Composition Basics

Composition is defined as the arrangement and combination of elements within a confined frame such as a canvass, a photograph to create a complete image. Composition can include factors such as design, order, structure, texture, form, and other elements brought together in one frame.

In photography, composition is probably the biggest influential factor in creating eye-catching works of art. The ability of a photographer to include or exclude certain elements in a scene, arrange the subject’s position, change vantage points, and other compositional techniques separate a random snapshot from an actively composed photograph.

While human eyes can interpret three-dimensions with relative ease, the ability of our eyes to decode distance, depth, texture, and patterns are not easily tranlated on a two-dimensional photographic image.

It is the task of the photographer to simulate and recreate three-dimensions into a two-dimension medium, and understanding the basic forms of composition is paramount in order to achieve this goal.

Alignment

Alignment can be interpreted as how the internal items of the frame line up to the physical edges of the photograph itself. A camera often has a horizonally placed rectangular frame with the length being longer than the height. Most beginners instinctively hold the camera as the camera’s form dictates, however, many vantage point are better suited if the camera was tilted at certain angles or when the camera is held vertically.

Alignment can mean from ensuring that horizon of the subject lined up to the edges of the image frame, or making sure that subjects are lined up against each other within the frame.

Some images tend to favor a vertically oriented alignment to illustrate height and size. Vertical composition can also benefit from having a blank sky as a backdrop to isolate the subject away from distracting elements.

Coverage

Coverage denotes the amount of space the subject fills the entire image area. Some images are best suited when the subject fills as much of the frame as possible while others are better suited if placed in a small are within the image.

Generally speaking, it is best to fill the frame with the subject if the details of the subject must be displayed and is a critical part of the image’s purpose.

There are cases, however, that isolating a subject allows the photographer to show scale and relative differences of two or more elements in a frame that would not be possible if the subject filled the frame by itself.

Arrangement

The arrangement of elements within a frame may be pre-arranged by the photographer or pre-arranged by circumstance. The more control the photographer has in arranging the subject or subjects according to the intended output, the greater the accuracy, intent, and detail is expected in the output, in general.

On the other hand, in many outdoor or impromptu photographs, the subjects or elements may be fixed and immovable, in such cases, the photographer will have to be the one to physically move the camera’s position to compose the photograph to fit the intended subject in the frame.

Whether or not the photographer can physically manipulate the elements in the scene or not, the general intent is still to direct focus and attention to the intended subject or message of the photograph.

Basic Rules

There are some universally accepted “recommended guidelines” about composition that will instantly transform a beginner’s snapshot to a more involved and deliberately composed photograph.

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds instructs the photographer to pre-visualize the scene divided into a three-by-three grid in the frame while placing the subject of interest in one of the four intersecting points of the grid.

The general assumption is based on the age-old concept of the golden ratio. Using the rule-of-thirds creates tension and balance in a visual image, allowing different sections of the image to follow a certain flow for the viewer, much like how we normally read from upper left to lower right, for instance.

Using the rule-of-thirds allow the viewer to progressively scan the image from one part to another in a subliminal sequence.

Use of Lines

The world is filled with various lines that indicate flow direction such as a flowing lake, cascading waves, intensity of the sun’s lightrays, or a strip of road. All these lines help us visualize a beginning and an end of a particular scene.

Leading lines can be used in photographs to direct viewers to or from the central subject of interest in a more direct fashion than the rule of thirds. Lines allow viewers to visualize depth and distance from one point to another.

Stacking

Stacking elements also suggests depth and distance of various elements within a scene. By comparing the relative size and distance of one object from another, we can create a sense of scale and depth between the two or more elements in a two-dimensional frame.

Secondary Frames

Placing your subject in an actual frame that is contained by the edges of the photograph itself can effectively direct the viewer’s attention to the subject in a very deliberate manner. A secondary frame can be a door arch, a stream of light, a window, or gaps between buildings, for instance.

Colors and Shades

The arrangement of colors and shades in a frame can also work as a compositional element when used properly. Certain colors accentuate one another while other colors subdue each other, knowing when to use colors to direct attention to a subject can be just as effective as placing a subject in certain parts of the frame.

Color can also act as a separator between light and dark areas, forcing the viewer to look at very specific areas in the frame.

Texture

Texture offers a visually tangible and organic feel to photographs. Despite seeing a photograph either on screen or print, images that depict strong textures and sharp features often “pops out” and projects a three-dimensional image.

Using textures on certain subject matter such as rustic elements, weathered expressions and facial features, or abstract scenes can transform a bland image to an engaging and self-expressing photograph.

Break the Rules

Most of the rules mentioned above are good guidelines to follow for consistent and solid compositions, however, do not confine yourself to these rules when a better composition is available, even if it goes against these widely accepted norms.

For example, most photographs appear dull, imbalanced, and poorly framed if placed dead-center of the frame, however, many symmetrical scenes benefit from a dead-center subject positioning as compared to following the rule-of-thirds, for example.

Knowing the rules will allow you to bend the rules as required by the scene. Keep in mind, however, that the difference between a deliberate, creative decision to break these rules and not implementing the basic rules due to lack of knowledge is easily visible by experienced photo viewers, so make sure you have explored the compositions based on the basic rules before determining whether or not it’s more appealing to break the rules.

Basic Portrait Lighting

While there are no hard statistics to track the kind of photographs people take, it’s safe to assume that bulk of the photos we take are portraits. Whether the portraits taken are snapshots, formally posed, group shots, or self-taken, portraits are probably the main reason why we purchased our cameras. The portrait helps us remember those who are important, valuable, admire, and influence our personal lives. While the subject and moment captured is often the most important element of a portrait, knowing how to use light, posing, and composition to our advantage will transform a snapshot to a polished portrait that will convey not only who is in the photo, but what the photographer saw and felt when the photograph was taken.

Snapshot versus Portraits

The line between a snapshot and a portrait is a thin one, and neither one is better than the other if we based the photo on the intent of the photographer. A snapshot portrait is not automatically an inferior photo, a snapshot simply means the photograph was a captured moment without pre-planning or setup. A portrait, on the other hand, is a photograph where some level of planning was made prior to the capture of the person’s photograph. An example of a “planned” photo would range from small details such as moving the subject to a better light location, applying make-up or combing hair before the shot, or more elaborate preparation such as using lights or light modifiers, and so forth. In this series of articles, we will concentrate on lighting. We will discuss the basic lighting patterns and how it affects the subjects to how to utilize and control available light to replicate some basic light patterns to create a solid portrait.

Direction of Light

The direction of light can enhance, highlight, or conceal a person’s features in both positive and negative manner. The light can come from any angle from three dimensions and each shift will result to a different effect on our subject. Let’s tackle the simple and common angles and see how each light appears.

Frontal

Frontal light is most commonly seen when an on-camera flash is fired directly at the subject. The light is on the same axis as the lens, that means the highlight would be in front of the subject and the shadows would fall off behind the subject.

Figure 1: Frontal Light

Frontal flash is often avoided as the light hits the subject’s face with identical intensity, making the subject’s facial features flat as no shadows are formed around the nose, cheeks, chin, and other facial contours. The lack of shadows is commonly known as “flat” lighting as it lacks depth and reveals very little texture and contour.

Side Lighting

Side lighting is the most common form of “angled” light, where the light is coming from a different axis from the lens. Side lighting reveals forms, shadows, contours, and creates contrast between highlight and shadows.

Figure 2: 90-degree Side Light

Side lighting can be angled in many angles resulting to different areas of highlight and shadows, in the example above, we used a 90-degree side light. That means that the subject is placed right beside the light source, creating a distinct bright-to-dark image from left-to-right. Traditionally, a 45-degree side light is commonly used, this occurs when the sun is nearing the horizon as well as the most basic studio lighting position.

Backlight

Backlight creates silhouettes, the light creates highlights in areas that is not visible by the camera lens as the subject itself obscures the light, causing only the shadows and outline to appear. Oftentimes, a backlit image shows off the overall form and shape with high contrast between the subject and the bright background. An eclipse is a very basic form of backlit scenario. Backlight can also be used as a separator between the subject and the background, especially if the color of the background is similar to the subject’s clothes or hair.

