Peter West Carey Photography

Tag: photo experiment

  • Sunset – Photography Experiments

    Sunset – Photography Experiments

    Looking for a sunset and wandered here from somewhere else? Check out all the 40 Photography Experiments.

    It’s almost summer in the Northern Hemisphere and that means it’s time to tune up your sunset taking skills. For those South of the equator, you still have time to participate!

    Sunset Examples

    Here’s the experiment you can run:

    1. Start by scouting a great sunset location. Don’t have a great one handy? Find a good one instead. This may mean choosing a location that allows you to play with silhouettes in front of the setting sun. If you need some help finding locations, try using The Photographer’s Ephemeris to aid with elevations and shadow lengths.
    2. Next, plan out five different shots you want to take. Don’t leave it up to chance. Know where the sun is going down and plan. Some things, like cloud cover, aren’t easily planned for, but you can bank the odds in your favor by being prepared. Your list might look something like:
      1. Sun to the side of tree
      2. Disappearing behind mountains
      3. Reflected off building glass windows
      4. Sunstar high over wheat field
      5. Long human shadows on the beach
    3. Go shoot and post your results here, I’d love to see them!

    Some other ideas:

    1. Straight down the street you live on
    2. From the roof looking over neighborhood
    3. Reflected in the mirror of a car
    4. From the top of a nearby hillside
    5. Viewed through the leafs or branches of a tree (think closed down aperture and sun stars here)

    Done!

    Important points to not forget:

    1. When you change your point of focus, you change your metering. That experiment is an important read. It’s why, when you move the camera just a little off the side of the sun, you might get a completely overexposed sun.
    2. You don’t always have to be facing the sun for great sunset photos.
    3. Bring a human along to add some excitement to the scene.
    4. Think about the mood. Then shoot that. Photography is about helping people connect with your subject by giving them something they can relate to. Calmness, serenity, being at peace…..sunsets say a lot of things. Also drama, excitement, beach party.
    5. If you need some more help, I have a post for you here.

    Now, show me those cool sunset pictures!

    Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

    Photo Tours

    If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan!

     

  • Slow Shutter Speed And Bracing Your Camera – Photography Experiments

    Slow Shutter Speed And Bracing Your Camera – Photography Experiments

    Raise your hand if you carry a tripod with you wherever you go?

    Okay, the five of you who do can ignore this post. The rest of you, here’s a chance to get more from your camera by blurring things in a good way, without a tripod.

    There are many times when you want to show some blur in your photos but you failed to pack that bulky tripod. And to be honest there really isn’t much to it, except practice. Let’s jump right into what you want to do.

    Examples

    Here are a few examples of intentional blur while I braced the camera without a tripod.

    Here’s the experiment you can run

    1. Thinking it through and knowing you want to cause blur through a slow shutter speed, which shooting mode do you want to choose? There is no right answer and ideally you’ll keep your shutter speed constant. Also, what will your ISO be? (Hint: You may need to shoot in something other than full daylight.) Try for a shutter speed around 1/6 of a second for good blur.

    2. If need be, review How To Hold Your Camera to give you a good base.

    3. Now that your base is set up, find something to brace with. Anything. Some examples I’ve used in the past: garbage can, boat railing, telephone pole, car hood, etc…  Here’s me and a tree.

    4. Before you shoot, you want to stack the odds in your favor. I’d suggest changing your frame rate over to continuous shooting so you can hold down the shutter and not cause more blur from individual presses of the shutter release.

    5. Another hint: watch the focus points in your viewfinder or the back of your camera. Try to keep them covering the same object while you shoot. If you notice them wandering around, you’re moving too much and are going to cause the non-moving items in your shot to blur as well. This is not what we want for this photo.

    6. BREATHE!

    Fire away!

     

    Done!

    This experiment does not end here, even if this section is called Done. Practice is needed and repetition will be your best tutor. Also you need to judge the speed of the moving objects in your image. Are they close and moving fast or far away and moving seemingly slow? That will influence your chosen shutter speed and how much you need to brace.

    My hope is learning to brace and shoot slow shutter speeds without a tripod will open up new shooting ideas and opportunities for you. There is a time for perfectly focused and static scenes. But there is also a time to include some blur and motion to enliven your photo.

