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 Posted 11/9/2007 6:55:05 PM |
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This is a follow-up to a couple of other camera "articles." More exercises, really. Anyway, you can find them here:
If you read through the other two exercises, you know that I'm on a quest to take better macro photos of my aquarium inhabitants. The photos I used to take using the auto settings on my camera were fine, I just wanted to do better.
First of all, I decided that I really needed an expanded depth-of-field (the area that's in-focus in the image). Macro photos have horrible depth-of-field (measured in millimeters on the subject of your photo). When I figured out how to get a good depth-of-field by adjusting the f-stop in "Aperture Priority" mode on my camera, I then realized that to get good depth-of-field the exposure times were so long that it would be impossible to get a good sharp photo of something flowing in the water.
So, I then tried to mitigate the long exposure times by changing the ISO settings. It certainly helped, but I found the graininess of the photos to also be unacceptable for me. After all, I really wanted the very sharp focus that I seen in some tank shots.
What to do? Well, in some of my internet searches, I came across some insect macrophotographers who were getting incredible close-up shots with really high apertures (f-stop, for depth of field) values AND really short exposures (to freeze the subject's movement) AND really low ISO values (for really sharp photos). some of them were getting very sharp photos with unbelievable amounts of enlargement (up to 5:1 ratios) AND handholding their cameras! Obviously, they were outside and had a ton more light to work with, but as your macro ratios get past 1:1 the light reaching the sensor drops enormously. Surely I ought to be able to do what I want to with the light available at a "measly" 1:1 ratio.
The gentleman online taking the 5:1 photos uses a very similar camera setup to mine, except for the lens. Same camera, same flash. I looked at the numbers for his photos and read his instruction on taking insect shots. Basically, when you switch the camera to full manual, you aren't really on "full" manual at all. There's still one element that the camera controls: metering the shot and setting the power of the flash. (You can also control this area, too, but that's for another day ... maybe.)
I had also read in one of the Canon owner's manuals regarding E-TTL (the automatic through-the-lens metering system) that the camera tries to setup the shots so that the flash is used as "fill." That is, the camera is programed to use the available light from other sources and then use the flash to correct areas that are still too dark.
Thinking about this one night, I asked myself, "What were the goals of the camera programmers here? Why would they make the flash just provide fill light?" My theory is that firing a flash is energy expensive. So, the camera programmers might have been trying to get away with using as little flash as possible for each shot in order to make the batteries last as long as possible. Well, that's good and all, but I want to take aquarium shots in my home. I have batteries. I have wall outlets. I don't need the camera to be miserly wit the power. In fact, the more power it gives the photos, the higher my f-stops can be and the shorter my exposure times. All with fine detail.
Woohoo! Now, how to make the camera really fire that flash?
The secret is to go full manual. That's right--you have to set the f-stop, the ISO, AND the exposure.
Sounds scary, right? But, in practice I think it's going to be easy. Set the f-stop high (f-16), set the ISO low (100), set the exposure really fast (1/250 sec.) and see what the camera does with the flash.
I haven't had time yet to really take a photo shoot with a bunch of exercises. But, I did find a really cool spider hanging out on the wall of my bathroom tonight so I thought I'd give it a try. The spider was not really moving, so that let me get all setup, but it was about 5 feet off the ground and I had to stand in the bathtub to get this photo so there wasn't really a way to set up a tripod (even if mine wasn't on the way back to the manufacturer for repairs). So, a perfect practice subject and a handheld shot.
IMG_8585.cr2
Shutter speed: 1/250 sec
Aperture: f/16.0
ISO: 100
And a detail shot:
Now that's what I'm talking about! The eyes aren't quite in focus, but I'm pretty happy for the first time shooting a camera in manual.
I'll try to do some exercise shots soon and add them to this thread.
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Andy
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| Posted 11/9/2007 6:58:32 PM |
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| Posted 11/9/2007 10:02:33 PM |
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you are a very thorough teacher/mentor/poster my friend. I sincerelyt thank you for your fellowship. Please know (if you dont already) that any threads with fdew replies are still tremendously useful (replies have nothing to do witht he quality of the thread). Most folks just read... and the standing value in the archives is great. Great job, mate.
.Anthony Calfo
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| Posted 11/9/2007 10:43:21 PM |
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Thank you, Anthony. It's easy to try to help a little when standing on the shoulders of giants.
Besides, the best way to make sure that you've learned something is to try to teach it to someone else. Thanks for giving me the room to do it. I've sure benefited.
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Andy
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| Posted 11/10/2007 5:24:55 AM |
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| Ah, this is brilliant. I had no idea that this happened, and spent a good deal of time yesterday messing around with my flash and eventually shooting without it. I have been really trying to learn by only using manual settings and forcing myself to adjust so I learn, but man it gets frustrating sometimes . Thanks for the heads up.
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| Posted 11/10/2007 8:33:19 AM |
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The more I played with it, especially on aperture priority mode, the more I realized that the camera was making decisions that really didn't work for what I wanted it to do. I like the idea of really constraining the camera and forcing it to make the decision that I want it to. It might be better to try to go with manual flash, but I somehow doubt that I'll be running around with a light meter anytime soon. Then again, I always doubted that I'd ever set the camera on "M," too. 
Good luck!
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Andy
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| Posted 11/10/2007 2:04:28 PM |
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People have been after me to show some tank photos. I have 3 or so corals left after my tank meltdown when we moved, but I took a photo of one of them today. It's an action shot. I had just put some Arctipods in the tank and that's what you see in the upper left.
Shutter speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/16.0
ISO: 100
This one's just for fun:
Shutter speed: 1/250 sec
F-Stop: f/16.0
ISO: 100
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Andy
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| Posted 12/3/2007 3:39:23 PM |
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Andy,
This is a great series of exercises! Thanks for sharing them.
Carmie
Only disasters happen fast!
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| Posted 12/3/2007 4:31:18 PM |
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Thanks, Carmie! I really need to update this one since I never actually did any exercises here.
One thing I have learned since my last post here is regarding the trick of forcing the flashes to give you enough light to allow you to take really fast exposures with really small apertures (f16 or f32). Your results _really_ become dependent on making sure that the flashes are pointing exactly at your subject. That seems obvious, but I've just gotten a new macro lens where the distance to the subject changes quite a bit depending on what magnification you are using and I can really get a lot of garbage if I don't pay a lot of attention to where the flashes point when I change the magnification.
There are also times when 1/250th of a sec. exposure is pushing it pretty badly. It sometimes works better at 1/125th of a sec.
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Andy
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| Posted 12/5/2007 10:28:21 PM |
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I've finally gotten a chance to practice with some aquarium photos. The guys at my LFS were nice enough to let me drop by and take some pictures despite the fact that they were fairly busy. If you'd like to see the results, I've put up a webpage here:
http://65.102.221.68/AquaImports/Aqua_Imports_Web.html
I took my tripod to the shoot, but I never used it because they were pretty busy. So, every one of those shots was handheld. I would never have had the guts to try that back before trying all of these exercises. Your mileage may vary, but I'd say it's well worth taking the time to get to know what you can do with your camera rather than letting it tell you what to do.
Good luck!
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Andy
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