Photography

[Army 1911]

This is the photo my avatar is based on. It was used for a calendar cover. It was lit by flash from the upper right and a white reflector card opposite that to soften the shadows slightly.

This is a common lighting scheme for product photography. Could have used a bit more fill light.

 

[Byrd666]

Tag

 

[Glenn B]

 

[Glenn B]

 

[Glenn B]

 

[Glenn B]

 

[Glenn B]

The Rolling Stones sang a song that fit her perfectly:

 

[Glenn B]

If I posted them elsewhere on this forum, sorry about the dupes but they're about all the nice ones I have. Lost hundreds & hundreds when my PC crashed several ears ago.

 

[benenglish]

I don't know PS that well yet.

When you get to know it well enough to answer this question, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

For contact printing large format platinum prints, would you prefer a computer-generated negative or a perfectly exposed 11x14 sheet of FP4?

 

[Army 1911]

When you get to know it well enough to answer this question, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

For contact printing large format platinum prints, would you prefer a computer-generated negative or a perfectly exposed 11x14 sheet of FP4?

Film

 

[kbaxter60]

 

[TipBledsoe]

Our view this week in Cancun

 

[benenglish]

Film

Me, too. I've done some investigating and the pros for using digital files to produce suitable negatives are huge. You get all the corrections you want, after the fact.

OTOH, I don't have the 10K hours it would take to learn all that stuff well enough to produce better negatives than come out of the back of an old-fashioned film camera. I already know how to develop and print that stuff.

 

[General Zod]

A couple more from Scotland. Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, and a nice view of the mountains in Glencoe. Look closely at Glencoe - there's a tiny little covered road bridge for a sense of scale.

 

[Army 1911]

Exposure

There are four elements of proper exposure. They are Shutter Speed, Aperture, ISO (sensor or film sensitivity to light), & Light. The idea is to get the proper exposure for the your idea of the photograph. You may want it dark and moody or light and up-lifting.

Shutter speed is simply the amount of time the shutter is open and exposing the sensor to light.

Aperture is the size of the hole in the lens. A bigger hole, more light passes through to the sensor.

Aperture is measured in F-stops. The lower the F-stop number., the larger yer aperture. The larger the F-stop number, thee smaller the aperture. This is because F stops are the ratio of the lens focal length to the actual size of the aperture. For example a 50mm lens at F2.0 has a physical aperture of 25mm. A 100mm lens at F8.0 has a physical aperture of 12.5mm. At F2.0 it is 50mm on that 100mm lens. This makes exposure meters predictable. Regardless of the focal length of lens, f2.0 etc. will always meter the same.

Think of Shutter speed and aperture as a kitchen faucet. If you need 1 gallon of water and you turn the tap on full, it will only take a few seconds to get a gallon of water. But if you turn the tap down to a trickle, it will take a lot longer to get that same gallon of water. So if you adjust one, the other must adjust also. In this example the gallon equals proper exposure.

So F-stop and shutter speed are used much like a see-saw to balance the exposure.
ISO is the sensitivity of the film or sensor to light. The higher the number, the less light it requires. And of course that leaves the light itself. The more light, the faster the shutter speed or smaller the f-stop.

If you change the light, move it closer to the subject or a cloud crosses the sun, the light amount of light will be different and require at a change to one or more elements to maintain proper exposure.

Those are the four elements of exposure. But exposure meters only have three settings. True, because the meter can’t change the amount of light.

 

[Army 1911]

Exposure Meters

Exposure meters in the camera measure the reflected light from the scene as it passes through the lens. The meter doesn’t know whether you are shooting a black cat in a coal bin or a snowman in a blizzard. The meter presumes that everything is middle gray and suggests shutter speed/f-stop combinations on that. I like to think of Middle grey as the melting of 1 sq. Inch of every color known to man (3.1 billion) blended in a pot like paint and what you get is middle grey.

Cameras often have multiple selections for how the meter sees things, averaged metering, matrix, center weighted and spot are common versions, Whichever one you use, knowing what a meter “sees” in value lets you make adjustments when you think the meter is wrong.

Many cameras have scene settings/mode where the meter will act a little different Sports mode will try to give you a faster shutter speed to freeze movement. Landscape will try to give you more depth of focus by a smaller f-stop. Portrait will give you a shallower depth of field to soften the look. Other modes may include Macro (close-up), Night Scene, Night Portrait, Children and more. Each changes how the camera interprets the meter. You can test these settings by setting up a still life, metering it in each mode and write down the differences to determine tendencies. Start with no scene mode selected to have a base for comparison.

Cameras have P, A, S, M, Settings. P is program mode and the camera will chose everything. A is for aperture preferred where you set the f-stop and the camera sets the shutter speed. M is for manual where you set everything. I generally use either manual or aperture preferred because aperture is often what I value more. It also acts as semi-manual when shutter speed is more important. One control will change both and it becomes intuitive after a while.

Many cameras will let you make a global adjustment to your exposure by telling the camera to adjust in 1/3 or more f-stops. This steering is in the menu settings for the camera. My preferences is to under-expose by 2/3 of an f-stop an my Nikons. Your preference will probably be different.

There is another type of meter called an incident meter. This type is hand-held separate from the camera. It measures the actual light falling on the subject and it doesn’t matter the color or reflectivity of the subject. You point it at the camera or have it in the same light as the subject to take a reading. Make sure your shadow doesn’t fall on the meter.

If you have any questions or comments please PM me.

 

[Army 1911]

@Ben English
You're old enough to appreciate this. My first light meter was a Norwood Director which later became the Sekonic Studio Deluxe. I bought it used in 1963 when I bought my first Nikon, a plain prism Nikon F. Sekonic still makes this meter which dates from at least the 1940s. I still have the 63 Nikon F.

The first camera I bought with a built in meter was a Nikkormat in 1972ish. I didn't use its meter much if at all. Next was a Nikon FE where I learned to love aperture priority. Still have that. I lost the Norwood sometime after I started using multiple studio flashes and bought a Minolta Auto Meter IIf.

Interestingly enough, the Norwood Director and the Sekonic version were the only meters recommended by the Hollywood Cine-photographers' Guild until the Minolta Auto Spotmeter came out.

 

[benenglish]

@Ben English
You're old enough to appreciate this. My first light meter was a Norwood Director which later became the Sekonic Studio Deluxe. I bought it used in 1963 when I bought my first Nikon, a plain prism Nikon F. Sekonic still makes this meter which dates from at least the 1940s. I still have the 63 Nikon F.

The first camera I bought with a built in meter was a Nikkormat in 1972ish. I didn't use its meter much if at all. Next was a Nikon FE where I learned to love aperture priority. Still have that. I lost the Norwood sometime after I started using multiple studio flashes and bought a Minolta Auto Meter IIf.

Interestingly enough, the Norwood Director and the Sekonic version were the only meters recommended by the Hollywood Cine-photographers' Guild until the Minolta Auto Spotmeter came out.

I still have my F. It was originally an Ftn but when the meter crapped out I decided that fixing it was too much money for too little return so I put a plain prism on it. I've also got the waist-level (well, in practice, "look-down") finder. I find the plain prism gives me the best view of any mobile camera I've ever owned but I really liked that folding finder for some applications.

Smart of you to get a Nikkormat. I got suckered into a Nikkorex. Lordy, those things were garbage. The work I was doing at the time then took me to medium format and I spent years with Rapid Omega and Yashica 124g cameras.

As for meters, I've enjoyed a bunch. I've got a couple of (I think) still working selenium meters for after the apocalypse. My favorite for many years was a simple Soligor spot meter, about the cheapest spot meter that worked well. Those Zone markings on the top came in handy often. It got destroyed on a photoshoot in Abilene about 20 years ago and I've basically relied on internal meters since then.

The Minolta Auto Spotmeter was what I always lusted for. And their color temp meter. But those were, respectively, expensive and uber-expensive; I just couldn't afford them.

Nowadays, if I wanted to shoot 35mm film again it would be a tough call for me. I love my F but the shutter speeds on the low end are a little off these days. I think I can feel some curtain bounce. As much as I'd want to use it, it should probably stay retired. I guess I'd pick up my F5. Of all the cameras I've ever owned, that one is at the very top in the "Every time I pick this up, I'm glad I spent the money" department. Today, it's worth a tenth of what I spent for it (if that) but it doesn't matter. It served me well for a long, long time.

Now, how many APS SLRs did you wind up with? I bought both of 'em from Nikon and if you really want to get into the weirdness of the way I view the world, I could write a whole essay on why the Pronea S was fantastic, especially when you add the extra battery pack on the bottom. Mine is sitting on my desk right now...

I could talk about this stuff forever. That's a good indicator it's time for me to stop.

 

[Army 1911]

Ben, APS came out a coupe years after my wife's car wreck and I got out of photography because she couldn't do it anymore. We were a team. I did play with the Olympus Pen F half frame system for a couple years. Great system and very small. Not conducive to my pro work so I got out of it. I tried to get back into it in 2014 or 12 or so.

The nice thing about going back with Nikon is all of my old Nikkor primes will still work with my new digital Nikons. Many people didn't know of the Nikkor sweet lenses. The 24, 50 F2. 105 F2,5 and 200 F4 lenses all had matched color response and contrast. All the Nikon F cameras were pin registered from the factory. The F2 was not But Nikon would do it for a small exorbitant fee.

 

[zackmars]

I dabble.