Daily Tips and Tricks for Digital Photography

Understanding Depth of Field Preview

UM3$H — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:07:49 +0000

As you all know, Depth of Field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in image. It is widely used term in all types of photography and specially popular in Portrait and Landscape photography. We use small DOF (small aperture value), also called shallow depth of filed, in portrait photography to emphasize the subject and throw unwanted background away from viewer’s attention by blurring it; whereas, large DOF (larger aperture value), also called deep depth of filed, is widely popular in Landscape photography where everything from foreground to background should be in focus.

What is Depth of Field Preview and When do we need it?

Let’s say your lens’s widest aperture is f/2.8 and you want to shoot with f/11. In this particular case, when you close down your aperture value to f/11 from f/2.8, your camera will not close down aperture blades, diaphragm, immediately after you change aperture value. This is because all bodies focus at the widest aperture of the lens and then stop down to the chosen aperture (f/11 in this case) when you press the shutter release button all the way down to take the picture (after focusing your subject obviously).

Note: I noticed that if you are using D90 and the D lens which has aperture ring on it’s barrel, you have to set ring to f/22, locked it and set the actuator (on the end of the lens) which allows opening the aperture from the camera body.

In this case, most advanced DSLRs come with dedicated button to preview Depth of Field called DOF preview button and allows you to close down your aperture to selected value by stopping down lens’ diaphragm. So, when you set aperture to f/11, pressing DOF preview button close down aperture to f/11 and darken your viewfinder by allowing less light through aperture. It is really helpful when you are shooting Landscape and most importantly using Hyperfocal distance formula. In often cases you will get deceived by widest open aperture and hard to judge what is in focus and what is not.

Canon EOS 40D has Depth of Field Preview button right below the lens release button.

Shooting portrait in dark (night) or low light condition

UM3$H — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:54:21 +0000

It is comparatively easier to take portrait shot in bright day light than in dark or low light condition. Taking portrait shot in dark or low light condition is challenging because you have to adjust two lights while taking picture; one is ambient light and the other one is flash light. In daylight shooting, you don’t have to worry much about flash light (except fill light) and you don’t have to deal much with shadows and colors of different lights. But while shooting in dark, you have to be extra careful with presence of very few or no ambient light, different artificial colors (street lights or other artificial lights in the environment), colors of those lights, shadows etc.

Taking portraits at night is difficult but fun as well. As I mentioned earlier, you have to understand how ambient light and flash work together. Ambient light is whatever light present in the environment and flash light is artificial light produced by using light strobe or flash gun. The flash light has a very short duration and thus shutter speed has no role in the overall exposure it gives. You have to remember that aperture controls flash lights and shutter speed controls ambient light; this will make life little bit easier. But having said that, it doesn’t mean that aperture can’t be used to control ambient light. It’s just simple and easy to implement if you remember those theories. Therefore, any shutter speed slower than the maximum shutter speed (also called Flash Sync Speed) can be used with flash. Please keep in mind that different camera model has different “max sync speed” value for shutter; usually 1/200th of sec or 1/250th of sec.

Focal Length : 55mm Shutter Speed : 1/60th of sec Aperture : f/4 ISO : 200

You can experiment with different aperture value to adjust flash lights and change shutter speed to change the brightness of the background. The longer the exposure, more ambient light passes through the lens and hence producing brighter background. Sometimes, while working in auto mode (TTL flash), you might not get result you want and it’s better to control your camera and flash manually. You also have to be careful about the choice of the lens. Normally, longer lenses are preferred for portrait shot.

Few things to experiment

1. You can try wide open aperture to create nice and soft bokeh in the background which also helps throwing confusing background out of focus. You may have to adjust your light settings because wider aperture allow more light into the sensor.

