Digital Imaging basics  | Overview of Photoshop | Retouching | Typography & Messaging | Design Principles | Assignment #1

Digital Imaging Basics

How To Shoot

If you ever wish you could take better pictures, you will find this activity very useful. You will discover how to hold the camera properly and consider how light might affect the images. You will also learn about, and practice how to create a center of interest by using the rule of thirds, breathing space and head room. Camera shots refer to how many people are in them—you will see how that works as well. I would argue there's a difference between a picture and a photograph. A photograph is something you think of composing and intend to keep to look at again. A picture is something many of you take without any expectation of ever looking at it again (ie snapchat). 

There are 3 things that allow you to take a good photograph:

1.  Composition: what's inside (and outside) the frame is pleasing

2. Appropriate lighting: the elements are lit properly with consideration given to how they enhance the photograph

3. In focus: Removing UNWANTED blurriness to have elements sharp that you want to be sharp.

Composition

Have you ever seen photographers make a little window at arm's length with their hands? Sometimes this is done to get a clearer idea of the composition. Composition is the way in which all the elements in a photograph are arranged. It is the design phase of photography. Similar to a graphic designer, a photographer composes by arranging the elements in the scene. The necessary elements and the position of the main subject in the picture should be the first considerations when composing a picture. Although good composition is a subjective discipline just like good design, there are guiding principles that will help ensure that you compose pleasing images.

Holding the Camera

If you have not picked up your camera yet, this is actually one of the first steps to creating successful images. Holding it steady that is. Stand with your feet at a comfortable distance apart to give you stability. You may find that a wall to lean on would also be helpful. Pull your elbows into your sides or find something at a suitable height that they can rest on like a table, chair or fence post, to help stabilize the camera.

The Necessary Elements for the Picture - The key to a strong image lies in its simplicity.

There should be nothing in the photograph that doesn't contribute to its overall message. This isn't to say that the photograph must be sparse, but that all its elements must add up to something that makes sense. You must always be on your guard against backgrounds that distract, subjects that compete, and inclusion of the extraneous and unessential. You probably don't want a kid waving in the background of your image for this year's top athlete. Ask yourself what's important to the shot, and don't rely on post-processing to fix your mistakes. Below we ask ourselves:

Shot type

When describing the shot, you describe them according to how many people are in them. If a single person is in the shot you would refer to it as a one-shot. If two people were in the shot it would be called a two-shot and if three people were in the shot it is a three-shot. Once there are between four and seven people it is referred to as a group shot. Anything over seven people is considered to be a crowd shot. 

The Position of the Main Subject in the Picture

There are a number of things to consider when you are positioning your subject in the picture.

The subject that you want your audience to focus on is called the center of interest. Although the name would suggest that this should be in the center of the composition, it is not always best placed in the center of the photograph. The center is visually the weakest point in the frame. By placing the center of interest in the middle, the photograph becomes predictable and the viewer quickly loses interest.

Even when you have more than one person or object, you can achieve a good photo by developing a center of interest around which to organize the picture. When you have a group of three or more, you should avoid arrangements that waste space or look flat. Instead, you can keep your subjects close together and stagger the arrangement by overlapping the people or varying the heights. Giving the subjects something to do will help to create a focal point that you can build upon.

This is an image of four older teenagers that demonstrates good composition. By overlapping the people and varying their height, an interesting composition has been created.

Rule of thirds

Stronger points of placement are suggested by the rule of thirds, which recommends that you mentally divide the rectangular frame of your photograph into thirds both horizontally and vertically. This creates four points where the imaginary lines intersect. These points of intersection create strong areas where the image can be placed. They are called hot spots or power points in a composition. When the subject is located at one of these points, it creates a more pleasing composition.

Taking pictures of people is a bit more complicated as split second decisions need to be made. You have to keep in mind that whether you are shooting still images or capturing video footage, there is an expectation from the viewer for movement in the frame. This will be most critical when you are shooting in profile. If the subject is placed in the center of the frame with even amounts of space before and behind the subject, the person will lack direction.

There will be times when you need to take a shot that places the person in the middle of the picture especially if it is a one-shot. Consideration should be taken regarding the amount of space above the person's head, called head room. If you leave too little, the person may look cramped in the frame and if you leave too much it will make the person look lost in the frame. There is no special formula— just good judgment.

In general positioning the subject's eyes one third of the way down the frame is a good start. This principle also works when there are more people. You will note that the girls' heads are positioned in the upper two hot spots.

