The Beauty of Black-and-White HDR

by Jim Austin

“Oscar Rejlander’s (1813 -1875) studio was unusual; shaped like a cone, the camera would be in the narrow part, the sitters at the opposite end. The camera was in shadow so that the sitters were less aware of it. He estimated his exposure by bringing his cat into the studio; if the cat’s eyes were like slits, he would use a fairly short exposure. If they were a little more open than usual, he would give extra exposure. If the pupils were totally dilated he would admit defeat, put the lens cap on the lens and go out for a walk!” Robert Leggat, 1999

Cats, much to their delight, are no longer forced to endure conscription for use as light meters. Instead of cat’s eyes, we use other tools to expand the usable range of light. HDR photography is one of the important new tools, as it lets us preserve exquisite fine detail in a scene. Here, we explore the appeal of black-and-white HDR, paying special attention to a photographer’s personal and visual awareness. While the first two parts of this article looked at color HDR, this article investigates key qualities behind interesting black-and-white HDR work, with suggestions for a black-and-white workflow. First, we consider why HDR imaging techniques leave the feline method in the dark:

Why Black-and-White HDR?

Think of each black, grey, and white picture tone as a separate instrument in an orchestra. Filling out the tones is like adding extra players to the ensemble. Just as your musical experience listening to the Boston Pops is different from hearing a quartet, so does a wider range of black-and-white tones in a photograph allow for a greater reach of emotional expression.

Black-and-white HDR also solves an old problem. When you’re photographing everyday scenes, brilliant whites and deep blacks can result in washed-out highlights, on the one hand, and blocked-up shadows on the other. HDR bracketing and multiple exposure (as we saw in Parts 1 and 2) help manage this lack of tone control. In Photos 1a and 1b (see below), compare the HDR multiple exposure at left with one single exposure at right. Shadow details are excellent in the HDR image, and the daylight outdoors is not washed out because of the greater highlight detail captured during the HDR process. (By the way, there was a cat in the bar, but the room was too dark for me to see its pupils.)

1a. “The Bull, Key West” A six exposure HDR image with 1-stop bracketing, and Tone Mapping in Photomatix Pro 2.4. Highlights show much better detail.	1b. A Single Exposure taken in the middle of the bracketed series. There is loss of both highlight and shadow detail.

What Makes Black-and-White HDR interesting?

Tonal Range, Visual Elements, and the Photographer’s Personal Qualities

The alchemy of black-and-white HDR is to make the unseen visible. One of the implied, unseen elements in photography is the movement of time. In the black-and-white HDR composition above, revered names of people who were killed in the Holocaust seem to recede without a fixed vanishing point, and so go on indefinitely, conveying a sense of the infinite.

For “Holocaust Memorial,” I made three exposures. Combining these frames in Photomatix © brought out the carved names in a deeply-shaded corner of the memorial.

The use of Photomatix© helped expand the range of tones in this image. The enlarged tonal range made the image more graphic and austere. The deeply detailed blacks gave the photograph a solidity and sense of presence. Together, the tones and their presence created a graphic look to black-and-white HDR. The perception that abstract and graphic qualities are expressed by the tones of the picture is not new in photography. It was explored by master photographers like Edward Weston, whose prints had subtle and well-defined transitions from light to dark. Black-and-white HDR draws on this tradition. What makes it of interest now is the way a larger tonal range enlivens black-and-white’s abstract and graphic beauty.

2. “Holocaust Memorial”: 3 exposures combined in Photomatix 2.4 © by Jim Austin.

Two more key ingredients for successful black-and-white HDR are the visual elements and the personal elements.

Visual Elements: Composition and Symbolism

Visual elements of interesting black-and-white HDR include composition, shape, and symbolism. To use these ingredients in ways that work for your imagery, it may help you to ask, “What attracts me to this scene? Is it the color, or is this a good picture regardless of whether it’s in color or black-and-white?” If you can identify the design elements in the scene before you photograph in black-and-white HDR, you’re on your way to creating a good composition.

