Great Christmas Gift for a Photographer

iPad Version


 Hey folks, quick reminder, I recently released my book "Understanding the Basics of Exposure". This is a great gift for someone you know just getting into photography or wants to improve their photos. Consider my book as a virtual stocking stuffer for Christmas, too! It makes a great companion to any photographer's gift! The guidance works for most any camera, because Understanding the Basics of Exposure reinforces the skills of the photographer.

The book is available for the iPad and as standard PDF. It is 33 pages long and chock full of valuable information and beautiful photographs all for $2.99! Get yours today!

 

PDF Version



iPad Version:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/understanding-basics-exposure/id570851846?mt=11#

PDF Version:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/jason-eldridge/understanding-the-basics-of-exposure/ebook/product-20453300.html

Make sure to check back on the blog regularly! It is filled with valuable information that you can put to use and it’s free!!

www.eldridgestudios.blogspot.com

Just click the black void below to start the promotion video!

Understanding Aperture

Below you will find an excerpt from my book “Understanding the Basics of Exposure”. This will help you get a better idea of the books content as well as teach you a little about the Aperture and how it is used. If you know of anyone into photography please share this post. I believe that the book can help those just getting started as well as reinforce the basics for those who have been doing this for awhile. You can find out more about the book here: 

http://eldridgestudios.blogspot.com/2012/10/exciting-news.html 

and here: 

http://eldridgestudios.blogspot.com/2012/11/quick-reminder.html.


Enjoy this excerpt and please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
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What is the Aperture?

Aperture in its basic definition is a hole in which light travels through. This opening is increased or decreased using a series of blades within the lens of a DSLR. The number that is used to indicate the size of the opening is called an f-stop. The f-stop number is determined by dividing the focal length of the lens by the diameter of the pupil (or opening). Luckily in the camera world we just have to pay attention to the numbers after the “f” to know the f-stop. Smart people somewhere already did the math.

How the Aperture is Used?

The aperture is used when determining proper exposure. If you think of the aperture as a faucet and light as water it might be easier to understand. If you turn a faucet on full blast it is letting a large amount of water flow. That would be the equivalent of a wide open aperture i.e. f2.8. If you turn the water on just slightly where there is only a trickle then you have a small aperture i.e. f22.

Not only is aperture used to help determine proper exposure but it is used to determine depth of field.

• Depth of Field (DOF)

• DOF is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a photograph that appear reasonably sharp. Think of this area as the focal plane as well. Lenses can precisely focus on a given point. However, anything closer or further away from that point begins to leave the focal plane. This is how you get the nice blurry backgrounds you see in some photographs or the tack sharpness in others.
• The smaller the opening (higher the f-stop number) the greater depth of field. Think of it like squinting your eyes.
• The larger the opening (smaller the f-stop number) the shallower the depth of field.

•Aperture is one of the most powerful tools in a photographer’s arsenal to creating compelling images. It vital to your photography that you fully understand what changing aperture numbers will do to your photograph.

Below is a list of typical f-stops you typically see on modern lenses and a graphical representation of what happens to the depth of field as the f-stop number changes. I highly recommend that you memorize these apertures as it will help you later when you are determining manual exposures and depth of field.

Quick Reminder

iPad Version

Hey folks, quick reminder, I recently released my book "Understanding the Basics of Exposure". This is a great gift for someone you know just getting into photography or wants to improve their photos. Consider my book as a virtual stocking stuffer for Christmas, too! It makes a great companion to any photographer's gift! The guidance works for most any camera, because Understanding the Basics of Exposure reinforces the skills of the photographer.

As a limited time bonus, you can receive a free digital copy of any photograph on my website www.eldridgestudios.com !!!! For $2.99 you can get guidance in photographing and an original photograph for your printing use! How? Leave a review of my book wherever you made the purchase. You can give the digital copy as gift to that photographer in your life, or keep it for yourself!

PDF Version

The book is available for the iPad and as standard PDF. It is 33 pages long and chock full of valuable information and beautiful photographs all for $2.99! Get yours today!









iPad Version: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/understanding-basics-exposure/id570851846?mt=11#

PDF Version: http://www.lulu.com/shop/jason-eldridge/understanding-the-basics-of-exposure/ebook/product-20453300.html

Feel free to check out my blog as well. It is full of information that you can put to use and it’s free!!

www.eldridgestudios.blogspot.com

I Hate HDR?

This is a can of worms topic in the world of photography.  Generally speaking photographers fall in one of two categories:

• Category 1:  "I HATE HDR, it is overdone, overused, it is a gimmicky post processing trick that attempts to turn a bad photo into a good one, and I can't stand it".
• Category 2:  "I LOVE HDR, it is a great tool because it lets us see a dynamic range closer to what the eye sees."

Here is something to consider:  People that buy and/or enjoy photography but are not photographers seem to all love HDR (generally speaking).  These folks don't know it is HDR or even what HDR means.  They just know whether or not they like the photo.  What an interesting concept.  The end product is all they care about.  They might want to know what the photographer was thinking when they composed the image or they might like to hear the story of it's creation.  But dollars to donuts they could care less if it's HDR.

I want to charge each of you with this...  FORGET the method used for a given photograph and evaluate wether or not you "like" the image.  In the end, that is all that really matters.

Update:

Check out these other posts regarding this same topic:

Rick Sammon http://www.ricksammon.info/2012/01/i-hate-hdr.html

Mike Pedde http://www.wolfnowl.com/2011/01/why-use-hdr/

HDR is not Just for Color

HDR photography has been around for some time now. If you are a photographer chances are you fall in one of three places.

1. You hate it in all of its forms

2. You are okay with the HDR that is close to “natural” looking (this is where I fall)

3. You love it in all of its forms

This is not an HDR hate/like post and you can check out a detailed post I did on HDR here. This is about another aspect you may not have thought about. Sometimes the issues I have with HDR is the amount of color saturation you get when you merge all the images. I generally pull the saturation and vibrancy back in my HDR images to “tone it down”. This time around however I took it all the way down. HDR is not just for color images. Pulling out the dynamic range for images and then converting them to black and white can have a very dramatic effect, especially on any large “puffy” clouds. The next time you are processing some HDR images consider them for black and white just to see what you can come up with.

Understanding Exposure (Part 1 of 3)

There are three main factors to consider when you look at exposure.  Shutter Speed, Apeture, and ISO.  Below is Part 1 of 3 on understanding exposure.  I will likely do a wrap up after part three to include the camera meter and histogram so stay tuned.

Shutter speed
The shutter speed of your camera is the measure of how long the shutter remains open to expose the sensor. Any motion that occurs while the shutter is open will show on the image. (the faster the shutter speed the more likely you are to freeze the movement). Shutter speeds are based on the doubling or halving of seconds. The following is a general list of the most common shutter speeds from long to short: 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000, 1/8000. As you can imagine the 1/8000 of a second shutter speed would just about freeze any movement.  The shutter speed for Image 1 below is 1/20th of a second.  This by no means freezes the movement but you can see that much of the movement was stopped.  The shutter speed for Image 2 was 1.1 seconds allowing the movement to blur the image.  Really it depends on what type of image you are going for.  If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Image 1

Shutter Speed: 1/20 sec

Image 2

Shutter Speed: 1.1 sec