https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog daily 0.75 2022-10-08 https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog/camera-filters-a-helpful-guide monthly 0.5 2022-10-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/9b980e45-5563-4083-a25a-99d438792aa1/PXL_20221008_102359543.MP.jpg Articles - Camera Filters - A Helpful Guide - Each type of filter performs a specific job by manipulating the light that can enter the camera lens. For example, they can reduce the overall amount of light, reduce light in specific areas of your image, change or enhance colours, reduce glare, protect your lens and more! Camera lens filters can be extremely useful pieces of kit to have. Through this page, I’ll run through the main types of camera filter you will encounter and how they can be used, focusing on those used primarily for landscape photography with digital photography. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/abc19dbe-dbe8-4d56-9a16-173f7351c135/IMG_2566.jpg Articles - Camera Filters - A Helpful Guide - ND Filters ND filters (or neutral-density filters) are darkened glass/resin and reduce the amount of light that enters the camera across the whole colour spectrum. They are extremely useful in conditions with difficult lighting to prevent parts of the image being under- or overexposed. Provided you adjust settings to the same overall exposure, there should be no change to the colours/tint of your images when using a good quality ND filter. A cheap ND filter can block certain parts of the colour spectrum more than others, giving a change in colour. The first (cheap) ND filters I used gave everything a slight purple tint – not ideal! ND filters come in different ‘stops’ (see this article on exposure). For example, a 4-stop ND filter will reduce the light entering the camera by 4-stops, so you will need to adjust your camera settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) to achieve the same exposure. ND filters can range normally from 1-stop up to around 10 stops. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/eb8cebe0-4b6f-4f33-a43e-d7343d4bf8a8/IMG_5047.jpg Articles - Camera Filters - A Helpful Guide Here I was able to use a graduated filter with the transition on the horizon to reduce the brightness of the sky and pull out the vivid oranges and yellows you can see. https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog/the-golden-hour monthly 0.5 2022-10-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/563f18a0-296e-496b-94a8-f0e21fc620c0/IMG_9397.jpg Articles - The Golden Hour - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/4fe65a18-30f4-4b7e-9215-b31072370219/IMG_0823.jpg Articles - The Golden Hour - Make it stand out To summarise: The golden hour can certainly be magical and I’ve taken some of my favourite ever photos during these times. It often means early starts or late finishes but it’s definitely worth it for the quality of your photos. Apart from anything else, if it does mean it’s especially early or late, chances are your location won’t be busy. The first sunrise I made an early start for was at Lake Bled in Slovenia, and I was alone on top of a nearby hill. I’ll never forget how peaceful and spectacular it was, and I’ve found that a solo sunrise is one of the most relaxing things you can do. So make yourself a strong cup of coffee and get going! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/5e74ffaa-4c9e-4be6-9c8f-421d70e9e38c/IMG_3369.jpg Articles - The Golden Hour - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog/15-tips-to-improve-composition monthly 0.5 2022-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/63b187e3-af4c-44dd-90d7-9f24335f638d/IMG_8416.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 12) Long focal lengths Using longer focal lengths can help you compress your image and give the appearance that the background is much closer to the foreground than it is in reality. You can also really isolate particular features to a degree that is not otherwise possible with the human eye, normally as you cannot physically get close enough! This is a powerful tool to find really unique compositions. When visiting more well-known locations, you will often find other people have taken a similar image, not that this is a bad thing. By using a long lens to pick out smaller details in the landscape you can find a totally new perspective. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/fd3a0e04-402f-4623-a357-8a451384513a/IMG_8841.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 14) Point of View By this I mean where the camera is in relation to the elements in the image, and is particularly important in wider-angle images. Changing how high or low the camera is compared to the foreground can drastically change the overall effect of the image. You can use this to either add or take away focus from different elements in your image. For example, having the camera higher up but pointing lower down will mean your foreground takes up a larger proportion of the image, adding weight to it. Similarly, getting low down can also add weight to your foreground, as was done in the example image here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/dff6324e-0229-49ad-8858-e595a23ee7dc/IMG_5625.