Photography Question - Digi Cam

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Hi Guys.
I have options to change from AWB / Sunny / Cloudy. Theres other modes but they are for indoors. When I choose cloudy i get more vivid colour, Sunny makes it darker. And most inc the ones i added were done using AWB. No idea what that means lol.

AWB = Auto white balance. Light has different temperatures / colour spectrums, by telling the camera the temp of the light you are photographing in the sensor can better expose and get the colours right in the image.

Think about how yellow normal street lights are, compare to the brighter, but still yellow lights on big junctions, another place this can be seen visibly is on car headlights, the original incandesant bulb vs Xenon arc lights.

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Hi Guys.
So definately helps knowing about these focal lengths and Shutter speeds. Focal length still confusing me

A camera is trying to be an eye, so think about these things as the functions of an eye.
The CCD / image sensor / number of megapixels is the retina.
Focus, well focus, the eye does this by stretching and relaxing the muscles on the lens, the camera by changing the relationship of the lens to the sensor.
zoom, well the eye cannot do this, it is done by changing the relationship of multiple lenses to oneanother.
This leaves aperture / f numbers. This is the job of the iris, the iris opens in low light and contracts in bright light to manage the amount of light reaching the retina / sensor. This is what the aperture / f number does. The lower the f stop, the more light can get through.

The side effect of this in photography is that as you widen the aperture you change the depth of field, which is the amount of the image that is in focus. This is less of a problem in longer focus images, but as you get into close up images you will see the difference.

The rest has been explained well, but often with digital it pays to think back to film photography.

Film photography is basically a chemical reaction to light on the film. What you want to do is get the right amount of light onto the film. You start by knowing the light sensitivity of the film, the ISO, you also know what type of media it is designed to photograph (usually daylight), this is the equivilant of the white balance setting in the digital world.

You then can vary the size of the iris (aperture / f) and the length of time the film is exposed to the light to get the right amount of time. Same basically applies to a CCD in a digital camera.

So Film based adjustments
ISO / White Balance / Colour or B&W
http://kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.j...q-locale=en_US
http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/...7022/E7022.pdf
Individual Photo based adjustments
Shutter Speed / Aperture (f) / Focus

With regard to light source, if you are outside, mid morning and afternoon are best overall as you get strong light, but it is not direct / overhead and creating the strongest shadows. It is a more even light.
Starting advice is you shoot away fromt the sun, but if you are shooting toward it you need to compensate for the fact that the light sensor is getting more light reading than most of the subject, the subject (even if it is an outdoor scene) is effectivly backlit.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Barewolf

So what youre saying is manually change ISO to 400 - 800? For shots? This will reduce camera shake and blurry images?

Almost, yes! Increasing the ISO from 400 to 800 will mean that the sensor requires one less stop of light to produce a correctly exposed frame. So if you had a shutter speed of 1/30th second at ISO400 then you would use 1/60th sec at ISO800 to get the same overall exposure. However, the down side of increasing the ISO, as previously mentioned, is that the grain on the photo is greatly increased at higher ISO numbers. But it's better to have grain than camera shake in most cases!

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Ok Today I have been out with my Samsung S700. I took on board what people have been saying and I am still learning, however if it hadnt have been for andy pointing out apperture, focal length, ISO etc then I would have had it set on Auto all the time which would have been useless today.

Today was sunny, not the brightest day weve had but it was bright outside.

I took some pictures WITH and WITHOUT auto function. I was suprised at the difference it made.

I set the Manual mode to 1/60th Shutter Speed. Most were taken 1/90th Though. The decent one below is 1/90th. The gloomy dark one is AUTO. And the 3rd one Is one i took which is how i want it all the time really, if possible to make it better then wicked. This was Manual 1/90th.

Interesting eh? Before long you'll be shooting in manual mode all the time becuase you'll know the results you'll get will be better once you've mastered it!!

