Lessons

Lesson Info

Camera Controls: Aperture

Cannon used to make a one point zero lens I think was a two hundred millimeter but right about now I think the closest aperture you can get to one point zero is one point two um I don't know if some of the like his icer any of those guys make lower than one point two but I know cannon is one point to the bottom, so here's fifty millimeters at one point four ok what's the key to success this photograph based on what I taught you guys yesterday. Thank you. So at one point four where did I focus? I focus right on that eyeball right ends notice how in that narrow the depth of field her nose is already blurry. Okay, key here though, using natural light. No, phil flash nothing like that. One point for gave me this shot right wide open, lots of light coming in shot when my daughter was, like three years old. I think so. That was five d maybe mark to range so again, trying keep eye so as low as possible in those days still trying to do it but needed wide open to get the light. Ok, okay, just s...

hot in thailand remember? Some started put green back in my images, so I pretty sure shot a thirty two hundred I saw thirty, two hundred but then fifteen millimeter a two point eight so this is my fifteen millimeter fish eye lens at two point eight notice how it doesn't look like kind of a serious fisheye effect right because I know when I'm using that lends the closer straight things like this get to the edge of that lens the more curvature you get to him the more fish I e they look so if I can keep kind of vertical elements tighter into my frame but still utilize that fish I fifteen millimeter to get an all encompassing view then I've got a shop right uh positioning of the people in the tough talk with me I had to make her turn a little bit because her face was kind of distorted because of the fish eye so I'm paying attention of those things I shot like forty or fifty different tries to get the color going right what we're passing on the road correct in excuse me the body position of everybody in the car perfect in the tough talk so you know I made sure that andrew here was talking to her and you can see little miscellaneous things like there's the camera bag there's nowhere for me to put it how can I minimize it? Well I can kind of put my leg over it to some extent so I'm like bending my knee and over making it less about me but making it more about that so those little things that I pay attention to now sixteen millimeter two point eight it's kind of cool using just available light okay no flash I think that really kind of illustrates kind of a cool night time deal again took that this was taken sixty millimeters taken with sixteen thirty five version to two point eight lens uh made sure that my exposure was light enough to get a little bit of character on his face I didn't need to lighten the shot to the point where I start seeing detail of his leg shorts etcetera it was all about that moment of releasing the lantern to the air you know making that wish uh the other thing let's talk about the history ram on the camera I try and expose my original raws to the right side of my history ram not over exposing them on the right side but keeping them to a lighter side unless I'm silhouette ing a shot then I don't care about that where that history am is and the reason for this is that I've discovered with my cameras is if I over expose a little bit and it's too bright when I bring that raw and I can easily darken it and what happens I don't get a noise whereas if I under expose something like this and need to lighten it by one stop even I start getting a lot of noise pushed into the photograph so the file just cannot handle it, so I would rather over expose this scenario by a little bit, but not spiking the right side of my history. Uh, rather than making it too dark and needing to lighten it after so I shoot lighter than they need to and darken it later cool thing I discovered with canon cameras doing that is that the saturation comes right into the image automatically, so I don't add a lot of extraneous saturation. Yes, you're trying to get your your history graham over to the right now, are you actually putting that where you can look at the history and on the illegal you taking a shot first and then looking into his to graham and adjusting their well typically take a shot first, okay? And then just looking to his two gram it's okay, we'll go up my half stop there to stop something like that. Yeah, ok, yeah, yeah, and I just watch it. What I've noticed, too is a little bit of spike on my cannon on the history. Graham a little bit of spike is ok, so as long as they don't have a full lane spike or spike that's kind of midway three quarters, I'm still ok, all right, that makes sense two hundred millimeter it's too late see this kind of fuzziness in front of me that's the snow bank in front of me so I'm kind of sitting on top of the ridge where this persons dropping into the side where the saddle kind of comes together in the snow I'm focusing just truly on them here this four grounds because we're in a very bright white scenario when you make it black and white it just kind of becomes this fuzzy white thing that doesn't kind of attract your eye right you're I immediately goes to that person makes sense now to shoot it like this have two point eight right I didn't need to shoot it a two point eight right we're in bright sunlight here you can see that right so this is a creative choice for me I chose to get low and put that piece of snow