The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

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The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby Doorstop » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:38 pm

I couldn't really see an thread dedicated to the absolute beginner and as I've recently acquired a half decent camera (Lumix DMC FZ18) and am in the process of tinkering with it with the general aim of finding out about aperture thingies, shutter settings, f-stops and all that interminable jargon I thought I'd start one as it's still all pretty murky to me.

I was taking photos last night and found that in certain conditions (indoors under incandescent light) my photos aren't as sharp as I'd like them to be .. they have lots of colour bleed, the focus isn't as defined as in full light and there's a lot of noise in the image.

For instance ... Image


I was just wondering if any of you kindly HG expert photo grabbers could enlighten we less experienced mortals as to the proper settings to use to clean my images up or, alternatively, point me in the direction of a tutorial or three?
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby scottwramsay » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:51 pm

I started writing and then split my post into three levels of detail for people who have varying lengths of time they can be bothered reading! :D

The most basic answer is probably that at night, the camera needs to let in more light to get a decent image formed on your sensor and the easiest way to do that is to hold the shutter open/switch the sensor on for a longer period of time. This is why if you have a point & shoot or a phone cam set to night-mode, you'll find that without the flash you'll get a much blurrier picture. That probably explains your focus and colour bleed, and the graininess is probably because of another trick digital cameras use - amplifying the signal to get a brighter image. Every pixel still gathers as much light as nature intends, but the camera boosts that and the downside is that any random noise gets boosted too.


-----------


There are a couple of probable reasons. If you've got it on automatic, does it tell you which settings it's using as you take a picture? The three to look out for are ISO (how much electrical amplification is applied to each pixel to artificially boost your sensor's sensitivity), shutter speed (written as whatever fraction of a second the shutter opens/sensor is switched on) and aperture (the size of yer hole).

If you're in the dark, setting your ISO to a large number means you'll get brighter photos but you'll sacrifice in that you'll get some grain. Setting your shutter speed to something quite slow will let in more light, but you'll need to sit still. Ideally use a tripod or a table if you're using longer than 1/30th of a second. If you're zoomed in, you'll need to make it even faster because the longer lens means wobbles will be amplified. And finally set your aperture as big as it'll go (smaller numbers = bigger holes). I've included a description below to explain what the numbers on each setting really mean, and how you can change one of them (for instance, use a larger hole) and work out what to do with the others (for instance, compensate by knowing how much faster to make the exposure).

--------------

ISO - usually 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, possibly 3200. As the numbers suggest, each setting is twice as sensitive as the previous one. 100 is 'not' sensitive while 3200 is 'very'. Low end is useful in daylight, high end in darkness, but since you're amplifying electrical signals you're also amplifying any noise which is why the night-time pictures are grainier. (Geek note: in film, sensitivity was generally speaking increased by putting bigger crystals of light-sensitive chemical onto the film. Light rays had a better chance of hitting them, and when one eventually did, it made a relatively large chunk of film 'change colour'. It's this loss of resolution that makes photos taken on high-ISO film look grainy - and it's not necessarily an aesthetically bad thing!)

Shutter speed - if you have an old manual camera then you'll get increments on a scale which double from one setting to the next, in line with the difference in ISO settings. Digital SLRs usually further divide these into thirds, so you get mid-way points too.
The 'classical' scale is 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500 and so on. (I know, a couple of them don't exactly double/halve from one to the next, but the numbers are less fiddly this way. Know anything about binary? 8O )

Aperture - this scale seems complicated but it's really really really not. It's not necessary to do this, but if you're interested, set your camera to a loooong shutter speed (several seconds), press the shutter release then quickly turn the camera round and look down the lens. You'll probably see the blades of the aperture creating a hole, and as the exposure finishes they'll retract back to the default position at the edges. Imagine you measured the diameter of that hole they made. Now, if you were to measure the length of your lens and divide that by the diameter of the aperture, you would end up with a number somewhere on the scale that your camera provides for setting the aperture. The number is written as f/'x' where f is the focal length and x is the diameter of the hole. Thus, a picture taken at f/2 means the diameter of the aperture was half of the 'zoom' length (which is a very big hole) and f/16 means the aperture was a sixteenth of the lens length.
Again, the 'classical' scale is f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22 and so on.
And again, the difference between one position and the next is double/half the amount of light, and digital SLRs will break these down into thirds so you can fine-tune your photo.


Now, the really useful part about knowing all that is this: remember each position on any scale equals a doubling or halving of the light getting in. This means if you move one position along a scale, to keep your brightness even you'll have to move one position in the opposite direction along another scale.