Standard Lighting for Portraits

The standard lighting for portraits, assuming we only have a single light source (such as the sun), is to position the subject so that the light will illuminate the face at a 45-degree angle, slightly above the subject. This basic lighting setup works for most faces as the angle of the light provides shadows that allows facial patterns to appear distinct from one another. The shadows around the nose, eyelids, lips, and chin areas gives the photo depth and dimension. The standard lighting setup can be controlled further by adding auxiliary light sources creating what is called the basic studio portrait light. This standard three-light setup consists of a key light, the fill light, and the back light. The key light is the main light. This is the light that will illuminate most of the subject and will be responsible for the overall exposure of the photograph. All other lights that a photographer may use will be based on the exposure of the key light.

Figure 3 : Key Light Only

A single key light positioned at the right angle will produce a nice lighting pattern that shows both highlights and shadows distinctively and creates a three-dimensional feel to the image. The second light is the fill light. The fill light’s responsibility is to lift the shadows and reduce contrast created by the key light. The brighter the fill, the lesser the contrast of the overall image.The fill light should always illuminate less than the key light, otherwise, the fill light will act as a main light.

Figure 4: Key Light + Fill Light

In Figure 4, we used a reflector to reduce the contrast of the image by lightening the shadows on the subject’s left cheek. The fill light reduced the shadows but still has a lower brightness than the main light. In addition, the details around the subject’s left ear and hair areas are revealed with this fill light. Note that the fill light does not have to be an actual light source (powered bulb), in this case, we only used a white reflector to reflect the light coming from our key light. A cheap, 3-ft white foam board was used in this instance. The back light provides separation between the subject and the background, especially if the two have similar tonality. A background helps separate dark hair from a dark background, for example.

Figure 5: Key Light + Fill Light + Background Light

Notice that our first two examples in Figures 3 and 4 have dark backgrounds, by adding another light behind the subject, we illuminated the background and separated the dark hair from the grey background instantly. A back light can either illuminate the background itself, as shown above, or provide a rim light or hair light to separate the subject from the background. Combining the three lights often guarantees a portrait with good depth, dimension, and isolation that draws the viewer to the subject’s best features. It is not required to always have three light sources to create good portraits, oftentimes, a well-planned single light source is all it takes for an excellent portrait. This concludes the basic portrait lighting components, in our next article we will discuss the different standard lighting techniques for portraits.

Classic Lighting Styles

Portrait lighting styles are not set in stone, the lighting positioning and styles discussed in this article are generally accepted and expected lighting parameters that have endured the test of time to bring out the best look for portraits. These lighting patterns can be used as a starting point for more complex portrait lighting styles you can develop individually as an artist.

Light Positioning

There are three basic light positions that form a direct relationship between the subject’s face and the light position. Note that the lighting pattern must follow the direction of the front of the face and this relationship has nothing to do with where the camera is, if the face rotates, so must the light to maintain the same light positioning.

Short Lighting

Short lighting illuminates the part of the face that is not facing directly at the camera. In Figure Z, we can see that the side of the face facing the camera is in the shadow side. Short lighting often is the preferred light positioning for most portraits especially for rounder faces or faces less defined facial features.

Putting the shadow side of the face closer to the camera narrows down the face and works well for majority of subjects except those with long or thin faces.

Broad Lighting

Broad lighting is the opposite of short lighting where the lit portion of the face faces the front of the camera. Showing the lit portion of the face directly at the camera broadens the face as it illuminates majority of the subject’s face instead of hiding it in the shadows.

While not as popular as short lighting, broad lighting can be used effectively with thinner faces and can make subjects such as the elderly look more radiant and lively. Broad lighting is a “cheerful” light position that portrays openness and excitement.

Frontal Lighting

Frontal light is the least preferred standard lighting position as it requires careful angle positioning to create dimension and contours while making sure not to cause unsightly shadows in the wrong places.

Frontal lighting is useful when we need to minimize the appearance of facial blemishes such as wrinkles, pores and other imperfections. As the light doesn’t skim across the face at an oblique angle, less shadows are formed therefore minimizing any age lines or blemishes.

Lighting Pattern

Rembrandt Light

The Rembrandt light is named after Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, a Dutch painter in the mid 1600’s. His portrait style includes his distinct lighting pattern on his portrait paintings where a triagular-shaped light is formed underneath the subject’s eye in the shadow-side of the face. The general rule of the Rembrandt triagle is that the width of the triangle should be no wider than the eye’s width, and the length should not extend beyond the length of the nose. The Rembrandt lighting is best used for moody portraits and portrait study.

Going over or under this “rule” would often turn a Rembrandt into a loop light or a butterfly light (discussed below).

Loop Light

The loop light is best identified by the looping shadow created under and to the side of the subject’s nose. This is the most common lighting pattern used as it suits almost all facial forms regardless of gender or age.

Regardless of whether a short or broad lighting pattern is used, a loop light is often placed above the subject’s face, angling down at an angle between 30-60 degrees towards the subject.

Paramount/Butterfly Light

The butterfly or Paramount light pattern is characterized by the butterfly-like shape underneath the subject’s nose. The lighting style is often used by Hollywood (named after Paramount Studios) to emphasize the actors and actresses’ cheek bones and facial features. This lighting pattern is best for subjects with angular faces and high cheekbones as the high positioning of the light creates dramatic triangular shadows right underneath the cheekbones as well.

This light pattern is created by placing the light directly above the subject’s head angled downwards at an angle between 30-60 degrees on the same axis as the subject’s nose.

It is a very frontal light and creates vertical shadows due to the high angle of the light. Angling the light very slightly off-center would create better lateral shadows that makes this lighting pattern more versatile than an on-axis light.

Split Light

The split light is mainly a side lit light pattern and creates a distinct highlight-to-shadow transition as the light crosses the bridge of the nose. The split light creates a very dramatic and moody image best suited for male subjects as skin imperfections and facial hair tends to be more pronounced with such high-contrast lighting.

The light is mainly positioned 90-degrees to the side of the subject or slightly behind the subject’s head at roughly the same height as the subject.

Key Points

Light Height

The height positioning of the light causes direct changes to how the face of the subject is presented. Varying the height of the light changes the appearance of the subject’s eye socket, nose length, chin depth, and catchlight positioning (the reflected appearance of the light source in the subject’s eyes).

Positioning the light at the same level as the subject’s face creates flat lighting in most cases with the exception of the split light.

By increasing the light by a couple of feet, the angular features of the brow, cheekbones, nose, and chin becomes more apparent and elongates the face depending on the height of the light.

Subject Positioning in Available Light Situations

In all of our examples above, we made the assumption of being able to move our lightsource in different places while the subject’s position remains constant. In available light situations where our key light cannot be moved physically (the sun’s position or window position, for example), the reverse applies and the subject and camera has to move to match the light source’s direction.

The height of the light will almost always be at a higher angle than the subject unless the sun is about to rise or set. We can also change the angle of the light by changing the angle of the face of the subject and camera. So basically, instead of moving the light around, we move the subject around so that we can dictate where the highlights and shadows are on our subjects.

Summary

The key to understanding lighting pattern isn’t just about knowing where to place the light. Merely knowing the light patterns discussed will not be very useful if a photographer fails to analyze the subject first. Understanding what lighting pattern best suited for a subject’s facial features differentiates a run-of-the-mill portrait versus creating a portrait that conveys emotions, character, and clear representation of the subject’s personality. By carefully watching where the shadows fall, where the catchlight appears, and how the elements shape and form the subject’s face, you can develop a consistent lighting style that best suits your subjects’ facial shapes.

Digital Workflow – Basic Global Adjustments

Most digital photographs could use some level of enhancements as a camera may render slightly different exposures, colors, contrast, or sharpness when viewed on the monitor as compared to viewing from the camera’s LCD screen. This article covers the basic global adjustments that targets the overall appearance of the photograph, not specific areas-of-detail in a photograph.

Here we have our base image.  The image is pretty balanced and neutral as it is, the basic changes we are going to apply in the article just shows how global adjustments affect a photograph and show how to use relatively standard image enhancing software to add more impact to the final photograph. Please be aware that this article is not a tutorial for any particular image editing software, the article will merely show the usual global image adjustments applied to most photographs to help you develop a more streamlined workflow.

