Thoughts on Photography

This page is to be read from the bottom up.  I have placed the entries in reverse chronological order so that if you read the earlier posts, you don’t have to scroll as far to find the recent posts.

Theses are my thoughts after more than 50 years of photography.  The last 15 years or so have been with a digital camera, and that period is when I did the most study, practice and learning.

May 4, 2017:  A note on patience.  I have recently noticed that my pictures  are bit out of focus or overexposed or poorly composed or not level or other flaws I could easily correct if only I had taken time to look carefully and check the histogram.  That’s important to me;  I want my pictures to be as good as I can make them when I press the shutter.    To accomplish that takes time.  I shoot a lot when I’m hiking with a group.  I must take a bit longer and do better.

October 10, 2016:  Now to consider a more ordinary photo op:  One of my many sunrise shoots at Lake Lanier.  I most often go to West Bank Park, primarily because it is not locked at night.  The park has a nicely uneven shoreline with several good vantage points, depending on the time of year and weather.

In any case, my first decision is how long before sunrise to arrive (and thus how early I have to get out of bed.)  My experience is that for this place, the best light is often 45-30 minutes before the sunrise, while the sun is still a bit below the horizon shining up onto the sky or clouds.  As the sun gets closer to the horizon, the light changes rapidly, and  I have to be alert for color changes in the sky.  In particular, there is often a brief period (2 minutes or so) when the sky is an interesting turquoise color rather than some shade of blue.

Then the second decision is the choice of lens.  I have a 11-16 mm wide angle lens, an 18-105 mm lens and a 55-300 mm lens.  Any of them may be used, depending on what I decide the composition ought to be.  I usually start with the 18-105 mm lens at about 35-40 mm focal length.  I find that is what my eye finds best in terms of angle of view.  However, if there are geese about, I often change to the 55-300 mm lens and try to get the geese in sunlight reflected in the water.  It depends.  🙂  I can’t say much more on the topic.  One must got out and try things to see what works for them.

One example, which I’ll discuss in the next post.

October 8, 2016:  I think it might be useful to walk through some examples to illustrate my thinking as I make images.  First, one of the toughest situations: at night from a moving boat with high contrast everywhere.  This was the case on our river cruise in 2015.  We departed Budapest after dinner when all the buildings along the river were lit brightly.  So, photographically, I had a very low light, high contrast scene to be shot from a moving platform.  Fortunately, the boat was only going 4-5 kilometers per hour (2-3 miles per hour).  Still, it was enough to affect composition and exposure.  Secondly, the autofocus on my Nikon D7100 requires a fair bit of contrast to function properly.  Hence I had to focus manually.  And in  the low light, a relatively high sensitivity (ISO) is required.

So my setup was this:   To accommodate the movement, I needed 1/50 second or more.  I found that by taking a couple of test shots.  From those test shots, I also determined that I did not need ISO 6400.  ISO 3200 would suffice.  Lastly, I had been using an aperture of f/5.6 for the test shots, and that let me increase the shutter speed to 1/20 second, enough to let me handhold (I had not brought a tripod or monopod, and the boat vibrated a bit anyway) without too much blur.  So I chose my subjects by looking ahead up the river, picking a building, and manually focusing on it.

The result was this, straight from the camera but shrunk to fit on the web.  I did not change a thing afterward.  The focus could have been better, but I am still quite happy about this result.

October 6, 2016:  Continuing the thread, before I can worry about shutter speed, aperture and ISO, I first have to figure out what should be in the picture.  My inclination is to just start shooting, sort of a spray and pray approach.  However, I have learned to take time to observe the scene and consider my options.  While I often do shoot standing up, I am more and more finding a low angle (kneeling or sitting or even laying on the ground) more appealing.  I think that is because if you get low, you get better foreground choices to work with.  That may not work with animals; you may spook them by moving too much.  But for landscape and close-up shots, looking at the subject from high and low has proven to be very useful.  I even consider hauling a stepladder in my truck if I think I might be able to use it.

August 3, 2016:  Picking up the thread, if I can get an appropriate shutter speed with the aperture I want and ISO 100, then all is well, and I will take the picture.  If not, then I will consider changing the shutter speed.  A bit of change, say from 1/200th to 1/250th (or vice versa) usually doesn’t make a lot of difference.  However, if I want 1/200 or faster and 1/100 or slower is required, then I have a problem.  I would increase the sensitivity (ISO setting) as far as 800 without worrying.  If more is required, then I have to stop and think.  Most often that situation means I just can’t do what I’d like to do.  It means I have to concede one or more factors of shutter speed, ISO or aperture, in roughly that order.

July 18, 2016:  I have read and heard many photographers on the topic of how to choose an exposure and compose a picture.  I thought I ought to explain how I go about that process.

First, I almost always have the camera in manual mode, not any automatic mode of any sort.  I always begin with the sensitivity (ISO) set at the lowest the camera allows (100 on the D7100 and 200 on the D40.)  I next frame the shot, aka compose the picture.  That involves choosing the focal point or subject, the angle of view, the distance from the subject, and how much is included in the picture.  Once I have done all that, I next choose the aperture to get the appropriate depth of field, deep or shallow according to what I want to emphasize.  Given all that, I look at what the light meter thinks is the right shutter speed.