A Look into Depth of Field for Beginner Photographers

Photography can be a fantastically rewarding hobby - and although it may have once been an expensive one, equipment is slowly but surely becoming more accessible to everyone. With this in mind, it’s easy to improve your skills without much professional training or the most expensive kit.

Take depth of field for example. This is a term that is thrown around a lot in the world of photography, but for beginners, it’s hard to catch up with the jargon. In many ways this is a very technical part of photography, but it’s not too difficult for novices to grasp. OK Let’s break it down…

What is Depth of Field (DoF) in digital photography ?

Depth of field is essentially an area of sharpness:  it encompasses the distance between the nearest points in shot, all the way to the further objects. This area gives a zone to choose focus from. Of course, it is up to the photographer, what should be in focus and how sharply they want this part to appear.

Knowing the terms for everything isn’t the be-all and end-all, but certainly with photography enthusiasts it can be difficult to avoid in a conversation.

How to get the desired Depth of Field with your camera ?

The depth of field, or this specific zone, is normally influenced by three factors; the aperture, the length of your lens, and how far away you are from what you want to photograph.

Talking about aperture in optics, this is simply referring to the opening in your camera through which light (and your image) travels. It is this opening that determines just how the rays of light come into your camera in the first place and can vary between different makes and models of camera. In the same way the shutter speed is in relation to how long the light has to reach the sensor in your camera, the aperture is in regards to the amount of light.

a) How to get wide DoF

If we’re getting technical again, aperture is often referred to as an f-stop and is expressed as numbers. You may be familiar with this as a decimal number. As the f-number increases, the depth of field increases too. For example, an aperture of f/32 will be greater than that of f/5.

 

When most of the image is sharp, this would be a wide depth of field. This is easier to achieve with a wider focal lens, as it allows you to see more of an area. Think about taking a photograph but you want to get more into your image. What do you do? Step backwards! Well, a wide angle lens allows you to get this additional depth of field without tripping backwards and bringing your camera all the way to your chin.

b) How to get shallow DoF

On the opposite end, if you are after a very specific area, you are restricting the depth of field, and so a telephoto lens is ideal in capturing these instances, particularly if your subject you want to concentrate on is at a reasonable distance away. Unlike the wide DoF, shallow DoF is the result of lowering down the f-number on your camera.

In order to get the balance right, depending on what end result you are after, there are plenty of calculators out there in order to estimate depth of field, many of which can be found online.

In this sense, photography and it’s depth of field can be meticulously planned prior to even taking your equipment out of its casing. Although incredibly useful, it’s important to remember not to do this for every image.

Despite being able to carefully calculate the depth of field in order to improve the scene of a selected picture, it is sometimes good to have these skills as a backup and instead to use your eyes to judge the situation. Photography is more often than not all about being captured in the moment, and being able to take a snapshot moment, and sometime you just need to feel it.

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This was a guest post contributed by photographer - Brett Harkness 

More about the author: Brett is a professional photography training provider and a part time commercial photographer. If you’d like to brush up your skills with some photography training Brett provides courses in Manchester.

10 Tips To Take Good Photos with Your Mobile Phone Camera

We all capture our daily life events using regular phone camera. For most of us, it's simply like holding the phone against the subject followed by pressing the shoot button. And that's all. But do you know how to take great photos with your mobile phone camera? There is a lot more to know apart from just holding the phone against your subject. Let's see, how by using these 10 tips one can make the most out of his/her basic camera phone.

Top 10 tips to capture good photos using your mobile phone’s camera

1. Take your photos in the highest resolution

When you are capturing photos using your mobile camera, always make sure that you take the photos in highest resolution; i.e in the highest possible megapixel count. This ensures that the quality of the captured photos is not compromised when they are edited or cropped later.

2. Look for proper lighting and angle

Nothing compares to the quality of photos shot under natural lighting. So always make it a habit to take your photos in natural light, instead of capturing under the fluorescent lights inside the room.

3. Avoid digital zoom

Zooming in on to the subject results in degraded resolution. The photos captured this way loose their true megapixel count and look pixelated. The better approach is to move closer to your subject and avoid using the digital zoom.