Imagine you took a photo of a sprinter for 1/30th of a second at f/5.6 - it might be well lit, but the sprinter is blurred. You want to use a faster shutter speed to freeze them, but you don't know how it should affect your aperture. Well, let's say you move to 1/125th of a second. That's two positions faster, but that also means it'll be two positions darker (geek note: remember each position equals a doubling, so that means you've got a quarter the light coming in). Flip over to your aperture scale and work out how to compensate - you started at f/5.6, so you need to make the hole two positions bigger - f/2.8! You could also have gone two positions on your ISO scale, but then you're messing with graininess and you've only got 5 or 6 possibilities there.

Code: Select all
More light  ||  1 sec    1/2     1/4     1/8    1/15    1/30   1/60    1/125   1/250   1/500  ||  Less light
                                                         |--------------->               
                                          <--------------|       
Big hole    ||  f/1     f/1.4   f/2    f/2.8    f/4    f/5.6     f/8    f/11    f/16    f/22  ||  Wee hole


(I hope that aligned on your screens too)

(Note: the two scales will align at different positions depending on how much light you have. In a dark room, 1/30 may align with f/1.4 to get a decently lit exposure.)

Well done if you got that far! Phew! :mrgreen:
Last edited by scottwramsay on Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:04 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby Doorstop » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:47 pm

Get that far???

I've read it three times so far ... excellent, excellent answer, brilliant stuff.

That's answered so many questions in one fell swoop .. I really appreciate you going to such an effort Scott mate, that's one I owe you. 8)
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby Doorstop » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:53 pm

I've just tried taking some photos using the wee chart as a guideline and guess what?

They only came out bloody perfect that's what!!

Cheers again mate. :D
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby Squigster » Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:09 pm

Scott
As a novice, I must admit that I found your post very helpful. Until now I've tended to pick settings and hope things turn out, which can be a bit frustrating when I can see the shot but can't work out how to take it.

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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby scottwramsay » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:49 pm

Thanks guys :) I've gone through it again with a fine-toothed comb and sorted out some of the wording to hopefully make my sentences a bit clearer, and I changed that scale at the bottom so it actually matches what I was talking about. Most of what I learned came from the brain of another guy who doesn't post on here so I can't acknowledge him properly, with some clarification from the Glasgow Met's "Photography: Camera Techniques" Saturday morning course. I'd definitely recommend it if you've got 3 hours spare for 10 weeks - it runs on a weekday night too - especially since ILA Scotland will pay for it (minus £10) if you meet their criteria!

I've seen a few good online text-based tutorials where people take a bit more time and go into a bit more careful detail about the different aspects of getting a good shot but I can't remember them offhand. I'll have a look and post back if I can find them again.
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby gap74 » Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:15 pm

I got interested in photography mostly to shoot the interiors of cinemas and theatres, and was often perplexed why I couldn't get all of the image in focus at once. A bit of digging around, and I found out that a large aperture and shorter exposure generally meant a narrow field of focus - so to get a decent pic with everything in focus, I had to use a smaller aperture with a longer exposure. I try not to bother with higher ISO settings because of the noise.

So I guess my question is, is there any way around this other than buying more specialised high-speed lenses? It's a pain not being able to sneak a decent pic of a building's interior without a tripod or something to prop the camera on for the few seconds necessary to take a pic. I'm also a fan of night photography, but don't want to lug around a huge fast lens to get usable hand-held shots after dark!
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby potatojunkie » Thu Jan 22, 2009 5:46 pm

If you're unwilling to go to higher ISO values or wider apertures, your only remaining options are longer shutter speeds or underexposure. You can correct for underexposure for an extent by lightening the image in Photoshop or whatever. You'll end up with a noisier image, but you have more control over the process than you'll get from bumping up the ISO. Longer shutter speeds are a little more problematic. Without a tripod or other camera support, your best bet is to brace yourself against something, take multiple images and hope for the best. Have you considered getting a monopod or making a string tripod? Better than nothing.

There's also a technique called focus stacking, which involves taking several images focused at different points and then combining them in post to maximise depth of field. It's a footer with handheld shooting, though.
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby gap74 » Thu Jan 22, 2009 5:59 pm

I generally use a tripod and get decent-ish results, but the main problem comes with trying to sneak pics off when time is limited and permission has not necessarily been sought!

