project 9 : focal lengths

For this project it was asked to shot a series of frames on a tripod pointed to the same subject at different focal distances. for the purpose of this exercise I shot 3 frames:

  The 1st was taken at 200mm with the settings on aperture priority set at f/16 with the shutter at 1/90sec and sensitivity at 100 ISO.

The 2nd frame was shot at 36mm again on aperture priority at 100 ISO with the aperture at f/16 with the shutter at 1/60sec.

The 3rd and last one. Again on aperture priority, 100 ISO. At 18mm with the aperture set at f/16 and shutter at 1/60sec.

My favourite photograph is the 3rd one because it gives a sense of positioning and the lines leading the eyes into the picture

project 8: recording a sequence

This project was a bit of a struggle as I don't like to wander around pointing my flashy digital slr at people. For this reason I choose to shot a landscape.  I choose a bus stop in brighton it was early morning and i thought that this would present problems to make things a bit more interesting. for starters it was an uninspiring  subject unless there was people sitting on it. but no, this was a ghost bus stop. it was early morning, around 6:25 the road was busy  with cars and i was being stared at. This was kind of cheating by not shooting people but the subject was hard enough to be a challenge. I shot the sequence of 20 frames with a d200 set on aperture priority at 100 ISO. the lens i used was a nikon 18-200mm vr, for versatility and not so much quality.
As i parked the car right next to the road sign saying Nevill road I took my camera and started shooting.




The first image was the bus stop as i saw it after the corner.

 Then i decided to picture a bit more of the space surrounding the subject to try to give it a sense of placement.

 Then i moved to the right and stopped in the middle of a t-junction  shooting the subject frontally in  the middle of the frame with two horizontal lines and the lamp posts on the edges of the frame.

I then shot the subject close to the inferior edge of the frame to draw attention to the sky.

 For the next frame I zoomed the subject in the centre of the picture isolating it from the surroundings but leaving a bit of horizon to ad a sense of depth.

I then pointed the camera just slightly to the right leaving the subject still in the horizontal middle but to the left vertically giving the frame a slight movement of the eye as the viewer first looks at the bus stop and then to the left of it. To the lamp post and an area of clearance just before it where we see the ocean and the clouds on the horizon.

For the next frame I inclined the camera down on he left side to play with the dynamics of the frame and then photographed a coach obstructing the view on the subject.

Next I framed another photo with the camera inclined down on the left side with a vehicle on road to the left of the subject driving the eye of the viewer to the right, out of the frame. (unfortunately)

For the next frame I crossed the road to the back of the subject, and shot it on a bed of flowers. i photographed the subject high on a portrait frame focusing on the closest flowers as i shot it at f/3.5 the minimum aperture for the distance. i rendered most of the frame out of focus on a failed attempt to get a blurry background but f/3.5 wasn't enough i should be using at least a f/2.8 as it was a wideangle at 18mm. or I should have shot it at f/16 to get everything sharp. as it stands I messed the chance of a great shot, i need to go back a try this photo in the future.

The following frame was taken from the same position but zoomed to fill the frame the subject is diagonally aligned to give it a sense of depth.

For the next photograph I moved to the left until I faced the back of the bus shelter frontally. I released the shutter with the structure on the top half of the portrait frame.

Next I moved to the left of the shelter and shot it diagonally from the back to the side with the sun behind it. This produced too much contrast with the foreground darkened and the cloud area around the sun  overexposed. this fact as rendered the image impossible to rescue as the levels are passed the extremes, as i  try to correct one it worsens the other.

The next photo was taken a few yards from the last one on the side. here the shelter is low in the frame with the sky occupying the majority of the space and showing the surroundings. the contrast is also extremely high.

This next frame was taken from across the street diagonally to the shelter with lines running through the frame. The subject is centred in the middle of the frame with the sky and the empty road giving a sense of calm and space.

the following frame was taken from the same spot but zoomed in close  timing the the capture of the seagull on the right . 

this one I took from the same position but with lots of sky and the subject positioned at the bottom giving the idea of space.

Next i step to the left and shot the subject high in the frame with some flowers on the right of the foreground.

