Of blurry backgrounds and slow lenses

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Michael Willems

Slow lenses? For blurry backgrounds?

Yes, you can create blurred backgrounds even with slow lenses – an f/1.4 lens is great, but even an f/8 lens can give you blurry backgrounds.

How?

By zooming in (using a long focal length lens) or getting close.

Very close. Look at this shot taken at f/8.0:

Not bad, eh. Taken with my Fuji X100 in macro mode-  very close. So yes, you can do blurred background as long as you get close to your subject, relative to the background. Remember that, next time you are regretting not having an f/1.4 lens and having to do with an f/5.6 lens.

 

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Gear, Technique | Leave a comment

Outdoors Light

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Michael Willems

Outdoors, a flash, a powerful one, will often make good images into great images. Because you can make the background darker:

Here’s how we took a shot at a creative light workshop last year:

Which leads to this shot:

As always:

  1. Get the background right first; remember to keep the shutter speed below your maximum flash sync speed (like 1/250th sec).
  2. Then add flash.
  3. Set the flash power to the aperture you have gotten to in step 1.

Really simple, no? Provided that you have a powerful enough flash to overpower the sun, of course.

 

 

 

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Light, Picture of the day, Technique | Leave a comment

Shot of the day

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Michael Willems

Here’s my Picture of the Day, taken last night:

For a picture like this, what are the challenges?

First and foremost: to get the exposure right for the candles, while still keeping the room dark. The usual “flash only” setting of 100 ISO, 1/125th sec, f/5.6 will not work: the candles would be dark. Too wide open, and the entire room would be bright. You have the find the right “in between” setting: in my case, 1/30th sec at f/5.6, 400 ISO. Room lights were dimmed slightly, to avoid dark areas from becoming light.

Second, to avoid flash hitting the entire room. I fitted the single flash, an off-camera 580EX, with a Honlphoto 1/4″ grid. This lit up the side of the model, and the centre of the floor, only. (You can work out where the flash is by seeing where the shadows converge.)

Third, to aim the flash correctly. This is of course a matter of taste: I like side lighting to emphasize round shapes (the arm, leg, and toes in this picture).

Finally, to get the flash to the right level of brightness. I used TTL with flash compensation, though normally I would have used manual flash power setting for a creative flash shot like this.

Try a shot like this, if you are up to the challenge!


Bookmark and Share
Posted in Light, Picture of the day, Technique | Leave a comment

Prime primer

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Michael Willems

Again, a word about prime lenses, i.e. “non-zoom” lenses. I have said it before and it needs saying again.

Until the 1980s we used primarily prime lenses. Today, we use quality zooms – but quality or not, pros still use primes in many cases. I uses prime lenses whenever I can. Here’s why:

The main points for me are the lens speed – f/1.4 is better than f/2.8 as a maximum aperture – the sharpness, and the consistency of my shots. Zooms lead to laziness, while primes enforce discipline!

So if you only have zooms, then today get yourself a fast prime – a 24, 35 or 50mm lens perhaps – and go shoot some cool shots with that. On a crop camera, use 24 for events, 35 for general purpose, and 50 for portraits.

 

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Gear | Leave a comment

Crop factors

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Michael Willems

If you use a “crop factor” camera, one with a smaller sensor than a 35mm negative, you need to use smaller lens focal lengths to achieve the traditional effect a lens gives you with a 35mm sensor or negative. Like so:

So to get a “standard 50mm picture”, use a 35mm lens if you have a Digital Rebel, say (an “APS-C sensor” camera, which is the common size). And so on. You may want to copy down this table!

 

 

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Gear | Leave a comment

IOU

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Michael Willems

Busy times here at Speedlighter Central… I owe you a couple of posts. They’ll come late today… meanwhile: shoot manual today.

Remember the “Sunny Sixteen” rule if  you are outside, or the Willems 4-4-4- rule if you are shooting indoors with flash.

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sunny Sixteen

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Michael Willems

You have heard me talk about the “Sunny Sixteen” rule before. This is a rule of thumb that says:

If your shutter speed is set to 1/ISO (e.g. 125 ISO at 1/125th sec, or 400 ISO at 1/400th sec), then on a fully sunny day at noon, f/16 will give you the right exposure.

Like this, at f/16:

And if it is not sunny?

f/16 Sunny Distinct
f/11 Slight Overcast Soft around edges
f/8 Overcast Barely visible
f/5.6 Heavy Overcast No shadows
f/4 Open Shade/Sunset No shadows

(Source: Wikipedia)

This rule is a rule of thumb, so feel fre to vary – I often expose two thirds of a stop higher – but since the sun is always the same brightness, it holds well. And it is nice to be able to expose without light meters, if only in order to be able to check your camera.

Bonus question: how do you expose the moon?

Answer: f/16. The moon at noon is as bright as the earth at noon- they are the same distance from the sun!

 

 

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Learning, Light, Technique | 6 Comments

Need an intern?

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Michael Willems

An off-topic post, for which you will forgive me!

Many of my readers are in business, perhaps even as engineers. Hence my question: if anyone in the Oakville, Ontario area needs an intern for the summer, consider my son Jason. He is an Electrical Engineering student, in his final year at McGill university, and is home in Oakville for the summer. Resumé on request – he is experienced, having worked at various companies before. Let me know – email if you are interested in seeing his resumé: michael@mvwphoto.com

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Creative light

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Michael Willems

Here for you are a few simple steps to a dramatic light portrait.

Step One: Start with a room. Like this one, with some of my students last night:

But for creative lighting we do not want to see the ambient light – it would just interfere.

Hence… Step two: make the ambient light disappear. You do this by selecting a setting for ISO-Aperture-Shutter that makes the room look dark. Like 200 ISO, 1/125th second., 200 ISO:

Yes, the room now looks dark, and no, I did not turn off the room lights. Your camera is a light-shifter.

Now we add the light that we do want to see. Step three: use an off-camera flash. All makes of camera support this: remote TTL works very well once you learn the ins and outs.

  • Nikons and some Canons can use the pop-up to drive the remote (“slave”) flash.
  • Others need a high-end flash on the camera to do this.
  • Ensure that the on-camera flash only issues “commands” to remote flashes but that its actual flash-during-picture function is disabled.
  • Use a modifier, like a grid (I use the Honl Photo modifiers) to ensure that light does not go “everywhere”.
  • You can soften the light with a softbox or fire direct at the subject. Yes, you can fire direct at a subject, as long as the light is not where the camera is.

Now we get what we wanted:

This technique is also good to learn lighting scenarios (like broad, short, butterfly, or Rembrandt lighting).

 

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Learning, Light, Technique | Leave a comment

Weddings

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Michael Willems

Apart from being busy driving (I picked up my son in Montreal yesterday: 1300km, 13 hours in the car, in one day).

But I have also shot a few weddings in the last days. And when I say “I” I mean “we”: look at this image: three photographers plus myself shooting the bride arriving at the reception:

That is Kristof, who shot the wedding with me, and our assistants Ola and Merav.

To do a wedding justice, you need several shooters:

  • You get the moments.
  • You get several points of view.
  • You have “equipment and CF card insurance”
  • You have “personal mishap insurance”
  • You avoid losing time due to constant lens changes.

A wedding is our mark in history, and it is worth doing well. If you are tempted to shoot one for a friend: engage a pro, or at least engage other shooters also.

TIP: wedding photography is in part fashion photography. Join Kristof and myself for a workshop on 19 May: http://cameratraining.ca/Fashion.html – you only have three days left to sign up! (The same urgency applies to the Africa workshop: click here)

 

Bookmark and Share
Posted in Business, Learning, Technique | Leave a comment