DSLR - Beginner's most confused and must know information
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Lens - Abberations and Alternatives
Optical abberations and remedies
Essentially important to know about Lens to identify to satisfy requirements or have remedies.
- What you need - Macro, Telephoto, WideAngle.
- What to own to fulfill your need - Prime, Zoom, Fast Lens, USM, Rear Focus, Image Stabilizer.
- At least know how to overcome weakness of your lens to attain your need.
Category
Type and Design
- What you need - Macro, Telephoto, WideAngle.
- What to own to fulfill your need - Prime, Zoom, Fast Lens, USM, Rear Focus, Image Stabilizer.
- At least know how to overcome weakness of your lens to attain your need.
Category
- Macro Lens - designed for Closeup of miniature subjects astigmatism is best managed.
- Telephoto Lens - Telescopic Lens, narrow angle of view coverage for Far off subjects.
- Wide angle Lens - Wider angle of view coverage, for scenery, landscape - extreme is a Fish Eye lens.
Type and Design
- Prime Lens - Fixed focal Length Lens, with only focus ring - Best corrected for most aberrations for a Focal Length.
- Zoom Lens - Support a wider focal range, usually abberations are not very well manageable, need not change lens frequently.
- Fast Lens - Large aperture typical Gaussian design may be employed, supports faster shutter speeds, shallow DOF for great Bokehs.
Tools not to be ignored in DPP for Canon
The distortion due to kit lens can be corrected both pincushion and barrel distortion forms
Chromatic abberations are also effectively managed.
Chromatic abberations are also effectively managed.
Choose your Lens considering for your eclectic interest
Bird Photography
In Flight - Painted Stroke - with Canon S5 IS
Beauty in Bird Photography with focal lengths of 200-300mm, is you might have learnt to make the bird feel comfortable
- Identify place, pattern of their movements.
- Never use eye contact, follow it through your view finder,
- Don't not make quick moves take yourself into slow motion,
- Do not move straight towards your beautiful bird, make it look tangential.
- Hiding is critical if you are too close, a suspicion will drive it off.
Few birds usually rest pluming their feathers, once they find the place comfortable say after 10:00am / afternoons.
so the point you need to stay over in the place for a long time, and appear to involve in a work of your ownfairly you are not considered as major distraction,
Settings in my preferences with 550D while shooting most birds.
- Load on Sigma APO 70-300mm zoom, ISO 100/200, f9/f10/f11 preferably on Tripod when situation permits.
- Turn Off Auto Light Optimizer (for Flash control - in case opted to use)
- RAW (To leverage on exposure curve adjustments to bring details from shadows, suppress Highlights)
- Continuous Frame shoot drive (Prepared for bird taking to flight/eating, quick changing moments)
- Position subject to center (Center part of lens tends more sharp, and aberration free)
Birds alight on branches
- Enable the central AF point* (being more sensitive & accurate)/ or other single AF point orient it on Subject.
- ISO 100 (TriPod) /200 (MonoPod)
- Mono/Tripod
- Mirror Lockup at 300mm, with 2 sec timer -or- external wired Trigger. (depending on shutter speeds in use).
Birds in Flight
- Enable all AF point (if Background is far off).
- ISO 400(For motion blur)/ 800/ 1600 (Sharp + Extreme Noise).
- Elbow supported/ Elbow+Knee supported (guessing the bird for a take off)
Guidelines:
1. Fill your frame with Subject - (First step to bird photography)
2. Details are critical - use sweet spot whenever possible (Tripod helps).
3. You need a hide to be close, to satisfy (1) - most of the time.
Handheld Image Blur:
- Practice to press the shutter after you exhale.
- Using Back-pack as a prop up.
- Lean to a pole, support elbow to the body.
- Prop on car window (car was a wonderful Hide too).
Sharpen the image on Raw
Capture sharpening
Blurring is caused by the camera sensor's (in addition to your camera's lens)
1. Demosaicing process: A color filter array (CFA, e.g. Bayer filter) is a mosaic of color filters in front of the image sensor, color subsampling result in aliasing.
2. Anti-aliasing filter (optical lowpass filter /blur filter) is employeed to minimize the aliasing effects.
Demosaicing Algorithms for Canon
dcraw - linux
Output sharpening
Settings customized for a particular output device (print/monitor), and is applied at the very end of the image editing workflow.
Refer: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/image-sharpening.htm
# Images without story, is no attention catcher..... deliver content... demand attention.
Getting sharper Images with what is available...
Tripod is just a must.
What one expect to get sharp images ?
Too Expensive..... It is a real opportunity before you, to learn small habits and build up your capabilities.