2. Location is not that much important for portrait as your main subject covers almost entire frame (most of the time).

3. You can also try off-camera flash so that you can play with direction and quality of lights.

4. You can also use colored gel which gives different mood to the photographs depending on which color you are using.

5. If you get lots of shadows, you may want to try bounce flash instead of straight flash.

6. You can also use kicker flash (normally used behind the subject which helps to separate subject from the background).

Focal Length : 55mm Shutter Speed : 1/5th of sec Aperture : f/4 ISO : 1600

You can see the difference in Shutter speed and ISO value (among these two photographs) which changed the amount of light coming to the sensor and hence changing overall brightness of the picture. You also have to be careful about choosing ISO value; higher the ISO value, more digital noise (grainy dots) will be present in the image. If you want to learn more about ISO and digital noise, please refer to my previous posts Understanding ISO in Digital Photography and Dealing with Digital Noise.

We have just launched Forum for Digital Photography

UM3$H — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:33:19 +0000

Hello Everyone!

We are very glad to announce that we have just launched interesting and ambitious project for photography enthusiastic. It has been little more than year and half that we are writing blogs on what we know about photography and shared what we feel like sharing with you. But, now we have moved one step ahead and decided to take your participation into our community directly by allowing you to share your ideas, skill and experience about digital photography. We have created a forum where you can visit as a Guest but however, when you are visiting as a Guest, you have very limited access to the resources. You can join our community as a member for free and post your own question, reply to other’s, share your photos and privately communicate with other members. Registration is free and only takes couple minutes to complete. We look forward to welcoming you as our new member of this community. If you have any kind of problems joining forum, please let us know by commenting on this post.

Welcome to “Daily Photography Tips – Discussion Forum“.

We believe that sharing knowledge, experience and discussing ideas is a key to continuous improvement and also great way to contribute to the community. The main idea about this forum is inviting photography enthusiastic people like you and share ideas and thoughts about photography. We hope this community forum helps you bringing new ideas and take your photography skill to the next level. When we serve more and more visitors and members in the future, we might add or change forum categories which we continue to do.

We continue to grow as one of the leading community and hope you enjoy joining this wonderful community.

Happy Shooting!

What is Hyperfocal Distance and When to use it

UM3$H — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:46:50 +0000

This post is part of Q&A section. If you have any questions to ask, please let us know using Contact page.

Rona (CA, USA) asked : I am very much interested in Landscape photography. Sometimes when I shoot Landscape, it doesn’t come out as sharp as I expect to be. I have heard about Hyperfocal Distance but never used it. Can you please explain me about Hyperfocal Distance and When to use it?

You have probably read about DOF (Depth of Field) and learned how to use it and when to use it. Hyperfocal Distance is the magical distance to focus on that gives you maximum depth of field (almost everything in the frame will be in sharp focus). Hyperfocal Distance differs with the focal length and the aperture of the lens. When you focus your lens on Hyperfocal Distance, the depth of field extends from half the Hyperfocal Distance to infinity. As you already know, for maximum depth of field, you should always shoot with smaller aperture (large aperture value) like f/16 or f/22. Most of the serious amateur and pro landscape photographer use Hyperfocal Distance for Landscape photography.

This short and brief introduction about Hyperfocal Distance may lead you to many more questions now. You may be thinking What is the Hyperfocal Distance for the lens you have?, How do I focus at Hyperfocal Distance?, Which lens is the best for Landscape photography etc. In this article, I will try to answer these questions as clearly as possible.

How to Calculate Hyperfocal Distance?

Hyperfocal Distance can be calculated by using following equation.

where,

H    is Hyperfocal Distance
f      is Focal Length
N    is f-number (Aperture value)
c    is the Circle of Confusion

When you calculate Hyperfocal Distance (H) using above equation, it comes in mm (millimeter) unit and you have to divide the result by 304.8 to get into feet and by 1000 to get into meters.

Hyperfocal Distance is a function of lens focal length, aperture value (f-number) and Circle of Confusion (CoC). In photography, the Circle of Confusion (CoC) is used to determine the depth of field, the part of an image that is acceptably sharp. A standard value of CoC is often associated with sensor type or size and brand of the camera. Every camera manufacturer has it’s own CoC value for their different types of camera sensor and body. Normally CoC for 35 mm or equivalent camera (FX format) is 0.030 mm and that of APS-C sensor (Nikon’s DX format) is around 0.019 mm.