that I'm standing on in front of my friend okay it's not to say it's the right way it was just the way I chose to composed this shot ok and the reason I did that very two hundred millimeters and this foreground there was some stuff in the foreground like you know pieces of wood and rocks and stuff kind of showing through that became kind of distractions for me and I really just wanted to make it about the skier and the snow kind of billowing in the air and you can see I did a couple other ones too two hundred eighty millimeters at f four so we took seventy two two hundred the lens we talked about the version two lens two point eight added a one point for converter to it that gives me the f four aperture right we'd lose a stop a light when we had a converter so it takes me down to f four when put the two exxon we lose two stops a light so we would go down to five point six at that point but it gives me two hundred eighty millimeters of a hug telephoto range so by compressing that scene I'm really just focusing on one area okay so use the shot kind of as an example I really wish that that were the one in focus versus this one but at the same point I need to kind of explain it and they think this really explains it to make sense ok fifteen millimeter at five point six so fish eye at five point six looking sharp that frame is that's a key need a lot more depth of field to get to infinity with a telephoto then you need to get to infinity with a wide england's does that make sense so in a low light scenario if you're shot absolutely needs a seventy to two hundred you might be you might not be able to get enough depth of field in that shot so it's a creative control choice right here five point six fisheye staying on top of the berm everything from all this stuff to the background is in proper focus yes, I focused directly on him okay in this scenario yeah uh when you shouldn't kind of landscape stuff everybody says about a third of the way in the frame and I think that gets confusing if you were to think about this as a third of the way into the frame a would you be focusing like right in here? Ok, that makes sense so that kind of distance because you got that distance this background here and then infinity out and would that have worked yeah, that wouldn't want to go but whenever I have a person athlete again you know eyes right we're going for eyes were going for person let the rest I let the rest fall unless I truly want that f twenty two kind of sunrise sunset shot with my athlete then I do the third scenario I know about f twenty two I've got the filter in place et cetera that are all it's kind of going together it's five point six two f eleven now who knows about the fraction who talks about the fraction and hear anybody saying we know what diffraction is because utilize that ok so diffraction is essentially when the light enters your lens okay bounces around and it hits the sensor and there's this thing called the fraction which actually if you stop down the like f twenty two have sixteen of thirty two and specific lenses, the image starts getting a little soft and that is called the fraction because the light is diffraction in and out of the lens omens making making its way to the sensor okay, so people talk now about this sweet spot of every lens you have, you know, whats that's what's the sharpest aperture uh, that your lens is going to be producing and typically it's the middle zone apertures f eight eleven of fourteen etcetera now here's the thing if you don't take every single lens and test it that you have, you won't know the actual sharp spot, right? Because the fraction not only varies the the different lenses, but it also varies within the same lens, but different manufacturing polls of that lands off so you could have three, seventy two to let me explain it this way three, seventy two, two hundred lenses and the sharpest sweet spot of each lens could be possibly different, so one could be a deaf athe other could be a f eleven the other could be at a fourteen that makes sense so it's within the actual specific model number two that direction is different, so I worry about it who thinks I worry about the fraction they don't okay, I'm not truly worried I think personally that I just I just sharpen the image a little bit more, you know, instead of like I said, I can't stack multiple single exposures to get focus from foreground to complete infinity perfect so this is kind of a journalistic approach how might you know where am I going to find what exposure what's going to work for that specific shot? Yes, you're twenty four one o five do you have a go to f stop limit? Right? Middle exposure are mineral middle aperture is going to be somewhere it could be a little less it could be a little bit more I don't know I haven't tested it but that's just kind of my kind of goats who was keep it in the middle of now what happens if you're shooting this crazy four grounds of backgrounds landscape f eleven's not gonna work for you, right? You need f twenty two if you're putting a huge subject right there in front in your four grounds and you want everything way out there in the backgrounds uh perfectly sharp, you can't do that eleven you got to do f twenty two so what's more important, getting the shot from four grounds of backgrounds in focus with diffraction or totally blowing it and not getting what you're trying to present to somebody you properly focused on right? So think of it that way so two point eight works yes, if you need more light but two point eight works if