Out of the three I prefer the first one, which was on auto I presume, as the shutter speed is 1/350th sec and it gives the best overal exposure of what is a slightly complex variety of requirements for a camera...by that I mean that you have a blue sky that needs to come out, the dark green trees and the bright yellow foreground. So the camera has done a good job at second guessing what exposure settings to use in this case.

In your second shot, I'd say that was overexposed by a couple of stops by looking at it. When I'm looking at the EXIF data I can see that your ISO is set to about the same as the auto shot, so is the aperture (f/ stop) but the camera originally thought you needed a shutter speed of 1/350th and on the second shot you've manually selected 1/90th second. So you can start to see what's happening right? 1/350th second is a much shorter exposure than 1/90th second, so in your manual setting you're allowing more light into the camera (becuase the shutter is open for 1/260th second longer) which is why the overall look is much lighter. For a perfect shot I'd hit somewhere between the two values for a lighter, but better exposed shot...somewhere more like 1/250th perhaps.

Same goes for the third shot, which had the same ISO and aperture and the shutter speed again was 1/90th. A little overexposed...but all good learning material!

Originally Posted by Barewolf

So definately helps knowing about these focal lengths and Shutter speeds. Focal length still confusing me

Focal length is just the zoom. If your camera has optical zoom, then it is a proper zoom lens. Any figures for digital zoom should be forgotten, and you should ideally not use digital zoom, as this is just zooming into the shot using software, which cuases bad pixellation and can be done on your computer (better) if you insist on it anyway.

Originally Posted by Barewolf

The third picture seemed to come out great, cant remember if i used Macro mode in Manual for this shot or not. Or if i should have done that.

No. Macro is just another word for close-up photography. What you were doing was landscape photography, where you want a good depth of field (that's for lesson two!) so you need a smaller aperture (bigger f/ number) to make sure everything in the shot is in focus. Using a wide aperture (small f/ number) will mean that the one thing you focus on will be in focus and most other stuff will be blurred. Sometimes you want this, for example to draw attention to the thing you're focussed on, and sometimes you want everything in focus, such as landscapes.

Originally Posted by Barewolf

I found though even in Manual mode "Some" pictures came out a little dark while others were nice and bright. Does this have something to do with where the sun is shining? Ie if its behind me do i use more shutter speed?, If its in front of me I use less? Or is that all wrong lol. Sorry if it is.

You're on the right train of thought. Every shot is going to have different values needed. Some cameras will tell you, when in manual mode, when you've got the combination of settings that it thinks will produce a good exposure. So if your shot looks too bright, it's overexposed. Reduce the speed of the shutter or decrease the size of aperture (use a larger numbered f/ stop) to reduce the amount of light.

Hope this helps

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Actually, I based that statement on a Canon EOS D350. We have a Hewlett Packard A1 inkjet at work, and when testing it, we went out and took pictures in various modes. Two (both of a statue on some grass) were taken at the highest res for the camera. One as a RAW image, and one with JPEG compression. When printed out (at A2 size), there were noticable artifacts on the grass with JPEG compression.

Having said that, I didn't take the photo, so only have the other technician's word that he was using a high quality JPEG setting. Sadly, he kept the file as well.

As mentioned, when you're printing images that are larger than the native output of the camera then it's good practice to use a decent interpolation algorhythm. A little secret trick in Photoshop is to only ever resmaple by 10% each time, never just resample to the size you want to print. I've blown A2 sized prints from a 10D (which was a long time before the 350d) using this method with no real artifacts to worry about.

[Uncle Peter]

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Hi Guys.

Ok Today I have been out with my Samsung S700. I took on board what people have been saying and I am still learning, however if it hadnt have been for andy pointing out apperture, focal length, ISO etc then I would have had it set on Auto all the time which would have been useless today.

Today was sunny, not the brightest day weve had but it was bright outside.

I took some pictures WITH and WITHOUT auto function. I was suprised at the difference it made.