Figure 1: Base Image

There are many image editing software available in the market, but let’s stick to the generally accepted standard software options such as Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. Figure 2 shows the standard Adobe Raw Converter (ACR) and Figure 3 shows the Develop module of Adobe Lightroom. Both applications share the same basic controls, so I’ll just use Lightroom’s panel for this article.

Figure 2: Adobe Raw Converter

Figure 3: Adobe Lightroom (Develop Module)

Let’s take a closer look at the various panels available for our image adjustment in Adobe Lightroom.  Figure 4 shows us the histogram of the image, in this particular application, the histogram shows both luminosity (shades from black to white) which is represented by the grey graph, and RGB (red, green, blue) plus CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow) values, represented by the colored graphs. The histogram shows how much information there is in various segments of the photograph’s tonal range.

Figure 4: Histogram

Right underneath the histogram shows other image adjustment features that may or may not be available in all applications, with the exception of the first icon (rectangular grid), which is the crop tool. The crop tool is available in virtually all image enhancing software.

The next figure shows the usual global image adjustment sliders and the sliders are grouped into three segments: the color balance/temperature adjustment, global exposure adjustment, global color adjustments.  Whatever changes made in these panels affect the entire image, so it’s best to work with the full image being displayed on screen. Notice that most software will have similar arrangement on the panel where the software suggest you adjust the image in the sequence of crop >> color balance >> exposure >> color, it’s a good workflow sequence to follow.

Figure 5: Basic Global Adjustment Sliders

While we often try our best to frame our composition perfectly before capture, the captured image may have a slight variance in framing than what we saw on the LCD or viewfinder of our camera because of viewfinder coverage. The crop tool allows us to re-compose our image or straighten crooked horizons, or crop off extraneous elements in the frame. Some cropping tools such as the one in Adobe Lightroom, offers a composition grid that helps you crop your image according to certain composition theories such as rule-of-thirds, golden mean, etc.

Figure 6: Cropping

The next panel allows us to fix color balance of our photographs. As discussed in our white balance article, there are cases where our whites are not really white and color casts plague our photographs resulting to weird colors. In many indoor or low-light conditions, it is difficult for our cameras to automatically set the proper white balance settings and oftentimes we need to correct any color balance issues in post-processing. In Figure 7, our day-lit scene has an ugly blue cast due to the white balance set incorrectly in camera.

Figure 7: Incorrect White Balance

Figure 8: White Balance Adjustment

The color balance adjustment slider often offers three adjustment controls, the first being the temperature slider, which allows you to shift the color temperature from a cool blue tone (left of the scale) or a warm yellow tone (right of the scale). A tint slider is often used to shift green and magenta color casts  in scenes such as foliage-induced green casts. Finally, a white balance sampler tool (water dropper) can be used to quickly sample a color-neutral area in the scene and the application will use the sampled area to compute for the proper temperature and tint adjustment.

Figure 9: Sample Neutral Area

In the example above, we used the sampler tool and clicked on the grey road on the road sign as we subliminally know that the a road sign of that type often has a grey drawing. Clicking that sample area neutralized the color cast in our image and gave us the correct white balance (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Corrected WB

After correcting our white balance, we can move on to adjusting our image’s exposure. There’s no substitute to getting our exposure right during image capture, however, in the real world, we may not be able to obtain perfect exposure in every shot, especially when lighting conditions are tough or when we cannot fully control our lighting. Minor global exposure adjustments can create the perfect exposure without altering our source file’s integrity too much as large exposure changes performed in post-processing can degrade image quality.

Figure 11: Over-Exposed Adjustment

Figure 12: Under-Exposed Adjustment

Figure 11 and Figure 12 show the different levels of adjustment you can make to the overall exposure. Increasing the exposure over 2-stops blows out the details of our sky and building, but brought out a lot of details in our shadow areas such as the area underneath the awning and the ground. Figure 12 shows the opposite, where we decreased the exposure by 2-stops and the details on the sky are building are increased while the shadow areas under the awning are reduced to dark patches.

The challenge and goal is to create a balanced exposure with the right amount of highlight and shadow details, like in Figure 13.

Figure 13: Balanced Exposure

After making the general exposure adjustments, we can target the midtones and shadows of the image without altering the highlights using the Fill Light adjustment slider and the Shadows adjustment sliders, respectively. By dragging the Fill Light slider higher, we lift the midtones of the image revealing more areas that are in the shadows. The Shadows adjustment allow us to dictate how much pure black areas there should be in the scene. If we go too far, we’ll end up having an image like Figure 15.

Figure 14: Midtones Increased

Figure 15: Blacks Increased

Now that we’ve adjusted the overall exposure of our image, it’s time to add some contrast to the image to add some “punch”. Contrast basically describes how gradual or abrupt the transition is between light and dark tones. Increasing contrast will result to greater distinction between shadows and highlights, resulting to reduced midtones. Depending on your image and purpose, some images are best suited with high contrast, while others are better with low contrast. Figure 16 shows our image with contrast boosted.

Figure 16: Contrast Increased

Finally, we move on to adjusting the overall colors of our image. The main control slider is the Saturation slider, as the Vibrance slider isn’t available in all applications. The Saturation slider increases the saturation of all colors in the scene. If we take a look at Figure 17, which received a big saturation adjustment increase, the white pillars already suffers from color bleeding from neighboring color areas while the foreground orange sign already lost details as it no longer contains color variances from one orange patch to another. So go easy when adjusting color saturation, a little goes a long way.

Figure 17: Oversaturated Image

While we’re still talking about saturation, reducing saturation completely means taking out all the color information of the scene, the result is a greyscale image with no color information.

Figure 18: Saturation Removed Completely

Figure 18: Desaturated Image

Figure 19 shows our final image adjustment. We’ve adjusted our exposure, midtones, shadows, contrast, color temperature, crop, and color saturation to create a pleasing, neutral, and natural final image.

Practice adjusting all the global adjustment sliders slowly and see how each adjustment affects your image and histogram. Eventually, you’ll find a general look and feel that you’re comfortable with with your images and you’ll be able to balance out the various global adjustment settings with ease.

We’ve discussed the importance of developing a workflow for dealing with our image files once we venture into digital photography. Let us now discuss the basic sequence to get started in developing a workflow that will suit our personal needs.

Note that the steps below are general guidelines and you should be able to customize your own workflow based on they types of photographs you work with. It is assumed that you’ve already captured the images into your digital cameras and already own a computer and associated hardware to transfer images from your memory card to the computer. Organizing Folders Before we even begin transferring files, we must plan how we are going to arrange our folder structure in our computer.

By default, most computers will have a “Pictures” folder created by the operating system. While this is often convenient for most users, it is not the recommended place to store your images in the long run. It’s preferred to have another drive available separate from where your operation system is installed, whether it is another physical hard drive installed in your computer, an external hard drive, or a partition. The reason for this is if you need to reformat your hard drive that contains the operating system, upgrading operating systems, or the inevitable crash of your operating system, your data files will not be affected if they are stored in a different drive. In your separate hard drive, think of a “structure” you want to store your images in. For example, if you’re a portrait photographer, you may want to start off with a “year” folder, then “month” folder, then the name of your subject/client. If you shoot birthdays often, it might be good to have the same year/month folder categories, separated by the name of the celebrants. If you travel very often, then a year >> country >> city folder structure might be best for you. The important point to remember is to store your files in a way where you will have an idea on what the content of that folder is without opening any of the files.

Once you establish a structure you’re comfortable with, it’s time to transfer the files.

File Transfer

You can simply drag and drop your files from your memory card (assuming it’s already connected to your computer using a card reader) into the folders you’ve created or you can use a cataloging software to import your images into your computer.

Renaming files

Files should be renamed with the same reasoning as the folder naming structure. The filename of your image should at least tell you a little about the image before you open the file. In addition, by using a set of filename format, your files will be stored in a sequentially sortable format, which facilitates easier file searching even before using keywords and search strings.

