FRAME

By cropping the picture vertically, horizontally and square format, i an attempting to see which one best captures the essence of the picture. The vertical crop emphasizes the the wall while the horizontal crop depicts that setting of the picture. The square crop takes into account only the dimensions of the frame.  Most subjects tend to be ill  suited to square arrangements.



Square crop



Horizontal Crop



Vertical crop



Fig 4: Shutter speed 1/4s,Aperture F11, Focal length 110mm, Auto.

 This fianl image was at 110mm. The wall is shown clearly without the curtains and the archway. Its obvious the the picture is resting on a wall.


Fig 3:  Shutter speed 1/4s, Aperture F11, Focal length 195mm, Auto mode

  For this shot I zoomed in to 195mm using the same shutter speed and aperture and closed in on the subject. There isnt any sign of the immdeiate surroundings in this picture. To a person seeing it for the first time, he/she will know that its a painting but does not know the environment surrounding it.  The eye is fixed on the big tree and thereafter its sorrounding, not moving randomly across the picture. For this painting , emphasis is placed on the tree and how it relates to the adjoining areas.

Did some more reading 25/09/2011 going through frame shapes in Micheal Freemans The photographers eye. Getting to undertsand the 3:2 frame . Horizontal frames tend to be natural . It influences the composition of an image but not in an insistent outstanding way.
For naturally vertical subjects , the elongation of a 2:3 frame is an advantage. (P12)

To the painter, placing the tree in the center was more appropriate rather than using the rule of thirds. Sometimes it works out well if you need to accentuate the view with nearby features;example in this case the road path and the stream.

Fig 2: Shutter speed 1/4s Aperture F11, Focal length 122mm, auto mode

For the Fig 2, i zoomed in a little bit to 122mm and took the picture bwith other settings being the same. Though the sides of the painting is n ot properly aligned with the frame, it still gives a more pristine look than Fig 1. Having gone through the first few pages of Michael freemans book "The Photographers eye, composition and design for better pictures, i can say a better job can be done with the framing in Fig 2.  He talks about the horizontal frame format 3:2 being the most used in photography.

Fig 1: Shutter speed 1/4s Aperture F11, Focal length 70mm, auto mode


For this picture, i used auto mode with flash due to the poor light in my living room. I seldom shoot in auto mode because i don,t think it  will help my creativity. But i had to in this case. The 5 day training i attended at the London school of photography in april 2011 emphasised the need to always shoot in manual mode if you want to improve your photography. I have stuck to that advice. Anyway, as can be seen, part of my curtain and archway are captured in the frame which tends to draw part of the attention away from the painting on the wall.

PANNING



PANNING , Shutter speed 1/60s



PANNING , Shutter speed 1/10s

PANNING , Shutter speed 1/30s

SHUTTER SPEED



Fig 1: Shutter speed 1/6000, Aperture f4.8, focal length 70mm, ISO 1600

For this image in Fig1 i used shutter priority mode and set the shutter speed to 1/6000 which has frozen action.




Fig 2: Shutter speed 1/1000, Aperture f 16, focal length 70mm, ISO 1600

I stood from the balcony of my 2nd floor apartment to take these pictures of commercial motorcycle riders passing by. Though their speeds were not uniform, i tried to conjure in my mind what i think may be average speeds as they sped by. The image 2 above appears to be the slowest shutter speed at which movement is sharply frozen. At 1/500 seconds and slower, movement starts  to get blurry.

Fig 3: Shutter speed 1/500s, Aperture f16, 70mm,ISO 1600

At 1/500s i start to see a litte blurring of the picture.

Fig 4: Shutter speed 1/250, Aperture F27, 70mm, ISO 1600



Fig 5: Shutter speed 1/125s, Aperture F32,70mm , ISO 1600



Fig 6: Shutter speed 1/45, Aperture F32, 70mm, ISO 1600

Fast shutter speeds ( 1/250, 1/500,1/1000)s are the creative force behind exposures that freeze action while slower shutter speeds (1/60,1/30,1/15)s are the creative force behind panning. Superslow speeds (1/4, 1/2)s are the creative force behind exposures that imply motion.


APERTURE

Fig 1

                                       

This exercise i focused on the camera set at different apertures to demonstrate depth of field. By standing right in front of a set of christmas trees arranged in a row in front of my house, i demonstrated depth of field. The picture in Fig 1 above was taken with this exif data: shutter speed 1/250s, aperture f 4.8, ISO 800 ,Focal length 75mm. This was the widest aperture obtained with shutter speed of 1/250 secs.As can be seen the fore ground is very sharp and the background is blurred.






Fig 2

Fig 2 shows the same picture taken at an aperture of f32 with depth of field being very sharp. Observe that the dark red shop is visible in this picture as compared to fig 1 where it is blurred due to the shallow depth of field.

Fig 3

The picture in Fig 3 was taken with the aperture stopped down to f13 and exposure time or shutter speed of 1/30s.   This has rendered the fore ground sharp and mid and background slightly out of focus but not as much as in figure 1.

Bryan Peterson in his book understanding exposures says the three components of exposure ;ISO,shutter speed and aperture can be broken down to get seven different types of exposure and its either the aperture or shutter speed most often behind the success of a creative exposure. Small apertures (f16,f22,f32) he calls storytelling exposures that show great depth of field while larger apertures (f2.8 f/4 f5.6) are the creative forces behind singular theme or isolation exposures. The middle of the ground apertures f/8 and f/11 are apertures in which depth of field is of no concern.

This i tried to visualise myself. If i close my eyes slightly, i observe that the object closer to me is sharper than that further away from me. Thats aperture!

FOCUS

The focus was on the satellite LNB. This has rendered the backgroud blurred or out of focus. Focal length is 105mm and shutter speed 1/3000s. aperture:F5.6, ISO 560. The fast shutter speed and 560 ISO have underexposed the image.







For this picture, I locked the focus on the building in the background and took the picture. This has thrown the LNB out of focus and given a sharp background. Camera settings:ISO 560, 80mm, S/SPEED:1/250s,Aperture:4.9

This exercise is about focusing with a set aperture. I shot in manual and had the lowest possible aperture with my selected shutter speed. I locked the focus on my satellite LNB and took a picture. The LNB as can be seen appears sharp while my background is thrown out of focus.ISO 560, 80mm, S/SPEED:1/250s,Aperture:4.9





105mm

By adjusting the zoom to its furthest telephoto setting the bookshelf now appears larger than it does unaided. focal length is 105mm.

18mm

This is the view at 18mm wide angle. Taken at the same position where i took the first picture.The size of the shelf seen through the viewfinder now appears smaller than it does to my unaided eye.

50mm Standard

I use a nikon D7000 camera with 18-105mm lense. The first exercise was about understanding camera focal lengths.I pointed the camera at my book shelf and kept both eyes open- with one eye looking through the viewfinder and the other looking directly at the scene. I adjusted zoom until i got same image sizes through my view finder and directly looking at the scene. The focal length i read off was about 50mm