4. Check your background

Before clicking the photo, do ensure that the background is pleasant with minimal distractions. For example, If you are shooting a photo inside a room make sure that your background does not include distracting things like refrigerator, PC, television or anything like that which makes your good photo looks bad.

5. Use the rule of thirds

If you have enough time to frame your mobile shots do make use of the rules of thirds. This tip can help you to achieve better composition in your photos. Rule of thirds basically works by dividing your camera frame in 9 equal parts using two equally spaced lines running horizontally and vertically. The subject of interest should lie on either of the intersection points or at any of these lines.

6. Choose the orientation wisely

Wisely choose between the portrait mode or the landscape mode. For example, all the wide angle scenes (like - sea coasts, lakes, night skylines, etc.) should be captured in the landscape mode. When taking the portrait shots of a person, it is quite obvious to go for the portrait mode, instead of the landscape mode.

7. Switch to the auto focus mode

It is always a good idea to use the auto focus mode on your phone’s camera. Whether you would like to take macro shots or distant shots, enabling the auto focus mode takes care of all.

8. Flash is not always necessary

Turn off your camera flash when shooting under well lit conditions. Using the flash on your phone every-time can cause your photos to look over-exposed and unnatural. Use the flash only when it’s really necessary and you can’t do without it.

9. Play with the ISO numbers

This tip is especially for the high end mobile phones(iPhones, androids and windows powered devices) which enjoy this added camera feature. Owners of such devices are strongly recommended to learn the basics of ISO in digital photography and then apply them to take beautiful photos every time.

10. Take a series of shots

Always make it a habit to take a series of shots captured with variety of angles. This way you will end up with a flexible option to save your favorite shots while at the same time discarding those that you do not need.

Good luck and enjoy the mobile photography !

How to Take Great Photos at a Wedding

A wedding presents a huge number of photographic possibilities ranging from still life images of details such as flowers and buttonholes, photojournalistic images capturing the moment and telling the story of the day, portraits of the bride and groom through to landscape photographs of the locations, buildings and the venue. The wedding photographer has to be immensely versatile, technically proficient and able to work in time pressured conditions and in situations that can often be far from ideal. He/She learns to improvise, go with what is available and make great images from whatever raw material is available.

In this post, our guest contributor Andrew Hind (a wedding photographer from Cambridge, UK) shares some worthy tips and ideas for capturing beautiful wedding moments…

1. Choosing the right camera and lens for the wedding

Primarily, it is important to have the correct equipment. It is very tempting to think that the more equipment, variety of lenses and filters one has the better the chances of coping with the differing challenges of a wedding day but, due to the fast moving nature of events and the need to keep concentration firmly focused on capturing the events of the day, it is often better to go with simple, high quality but versatile kit. The main essential is a DSLR camera body with a reasonable capability to shoot at high ISO ratings followed by a fast versatile middle range lens such as a 24-70mm f2.8. This will cover probably 95% of all eventualities. It is possibly also worth considering a wider lens, a faster prime for low light conditions and a moderate zoom e.g. 70-200mm f2.8 for when it is simply not possible to get in close enough. A flash gun will complete the kit for use in emergencies.

2. Look for the proper lighting

One of the key aspects to getting great wedding images is the quality of light. Always look for good quality directional light, if it is a bright sunny day try to generally shoot into the sun to avoid shadows on faces and people squinting. If it is more overcast then it is important to look for ways of cutting the top light by photographing under trees, archways or canopies. Try photographing in open shade, just where the light gradually tails off and in situations where the light will glance off fabrics and shapes giving your images a beautifully three dimensional and textural feel. Whatever the weather and whatever the situation the ability to “see” beautiful light will be a major contributory factor to the quality of the final images. In a similar vein, I personally try to avoid using flash as a main light source as it can often be harsh and unflattering. It is often possible to photograph a whole wedding without using flash right up until the dancing in the evening. Even here it can be a good idea to use a high ISO and a wide aperture to capture as much of the ambient light as possible in conjunction with the flash gun set to provide a little fill light only just to clean up the details in the image.