I really should take the plunge and upgrade to dSLR, but my battered old Fuji S7000 has served me well so far, with a Panasonic Lumix TZ5 for carrying around in my pocket - the latter's wide-angle lens is excellent for architectural shots in narrow streets, but I find the pics it give to be slightly dark and desaturated.

My main problem with the Fuji is getting overly yellow shots under certain indoor lights with a long exposure, such as this example from a couple of years ago:

Image

Seems to plague me no matter what setting I use for the white balance and it doesn't seem to be easily correctable in Photoshop. Would a filter help? If so, which one?
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby scottwramsay » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:01 pm

I take it you've already tried the incandescent setting on your white balance, but I see that the S7000 has the capacity to store 2 custom white balances. I don't know how that's achieved, but maybe you could have a fiddle with them and get something to your satisfaction? The trouble with your orange lights may also be to do with the same problem sodium vapour street lamps cause - if you have a source giving off only a very limited range of colours, you're only ever going to get them reflected back at you (unless, for the physics nit pickers, you've got something fluorescent in view). The problem only gets magnified when you go on to long exposures, when you're brightening up the scene beyond what you actually see with your eye: everything just gets even more orange.

Taking your photos on a dSLR in RAW format would give you much much more control over the fine-tuning in post. Another option is to try to get your hands on a copy of Adobe Lightroom. It groups your colours into 8 groups (basically the colours of the rainbow) and lets you change each of their hue, saturation and luminance independently of the rest. That might help you turn down the most orange parts but leave the others the way they should be. (I made a video for our uni photo society trying to convince them why they should go with Lightroom - 5:15 shows you that tool, if you're interested.)
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby potatojunkie » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:09 pm

Yeah, that looks too orange to be a standard incandescent bulb, it's either some sort of vapour lamp or it's gel filtered. Either way, it's putting out quite a narrow range of colours, which is difficult to fix.

I tried a channel mixer layer (mostly red channel, bit of green) set to hard light and tweaked a little:
Image

Far from perfect, but I'd say it's an improvement.
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby Lucky Poet » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:16 pm

For white balance difficulties, there's always the nuclear option of saying to hell with it and converting to black and white :)
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby gap74 » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:30 pm

Yeah, the S7000 does have two custom white balance options, I think you basically point the camera at a sheet of white paper under the lighting conditions you're photographing in. I've never found that it works particularly well either, to be honest.

The main problem, I think, came from the lights themselves, which were indeed very yellow bulbs - unfortunately used quite widely as floods in places like bingo halls!

For reference, here's a pic with a more natural representation of the colours, taken with a much shorter exposure as it's not so far away:

Image

I get the same effect in my own place of work, the plasterwork on the ceiling and balcony fronts here should be cream with gold giltwork, but just all looks yellow - I can get a better colour representation by turning off the houselights and putting the whiter halogen floods used by cleaners, but then you lose the ambience of the houselighting! It's been frustrating me for years! Now I appreciate the work done by colour timers and graders who work in film production!

Image

(You might also notice on both those pics that there's a slight squint, caused by a cheap tripod that refused to stay level - needless to say, I've since replaced it!)
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby Lucky Poet » Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:18 pm

I had a crack at that beautiful auditorium in Lightroom - this is as close as I could get:
Image
I cooled the temperature a bit, reduced the exposure by half a stop, a bit of the 'clarity' tool (which is very useful in moderation), 'fill light' to 10 (which lightens the shadows), and reduced darks on the tone curve a smidgin. And a small amount of sharpening.

It's still not very near showing the cream and gold separately, though. I'd guess you're right that the lights aren't helping much...

By the way, I'd say it's a wee bit overexposed. I'm guessing the dark areas at the back of the hall are confusing the light metering; playing about with exposure compensation might help. The light plasterwork is nearly blown out, and though I've not done any proper tests I suspect it mucks up colour response when that happens.
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Re: The Fledgling Photographers Thread.

Postby gap74 » Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:29 pm

If it's overexposed, it's entirely my fault, as I think I took that on an entirely manual setting. The trouble with this particular auditorium is that the seating and other areas under the circle overhangs tends towards the murky if you don't ramp the exposure up a wee bit.

I've been toying with the idea of experimenting with a mate's 35mm film SLR - is the above difficulty with finding a happy medium in terms of contrasty shots with extremes of darkness and light lessened with film? I'm led to understand that digital doesn't deal with such contrasts very well, and that film can provide a more even response. Then again, the Fuji that took the above pic is knocking on a bit now, corking camera for its price at the time, but would a more modern digital camera with similar spec cope a bit better?
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