Appropriate lighting

Lighting is an important factor for a good shot but you will find that using the existing lighting can be problematic and sometimes a bit boring. Existing lighting consists of natural lighting like the sun and artificial lighting like the light on a desk. That said, existing lighting can create very interesting photos if you know what to look for, like interesting shadows or reflections. The image below uses an amazing sunset to provide backlight for the subject; however an overcast day can also create a good atmosphere as seen beside it. 

Properly Lighting

It is important to give you a bit of theory about the characteristics of light at this point. Our brains have an amazing ability to adapt to different conditions, so you might not have noticed that not all light sources are white. In fact most are not white at all. The sun gives off a blue cast and indoor lights generally reflect more yellow and orange. The camera is not quite as adaptable as our brains so there may be times when you will need to tell it what light situation you are shooting in. This is called white balance and most cameras will have the ability to manually choose a setting. If you have an SLR camera you might have slightly more control with an option that allows you to use a neutral grey card to calibrate the white balance. Take a few minutes and practice setting the while balance on your camera 

The images below demonstrates how using the wrong white balance setting in the first example created a blue cast on this image shot outside. In the second image the setting was changed to outside lighting and looks much more natural. You should have noticed a yellow or orange tint to images shot inside with a daylight setting. This is clearly not what you want, so don't forget to check your white balance. 

Light Levels

A common complaint when shooting inside is the fact that lower light levels can result in images that are dark or blurry. Extra light from a flashlight or lamp bounced off a wall might help. You might consider positioning your subject close to a window to take advantage of the sunlight. Just don't forget about white balance.

If you are outside the problem is the opposite. The light from the sun is so bright that it can make your images look washed out. Try moving so the sun is behind you or make use of a shadow from a building to cut the glare from the sun. You may also want to experiment with the different picture icon settings you have. You will probably have settings for portraits, landscapes, fast action, and close-ups. These are camera presets for optimal shutter and aperture settings for those kinds of shots. If you do not have manual control of these settings, experiment to see what happens when you use the presets for different situations.

Using Aperture/Shutter Speed/ISO priority

It is difficult to take good pictures without having a solid understanding of ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture – the Three Kings of Photography, also known as the “Exposure Triangle“. While most new DSLRs have “Auto” modes that automatically pick the right shutter speed, aperture and even ISO for your exposure, using an Auto mode puts limits on what you can achieve with your camera. In many cases, the camera has to guess what the right exposure should be by evaluating the amount of light that passes through the lens. Thoroughly understanding how ISO, shutter speed and aperture work together allows photographers to fully take charge of the situation by manually controlling the camera. Knowing how to adjust the settings of the camera when needed, helps to get the best out of your camera and push it to its limits to take great photographs.

Let’s quickly review a summary of the Exposure Triangle as a refresher:

• ISO – the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. It is typically measured in numbers, a lower number representing lower sensitivity to available light, while higher numbers mean more sensitivity. More sensitivity comes at the cost though, as the ISO increases, so does the grain/noise in the images. Examples of ISO: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600. ISO - how sensitive to light you make your sensor (example)

• Shutter Speed – the length of time a camera shutter is open to expose light into the camera sensor. Shutter speeds are typically measured in fractions of a second, when they are under a second. Slow shutter speeds allow more light into the camera sensor and are used for low-light and night photography, while fast shutter speeds help to freeze motion. Examples of shutter speeds: 1/15 (1/15th of a second), 1/30, 1/60, 1/125. Shutter speed (Quick Guide - the smaller the fraction (or larger the denominator) the faster the shutterspeed the less light gets in)

• Aperture – a hole within a lens, through which light travels into the camera body. The larger the hole, the more light passes to the camera sensor. Aperture also controls the depth of field, which is the portion of a scene that appears to be sharp. If the aperture is very small, the depth of field is large, while if the aperture is large, the depth of field is small. In photography, aperture is typically expressed in “f” numbers (also known as “focal ratio”, since the f-number is the ratio of the diameter of the lens aperture to the length of the lens). Examples of f-numbers are: f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4.0, f/5.6, f/8.0. Aperture (Quick Guide - the smaller the f-stop number the more the light that's let in, the shallower the depth of field due to exposing more curved glass - stop for stop [1 stop up on aperture means 1 stop down in shutter speed])

Using the Three Kings to take a perfect picture

As you point your camera at a subject and press the shutter button, the subject gets into your camera lens in a form of light. If your subject is well-lit, there is plenty of light that travels into the lens, whereas if you are taking a picture in a dim environment, there is not much light that travels into the lens. When the light enters the lens, it passes through various optical elements made of glass, then goes through the lens “Aperture” (a hole inside the lens that can be changed from small to large). Once the light goes past the lens aperture, it then hits the shutter curtain, which is like a window that is closed at all times, but opens when needed. The shutter then opens in a matter of milliseconds, letting the light hit the camera sensor for a specified amount of time. This specified amount of time is called “Shutter Speed” and it can be extremely short (up to 1/8000th of a second) or long (up to 30 seconds). The sensor then gathers the light, based on a pre-defined sensitivity, also known as “ISO”. Then the shutter closes and the light is completely blocked from reaching the camera sensor.