When visual elements of design support a photograph, they’ll expand the symbolic components of black-and-white HDR pictures, as well. For instance, a photograph can act as an analogy. The brilliant photography critic Susan Sontag pointed out, “What makes something interesting is that it can be seen to be like, or analogous to, something else.” For example, at first glimpse, the fins of the Chevy Bel Air (Image 3) reminded me of a large modern building. Later on, I titled the image because it reminded me of the hit song by Don McLean “American Pie” with its famous line “Drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry.” As the image evolved, I had other associations with more symbolism, which enhanced its interest.

3. “Chevy Above the Levy”
© by Jim Austin.

Visual Elements: Tones in Time are Symbolic

When they’re well-crafted, the tones in a black-and-white HDR are captivating. This is partly due to what the tones represent. Subtle changes from dark to light tones can act as metaphors for the passage of time. We mentioned time earlier referring to the Holocaust Memorial photograph which used space to suggest infinity. In a representative way, time’s passage can also be suggested by studying the black-and-white tones of a photograph. Think of a sun’s shadow and where it falls on a sundial, for instance. Remember how long shadows are as the sun sets. Think of moving white clouds as they race across the sky.

In Martin Deak’s Eiffel Tower image, the lapse of time is suggested by blurred clouds. Since the multiple exposures that make up his picture were taken over an extended period, the clouds moved during the bracketing process. This movement shows the passage of time. HDR imaging, like time exposure, is an excellent medium for working with symbols that are central to photography, like the flow of time.

4. “Eiffel Tower” by © Martin Deak.
Used by Permission

Personal Elements: Imagination to Innovation

Two main personal elements within a photographer’s thought process make for interesting HDR imagery.

First, learning to see in black-and-white is an essential exercise for the photographer’s imagination. Master black-and-white photographers practice forming mental pictures of color scenes to examine how the scene will look later when it’s printed in black-and-white. For example, Royce Howland created a windswept winter scene (Image 5) that was in the photographer’s vision as a black-and-white image from the beginning--long before he made three exposures and used Photomatix Pro and Photoshop CS2 for post-processing. Mr. Howland observed, “The scene’s dynamic range technically was within the capture ability of a single exposure. However there was a lot of subtle detail and texture across the range of highlights to shadows, and I wanted to preserve as much of that as possible. I used black and white to emphasize fine-grained detail in the snow and ice, as well as showcasing the graphic nature of the forms.” Seeing the beauty in “Effects of Light and Wind” is like listening to a symphony. The fine highlight detail, resultant shadow detail, graphic shapes carved by wind, and the radiant ambiance of the light all work together harmoniously.

Second, photographers need to understand how innovative black-and-white HDR truly is. It’s fundamentally different from color, not simply what happens when color is removed. It’s a novel process to the extent that it alters the visual language. Black-and-white HDR adds to the emotionally expressive quality of a photograph. It has a graphic sense that color images do not possess. It’s a superb tool for exploring scenes we would usually pass by because of their high contrast.

5. “Effects of Light and Wind”
© Royce Howland 2007.

Why Not Use Color HDR ?

6. “Your Childhood Eyes Were So Intense” © Omar Freitas Junior and Luciana Maria Gerhard, Used by permission.

Because color makes us respond emotionally to it, color in a photograph can distract us from the heart of an image, just like a special musical effect can overwhelm the melody of a song. Without color, however, all the dark tones support and direct our attention to the emotions in a picture, like those in the boy’s face. Black-and-white HDR allows tones to show character. For portrait photography, black-and-white HDR frees a photographer to create portraits that center on the individual, as in this image, “Your Childhood Eyes Were So Intense” by Gerhard and Junior (Image 6). The use of black-and-white HDR here allows the personality of the subject to stand out, without sacrificing detail in highlights or shadows when there is a lot of contrast in the scene. This is a satisfying aspect for photographers who wish to portray character authentically.