There are many applications available in the market that enable you to rename your files after being transferred to your computer. Some can be downloaded for free such as Google Picasa (http://picasa.google.com), and FastStone Image Viewer (http://www.faststone.org), you can also purchase stand-alone, dedicated workflow products such as ACDSee (http://www.acdsee.com) and Adobe Lightroom (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom) that are designed to help you develop your entire workflow along with other features, or you can use supplementary software that is packaged with your image editing software such as Adobe Bridge (which is included with Adobe Photoshop). You can rename your files just like you did with your folders.

Instead of working with the typical IMG_1234.jpg file name that your camera created, you can have your application rename it to year_month_date_event_location_0001.jpg, year_month_date_event_location_0002.jpg, and so forth. You’ll reap the benefits of organizing and renaming your files once you need to find one specific photo in your vast collection of images the future.

Backup Copies

Before even thinking of editing or opening your photographs, create duplicate copies of your images immediately. As mentioned in our previous article, files can get damaged or altered quite easily, and without a back-up, the affected file will be gone forever with no easy way to recover the file. Creating a backup copy is rather simple, and as mentioned previously, you can backup your photos using another hard drive, online, or with optical media such as DVDs, preferably all three. Storage cost is getting more and more affordable and it’s prudent to have more than one backup and having one backup being stored off-site in case fire/flood/theft occurs in your main work location.

Adding Keywords and Metadata

After securing your file copies, it’s time to organize and sort your files using a cataloging software. There are many ways to add data into your photograph to help searching and archiving, and there are many small details that can add value to your image file’s embedded information, but before dwelling into specifics, we can quickly and easily add general keywords and metadata to our images at this stage of our workflow.

General keywords such as copyright information, photographer’s details, business details, and location of shoot are generic but important details to include in each photograph. Using these “catch-all” metadata allow you to label your photographs as your property as well as provide all the necessary details in case you decide to distribute or sell your images to a client. It will also save your client a lot of time adding your information in their database in case they want to search and archive your photograph for future usage.

Evaluating Images

Now that we have added detailed information about our files and have backed them up safely, it’s time to sort and rate your images. This is a crucial step in your workflow as well as developing your skill to edit and scrutinize your captured images towards picking the best of your images to keep and present.

With most cataloging software, you can view your images on a “filmstrip” or “thumbnail” view where you can view several pictures at the same time. You can scroll through the images and apply ratings (often between one to five stars) and delete images that are unusable. This is a good time to add customized keywords to similar images. Most software allow you to select multiple files and enter keywords as a batch. For example, adding specific road names (i.e. 3rd Street) or venue details (i.e. Joe’s Restaurant) to a specific group of photographs during your recent travel, to the more global keywords you’ve added earlier (i.e. USA >> New York >> Manhattan). It is best to add as much useful keywords as possible at this stage. Details such as time of capture, camera model, lens model, and capture settings (EXIF data) are often supplied by your camera automatically, there’s no need to enter such details manually.

Finally, create sets or collections for your images. This is similar to grouping your files in folders but without physically transferring your images or creating duplicates to facilitate grouping.

Let’s say you traveled to New York recently and want to group all your photographs by cities you’ve visited, you can easily do so because of your previous keyword entries to differentiate one photograph from another. You simply search for a city, for example, “Brooklyn” and your cataloging software will pull out all your images tagged with the “Brooklyn” keyword, just select all the resulting photographs and add them to a collection or a set. All your future pictures that you may capture and tagged as “Brooklyn” will belong to this newly created set automatically, if your software can update in real-time. While the process of following a structured workflow may seem tedious compared to just dumping all files into a “My Pictures” folder, there are countless of distinct advantages for developing and using a structured workflow. A proper digital workflow allows you to work faster, get organized, be more critical to your images, and makes it simple to retrieve files at any point in time.

So try to create your own digital workflow today and incorporate it every time you transfer your images from your camera to your PC. You’ll reap the benefits of being organized and structured whether you’re an amateur or a professional.

The advent of digital photography has spiked the interest of digital image processing. Back in the film days, majority of amateur photographers’ workflow stops as soon as the roll of film is dropped off to the processing lab. Not too many photographers ventured into the art of the darkroom, developing their own negatives, manipulating the print, and adding special toning and effects to their final prints. The darkroom was a mysterious place ventured only by the hard-core photographers during the film era.

Fast-forward to the current digital era, the final images taken with a digital camera are open to image adjustments that’s accessible even to the most basic user as most manufacturers include basic software that allow the user to make changes to their images. While most basic software are capable of performing basic adjustments such as brightening up an image, cropping, and adding more color saturation to images, most of the bundled software do not offer much flexibility and precise tuning.

What is a workflow?

We’re concentrating on the digital darkroom workflow for this article, it is important to understand that there is no single workflow that will work for everyone and you should develop a workflow that will fit your needs and whatever your hardware is capable of.

A professional wedding photographer may have a different workflow than a press photographer, and a parent taking photos of their children will have a differently suited workflow as well. There’s no right or wrong workflow, but this article series will help shed some light on the different aspects that virtually all photographers should take into consideration when creating their own personal workflow. Take the bits and pieces from this article that you feel that suit your needs and leave out those that you think that are overkill.

A workflow is a structured work process that a photographer should follow every time a photograph file is transferred from camera to the computer. Having a structured workflow has several benefits including:

If you’re just starting with digital photography, you’re actually are in a better position to develop your own workflow than a photographer who has amassed thousands of images without developing a workflow and attempts to create one later on. A beginner will have a smaller library of files to organize and is less tedious to develop, fine-tune, and customize a workflow.

Requirements

Naturally, you’ll be required to invest on some items in order to develop your own workflow, below is a list of basic hardware and software that you should invest in if you plan to develop a workflow (in no particular order):

Software

• Computer
• Memory card reader
• CD/DVD Burner / Extra external hard disk
• Monitor calibration device

Hardware

• Software for adding metadata and keywords
• Software for image editing

Computer

Obviously, a computer is required in order to view, edit, and sort your images outside the camera. The camera only has a relatively small screen that is not ideal for scrutinizing details accurately. In addition, if you wish to upload your images to the internet, share your images using a CD or with prints, you’ll need your own computer to be able to personally control your results, otherwise, you’ll be leaving all creative inputs to your photo lab to make.

Memory Card Reader

The photos you’ve taken with your camera are stored inside your memory card, and you’ll need a way to transfer those photos into your computer. Virtually all cameras allow you to connect the camera directly to your computer for image transfer, however, this is often a slow process and requires you to carry your camera just for file transfer, in addition, using the camera for file transfer unnecessarily shortens the battery life of your camera.

A dedicated memory card reader allows you to transfer your images from different memory card types directly onto your computer. Using a card reader is fast, convenient, and will not require your computer to have specific software drivers just for file transfer.

Back-up Media

After transferring your images from your memory card to your computer, the images are then stored in your computer’s hard drive. The files are now conveniently accessible to you and should be safely stored inside your computer. However, as any computer owner has probably experienced in the past, computers fail, and hard drives fail at a pretty high rate as it gets old. When the hard drive fails, all your precious photos will be gone and it’ll be quite costly and difficult to have the lost files recovered by a specialist.

Optical Discs

Optical media such as recordable CDs (CD-R) and DVDs (DVD-R) have become really affordable. A DVD-R can typically store up to 4.7 gigabytes (GB) of data. That size is about perfect if you’re using a 2GB or 4GB memory card as you can simply burn one disc per used-up memory card.

Optical discs are portable, affordable, and relatively reliable. It’s often best to make two copies of optical backups and store each backup off-site, such as your office, if your main files are at home. This is to prevent your files to be damaged simultaneously if one location had a fire, flood, or other accident.

Naturally, you’ll need to invest in a CD/DVD burner for your computer in order to have the files transferred onto your optical media of choice. Virtually all laptop and computers are equipped with a burner, so chances are, you won’t need to purchase an additional hardware.

If you don’t have a lot of files to transfer constantly, you can simply bring your memory card to a photo lab and have them transfer the files onto an optical media for a nominal fee.