How do I focus at Hyperfocal Distance?

When you are in the field shooting landscape, you don’t have to focus the lens exactly at the Hyperfocal Distance. It’s best if you can focus on exact Hyperfocal Distance (you might want to use measuring tape) but even if you can’t, there are ways to work around. When you are not sure about focusing exactly at Hyperfocal Distance, experts recommend that you should focus it slightly beyond the Hyperfocal Distance. Say, for example, your Hyperfocal Distance is 4.6 feet, you should focus on 5 feet and then stop down aperture by one stop (say, from f/16 to f/22) to get a little more depth of field.

Why telephoto lens is not good for Landscape Photography?

Wide angle lenses are very much popular for Landscape photography. However, normal lens ranging from 50mm or shorter can be used and works very well to adjust Hyperfocal Distance. Lenses having shorter focal length have relatively short Hyperfocal Distance when set to small aperture (larger aperture value). For example, the Hyperfocal Distance (using above formula) for a 14 mm lens set to f/16 aperture on a 35 mm or equivalent camera is about 1.43 feet. That means everything from 0.71 feet to infinity will be in focus taken with the lens focused at Hyperfocal Distance.

If you do same mathematical calculation for telephoto lenses, you will find the reason why telephoto lenses are not being used for Landscape photography. For example, the Hyperfocal Distance for 200 mm lens set to f/16 on a 35 mm camera is about 275 feet. That means everything from 137.5 feet to infinity will be sharp in a photograph taken with this lens focused at Hyperfocal Distance. Lets say if you have any subjects near than 137.5 feet (half the Hyperfocal Distance), this lens will not be able to focus them. That’s why such lenses having longer focal length are not useful for Landscape photography.

Preventing Fungus from Destroying Your Lenses

Janet Ochs Lowenbach — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:33:57 +0000

When you think about your favorite Nikon or Canon or any other DSLR brands, you don’t think about fungus — those spore-producing organisms like mildews, rusts, yeast, and mushrooms.

I certainly didn’t think about them until the day I decided to sell ALL of my old cameras including the workhorses, lenses, and cases that I had used for 25 years. I had hoped to use the proceeds to buy some new equipment for my Nikon D80.

I remember it like yesterday. With a mixture of sadness at losing my old friends and delight at the prospect of earning cash, I trotted off to Penn Camera in Rockville, MD. My equipment took up four bags.

Duane Heaton, the sales manager at Penn lined up all my gear on the counter and then pulled out a magnifying glass. “Let’s see how clean they are,” he said. Then he put down the glass and shook his head.

I began to worry. Duane opened the lenses wide and told me to look inside. It was unmistakable. The lens opening was lined with a fuzzy grey growth. The same growth lined every single lens and the two bodies. “That is a fungus,” he said. “It is contagious. It will eventually cover all the equipment, the bags, and even the cabinet you stored your equipment in.”

I soon learned that fungus grows in the lens and under the lens coating; it etches the glass. Fungus thrives in dark humid places where there is little or no movement of the air. Once fungus starts to grow; it is difficult to eradicate, and it causes soft spots in photographs that look like there is a fingerprint on the lens.

“Could I clean the equipment?” I asked

“I don’t advise it; it’s prohibitively expensive.”

“Can I sell the cameras?”

“Absolutely not. The fungus is contagious. You’ll have to dispose of the cameras and scrub the closet with Lysol or bleach.”

I never knew cameras were sensitive to moisture in the air.

“It’s not your fault,” Duane said. “Whenever you swoop down from the mountains to the DC area, you are entering a moist place. The district was built on a swamp and that moisture fosters the growth of fungus.”

What was Duane’s advice? Don’t store cameras in the basement. Keep them in a bright area upstairs. In your camera bag, a closet; keep silica gel packs in the bags. They are desiccants — something that dehumidifies the area around your equipment — and include a humidity indicator strip. Humidity should be between 35 % and 45 %. If the humidity gets too low – say below 30 percent — you might dry out the lens and the components. If it gets too high, you run the risk of fungus forming.