The advantage of black-and-white was expressed by an anonymous photographer: “If you photograph people in color you show the color of their clothes—if you use black and white, you will show the color of their soul.” The inner soul of the subject is beautifully expressed by Pete Carr, a writer and photographer, with his photograph titled “In Loving Memory of Hillsborough” (Image 7).

Nearly 20 years after the disaster at the Hillsborough Football club where 96 lives were lost, the memorial is still cherished. For his intimate portrait, Mr. Carr chose not to use flash. He used black-and-white HDR for realism, authenticity, and to recapture highlight details that were lost before HDR processing.

7. “In Loving Memory of Hillsborough” © Pete Carr.

Workflow for Black-and-White HDR

We’ve seen several advantages to black-and-white HDR. Now let’s turn to the process itself. My workflow is the following:

1. Take a RAW color image in a digital camera, bracketing by changing shutter speeds to achieve 3 to 9 exposures.
2. Archive the original RAW files.
3. Import the images into Photomatix Pro 2.4.
4. Create a 32 bit color image file.
5. Tone Map in Photomatix.
6. Save the image as a 32 bit color .tif file to hard drive.
7. Convert to 16 bits and Photoshop Enhance.
8. Open in Photoshop (CS2 or newer).
9. Convert to 16 bits; convert to black-and-white using Photoshop’s channel mixer adjustment layer.

The Workflow Process:

Using a digital camera, capture the image in color in RAW file format. The first decision depends on your having a tripod. One advantage of using a tripod in your workflow is that a tripod and camera release will make you slow down, and take more time to consider your composition, light and framing. This concentration will improve your images. If you don’t have a tripod, handhold the camera and take three bracketed exposures. To do this, use a manual camera setting. (Remember: you’ll keep the same aperture and bracket with shutter speeds.)

You can also use auto bracketing. Most cameras allow only three shots in this mode, so take three exposures at -2 below the camera meter, at 0 or at the exposure as metered by the camera, and at +2 over the camera metered exposure. Keep your camera aperture constant to prevent the depth-of-focus changing between shots. If you have a tripod and cable release, you may want to take up to 9-11 frames.

Once you have a series of frames, save the images and open your HDR software. You can convert to black-and-white in Photoshop, or use the HDR software tools in Photomatix, FDR tools, Artizen HDR or Adobe Photoshop CS3. If you choose, you can use the HDR program to convert to black-and-white by using the saturation control set to pure black-and-white, but by keeping the HDR as color, the flexibility of Photoshop’s channel mixer and camera raw yields better results.

Whatever your personal choices in software and tone mapping, try not to let the technology overwhelm your picture-taking. Be true to the context and to your own vision for your photograph.

Summary: Vision for Future Black-and-White HDR

To create interesting black-and-white HDR, then, photographers must be alert to wondrous contrasts that are present everywhere and be excited to photograph these scenes. Making images with high dynamic range tools lets you see and appreciate detail that was always there, but you weren’t aware of it. With practice, the black-and-white HDR process helps you see shading and tonal detail in scenes that you wouldn’t have photographed before, thinking these scenes unremarkable.

The culture of black-and-white HDR imaging offers new adventures for photographers. They can take portraits with character. They can expand their awareness of fine shadow and highlight detail when making photographs where the scene contrast is too great for methods employed before HDR emerged. Black-and-white HDR extends the graphic and symbolic traditions of black-and-white film photography. Finally, the real beauty of black-and-white HDR will grow with the vision of future imaginative photographers, as they work with this novel tool to expand their perception.

About The Author: Jim Austin M.A., A.C.E., has written on digital photography for ten years. He was a commercial photographer in Denver, taught digital imaging for MSCD, and has shown work in galleries for three decades. He teaches Photoshop at the online campus of <www.apogeephoto.com> and additional recent work can be seen at <http://www.flickr.com/jimagesdigital/sets>.