3. Framing beautiful shots in time

With a wedding being fast moving and often logistically challenging for the photographer it is all too easy for images to lose compositional strength and integrity. Even the quickest “capture the moment” image needs to be beautifully framed, or use the rule of thirds, have a strong sense of depth or have repeated pattern or shape to satisfy the viewer's eye. This is relatively easy to achieve when there is time to consider but the wedding photographer needs to be able to compose instinctively and quickly time after time. This demands constant concentration and looking, waiting and making the elements of the picture fall into place. It is a constant mental exercise in looking for the image, imagining before taking the image and molding, crafting and creating the perfect composition. It is sometimes also possible to find a scenario where the composition works beautifully and all the elements are there to create a great image and all you have to do is wait for something to happen in the frame – often it will not, but sometimes something remarkable will take place and the resulting image will be outstanding.

4. Adjusting Exposure and Color-balance

On a more technical note both exposure and color balance are also vital to achieving great results. Exposure can often be tricky as frequently a wedding photographer is photographing white dresses glaring in sunshine contrasting with very dark suits! Often, when photographing the bride arriving in a white shiny car in a white dress in bright sunshine, it is necessary to photograph with two or more stops of exposure compensation to achieve correct exposure. However, as soon as she walks into shadow this all rapidly changes and adjustments have to be quickly made. Similarly, I have photographed groups of ushers in dark suits and had to under expose by two or more stops to achieve correct exposure. The point is that even the best modern camera will not achieve perfect exposure every time without some human help! Beautiful prints only come from perfect exposure. Quickly bracket if possible, use your histogram (don't rely on your screen, particularly in bright sunlight) and constantly check. Color balance is equally important, it is very lazy to rely on auto color balance and it will only do a reasonably good job most of the time. Again read the light, adjust as necessary, learn how to make a custom white balance for your camera and use it. As a wedding/people photographer I always aim to produce beautiful skin tones and if this can be achieved at the point of capture rather than in post processing all the better.

5. Taking lively shots at the wedding

So, you have the correct equipment, understand light, composition, exposure and color balance. What on earth to photograph? Every single image at a wedding should tell part of the story; it might be as simple as recording the bouquets or table decorations, possibly a nice portrait of one of the guests, beautiful portraits of the bride and groom or sweeping landscapes of the venue and location but, as a photographer, one has to find the heart and soul of the wedding and this will only come about by an emotional involvement and empathy on your part. Look for the moment that the Bride's Mum squeezes her hand as she sees her finally ready to leave for the ceremony, moments between the Bride and her Dad as they wait to go up the aisle.

That first glance between the Bride and Groom as they see each other for the first time, tears of joy and hugging after the ceremony is over, bored bridesmaids and grumpy uncles, guests drinking too much , nervous best men practicing speeches, love, emotion and joy! These are the things that breath life into your photographs, make wedding images leap of the page and crackle with meaning. Observe, anticipate and think, imagine the image, go and find the images and make them happen. There are always great photographs to be taken in any situation it is just a matter of imagination, patience and tenacity to find them!

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About the author: Andrew Hind is a Cambridge wedding photographer with ten years of professional experience photographing weddings all over the UK.

Instagram for android – amazingly easy way to edit and share photos online

If you are an android phone owner who loves editing and sharing photos online then you must try out this newly released photo editing app – Instagram. Within 24 hours of release on the play store, this app recorded a whooping 1 million+ downloads. What makes instagram unique from the rest of the photo editing apps for android, is its unique user interface, 17 sets of amazing pre-installed filters and the huge platform for sharing your masterpiece – Instagram’s own photo sharing social network. At last not to forget, the high brand value behind it’s name with the apparent news of Facebook buying the photo editing and sharing service for 1 billion USD !
It is insanely easy to use instagram on android. This post walks you through the major steps in editing and sharing photos online using instagram on android.

How to use the instagram app on android ?

Step 1: Before using the app, you have to register an account with instagram. This would hardly take a minute.