I set the Manual mode to 1/60th Shutter Speed. Most were taken 1/90th Though. The decent one below is 1/90th. The gloomy dark one is AUTO. And the 3rd one Is one i took which is how i want it all the time really, if possible to make it better then wicked. This was Manual 1/90th.

The Focus was 7.1 But i did zoom in and out on some pictures and the Focus changed obviously. I dont understand what reducing the focus does, it allows me to change between two. If i am not zoomed in and its set Focus 7.1 and Shutter Speed is 1/90th I can change the Focus to 2.1 or back to 7.1. When I zoom this changes different values.

I have options to change from AWB / Sunny / Cloudy. Theres other modes but they are for indoors. When I choose cloudy i get more vivid colour, Sunny makes it darker. And most inc the ones i added were done using AWB. No idea what that means lol.

ISO Was set to Auto as well on the pictures even though it was in Manual mode for some shots, I dont know if that is a wise idea or not?

As you can see in picture one. Its like what i started with my old camera. The background is dark, no detail in the trees, gloomy looking. This is why i got the Samsung Camera. Using Manual the Second picture is far better, no detail in the sky though like picture one but you can pick the detail up better, looks like a decent pic to me, Novice with no idea what he is doing lol.

So definately helps knowing about these focal lengths and Shutter speeds. Focal length still confusing me

The third picture seemed to come out great, cant remember if i used Macro mode in Manual for this shot or not. Or if i should have done that.

I found though even in Manual mode "Some" pictures came out a little dark while others were nice and bright. Does this have something to do with where the sun is shining? Ie if its behind me do i use more shutter speed?, If its in front of me I use less? Or is that all wrong lol. Sorry if it is.

Anyway heres the pics. Any advice would be helpfull. I didnt mess with the apparture with these pics or the ISO. Only the Shutter speed and AWB for manual mode and gloomy pic is Auto mode.

Looking at your 3 sample pics #1 is actually the most workable because there's detail there that's lost in the second and third because they are over-exposed, washed and look like they've been killed with camera shake (were you shooting handheld or with a tripod)?. This is undoubtedly because you have used a pretty long exposure time in bright conditions - as a very simple rule of thumb try using a higher shutter speed for a sharper image. I tend to stay above 1/250th for outdoor shooting.

If you over-expose your digital shots a-la 2 and 3 then you will start losing detail as jpg compression will strip large areas of white pixels. A slightly under exposed image will always be of more use than an over exposed one (you can photoshop it later) but it is of course best practice to achieve the correct exposure

It can be challenging to achieve the correct exposure settings when you have contrasting light sources in the shot - in the context of your sample pictures: a bright sky and darker surface features. In these conditions your camera's light metering can actually mislead you depending on how the metering mode is configured and what you actually point the camera at. It also doesn't help that many internal light meters are easy to fool (even using evaluative metering) and don't always provide an accurate reading at the best of times. An decent quality external light meter is a good investment.

Photoshop can be extremely useful (if you have it) and there are many ways in which you can further enhance your images or even transform a marginally acceptable image into an acceptable one. The link below is an excellent resource:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...hotoshop.shtml

Anyway stick at it and enjoy learning photography, it's a fantastically rewarding hobby, hell it's kept me occupied for the past 25 years and I get bored very easily!

[Barewolf]

Thanks andy and peter,

The only thing i dont like is the dark background, you both say the 1st pic is better but it makes it look gloomy. In my pics i want things in the background to be visable with detail. Most of the beauty of the lake and where i plan to visit will be in the background (Distance).

On a bright sunny day i want to be able to capture that. When majority of people look at my pictures (Who are not experts) they think the 2nd and 3rd pics are better as you can see whats going on.

I will try with different Shutter speeds see if that helps. Andy its interesting how you know what settings i used from just a picture, how do you do this? This might come in handy for me after i have took the pictures using different settings as there is so many, its hard to know what i was doing at the time.

