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| Shallow depth of field because I understood the effect of aperture. I picked the aperture rather than allowing the camera to pick it for me. (click to enlarge) Fuji X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 47mm; 1/7500th sec. @ f/2.8; ISO 200 |
I "grew up" with slide rules and manual film cameras. Yeah, yeah, yeah....walked to school in the snow uphill both ways... Well, not that bad.
There is something to be said for understanding the underlying math that is programmed into a calculator. There is also something to be said for understanding light, exposure, shutter speeds, apertures as well as thoroughly understanding the features and certainly the capabilities of your photo gear. It is easy to use a calculator and it is easy to use the automation on your digital camera. But... What happens when the battery of your calculator is dead? Get out the pencil and paper and hope you know how to problem solve. Similarly, what happens when you use the automation features on your camera because "they are there" and "it makes photography easy" but when you return home to look at and edit your images, something went wrong?
The same principle applies. You have to understand what is going on "behind the electronic curtain." Don't get me wrong. I utilize many of the automated features on my digital cameras, but I also understand what the camera is doing and why it is making the choices it makes. I also understand if the camera does something that I know it should not. My understanding is deep enough to cause me to stop and change the camera to settings I know are better for a particular situation. If you don't understand what your camera is doing, as I just said, you may not have the images you thought you had when you return home.
A digital camera really is a very sophisticated computer with a lens attached; really just a calculator with a lens. The camera will get it right most of the time, when conditions are mostly "average," but what about when the camera doesn't get it right? Will you know how to adjust that computer so you make an image that will achieve your vision? How will you achieve your vision if don't know that the camera is not doing what you think it is doing or you don't know how to make the camera do what you need it to do?
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| Auto white balance could have wreaked havoc with the look I was after so I set my white balance manually. (click to enlarge) Fuji X-T2, 50-140mm f/2.8 lens @ 68.7mm; 1/18th sec. @ f/16; ISO 200 |
Camera manufacturers have programmed in many, many typical scenarios so when your light meter sees one of these pre-programmed scenarios, it knows how to properly expose. But they can't program in everything. You may not want the image to look like the programmed exposure. Digital cameras are very good, but not infallible.
Let's say you get back home and look at your images. Here are some common things that could have gone wrong and you might not have known it because you set your camera on some sort of automated exposure function.
That horse running through the gorgeous field of yellow flowers you saw is blurry. Darn. No good. You should have set a faster shutter speed than the one chosen by the camera's program.
Your family's group photo looks good at first, but when you look closer, the people in the center look sharp but the ones on the edges are really out of focus. Can't send that out to them. Should have chosen the aperture yourself rather than allow the camera to choose.
That bright foggy scene with the sailboats on the lake looks dull and gray. Not bright fog as you remember it. Darn, out of focus as well. Didn't realize the autofocus didn't work well with little or not contrast or with a lack of lines/edges. Missed it.
You lost all of the highlights from that beautiful waterfall photo. Totally blown out and not recoverable. Oh! You lost the shadow detail also. Black as a coal mine. Too much dynamic range for the sensor but the camera set it for some pre-programmed exposure anyway. It set it for "average." If you had only made three exposures and combined them in your editing software, it would be one of the best photos you've ever taken.
Yuk! Those photographs you took at your sister's wedding are horrible! Everyone is a sickly shade of yellow or green. How does white balance work? Trusted the camera and it let you down in quite a few of your photographs.
You look at a group of photos you took of your child playing soccer. Some images of your child are way overexposed and totally blown out and some are so dark you can hardly see anything. You didn't realize that that deep dark shadow from the trees behind your child as he/she ran by would affect the overall exposure. You trusted your camera to make all the decisions for you.
You understand what I mean. What to do?
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| Snow geese frozen in time, or maybe not if I hadn't set my shutter speed fast enough to stop their forward motion as well as their wing motion (click to enlarge) Nikon D810, Nikon 200-500mm f/4.5-5.6 lens @ 500mm; 1/2000th sec. @ f/7.1; ISO 400 |
I suggest you take creative control of your photography. If you don't have an adequate understanding, watch videos, sign up for some training in basic photography or how your specific camera works and learn to fully understand the principles of light, shadow, shutter speed, aperture, etc. You Tube has tons of stuff that is free. You should be able to easily find resources to learn what you need to learn. Also, find a photographic mentor, a friend you can go out and photograph with so you can ask questions and learn. Additionally, there are many, many workshops available led by professional photographers and teachers who can help you better understand. I like You Tube because I like free. Not everyone has a lot of money to drop on a workshop.
Lean to deal with tricky lighting situations. First, you have to recognize them. You want
consistent exposures. You want exposures that are close to good white balance in-camera. You want to understand the color of light, not just the intensity or direction of light.
You may want to set a different white balance. You may want to deliberately under or over expose. You may need to take three exposures and blend them together due to extreme contrast
Creative control allows you to a) choose your depth of field, b) choose your shutter speed, c) choose your exact point of focus and d) determine and choose the appropriate white balance.
Automation is good, in my book. In fact, it is a wonderful thing to have. It's okay to rely on automation when you understand the principles behind it. Only then can you be assured that the results you want are the result you get.
NOTE: My first calculator was a Bowmar Brain. It was a 4-function calculator, meaning it only added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. Nothing more. How much did it cost? In 1973 it was $400! That would be $2272.30 today (according to the inflation calculator on the website Dollar Times and Saving.org). Could you imagine paying that kind of money for something that primitive today? Thank goodness for progress and scale of manufacture.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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Great post with a lot of reminders of "the basics." Those are so easy to overlook when shooting digital and you don't have to pay time and money to get your prints back!
ReplyDeleteI remember that calculator. My father had one from work. My brother went off to college in 1973, with a Texas Instruments calculator that could do the four functions plus square roots and percentages. About $200 or so. A few years later I came across the same one in a remainder bin for $15.
ReplyDeleteDennis - thanks for the reminder to take the time and consider both the image you want and the equipment you are using. Frankly, that is the joy of photography. Consider both the artistic vision you want to achieve, and the technology necessary to capture that image. Fun, fun, fun... but not necessarily fast.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear! With a lot of care and forethought, I can get pretty good results in all situations with my Canon 5D1. Would I love to have a camera that could recover 5+ stops in RAW, had more than one cross-type focus point, had useful ISO settings above 1600, and could actually track moving subjects more reliably? Yes, I would. But, at the same time, I have an unjustifiable aversion to the idea - it almost seems like cheating! ;>D
DeleteHmmm. In 1973 I did not yet own a calculator. That was two years out of college. But my roommate owned a Texas Instruments he'd paid big bucks for. Likely the model Gary mentioned, with the little red square numbers in the viewing screen.
ReplyDeletePeter, back then the displays were red LEDs instead of today's LCDs. Somewhere in a box in our home is my old slide rule. I don't suspect I'll ever have a reason to look for it. I hope not, anyway.
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