you want to really isolate something too that's the way I think about it middle apertures if there's not a lot of uh uh if I'm not really worried about making something perfectly sharp it's kind of a general seen well then middle apertures or I'm going to go to and then if I need that dramatic foreground to infinity I'm going to go larger apertures you're in bigger numbers. Okay, so five point six there's two hundred millimeters at five point six okay, so dumping snow out why did this is early digital for may shot a snow falling and uh wanted to stop the snow so couldn't rant my isil up as high as I can today picked is what I thought was going to be the best I so for the scenario opened up my aperture now by and by doing that what's not in focus really the snow okay, does it really matter that the snow's not in focus? No, but if I blew focus, where would I have blown it? I would have blown it right here on the tail because that's the thing coming in, my friend this photograph is about those crosshairs of the tail end of that helicopter right? The rest of it are I doesn't really care about those we like the red color, but notice the red color is not super super tax sharpen his sharp. But, you know, things are starting to fall away because I focused on that kind of tail light strobe of the back of the copter. Okay, but it allowed me to stop the flakes like that in the film days. I never was allowed to, you know? So this is cool. I'm doing different things here. Sixteen millimeters at faa. Remember I said, wider focal links, right? What happens? We get sharpness throughout fate now I'm not buried in these trees. If I were buried in these trees than aperture needs to go up to get the trees sharp, skiers sharp and then kind of get the background sharp makes sense here, the backgrounds falling off, probably in the zone. But we don't really notice it because the moisture content of the atmosphere is making it foggier blurrier so and that works to our advantage too. That makes sense. Shot out of an airplane over the gulf of alaska. Low tide. Seventy millimeters f eight why do I not need, like f sixteen f twenty two at seventy millimeters to get this all shrimp? Same, but no distance the subject very good, ok, the other cool thing about flying in an airplane when shooting aerials is if you're at a weird angle that you're not getting the depth of field you need just make the pilot go higher right? Because if our sensor plane starts becoming more parallel with our subject them where we don't need is much depth of field right? So when do we need the most up the field camera plane let's talk about this camera plane ninety degrees right? If we focus here we need a lot of depth of field to get everything tax sharp if our slope is angled and we're here and now we need less right? We've got less distance parallel we need the least ok really important fishing macro stuff okay thirty millimeters at f eleven again I'm not pushing those skis right into the frame, right? So thirty millimeters gives me kind of this overall perspective you mount baker again tax rip at eleven how do I know what aperture to use in a scenario like this? Do you think I guess you're shaking your head? Sometimes I think he just kind of comes out well, how much do you want in focus in and the image itself? If you want something that's causing focus, you know you're going there are you? If you want to kind of mid range a little bit out of focus and diego middle of essentially you're saying it's like an experience thing right it is to some extent at this point in my career if I don't know my craft well and I don't know everything, but if I don't know things like that, you know, I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing, but the other thing is I have a button on my camera called the depth of field preview button anybody use that it works really well, people freak out about that button because it darkens the frame will do you know why americans the frame it closes the dia frame of the lens, right? So it actually at is acting like the cameras shooting, so it takes less light away when you're looking through your view finder, normally that lens is wide open to give you the most light coming through the view finder, so you can see the most detail now people start using that button there like chain I can't see anything it's terrible, and I'm like, ok, well, like the scientific thing about eyes and moving from a light space to a dark space, it takes away your right twenty minutes to adjust right fully that's kind of the scientific thing that I've heard. But ok, so give yourself two minutes like don't sit there for twenty minutes looking through the thing, but if you gave yourself like two minutes, sir, I would adjust that darkness you know your your eye your iris would open up to see that darker frame and then that gives you kind of an opportunity to see what that apertures doing now here's another cool thing digital well, there's a little setting on your camera uh that allows you to it kind of shows you the depth of field when you turn up alive you on and I think on cannons it's on normally and you can turn it off and I'm not sure about night cons so it simulates the depth of field for you. So if you have trouble looking through your view finder and picking that depth of field you can turn your live you on and it'll show you what that where your focus point is in relation to let's and focus from from foreground to infinity it's another little trick you can use in case seventy millimeters at f eleven just