( I have lost count of how many people have asked me why I am taking photos in the park. They are not trying to stop me - they are just curious. )
1/25 of a second.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Best Panning Shot
I have not had a lot of previous experience with panning ( almost zero) but I am fairly happy with the shot below. The person and bike are reasonably sharp, yet there is some movement in the legs and feet. I think it looks odd if the moving subject is perfectly still throughout ,whilst the background appears to move behind them.
( I have lost count of how many people have asked me why I am taking photos in the park. They are not trying to stop me - they are just curious. )
1/25 of a second.
( I have lost count of how many people have asked me why I am taking photos in the park. They are not trying to stop me - they are just curious. )
1/25 of a second.
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Delay
After a week of being ill with the flu, followed by a week of not feeling up to it, followed by 5 days of being unable to manage the camera, due to a bee sting to the wrist, for which I am now on antibiotics and antihistamine, I am hoping that I will be able to take some photographs this weekend !!
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Project 4
I am not feeling very happy with project 4, but I will have to move on.
For this project I had to take 10 to 12 photographs of an object moving across the viewfinder. This had to be the same object and the photographs had to be taken with different shutter speeds. Due to illness, I haven't been able to get out and about much during the last couple of weeks and I have been unable to find anyone daft enough to run up and down or ride a bike at an even speed.
Whilst at the Manchester Science Museum, I spotted Stephenson's Rocket and decided to use this as my subject. Not a good idea! This thing is too slow. Not too slow at moving down the track but too slow at coming back again. There was a ten to fifteen minute wait between trips. It doesn't take much to work out how long it takes to take 12 photos. ( I cheated and took two of the photos when it was coming backwards but I won't get away with it because anyone can see that the steam is drifting off in the wrong direction. :-) )
I missed one shot because the camera turned itself off at the crucial moment and wouldn't wake up again. This will not happen again - I've turned off its automatic shut down.
A couldn't get a clear background for the shots and there is a rail in front. Perhaps, I should have got a bit closer to the train but to be honest I was frightened of not getting any of it in the frame. Another problem - there isn't a lot of contrast between the background and part of the engine. I am not happy with the composition but could improve it by cropping out the foreground and forming a letterbox frame.
By the time I had got down to 1/10, 1/5 of a second and 1 second, I was having real difficulty with the exposure. My lens was stopped down to f22 - its smallest aperture, but the images were blowing out - too much light. I almost got there in the end - I had a word with the sun and it disappeared behind a cloud. I also put my polarising filter over the lens to cut down the light.
I need to buy a neutral density filter.
Four of the shots:
1/1000 sec
1/30 sec
1/10 sec
1/5 sec
Panning next - oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! I need to find something to pan.
For this project I had to take 10 to 12 photographs of an object moving across the viewfinder. This had to be the same object and the photographs had to be taken with different shutter speeds. Due to illness, I haven't been able to get out and about much during the last couple of weeks and I have been unable to find anyone daft enough to run up and down or ride a bike at an even speed.
Whilst at the Manchester Science Museum, I spotted Stephenson's Rocket and decided to use this as my subject. Not a good idea! This thing is too slow. Not too slow at moving down the track but too slow at coming back again. There was a ten to fifteen minute wait between trips. It doesn't take much to work out how long it takes to take 12 photos. ( I cheated and took two of the photos when it was coming backwards but I won't get away with it because anyone can see that the steam is drifting off in the wrong direction. :-) )
I missed one shot because the camera turned itself off at the crucial moment and wouldn't wake up again. This will not happen again - I've turned off its automatic shut down.
A couldn't get a clear background for the shots and there is a rail in front. Perhaps, I should have got a bit closer to the train but to be honest I was frightened of not getting any of it in the frame. Another problem - there isn't a lot of contrast between the background and part of the engine. I am not happy with the composition but could improve it by cropping out the foreground and forming a letterbox frame.
By the time I had got down to 1/10, 1/5 of a second and 1 second, I was having real difficulty with the exposure. My lens was stopped down to f22 - its smallest aperture, but the images were blowing out - too much light. I almost got there in the end - I had a word with the sun and it disappeared behind a cloud. I also put my polarising filter over the lens to cut down the light.
I need to buy a neutral density filter.
Four of the shots:
1/1000 sec
1/30 sec
1/10 sec
1/5 sec
Panning next - oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! I need to find something to pan.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Project 1
Taken at 50 mm
Taken at 32 mm
Taken at 18 mm
Taken at 270 mm
I used a Tamron Superzoom 18 - 270 mm lens for all the photographs.
Each photograph was printed at A4. When I went back to the scene ( exact same spot ) and held the prints out in front of me, at about 18 inches, the 32 mm print seemed to show an area roughly the same angle as I could see with my eyes. ( I could, perhaps, see a little bit more from the corner of my eyes, but it was difficult to tell).
When I held out the 50 mm print, the windmill in the print looked almost the same size at it did in real life.