As a beginner, options/selection for a Tripod / Monopod is based on criterions below, available in various ranges and specifications.
some pointers to look for
1. Compact and weight -Steel/aluminium/carbon -(convenience)
2. Steady and solid -Construction/design -(sharp images)
3. Expanded Height -usability -(convenience - standing)
4. Compact Height -usability -(convenience - sitting)
5. Mount capacity -Camera weight support -(effective mount system)
6. Mount flexibility -Roll, Yawn, Pitch -(ease of orientation)
- Quality L series lens - well corrected for aberrations.
- Fast Prime Lens - enabling good shutter speeds and advantages of fixed focal length.
- Image stabilizer for Low light
Too Expensive..... It is a real opportunity before you, to learn small habits and build up your capabilities.
- Exploit the sweet spot of your Lens, Its your job to know it - refer MTF charts.
- Use Tripod - enabling more light through slow shutters. (Get rid of handshake blur, when ever possible)
- Practice, develop and discipline yourself to properly handle the tools - Camera, Tripod.
As a beginner, options/selection for a Tripod / Monopod is based on criterions below, available in various ranges and specifications.
some pointers to look for
1. Compact and weight -Steel/aluminium/carbon -(convenience)
2. Steady and solid -Construction/design -(sharp images)
3. Expanded Height -usability -(convenience - standing)
4. Compact Height -usability -(convenience - sitting)
5. Mount capacity -Camera weight support -(effective mount system)
6. Mount flexibility -Roll, Yawn, Pitch -(ease of orientation)
Nature Shoot
Clouded hill terrain - minutes after Sun rise - kodaikanal.
Photographing is all about Light - Paint with Light and do it right,
Sun is one of greatest photographer's delight, spectrally so good, there are favorable times for sunlight to take advantage, to make your graphs all look so brilliant !!!
So Care to plan, to be at shooting site in time, usually on those clear Sub-continent sunny days,
Summer Mornings - 5:30am* - 8:00am Winter Mornings - 6:00am* - 9:00am
Summer Evenings - 4:00pm - 7:00pm* Winter Evenings - 2:30pm - 6:00pm*
*Dawn or Dusk.
In short favorable times allow favorable front light for your subjects, especially in Latitude ranges of South India, midday we do have lots of light, but light from Zenith is no much help, we have limited opportunity of a day, than what the higher latitudes can offer.
Sun is one of greatest photographer's delight, spectrally so good, there are favorable times for sunlight to take advantage, to make your graphs all look so brilliant !!!
So Care to plan, to be at shooting site in time, usually on those clear Sub-continent sunny days,
Summer Mornings - 5:30am* - 8:00am Winter Mornings - 6:00am* - 9:00am
Summer Evenings - 4:00pm - 7:00pm* Winter Evenings - 2:30pm - 6:00pm*
*Dawn or Dusk.
In short favorable times allow favorable front light for your subjects, especially in Latitude ranges of South India, midday we do have lots of light, but light from Zenith is no much help, we have limited opportunity of a day, than what the higher latitudes can offer.
Panorama Shoots
- Use a Good stable Tripod, Such that the Mount pan across comfortably - without adding varying inclinations effectively spoils during merging.
- Shoot in Manual mode to avoid exposure changes with changing scene brightness which could prop up discontinuities for stitch.
- Eliminate close objects they introduce parallax in consecutive pan images.
- Lens ?
Portrayal
Color Temperature - Representation
- Diffused Light brings in softness, more visible features. Some naturally diffused light sources are common with Window light, Door curtains, conjunction points of 3/4 tree cover and 1/4 open grass fields with Sun.
- Color Temperature dramatically changes the impression of image, usually Auto White Balance makes a good choice, photographer always have a choice to choose with various color temperatures available (Daylight, Cloudy, Shade) mid-range 6000K -4000K works well with my usage.
- Background contrast, Eye is more sensitive to luminance than color, each color has a luminance, choosing a background in color which is in contrast with subject color usually proves image enhancing.
- Preferably, work out to frame your composition - cover 5 Stops of dynamic light range only, especially in choosing the backgrounds will help, this is a limitation of system - now work to hide its weakness.
- Frame to exclude clutter and High-lights as much as possible.
- Bokeh creation using widest aperture, renders your image softer and background High-light smudge out as circles gives in a pleasing Bokeh /Blur, Telephoto lens is wonderful.
- Your diffused light source must be larger than your subject (e.g. Face alone).
- If your diffusser is large but placed far of subject - it works as a point source, Bring it closer.
For successful portrait artists, capturing personality is the end goal.
Capturing personality is an exciting challenge, but it is not impossible.
All it takes is attention to detail, and genuine care about your subject as an individual.
Watch your subject as you interact with them.
Find out their little tendencies, find these hidden signatures,
You will be empowered to capture your client’s personality like no one else.
If you truly want to highlight your clients’ personality, you will draw them out of their skin.
Body language: The key is simply to learn to observe quickly, and respond in kind for the shot. (extract from Digital Photography School - guest post)
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