To get the image properly exposed, so that it is not too bright or too dark, Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO need to play together. When lots of light enters the lens (let’s say it is broad daylight with plenty of sunlight), what happens when the lens aperture/hole is very small? Lots of light gets blocked. This means that the camera sensor would need more time to collect the light. What needs to happen for the sensor to collect the right amount of light? That’s right, the shutter needs to stay open longer. So, with a very small lens aperture, we would need more time, i.e. longer shutter speed for the sensor to gather enough light to produce a properly exposed image.

When aperture is right/wrong

Now what would happen if the lens aperture/hole was very big (low F number)? Obviously, a lot more light would hit the sensor, so we would need a much shorter shutter speed for the image to get properly exposed. If the shutter speed is too low, the sensor would get a lot more light than it needs and the light would start “burning” or “overexposing” the image, just like magnifying glass starts burning paper on a sunny day. The overexposed area of the image will look very bright or pure white. In contrast, if the shutter speed is way too high, then the sensor is not able to gather enough light and the image would appear “underexposed” or too dark. There's a fine balance between aperture and shutter speed, as one increases, the other must decrease to balance the shot.

ISO - when you can't use aperture and shutter speed to fix the shot

Remember, ISO means sensor sensitivity. Lower numbers mean lower sensitivity, while higher numbers mean higher sensitivity. If you were to change your ISO from 200 to 400, you would be making the sensor twice more sensitive to light. If you are trying to take a shot and you've gotten your aperture wide open and your shutter speed needs to be fast enough to freeze a moment and the shot is still too dark, then you need to increase the sensitivity of your sensor. At this point you'd start increasing ISO to the point where you consider the noise level of the image to be no longer ideal.

Typical examples

1. What should I do in low-light situations? Use Aperture-Priority mode, set your aperture to the lowest possible number. Be careful if you have a fast lens such as Nikon 50mm f/1.4, because setting aperture to the lowest number (f/1.4) will make the depth of field very shallow. Set your “Auto ISO” to “On” (if you have it) and make sure that the maximum ISO and minimum shutter speed are both defined, as shown in section 3. If after increasing your ISO you are still getting small shutter speeds (which means that you are in a very dim environment), your only other options are to either use a tripod or a flash. If you have moving subjects that need to be “frozen”, you will have to use flash.

2. What do I need to do to freeze action? First, you will need plenty of light. Freezing action during the broad daylight is easy, whereas it is extremely tough to do it in low-light situations. Assuming you have plenty of light, make sure that your aperture is set to the lowest number (again, be careful about depth of field), then set your “Auto ISO” to “On” (if you have it) and set your minimum shutter speed to a really high number such as 1/500th or 1/1000th of a second. For my bird photography, I try to keep shutter speeds at 1/1000th of a second and faster.

3. What settings do I need to change to create a motion blur effect? Turn off Auto ISO and set your ISO to the lowest number. If the shutter speed is too fast and you still cannot create motion blur, increase aperture to a higher number until the shutter speed drops to a low number below 1/100-1/50 of a second.

4. What do I do if I cannot get proper exposure? The image is either too dark or too bright. Make sure that you are not shooting in Manual Mode. Set your camera meter to “Evaluative” (Canon) or “Matrix” (Nikon). If it is already set and you are still getting improper exposure, it means that you are probably taking a picture where there is a big contrast between multiple objects (for example bright sky and dark mountains, or sun in the frame) – whatever you are trying to take a picture of is confusing the meter within your camera. If you still need to take a picture, set your camera meter to “Spot” and try to point your focus point to an area that is not too bright or too dark. That way you get the “sweet middle”.

5. How can I isolate my subject from the background and make the background (bokeh) look soft and smooth? Stand closer to your subject and use the smallest aperture on your lens. Some lenses can render background much better and smoother than others. If you do not like the bokeh on yours, consider getting a good portrait lens such as the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 or the Nikon 85mm f/1.4, which is considered to be one of the best lenses when it comes to bokeh.

6. How can I decrease the amount of noise/grain in my images? Turn off “Auto ISO” and set your ISO to the base ISO of the camera (ISO 100 on Canon and ISO 200 on Nikon).

Extra Info:

• Filetypes (jpg vs. RAW)

• Scene modes (landscape vs. portrait vs. sports vs. kids/pets)

• VIRTUALCAMERA