Step 2: Choose the camera icon from the bottom (yes, the third one from the bottom). Now either take a new picture from camera or load one from the gallery.

Step 3: One limitation of instagram is that, the photos will be resized to square shapes before applying any filter. This directly affects the resolution of your photos being edited.

Step 4: Apply your favorite photo editing effect from the pre installed set of 17 filters with ridiculous names

Once applied, tap on the forward blue arrow icon on the top of the screen. Now your image will be processed and automatically saved to the gallery within a folder named instagram. This is the annoying part of the application, it does not allow saving the edited picture with its main user interface. The photos are saved silently in the background on your SD card once you tap the forward arrow icon to process the photos.

Step 5 (optional): Give your photo a name and share it online by tapping the green upload button. This will upload your photos to instagram’s own photo sharing network. Nevertheless, you can also choose to upload your artwork on popular social networks like twitter and Facebook by signing into your respective accounts and granting access to Instagram to upload your photos there

Although using the same app on an iPhone felt way more polished and smooth, we were not disappointed at all using it on an android for the very first time (especially when the app is still in its early days of development). We wish the developers at instagram could make some improvements like the addition of more photo editing filters and the ability to save picture directly to the SD card in the upcoming versions of the app on the android market.

What is ISO in digital photography and when to select the right ISO

While operating the camera in manual mode you probably must have stumbled upon the term ISO. Mastering the use of ISO can significantly improve your digital photography skills. This post presents the concept of ISO in a very insightful way. Keep reading on…

What exactly is ISO ?

It can be considered as a unit of digital photography that measures the sensitivity of your camera’s optical sensor towards light. That is; for a higher ISO number, your camera will be more sensitive towards light and for a lower ISO number, your camera will be less sensitive towards light. Consequently, for a high ISO (more sensitivity towards light) the camera shutter will snap rapidly (allowing light to enter for a very small duration). In other words, high ISO results in short exposure time (ex – 1/400 of a second).
Similarly, for a low ISO (less sensitivity towards light) the camera shutter will snap slowly (allowing light to enter for a very large duration). As a result, low ISO results in long exposure time (ex – 1/5 of a second).

Choosing the right ISO settings for your pictures

a) Light sensitivity point of view
Since an ISO number reflects how sensitive your camera is towards light, consider using a high ISO when shooting under insufficient or low light conditions. Similarly, consider using a low ISO when shooting under ample of light conditions. Use of a very low ISO must be avoided as this results in blurry photos being captured even with slightest of shake while holding the camera (Reason: Lower ISO results in longer exposure time)

b) Exposure point of view
While shooting a scene where you want to display motion in your photograph, consider using a low ISO (which results in longer exposure time and motion blur). For example; capturing motion of a speeding car, a drifting subway metro or anything which inspires you to capture the motion. Similarly, consider the use of high ISO when you want a still photograph without any motion blur. For example; while performing baby photography which involves a lot of rapid movements or any sports event where you want to freeze the motion.

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Problems with Low and High ISO settings

Using high and low ISO has it’s own advantages and disadvantages. We have covered most of the advantages in the aforementioned paragraphs, now we will discuss some of the key disadvantages of using an ISO number which is set too high or too low in magnitude.

Too high ISO is the main cause of noise in photographs and too low ISO is the main cause of blur in photographs.

Possible solutions are:

1. To eliminate noisy effect due to high ISO – Use a high speed camera lens or use noise ninja application to eliminate the noise.

2. To eliminate blurry effect due to low ISO – Use a tripod coupled with remote controlled capturing (since under low ISO settings, even the slightest of shake while pressing the shoot button triggers blur)

ISO and noise example:

 

 

For a DSLR camera, a change in ISO directly affects the exposure triangle where one has to readjust the other two parameters accordingly – Aperture and Shutter Speed.

Most of the photographers set their camera to auto mode where the ISO is automatically adjusted to an appropriate value in accordance to the scene being captured. ISO plays a very important role in digital photography and its appropriate use should be mastered for capturing amazing photos regardless of what the shooting conditions are !