the side of a truck in iceland and they have these crazy little characters on there. And so again, does it really matter if this is a little soft no it's about the focus of this. So when I do, I just picked kind of my sweet spot of my lens at eleven and took the shot okay four hundred millimeter f eleven it shows that eleven for this because I was up on a ridge line I saw these mountain by track through the dirt I didn't have anybody riding with me actually this was in moab there was just kind of this creek coming down in somebody rode their bikes to people rode their bikes through the mud and I like that kind of duality between the flow of the water and the flow of the ryder going down the hill okay so I'm on a ridgeline and took it and like I looked through the view finder hit my dad with feeling like f eleven's enough have four hundred millimeters okay this is a seventy two hundred with f four or seventy two two hundred at um seventeen to two hundred with the two excellent that's how I got four hundred it was easy to say okay so now maximum apertures f eleven two f thirty two fifteen millimeters eleven okay we've seen the shot you know it's it's kind of the marketing scheme of the whole two days so this was shot with that f four fish islands the eight to fifteen zoom and notice focus where my focusing and focusing on that guy notice the roots here which you're closest to me everything sharpened in the photograph as far as I'm concerned I would say the the background hillside you could probably argue that but do you really notice that no so here's my focus and uh the reason I chose fisheye is the distortion of that lens really works with the trees remember I said I love trees well these guys are twisted and gnarled but that fish accentuates that twisting and darling and then it accentuates the turn that he's about to do into kind of ah berm drop area okay thirty five millimeters at f sixteen if I didn't choose have sixteen here those trees and these trees way out there we're not sharp okay we started to have fall off and to me it's about that relationship of skier to tree slash snow so I wanted everything so it shows sixteen here at seventy millimeters of sixteen ok where did I focus her okay this is the girl that dropped the big cliff that we saw yesterday okay um uh notice the trees in the background there not shop why does it not matter again atmosphere going on in the backgrounds notice the tree right where she is pretty sharp right because distance wise right she's almost at the same plane is that tree so I'm getting that with that aperture now here's sixteen millimeters f twenty two here's my here is my landscape ok she's really close to may but because I'm got sixteen millimeter right she's looks smaller but she is really close to me because look at how many steps away she is for me in the camera okay trees need grounds look at the background peaks where the sun's coming up needs to all be focused in this one for me these trees is well, everything needs to be sure so going up twenty two here that makes sense sixteen millimeter f twenty two why did I choose it here see the skier she turned kind of right above me and when she did she just dumped a ton of snow on top of me and what I like about the shot is the fact that here's the skier kind of coming through that now have twenty two isn't even enough is it when the all the snow crystals air landing on the photographer's lens that's how we shut down the lens for the day it's impossible to get the smears off when that happens so you know, this is kind of a conscious effort it's like well that kind of makes it different right? So you're using that that small aperture to shoot through the snow to try to get the s o here you know, if I'm also focusing right now all right, forget it the best chamber in the world doesn't really matter what your opinion is on auto focus it happening so I kind of pre focus before this scenario happens somewhere where I think she's going to be hit f twenty two and I know pretty much everything I shoot at that moment is going to be in focus and it's going to be in the focus range with that sixteen millimeter lens right and then it's just a matter of okay, well, how much of the snow ends up sticking on the lens? How much blows off? You know, here you do something like that here with the density of the snowpack. Any coming off the lens is covered. It done in jackson lock holder lott dryer. There actually, is snow kind of blowing off the lens, and not all of it sticks. If the lens is really warm, like, been sitting in the sun for a while yet sticks right? Because the thermal coefficients. But in this scenario, it's kind of blowing off because she made the turn right above me. And everything hits me with force with the wind. And the kind of is going by and just enough blue, you know, there's. Only one frame in this sequence that worked for shooting and rain, though sort of see through a heavy rain. Yeah. That's. I mean, that's. You could totally get brain spots on the front airlines and do that back in the day when I would shoot macro stuff. You know, you want water droplets on flowers, use glycerin. And you could buy that at the grocery store. It's, not some like crazy. You know, weird thing is some kind of sugar compound they think, but so you you can make water droplets kind of hang off of things where you could get the glitter and stuff and dab it on the front element of your lens you know cool thing to do is just get a cheap clear filter get one for everyone's ok? And you can do they call