External Hard Disk

Like optical media, external hard disk prices have been dropping at a rapid rate. In addition, external hard disk capacity have been increasing rapidly as well. External drives allow us to store the drives off-site just like optical media. Most external drives come in 2.5” (laptop hard disks) and 3.5”(desktop hard disk) sizes, both are small enough and portable enough to keep safely in small compartments such as safety-deposit boxes.

The important point to remember is redundancy. It is inevitable that hard disks fail with age and optical media may get scratched, having multiple backup copies ensure that you’ll have at least one set of files safely tucked somewhere.

Monitor Calibration Device

Virtually all monitors sold are not calibrated, even if the manufacturer calibrated the monitor at the factory, your specific lighting condition in your work environment will be dramatically different from the factory preset and your monitor will require custom calibration.

You need to calibrate your monitor in order to ensure your blacks are blacks, and whites are whites. In addition, color variation can wreck havoc on skin tones and other important areas of a photograph that require accurate color representation.

The problem with humans is we already have a pre-conceived mental picture of what certain colors should look like and fail to differentiate subtle shifts in color shade unless a comparative shade is present in the photo. A monitor calibration device is your first step to getting your colors accurately as you’ve seen it in real life. Without an accurate display, any image editing will be pointless as you’re editing without a baseline gauge of what the colors should really look like.

Software for Cataloging

As you take more photos, you’ll eventually reach the point where you’ll need to find a photo that you’ve taken a long time ago to print, sell, or share. When you only have a few hundred photos in your collection, finding the photo you need will not be too difficult, however, once you’ve collected hundreds of thousands of photos, it’ll be next to impossible to find the photo you need without spending hours scrolling through individual photographs and folder.

Using a cataloging software allows you to add keywords, metadata, and arrange your photos in a way where it can be searched easily by using key phrases. Just think of how your local library sorts and arranges their book library with index cards and using a computer database.

A cataloging software is basically a simple database software that adds tiny bits of text info to your photographs to facilitate easier searching.

For example, if you added “San Francisco Trip” to a set of five photographs, even if you have a million photographs in your library, typing “San Francisco” in your cataloging software will pull those five photographs in a jiffy.

I can’t emphasize it enough, but start cataloging your photographs in detail at an early stage, the less photographs you have right now, the easier it is to maintain and update your photo library.

Lastly, choose your keywords carefully and wisely, it will be pointless if you tag all your son’s photo as “son” if you don’t add specific keywords such as “birthday”or “graduation”.

Software for Editing

There are many photo editing software available, but professionals and serious enthusiasts often use products from Apple and Adobe mainly. The software that comes with your camera, especially with more advanced camera models, are often flexible enough for most editing purposes, however, it is recommended to invest in an industry-standard software as it is easier to find support, tutorials, and classes if ever you want to improve your skills down the road. Popular image editing software include products from Adobe such as Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop. Apple Aperture is widely used by Mac users, while Corel Paint Shop Pro is an excellent and affordable alternative to Adobe Photoshop as well.

In our next article, we’ll begin our journey to create a digital photography workflow, starting from transferring our images from our memory card to our computer.

Basic Lighting Fundamentals

Photography is about lighting, without light, there’s no photograph. Photographers should be concerned with mainly the different characteristics of light namely:

• Direction of Light
• Quantity of Light
• Quality of Light
• Depth of Light
• Color of Light

These basic fundamentals of light will not change regardless of whether you’re using natural light or artificial light.

Light can alter mood, texture, and impact of your subject, and understanding lighting and knowing how to control and modify light will help your photos take a big step to the next level.

Direction of Light

Defines photograph by placing the highlight and shadows of your subject. The choosing the correct direction of light use the highlights to accentuate the important features of the subject while the shadows hide the less important or distracting elements of the subject.

Figure 1: High 3/4 Lighting

Figure 2: Low Angle Light

Figure 3: High Lighting

Notice that despite having the same subject, subject position, and camera position, changing the direction of light alters the intent of the photo, highlights different areas of the subject, and hides certain areas of the subjects with shadows as well.

We can see this phenomenon everyday as the sun rises and sets throughout the day. In the morning and late afternoon, the sun is in a low position, close to the horizon, the shadow cast on the subject is long and directional, while a high-noon sun will have the subject’s shadow directly below the subject.

Quantity of Light

Quantity of light is similar to the brightness of the light source. Generally speaking, the brighter the light, the better for a photographer as we can always reduce light falling onto our subject with different light modifiers but we cannot increase the amount of light than the brightness of our light source.

In Figure 4 and 5, we can see that the images look identically lit, they both have similar brightness. However, Figure 4 was taken with a bright light source and we were able to use a much lower ISO setting (best quality) compared to Figure 5 where a weaker light source was used and we had to compensate by using a higher ISO setting to obtain a similar exposure.

Figure 4: Bright Light - 1/250 f/5.6 - ISO 100

Figure 5: Low Brightness - 1/250, f/5.6 - ISO 1600

The quantity of light plays a big role in exposure as the more light is available, the wider range of shutter speed and aperture combination a photographer can use. When the is an abundance of light, a photographer can use lower ISOs (best quality), faster shutter speeds (minimize camera shake and subject movement), and a wider range of aperture size (for depth-of-field). Without ample amount of light, a photographer will be required to use higher ISO, slower shutter speeds, and wide apertures that may not provide adequate depth-of-field.

Quality of Light

The quality of light is the same as the contrast of light. A high-contrast lightsource would usually be a light that has a narrow beam pattern of light creating a sharp transition between shadow and highlight, while a low contrast lightsoure would be a wider or omni-directional light source that creates soft shadows with no gradual transition between highlight and shadow areas.

Hard Light

A prime example of hard lighting would be the shadows created by a high-noon sun in a clear sky. The shadows are sharply defined and would be really dark compared to the lit part of the ground. Without clouds acting as diffusing layers, the sun is a distant, pin-point light source that will cast hard shadows.

Figure 6: Hard Light

The smaller and farther the light source from the subject, the harder the light. Hard light produces harsh shadows and distinct highlights. This is best used to show off textures and angles of your subjects.

Soft Light

A typical overcast day filled with shadows is a good example of a soft light. The layers and layers of opaque clouds act as a diffusing layer that softens the hard light created by the sun. The light rays bounce around the cloud surface itself before reaching the subject, hence the scattered, omni-directional light.

Figure 7: Soft Light

The larger and closer the light source to the subject, the softer the light. Soft light works well on portraits and when we want to maximize the three-dimensional look of the subject, particularly with cylindrical or round subjects as well as soften facial pores and blemishes for human faces.

Depth of Light and Contrast

The depth of light dictates how light or dark the shadows are, the overall depth is also known as the “key” of the photograph. There are three basic “keys” of lighting: high key, mid key, and low key.

Contrast is closely related to the key of an image as well as contrast defines how gradual or abrupt the transition between light and dark areas of the image will be.

Figure 8: High Contrast

Figure 9: Low Contrast

Notice how the shape of the shadow and the intensity of the light falling on the subject is identical, but the shadow in Figure 8 is a lot darker than of Figure 9. Figure 8 therefore has a higher contrast than Figure 9.

In order to visualize the depth of light, we should refer to the exposure scale below.

Figure 9: Exposure Chart

The entire left side of the chart represents the shadows range (pure black) while the center area represents the highlights (pure white). The right side of the chart represents midtone gray. Here is our baseline image, the exposure chart above the subject. The exposure is based on the midtone gray and is considered as a “midtone” image.

Figure 10: Baseline Image "Normal" Exposure

Figure 10-A: Mid Key Histogram

High Key

First of all, high key images doesn’t equate to an overexposed image. High key simply means that the exposure is biased towards the highlight with relatively low contrast.

Figure 11-A: High Key Bias

Figure 11-B: High Key Histogram

Notice that the histogram has shifted to the right, with the shadows and midtone peaks moving away from the left and the highlight peaking with the most amount of data. Figure 12 shows an example of a high-key image.

Figure 12: Sample High Key Image

In most cases, the image would be dominated by bright tones. High key images often exude a bright and airy feel.

Low Key

Low key is the opposite, a low-key image is predominantly dark with high contrast. The exposure is biased towards the shadows and often conveys a mysterious and dark feel.

