Adventures in Photography: Shutter Speed, Aperture, ISO, and Flash

Taking portraits outdoors is easily the most challenging task I've tried thus far. With a little understanding of how our camera works it was possible and for my first attempt, focusing solely on exposure, I think I got some decent results. 

Before we move on it's important to know how our camera takes pictures and what changing settings will do. They say if you want something done right you should do it yourself. Getting your camera into manual mode will give you that level of control instead of letting your camera guess and probably fail at what you want. Mark Wallace does a great job explaining the exposure triangle in the first video of  this series on exposure, so make sure you watch that. In the meantime here's my gross over simplification.

There are three ways to make our pictures brighter and darker. ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. Adjusting each of them will have an additional effect on your photo other than just the picture's brightness.

ISO is our camera's overall sensitivity to light. The higher the number, the brighter your picture will be. The thing to keep in mind with ISO is noise. Some cameras can handle this better than others but essentially, the higher your ISO, the more noise you get. It's a lot like distortion on a stereo. If you crank it up too loud, even when nothing is playing, you'll hear a hum. Ideally you want to keep ISO as low as possible, but in our stereo example, if it's too low you won't be able to "hear" anything at all. Cameras are getting good at shooting with high ISO and editing in post can help too, don't be afraid to crank it up to get your shot. Of course, the better you do in camera, the less you'll have to fix later. Our boy Mark explains further here.

Aperture is a hole in your lens that can be adjusted to let more or less light in. The other thing this effects is depth of field. The smaller the number, the larger the hole and the less range of things that will be in focus. Depending on a few factors your depth of field could be so shallow that your subject's nose will be in focus but their eye won't. Mark explains better here.

Shutter speed is how long your camera lets light affect the exposure. The longer it's open the brighter the picture. The effect of shutter speed, for the most part, is blur. If your shutter is open long enough it will record anything that moves, even your hand movement. A fast shutter speed will freeze motion. Get it fast enough and you can stop a helicopter blade. When you bring a flash into the equation you have another thing to consider. Flash sync speed. Depending on your camera this could range quite a bit but most newer cameras are around 200th of a second. My t3i is 200th of a second. A good way to think of this is that your camera's shutter is starting to close while the flash is still on. That isn't exactly how it works but it's the easiest way to explain it without a bunch of technical diagrams of shutter mechanics. Mark talks about shutter speed here.

This is what happens when you go over a camera's sync speed

1/400th sec

The flash is still putting out light by the time the shutter starts to close resulting in a big black bar in our photo. There are flashes that have what's called High Speed Sync. When a camera's shutter speed is at or lower than the flash sync speed, there is a moment where the sensor is completely uncovered. When it goes above it's flash sync speed, the hole in the shutter is narrow and it scans across the sensor meaning that only part of the sensor is able to receive light at any given moment. With my flashes, they only have the ability to output one light burst. High speed sync flashes will put out several bursts of light when in that mode so there is flash for every part of the sensor when it's uncovered. This becomes important in really bright situations like the one I was in with my model.
Mark helps out on high speed sync here.

Lets say we want an extremely shallow depth of field. We want our subject in focus but everything behind her as blurry as we can get it because it's some ugly parking lot or something. So, we'll crank our aperture to the lowest number it can go which gives us a big hole and a lot of room for light to come through. There will be situations where even at your camera's lowest ISO it's still going to be too bright. We know from the exposure triangle to get shallow depth of field at these settings we're going to need to have a short shutter speed to limit the amount of light that comes in. It might be so bright that the only way to get a proper exposure based on these settings is to go over the flash sync speed. You might be thinking, if it's that bright, why the hell am I using flash? We'll get to that in a moment. Now your options are compromise on your aperture, make it smaller and bring back some focus into your ugly background, buy a flash that can do High Speed Sync, or the method I have chosen, use an ND filter. Basically, sunglasses for your camera.

Now we can get into why we're using a flash when it's this bright.

f/8 1/200 iso 100

In this photo I'm not using any flash. The Sun is bright as shit and her face is still dark. You can see in the upper left corner that my sky is already blown out. I could adjust my settings to make her face brighter but I'll probably start to lose detail in her hair and that sky is definitely done for. Now if we want detail in the sky we have to adjust our camera to make it darker, but our subject's face is already dark. In comes our flash!

f/8 1/200 iso 100

Here is a photo with the same settings but I added a flash. We still have the nice hair light from the Sun and now there's some light on her face. If I had the sky in this photo, however, it would be way blown out. This article by Neil van Niekerk does a great job of explaining what I'm talking about.

In it he talks about how the ambient exposure and flash exposure are two separate things and that gives us the opportunity to do some cool stuff.

In this situation, to get detail in the sky I had to put the ND filter on to eat up enough light to keep my shutter speed down. Adding the the flash added light back on my subject and bang! We have a pretty cool exposure and that's all I was worried about on this shoot.