Ultimately you can help prevent fungus by providing movement and exposing the lenses and cameras to light and air.

Just for the sake of memory, I photographed the cameras and lenses before they were trashed. Twenty-five years of equipment would generate dust instead of cash.

I have since learned that there are people who can clean fungus from lens. They are listed on the web, but it is important to ascertain the quality and cost of their work before making any commitment. It is hard to remove fungus and it can come back. But you might want to check out the options.

Alphabets printed on Nikon Lenses and their meanings

Five different ways of connecting External Flash to Nikon D7000

UM3$H — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:18:25 +0000

Nikon D7000 comes with built-in flash which does pretty good job most of the time; specially when your subject is close, and you just need to fill the light. The power of the built-in flash is not enough to use it as a main source of light and this is when external flash comes handy. Nikon’s every new DSLRs support external flash units but in addition, Nikon D7000 gives some extra options to connect external flash unit. Basically you have five different ways to connect an external flash unit to your Nikon D7000.

1. Mount on the accessory shoe: You can connect your flash unit to D7000 by sliding a compatible flash units into the accessory shoe, also called hot shoe. When you slide your flash unit to hot shoe, D7000 automatically detects Nikon speedlights and you can control it’s function using camera menu options.

2. Connect to the accessory shoe with a cable: Instead of mounting your flash directly into accessory shoe, you can also use Nikon standard cables; Nikon SC-28 or SC-29 TTL coiled remote cords to connect flash units with Nikon DSLRs. These coiled remote cords have an accessory shoe on one end of nine-foot cable to accept flash, and a foot that slides into the camera accessory shoe on the other end, providing a link that is the same as mounting flash directly sliding into hot shoe. But using these cables gives you flexibility of placing flash units into different orientations than being fixed on top of the camera. It is useful when you want to experiment with direction of lights using wired connection between flash units and camera.

3. Connect using Multi-Flash cables: You can also use Nikon SC-27 or SC-26 TTL Multi-Flash Sync Cords to connect TTL flash units to each other or through the AS-10 TTL Multi-Flash adapter or SC-28 TTL remote cord for multi-flash operation. You may want to use this with older NIkon Flash units as it doesn’t support i-TTL or D-TTL operation.4. Connect to a PC/X connector: Nikon D7000 doesn’t have built-in PC sync connector, but Nikon offers an optional adapter, Nikon AS-15 Sync Terminal Adapter, that clips into hot shoe and provides a PC/X connector which can be used with studio strobes. These adapters are useful when they are combined with a voltage limiter so that you don’t need to worry about frying your camera with an older flash units that has a triggering voltage that’s too high.

Note: According to B&H online store, AS-15 Sync Terminal Adapter doesn’t provide high-voltage sync protection, and is not recommended for flash units that have more than 6v.

5. Connect using Wireless technology: Nikon D7000 has a commander mode option which lets you trigger most of the Nikon speedlight units wirelessly. Using commander mode, these speedlights can be triggered by another master flash in commander mode or by the RU-800 infrared device. You can also use third party wireless device such as RadioPopper JrX or PocketWizards wireless flash triggers which are pretty much dominant in the market.

What I saw in Skyline Drive, Virginia

UM3$H — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:30:17 +0000

I have always wanted to capture the colors of autumn. I am fascinated by pictures of beautiful trees with combination of green, yellow and red leaves. Every fall is different for me and each new display of colors gives me energy to get out of my comfort zone and capture those natural moments. My schedule was too full, so a fall trip was put on hold for long time. Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer and decided to set out to find and capture the beauty of the season.

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I took leave from work and headed to Skyline Drive in Virginia. The Drive is a 105-mile road that runs the entire length of the Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, generally along the ridges of the mountains. The scenic drive is particularly popular in the fall when the leaves are changing colors. According to Wikipedia, each year, over two million people visit the Skyline Drive, which has been designated a National Scenic Byway.