For this frame i crossed the street and shot the subject  diagonally  in centre of the frame.

Then I shot it zoomed in the middle of the frame.

Returning to the beginning of the sequence where in my opinion the frame is more interesting as it gives the location of the subject.

project 6: fitting the frame to the subject

This exercise comprises of 4 frames of the same subject shot in different ways: The first photo to be framed should be taken without much thought. the second with the subject tightly fitting in the frame. The third a closeup of part of the subject filling the frame. and finally the last one with the subject in its surroundings. The project is an introduction to different ways of seeing and approaching a subject. The shoots were taken at night under artificial light with the help of a camera popup flash. The sensitivity was set to 100 ISO and the mode was left on aperture priority. the first 3 images were taken with a micro nikkor 105mm, and the last image was shot with a  nikkor 14-24mm wideangle zoom lens. The image settings were as follows:




The usual perspective was taken at 1/60sec with the aperture at f/8. -

The frame where the subject fits tightly in the frame was taken at 1/60sec, f/3. -

The closeup frame was set at 1/60, f/4.5. -

The frame placed within the surroundings was taken with the aperture at f/2.8 and shutter set at 1/60sec. -

 My favourite photograph of this project is the first one because of the simplicity it conveys. The frame is uncluttered but we can see a small portion of its surroundings. its a clear photograph, perhaps not so artistic or worthy of hanging  on the wall but it illustrates the pint of milk well.

Ps - this post was rectified on the 21st of july 2010 for the photography course purposes.

project 5: panning with different shutter speeds

This project was a 12 pictures exercise of panning at different speeds. I shot the frames on a motorway bridge in  Pease Potage, Crawley, on shutter priority using a variety of speeds ranging from 1/10sec to 1/1000sec at iso 100. The lens used for this project was the nikkor 18-200mm vr because of the versatility it offers, but at the same time it presents another set of problems namely being slow and the annoying  barrel creeping. At shutter speeds of around 1/60sec i found that the subjects were recorded fairly sharp with the background being blurry. At around 1/1000sec the subjects and background were recorded sharply .  The frame i prefer of the two projects (4 and 5) is a frame on the project 4 shot at 1/10sec. A friend of mine Oz on a bicycle doing a wheelie. as i said on a previous post i like it for the sense of movement because of the slow shutter speed but its not to slow as it retained a reasonable level of sharpness not much. But enough to allow the viewer to see the playful expression on Oz's face. I also like the fact that there are not many distractions on the background and that the subject is centred without being static.
The Camera settings for this project were:


1/10 at f/29.

1/15 at f/20.

1/25 at f/16.

1/30 at f/16.

1/50 at f/11.

1/60 at f/11.

1/80 at f/10.

1/125 at f/11.

1/160 at f/6.3.

1/250 at f/5.

1/500 at f/5.

1/1000 at f/5.

project 4 : shutter speeds

this project consists of 12 pictures of the same subject  at various shutter speeds. I had to use two different bike riders because the first one Celestino was too slow and i couldn't get a blurry subject with a sharp background so i asked oz to give it a try and ride the bike a bit faster, but after one minute he too got tired of doing wheelies and stopped. leaving me with no choice but to use both sets. the objective of this project was to promote shutter speed control and awareness.  I set the sensitivity of my d200 to 400 ISO and switched to shutter priority all of the photos were taken in raw, then adjusted  on photoshop. Nothing fancy just a bit of levels and contrast.
The picture that looks sharp is the one taken at 1/125sec.  My favourite frame is the one with the border taken at 1/10sec, because of oz's sense of movement without blurring is facial expression which shows joy and excitement. with the fact that the background is slightly blur and ads to the sense of  movement. i also like the fact that its not too cluttered with distractions as some of the other frames.
The picture settings are as follows:

1/6sec, f/22

1/8sec, f/22

1/10sec, f/22

1/13sec, f/20

1/15sec, f/20

1/20sec, f/14

1/25sec, f/18

1/30sec, f/18

1/50sec, f/13

1/60sec, f/11

1/80sec, f/11

1/125sec, f/8