Art Photography

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

What a difference the light makes!

These two photos were taken only a few hours apart, and the clear difference between flat dull light (the first) and cloudy skies with occasional sun breaking through (the second) is so clear! I thought this was a great example of changing light and the patience we need to have in photography (though on this occasion it was all luck and we happened to be walking in the same area at two parts of the day). These were taken last weekend (7 Nov) in Paris, and are of Notre Dame.

50mm, f/4.5, 1/90s, 0EV, Grad Neutral Density Filter, ISO320

40mm, f/6.7, 1/180s, -1/2EV, Grad Neutral Density Filter, ISO 400

Sunday, 1 November 2009

Project 43: Through the day

The aim of this project was to observe how light changes throughout the day, but taking a photo of the same scene once per hour through the day. I chose a simple scene (two trees with autumn leaves) across the road so that it was easy to access at hourly intervals. The quality of light was distinctly better (nicer for photography) at the start and end of the day, though I didn't capture any nice sunset or sunrise colours in the sky. It was very interesting simply to observe the changes through the day, as well as documenting them with the camera. I learnt early (9am!) that before I chose my viewpoint I should have thought about where the sun would pass through the sky! It went straight through my planned image, so that one was a write-off! Oh well, it's all a learning experience! Most elements were kept the same through the day - tripod, 50mm lens, ISO100, f/8 apart from the 5pm photo which was f/2.8 due to the low light levels, White Balance set to sunlight. The exposure changed as the light levels did.

7am

1sec

8am

1/45sec

9am

1/250s

10am

1/90s

11am

1/90s

12pm

1/125s

1pm

1/125s

2pm

1/90s

3pm

1/60s

4pm

1/20s

5pm

8sec

Project 39: using faster film and higher sensitivity

The aim of this project was to discover the use of / benefits / shortcomings of different ISO levels. I chose to undertake this project on an overcast, rainy day and photographed some autumn leaves and trees in the neighbourhood. I chose this day because I thought it would be really obvious to see the differences the ISO made. What I didn't expect was that I could hardly hand-hold the camera at the shutter speeds required at ISO 100! And that was at the widest aperture of 2.8! Seemingly the light levels are even lower than I had thought. Nonetheless I managed to get some comparison shots, but changing the ISO as necessary, though a couple of the images do show some blurring. The wonderful thing about shooting in the rain was the lovely intense colours which are brought out by the rain and the fantastic diffuse light that overcast days have (which I generally don't appreciate enough!).
So obviously the advantage of increasing the ISO to 400 or 800 today was to be able to actually take the shot! The same would apply in evening shooting without a tripod, or in a night venue or cafe where light levels are low. The drawback is higher noise/grain levels, which can either add to the photo, not matter or be a feature of the photo, depending on the subject matter. Even if you were using a tripod, sometimes it might be useful to increase the ISO, for example if the slow shutter speeds mean things moving in the wind (such as trees/leaves) and then it might be worth increasing the ISO. Also with lower ISO you can be limited to using the larger apertures, but sometimes you might want larger depth of field, so need to decrease the aperture. Increasing the ISO will allow for this. The other end of the spectrum is if you want the silky water effect you might want to decrease the ISO as much as possible (obviously a tripod is needed for this) and then you can increase the shutter speeds.

Now, after I've gone on a bit; onto some photos!
Photo 1, ISO 100