    Let me know how you do! Add a link to your experiment in the comments section below.

    Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

    Photo Tours

    If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan!

     

  • Daylight Through Smoke Or Dust – Photography Experiments

    Daylight Through Smoke Or Dust – Photography Experiments

    Yesterday’s topic was Shoot Some Shadows.

    This is the last part of the light and dark, super contrasty experiment mini-series (not its real name). The other parts were Shooting Some Shadows and Shooting Some Silhouettes.

    Today we want to add some pizzazz to sunlight photos. Specifically, when sunlight is coming through an opening, be it a window, another window or maybe a door with a window. Or clouds! The key here is you need stuff for the light to bounce off of so we can see it, otherwise it just passes through the air and we can’t capture it.

    This experiment is going to be easy, but you might get dirty in some way.

    Examples

     

     

     

    Here’s the experiment you can run:

    1) Set your camera on Manual mode, ISO 800. Pick a lens of your suiting. Aperture to f/4.5.

    2) You’ll need contrast for this to work. Pick a room or space that is mostly dark. If you have a natural light source, such as light through a window, that will work. Otherwise, grab a flashlight and a book of matches. In this case, I used my iPhone with a flashlight app.

    3) Meter off the area where the light falls, not where it’s coming from. If this area is very white or black, you’ll need to use the techniques from Making White Tones, White and Making Black Tones, Black.

    Here’s what happens when you meter off where the light is coming from:

    ISO 800, 22mm, f/4.5, 1/1250

    Not good.

    But when metered for the area where the light is hitting, I get ISO 800, 22mm, f/4.5, 1/15.

    4) Metering is set? Good. Now light a match or two and blow it out in that space where the light falls. Using a tripod might be a good idea.

    5) Take your shot!

    DONE!

    Were you able to capture the smoke in the light? Something like this?

    This is the basic concept to taking the picture in the examples.

    In the case of these image, I metered off the floor and then threw some dirt into the air. Same thing as with the match (blowing it out caused smoke/particulate/dust to come about).

    Any time you have a dark area with a strong beam of light coming in, use this technique.

    • Meter off the lit area, compensating depending on its inherent light absorption (black or whiteness).
    • Get some particulate into the light beam. Smoke, dust, dirt, etc…
    • Snap away!

    It really is just that easy to make dramatic images. On a larger scale, you can do this with the sun.

    Things To Consider

    • Be careful when playing with fire.
    • Be careful when playing with dirt as it can mess up your pictures if it is on your lens or sensor.
    • Be careful crossing the street.
    • Be careful when signing up for online dating.
    • Just be careful. Okay?

    Next we’ll tackle Changing Focus Changes Exposure.

    Questions?  Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.

    Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

    Photo Tours

    If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan!

  • Camera Focus Modes – Photography Experiments

    Camera Focus Modes – Photography Experiments

    Focus Modes

    Get Into Focus

    If you’re not using manual focus, it’s a good idea to become familiar with how your camera decides to focus so the subjects you want are sharp. If you’re in the wrong mode, your camera may be confused about what you want to focus on (face it, it will never really know what is important to you 100% of the time) and pick the wrong subject.

    Cameras today have three basic focus modes: Auto Single Shot, Auto Continuous and Full Manual focus. Your camera may have one or more of these modes.

    • Auto Single Shot means your camera will find a something to focus on, lock on it when the shutter release is pressed halfway down and then stay there until the shutter is tripped. Some call this AF-S or Single Shot.
    • Auto Continuous will keep picking focus points based on the assumption that your subject is moving and needs to be tracked. It will keep a moving subject in focus. Some call this AF-C or AI Servo.
    • Full Manual is all about you!

    Smartphone Note: Your phone’s camera will use continuous focus until it locks on something.

    Here’s the experiment you can run:

    Burning Time

    1) Grab your instruction manual because camera’s vary too much for me to explain them all here. Flip to the section on focus modes.

    2) Learn how to switch between them.

    3) Change your camera to Auto – Single Shot. This may show as AF-S, Single Shot or the like.

    4) Set your camera to Program Mode as we’re not concerned about exposure control right now. Zoom out to 50mm.

    5) Pick a single object in the room about six feet away. Point your camera at it and press the shutter down halfway. Your camera may beep and it will lock focus on the object.