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 13) Simplicity and Negative Space Many of the techniques above have been based on guiding the viewer through an image with multiple elements. In contrast to this, it can be really effective to make a simple composition with very few elements, even a single element. This will obviously put a huge amount of focus on the main element, so it needs to be something interesting enough to draw attention. Along the same lines, using negative space can help to keep focus on particular elements in your image, purely because there is nothing else in the image to detract attention. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/ac02a557-6140-4143-8af5-40688ca621dc/IMG_0748.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 6) Symmetry Scenes with symmetry are a time you can easily get away with, and really benefit from, having your main element in the centre of the image. It’s normally easier to find symmetry in man-made structures, but very occasionally you’ll see some in nature as well. You can look to find symmetry both vertically and horizontally. Reflections in water are a perfect opportunity for horizontal symmetry, as seen in the example photo here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1642337926123-5MU0OQVBYK0QAYDOWPGB/IMG_1787.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 5) Balance The last two techniques involve putting the main parts of your composition to one side of your image. On the whole this makes for a pleasing image. As a result, it is important to try and balance your composition, so that there is not one side/half of your image that has no interest whatsoever. When your main element is on one side of the composition, you’ll want to generally include a less important element on the other side to balance the image out, without stealing too much focus away from the main element. In this example image, the main focus is the rock stack on the left, but the more distant rock stack on the right-hand side acts as a secondary element. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/7cc13519-b70c-41d9-94ec-65952c2d2b40/IMG_2128.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 15) Scale Particularly when shooting grand vistas, it can be really powerful to put in something with a known size to add scale to your image. A really wide-angle view can hide the actual size of the elements in your images, such as mountains. Including people in your photos is an easy way of showing the overall size of the other elements, as everyone will be able to see the relative difference in size between the person/people and the surroundings. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/ca6ed6aa-0ab5-4550-972c-8f8b6534abc7/IMG_4113.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 9) Leading lines Leading lines are exactly what they sound like. Linear elements that go from front to back in your composition are another tool to guide the viewer’s eye through the image. These work particularly well when running at a diagonal through the image, as it takes the viewer through both sides of the image to the background. Leading lines can come from anywhere, so you can be very creative with them, for example roads, paths, water, tree branches and so on - anything that directs the viewer from one part of the image to another. In this example, the road carries the eye through the image from left to right then front to back. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1933a1e5-aa9b-4cee-ae07-5fc7e48cdc59/golden+spiral.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 4) The Fibonacci or Golden Spiral The Fibonacci spiral, or Golden spiral, is in theory a mathematical explanation of getting the most aesthetically pleasing design. You start with a rectangle, then split it into a square and a smaller rectangle. This then essentially repeats itself getting smaller and smaller shapes, and a line following the corners of the squares generates the curve. This spiral occurs frequently in nature, such as the shape of a snail’s shell or within flowers and petals. In photography, this technique is a fantastic way of ensuring the viewer’s eyes go through the whole image by following the curve. In the example here, the curve takes you through the full image following points of interest (eg where sea meets sand) to end up on the focal point of the cliffs. The horizon is also placed along the line of one of the larger 2 rectangles of the golden spiral. You may well find yourself instinctively going for compositions that fit this golden spiral – have a look back through your previous photos and see if any of them fit well! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/ca13bd43-b5bd-4730-9714-8fe364b2c87a/IMG_7850.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 11) Wide angle Wide angle shots are the what most people associate with amazing vistas in landscape photography. However, they are easy to do badly, and I’ve done my fair share (and probably some more!). It’s not quite as simple as hiking to the top of a mountain, sticking your wide-angle lens on the widest focal length and taking a photo. Adding to some of the points above, it is really important to ensure there is something driving the viewer’s eye through the image in an intentional way. Wide-angle shots will include a lot of elements in them, so you need to build a relationship between and connect these elements in some way. In the example, the S-curve in the road takes the viewer through to the lake and mountains in the background. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1b952728-ca51-4416-81ef-43a98e1238f4/rule+of+thirds.png Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 3) Rule of Thirds This technique divides your image into 9 equal sections, split by two horizontal and two vertical lines (as shown in the example image). Just to reiterate, despite being called a ‘rule’ you definitely do not need to follow this in every photo. The aim here is to put the important elements, subjects or transition points of your photo along the lines, or if possible, where the lines meet at intersections. This prevents you putting the main element right in the middle of the composition, which normally leads to a less powerful image. By putting the main elements on one of the left/right/upper/lower thirds, it tends to allow you to create more balance and flow in the image as well. In the example image here, the lakes are running along the bottom third line and the mountains run along the upper third line. As well as separating different elements in the composition this also helps to help the eye flow through the image from foreground to background. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/e7d11494-389f-4805-aaaf-f9b71b4d8dfa/IMG_4840.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 2) Including Foreground, Midground and Background When we look at a photograph, we want our eyes to be drawn throughout the image, particularly in landscapes. To keep interest throughout the image we therefore need to include different elements or layers. The emphasis on each layer will be different in each image, but it is important to always consider how each layer interacts. Sometimes layers will be a very quick pit-stop for the eyes before landing on the main focus of the scene, other times each layer will have its own focal point, so our eyes will pause on each layer to take in the details. Foreground is the closest part of the image to the camera, and background is the furthest, with midground unsurprisingly in the middle. Generally, the foreground will be the first part of an image that our eyes land on, then move through the midground to end up on the background. You don’t necessarily need to have all three elements in an image, but images lacking any of these can feel a bit disjointed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/d004d06d-f3c8-48d5-bcd0-1baf86ef866f/IMG_2571.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 10) S-curves Commonly used in other forms of art, S-curves are also known as the ‘line of beauty’. These are another form of leading line but they move from side to side through the image as you move from foreground to background. These can work brilliantly with man-made things like roads and paths, but similarly with the right timing can be achieved really well with seascapes and rivers. It can help to make sure there is nothing obscuring the element that makes the S-curve, just so there is nothing that breaks up the curve as it flows through the image. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/21de1d58-9a1b-4ca2-81ce-157b9d030f65/IMG_2143.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 7) Layers You can look for layers in your composition as a way of guiding the viewer through the composition, as well as adding some depth and dimension. You can use different parts of your composition (fore, mid and background) to create these layers. Alternatively, you will sometimes find natural layers in your subject, particularly with mountains. In this example, there are alternating layers of trees on the mountains to the left and right, with the more rocky mountains as the background. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1b100830-f1fa-4754-9490-cc0199a287bc/IMG_7340.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: 15 Essential Tips to Help Improve your Compositions 8) Framing Framing involves using some elements of your composition to frame others, much like the frame around the outside of a painting. You can achieve this through more typical frames, such as a window or doorway, or look for more natural frames such as caves, tunnels or trees. In the example here, the tree trunk to the left and branches above form a rough frame for the lake in the background. https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog/iso monthly 0.5 2022-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/be8722e7-ac75-456a-9437-eb9ebf1dff56/IMG_5047.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding ISO to Get the Best Quality Images ISO and Exposure ISO plays a role along with aperture and shutter speed to control the overall exposure (brightness) of your photos. You will typically see ISO settings ranging from around 100 (low) to tens of thousands, such as 25600 (high). Every camera has a base ISO just means the lowest ISO possible. For most cameras this is 100, but some cameras can go as low as ISO 64. Either way, this base ISO means the sensor will have the lowest possible sensitivity to light, and generate the darkest image. If we double ISO, much the same as aperture and shutter speed, we increase exposure by one stop, and likewise decrease by one stop if the ISO is halved. Most cameras allow you to change ISO in increments of a whole stop, compared to aperture and shutter speed where you can generally use increments of 1/3 of a stop. As a result, you will see settings of 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 and so on. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1642871973374-DD00RX5C6X6I51QHJYXI/IMG_6881.