[Delta Whiskey]

Does the camera have a bracketing setting?, this will take a number of images (normally three or five) at the camera's suggested best setting, one (or two) stops below and the same above. This will allow you to choose the best one.

The best thing about digital cameras is NO FILM. Shoot dozens of images of the the same scene with different setting to get a feel of the camera's abilities.

The camera saves its settings as part of the jpg (EXIF), most photo programs can display that information (see pic). This is very useful when you're comparing shots, you can see which settings are giving you the images you want.

DW

[Barewolf]

No it does have a continuous shot feature at different appertures i THINK.

I have just been downstairs and i was messing with the settings, including ISO and Focal length, shutter speed etc. Most of the pics i take are pretty much the same, no real difference even when i switch between settings.

What i did find is that if I goto Program the pictures have more colour, also on the Modes section if i select "Measure Shutter" Instead of "Cloudy" or "Sunlight" then the picture stays bright and lots of colour appears, like greens.

I will upload my images to Photobucket and post my test shots, Would you be so kind as to look at them and tell me which shots you think are the best ones? That way I can get to put into practice my snapping outdoors more effectively.



Thanks with your patience with me guys i must be doing your heads in lol.

I like that orange foto, amazing what you can take pics of when you think about it, something so simple like that. Will have to try and do that on mine when i suss out what i am doing hehehe.

[Delta Whiskey]

Which camera did you get in the end, I'm so brain dead this morning I can't see any reference to it. You shouldn't need to change the ISO setting from 100 under normal use, the faster you have it set the more digital noise you will get in the image. Is it an optical zoom or a digital zoom?, don't use digital zoom, all you are doing is cropping the image in camera, you'll do that far better in a photo program. Do upload your images, the guys here will give helpful advice.

The orange photo was a test shot of the camera's macro ability, I was looking for something I could get really close to, if I remember correctly, the camera was about 2cm from the orange.

DW

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Barewolf

I like that orange foto, amazing what you can take pics of when you think about it, something so simple like that. Will have to try and do that on mine when i suss out what i am doing hehehe.

Notice the wide aperture setting of f5.6?
That gives a very narrow focus range, which you can see in the photo where the orange closest to us is out of focus, and the orange furthest away from us is out of focus, but a narrow section in the middle is in perfect forcus.

A narrow aperture setting will give a deeper focal length, wiki has an article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture with some examples such as this:



Taken with a narrow aperture of f32, you can see the background clearly.



Taken with a wide aperture of f5, now the background is blurry and looks great.

Also, with a narrow aperture (high f number) less light gets into the camera so the shutter has to be open longer (unless you crank up the ISO to compensate) meaning you can make waterfalls look groovy:

[Barewolf]

The camera is a Samsung S700 Digimax. Its 3x Zoom goes up to 5x Digital Zoom in total. Im not sure how this works exactly. Not sure if its all Digital zoom or not, after i pass the 3x zoom it really zooms in and its impossible to take a decent picture.

The lens is SHD (Zoom 5.8 - 144mm)

Heres the pictures i did and uploaded...Hopefully you can see the settings i used? If not tell me which look the best and i will shrink them and upload them here.

19 In total. Some are duplicates *Sigh*

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-019.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-018.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-017.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-016.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-015.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-014.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-013.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-012.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-011.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-010.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-009.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-008.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-007.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-006.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-005.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-004.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-003.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-002.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...th2007-001.jpg

There we go. Best one I think is 17. Have no idea what i did there though, I think it was set on program mode.

---------- Post added at 12:12 ---------- Previous post was at 12:10 ----------

Xaccers im going to go try that apperture in the garden see if i can get something to post. I understand now i think.

---------- Post added at 12:19 ---------- Previous post was at 12:12 ----------

Nope i set my camera in Manual mode and set the F 2.8. It will only let me change this upwards to 7.2. The higher i set it the darker the image. I cant seem to get to 5.6.