    6) With your finger still on the shutter, half pressed, move the camera to a very near object (your hand?). Notice that the focus does not change and your camera will take a photo of the out of focus hand if you tell it to.

    7) Now switch to Auto – Continuous mode. This is AF-C or AI Servo on many cameras.

    8) Point the camera at an object in the room about six feet away. Press the shutter down halfway.

    9) The object will come into focus. Now, with the shutter still half pressed, point the camera to a closer object, maybe 2 feet away.

    Do you notice a difference at this point?

    In AF-C or AI Servo mode, the camera will continue to focus because it thinks the object is moving.

    There is a big difference between these modes! If you are trying to recompose a picture after locking focus on one object, but have your camera on AF-C, if will keep changing focus on you! This is not what you want.

    Likewise, if you are using Single Shot and tracking a moving object coming at you and press the shutter down halfway, then a fraction of a second later press it all the way down, the object could have moved from that point of focus on which your camera was locked.

    Continuous focus modes are getting more and more advanced. Most DSLRs have settings for this mode that allow you to choose to track a subject or to keep picking new subjects as they come into frame

    When To Use Each Mode

    Auto Single Shot

    • Stationary objects
    • When you want to focus on one item, and then recompose your shot without losing focus
    • Landscape
    • Portraiture

    Auto Continuous

    • Action
    • Animals
    • Cars on a race track
    • Yetis
    • Bunnies
    • Kids
    • Pets

    Manual

    • Anytime the camera focus messes up
    • Night shots
    • Low light with not much contrast (your camera needs contrast to focus)
    • Time-lapse
    • When you just want to

    NOTE: Some camera, like Canon cameras, have another mode called AI Focus, which attempts to know if you want Single Shot or AI Servo. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

    Yesterday’s Experiment was:  Learn The ISO Limits Of Your Camera

    Tomorrow’s Experiment is: Depth Of Field – Changing Aperture

    Questions?  Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.

    Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

    Photo ToursIf you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours. 

  • Find Some Light – Photography Basics – Weekend Experiment #2

    Find Some Light – Photography Basics – Weekend Experiment #2

    Photography Basics - Weekend ExperimentToday I want you to find some light. Not just any light. I need you to find three different types of light.

    Recap

    Welcome to the weekend!

    This last week we covered a number of topics on how your camera works. We started the week completing the Exposure Triangle while covering Aperture and ISO (Shutter Speed was explained the week before). From there we touched on some much needed jargon explanation that will come up time and again as you dive more deeply into photography.

    Photography Experiment
    Death Valley National Park, California

    We ended the week explaining how your camera sees light and makes its choices for exposure. These are your metering modes. This section is vitally important to those starting out, so please reread it if you need to. Lastly we considered the different camera modes available and what they do.

    So far we have been leading up to understanding and capturing light. That is the heart of photography and the reason the art exists. Light and how it acts and reacts is part of most arts. The commercial world relies on it heavily as well, especially with today’s computer graphics in movies and video games. If the lighting isn’t right, the game looks fake.

    The Experiment

    To help you start seeing light, experimentation is vital.

    Photography Experiment
    Red Rocks National Recreation Area, Nevada, USA

    That’s why I want you to go out this weekend and photograph three different kinds of light.

    When you find light that you like, take a moment to not just shoot and move on. Look at the light. Where does it come from? Is it filtering through anything? If you move around the scene, does the light look different? How would you best set your camera to capture the light?

    Really take the time to think about how light is affecting your scene. Maybe come back to the same area later in the day and see how the light has changed (unless your scene is entirely lit by artificial lights).

    When you have finished, feel free to post your results in the comments section below. Post them on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, anywhere!  Then link to them in the comments section with your thoughts on search for light.

    What Different Kinds of Light Are There?

    Photography Experiment
    Ship Anchor, Panama Canal, Panama

    Let me count the ways:

    • Direct
    • Indirect
    • Reflected
    • Facing the light
    • Human-made
      • Fluorescent
      • LED
      • Incandescent
      • Daylight bulbs
      • Flash/strobe
      • Colored lights
    • Firelight
    • Candlelight
    • Moonlight
    • Auroras
    • Bioluminescence
    • SunlightQuestions?  Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.

      Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

      Photo ToursIf you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours.