the jackol's den » Photography

Getting started with a Digital SLR

posterous — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 06:55:54 +0000

Honestly, if you just move the dial to “M” mode and tape it there, after a week you will be far and away better than 90% of amateurs out there. That’s what everyone had to do until the 70s, and they didn’t even have a screen to make sure they got exposure right.

Here are the basics of what you need to know:

There are three camera settings that control exposure – shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Set the Iso as low as you can for the amount of light you have (daylight 100-400, twilight ~800, indoor 800-3200), then set shutter and aperture according to fine adjustments in lighting. There is a lightmeter inside the camera; use it, then check exposure on your screen to make sure it’s okay.

Shutter speed (1/60, 1/125, 1/250, etc) is the amount of time the shutter is open. A rule is to keep the shutter speed at 2x the length of the lens to get sharp handheld shots (18mm = ~1/60, 50mm = 1/125) – this can be knocked down significantly once you get better.

1/15 is for getting blur on slow objects while panning example, and 1/125 is just about the fastest you can use for panning fast objects. 1/250 will freeze sports with less motion, and by about 1/500 you should be fast enough for most action.

Aperture (also f-stops) is how wide the lens is open. Small numbers correspond to large openings. f/2.8 is rather large, f/16 is rather small. Small aperture numbers (large openings) mean less is in focus. (Think of it this way – if you need glasses, take them off. Looking through squinted eyes or making a small hole between your index finger and thumb will make everything look sharper.)

So – shallow depth of field (less in focus) – f/2.8. Deep depth of field (more in focus) – f/11.

Finally, ISO. Iso is simply how sensitive to light your camera is. 100 is the best one because it gives you the best image quality, but in lower light you can go down higher and higher until you are able to shoot (100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200). I would recommend trying to stay under 1600 90% of the time. Only go to 3200 if you really need it; the image quality gets pretty bad.

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How To Read and Understand a Histogram

Mikhail Esteves — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:51:56 +0000

What is a histogram and what does it tell us about a photograph?

A histogram is nothing more than a bar graph. It shows how the luminance values in a in a digital or digitized photograph are distributed. The linear scale in a histogram runs from black at one end to white at the opposite end. With the exception of a scanned negative, the scale runs from left (black) to right (white). About 99 percent of the histograms we use in photography today have 256 increments, corresponding to 8-bit data depth. The histogram maps the distribution of the luminance values either as a composite of the red, green, and blue channels or in each channel, as you may have seen in the histogram display on some cameras and as option in Photoshop.

The horizontal scale of the histogram measures exposure latitude, and the vertical scale measures quantity: it tells us how many pixels in the image have a specific luminosity value. While the horizontal scale is measured in absolute values (0 to 255) the vertical scale is effected by several factors: the color space, bit depth, and if you are shooting jpegs, the compression level.

Grill

Mikhail Esteves — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:11:09 +0000

Grill.

Portrait

Mikhail Esteves — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:28:48 +0000

Portrait 1.

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Mikhail Esteves — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 14:28:03 +0000

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13 Photographs That Changed the World

Mikhail Esteves — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:04:03 +0000

Any picture can speak 1,000 words, but only a select few say something poignant enough to galvanize an entire society. The following photographs screamed so loudly that the entire world stopped to take notice.

Link

How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New Way

Mikhail Esteves — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 13:43:06 +0000

People will often say that their whole lives flashed before their eyes after they experienced a traumatic event. Perhaps it’s a bit morbid, but we think that sounds pretty incredible.

When Taylor McKnight started taking a photo a day on January 1st, 2004, he never imagined the project would not only serve as a way to remember a year, but also help him understand what was important to him in his life.

Whether it was his relationships, his career, or his fashion sense, recording a photo a day for a whole year left him with a rich visual history of his life. And it made him a better photographer to boot!

Now that he’s in the middle of doing it for a second time, we asked Taylor to write about it for us. Read on for our tutorial on how and why to create your own daily photographic history.

Read more

Sunset at a Lake

Mikhail Esteves — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 00:35:19 +0000

Same Lake. Same Sunset..