Figure 13-A: Low Key Bias

Figure 13-B: Low Key Histogram

Figure 14: Example Low Key Image

Color of Light

Light rays have different color temperatures as we can observe througout the day with the sun. When the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight has a warmer color with shades of yellow to red. As the sun moves higher around noontime, the color of sunlight turns cooler with shades blue, that is why during the gradual change between noon to sunset, we can see a blue-to-red gradient in our skies.

Artificial lights also have their own color spectrums, for example, halogen and tungsten lights often have a warm glow while fluorescent lights have a cooler “daylight” feel to them.

Figure 15: Color Differences

The color of light can alter the mood of a photograph and can subliminally inform the viewer of the time the photo was taken. As shown in Figure 15, the difference in light color can change our interpretation of when a photo was shot. The image on the left mimics a high-noon scenario while the image on the right conveys an early morning breakfast tea session.

Understanding how to utilize the brightness of light, its contrast, depth, and color allows photographers to depict emotions, scenes, moods, venue, and other subliminal hints that can turn a common, everyday snapshot into a high-impact photograph.

Understanding Lenses Part II

Focal length and type of photography

In the strictest term, there isn’t a rule that states a certain lens can only shoot a certain type of scene. Traditionally, the wider the focal length, the more it is recommended for landscape and scenes with a lot of environmental elements; while longer focal lengths are used for isolating subjects from a distance such as portraits or wildlife. However, there are a lot of examples of great landscape photographs taken with a long telephoto, while there are many eye-catching portraits taken with wider angle lenses, when used correctly.

There are general guidelines that certain focal lens are more suited for certain subjects though. The reason would be how humans normally perceive a certain image type. For example, we are familiar with how a “normal” human face should look like in terms of perspective, size ratio between facial features such as eye distances, nose size, and face width, to name a few.

Using focal lengths or lenses that distort this perceived universal photo characteristics often would lead to unusual interpretation or confusion to the viewer. These “norms” assign certain lens focal length to be ideal to certain types of photography, but not absolute rules. Here are some common classifications on lenses:

“Normal” Lenses

The most common focal range for cameras are between 35mm to 50mm, which are considered to be “normal” focal ranges as these focal lengths replicate the human eye’s field of view coverage. Virtually any scene is suitable for a normal angle lens, which makes it very versatile.

Wide Angle Lenses

A wide angle lens often covers a viewing angle wider than 40 degrees or so. This type of lens is often used for sweeping landscape or when a wide span of area needs to be captured in a single frame while still maintaining proper linearity. These lenses are often between the focal ranges of 18-28mm.

Figure 2: Wide Angle Landscape

Ultra-wide lenses are available as well, offering an even wider view with focal lengths between 15 to 20mm range for even wider view, but distortion will be evident in most photographs taken with an ultra-wide angle lens.

Figure 3: Ultra Wide Angle

Fisheye Lenses

Fisheye lenses create severely rounded images that cover almost 180-degrees of viewing angle, allowing unusual visual representation of a scene. These lenses are rarely used in normal scenes but could provide a fresh interpretation and rendition of an otherwise mundane scene.

Figure 4: Fisheye Distortion (photo: EricD-WikiMedia Commons)

Telephoto Lenses

A lens that has a focal length of over 70mm is often considered as a telephoto lens. These lenses are most often used for portraiture as the lenses are virtually free of distortion, which allows human facial features to appear more natural and flattering. As focal length increases, the depth-of-field also decreases, hence allowing better background-to-subject separation as well.

Figure 5: Telephoto Reach

Longer telephoto lenses (200-300mm) are often used to shoot subjects from a distance, such as sporting events, stage performances, and even wildlife.

Super Telephoto Lenses

These are often large, heavy, and expensive lenses that have focal ranges beyond 300mm. The usage of these lenses are rather limited to outdoor photography as these lenses require a lot of physical space to work with. These lenses are best suited for wildlife, aviary, and astro-photography purposes.

Figure 6: Super Telephoto

Macro Lens

Macro lenses utilize additional optics that allow the lens to be positioned much closer to the subject than normal lenses. Macro lenses can magnify small objects beyond their life-size dimensions on the sensor. Macro lenses are great for shooting insects and flora. Using a macro lens often creates a wide range of unseen and interesting subjects that we may not see with our day-to-day visual scenes.

Figure 7: Macro Details

Tilt-Shift Lens

A tilt-shift lens is a very specific piece of equipment often used for architectural photography to keep perspective and angles in check. A tilt-shift lens allows the photographer to physically correct perspective before an image is captured by moving the body of the lens in different vertical and horizontal adjustments.

Figure 8: Vertical Lean Correction

Tilt-shift lens can also be used to create extreme depth-of-field control that results to miniature-like subjects.

Figure 9: Miniaturization

Lens speed

As discussed in our previous article, the lens speed is dictated by the maximum aperture opening of the lens. The larger the opening, the more light passes through the lens, which allows the photographer to use faster shutter speeds. The ability to use faster shutter speeds in low-light situation reduces problems such as camera shake and excessive subject movement.

Large aperture lenses allow more light through, but they also allow the photographer to have more control on the amount of depth-of-field in their photographs than smaller aperture lenses. Large aperture lenses can provide really thin depth-of-field which in turn allows more visual separation between subject and background.

Blurring the distracting elements makes the subject stand out in a photograph and forces the viewer’s attention towards the subject and nothing else.

Figure 10: Thin DOF

Remember that we can always reduce the aperture size of a lens but we can’t open the aperture beyond its maximum setting, so having a large aperture lens allows us more options when it comes to controlling depth-of-field.

Image quality

At the end of the day, a lens has to produce sharp, high-contrast, artifact-free images for the sensor to capture. Lenses consist a number of glass elements inside the lens barrel itself to bend and manipulate light to create a final image. In general, the less elements in a lens’ construction, the better the image in terms of sharpness and contrast because there’s less light degradation as it passes through the elements. With all things equal, prime lenses (lenses with a single focal length) often produces better image quality than zoom lenses due to their simplistic design. However, modern computer-aided designs have closed the gap between prime and zoom lens image quality considerably, and it’s not uncommon to find modern professional zoom lenses outperforming old prime lenses.

The image quality of a lens is judged by several common factors such as sharpness, contrast, distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. The ability of a lens to control the negative and enhance the positive attributes of how the light is processed differentiates a good lens from a bad lens.

Figure 11 shows our baseline image, the image is relatively sharp, good in contrast, and not a whole lot to complain about, so let’s take a look at common lens problems that we may encounter with some lenses.

Figure 11 : Baseline Image

Distortion

Distortion is when a lens causes a straight line to appear bent or curved.

If we take a closer look at Figure 12, we can see that the center portion where the engravings are present are bulging from the center instead of flat like in your baseline image. Problems with distortion are common and expected with wider focal lengths that exceed 24mm or so. Fisheye lenses will always have a bulging effect due to lens design.

With more common focal lengths, however, a lens should have little to no distortion as this will cause straight edges to be crooked or human faces to be enlarged.

Zoom lenses and long telephoto are more prone to having distortion on either end of its zoom range as there are more glass elements inside the lens itself that can cause light to bend incorrectly.

Figure 12: Distortion

In order to test the severity of your lens distortion, simply take a photo of a rectangular grid and see if both vertical and horizontal lines are parallel with the adjacent lines.

Figure 13: Distortion Chart

A small level of distortion is expected on most lenses, but obvious distortion should never be present with lenses unless the lens is a fisheye or ultra-wide angle lens.

Vignetting

Vignetting is when the edges of a frame have a different level of brightness than the center of the frame. This is a common effect added onto a photograph especially when the photographer wants to emphasize and direct the attention of the viewer to the center of the frame. When a vignette is visible through the viewfinder or unprocessed photographs, however, this becomes a lens shortcoming, and all the photos taken with the lens would require post-processing correction to fix the resulting vignette.

Figure 14: Vignetting

Figure 14 shows an image with a dark vignette. The edges are a few stops darker than the center of the frame. This is not ideal especially when you have subjects or details across the length of the image. A light vignette is less common, where the corners are brighter than the center.

Many large-aperture, wide-angle lenses exhibit more vignetting than smaller aperture lenses. Smaller aperture lenses or when a lens’ aperture has been “stopped down” will often have less vignetting.