These photos have plenty of room for improvement, but the point of them was to learn and learn I did. Next time I try this I can get to where I want much faster which leaves more time to make them better. Maybe next time I'll be able to prevent houses growing out of her head and keep my softbox out of the frame.

If this isn't making sense, don't worry. Go read and watch as much as you can, go practice, and come back and read and watch everything again. I'm no expert, but I probably had a question you have right now and might be able to help. Leave me a comment! Next time is the big day!

Adventures in Photography: Lighting Setups

We have a light off camera and the ability to control the quality of light, so now what? Where do we put it? Lucky for us a lot of extremely smart and talented people have done a crap ton of work for us. While learning, I'm a huge proponent of copying people. When you learn an instrument you learn songs other people wrote. No reason we can't do the same thing for photography. Portraiture started way before the camera came along and the artists behind the brushes had the same things to worry about as people with cameras. Another advantage we have is electricity so we can make our own light almost whenever and wherever we want. There are a few traditional lighting setups for portraiture that I'll let someone who knows what they're talking about explain here. Using these setups you'll probably get a nice picture of someone. This lecture from B&H goes through a lot more looks you can get with one speedlight. He has some more equipment including a reflector but the point is you can do quite a lot with very little. So, read the articles, watch the videos and go try stuff!

I was able to steal an hour of my girlfriend's time recently to pose as my model. I spent half the time indoors and half outdoors. I'll talk about the outdoor stuff next time since that is a mildly overwhelming subject in itself. It was important for me to focus on one thing at a time. I have almost impossibly high standards for myself and if I try to do everything at once I'll fail at all of them and get discouraged. Not exactly the attitude I want to exude when I actually start taking pictures of someone on the cusp of one of the biggest transitions in their life. So I chose to focus on exposure. I ignored posing, backgrounds, composition, wardrobe, hair and everything else. At this point it's more than enough to try and figure out what camera settings to use since I'll be in full manual mode on my camera nearly always. Once I get comfortable with shutter speed, iso, aperture, and how they relate to one another, I'll be able to focus on all the other stuff that makes a good photo. So, I picked out a few lighting setups I wanted to try and went at it. Don't judge too harshly.

One quick note, I did get a softbox for some of this shoot. If you've been digging around on your own (I hope you aren't only listening to me) you might have heard a few reasons and situations why you might want one. I got one almost exclusively for this shot.

f/16 1/250 sec. iso 100 55mm

Rick Sammon had a video where he did this and I thought it was killer! This was shot in my living room and the camera settings gave me a completely black frame without flash. This way I know that the only light in my photo is the light I put there. It's a little under exposed in my opinion and I forget what power my flash was at ( probaly 1/16 or 1/8). I also don't have a black background so I was fighting light spilling on the wall behind her. Shooting in RAW will give you a bit more leeway when it comes to editing which I'll get to, but this is straight out of the camera, unedited.

Here is another photo with nearly identical settings and light position using the umbrella.

Umbrellas shoot light everywhere! It's all over the wall ten feet behind me. Sure a background would help out but then I need another two stands, a crossbar, and some black cloth or paper. The softbox kept the light where I wanted it.


This one they call clam shell lighting. It's used a lot in fashion photography and it looks awesome on women.

Pretty apparent I wasn't worried about backgrounds in this one. You can see in the window behind her the reflection of the umbrella which is about 2 feet in front and above her pointed down. You can see another reflection in the bottom of her eyes. That's the reflector. It's sitting in her lap angled up and resting on the light stand (I'll try and get photos of setups next time I shoot.) The umbrella and the reflector make a sort of "clam shell" shape and there's just enough room at the "hinge" of the clam to put my lens in.

Here's what it looks like without the reflector. Nothing else is different.

The reflector fills in the shadows under her chin, nose, and eyes giving a more even flattering light. Man, I like clam shell lighting.

In this photo, the flash is in the umbrella to help get a  little light on the background. It's up and to camera left. I followed the "45 degree rule" here. Imagine that if you look down on the scene your subject is at the center of a clock and you are at the 6 o'clock position. The light is at about 7:30. The light is also about 45 degrees up. Using our clock example again, this time looking at the scene from the side, the subject is again at the center and you the photographer are at 9 o'clock this time. The light is pushed up to about the 10:30 position. All the experts say this is a good place to start and encourage adjusting to taste from there. I added the reflector at a 45 degree position on the camera's right side and used another light stand (yes more stuff) to hold it up propping it on her leg to get more light under her chin.