8. “Black Power” by © Jörg Dickmann,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97752677@N00/

Links and Resources for HDR :

A large group of over 2,000 HDR B/W images by many different photographers:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/bwhdr

Color to B/W: For converting color to B/W, you can use Photoshop Elements. Check out Michael Fulks’ article: http://www.apogeephoto.com/nov2006/mfulks112006_1.shtml

FDR Tools: Full Dynamic Range Tools,© Andreas Schoemann
http://fdrtools.com/documentation/hello_world_e.php

Forum on HDR photography with organized response threads:
http://hdr.mirror.hu:80/

Martin Deak Photograpy:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20931607@N00/

Omar Junior Photography:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/omarjunior/

Oscar Rejlander, A History of Photography by Robert Leggat.
http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/rejlande.htm

Photomatix 2.4 Download: You can download a free trial of Photomatix 2.4 for Mac OSX at
http://www.hdrsoft.com/download/beta/mac2dot4.html

and Win at http://hdrsoft.com/download/beta/win2dot4.html

Photomatix Software Discount: Enter the word “beforethecoffee”
in the box, for a 15% discount on Photomatix here, total of $84.15 US dollars, here:
http://www.hdrsoft.com/order/discount.html

Pete Carr Images at:
www.petecarr.net

and his TOP HDR set at
http://flickr.com/photos/petecarr/sets/72157594220098364/

Royce Howland HDR:
http://www.vividaspect.com

Set of 7 HDR Downloadable Presets for Lightroom: |
http://inside-lightroom.co.uk/hdr.html

Tutorials and articles in an HDR forum: Photomatix tutorial by Ferrell McCullough: http://www.hdrphotos.net

Video Learning Photoshop HDR: Go to YouTube and watch a tutorial on making a 3 exposure HDR Photoshop image, at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVuDbcAfN_I

9. “Lincoln Castle Gate”
© Alan Stenson,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61845920@N00/

technorati tags:photography, HDR, BW

Virtual field trip

You may wish to experiment with the use of panoramic photographs in your virtual field trip. Set up your digital camera on a rotating tripod at a central location in your field trip area. Take photographs of the entire 360° surroundings without moving the tripod. Ideally, you should aim to take between twelve and thirty six images. Download all the digital images to your computer, making sure than each one is properly logged.

Software packages like Simply VR can then be used to splice your digital images together to create a single panoramic view of the surroundings. This panoramic view can then be converted into a spin panorama - an interactive QuickTime file.

The Sandbach panoramic and Sandbach spin panorama resources have been included in this module to demonstrate. They show the area in Sandbach around the Market Square including the Saxon Crosses.

Information about Simply VR can be gained from www.tech4learning.com/​simplyvr/​.

An online tutorial on creating spin panoramas using Simply VR is available at http:/​/​myt4l.com/​index.php?v=r4s&page_ac=view&type=tutorials.

A free version of QuickTime is available to download from www.apple.com/​quicktime/​download/​.

Use Simply VR and the 18 photographs contained in the zipped Sandbach images folder to create a new spin panorama of the area around Sandbach Market Hall. Unzip the folder then follow the instructions listed in the online tutorial to import the images into Simply VR. The separate photographs then need to be spliced together using Simply VR to create a single panoramic image. This panoramic image can then be easily converted by Simply VR into a QuickTime VR spin panorama file.

For ICT support, visit the Additional ICT skills guidance page.

Trial or viewer versions of the software you need may be available from the Software downloads page.

Before downloading, please read the Website terms and conditions. A new browser window will open with each resource. If you wish to save the file on a PC, right-click and choose the 'Save Target As...' option. On a Macintosh, hold control and click (or click and hold) to display your browser's 'Save As...' options.