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding ISO to Get the Best Quality Images Defining ISO ISO is not really an acronym, despite looking a lot like one. The International Organisation for Standardisation is an organisation that develops international standards of measurements so that everyone is on the same page. In photography they standardised the light sensitivity of camera film initially, essentially so that you could buy film with the same ISO from different manufacturers and you would get the same image brightness. This then rolled over to digital camera sensors. However, as the name International Organisation for Standardisation changes in different languages, they developed the term ‘ISO’ to be used worldwide, across all languages, as a standard measure of the light sensitivity of a camera sensor or film. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/83914740-2057-42a1-92f7-81dd300f4167/IMG_3636.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding ISO to Get the Best Quality Images Understanding ISO in Your Camera As I’ve said in previous articles, really understanding ISO will take some experimentation to specifically see what your own camera is capable of, as well as what you feel is acceptable in terms of noise. Going out and shooting the same subject at different ISOs will help you to see what happens at different settings. In most modern cameras, you can also make use of the technology inside them too in the form of the auto-ISO setting. This setting means the camera will do some of the decision-making and boost up the ISO as needed to maintain a sharp image in terms of shutter speed and aperture. Don’t worry though, your camera is not going to just stick the ISO to 25600 and make every photo horribly grainy. Cameras will generally try to maintain the lowest ISO possible given the other settings used (shutter speed and aperture). https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog/shutter-speed monthly 0.5 2022-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/e47dacf8-0277-4b94-9bd6-a8ba6e827e13/IMG_5708.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: How to Choose the Perfect Shutter Speed - Image taken with shutter speed of 1/4s to smooth the falling water. Longer shutter speeds can help you take well-exposed photos in very dark conditions, such as night-time or astrophotography. Often you need exposures of at least 10-30 seconds for astrophotography, when you’re trying to soak up as much as light as possible from distant stars. Longer shutter speeds also help to capture a sense of movement in photos with moving subjects, which can allow you to be really creative. For example, you can use a longer exposure time (such as 1/3s) when photographing moving water or clouds to give a smooth, silky effect, or to get trails of light from headlights/tail lights of moving cars. You’ll need to play around with shutter speed to really see the impact of this for yourself and get to grips with what shutter speed gives what effect. The best way to do this is to find a composition and set up your camera with a tripod, then use different shutter speeds to see what effect this has. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/e3081cdc-143a-443e-9b52-5e277336e3d6/IMG_8416.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: How to Choose the Perfect Shutter Speed - Image taken with a short (fast) shutter speed to capture the water droplets of the waves Every camera has a shutter, either physical or electronic (or both), which controls how much light can hit the sensor to capture an image. There are a range of different mechanisms for physical shutters (focal plane, leaf etc) but these act as physical barriers to light, opening for a specified time when you press the shutter button to take a photo, and then closing again. Electronic sensors work by turning the sensor on and off rather than physically blocking the light. Depending on the camera there will be a range of different mechanisms used for the shutter, but they have the same overall effect. It is only in a few certain situations, such as extremely fast shutter speeds or when synchronising with flash, where the specific type of shutter will really make a difference. Shutter speed is therefore the length of time that the shutter stays open, controlling how much light hits the sensor or film. You might also see or hear shutter speed being called the exposure time, as it controls the length of time that the sensor is exposed to light. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/518907af-48e7-4104-a3f3-fdd193f15a27/fast+shutter+speed.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: How to Choose the Perfect Shutter Speed - Short (fast) shutter speed to freeze movement of bird’s wings. Short shutter speeds allow you to freeze motion in your photos. In the first instance, this can be essential in making sure that you don’t get blurry photos due to camera shake when hand-holding your camera. The steadiest hands in the world cannot stay perfectly still, so there will always be an element of camera shake when holding your camera. Using shorter shutter speeds allow you to prevent camera shake giving you blurry photos. The focal length of your lens (ie how zoomed in you are) has an impact on camera shake too. The higher the focal length and more zoomed in you are, the more camera shake will be visible as even tiny movements cause a big shift in where the camera is pointing. As a general rule of thumb, you can make sure to use a shutter speed shorter (faster) than the focal length of your lens. For example, if using a 50mm lens, you can use a shutter speed of 1/50 or less to prevent blurry images from camera shake. Similarly, using a 200mm lens you can use a shutter speed of 1/200 or less. https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog/aperture monthly 0.5 2022-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/048abcd8-a404-4d1b-9624-b0ce4b7b82a6/IMG_3524.