it the vasselin effect smears from vasselin on there and you actually can get your get a photograph that looks almost like till shifty just by putting this smear of kind of grease on the photograph now obviously if you put it on the actual lens element, you're going to be cleaning that thing for eternity so just by the chief ten dollars filter and put it on that and then you just wipe it away put it back in its case and we're good to go for the next one right it's kind of a cool idea it's kind of like a little creative tool that you can use out there thirty five millimeters that have twenty two jim a question I want to see it the other way thirty five millimeters of twenty two why don't use up twenty two slow down the shutter slow down the shutter how do I take away like if I don't want to add a filter just go to have twenty to slow down my drop my I sell my shutter speed slows down accordingly I pan with him I want enough detail that you know it's a mountain biker right five tries I'm getting my panning down as he's getting the air he figures out a way to hang up in the air a little bit longer so it's not like this big fast thing he kind of glides through the air when he's in that glide position bam if the shot happens right there when he's kind of in that hover mode before gravity starts taking back over that's where you can achieve something like that his trial and error twelve frames the second helps in this scenario for sure two hundred millimeters of f thirty two why did I choose that go ahead if I can just go back to the previous frame for second yesterday you mentioned that you pre focus you turn the auto focus off of your lenses a lot you're going to get to it today I wonder if this is a good time to be a great question and a great time for god to talk about that during the gear thing so we'll all cameras out of the box what's our shutter release button do focusing ends meet a ring and releasing the shutter right? Okay I choose a custom function that gets rid of the focus from there why focus back button focus so I have the button the on button in the back that's how I turned my auto focus on in my camera now the reason I do that is because I can keep all my lenses switch to auto, focus on and press that button when I want to know focus and not present when I don't now because my lenses air all internal focus except for that really old fifteen millimeter, which this scenario doesn't work but all the lenses have internal focus, so as long as that that's which could be on and as long as I'm not pressing that button, I can turn the focus ring and manually focus as well. Okay, now so I'm not meet a ring with my camera I'm not turning the meter on getting the image stabilization, working in the lens and focusing with my shutter release I am turning the focus away from that so when I pressed that button, I get image stabilization so if I'm hand holding something and I'm like all wobbly that day because I drink too much the night before something ridiculous like that that never happens though uh I hit that shutter release button and my eyes comes on and the camera starts meet oring and then if I need focus well, I can adjust the focus point from my dial control in the back where the position of my folks this election is and then I press amount of focus button and bam wherever that selected rectangle is in my view finder I get focus the same thing that do you have it on like I think it's three different settings for auto focus like a servo are the one d x actually only has a servo and single shot the other one they had was like, hey, I what was it something little switch between yeah, but there was another I know what you're talking about there's a third one that canon cameras usedto have they do not have it anymore so I was always say, I'm always a icer ok? And I think the reason is now if I just used my back button right a servo doesn't doesn't matter to me if I'm not using my own focus it matters to me when the focus is on right I wanted to track my subject so I just take my finger off from looking for one shot focus right focus on something take it off recomposed my shop and if your subject is moving I can use through the answer you just put your out of your published point on and just follow it through the hole that button down yes so hold that button down while pressing the show to release and the way the camera grip is set up it just works for me, so if you get to spend a one or two more minutes on this because this question is worth the whole two days actually because it is really is having a little focus trouble okay it's you and another class out so in this case so you're going to use the high speed shutter see maybe pick up fifteen, ten days right here before the person guy or gal comes through dupri focus on the jump which is say at the distance that they're getting across yes sometimes yes and then your fingers off the auto focus and then you just sometimes yes sometimes no just really varies on the scenario otherwise you'll use the auto focus too to have the camera track the athlete mere yes so here's the deal here's the deal with auto but it's ok there's a couple scenarios how I use it how I don't use it etcetera so in a scenario like this okay I pre focused essentially on the trail because of f twenty two I don't need to auto focus I know if I'm pretty close to where he's going to be there's so much depth of field there everything's going to be sharp on blurring the image too, right? So really what makes him sharpen? What makes the shot successful