Creating separation, or focussing attention on a subject.

[RichardTaylor]

Creating Separation (1)
Have a subject.

This is a result of a question by Steve (SK66):
Has anyone done a tutorial on "creating separation"?
In other words "focussing attention on the subject."

There are a few ways you can do that.
One way is to have a specific subject.

These examples are from 2009 when the wife of the driver in car #7 asked me to take some photographs of her husband racing over the year. Only limited control over my shooting position and no control over the subject & lighting.

#1. Clear sunny day. "Cars in a scene" which is ok as a subject but really doesn't show car #7 off to advantage.
It does tell a story as this was one of the last races at this track, due to encroaching suburbia, and also at this meeting the driver of car #7 clinched the class championship for the year. Proably the first lap as the medical/safety cars are on the track.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 105 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV


#2 Clear sunny, and previous, day. Same track as pic #1. Here just having more of the subject in the frame helps.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture f/10.0
Focal Length 400 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV

#3 A different race track. Here the subject has been isolated by blurring all most everything, except the subject, by panning and having a relatively clean background. Shot in bright sunshine, that is why the aperture is f20.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.01 sec (1/100) - to give a "nice "blur"
Aperture f/20.0
Focal Length 100 mm
ISO Speed 100 (minimum)
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV (to stop highlights blowing out)

#4 Same location as pic #3, but earlier in the year. The subject has been isolated by a relative shallow depth of field (DOF), lighting on the background, and also having contrasting colour and brightness cars behind him. The yellow just "pops" out.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/320) (to get blurry wheels)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 320 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias -1/3 EV

-----------------------
Larger photographs are on my Flickr photo stream.

More to come, in this thread.
Thanks for looking, and feel free to ask questions, add relevant content or comment.

Richard

[silverbirch]

Thanks - looks very useful and one I';ll copy, print and study. Thanks again

[RichardTaylor]

Creating Separation (2)

#5. In this example the subject fills the frame, it has a clean enevironment, and the background and foreground is nicely blurred by panning the subject which is sharp. In addition white the concrete verge is providing a bit of natural fill in ligt on the subject. Mid afternoon summer day (3pm) with the sun high and more or less off to the right of me.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture f/14.0
Focal Length 160 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV

-------------------------------

Replacing the background.

It may be possible to replace the background entirely to remove any distracting elements and possibly enhance the subject. Examples #6 and #7 were shot on a living room table that had the usual chairs and white walls with paintings etc in the background. For larger subjects and studios commercial backdrops are available.
Some examples using smaller subjects

#6 A couple of large brown books, dictionaries, provided the "set" and lighting was two off camera flashes combined with a bit of natural light through a large window to the left and another behind me.



Canon 350D (Rebel XT) with a Tokina 100mm F2.8 Macro lens.
ISO 400 - 2.5secs @ F32 . Natural light + off camera flashes.

#7 Same location with a black cardboard background to kill all the room distractuons. Natural light only from a large window to my left and a little from behind me and a white piece of cardboard on the right to bounce a little light light onto the subject.



Camera Canon EOS 5D
Exposure 1
Aperture f/22.0
Focal Length 105 mm
ISO Speed 800
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

#8 Outdoors in bright sunshine. The background was a garden table top. Just a sheet of white paper was enough to remove the distraction of the table top and focus attention on the glass and shadow.



Camera Canon EOS 5D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture f/13.0
Focal Length 35 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV

-----------------------
Larger pics are on my Flickr photo stream.

More to come, thanks for looking, and feel free to ask questions, add relevant content or comment.

Richard

[RichardTaylor]

Creating Separation (3)

Changing the point of view

For smaller subjects it may be possible to change your shooting position so that distracting backgrounds can be removed or minimalised.