When testing for lens vignetting, make sure that the lens being tested doesn’t have any filters or lens hood attached as filters that are too thick or an improper lens hood may cause light to be blocked from the edges of the lens causing the vignette.

Chromatic Aberration

Chromatic Aberration (CA) occurs when the different spectrums of light fails to hit the sensor at the same angle causing halo-like artifacts around the hard edges of the image captured. In Figure 15, we can see purple and cyan fringing around the hard edges of the subject. This phenomenon is most visible when the subject is shot against a contrasting background (dark subject on light background, or bright subject against dark backgrounds).

Figure 15: Chromatic Aberration

Manufacturers often employ special coatings and lens treatments in their lens elements to ensure that the different color spectrums align themselves in perfect focus when hitting the sensor, however, some camera sensors itself are more prone to CA due to the microlenses used in the design of the sensor. With that in mind, some lenses would probably exhibit a certain amount of CA when mounted on certain cameras but may not show any CA when mounted on a film camera, for example.

Low Contrast

Contrast is the difference in brightness and color between elements within the same scene. Black and white would translate to a high-contrast scene, while a white and light gray would be considered as a low-contrast scene (see Figure 16)

Compare Figure 17 with our baseline image, we’ll see that the blacks are less defined in the low-contrast image and there’s less tonal gradation from pure black to pure white.

Figure 16: Examples of contrast

Figure 17: Low Contrast

Take note that when we check for lens contrast that the scene we are shooting actually has a good degree of contrast itself. There’s no way to capture a high-contrast photograph if the scene itself has a low contrast such as a fog or smoke-filled scenes.

Soft Image

Perhaps the most scrutinized performance of lenses would probably be sharpness, or the lack of it. When an image is soft and hazy, it is usually caused by a lens that utilizes too many inferior glass elements or its inability to focus all the light rays onto the exact same area on the camera’s sensor, resulting to an un-sharp image.

Soft images are rarely useful as most photographs require a certain amount of details captured to show the intricacies of the subject being photographed. With a soft lens, these details will not be registered with sharp details but rather a group of hazy, blurry patterns.

Figure 18: Soft Image

We can see in Figure 18 that the intricate markings on the edge of the subject are no longer rendered. Remember that we can always blur an image through post-processing but we cannot add details that were never there during the time the image was captured.

Summary

Keep in mind that a lens is the first piece of equipment to capture light rays in order for us to create a photograph. Choosing a lens is very important as regardless of camera body advancement, a good lens will often be able to provide great images regardless of camera used. However, a substandard lens will never be capable of providing decent images regardless of how sophisticated the camera may be. Garbage-in, garbage-out.

Pick a lens that suits your budget and subject preference wisely. If you find yourself shooting wildlife most of the time, concentrate your options to getting a good telephoto lens. On the other hand, if you know you’ll be shooting macro often, there’s no reason to even consider a fisheye lens or a super telephoto, for example.

Lenses are great photographic investments as their value rarely depreciates as fast as camera bodies. So picking a great lens can serve you for decades even if we change cameras multiple times in the future.

Digital SLR Lenses Explained

One of the main advantages for using a single lens reflex camera (SLR) is the ability to change lenses to give the photographer maximum flexibility with their photographic output.

Figure 1: Lenses

A lens is a simple device that bends lightrays to form an image onto a camera’s sensor. In its most simplest form, a lens can be a small hole in a dark box. As light passes through the small hole, an image is projected onto the interior wall of the box. As a matter of fact, this simple setup is the first incarnation of a camera as we know it – the Camera Obscura.

Our eyes are lenses themselves. The convex shape of our eyeballs act as a lens that allow light to pass through our pupil, which acts as the aperture, to create an image on our retina for our brain to recognize.

Figure 2: Human Eyes

The basic pinhole design became more complicated but more accurate with the introduction of glass elements that can bend the light in certain ways to create sharper, clearer, and more realistic replications of the real world. A combination of glass placed inside a light-proof barrel can replicate or distort the real scene captured onto the camera’s sensor or film.

If we try to look into a camera’s viewfinder without a lens, we’ll see that the light is scattered in no specific pattern that allows us to recognize the light to form an image.

With different camera brands come different lens designs, in most cases, the lenses vary with their mount design and electrical contact configuration, with today’s modern lenses. We normally cannot mount a lens that is designed for one brand onto another brand of camera body. This is primarily due to brand competition and marketing, but the internals of the lens serve the same purpose, which is creating an image for the sensor to capture.

Figure 3: Example of Canon electrical contact and mount

Lens Markings

Figure 4 shows the different markings and parts of a typical zoom lens. Almost all zoom lenses feature the same set of features and markings for the photographer to identify focal length, nearest focusing distance, selecting focus mode, and a manual focus ring.

Figure 4: Typical Lens Marking (Side)

Some older lenses offer more controls and readouts such as having the aperture adjustment ring mounted on the lens, providing a distance scale and sporting a depth-of-field scale as well on the lens barrel.

Figure 5: Lens with Aperture Ring, DOF Scale, and Distance Scale

Figure 6: Typical Zoom Lens marking (Front)

The front of the lens shows the specifications, mainly the focal length coverage, maximum aperture size, and the filter diamter size for the lens. Lenses have two main specifications, the focal length, and the available aperture of the lens.

Focal Length

Focal length refers to the diagonal field-of-view coverage that the lens is capable of. Our human eyes have approximately 160-degrees of field of peripheral vision from left to right. A camera lens also has a range of angles it can accomodate depending on its design. Figure 7 shows the approximate angle of coverage on popular lens focal lengths.

Figure 7: Approximate Diagonal Field of View

Common ranges are between 16mm all the way to 300mm or so. While specialized lenses can go as wide as a few millimeters (beyond 180-degrees) all the way to telescope-like magnificating lenses.  As the focal length increases, the narrower the field-of-view, and vice versa. The subject size and perspective will not change as long a the camera position is constant.

Figure 8: Field-of-View with different focal lengths

A wider lens covers more elements in a scene, while a longer lens covers less elements in a scene.

Aperture

Inside the lens, there are aperture blades that controls the amount of light entering the lens. The aperture marking on the lens indicates the maximum opening of the lens. The smaller the aperture number, the wider the opening of the lens.

The aperture f/stop figure is a ratio between the focal length and the diameter of the light pattern entering the front of the lens. If the focal length is four times longer than the pupil diameter, then lens would have an aperture rating of f/4. A 28mm lens at f/2.8 has a smaller physical aperture diameter than a 135mm lens at f/2.8, but both lenses allow the same amount of light into the lens as the ratio between the focal length and diameter of light entry is similar.

A larger maximum aperture opening available for a lens allows more light through a lens. Such lenses are often called “fast” lenses, while lenses with smaller (usually smaller than f/4) are considered as slow lenses.

All prime lenses have only one widest aperture number marking as the lens only has one focal length.  Figure 9 shows a 135mm lens with a widest aperture opening of f/2.8.

Figure 9: Prime lens markings

Zoom lenses usually have two sets of aperture marker on the lens such as the one in Figure 6. In our example, “1:3.5-5.6” denotes that the lens opens to f/3.5 at its widest focal length, while the maximum aperture of f/5.6 denotes the maximum lens opening at its maximum telephoto zoom length.

Most common consumer lenses are designed in such a way that the lens is faster at its widest focal length while much slower at longer focal length. Such design saves cost, size, and weight which makes these lenses appealing to budget-conscious photographers.

Most professional lenses offer a constant, large aperture size that allow more light entering the lens regardless of focal length, and this applies even to zoom lenses. The cost increases dramatically for professional lenses as it require more raw materials to manufacture and these lenses are oftentimes heavy and large in size.

Figure 10: Constant aperture zoom lens

We the front lens marking on the lens in Figure 10 shows only one aperture ratio number (in this case, f/4) throughout its zoom range between 24mm to 105mm.

In Part II of our lens coverage, we will discuss the image quality differences of certain lenses and how to read lens specifications and analyze image quality.