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding Aperture to Get the Perfect Exposure Portraits and Macro This will depend on your circumstances, but often these styles of photography can look stunning with a nice wide aperture, such as f/2.8, to give you a pin-sharp subject and gorgeous blurred bokeh through the rest of your image. You need to be cautious with how wide you go with aperture as you can end up with a depth of field that does not actually include your whole subject. Depending on your surroundings you may want to make sure that the foreground and/or background are also sharp, so will need to go a bit smaller with your aperture. Night or Astro Photography Due to the dark environment, you’ll need to use wider apertures for night and astro photography in order to get a decent exposure. Again, you need to be cautious that you do not end up with too small of a depth of field, but this will depend on the camera and lenses you are using. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/362bca89-59f5-4841-a04b-bfb564742543/IMG_6544.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding Aperture to Get the Perfect Exposure - Image taken at f/4 to give a blurred (bokeh) background. Your choice of aperture will depend entirely on the situation, there is no one size fits all aperture in photography. Here’s a few examples of general apertures to use in different styles of photography. Landscapes On the whole, most landscape photographers want the entire photo to be sharp, so use a smaller aperture range such as f/8 to f/13, but be cautious not to go too small or you run the risk of introducing diffraction and losing focus. You can also get creative with landscapes and add an element of bokeh to your foreground/background using a wider aperture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/6e2e8159-97a8-4bca-8e50-b8d93da02997/pexels-pixabay-414781.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding Aperture to Get the Perfect Exposure In photography, the aperture is the opening or hole through which light travels to get into the camera, hitting the sensor or film to be captured as a photograph. Changing the diameter of the aperture changes how much light can enter the camera in a given time period. When we talk about aperture in photography, we mean using different diameter apertures in order to produce the desired outcome. Aperture has a hugely important relationship with shutter speed, as between these two settings we control exactly how much light can enter the camera to hit the sensor by controlling the size of the opening (aperture) and how long it opens for (shutter speed – see the separate article on shutter speed here). As a simple comparison to make better sense of aperture, consider your own eyes. The iris (the coloured part of your eye) changes diameter depending on how bright your environment is, causing your pupil to be different sizes and controlling how much light hits your retina. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1642337926123-5MU0OQVBYK0QAYDOWPGB/IMG_1787.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding Aperture to Get the Perfect Exposure - Image taken at f/2.8, for a shallow depth of field. In contrast, looking at the image on the right, the only part of the photo that is in focus and sharp is the stack of rocks, whilst everything else in the photo appears blurred. This is due to having a very narrow depth of field. This is achieved by using a wide aperture, such as F/2.8 in this case. Wider apertures are commonly used for portraits or macro photography, where you want your subject to be in focus but everything else is soft and blurred. This gives you beautiful bokeh, which is the visual effect of blurring in the parts of your image that are not in focus. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/0252faae-76f5-4bc2-a1d0-44442e2304ba/aperture.png Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding Aperture to Get the Perfect Exposure When it comes to choosing aperture on your camera, aperture sizes are expressed as a value known as an f-stop­ or f-number, for example f/8 or f/11. It can feel backwards, but the lower the f-stop, the wider the diameter of the aperture. For example, f/2.8 is a large, wide aperture, and f/11 is a small, narrow aperture. This can take a while to get used to, but eventually becomes second nature. To remember this, it helps to know that your f-stop is a fraction of the focal length of the lens. When you see an aperture of F/4, the actual diameter of the opening is the focal length (F) divided by 4. For example, if using an 80mm focal length at F/4, the physical size of the opening is 20mm (80 divided by 4). To remember that larger f-stops mean narrower aperture, just remember this relationship. At 100mm focal length at F/4, the physical opening will be 25mm (100 divided by 4). The same 100mm focal length at F/8 will be 12.5mm (100 divided by 8). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/aca17f74-b725-462a-9b9a-aea11b98775f/IMG_0823.