Simple Composition

Since I'm not a master or even completely understand correct composition I'll try to expand on some simple "rules" to follow. Or should I say a simple rule right now: The Rule of Thirds.

The Rule of Thirds simply put is to divide up your image into 9 equal squares as seen here. The four intersecting points (called "power points" by some) can be used to align objects in your pictures. It has been around for quite a while and the first published incidence was in 1845 as a rule for scenic paintings. Some people feel that following the Rule of Thirds gives more energy and movement to a picture and makes it more aesthetically pleasing.

Your points of focus in a picture don't necessarily need to be at the exact intersection points as getting subjects to line up perfectly while shooting on the fly isn't always a possibility. Let's look at some of my own shots to see how they shape up using the Rule of Thirds.

First we'll look at a candid shot of my Brother-in-law, Grant and my in-laws dog, Riley. This was just a quick shot taken while we were taking a break putting drywall up on the garage ceiling at my in-laws.

After taking the picture I had noticed it would have looked better if Riley had been a bit more in frame and we can see why when looking at the overlay. He's just a little to far left of the intersection point. Grant's face is ok where it is as it is resting against the "power point." Grant's hand is almost perfectly located at the lower right intersection.

All in all it's not a bad shot and carries some emotion in the look in both Grant's and Riley's faces. That's a whole other composition topic however and I won't get into a pictures "meaning" here.

So you can see how the Rule of Thirds applies in the composition of a picture and how it can make it more visually pleasing.


Next we'll move onto this shot of my cat, Bo. Yes, this shot again. I feel the Rule of Thirds is working well in this picture. The top intersecting points catch the ears and the bottom two are close enough to the eyes.

Another thing to remember is the empty space in a picture. In this picture the top third and two third of the upper right are essentially empty which draws the eyes completely to the subject. Which is of course what one wants in portraits.

This is one of my better shots taken with the K10D and this one is an unedited version. I didn't even know what the Rule of Thirds was when I took this shot but I knew it was pleasing to look at once I saw the picture on the LCD of the camera.

I try to pay attention to how objects are lining up in my viewfinder and do attempt to follow the Rule of Thirds for most shots. For some SLR and dSLR cameras you can get different overlays for your viewfinder that actually have the Rule of Thirds overlay. The one in my K10D gives a rough estimate and works ok. If you are using a point and shoot camera then you may just have to rely on what you see in the viewfinder (you don't use just your screen to shoot right?).

That's just an extremely limited and beginning intro to the Rule of Thirds. I know there is more to add but this is just a blog;-)

Available Light

Available light in photography has slightly different meaning to different photographers. My interpretation is using whatever light is available, typically from a window. My house faces east/west so I get really good light twice a day and relatively decent available light anytime.

I typically use the available window light for shots of the two cats that have agreed to share living space with me and my wife. They have also agreed to be photographic subjects from time to time. Our cats have a large "tree" made from carpet that is at almost the perfect height for me to gets good pictures.

I'll start with a picture of a very consternated Zak. you can see how I've used the available light from the window to light up the side of Zak's face. It creates some nice shadows over the right side of Zak's face (left side of the picture) to create some drama. Being a photogenic cat does help, but the light adds much more to the picture. I find shutter speeds are a little lower where I do shoot and I'm happy I have built in shake reduction on the K10D. Shutter speed on this picture in particular was 1/20 and aperture at f/4.0


Here is another example with Bo (which I also used recently in another post about digital vs. film). This one was taken on the same tree but from a slightly different angle with me being about 45 degrees to the window. You can see there is more light on the face and I've created a different feel to the picture.



Available light is whatever you make of it. As a photographer paying attention to what light you have will have a dramatic effect on the quality of your finished product as there is only so much that you can do in Photoshop. It's best to get the best result you can right from the camera and then make slight tweaks after. Of course using available light means that we are at the mercy of what the circumstances are (weather, location of light source, etc) so make the best of what you have.

Digging through the old photos

Occasionally I enjoy going through my older photos to see if there is anything I may have overlooked when critiquing my own work. Last night I found this picture:

I took this picture shortly after I started using Marla's Spotmatic II. It was taken on Kodak colour 400ISO film and I tweaked it in Photoshop by desaturating and adding a gradient.

I like this shot as the wheat is bending towards each other to the "crease" to the left of the shot and leads your eye that way. The strong dark lines in the back then pick up and move your eyes to the right of the picture. The wheat is mostly in focus and the strong blur in the background gives more movement to the shot.

I wouldn't know where to start with the EXIF data that is present in digital shots but I'd say the f stop was around 2.8 and the shutter speed possibly in the 1/1000th range.

Digital vs. Film

In today's world the majority of people have forgotten or brush aside film and film cameras believing that it is inferior to digital. While in some cases that is true I personally see the major difference between the two as only the time it takes to get a result after clicking the shutter button.

I'm currently just finishing up a introductory photo course in which one of the students has a 35mm SLR and last class said she felt she was holding the rest of us back and didn't feel as advanced as the rest of us. I assured her about my thoughts between digital and film as in the above paragraph. That has led me to write up this blog post on my thoughts on digital and film.