#9. Morning, 7.32am, on a busy suburban road. A long lens has minimised the very underexposed and shaded background area.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture f/4
Focal Length 180 mm
ISO Speed 400

#10 In a suburban garden centre under a white shade cloth on a sunny day. A point & shoot (P&S) camera, that only focus very close ("macro") at the wide angle lens setting, was used. This means a lot of area, possibly containg distractions, has to be controlled. By shooting from below the flower we have a "fairly clean" background that is easily tidied up when post processing.



Camera Canon PowerShot G11
Exposure 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 6.1 mm - Wide angle
ISO Speed 200

#11 What changing the shooting position does. Same location and same subject. A sunny day with light cloud cover.



Camera Canon EOS 350D Digital
Exposure 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture f/9
Focal Length 190 mm
ISO Speed 800
Exposure Bias 0/2 EV

#12 As above but a lot closer, and watching the background. A wider aperture was also used (more to come on this).



Camera Canon EOS 350D Digital
Exposure 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 300 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0/2 EV

-----------------------
Larger pics are on my Flickr photo stream.

More to come, thanks for looking, and feel free to ask questions, add relevent content or comment.

Richard

[Hill Country Hack]

Thanks for the write up. I'll take this information and try to put it into practice. If the last shot was hand held, very good job for a relatively slow shutter speed with 300mm focal length.

[sk66]

Nice job on this...

I still might do a version focused on "portraiture" as this is the area where most want to shoot wide open rather than control the other aspects.... But everything you have said/demonstrated is directly applicable.

[RichardTaylor]

Thanks.

@Hill Country Hack
That was an image stabilised lens and was shot whilst on vacation, in New Caledonia.
I normally do not take a tripod on overseas vacations, especially when travelling with my wife.

@Steve.
Some of the possible topics still to cover, and I may need to shoot more pics..
Depth of field - probably over 2-3 posts. (the first should be up in a little over 12 hours) and will include a couple of candid portraits.
Light
Colour
Framing
Post processing.
Motion.

[RichardTaylor]

Creating Separation (4)

Depth of field - out of focus backgrounds (1).

Making your subject the only point of focus will certainly help focus (sorry about that) attention.
There are at least 3 ways this can be done.
(1) out of focus foreground
(2) out of focus background and foreground.
(3) Out of focus background only.

There are some technical constraints on how well this can be achieved when shooting. Mainly lens focal length (longer is better) , subject (closer is better) and background distance, and aperture (wider is better). This may be difficult to achieve when shooting with point & shoot (P&S) cameras mainly because of the short focal lengths used.

Some examples, of out of focus backgrounds, from a medieval festival. Bright sunny day and no control of the subjects and limited control over shooting position.

#13 While the knight is in focus the background is still a distraction even though shooting wide open at f5.6. Notice how the out of focus crowd in the foreground help frame the subject.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture f/5.6 (wide open)
Focal Length 250 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV
Subject Distance 30.3 m (~99')

#14 The same knight as pic #13. Shot wide open at f5.6 however the subject distance is now 12.6m (~40') and the background is not quite so distracting. This is why sports shooters like 400mm f2.8 lenses - to completely blur the background.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 1/2500 sec
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 400 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV
Subject Distance 12.6 m (~40')

These next two photographs are candid.

#15 Shooting again at f5.6 however the focal length is now 180mm. The background is nicely blurred both by the atmosphere and shallow DOF, however it still gives a feel for the environment.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture f/5.6 Wide open
Focal Length 180 mm
ISO Speed 400
Subject Distance 8.36 m (~27')

#16 Now the distracting elements from the background are completely removed. Still wide open @ f5.6 and 400mm and fairly close at 6m (~19'). Getting towards the minimum DOF for the subject.



Camera Canon EOS 40D
Exposure 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 400 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias +1/3 EV
Subject Distance 6m (~19')

-----------------------
Larger pics are on my Flickr photo stream.

More to come (using a fast lens to create separation), thanks for looking, and feel free to ask questions, add relevant content or comment.

Richard

[ccting]

Nice tutorial & great pics!

[RichardTaylor]

Thanks very much.