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technorati tags:photography, 360, panoramic

Working With Your Digital Camera's Histogram

While teaching a recent photography workshop, an older fellow in the back of the room raised his hand. He said, "I just bought me a new toy and she's a beauty! But I can't figure out how to make the hysterectomy work?" Fortunately, my student wasn't describing a woman. He was talking about how to pull up the histogram on his new Nikon digital camera. His confusion is not unusual. When I use my digital cameras around film people, one of the first things they see and ask about is the histogram. They want to know what it is, and how should they use it.

In this article, I will detail the basics of working with histograms.

Introduction

At its simplest, a histogram is a graphical representation (such as a bar graph) of digital data (brightness values) in a given image. According to Adobe, a histogram:

"[I]llustrates how pixels in an image are distributed by graphing the number of pixels at each color intensity level. This can show you whether the image contains enough detail in the shadows (shown in the left part of the histogram), midtones (shown in the middle), and highlights (shown on the right side of the graph) to make a good correction."


You can see an example of a histogram here at http://www.photofocus.com/histogram.jpg.

I like to think of a histogram as a very sophisticated lightmeter. It can help the digital photographer understand if an image is over or underexposed, and it can evaluate the quality of the light. Using a histogram you can determine things like whether or not the image is flatly lit or of high contrast. (Try doing that with your father's old Soligar meter!)

Histograms illustrate how 256 possible levels of brightness are distributed in a digital image. The histogram's horizontal axis represents the range of brightness from zero (0) (the shadows) on the left side of the graph to 255 (the highlights) on the right. Think of it as a football field with 256 yard markers (0 to 255) upon which the team can stack pixels of the same brightness. Since these are the only values that can be captured by the camera, the horizontal line also represents the camera's maximum potential dynamic range. In other words, the horizontal line (from left to right) represents increasing brightness in your image. The vertical axis represents the number of pixels that have one of the 256 brightness values. The higher the line goes (coming up from the horizontal axis,) the more pixels there are at that level of brightness. In other words, the vertical line represents an increasing amount of digital information from bottom to top.

If all you learn from this section of the article is that the histogram helps you to understand the tonal range of your image, you are ready to move on.

Using the Histogram

Histograms come into play in two places: in capture and in image processing. If you use a digital camera, it probably has a menu or command function that allows you to see a histogram for each image that has been captured in the camera's memory. For example, on a Canon 10D, you get the histogram by hittingthe INFO button.

By evaluating the histogram in the field, you can determine whether you captured enough information to get a good image out of Photoshop. For instance, if you look at the histogram and see that its graph has moved to the far right, it is likely that you have blown out the highlights and need to increase your shutter speed or close down your aperture to let in less light. With practice, you can learn to trust the histogram better than trusting the image displayed on your camera's LCD screen.

You can also get a histogram on the capture side of your digital workflow if you scan. Most scanning software allows the display of image data including the histogram.

One very technical point to remember is that there is a slight difference in the way your digital camera and Photoshop will represent the histogram. These differences are accentuated if you capture in 16-bit rather than 8-bit mode and then transfer the image to Photoshop using a linear mode. This is all techno-speak that leads us to the following point. After you have a digital image, and you have moved it into Photoshop, your Photoshop histogram then represents the true digital image.

Evaluating Histograms

Just as a pilot must learn to trust his instruments, photographers can learn to trust the exposure information contained in histograms. If you know what you want to photograph, how you want it to look and what the histogram should look like when you have accomplished your goal, you will walk away with a winner every time.

I use histograms to determine if there is enough detail in the highlights, midtones and shadows of my image. As long as there is enough data to work with, Photoshop can correct the image to look great on the screen or as a pirnt.

To get proper correction in Photoshop, you want to understand your image's "black point" and "white point." The black point is the darkest portion of your image and the white point is the brightest highlight of your image. (This is not the blackest black or whitest white your camera can record, but the blackest black and the whitest white in a particular photograph.) The information between the black point and the white point is known as the dynamic (or tonal) range of your photograph.

The Levels dialog box in Photoshop provides five places where you can adjust the distribution of brightness in your image. These are represented by small triangles. There are three on the input side of the dialog box and two on the output side of the dialog box.

Most photographers use the three triangles located in the input side of the dialog box (located just below the histogram.) Here's how they work. Dragging the left (all black) triangle to the right darkens the image shadows. Dragging the right (clear) triangle to the left lightens the image shadows. Dragging the middle triangle (gray) to the left or right lightens or darkens the image midtones.

There are two additional triangles in the output side of thedialog box. They have nearly the opposite effect of the triangles located above. Dragging the left (all black) triangle to the right lightens the image shadows. Dragging the right (clear) triangle to the left darkens the image highlights.

Correcting the Image Using the Histogram

Establishing a white and black point by dragging the image triangles is where a great portion of your color and contrast range correction will take place in Photoshop.

You can set the highlights and shadows in an image by moving the input sliders on both ends of the Levels histogram. This correction adjusts the affected pixels in each channel, increasing the tonal range of the image. The corresponding pixels in the other channels are adjusted proportionately to avoid altering the color balance.

You can also use the middle Input slider to change the intensity values of the middle range of gray tones without dramatically altering the highlights and shadows. While there are other slightly more precise ways to accomplish this in Photoshop, this method works well for 95% of images.

Conclusion

Whether or not you intend to go digital, you will eventually have to deal with some of the digital world's conventions. Histograms are a basic component of digital imaging. Understanding their value and how they work will benefit even those photographers who intend to send their images to the lab.

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technorati tags:photography, digital, histogram

Bracketing and How To Use It Correctly...

What Is... Exposure Bracketing

Exposure bracketing is a simple technique professional photographers use to ensure they properly expose their pictures, especially in challenging lighting situations.

When you expose for a scene, your camera's light meter will select an aperture / shutter speed combination that it believes will give a properly exposed picture.

Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera's light meter.

The reason you do this is because the camera might have been 'deceived' by the light (too much or too little) available and your main subject may be over- or under-exposed. By taking these three shots, you are making sure that if this were ever the case, then you would have properly compensated for it.

As an example, say you are taking a scene where there is an abundance of light around your main subject (for example, at the beach on a sunny day, or surrounded by snow). In this case, using Weighted-Average metering, your camera might be 'deceived' by the abundance of light and expose for it by closing down the aperture and/or using a faster shuter speed (assuming ISO is constant), with the result that the main subject might be under-exposed. By taking an extra shot at a slight over-exposure, you would in fact be over-exposing the surroundings, but properly exposing the main subject.

Another example would be the case where the surrounding might be too dark, and the camera exposes for the lack of light by either opening up the aperture and/or using a slower shutter speed (assuming ISO is constant), then the main subject might be over-exposed. By taking an extra shot at a slight under-exposure, you would in fact be under-exposing the surroundings, but properly exposing the main subject.

Now, most digital cameras have auto exposure bracketing, meaning that if you select that option before taking your shot, the camera will automatically take three shots for you: one which it thinks it has perfectly exposed; a second one sightly under-exposed; and the third one slightly over-exposed.

When should you use exposure bracketing? Anytime you feel the scene is a challenging one (too much highlights or shadows) as far as lighting is concerned, e.g. sunsets are usually better taken slightly under-exposed so use exposure bracketing there, or whenever you want to be sure you don't improperly expose a fabulous shot.

Remember, you are not using film anymore, so there are really no wasted shots (unless you are severely constrained by the size of your storage media).

Digital Dodging & Burning

Should you delete the extra shots right away? No, if storage permits, keep all three shots until you get home and upload them to your PC and into an image editing software, such as Photoshop. By using the layers functionality of Photoshop (or similar functionality of another image editing software), you can load all three shots into different layers and then carefully erase the under-exposed or over-exposed part of one or more layers to end up with a final shot where both the main subject and the surroundings are properly exposed!

This Photoshop functionality allows you to shoot in very extreme lighting situations where there are many parts in different intensity of light and shadows such that you are losing details in the highlights and shadows. In this case, you might need more than two extra shots to obtain details in the different parts. Without moving the camera (a tripod is essential here), take as many shots as you need, exposing for the different parts you want details to be visible. Then you would load them all up into Photoshop, each into its own layer, and by erasing the under- and over-exposed parts in each layer (granted, this equivalent of film 'dodging' and 'burning' can be a very tedious and challenging task in itself, but done properly it can be well worth the effort), you can end up with an 'impossible' shot where every part of the cave is properly exposed.

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technorati tags:photography, bracketing, tips

Depth of Field

When you take a picture not everything will be in focus. You may hear a lot said about “depth of field”. Don’t be confused by this terminology – it’s easy to understand and, used correctly, will help your images have more impact.

In any picture, there will be areas in the foreground (in front of you subject) and areas in the background (behind your subject) that will be out of focus. If you take a picture of your dog on the lawn, both the grass in front and the fence behind will be less sharply in focus that the dog itself.

The area between these two out of focus parts is known as the “depth of field” and can be seen as the parts of the image, from front to back, that are in focus.

But, it doesn’t stop there!

The size of the aperture that your lens is set at for the shot will determine the depth of field. A larger aperture (small number) will have a small depth of field whereas a small aperture (large number) will have a greater one.

There’s more!

The distance away from the subject will also change the depth of field. The picture of the mountain in the distance will have a large area of focus whereas the close up of the bumble bee on a flower will have a tiny depth of field.

More …

What does this mean?

You may want a large depth of field so that as much as possible is in focus. This is a technique particularly useful in landscape photography. In this case, move away from the subject and use a small aperture.

On the other hand, you may wish a small depth of field. For a close up shot (for example of the bumble bee) the shallow depth of field will isolate the bee by blurring the background. This is useful for other shots as well (for example, portraits). In these cases, use a large aperture and get closer to your subject.

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technorati tags:photography, DOF

How a Prime Lens Can Improve Your Photography

Let's begin with a primer on prime lenses (sorry, that was just too good to pass up).

A prime lens is a lens for a Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera with a fixed focal length. This is a good start, but let's simplify further.

A prime lens cannot zoom.

With a zoom lens, you can switch back and forth from a wide angle to telephoto view depending on the situation. Even if you're far away from your subject, you can still get a close-up shot.

Zoom lenses offer a great deal of flexibility and are good lenses to travel with since you can take one lens that covers a range of focal lengths. If you only had prime lenses and weren't sure if you'd need a wide angle or telephoto, you'd have to carry 2 or 3 lenses at all times.

So why would anyone bother with a prime lens?

There are three pretty good reasons:

Prime lenses are clearer - since they don't have a lot of moving parts like zoom lenses, prime lenses can be very precise. Many professional photographers only use prime lenses because of the superior image quality.

Prime lenses are cheaper - zoom lenses are fairly complicated, while prime lenses have been around since the introduction of the 35mm SLR film camera. Manufacturers have had plenty of time to get these lenses perfect, and their simplicity means that you won't pay an arm and a leg for one.

Prime lenses are lighter - if you really like to take your SLR camera on hikes, then you don't want a 3 pound lens attached to your camera. While you won't get the flexibility that a zoom lens offers, you also won't get neck strain with a light-weight 50mm prime lens.

Now you know more about prime lenses and why a photographer would want to use one instead of a zoom.

But how can a prime lens improve your photography?

Remember how I said that zoom lenses were flexible? Well, there's one drawback to using a zoom lens all the time: it makes you a lazy photographer.

You can stand or sit in one location and zoom in and out to your heart's content. Not happy with the wide-angle view? Zoom in. Want wide-angle? Zoom out.

With a prime lens you have to physically move your body if you want to change your angle of view.

Now don't get me wrong - when I say that a zoom lens makes you a lazy photographer I'm not talking about the amount of exercise you get when you take photos.

I am referring to the fact that when you have a prime lens attached to your SLR camera you really have to think about your composition. Not being able to zoom in and out on a whim really makes you focus on the elements in your photo.

If you don't like what you see, the act of physically moving your body connects you more with your environment and the image you are trying to capture.

While this may sound like a lot of spiritual nonsense, it's really true. Try it out for yourself. Stick a prime lens on your SLR camera (borrow one from a friend if you have to) and leave it there for an entire week. Even if you're tempted to switch back to your zoom, don't.

Use the prime lens for an entire week, and see if it doesn't make you think a lot more about how you are composing your photos.

When you think carefully about your composition before you just start snapping away, your photography is bound to improve.

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technorati tags:photography, DSLR, SLR, prime, lens

Painting With Light

You've all heard the phrase, "to see light". Everything that we see is made up of light. Light has direction, width, intensity and color. While understanding all the properties of light would be beneficial to the photographer/artist, it is just as effective to recognize the effect of light on a subject when you see it.

Outdoors, sunlight shows crisp edges, creates dimensional shapes, reveals textures and outlines silhouettes. The color differences between direct sunlight and light from the open sky intensifies the feeling of outdoors, though this effect must be used with discretion. A cloudy day usually portrays a somber mood, lighting everything with a top-weighted blue cast. A warming filter changes the blue mood to one of happier emotions.

Indoors, the light from a window is very shape-revealing in nature. Care must be taken to provide light on the shadow side in order to balance the picture. A blue sky as a source must be warmed up with a filter (80A) when using outdoor film. Sunlit clouds are a perfect source of light for your window pictures. Incandescent light is much warmer and must be used carefully. When incandescent light is used, a cooling filter (81B) will prevent the photograph from appearing too orange. Fluorescent lights are lacking in red may not portray skin tones properly.

The width of the light source must be taken into consideration. The widest possible light source is the wrap-around effect of a cloudy day at the beach. Round shapes are flattened, detail is obscured, and areas of similar color are often presented monochromatically. A point source like the sun or a light bulb throws sharp shadows and will emphasize small detail. Every effect of light can be used as a tool to further the aims of the artist. If there is a special effect which is necessary to the message within the composition, the photographer must wait for that perfect time and weather. Medium wide sources of light are desirable for their flattering, yet shape-revealing effect on the human face.

Practically, when outside, look for a white wall sit by the sun with a shaded area nearby. A low reflector like a sunlit patch of concrete, a beach, a light colored car, or anything with an appreciable area which will reflect light makes a good source of light. Unless wanted, make sure the surface is not too far from white, or the subject will take on that color.

The angle of the light is also important. For faces, the hours between nine AM and one hour before sunset are not the most flattering times. The moments just after sunrise and just before sunset is often referred to as "The magic hour" for the beneficial effect it has on the human face as well as on most other objects. The next time you see an advertisement for a new car, try to ascertain the direction and time of day the photograph was taken. I think you will find that "magic Hour" played an important role.

There are certain combinations of light that has proven itself in the world of photography and art. Food often is photographed with a broad source of light straight toward the camera, just missing being in the picture. The human face is most flattered with a soft light at a 30 degree angle to the right or left of the camera and slightly above the lens, (sometimes referred to as a loop light). The "north" light of painter fame presented an unchanging source of light whose direction was controlled with movable drapes. Unfortunately, the built-in flash used by millions of photographers, while lighting the subject evenly, flattens the three dimensional subject, hiding the true roundness of shape. Occasionally in your travels, you may come across a quality of light which strikes a chord in your brain as being perfect for you photograph. Try to place this effect in your permanent memory for future use. Happy shooting.

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technorati tags:photography, light, magic-hour