Nothing in the background seems to blurr no matter what i do.

[Xaccers]

With creative compacts it can be difficult to get a sufficiently blurred background, so either move your subject (the thing you're taking a photo of) further away from the background, or blur the background later in something like photoshop

The smaller the number, the larger the aperture (yes, I know it doesn't make sense that small number = large aperture, but it's down to a formula) so the more blurred the background will be.
With the short lenses of a compact like yours though it is hard to do.
There may be a macro setting which would help.

[Barewolf]

Will the blur appear on the LCD? Before i take the shot? or is it just trial and error based on the formula?

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Will the blur appear on the LCD? Before i take the shot? or is it just trial and error based on the formula?

Not likely to be visible on a relatively small lcd screen.
If you can zoom into the picture you've taken, you may notice it.

[Delta Whiskey]

I prefer shots 001 & 006, good colour and saturation, lots of detail, highlights and lowlights are good. 017 is overexposed, you've lost the sky and everything else is bleached out. Compare the yellow table cloth in 006 & 017, there is detail in 006 which is gone in 017.

BTW, were you inside shooting out through a window?

Here is the EXIF for those three:

001

Exposure Time: 1/1000
F Number: 2.80
Exposure Program: manual control
Bias: 0/10
Metering Mode: multi-segment
Light Source: 16
Flash:
Focal Length: 5.80
Shutter Speed: 1/1000.00
Orientation: upper left
Aperture: 2.97

006

Exposure Time: 1/1500
F Number: 2.80
Exposure Program: manual control
Bias: 0/10
Metering Mode: multi-segment
Light Source: 16
Flash:
Focal Length: 5.80
Shutter Speed: 1/1000.00
Orientation: upper left
Aperture: 2.97

017
Exposure Time: 1/180
F Number: 2.80
Exposure Program: program normal
Bias: 10/10
Metering Mode: multi-segment
Light Source: 16
Flash:
Focal Length: 5.80
Shutter Speed: 1/125.00
Orientation: upper left
Aperture: 2.97


DW

---------- Post added at 12:57 ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 ----------

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Will the blur appear on the LCD? Before i take the shot? or is it just trial and error based on the formula?

It can be quite subtle, I don't think you are going to see it on a LCD.

There is a relationship between speed and f-stop:

1/1000 at f2 = 1/500 at f4 = 1/250 at f8

Under normal circumstances you'll go for the highest f-stop number for best depth of field, but if you're photographing moving cars for instance you'll want the fastest speed to stop the motion.

It's all about compromises, therein lie the joys of photography.


DW

---------- Post added at 13:08 ---------- Previous post was at 12:57 ----------

Originally Posted by Barewolf

The camera is a Samsung S700 Digimax. Its 3x Zoom goes up to 5x Digital Zoom in total. Im not sure how this works exactly. Not sure if its all Digital zoom or not, after i pass the 3x zoom it really zooms in and its impossible to take a decent picture.

The 3x optical zoom is fine, it's a real glass lens magnifying the image with no loss of quality. Once you reach the end of the 3x zoom the digital zoom takes over. The 5x digital zoom throws away detail and making what's left bigger to fit the screen, nasty.

DW

[Uncle Peter]

Some cameras have a depth of field preview function - you're more likely to find this on a digital SLR though.

If you use a low f stop number as recommended above and an equivalent focal length of about 100mm or so while backing a suitable distance away from the subject you should achieve some nice portrait effects with blurry backgrounds.

[Barewolf]

I see. I will try the blurry up close shots and see if i can do anything decent.

Ive been down the carrs near where i live, rivers, trees, banks, and grassy areas. Was sunny today and i mostly used "Program" mode which set the F itself mostly, all i did was alter the exposure compensation for lighter or darker settings.

I shall upload some and post them, you might still think they are over exposed though, its just so scary taking a picture using the LCD screen when it looks dark. If you know what i mean.