The weather was so perfect that I didn’t notice almost 90 miles of driving from my home. As soon as I reached the park, I saw an amazingly harmonious blend of nature and human development. You can’t drive faster than 35 miles per hour due to curves on the road, wildlife crossings, and walking or cycling tourists. While driving, you can see stopped vehicles whose occupants are either enjoying the wildlife or viewing the valley from overlooks. As a driving precaution, you have to be extra careful about roads which take winding paths along the mountaintops where deer, bear and other wildlife crossing the road may appear without warning.

When you get the $15 dollar visitor ticket at the entrance, (it can be used an unlimited number of times throughout one week) you will also get maps and information about the National Park. There are nearly seventy-five overlooks throughout the drive, which offers some of the most spectacular views of the surrounding valleys. I didn’t have time to drive through all the overlooks but each one I visited was fantastic. The park is also famous for hiking and camping on its many trails and biking and horseback riding, on the roads.

Please feel free to share your moments if you have been there and tell us how you felt about the park.

Weekend visit to Great Falls Park

Sunset Photography Tips

Janet Ochs Lowenbach — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 02:05:13 +0000

The setting sun is one of the glories of the day and possibly the best memory of a vacation. But it takes some skill to produce photos that stand out from the crowd.

First off, decide what you will include in your shot. Go to the site an hour ahead (you might want to look up the time of sunset earlier in the day), and walk around. See what scenes you might want to include and what objects you might want to place in the foreground of the shot for interest. (Silhouettes in the foreground are a valuable compositional device.) Plan to bring a tripod.

You might even go over the possible exposures in your mind. (It is best to use the smallest possible aperture is to increase depth of field.) Even though the sun is going down, it is important not to look directly at it when it is too bright. A rule of thumb I use is to hold my fist up to the horizon; I can shoot when the sun is below that. Frankly I have also looked directly at the sun when it is higher, but I am here to tell you I have read enough to know that is a very dangerous thing for your eyes and the camera itself. IT ISN’T WORTH IT! It is particularly important to never look directly at the sun through a long lens, which magnifies the light.

Begin taking the shots a half hour or so ahead of the event– the clouds take on wonderful colors before and after sunset. There is something exciting too about photographing the sun continuously as it dips below the horizon.

Plan to shoot at a variety of focal lengths –sometimes a wide panorama is best; sometimes you will want to narrow the field.

Sometimes the lack of contrast makes it hard to focus when the camera is on automatic; sometimes the shot won’t work at all and sometimes the camera misfocuses, but you won’t notice the fuzz until later. So make sure you take a fair number of shots on manual focus!

Remember the rule of thirds, and keep the major elements of your shots off center.

Make sure you experiment. You may choose aperture priority to make sure you have adequate depth of field. I like to experiment by shooting on manual (bracketing), once I have chosen the basic exposure from program priority. Manual shooting makes you familiar with the exposures that work in various settings. I like to see the effects of more or less exposure (or even flash in the foreground) on the clouds as they are lit up by the dying of the light.

Here are some other sunset shots I took this summer in Bailey Island, a beautifully isolated spot on Casco Bay, an hour from Portland.

Nikon Introduces Two New Mirrorless Cameras

Janet Ochs Lowenbach — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:28:12 +0000

The cameras are totally new types of cameras and the imaging systems to go with them. Called the Nikon 1 series, the systems are designed to compete with the Olympus PEN and Sony NEX series models. They can be ordered, among other places, from the website of B&H photography, Amazon and other online stores.

Nikon’s new 1 series cameras, the Nikon J1 and Nikon V1, are compact, mirrorless cameras that feature a new 10MP CX format (13.2 x 8.8mm / 3872 x 2592-dot), CMOS imaging sensor and a dedicated Nikon System 1 lens mount designed specifically for use with the new CX-format sensor.

The top-of-the-line 1 series Nikon is the Nikon V1, which features a svelte form factor (4.4 x 3 x 1.7″ / 113 x 76 x 43.5 mm), light weight (10.4 oz / 294 g camera body only) and a choice of viewing options—a high definition, 1,4400,000-dot electronic viewfinder (EVF) that comes into play when you raise the camera to your eye, or a more traditional 3.0-inch, 920,000-dot rear-mounted LCD for those who prefer squinting at a small screen under bright, sunny skies. It costs around $850.

