The Stars

Good afternoon,

More or less back on schedule. So I was at Cedar Breaks with the family a bit ago. If you are not familiar with it, Cedar Breaks is a designated an International Dark Sky park. The night skies are amazing there. After posting some of the pictures I was asked "How did you capture this?" and a response was placed by a friend "Read his photo blog." So I knew that I had to write about it.

For shooting the stars there are a few things. 1st know what you are trying to accomplish. If we are trying to have static stars then a wide aperture is important, star trails not so much. 2nd have a sturdy tripod and for best results a timer setting or a shutter release. 3rd Foreground interest sets a scale. The sky is a big place, if there is nothing but sky it doesn't seem as big. 4th planning helps, I use Stellarium (www.stellarium.org), and Google Star Maps. 5th Having an idea of what you want to capture. And 6th Knowing the Moon and Sun rise/set times.

Tripod mounted, a57 3200 iso 1/6 second 210mm f4 with a cable release. Venus is on the bottom and Jupiter is on the top with 3 moons.

Today I will talk about getting the stars static. So a wide aperture lens and a high ISO are goals here. Focal length can vary greatly with what we are trying to capture. When Venus and Jupiter had a conjunction a few years back I used a telephoto zoom and a high ISO. 

For the Cedar breaks pictures I was using an 11-18mm lens. Again I used a high ISO and as wide of an aperture as I could, to collect more light I used a longer shutter. Now with the higher ISO you risk losing some stars with noise reduction or having noise. I am okay with losing some stars especially if I am in a dark location. Below the noise can be seen and in the second image noise reduction has been applied. ISO 3200, 10 seconds, f4.5. With a focal length like this I have found that 10 seconds in about the longest that I can go and not see streaks or the beginning of trails. If you go and look around you might come across a "Rule" called the 500 rule. I feel that it is bogus, it says to divide 500 by the focal length. In this case it would be 500/11 which would equal 45 seconds. While I was taking pictures I decided to see how long I could go before seeing trails. It was 13 seconds which is a far cry from 45.

So to answer the question of how I took static images of the stars and Milky Way it was using a high ISO, a tripod, a wide aperture, less than a 10 second shutter speed, and just playing around with settings. So find a dark sky, grab your largest aperture lens, then go out and shoot.

~Scott

Again I would enjoy seeing readers photography.

Bokeh

Good evening,

Today we are going to get into bokeh. I probably should have done this one before the shaped bokeh one.

Bokeh is a dramatic sci-fi movie that did not get good reviews (sorry it popped up while searching for the actual definition). Bokeh comes from the Japanese word boke which has multiple meanings such as stupid, unaware, or clueless. It can also mean funny man in a double act comedy. As for photography though it is used in regards to the out of focus area in a photograph. It shows up as bokeh with an "H" to show that it is pronounced bok-ay. 

It is a lens trait and not the camera. Some lenses produce a nice smooth looking blurred area others not so much. The effect can be seen in movies too, just keep an eye out during dramatic scenes with a limited area of focus. The lights in the background will be a blur but have a shape, octagon, heptagon, hexagon, pentagon, and every once in a while a circle. In a movie it is not as noticeable because of the moving images. Pictures though can be studied and savored so more focus can be placed on it.

Below is a series of pictures of a wind spinner with yellow flowers in the background. Going through them we can see that they come into focus but also loose that nice round blurry shape.

Lenses and aperture are the creator of bokeh. Wide aperture (f1.8 or less) lenses are more common to have good bokeh. However it depend on the aperture blades too, the number and whether they are curved or not. 

Here is my 50mm f1.7 Minolta lens aperture. It is open about 1/3 or maybe 1/2 of the way. I am using it to show the blades and how bokeh changes through the range. 7 blade which appear to have a curve.

Here we have lenses wide open and back lit with a white translucent cap on them. First is a a Minolta 50mm at f1.7 notice how it looks like a perfect circle. Next is a 70-210 (Beercan) at f4 it still looks round there are a couple of dark spots around the edges which I believe are the corners of the aperture obscuring the light it still has good bokeh. Last is the 75-300 at f5.6 and the 9 aperture blade edges are obvious depending on the subject this could have a visible effect, for most things it would probably be fine. These photos of the aperture were a little rushed, just wanted to get this out today.

