Photography Reflection

Today I learnt the basics of Photography. I believe that knowing and learning Photography will help me as still photos can corporate into moving images and videos. I previously have experience and basic knowledge in photography and photoshop as I had done this for GCSE and in my spare time. I go out on a lot of photography shoots photographing mainly nature, landscape and animals but I have experience in many different areas of photography and photo manipulation.

During this lesson, I learnt about the most important triangle in photography which consists of three important rules at each point on the triangle. These rules are the ISO, shutter speed and aperture. These are the three main points and rules in which makes the photograph look the way it is. We used Nikon DSLR cameras for this lesson.

The aperture is the hole in which light enters the camera, making the image lighter or darker. The aperture is measured in fstops for example, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6,f/8,f/22 etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the size of the amount of opening in your lens. The higher the fstop, the darker the image as their is very little light coming through the lens. The lower the fstop, the brighter the image as the hole has opened up which is letting more light in. This image below is showing how the fstops work and what the lens looks like when it is opened and closed.

Here are a few of my examples showing how the aperture can make a big impact on the image.

This first image shows the aperture being pretty low as the image is pretty bright and colourful.

This next image shows the aperture getting a little higher as there is deeper contrast and the brightness is a lot lower.

This last image shows the aperture very high as the image is nearly in complete darkness.

The ISO on dslr cameras is all about the film grain, also known as noise. The film grain looks like a film that is over the image, making it looks very grainy and misty. It reminds me of the very old televisions that had a very wide rim around the screen and was very big in depth. When the television program was not on or there was no service then the television would make a very muffled noise and look very grainy. This is exactly what the ISO looks like on the dslr cameras. The image below shows a clear difference between a low ISO and a high ISO.

Here are my examples I have taken to provide evidence of my understanding of the ISO on a digital camera. You can see in this first image that the ISO was pretty low as in the background where I have circled, the background image is pretty clear when I focused on the foreground.

This next image shows the ISO getting a little higher as the background is getting slightly more blurry and out of focus.

This last image shows the background becoming very grainy and out of focus as the ISO is very high.

The shutter speed controls how fast or slow the lens is when capturing the image. The shutter speed depends on the movement. for example, if you were to stand your dslr on a tripod to capture the cars headlights going by then you would want the camera's shutter speed to be set very low as you want the cars to have bright neon lights and you want to be able to see the trails of lights in which the car has came from. When setting your camera at a low shutter speed, you want the camera to be stood on a tripod as you do not want the movement to be all over the place because it was handheld. Low shutter speeds are good for showing light trials as you can see the journey of the light or object because the camera has taken a long time to take the picture. Fast shutter speeds mean the camera's shutter inside the lens is reacting very quickly once you have pressed the record button. A fast shutter is good for very fast movement and obstacles as you want the movement to be very clear and precise and you do not want the image to be blurred in any way. To recap, the fast the shutter speed then the clearer the image and the lower the shutter speed, the more blurred the image is. This can have very interesting and different outcomes. The image below shows a very cleared picture explanation of the process.

Here are some of the images I have taken in my group when practicing different exposures and photography techniques:

This photograph shows a very fast shutter speed as you can see every little water drop as stop motion.

This photograph is using backlighting in order for the model to be a silhouette.

This photograph shows every thing in focus, including the background and foreground.

This photograph shows selective focus where the foreground object have taken control over the image. I have taken this photograph for our group.

This photograph also shows selective focus where the background is blurred.

The two photographs presents a very slow shutter speed as you are able to create a lot of movement before the camera fully takes the picture.

This photograph shows the leaf that is standing out from the background as it is a different shape and different colour.

This photograph is where most things blend in and nothing in particular is standing out.

This photo shows the acorns standing out from the background as they are in focus.

This photograph is where everything is blurred and out of focus.

This photograph presents leading lines as the tree directs the viewer through the image.

Here are some photos I had taken when practicing different lighting techniques: