We had sunshine this weekend, and wow, I felt so ALIVE!! It’s amazing how much a little sun can do for you!
Pascaline also had her first tap dance recital. It was so sweet! Tap is the first dance class she’s expressed interest in and since I used to dream of dancing with Fred Astaire I was all for it!
For the last seven weeks, she’s been tap-tap-tapping away, all through the house. And even though there are times when I feel like I’m going to lose my mind with all her sweet little tapings, wow, I was so proud of her this weekend! She was so brave with all those people watching!
I volunteered to help backstage with her class thinking ‘ooohh! I’m going to get such great shots of all the “behind the scenes” stuff–this is the perfect photo opportunity!” Yeah right! It was me and 16 seven year olds to look after, and I swear they all were on speed! These girls were so wired about performing–running around like crazy, crawling in between my legs, stealing my shoes and playing hot potato with them…let’s just say I never even looked at my camera bag until it was over and we were standing in the parking lot. π
These are the things memories are made of…:)
I also wanted to revisit aperture.
When we were at the Sonoma workshop one of the women asked if I could take a photo with a high f-stop and then the same photo with a low f-stop so she could visually see the difference aperture can make.
But before I say any thing else, let’s gather our bearings. When you hear aperture, f-stops and depth of field being talked about, it’s pretty much all the same thing. As we teach in the DVD series, the question all three of those things are asking is essentially “how blurry do you want your background?”
The lower you go in your f-stops (3.5 down to 2.8 down to 2.0 down to 1.6, etc) is the lower depth of field (lots of stuff out of focus behind and in front of your subject). Your making a decision about your aperture. The degree in blur you choose can become incredibly creative. In fact, during my first two years of shooting I was always on Aperture Priority (A or AV for Canon) mode. This mode means you get to decide how much blur you want and the camera will decide how fast your shutter speed should open and close.
So back to the Sonoma request. Taking the same picture with different apertures to drive home the point was a fantastic idea. If you already have Beyond the Green Box revisit the chapter on Aperture and try the exercise out.
A couple days ago Blaze asked me to do a photo shoot of his Lego’s. The perfect opportunity! He was very serious about the whole thing.
This first shot of Lego Men on Horses was taken at a 6.3 f-stop. Or some would say my aperture was a 6.3.
The next shot is almost the same shot but at a lower f-stop of 3.5. Or you could word it by saying, I shot this with an aperture at 3.5. (People express what their aperture was in different terms, but it all means the same thing. Does that make sense?)
See the difference below in how much more blur I gained? You know Blaze is right there, but you can’t see any detail in his face. Totally blurred.
(the rest of the recipe for both shots: ISO 400 because I was indoors and didn’t have enough light to go any lower. Shutter Speed was 1/60 or 60th of a second. Normally this would be pretty slow and could risk motion blur from hand holding at a 60th of a second. But Sony’s got this great feature in their new DSLRs that has an Image Stabilizer inside the camera body so I can get as low as 1/30 or 30th of a second and still have a clear, sharp image. Pretty crazy, huh.)
If you’re wanting to go Beyond the Green Box, get out of auto mode and try some new settings, start with Aperture Priority mode. (Aperture Priority mode is usually right under the green box that says Auto. You should see little P, A, S, M icons. You want the A or AV mode.) And FYI, if you shoot photos with your camera on the Portrait setting (where it often has an icon of a woman’s head next to the mountain icon for landscapes), essentially this setting is Aperture Priority mode because it’s giving you a lower aperture so you get lots of blur behind your person.
I hope this is helpful. Check out the instructional DVDs we produced if you want to learn more! I especially like the Nutty Prof. Townsend’s explanation of aperture! π
And here’s two more fun shots for Blaze and your little ones who peak over your shoulder.
“Storm Trooper Escapes”
(recipe: ISO 100 (see below for reason on this), Aperture was 4.5 (my aperture is not so low on this shot and see how you can see more detail on the Lego plane in front and behind in comparison to the image below?) and Shutter Speed was 1/60th.
“Crazy, Flying Lego Man”
(recipe: ISO 100 (sun came out for a minute and gave us more light in the room), Aperture was super low 1.4 (notice how the Lego’s are blurred in front of the Lego Man and every thing behind the Lego Man is blurred), and Shutter Speed was 1/320 or 320th of a second.
In this blog, you mentioned that when you first started out, you shot in entirely aperture priority mode. Just curious, what is your technique now? Do you go totally manual? I’m just beginning and always have mine set in aperture priority as well, so I’m just curious how other photographers change over time and what I should be aiming for as far as pushing myself to even get out of ap-priority.
Thank you for another great explanation on how to use our cameras. I just started a photo club in my hometown. There’s only 6 of us, but it’s a good start. I am always looking for good examples on how to use our camera. I do believe I will refer to your blog at our next meeting and show them what you can teach us. Thanx again!
Thanks for this informative post. I have a few friends who have just recently or are about to buy a DSLR. I have been talking ALOT about aperture to them and how great it is to get a lens that can go to a low aperture. It makes such a difference in photographs, especially when trying to get the “details” of childhood. A 50mm lens is a great $100 investment to learn, practice and shoot with.
I’ve always loved the way you explain aperture! The way you say it makes so much more sense than the descriptions in books and online!
Nicole – by all means I’m still a Newbie but I only shot in AV for the first few months and then switched to manual. It took a lot of pratice and a fabulous workshop to really get a good understanding of it. But even without the workshop if you practice practice practice you will be pleasantly surprised not only of how better your images will look but also the sense of accomplishment that comes with capturing a great picture that you produced yourself! Manual is the way to go π
What’s a good zoom lens to start off with? No more then 300. I have the 50mm 1.8, love it. Is it best to stick with Canon with a Canon camera or are the some good lens to look at that are Sigma or Tamron? Would love some ideas.
no more than 300 dollars…was that should have said…not to be confused with 300mm. π
Blaze and his Legos are so cute! And Pasc in her dancing outfit – I love it.
I live in AV mode; my husband uses all sorts of different things, but I think he prefers the TV mode (but I think that’s because he “understands” it). I want to shoot more in manual but we just got a new lens and it rotates in the opposite direction of our first one – it’s very disconcerting and until I remember which way it goes, I always miss good shots because I spin, say, “CRAP!” and then spin it back in the direction I wanted to go in the first place. π
Me Ra, I was wondering you have any thoughts or tips on using a film 35mm SLR? My dad gave me all his old professional camera gear and I really want to try it out. The only film cameras I have experience with are the Advantix or the disposable kind. π I’ve got a Minolta XG7 with 3 different lenses, a flash, and all sorts of filters. I guess I’m really overwhelmed by all the equipment and kind of scared to use it since it’s not like my digital where I can take 100 pictures and it doesn’t matter. I dedicated right off the bat to 27 exposures and I won’t see them until after it’s all developed. I think the film would be a really cool hobby but it’s daunting!
PS: Thanks so much for the kind comments about my baby portraits. Your words totally made my day. I can’t wait for the forum so we can all share our work regularly. π π π
Funny you should mention about f-stops and aperture! I was just talking to a friend about “blurry background pictures” and we were totally saying the same thing but, I was using different terms and really confusing her! Poor thing! She exclaimed, “I have to learn f-stops and Apertures!” I quickly told her they were the same thing! I just learned in different terms!
A man much have made up all this stuff!
I too love how you explain aperature. Before, I never thought much about the “blur” advantage that a low aperature gives. When I used to think of f-stop, I’d think about the fact that low aperatures let more light in than high aperatures. That’s the other important (and sometimes confusing!) Of course there are other ways of increasing light (slow down the shutter speed, turn up the ISO), but when I have those maxed out and still need more light, my function-of-choice to adjust next is lowering the f-stop. This means I have to keep in mind that my depth of field will be narrower, so I have to make sure that’s not going to blur parts of what I want in focus. The increased light is another good reason to purchase “fast” (low f-stop) lenses. (I shot in auto mode for the first years of my business, and have been fully manual for about 2.) Thanks soo much for the time you take to revisit these principles! They make more and more sense, the more we hear them!
I have so much to learn!!! I love posts like these!!
(and my son loves posts like this as well!!)
I appreciate that you can define aperture and f-stop in regular terms that anyone can understand! I took a few photography classes and aperture and shutter speed never made sense. “Beyond the Green Box” helped me make sense out of all the camera-ese! π
YOU ROCK!!!!