So grab a large aperture lens then go out and shoot.

~Scott

Constant Lighting Situation

Good evening,

Tonight we are going to talk about indoor lighting or constant light. Quite a few people this holiday season are going to be in a situation where the light is constant, however this can trick our sensors. Let's say we are indoors at a dinner with the family and decide to take some candid shots. The lighting at the table is relatively constant. Now our cousin is wearing a dark red sweater and our uncle is wearing a light salmon colored shirt. If we focus on our cousin the exposure is too bright and if we focus on our uncle the exposure is too dark. So what is a photographer to do in this situation. Turn it to manual mode then set the shutter and aperture to were it exposes everyone one the way we want.

In this example we have my Wife's Christmas Village. The metering spot was changed by a few inches for each image which resulted in 1 stop of exposure difference. The difference between an uncle and a cousin would probably be greater and so would the small light changes. These were shot in Av mode the first was metering from the snow 1/160s, second was on the reindeer 1/125s, and third was on the pine trees 1/80s. In this example the difference could be made up easily in post. With holiday photos most people want them sooner rather than later so the less editing that needs to be done the better. If possible adjust the settings before hand, if not use your preferred setting to get an idea of where you want to be then lock those settings in using manual. Those split second moments don't wait for a cameras metering system. So switch it to manual this holiday season and go out and shoot.

~Scott

Shaped Bokeh

Good day,

Quite a few of us are planning on taking holiday photos. If we want something a little different shaped bokeh is a possibility.

I went with hearts, those are christmas lights in the back. In the front is a little dog my children made.

Hearts, stars, silhouettes, trees... Nearly any simple shape is an option. There are kits that can be bought from what I have seen the shapes are limited and the reviews say they work alright. Once we get the hang of making the cut out it is easy.

Required items are a large aperture lens (the larger the better), some black construction paper, tape, a sharp cutting instrument, a white crayon, lights, and a shape that is smaller than the largest aperture of the lens. Optional is a lens hood, step ring, or square filter holder.

I use a 50mm 1.7 Minolta lens, then cut out a square to fit the ring for a square filter holder, I draw the shape with a white crayon, cut it out with a sharp knife, then tape it to the ring (the paper could just be taped to the lens), I then set up the lights (candle flames, christmas lights, fairy lights, etc) and purposely put the lights out of focus. The distance from subject to lights in the above image was about 5-6 feet. Put them too close and there isn't a shape, put them too far and the image is too small.

Sorry this was late I was in Zion for a few days, updated pictures in the Zion folder will be in the next few days. We even took our family picture with only one take. Make some shapes and go out and shoot.

~Scott

Equipment: Specialty Lenses

Good Afternoon,

I am planning on changing the posting day to Tuesdays. Sunday just seems rushed. I meant to post this last Tuesday my life has been a little hectic. Next post day should be the 14th unless tomorrow goes amazingly well then I will have a post on 7th.

Last time we talked about regular lenses. Now we will go over specialty lenses. There are quite a few Lensbaby has a whole line, and there are tilt shifts as well. The ones that I have had experience with as of now are Macro, Pinhole, and Fisheye. I don't have a fisheye at the moment but I have used then before and am not a fan.

Macro lenses project the image onto the film or sensor at a 1 to 1 ratio or larger. This means that the image on the sensor is the same size as the subject. With a Sony crop sensor (23.5 x 15.6mm) an image of a dime (17.91mm) would not completely fit on the sensor. There are lenses that have a greater than 1 to 1 ration, there are close up filters, and there is also the technique of reverse mounting a lens. I haven't had a chance to experiment with a greater than 1 to 1 lens, Canon MP-E65 is the only one I can even think of (1x to 5x magnification). There are also some zoom lenses out there that say Macro on them and get you a 1 to 2 or 1 to 4 life size, they are not true macro but they are a step if you want to try it out.

I have tried close up filters when I got my first DSLR (a Canon XTi) and didn't have much luck with them. It goes back to the quality of the glass that you put in front of your lens the ones I had were cheap and came with the camera from an aftermarket seller. Update: I found an old close up +3 filter and tried it on my 75-300mm Minolta. First image is without the filter at 75mm, the second image is with the filter at 75mm. All I did was move the tape measure roughly 3 ft closer to the camera.

