Taking pictures with compact cameras #2 - Thinking & time

[RichardTaylor]

Part two in a series.

Thinking and time.

Just a few thoughts.
Quite often when you don't put effort or thought into most photographs, it results in just a "snapshot".

(1) Shot whilst walking with some non photographer friends.
Just "clicked", and then kept on walking. The photograph is just a record of a nice scene.


With having a choice of what time, and how long for, to shoot you can usually shoot more than just snapshots. You may be able to roughly pick the light and atmosphere and also have more control over your shooting position.

(2)This was a planned shoot, about 1 3/4 hours drive from home. Being on site at least an hour before dawn and having about 1 1/2 hours to shoot from different spots, with changing light and experimenting with different exposures meant more than just snapshots were the result.

This pic is a combination of two exposures (one for the sky + ocean and one for the land) that were combined when post processing.

Having time increases your chances of seeing possibilities.

(3) Just a little bit more than a snapshot. Again taken on a walk with non photographer
friends.


Having time also gives you a chance to explore a subject, notice and shoot details.

(4) In a garden centre. The bug was working inside a Nasturtium.


All the pics above were taken with a Canon G11 point & shoot camera.

The bottom line is the more you put into a photograph the more you will get out of it.

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For a tute on working a subject see here.

Working a subject (1)

For part 1 of this series- Introduction

Photograhy with a compact cameras #1 - Introduction.

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I mostly shoot with a DSLR, however I do sometimes shoot with a P&S camera.

More to come.

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Thanks for looking and questions, comments or feed back are appreciated.

Richard

[robs_home]

Hi Richard,

Love your photo of the flower, very clear and crisp.

I have recently bought a Samsung WB700 P&S camera and would love some tips on getting some stunning photos up close.

I am very new to photography and have been playing around a little, my focusing on small objects seems to be my downfall. (see attached)

My camera software has a 1:1 option but it always looks blurry when I try it, note sure on the cameras limitations as I'm so new to this.

Advice very much appreciated
Robert

[RichardTaylor]

When you are shooting very close (Macro?) the zone of front to back sharpness (depth of field or DOF) can be very small.

The size of the hole (aperture (F nunbers)) in the lens that controls the amount of light coming in also determines (amongst other things) the zone of sharpness.

If the pic of the fly was taken in the shade etc (not bright sunlight) the zone of sharpness is about right.
If you can have a look at the data (exposure information or Exif) it should tell you the aperture used it. It can usually be viewd with the image editing program that comes with a camera. It will probably be in the range of F2.8 to F8 (F8 gving you the largest zone of sharpness)

With the flower pic you have also got a similar problem although the focus appears to be on the leaves, not the bud. You may be able to control where the camera focusses or at the very least have an indication of where your camera has focussed when shooting.

I havn't used your camera however they all operate similarly and and the basics are the same.

You may find the the following tutorial helpful, even though it was written for SLRs a lot of the info still applies. The biggest difference with a P&S camera is that you do have a lot more depth of field (relatively speaking) and the aperture range usually only goes down to F8.

Tutorial link.
Exposure (1) A balancing act

Your camera allows total control of exposure settings. Try your super close ups at F8 and see how they go. You may need to increase your cameras sensitivity (ISO) to make sure camera shake (by shooting at a slow shutter speed (eg less than 1/30 second?)) is not a problem.

Hope this helps.
Richard

[robs_home]

Hi Richard,

Many thanks for your constructive feedback, I have checked my camera and my F range seems to go from 7.3 - 3.2. I have checked the data on the pics and note the following:

Fly: F3.2 - ISO 80 - 1/45 sec
Flower F3.8 - ISO 80 - 1/8 sec

The fly was taken outside at around 5pm on a bright day but the flower was indoors in a darker room.

I can use the camera in total manual mode with full access to the aperture & shutter speeds, very scary!

I also did not use a tripod to steady the camera and get the feeling that this might be something investing in.

Will try to increase the ISO and see the outcome, shame the fly won't be around tonight!

Thanks for your feedback, there is a lot to take in and every bit of advice is helping me understand more & more.


Robert

[RichardTaylor]

After a while it will become second nature.
With camera shake, unless there is a major focussing problem, nothing is sharp.

This will give you an idea of what you can expect around F8 (where I always try to shoot very close ups). A larger version is on my Flickr Stream. The pic has been sharpened during post processing.


Camera Canon PowerShot G11 (a P&S camera)
Exposure 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture f/7.1 (F8 is the minimum aperture)
Focal Length 6.1 mm (widest possible angle and almost at closest focussing distance)
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias -1/3 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire.
Exposure Mode Manual

[robs_home]

Hi Richard,

What an amazing pic, it's funny that when I bought my camera I never thought about the smaller things in life that can be captured!

Have ordered my tripod so that I can stop the camera shake and get better focus.

Not sure on my distances from the objects with zooming and focus but sure that too will come with time.

Pictures like yours only inspire me to capture my own of the same magnitude.

Thanks for your help
Robert

[sunscapes]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

Part two in a series.

(2)...... having about 1 1/2 hours to shoot from different spots, with changing light and experimenting with different exposures meant more than just snapshots were the result.

This pic is a combination of two exposures (one for the sky + ocean and one for the land) that were combined when post processing.


Having time increases your chances of seeing possibilities.

In this example where you "took your time".. you at least could have made sure your horizon line was strait. It's off by 1 whole point in the custom rotate feature.
Yes, it really bugs me. Especially when you state you did post processing!

[RichardTaylor]

Thank you.