I could not get far enough back to view the scene as it shows in 18 mm print. Three steps back and I would have been on a very busy road. I had to walk forward with the 270 mm print but people were beginning to stare at me so I didn't continue with this.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Re-think
I may have to re-think the last bit of my previous notes. Since I didn't change my position, then maybe the perspective or apparent perspective hadn't changed at all. Although things in the distance looked further away, perhaps everything in the frame was reduced in proportion - to fit my smaller view. ( Can't check at the moment - all my batteries are dead)
After taking and printing the two photographs ( 50 mm on 35 film and 30 with my camera ) at the same size, they may well look the same - even through they looked very different through the viewfinders. I am going to have to do this experiment; otherwise it will drive me mad. I want to be absolutely sure that there isn't a distortion effect between near and far objects.
After taking and printing the two photographs ( 50 mm on 35 film and 30 with my camera ) at the same size, they may well look the same - even through they looked very different through the viewfinders. I am going to have to do this experiment; otherwise it will drive me mad. I want to be absolutely sure that there isn't a distortion effect between near and far objects.
Project 1 and standard lens
I have had a look at project 1 and I am feeling a bit confused and argumentative – oh gawd! Already! The experiment itself and the title (Focal length and angle of view) seem to conflict. To find the standard focal length for my camera I am instructed to make objects in the viewfinder look the same size as in real -life. I am told that this is what is meant by standard. I am also told that on a 35mm film camera the standard is 50mm. As far as I was aware a 50 mm lens is a 50 mm lens and the perspective does not change whichever sensor it happens to be in front of (a full frame or a smaller 1.6 magnification). I get a cropped version with my sensor and all that changes is the angle of view. I’ve gone out and borrowed a full frame film camera to prove it. Having looked at the clock on my wall through the viewfinder of both cameras (with 50 mm lenses attached and from the same spot) I can confirm that the clock looks exactly the same size through both viewfinders – nearly life size. With the 35 mm camera I get a bigger overall view – I can see more of the surrounding wall but the clock is still the same size. (If I printed both photographs the clock from my camera would look larger than the clock in the 35 mm film print, but this is simply because mine is a cropped version printed at the same size as an uncropped 35 mm version. An important point, however, is that the perspective and the spatial relationship between near and far objects remains unchanged)
On page 282 of the course material it says that the standard focal length for a camera is less than 50 mm in proportion to the smaller size of the sensor ( For mine this would be 50 divided by 1.6 which equals 31.25) – Fair enough, but this is the comparable angle of view and I am not going to arrive at this figure by following the experiment in project 1 and matching the size of the clock in my viewfinder to the size of the clock on my wall. To arrive at this figure, without the mathematics, I need to match the full angle of view and not the size of objects to real life! (By the way, I would not be able to match the angle of view if I hadn’t borrowed a full frame camera – I wouldn’t have known what the angle looked like).
Conclusion
If I match the size of objects and the spatial relationships to real life, as I seem to be instructed, the answer is about 50 to 60 (the same as full frame) but if I match the full angle of view, the standard focal length for my camera is about 30 (with a much smaller clock in the viewfinder).
To top it all I think that 60 mm give a better natural perspective then 50 mm (on both cameras). I think the true answer to this question must be as follows: If I want a natural looking perspective I should choose a focal length of between 50 and 65. If I want to achieve the same angle of view as a 50 mm lens on a full frame, then I would choose a focal length of approximately 30 mm. (Although this photograph would have the same angle of view, as far as I can see or judge, it will not (appear to ) have the same perspective. I can see this by looking through the viewfinders. Objects in the distance look much further away in my viewfinder when viewed at 30 mm) To prove it on here, I will need to buy a film, learn how to use the 35mm camera and display the two different photographs. This will be done at a later date. For now I am going to have to move on because at this rate I am not going to get through the projects and the assignments.
On page 282 of the course material it says that the standard focal length for a camera is less than 50 mm in proportion to the smaller size of the sensor ( For mine this would be 50 divided by 1.6 which equals 31.25) – Fair enough, but this is the comparable angle of view and I am not going to arrive at this figure by following the experiment in project 1 and matching the size of the clock in my viewfinder to the size of the clock on my wall. To arrive at this figure, without the mathematics, I need to match the full angle of view and not the size of objects to real life! (By the way, I would not be able to match the angle of view if I hadn’t borrowed a full frame camera – I wouldn’t have known what the angle looked like).
Conclusion
If I match the size of objects and the spatial relationships to real life, as I seem to be instructed, the answer is about 50 to 60 (the same as full frame) but if I match the full angle of view, the standard focal length for my camera is about 30 (with a much smaller clock in the viewfinder).
To top it all I think that 60 mm give a better natural perspective then 50 mm (on both cameras). I think the true answer to this question must be as follows: If I want a natural looking perspective I should choose a focal length of between 50 and 65. If I want to achieve the same angle of view as a 50 mm lens on a full frame, then I would choose a focal length of approximately 30 mm. (Although this photograph would have the same angle of view, as far as I can see or judge, it will not (appear to ) have the same perspective. I can see this by looking through the viewfinders. Objects in the distance look much further away in my viewfinder when viewed at 30 mm) To prove it on here, I will need to buy a film, learn how to use the 35mm camera and display the two different photographs. This will be done at a later date. For now I am going to have to move on because at this rate I am not going to get through the projects and the assignments.
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