Reverse mounting lenses I have tried with minimal success, I might not have given it enough of a chance. It was a dual threaded empty filter ring and the front elements of the lenses were front to front, focusing was done by moving the camera back and forth. There was very limited control and the depth of field was razor thin. If I recall correctly I had part of an insects eye in focus and part out of focus. I will look for some of the results from using it and post them here.

Pinhole lenses, lens is a little misleading, are a small hole that allows light into the camera. Most lenses have a range of f22 to f32 for the f-stop. Each whole stop, DSLRs can generally to 1/2 and 1/3 stops, halves or doubles the size of the aperture depending on if we are making in smaller or bigger. The pinhole in the picture above is around f190 and it roughly equates to a 50mm lens. The clear image above is a 50mm at f7.1 and the not so clear image is about 50mm and f190. If we are serious about pinhole photography then we can alter the thickness of the foil to obtain a more clear picture. I have found interesting images when searching with the parameters of “pinhole” “sun” and “long exposure.” In this case diffraction is the cause of the blurriness and this is the reason that we should probably stick to an aperture around f9 while using a lens. Going from f22 or f32 to f190 is about 6 stops (1.5% of the light) and about 5 stops (3% of the light) respectively. If we have a scene where detail isn't as important as the play of color and light vs dark then a pinhole is great. There are products we could buy for this type of photography or we could make one ourselves. All that is needed is a spare camera cover, a drill, foil, tape, and a needle. I used and insulin needle which I believe was a 31g. Pictures 3 and 4 in this slide show above show my finished result. Personally it is fun to play around with but I have yet to produce a worth while picture with it. That is all I have so go out and shoot.

~Scott

Aperture priority

Good Evening,

I figured that I would take a step into mode dial settings. I was discussing it with a fellow patron of the B&B the Wife and I stayed at to see the eclipse. He asked for some pointers and I gave him what I could in the short time we saw each other. The discussion went to the mode dial and how to use it.

Most of the time I use Aperture priority (A or Av). I like to have control of depth of field. This is again a personal preference, and just one corner of the triangle. If it doesn't work for me then I usually jump to Manual. I put together this image to illustrate the difference.

All were shot at 400 iso in jpeg from an a57 with a 28mm lend mounted on a small tripod. Each time I went up a full stop (smaller number smaller in focus area) in the aperture and in turn the shutter went up a full stop too, to compensate for the light change. The difference between all of them is how much of the keyboard is in focus. The aperture controls depth of field and is a great tool to isolate what we want in focus in an image. It is also good for low light situations as well. If you are in one you can open it wide which allows more light in a shorter period of time. Such as a birthday party when the candles are lighting up a face, with a wide aperture you can have other people blur away if you know what you are doing. Go out and shoot.

~Scott

Exposure Triangle

Good Morning,

The exposure triangle. It seems like a simple concept if you understand some photography. It starts off with "perfect" exposure in the middle, ISO on one corner, shutter speed on another, and aperture on the last. Showing that it you change one it has an effect on the other ones to maintain the "perfect" exposure in the middle. If we change the shutter speed one stop we can either change the ISO 1 stop or the aperture 1 stop, or a combination ISO 1/3 and aperture 2/3 and so forth.

There have been many alliterations of this. I am going to use my own. Imagine cooking an egg. Sunny side up is a "perfect" exposure, with the fire being the aperture, time being the shutter speed, and the pan the ISO. If we have a small fire (small aperture, high f stop), then we would have to either more the pan closer to the fire (increase the ISO) or cook it for longer (keep the shutter open for longer) to cook the "perfect" egg, if we didn't change something then the egg would be under cooked (underexposed) and we risk getting salmonella. Now if we have a large fire (large aperture, small f stop), then we could move the pan, or we could cook the egg for a shorter period of time. If we didn't change something then the egg would be burnt (overexposed). I could go on all day typing each option changing and the others but I am not going to, I think that you probably get it with those two.

After understanding it you can use it to take better pictures that are outside of the "perfect" exposure. Going back to the egg story, some people want their eggs runny, others like them a bit dry. Is either way wrong? No it is a personal preference. The "perfect" exposure doesn't have leeway for those preferences. That is a story for another day though. So go out and shoot.

~Scott