In our previous lesson, we explained how the three basic elements of shutter speed, aperture size, and ISO setting creates an exposure. In this lesson, we will show you how combining the three elements together to create variations on identical scenes. Before we begin, we need to recap some important pointers from the previous lesson:

1. Shutter speed controls how much light hits the sensor at a given aperture size. Slower shutter = capturing moving subjects as a blur; Faster shutter = freezing subject’s motion.
2. Aperture size controls how much light hits the sensor at a given shutter speed. Larger aperture = thinner depth-of-field; Smaller aperture = wider depth-of-field.
3. ISO setting controls how sensitive the sensor is in capturing light. Lower ISO = best image quality, least sensitive and requires longer exposure times; High ISO = grainy and noisier images, allows faster exposure times.

As a photographer, you can control all three parameters and still end up with identical exposures (overall brightness of the image) but totally different intent and quality with motion, depth-of-field, and ISO noise differences.

Take a look at the three photographs below and notice that all three are nearly identical in terms of exposure.

Figure 1: 1/1000, F/5.6 @ ISO 100

Figure 2: 1/100, F/18.0 @ ISO 100

Figure 3: 1/2000, F/16.0 @ ISO 1600

Now study the exposure information for a minute.

• Figure 1 used a fast shutter speed (1/1000) with a relatively large aperture opening (f/5.6) at a low ISO setting of 100.
• Figure 2 used a slower shutter speed (1/100) with a smaller aperture size (f/18.0), and low ISO 100.
• Figure 3 used a fast shutter speed (1/2000), and a small aperture size (f/16.0), and a high ISO (1600).

Using the faucet analogy from our previous lesson, let’s assume that our bucket has a volume of 1 liter.

• Figure 1 equates to a quick opening of the faucet valve (fast shutter) with a large faucet diameter (big aperture opening) filling the 1L bucket (low ISO).
• Figure 2 equates to leaving the  faucet valve open longer (slower shutter) while using a small faucet diameter (small aperture size) filling a 1L bucket (low ISO).
• Figure 3 equates to a opening the faucet valve quickly (fast shutter) with a small faucet diamter (small aperture size) filling a 200ml cup (high ISO). Let’s take a look at a more practical application.

Exposure Scenario: Freezing Motion

We know that in order to freeze motion, we would need a relatively high shutter speed.   Our subject involves a set of pendulum balls in motion and our goal is to freeze the first pendulum ball’s motion. We switched our camera to “Program” mode and allow the camera to automatically calculate an exposure and provide us with a baseline image for reference.

Figure 4: Program Mode

The automatic exposure setting of the camera gave us the following image and exposure information.

Figure 5: Full Auto Image

Figure 6: Exposure Info

Let’s analyze our baseline image.

The captured image utilized a 1/60 shutter speed at f/4.0 at ISO 100, as indicated by the LCD. We have a correctly exposed photograph with the right amount of details between shadows and highlights, however, the pendulum ball is blurry as the shutter speed wasn’t fast enough to freeze the pendulum’s motion.

Since we’ve learned that we need to increaase shutter speed to freeze motion, we will attempt to do so by switching our camera to “Tv” Mode, also known as time-value or shutter-priority mode, and select a higher shutter speed. The Tv Mode allows the you to specify a shutter speed of your choice while allowing the camera to automatically adjust the aperture setting to create a proper exposure.

Figure 7: Shutter Priority Mode

Figure 8: Using a Higher Shutter Speed

We manually changed the shutter speed from 1/60 to 1/250, and almost instantly, we can see that the pendulum ball is sharper has less motion blur (Figure 8). Notice, however, the image is considerably darker overall, meaning it’s underexposed with our current setting of 1/250, f/4.0 @ ISO 100.

Figure 9: Shutter Priority Settings

Normally, the camera would increase the aperture size to allow more light to enter the lens to create a proper exposure. In this case however, the lens used can only open up to a maximum value of F/4.0, hence, the sensor could not properly expose the scene at that shutter speed. We’ll work around the underexposure problem later on, right now, we’ll concentrate on capturing the pendulum ball as sharp as possible.

At 1/250 second shutter speed, we can still see a hint of motion blur on the pendulum ball. We can freeze the ball’s motion further by increasing the shutter speed even more, this time, we’ll use 1/500 second.

Figure 10: 1/500 Shutter Speed

Figure 11: Exposure Information

As expected, the image became even darker, but the pendulum ball’s motion is frozen pretty well. We have found our ideal shutter speed! Now it’s time to fix our (under)exposure.

Now that we’ve decided on a shutter speed to use, we need to adjust the other two parameters to fix our exposure. We’ve already discovered that our aperture size is already opened to its widest setting for this particular lens at F/4, therefore, the only variable left that can affect our expsosure is the ISO sensitivity.

By increasing our ISO from 100 to 400, we’re able to capture more light for our exposure as the sensor became more sensitive to light.

Figure 12: Increase ISO From 100 to 400.

Figure 13: Result of Increased ISO from 100 to 400

Let’s increase our ISO some more to replicate the proper exposure we got in Figure 5.

Figure 14: Increase ISO from 400 to 800

Figure 15: Result from Increasing ISO from 400 to 800

Exposure Scenario 2: Depth of Field

The other most frequentl creative decision photographers need to make is to determine how much of the scene should be in focus. We understand that the image’s depth-of-field (DOF) is primarily controlled by the aperture size.

Like our previous scenario, we will manually control the aperture size parameter and allow the adjust the shutter speed and ISO accordingly to create a proper exposure. Our goal is to keep all three bottles in focus instead of just the center bottle. Here we have three bottle stacked one in front of the other with the camera focusing on the word “HONEY” on the label of the middle bottle.

Figure 16

We switched to Program mode again for the first shot allowing the camera to expose the scene automatically. The camera chose the following settings: 0.3 second @ F/5.0, ISO 100.

Figure 17: Program Mode.

Figure 18: Baseline Exposure

Examining Figure 16, you’ll see that the depth-of-field is quite shallow with only the middle bottle in focus and the other two bottles blurred. The shallow DOF is caused by the large aperture of the lens. In addition, it’s difficult to hold a camera steady with a slow shutter speed such as 0.3 second.

Let’s solve the DOF issue first, by reducing the aperture size, we can have a wider DOF to keep all three bottles in focus. So let’s switch to our camera’s Aperture Priority mode to directly control the aperture value of our lens while allowing the camera to compute for the proper shutter speed value.

Figure 19: Aperture Priority Mode

We now select a small aperture value to keep all the subjects within the DOF, in this case, we used F/22 as our arbitrary aperture value. The camera automatically calculates the proper shutter speed and indicates it will require 6 seconds to properly expose the scene.

Figure 20: Small Aperture Selected.

Figure 21: Exposure Details (6sec @ f/22)

Now we have all three bottles within the DOF, however, the slow (6 second) shutter speed makes it hard for us to hold the camera steady, resulting to a lot of camera shake. Let’s try to shorten the exposure time by increasing the ISO to 3200.

Figure 22: Small Aperutre + Increased ISO

Figure 23: Increased ISO Details (1/5 second @ f/22, ISO 3200)

Now we’re getting close to our goal. We obtained our required depth-of-field to keep all three bottles in focus, while the camera was able to use an adequately fast shutter speed so minimize motion blur because of our higher ISO setting.

To finalize our photograph, we stabilize our camera onto a tripod or place it on a firm, steady surface (such as the table itself). With a stabilized platform, we can use a the same exposure as Figure 21 without the consequence of camera shake. Exposure info: 6 seconds @ F/22, ISO 100.

Figure 24: Stabilized and Sharp Image

Depending on our intended photograph, we can utilize various combinations  of shutter speed, aperture size, and ISO setting to properly expose our photographs, control motion, and dictate depth of field.

As an exercise, you can always use your full-automatic Program mode of your camera to take your baseline image and take note of the shutter speed, aperture size, and ISO setting used for the baseline image. After noting the three parameters, you can easily make the decision on issues such as to freeze or blur your subject, or control the depth-of-field. When we understand how changing one parameter affects overall exposure, we can progress to using the camera without any automation to have total control of our photograph’s output.

Lastly,  did you notice the LCD displays a graph beside the image? That’s called a Histogram, and we’ve discussed that important graph in this lesson.