A Few of My Africa Pictures

This summer, my dad, my uncle, my aunt, and I hopped on a plane and went to Namibia. My dad was going on his 3rd (or was it 4th?!) African safari, and decided to bring my uncle along for his first big game hunt. Michelle and I tagged along as the "team photographers". Official, right?

Here's my dad, trying to convince my Aunt Michelle not to go home when the going got tough at Sea-Tac. Our flight was delayed by 6 hours and we had to rebook every step of the way from there on out. :(



The horrible flights were worth it though, because here's the bed I slept in every night! King sized beds with heated blankets were in everyone's tents to keep us warm during African winter nights.



Ostriches, running from our jeep as we went out in the afternoon to look for a trophy Kudu. They're much bigger in real life!



Here is (foreground to background) my uncle Howard, our tracker Jonas, my dad Scott, and our PH (professional hunter) Jamie Trautt. The guys went out to look for blesbuck, leaving the women-folk in the jeep to twiddle their thumbs.



Giraffes at sunset- how could you get a more typical "Africa picture"? Keep looking. (This was edited to up the brightness in the foreground because driving around in an open jeep isn't the greatest place to take a good long exposure shot.)



Acacia trees at sunset! This has been edited to bring back out the color of the sky, because it was taken my last night out in the jeep, going much too fast over too many bumps for a long exposure.



These last two were taken the second night in Eden at the waterhole outside the dining hut (which really shouldn't be called a hut, it's more of a dining hall!). I was fiddling around with different settings trying to get cool effects!



This shot, believe it or not, probably took about 35 seconds. The Waterbuck in the foreground stood completely still, staring me down through the lens of my camera for the entire shot!




These are only a smaaaall percentage of the pictures I took, but they're some of the highlights of the trip. If my dad's new article gets published though, you can look forward to seeing more of my pictures IN PRINT! My dad writes articles for various and sundry gun magazines (EEP no guns in school :S) so a few of the pictures I took are being shipped out with his article about Africa.

My DOF photos

Here the toy plane is in focus, while the rest of the scene (the coral and dinosaur) is blurred. An f.5 was used on this shot to make the depth of field very narrow.


In this shot, only the dinosaur in the background is in focus. This also used an f.5, focusing instead on the dinosaur.


Sorry about the subject switch, but here's a shot with 3 items in focus (the keyboard, the left computer screen, and the water bottle.) This picture was taken with a large aperture; I think about an f.20. That made for a little motion blur though, as conditions didn't lend themselves to a good long exposure. :(

The Field is Pretty Deep

What is Depth of Field?

Depth of field is the distance in front of and beyond the subject that is in focus. The main influences on depth of field are camera type, aperture, and focusing distance. Depth of field is a gradual transition- things further from the focus point get more and more out of focus. To understand this transition from in-focus to out of focus, you have to understand the "circle of confusion". This term is used to define how much a point needs to be blurred to be perceived as out of focus. When the circle of confusion is perceptable to human eyes, the point is no longer "acceptably sharp." Larger apertures/smaller f-numbers give you a shallower depth of field, meaning a more select portion of the frame is in focus. The opposite is also true.


This picture has a fairly shallow depth of field, so only one pool ball is in focus.



This picture has a much larger depth of field, so almost everything in the frame is in sharp focus.


Besides changing aperture to change your depth of field, you can also use the hyperfocal distance to make your pictures sharper. The hyperfocal distance is the point where the image is sharp (anything in front of it is out of focus) when your aperture is set to infinity. To make up for this you can aim at the hyperfocal distance, which will make everything in front of the point sharp too.


This is an example of how to use hyperfocal distance to create a sharper image.

How Can I Control Depth of Field?

1. Adjusting The Aperture.
Like I mentioned, having a smaller f-number means you have a shallower depth of field- less of your photo will be in focus. Also, the larger the f-number you use, the greater depth of field, and the more of the image will be sharp. When stopping down, if you use too small of an f-number, you can lose quality, so make sure you only stop down as far as is necessary. Also, the smaller the aperture, the longer exposure you'll need, so a tripod is helpful for this type of shot.

These three pictures show the same photo with a wide aperture, a medium aperture, and a narrow aperture, resp.



2. Focal Length.
The longer the focal length of your lens is, the shallower depth of field you'll get. If you use a 30 mm lens, everything will probably be fairly sharp. If you were to use a zoom lens of 135 mm, your depth of field is cut, and the background will be much more out of focus. And if you use an even more powerful telephoto lens, say 300 mm, the background will be almost completely blurred. The longer the focal length of your lens, the more dramatically the background will be blurred.

Here is the same photo, taken with a 35 mm lens, a 135 mm lens, and a 300 mm lens, resp.

3. Focus Distance.
The easiest way to control depth of field-- where you are in relation to your subject. The closer you are to the subject, the narrower depth of field any lens or aperture will give you. This is especially dramatic when shooting macro, when subjects are greatly magnified and also very close to the lens. So if you want to get a sharp picture of a landscape, you'll have greater depth of field the further away you are. If you want to take a picture of someone's eye, blurring out everything else, your best bet will to get up close and personal with your model!