This next photo is the same setup as the above photo but I added another flash. Yup, bought another one. Remember, for the price of one Canon or Nikon flash you could get 5 of these Yongnuo flashes.
The additional flash is acting as a hair, or kicker light to separate her from the background. The flashes come with a tiny stand that has tripod threads in the bottom. I'm sure if you're into photography whatsoever you have a tripod. If we go back to our first, top down clock example, this light would be at about 1:30. It's bare bulb, or no umbrella or other modifier in front of it. I adjusted the power so it was brighter than my main light, but not so bright that her hair was blown out.

Pro tip: Don't tell you model to look at the light no matter how dim it is! I told her to look at the light which wasn't a bad picture but it resulted in a sneeze and her seeing spots. The sneeze is the culprit of the messier hair, but remember, we're focused on getting a good exposure and nothing more. Here's the eye damaging pic. If you're ever wondering what kind of light was used in a photo, look at the eyes. The reflections in them should give you a good hint as to where the lights are.

In the next post I'll take this show outside and get into all the fun stuff you need to consider when using a flash outdoors. That's right, camera settings!

Adventures in Photography: Light Modifiers

So, we've got a camera, a flash, and a stand. Why the umbrella? It has to do with the quality of light. If you've watched or read any tutorials on lighting you've heard them talk about soft and hard light. Hard light has shadows that end abruptly and soft light gradually changes from light to dark. To get hard light all you need is a small source of light.

When we talk about the size of light the only thing that matters is the size of the light relative to the subject. Let's explore. Pretend for a moment you are getting your picture taken outside on a bright, sunny day without a single cloud in the sky and the only light source the photographer is using is the Sun. Hopefully you learned in science class that the Sun is big as shit. However, RELATIVE to you, it's no bigger than your thumb. With a light source that "small" moving a few inches can mean you're in shade or full sun. If you look on the ground the shadow of your hand has a hard edge to it.

Now imagine the same scenario, but this time it's overcast. The sky is completely covered in clouds. Light travels from the Sun, hits the clouds and spreads out effectively making the entire sky the source of light. Looking around you won't see any distinct shadows. You have soft light. Chicks dig soft light.

So, your flash bulb being in a roughly two inch square, that's pretty small no matter how close you move it to your subject. Slap an umbrella in front of that it's now forty inches. Move it in close to your subject and that's pretty darn big.

Depending on what you're going for, you might want hard or soft light. With a flash and an umbrella you can easily get both.

In the above photo, the flash is to camera left and about 3 feet from the subject with nothing in front of it. Notice the shadow on her cheek and how quickly it stops. That's a hard light. If you're going for drama, this could work.

In this photo, the light is again to camera left and about 3 feet from the subject, but this time behind the umbrella. There are shadows on the left side of her face, but they are really gradual and still have detail in them. That's soft light. A little more flattering, no?

In the next post or two I'll go through a few lighting setups and perhaps take the light outside where things get really interesting.

Adventures in Photography: My Gear

In my last post I talked about a few reasons why I chose the Yongnuo 560 iii as my first flash. I also picked up a set of Yongnuo transmitters so I can get it off my camera and fire it with radio signals. The flash does have optical slave functionality which means your on camera flash can trigger it to fire. It works great indoors but in my interweb travels they almost always mention that optical triggering can have trouble in bright sunlight. Since I'll be shooting senior portraits I know for certain I'll be outside at some point and would rather avoid the complication. The triggers I chose were about $30. They don't support TTL but since my flash is full manual this is fine. What's more is that the flash has a built-in receiver so while the transmitters come in a 2 pack, you only need one on your camera to trigger your flash(es) leaving the other to use as a shutter release (which I haven't explored yet) or at least not eat up more batteries.

I also picked up a shoot through umbrella, an umbrella adapter and a stand. Yes, this is more equipment, but for me it's worth the investment since I won't have to beg a friend to come along that isn't really interested or find and pay an assistant. As this is my first adventure into photography for someone else and it's for family I'm doing it for free and I'd rather have equipment I can reuse for probably less than hiring an assistant for an hour or two.

After watching this lecture I probably would have chosen a convertible umbrella as my first modifier since you can do all kinds of stuff with it. I highly recommend watching that video. He recommends getting a metal umbrella adapter which I agree with but his reasoning is that you have "about $1000 of equipment" up in the air. He also refers to highlights as "spectral" which has the VFX artist and grammar Nazi in me cringing, but he shows you a lot of cool stuff. For those wondering, the proper word is "specular." No way I want a spectral highlight on my forehead. To this point I've spent just over $100 for everything on and including the stand. You do get what you pay for so if you can spring for the heavy duty stuff you won't regret it. Considering this is a favor and quite possibly my first and last "customer" I'm trying to cut every corner I can. School loans, man. Seriously.

In the next post we're gonna take some pictures! About time, right?

