smaller sensor as well if you want to have "more in focus" with any given aperture.


RAW files don't compress/lose some data where JPEGs do. If you're doing heavy editing you want all that data there so you shoot RAW. If you're just going to do minor stuff you can shoot JPEG and not really need it. I shoot both depending on the situation but mostly RAW.


Sorry if I'm saying things you already know, Just trying to help ha hope some of that helps.

 

Thanks BuzzardsGottaEat!

That helps a lot actually! Don't apologize I was just to clarify what I was understanding.

Thanks for the info I am going to go play with my camera and come back with more tomorrow.

 

Finally finished editing my Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona photos, uploading to my site now.

 

No problem, I'm no pro but I can tell you what I've learned so far. Don't hesitate to PM me or ask here if you have more questions. Have a good one.

 

Just installed Lightroom 5 and....

So many options

 

watch vids on youtube. Adobe has lots of nice tutorials..and then..just start messing around. You'll learn what you like and the more you use it..the more you'll learn about it and how to use and developed your ''stlye'' of editing.

Its actually quite simple once you get to know it.

 

Linhberg Nguyen is literally one of the best automotive photographers I know of.

 

Damn that was good.

 

X2 on Youtube

To learn photoshop I figured out what each tool was called. Researched each one and practiced.

I am sure you could do the same thing with light room.

 

Haha it can be a bit overwhelming at first. My friend has a good series of articles on his website to help you get familiar. And like others have mentioned there's always youtube.

http://photographylife.com/post-processing-tips-for-beginners

 

Hey guys have you seen these? I have been working with the guy that makes them so I figure why not make a little plug. I don't know if you would like one, but if you do I can see about getting you guys a deal.

They are the Vulture Equipment work straps. They are borderline survival equipment. Although they look heavy, they are really light and pretty cool! They are really high quality and versatile.

Link to the product pictured


A few people that rock them are Art Wolfe, Ken Sklute, & Doug Sonders (his website) & the Expedition overland guys. .

http://youtu.be/kPeRXelO1jM