Saturday, 10 April 2010

TAoP project 1 - Focus

In first looking through this excercise my first thoughts were how easy this would be, find an interseting subject matter, take 3 shots at 200mm, 18mm and standard focal range (true to life size). After looking into the project I had some initial thoughts about it including what subjects to capture, this was my first hurdle. An interesting thought was to try and capture a bird nesting in a near by tree and although this would have made an interesting subject, proved to be a little overly tricky for my first step into this course, I did a test shoot with the birds and found almost immediatly that due to the lack of lenses in my possesion at present I could not get an exact standard focal range, my 18-55mm canon lens was slightly smaller at 55mm and my tamron 55-200mm lens was slightly larger at 55mm than standard. Also due to cloud cover and the sun darting in and out I found that keeping a true to life colour without changing exposures and white balance was an absolute nightmare. I also noted on this test shoot that each time I changed the lens on my camera the exposure rates were completely different, something I had never noted before. Just to make things worse I felt I was too far from the object that I was trying to picture leaving an image of a tree and a speck of what could have been anything in the background.
Here are my 3 test shoot images at 18mm, 55mm & 200mm.














My second try for this project is a newly blossomed tree close to my home, I have had simular problems with light however finally decided after much deliberation that the standard focal range for my camera taking into account lens changes is 55mm, I therefor decided to take my 3 final images with one lens being the Tamron 55-200mm.

My first image was taken at 55mm (standard In my opinion),









My second image at









My third image at 200mm









I have decided to come back to this project after purchasing a camera lens that covers from at least 18mm-300mm and do it again, this may take a few weeks. This is mainly due to the fact that I am not entirley happy with the results that I have achieved so far due to lens changes and overall clarity of images. I have also not yet printed these images to measure how far I would have to hold an A4 photo to see a life size image, also due to quality.
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Wednesday, 7 April 2010

The Art Of Photography - Introduction and getting know my camera.

Just started my course and have had some interesting reading in the course material folder which I have read through in part and will continue to read more once I have moved forward with my projects.
The first thing I noticed was a section asking you to collect items that you feel are interesting to photograph, over the last few years I have collected some really interesting objects and photos from magazines so the first part of the course I had already pretty much covered. However I am still on the look out for interesting bits and pieces to add to my course notes and will be keeping notes on items, places and situations that interest me.
I have been using my camera now for 2 years and suprisingly had never read the instructions until now, most of the technical side of things I have never really used, I like to work in manual focus most of the time so rarely use the automated settings on the camera. Although in reading the instructions I think im quite glad I didnt bother when I first got the camera, ill explain:

The first piece of information that staggered me on the manual was that my camera actually has computer system requirements for compatability, I have to admit I assumed it would would with any computer hardware, the Canon 400D comes with its own Utility package which allows you to download the images from the camera straight to a hard drive, I have never used this option and would like to see how it works and how good the programme actually is so will look into this shortly.

The instructions for shot settings arnt very clear to be honest and they tell you to press a particular button (with a camera on it) to be able to change the settings, what it doesnt tell you is that you need to be in a manual mode to be able to do any of this. Also the White balance adjustment screen says it is compaitble with the 400D but clearly isnt as although you do have options to change the white balance I dont seem to be able to actually get into a compensation window, will have to look into this.

In reading on throughout the instruction manual I find that the there is little with in it that actually explains or helps the user to work this particular model correctly (400D) apart from the meanings of the buttons and settings that are on it, there is little to say how to use the settings correctly which is slightly concerning.

some settings meanings on my camera are :
A-DEP = Auto Depth Of Field (Never Used, semi-manual mode)
M = Manual Mode (Used for all fully manual images))
Av = Aperture Priority (Used when taking shots that require part of it to be out of focus, semi-manual mode)
Tv = Shutter Priority (rarely used, semi manual mode)
P = Program mode (gives you a little more control over some other features including flash, white balance, ISO etc, however is mainly an automatic mode)

Automatic mode does all the camera settings for you.


Portrait mode Automatic, sets a large aperture (small f-stop) to throw backgrounds out of focus, a narrow depth of field.


Landscape Mode Automatic, Sets a small aperture (large f-stop) to keep subjects at a distance pin sharp or at least as much in focus as possible.

Macro Mode Automatic, allows you to get closer to a subject, sets the camera to a very narrow depth of field

Sports Mode Automatic (Action Mode), Attemps to freeze action by increasing the shutter speed.

Night Mode Automatic, Attempts to Slow down the shutter speed however does set off the flash to illuminate the subject.

No flash (is acually square not round on the canon) Automatic, sets a longer shutter speed to take in light.

Obviously there are many other settings on my camera model which include, ISO, Timer delay, White balance, auto focus, manual flash etc, however I feel going into more depth at this point to be a little over the top.

Some of the equiptment I currently use is
Canon 400D D-SLR
Canon 18-55mm Lens x2
Tamron 55-200mm lens
Jessops 300AFD Flash unit
Flash trigger and receiver
Jessops TP 327 Tripod and level
Hoya Cir-polorising and UV filters
Remote Switch
Compact flash 4 and 8 gig various makes all 133x speed
Lee filters for flash in various colours
Macro screw in lenses in +1 +2 +4 and +10
Studio continuous lighting x2
Translucent Umberellas
Various backdrops
Pop up reflector in gold, silver, white and black
Small light box
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