Stand with adapter, flash, and umbrella

Adventures in Photography: Speedlights

Hopefully you've checked out a few of the resources I listed in my last post and found a few of your own. One reoccurring theme is that this shit is expensive. Entry level DSLRs are upwards of $500 bucks as are a lot of name brand speedlights. So, to buy what a lot of those guys are talking about you're in for a grand without anything to modify your light, which we'll get into, or to hold it. And they'll have the gumption to tell you this is cheap. No idea where these people come from but $1000 dollars in my house is a big deal. Then you'll find out about all the cool stuff you can do with two speedlights, three speedlights, softboxes, umbrellas, reflectors, and more. You could easily be looking at thousands of dollars before you even know how to do anything. As a hobbyist photographer there's no way I can justify that kind of money. I do have an entry level Canon DSLR, the t3i with a kit lens, but there is a great little flash out there for around $70. Sure, you're giving up a few features, but I've always been one to buy the cheap version first to see if the expensive version with all the fancy buttons is worth the money. Who knows, I might not even be into photography forever.

Introducing the Yongnuo 560 iii! It's a full manual flash that at the time of this post is $66 on Amazon.

So, why so cheap? Well, part of the reason is its full manual. What does that mean? There are essentially two ways flashes like this work. Manual and TTL (or e-TTL and a few other names that basically mean the same thing.) A lot flashes can do both. In manual mode you are in control of the flash output. Meaning if you want your flash brighter you'll have to walk over to it (assuming you took it off the camera) and push a button to make it brighter or darker. In TTL your camera and flash work together to determine how much light to push out. It's slightly more complex than that but you can kind of think of it as automatic flash. It's not always perfect and can be fooled but for the most part it's pretty cool. However, at a savings of up to $430, I feel like I can walk over to the thing and push some buttons while I'm learning. 

There's also the fact that getting your flash off the camera usually requires some sort of triggering system. Wireless ones can cost a couple hundred bucks each and some don't support TTL. Meaning your fancy auto flash can't receive the signal that tells it how bright to be more or less making your flash manual. This is an extremely broad topic in itself but the point is learning with a full manual flash will most likely be cheaper and will help you understand what's going on if you do decide to upgrade your equipment. If I was going to shoot an event like a wedding for example I'd definitely want some sort of TTL system, but considering I haven't taken any images yet that's getting a little ahead of myself.

A great resource that covers manual and TTL flash, how to use them and written by an expert is neilvn.com/tangents

In the next post I'll go over the flash I chose in a bit more detail as well as the triggering system and the first light modifier I bought.

Adventires in Photography: Off Camera Flash

I've never called myself a photographer but if I had, I probably would have labeled myself as a "natural light photographer." In fact, a perhaps more appropriate label might have been "anti-flash photographer." I hated flash. More specifically, on camera flash. There are thousands of articles that can articulate why it's gross better than I can, but I was so anti flash I'd almost rather lose an opportunity for an image than take one with it.

In comes off camera flash. Strobes, speedlights, flash guns, the differences are subtle but the results are the same. Better images. There are all sorts of resources to learn about this tool and technique. Some of my favorite include:
http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/
http://www.adorama.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/adoramaTV
https://www.youtube.com/user/BHPhotoVideoProAudio (some really great webinars)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD0UStsvhecPxvNONLz3clA (Joe Brady and Rick Sammon have some great webinars on this and other channels)


These resources opened up all kinds of avenues to explore which include another of my favorite things. Gadets!

If you're interested in photography of any kind, these are great places to start. Check them out and see where else they lead you. Some of them are sponsored by certain brands or products, so the equipment they talk about is typically top of the line. In other words, expensive. The principals remain the same regardless of what you use, so in the next post I'll go over some of the equipment I chose and why.

Adventures in Photography: Senior Portaits.

Back in November my niece asked me if I wanted to take her senior photos and I jumped at the opportunity. Sure, most of that jump was from excitement, but a substantial part of it was nerves. I've always been interested in photography, but have never been asked to do it for anything or anyone. I posted a few images on facebook and my niece liked them enough to ask if I'd like to handle her senior photos. Mind you, this is based on 2 images. Two. I have no idea what I'm doing. My background is in visual effects so I know a little about creating images, but portrait photography is a whole different world. So began one of my favorite things. Research. More on that later. In the meantime, here are the images that prompted this whole shibang. Next time we start learning!

Welcome!

Welcome!

My name is John and I have an internet connection. That means I can share EVERYTHING I do with you! I know, and you're welcome.  I do enjoy me some learnin' though. The things I like learning about are pretty varied and change all the time. If you're here you're interested in finding out more about what I'm up to or you're lost in which case an adult should be with you momentarily. This blog is mostly to collect my thoughts on what I'm doing into a format that might be useful to other people interested in the same stuff. I'm not an expert on anything I'll be posting here, but I'll do my best to share my resources if my summaries don't make any sense. I'm excited! Let's do cool stuff!