is the ability for me to pan with him and get him in a moment where this the shutter speed I've chosen doesn't make him completely blurry, right? Okay, so here in this scenario don't I probably wouldn't be using auto focus the other thing with auto focus too is if we're in a very dense environment and I'm trying to pay in with him, right? And I have my auto focus on but he's moving too fast or something like that, where I can't keep my rectangle perfectly on him. Um, that there's a chance that the focus is going to get blown right? Because the camera's going to pick up some other element that is possibly stronger than him in a contrast situation and it's going to focus over here or something, right? So my environments really dense and kind of convoluted and, you know, all that kind of stuff, I don't use auto focus then again pick the preset zone and because I got the back button, I'm good to go pick it and I'm ready to shoot, okay? Uh, where I use auto focus most is any time somebody's coming at me? We're going away from me. I found that auto focus tracks the subject very, very well in that scenario there I'm holding the button down the whole time. Birds in flight hold the button down all the time and track him if your birds this big in your giant frame and it's not gonna work, so but shooting two, four hundred lens, five hundred millimeters and bird has some girth in your frame your camera's going to track that thing you know? And if it doesn't you release the button and push it down again and then is trying to get tracking again I can't go through the out of focus functions of the five d and the one d because it's literally a fifty page document to try and learn how to use this stuff and you really need to spend time with it and the first time I tried the one the exes like man this is just not working. As soon as I figured it out I was like hold my god thirty six frames of the guy coming right at me perfectly tax sharp I tracked to track the subject the whole time so it does take some learning and experience you know? Okay two hundred millimeters at f thirty two why thirty two here his trio that's in the top corner all in focus. Awesome job right and at twenty two hundred millimeters I needed thirty two, right? Because compression here we're fighting compression in this scenario so I focused on him, which is about what we're seeing the frame third of the frame in right third of the distance into my frame so I focused on him have thirty two got me sharp here and have thirty, thirty two got me shot back there that makes sense okay, so hundred millimeters f thirty two I have gone completely picasso on your people today can anybody tell me what it is you know you have you know I was gonna say that see lsd filter I don't know a reflection on the water no steam glass glass ok, well let's do the word thing we're talking about glass here continue on something that usually museum no think my front yard one of those little wind things that kind of hangs there there's the women though you're not getting kind of close I don't think there was any lsd being done at this time. All right, so it's the it's my truck it's my toyota toyota f j cruiser you can see the headlight right down here it's brick red I took this through glass block. Of course this was my powder room and I was using the facilities and I look out and I'm like that's really wild I have picasso in my house looking out to my to it a j now so this is through glass block trucks out there see the red all distorted crazy kind of abstract photograph right f thirty two was necessary. Why? Because I'm shooting something through glass essentially right? So there's a ton of depth there with the macro lens have thirty two gave everything at the front of this glass element sharp everything in the background sharp too the games we play ok any questions on aperture one question actually so folks were I know this goes back just a little bit but folks were asking if you ever use auto eso I don't I do not that's a kind of a cool feature and in today's cameras I think it works really well but I'm kind of control freak if you haven't picked that up yet so I'm okay and actually I shoot my camera and aperture priority probably there's probably no question about that so I use a v on a cannon I think it's what is it on a nikon it's aperture priority I shoot aperture valued a v a p in a nightclub so that's I have my camera set to that I would say ninety nine percent of time ninety five percent of the time after dark I may change it use bold mood of and start manually adjusting exposures but for the most part I just used that setting and because I know if I need more speed what do I do? Okay, we need a faster shutter speed for the shot we have in front of us. What do you do? What are your two options? Right? Okay, so I so aperture and shutter all related you need a fast shutter speed what can you change I so an aperture right? You need more depth of field what can you change? I so in shudder all right, well, you set your aperture and then you would change. I so ok, same goes with ice, o, right. We're trying to always keep low, I sos with sometimes we need more ice. Ose why? Well, if I need f twenty two and I needed to fiftieth of a second to stop my action, well, then I need more. I sell, right, so look at it that way, that's, how I look at it. So although I so, yeah, that's, pretty cool. But the problem that I have discovered with that kind of function is you may end up getting fifty one thousand with your shot, so that becomes problematic.