Other characteristics: up to 10 frames per second (full-res), JPEG, NEF (RAW) or NEF (RAW)+JPEG stills, full HD video (1,920 x 1,080/60i, 1,920 x 1,080/30p, 1,280 x 720/60p, as well as the ability to shoot at up to 60 frames per second for slow motion playback at 24 frames per second. There’s also a Smart Photo Selector that automatically captures a high-res still while recording HD 1080p video. The new System 1 cameras also feature Nikon’s newest dual core EXPEED 3 image processor, which according to Nikon is tuned to enable the new cameras to perform as advertised, including still capture at speeds up to 60 full-res frames per second—when you simply cannot afford to miss the shot.

The Nikon J1 is slightly smaller, slightly lighter, and about $250 less expensive than the Nikon V1, and relies solely on a 3.0-inch (460,000-dot) LCD for composing and reviewing stills and video. But aside from the lack of an EVF, and a lower-res LCD, the Nikon J1 and V1 share all of the above mentioned attributes and performance specs. The Nikon J1 will be available in black, red, silver, white, and pink.

The ISO sensitivity range of Nikon’s System 1 cameras goes from 100 to 3200, with an extended ISO 6400 in the dark. Autofocus is also reportedly quite responsive, thanks to a new 73-point hybrid AF system that automatically switches between phase and contrast detection as needed, and allows for full-time continuous focusing while shooting.

New Lens Mount

This new Nikon 1 lens mount, introduced on the innovative Nikon 1, V1 and J1 cameras is needed because the new cameras (being a mirrorless format) lack the bulk of the Digital SLR mirror arrangement, and so are much smaller than a full DSLR. There is also an adapter to allow the older Nikon full frame FX and also the smaller format DX lenses to be used with the new mirrorless cameras

Here are the characteristics of the Nikon J1 Mirrorless Digital Camera:

A 10-30 mm / 30-110 mm Lens (White)
CX-Format High-Speed AF CMOS Sensor
EXPEED 3 Dual Image Processor
Interchangeable 1 NIKKOR Lens System
10 fps Continuous Shooting in AF Mode
73 Point AF Array
3.0″ 460K-Dot Anti-Glare Color LCD
Full HD (1080p) Movie Record Mode
Motion Snapshot 1-Touch Photo Animation
Smart Photo Selector
10-30 mm VR Lens/ 30-110 mm Lens

Accessories for Nikon’s System 1 cameras include an SB-N5 Speedlight, an external stereo microphone for greater audio fidelity, and the GP-N100 GPS module, each of which couple to the camera via a Multi-Accessory port located on the camera’s top deck.

To complement the new cameras, Nikon has also introduced the first 1 Nikkor lenses, starting with the 1 Nikkor VR 10–30mm/f3.5–5.6 (27–81mm equivalent), which will serve as the standard kit lens for both cameras. There will also be a 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 pancake lens (27mm equivalent), a 1 Nikkor 30–110mm f/3.8–5.6 (81–297mm equivalent) and a 1 Nikkor VR 10–100mm/4.5–5.6 (27–270mm equivalent) power zoom, which is optimized for smooth, quiet video capture.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages of the new mirror less camera and the CX lens.

Advantages of the Mirrorless Format

Small physical, pocket-size for easy storage.
Small weight, easy to carry.
Silent operation due to lack of mirror noise, so can be used in stage shows and other events when allowed.
Can use DX and FX lenses if you have any of these lenses with an adaptor, the camera has a lens multiplication factor of 2.7, thus a 70-200mm lens becomes an effective 190-540mm lens. A 500mm lens becomes an effective 1350mm.
This camera will be a great compact movie camera for High Definition movies.
Greatly improved image quality from the existing range of smaller sensor Coolpix cameras.

Disadvantages of the Mirrorless Format

No optical viewfinder, but there is an electronic viewfinder.
Focusing with any action shots may not be as precise and fast as the Digital SLR range of cameras
Higher pixel density with smaller pixels and probably more image noise as a result.