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Understanding Aperture to Get the Perfect Exposure - Image taken at f/13, for a deep depth of field. In photography, the depth of the field is the area within your image that appears in focus and sharp. Take the image on the left as an example. The trees at the bottom of the image are nearest the camera, with the tower on the lake in the middle, and the far mountains in the background. All three parts of this image are in focus and sharp, therefore the depth of field is very deep. This is achieved by using a narrow aperture, such as F/11 or F/13. This is ideal for landscape photography where you generally want everything in your image, from close foreground to distant background, to appear sharp. https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/blog/exposure-triangle monthly 0.5 2022-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/956ddde6-ccb9-4d84-9a1f-9b628e836e81/IMG_1327.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Mastering the Exposure Triangle to Improve your Photography - Image taken at 18mm, ISO 100, f/13, 4s exposure. So now we’ve been through what the three parts of the exposure triangle are, what does that mean for my photography? As mentioned above, solid understanding of how these 3 parts interact will mean you can choose the right settings for the right job. However, you also need to understand that it is the combination of all three factors that will dictate the overall exposure of your image. As an example, let’s say you’re taking a photo of a beach. You want to use a slightly longer shutter speed to get smooth, silky looking effect of the waves, so we set a long shutter speed. There’s also some nice rocks in the foreground so we want to make sure we have a wide depth of field so everything is in focus, so we set the aperture to f/13. It’s fairly bright, so the exposure looks good using ISO 100 (the lowest setting). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/0252faae-76f5-4bc2-a1d0-44442e2304ba/aperture.png Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Mastering the Exposure Triangle to Improve your Photography The next part of the exposure triangle is aperture. Aperture refers to the opening through which light travels to enter your camera. When changing the aperture you are changing the diameter of the lens’s diaphragm (opening). A wider aperture (bigger diameter) means more light can enter the camera and hit the sensor and give a brighter image. In contrast, a narrower aperture (smaller diameter) means less light can enter the camera and gives you a darker image. Aperture is specified as an f-stop or f-number such as f/8, f/4 or f/2.8. Somewhat counterintuitively (although it does make sense with the physics involved), the larger the f-stop, the narrower the aperture, as shown in the diagram. For a full explanation of aperture please go to the specific article here. Each stop indicates the fact that the diameter of the aperture has halved. Going from f/4 to f/5.6 or from f/5.6 to f/8 means that the diameter has halved. It can get confusing given the fact that a larger f-stop means a narrower aperture, but with time and practice this becomes natural. In terms of exposure, you can use the aperture to achieve the desired brightness of the image. For example, when shooting night time or astro photography, using a really wide aperture (eg f/2.8) means the camera lets in as much light as possible to capture the stars. In contrast, in a very bright environment or when shooting at the sun, a narrower aperture (eg f/11) will help to darken the image and stop it being over-exposed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/d7cb80e5-63c7-47d1-bc19-72371f0ed9ad/IMG_1460.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Mastering the Exposure Triangle to Improve your Photography - Image taken at 50mm, ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/2500s exposure. In contrast, let’s say we want to take a close up macro photo of a nice flower. We the emphasis to be on the flower itself, so we want to use a very narrow depth of field and get that bokeh effect blurring the background. As a result, we use a really wide aperture of f/1.8. Because this wide aperture will be letting in loads of light we need to make sure we don’t overexpose the image, and use the other parts of the exposure triangle to darken it. We use ISO 100 to make the sensor the least sensitive to light and has the least noise. We also then use a really short shutter speed, so even though the aperture is huge there’s only a fraction of a second for light to get through it, so we use a shutter speed of 1/2500s. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/8e153172-a296-4b83-ac94-c557270fea8a/IMG_7621.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Mastering the Exposure Triangle to Improve your Photography - Photo taken with a shutter speed of 1s to smooth the movement of the water. Let’s start with shutter speed. Every time you press the shutter button to take a photo, the camera shutter will open for a certain period of time, known as the shutter speed, while the camera takes the photo. In other words, the shutter speed is the length of time that the camera shut stays open whenever you take a photo. In terms of exposure, the longer the camera shutter is open (ie a longer shutter speed), the brighter the image will be. Vice versa, the shorter the shutter speed the darker the image will be. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second or seconds and can include speeds like: · 1s · 1/25s · 1/250s · 1/1000s The larger the second number, the shorter the shutter speed, as these are fractions of a second. For example, 1/25s is one twenty-fifth of a second, compared to 1/1000s being one thousandth of a second. Shutter speed can be hugely varied, going up to long exposures of several minutes (doing things like night-time or astro photography), down to fractions of a millisecond (1/4000s). The other main thing that shutter speed affects in your image is motion. A faster shutter speed, or a shorter time the camera shutter is open, means that motion is frozen. When photographing subjects that are moving quickly, such as a car on a racetrack or water down a waterfall, a faster shutter speed (such as 1/2000s) will allow you to freeze that subject. This means you will be able to see the expression on the driver’s face or the shape of water droplets in that split second. In contrast, a slower shutter speed (such as 1/6s) will produce motion blur, where the car or rushing water will be blurred and lose detail. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/8ff9b4cb-1d15-4581-8363-a96a91211d68/Exposure+triangle.jpg Articles - Fundamentals of Photography: Mastering the Exposure Triangle to Improve your Photography - Parts of the Exposure Triangle The exposure triangle (or photographer’s triangle) is made up of three parts: 1. Shutter speed 2. Aperture 3. ISO By changing these 3 settings, you change the way light interacts with the sensor or film and the overall exposure (bright vs dark). Shutter speed and aperture both affect physical properties within the camera and how much light can enter the camera to hit the sensor. ISO on the other hand affects how sensitive the sensor/film is to the light that hits it. These settings also impact on depth of field, motion and noise, and we’ll go through how this happens in the next sections. Any diagram of the exposure triangle can certainly look overwhelming, but below I’ve broken it down into each component which will hopefully help make sense of it all. https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/gallery daily 0.75 2022-01-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/8cd496c3-cfb3-4ea3-b832-4eb6e559c245/IMG_8393.jpg Gallery crashing waves on the beach https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/98158070-3c69-4b5a-9950-090b73e51ae6/IMG_8085.jpg Gallery sun bursting through trees in the woods https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/80c22d8d-2f35-4111-9f67-2c11b052ba0c/IMG_1327.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/8029288a-1cf9-4d03-82a2-7e73758d110b/IMG_3369.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/9792161b-cbc0-48ae-b010-e53b68c8b415/IMG_7621.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/dff6324e-0229-49ad-8858-e595a23ee7dc/IMG_5625.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/dfd63fc4-6bda-4f1a-8360-bdcc5f33ba49/IMG_7727.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/f44f5895-1fda-4b2a-9f12-eee3f81aa6a2/IMG_5980.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/4d8ab25b-6604-48ad-912f-dea3beec239a/IMG_8027.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/ebe72345-f82d-40ee-ade3-f1dff17ea4cb/IMG_7515.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/be8722e7-ac75-456a-9437-eb9ebf1dff56/IMG_5047.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/378b1a9c-2030-45fc-905c-af8a2c3cb43b/IMG_7699.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/303ee78c-0787-41fe-9813-f89cc9fa6c67/IMG_8585.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/a7e764c8-a567-4ba4-9469-ec5aa1a761e5/IMG_4094.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/531f8037-ae7c-4989-8335-5276fd03f41d/IMG_7128.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/952eb543-9346-4982-8aed-67043d11cafe/IMG_1787.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1f4fbcbf-d9e8-42e4-9a74-122b5f07d487/IMG_2143.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/2eeb5e8a-6559-446c-9c8c-7bcf8a97108b/IMG_0748.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/b369cbc0-b16d-41e8-ae82-ff3674b25446/IMG_7340.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/87fa6d16-4025-4c4f-a246-ee40523f2f7b/IMG_6559.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/16f4c43d-aeff-4fc6-8adf-49223f04ee16/IMG_8671.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/2d5d5bab-6904-41c4-902f-96f7a12b8346/IMG_3709.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/beb53e1f-b832-4b59-8d2b-e4cd53d7a4a2/IMG_4028.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/fbdaad6e-ddfe-4009-9614-936c825375d3/IMG_5190.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/e3081cdc-143a-443e-9b52-5e277336e3d6/IMG_8416.jpg Gallery https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/contact daily 0.75 2022-01-15 https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/home daily 1.0 2022-10-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/87fa6d16-4025-4c4f-a246-ee40523f2f7b/IMG_6559.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1641648397479-9DMMDYYOAKIQESOC1JZS/IMG_7850.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/1641766461230-I8T8QGZJYLQASV6I60N1/IMG_3369.jpg Home https://grape-bagpipe-zmtc.squarespace.com/about daily 0.75 2022-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61d7395fde1a252e476597ce/8268df84-c640-462b-ba10-ceb690e99c90/about+me+photo.jpg About I’m Matt, a landscape photographer based in Hampshire, UK. 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