Sam Wormley's Digital Photography for Photojournalists

Digital Photography for Photojournalists http://edu-observatory.org/olli/DP0/Week2.html FIRST A REVIEW OF TWO IMPORTANT TOOLS Exposure Compensation http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/995/EXPOSURE/EV-compensation.html http://www.shortcourses.com/use/using3-4.html Since a typical scene averages out to be about 18 percent gray, that's what the auto exposure system in camera tries to do--expose every image as if it averaged out to be 18 percent gray. That's a problem for images we want to be lighter (snow) or darker (black cats). Cameras allow the user to conveniently adjust the exposure to over or under expose in increments of 1/3 stop up to plus or minus who stops. -2 -1 0 +1 +2 This scale indicates the camera will over expose |..|..|..|..| by +1 stop which might be just right if you are ^ photographing a bright scene such as the one above. The snow scene above is typical of scenes that are lighter than 18 percent gray. Most of the important tones in the scene are at the lighter end of the gray scale. The overall "average" tone would be about one stop brighter than middle gray. For a good picture you have to increase the exposure by one stop (+1) to lighten it. If you didn't do this, the snow in the scene would appear too gray (bottom). Using the Focus/Exposure Lock When pressing the shutter button half way, the camera comes alive--determining where to focus and determining what combinations shutter speed, aperture and sometimes ISO setting to give a proper exposure. Many times you want to focus on a subject that not in the center of the image. When the subject you want to expose (or focus) correctly, is off-center, you can lock exposure (and focus) by pressing the shutter button halfway down and then, without releasing the shutter button, recompose the image. LIGHTING LIGHT - a detailed tutorial (in four parts) http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light01.htm Advanced Lighting Tutorial http://www.warpedspace.org/lightingT/part1.htm From the book "Lighting & Rendering" http://www.3drender.com/light/3point.html Basic Studio Lighting http://tips.romanzolin.com/articles/article014.php LOW LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY Suppose you were asked to photograph performers and patrons attending ISU's Madrigal Dinners in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. The setting is early 1600s England and the lighting is mostly from candles. Being a professional and not wanting to call attention to yourself, flash photography is not a possibility. How would you approach this challenge? I captured this image of Dee Dreeszen of Musica Antiqua, playing a period recorder with a hand-held EOS 5D using an 85mm telephoto lens at ISO 1600, Aperture: f/1.2 and Exposure time: 0.077 (1/13) s. Click on the image above to see the full original. The inertial mass of the camera body and lens coupled with careful "squeezing" the shutter release helped to minimize motion blur due to camera shake. However, look at the specular reflection in the eyes--slight camera shake is visible in the 8-2 o:clock direction. Note that the large aperture isolates the subject from background and that the background "bokeh" is pleasing and compliments the subject. I chose not to fiddle with the color balance settings on the camera as I wanted to retain the "warm" effect of candle illumination. Large aperture lens are essential for working in really low light environments where longer exposures will only blur subject movement. Looking at the Depth-of-Field Data for this particular lens at http://edu-observatory.org/olli/DP0/Canon-EF-85mm-f-1.2-L-USM-dof.gif one can see that for, say, a subject distance of 1.5 meters (5 feet) at f/1.2, the depth of field (region of critical focus) is only ą1 cm! Therefore, focusing becomes critical at large apertures. For this reason, lenses with very large aperture capabilities may be thought of as "artist's lenses" because of the artistic imagery that can be produced with a razor thin depth of field at maximum aperture. However, they come with a steep learning curve--mainly in the form of learning critical focus. Studies show that we most often look at human (and animal) eyes and are pleased to find them in critical focus... In portrature concentrate of the eyes. Common Obstacles in Night Photography http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/night-photography.htm "Night photography is subject to the same set of constraints as daylight photography--namely aperture, shutter speed and light sensitivity--although these are all often pushed to their extremes. For this reason, the abundance and diversity of night photography has been closely tied to the advance of photographic technology. Early film photographers shied away from capturing night scenes because these require prohibitively long exposures to maintain adequate depth of field, or produced unacceptable amounts of image noise. Furthermore, a problem with film called "reciprocity failure" means that progressively more light has to reach the film as the exposure time increases--leading to diminishing returns compared to shorter exposures". Low Light Photography http://www.sederquist.com/clanight.html http://www.picturecorrect.com/articles/low_light_night_photography_tips.htm Canon Speed Light 580EX Speedlite_580EX.pdf BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS Greg Lewis PhotojournalisM: Content and Technique 2nd ed Publisher: Brown & Benchmark (1995) ISBN-10: 0697146294 Table of Contents: http://edu-observatory.org/olli/DP0/GregLewis_TOC.pdf Tony L Corbell Basic Studio Lighting Amphoto Books (2001) ISBN: 0817435506 Ralph Hattersley Photographic Lighting: Learning to See Prentice-Hall, Inc (1979) ISBN: 0136653154 John Berger About Looking Pantheon (1980) ISBN: 0679736557 Leslie Stroebel, Hollis Todd, Richard Zakia Visual Concepts for Photographers Focal Press Limited (1980) ISBN: 0240510259 Stephen Johnson Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography O'Reilly Media, Inc. (August 1, 2006) ISBN: 059652370X Jon Canfield Print Like a Pro: A Digital Photographer's Guide Peachpit Press (2006) ISBN: 0-321-38554-3 Harald Johnson Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition Course Technology PTR (2004) ISBN: 1-59200-431-8 swormley1@gmail.com