I started in the SLR world using my wife's Pentax Spotmatic II. It's a fully manual camera with very basic center weighted metering circuitry. When I got the focus spot on and the exposure just right the pictures would come out looking phenomenal. Unfortunately I had a tendency to waste film and therefore waste money in processing and buying more film. With that I decided that a digital SLR was the way to go for me at this time. I've since clicked off 4000 plus shots on the dSLR, which would have been cost prohibitive and time consuming on the Spotmatic.

However, I find that film is more pure than digital. Not only that, but the longevity of digital is questionable as all media the files are stored on are not permanent and can fail - baring printing. Not that film negatives are permanent, but they do have a longer life than most computer media. I easily see myself stepping back into film when I'm confident in my photo taking and composition abilities.

Each photographer will have their own feeling on the subject and I'm not slamming on choice over the other as I do use both. Many pros have moved to digital but I would say the majority of them will still shoot in film if given the chance.

Of course, each blog post wouldn't be finished without some pictures. I'll post two. One is film and the other digital. You decide which is "better."

Lest We Forget

November 11. Remembrance Day.

I hope you have taken sometime today to reflect on the price that many proud and patriotic men and women paid to ensure our freedom.

Bokeh

Bokeh: (from the Japanese boke ぼけ, "blur") is a photographic term referring to out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens.



Let's take a look at how background and foreground blur can add to a shot. I will admit that I did not intentionally try this, but it ended up being a nice shot with good bokeh.

EXIF Data to start:
Shutter Speed: 1/350
F Number: F/5.6
Focal Length: 650 mm
ISO Speed: 100

I took this picture at my in laws using the 400mm prime lens I have on loan. I note that the EXIF data states 650mm since that is the focal length I entered on the camera for the shake reduction built into the K10D. At a 1.5x crop the 400mm lens has a focal length 1.5x more than that stated on the lens, therefore the 650mm reporting.

This little female finch posed for quite a few shots about 20 feet away and many of them came out well but this was the best of them. The angle of the bird to the camera and the nice blur of the clothes line in the foreground and background give it a dreamy feel. The extremely blurred trees in the background offer a dark green that compliments the bird's colour and gives the bird that extra pop.

On a closing note here is the 400mm on the K10D:

Winnipeg Sunrise

This is the first shot I'll focus on. I called it Winnipeg Sunrise as I like to keep my titles quite simple. I had been watching these wonderful sunrises for about a week when I finally decided enough was enough and I had to stop and take a picture. This one was taken from the North Perimeter Highway while seated in my car.

Here is the basic EXIF data from the picture:
Shutter Speed: 1/20 second
F Number: F/4.5
Focal Length: 80 mm
ISO Speed: 100

I wanted to capture the dramatic colouring and keep the city in focus. I should have stepped the shot down a bit more but I have lots of sensor dust and going with a smaller aperture really brings it out, so I was limited in my aperature and went with 4.5. I underexposed by 1/3 of a stop to really make the skyline stand out.

Other than that there was no photo editing done to this shot except for a resize. It's as it was shot. Neat huh?

Welcome

For those who know me, yes, this is a second blog. The first really had no purpose and quickly lost steam. This one has a purpose, mainly because I seem to have a purposeful hobby now - Photography.

We'll straighten this out from the start: I'm not a professional, nor do I consider my self a "prosumer" level photographer either. Entry level amateur is the best description. I know my way around a camera and most of the time can get the "look" I want in a photo. I do have so much more to learn and look forward to each day that I can use my camera.

My weapon of choice for capturing that moment in time is a Pentax K10D 10 megapixel digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera. I have two new lenses at my disposal: a 16-45mm f/4 wide angle and a 50-200mm f/4. At this time the camera says it's shutter has moved just over 4000 times. That's a lot of practicing;-)

On top of the new lenses I also have access to some older Super Takumar M42 screw mount prime lenses that I use on my K10D via a mount adapter. Those lenses belong to my lovely wife as well as her Pentax Spotmatic II film SLR. The Super Takumar lenses are 28mm f/3.5 wide angle, 55mm f/1.8 and 135mm f/3.5. On loan from my father in law is a 400mm prime with the name "N.P.S" on it. Not sure about the origins of the lens, but it is, as I said, 400mm f/5.6. Great for wildlife.

I am an avid user of Photoshop and I do believe in post processing photos. My Photoshop knowledge is all either self taught or info gathered from assorted websites. Some of my photos are heavily post processed while others don't have anything done to them. I'll let you know which way the photos go when I post them here.

Which brings me to the purpose of this blog. I can't showcase all the photos I take (well I could, but that wouldn't make for a very fun blog) so I'm going to focus on my favorite shots that I take. I'm going to try and update at least once a week but it could be more or less often than that depending on what's going on at the time outside of the photography hobby.

So sit back... or lean forward to see your monitor a bit better, enjoy the photographs and leave comments.

Thanks,
Tony