Here is the same image, focusing on the background, the middle ground, and the foreground, resp.

(4.) Camera Sensor Size
When you're choosing sensor size, your major choices are 35mm, medium format, and large format sensors. (Camera sensors, as we learned about earlier, are grids with millions of pixels that catch light to create an image.) As sensor size increases, depth of field for a givin aperture will decrease. This happens because larger sensors require you to get closer to your subject, or use a longer focal length (zoom in) to fill the frame. Because of this, you have to use smaller aperture sizes to maintain the same depth of field on a larger sensor.

Homecoming Week (started)

I was sick most of last week, so I'll bring in a few more pictures asap! :S sorry!



Playing around with the reflections in the floor on Monday of homecoming week. These bags have always screamed "LaConner High" to me ever since I was little, so why not take a few pictures to remember them by? This one is Anna Thostenson's. And no it's not that grungy in real life, that's a photo filter added later :]



More bags, this time Anna and Caleb's. Same corner in the hallway, same day, the lense is just in a different position. This one I played around with photoshop and tried out a mock-flourescent coloring.

Lights, Camera, SHOOT

I couldn't decide which panning shot I liked better, so I used one of each car.





Here's a stop-action shot of the robot- obviously it isn't as sharp as I would like.. :/



And last, here's a blur shot of the little bug. Look at his trail!

Exposure

The first part of my exposure project. While taking pictures for my dad's new article, this bug caught my eye.

Exposure

Exposure is how much light is allowed to fall on the photographic medium (the light sensor or the film). Thus, it refers to how long the shutter is open and the aperture used (how wide the pupil is.)
Most digital cameras, while on auto-settings, use metering. Metering is when the camera takes information from the frame and averages how much light is cast on the subject, determining what kind of exposure is needed to correctly light the subject. There are typically a few types of metering: center weighted average, partial, spot, and multi zone.
"Correct exposure" is determined by the sensitivity of the medium (film) used. Sensitivity is referred to as film speed, and is measured on a scale by the ISO.

Faster film needs a shorter exposure and has a higher ISO rating.
Exposure is a combination of the length of time light is allowed to fall on the medium, and the level of illumination received. Exposure is controlled by the lens aperture (how wide the hole is/how much light is allowed in) and the shutter speed (how long the shutter is left open).

The principle of reciprocity says that if you expose a medium for a longer period of time, that a reciprocally smaller aperture is needed to acheive the same exposure. For example, if you use a lower, faster f-stop (for a shallower depth of field) you would need to change your aperture accordingly. The f-number (1.4, 5.6, 8, etc) tells you what the diameter of the entrance pupil is in terms of the effective focal length of the lens. It is the quantitative measure of lens speed.
There is a saying "f/8 and be there", meaning that being at the scene is more important than the technical details. f/8 will typically give a good depth of field, when all other settings are reasonable for the lighting. Usually, medium f-numbers (typically between f/5.6-f/8)
Another rule or saying is the "sunny 16 rule". This says that on a sunny day, using an aperture of f/16 and a shutter speed close to the reciprocal of the ISO speed will give you a clear, correctly exposed shot.

To adjust aperture, there is some math involved. Each f-stop faster (each lower f-number) is twice as fast as the f-stop before it. If you have f/5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second, and you want to use a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second, you would need to adjust your f-stop to f/2.8. (125) x (2.2)= (500)

Using different exposures can create interesting effects on a photo!

(info via wikipedia, photos via flickr, artist noted)


This shot was captured thanks to a very quick exposure.
Thanks to banAI on Flickr.



The "movement" of the water was created by using a long exposure.
Thanks to shawnhoon on Flickr.

HDR?!

First attempt at "image blending" aka the paintshop cs2 version of "HDR".
No tripod, so the images were a little off ( they didn't line up :( !!)
But I want to play with this process more!

Principles

These photos are of a box i have of scrapbooking pieces. They have different words and phrases on them, but my favorite is the "remember" piece. ( The color doesn't look as good on this computer as it does on mine :S )

Playtime Part Deux

Daddy's Truck
Not an angle anyone would hope to see a truck from, with the possible exception of a mechanic.
(this has been slightly editing- i played with the color balance, but the exposure and focusing was all mine!)



Soda Pop Personality
Part of my collection of soda bottles. Mostly Jones Soda (it's my favorite!) but a Flathead Lake Monster too.
(This was also edited- mostly getting the closest bottle a little sharper. I took the shot without my glasses, which I'll definitely try to avoid from now on. Also I toyed with the exposure setting on photoshop a wee bit.)



Roses Really Smell Like...
One of the last remaining roses in the garden. Taken during a storm, the petals are weighted down with rain drops.
(This was sharpened a little bit- again the problem with not wearing glasses. I tweaked the brightness a little to make up for the fact I couldn't hold the camera still enough for a longer exposure.)