Photography

[thestalkmore]

I just got a Canon 400D(Rebel Xti) and was wondering if there were any other photo junkies here who could share tips/pictures!

[Axil]

rule of thirds

bam youre half way to being a pro

[Exoduso]

I took a photography class in HS but I don't remember shit lol..

Rule of thirds 4tw though.

[Tricen]

Rule of thirds?

[Axil]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._thirds_md.gif

[Tricen]

Not sure I get it...

[Axil]

you divide the picture up like that and use it as guidance lines
you see how one of the lines goes through the shoreline?

http://www.theorderls.com/users/haxil/briones03.jpg
heres a picture my friend took of me, its a good example of rule of thirds and leading lines (look at the road)

[Devek]

Shots of boobs are typically more well received than shots of your best friends.

[Axil]

hold on let me take a pic of my tits for you devek, dont show anyone else though? theyre yours only baby...

[Tricen]

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /users/haxil/briones03.jpg on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.


On the link youi posted

[Axil]

oh right some cunt banned my bg ftp for some reason
http://a626.ac-images.myspacecdn.com...4e40db1c49.jpg
does that work?

[Tricen]

Yeah but I don't get it, does it make the pic look better or something?

[Axil]

it makes it even and feel fuller,go take a picture where 3/4ths of it is just the sky

[Exoduso]

Look at the first picture he posted, it turns into lines showing you the rule of thirds.

[Tricen]

Look at the first picture he posted, it turns into lines showing you the rule of thirds.

Yeah I saw that but I don't see what makes it special lol.

[miokomioko]

It's the idea that you never stick anything dead-center in a frame. Your eye has a natural way of moving about an image and a photograph will feel more comfortable and balanced in composition when the main subject matter and strong visual lines/shapes lie on those 3rd lines.

[Jefe]

Nvm I got it, wiki ftl.

??´????

[miokomioko]

Here's a general rule that will help a lot if you can grasp it because relying on automatic settings doesn't work out all the time. Being in control of your exposure, shutter speed, and depth of field is how you master a camera.


"BDE" (Basic Daylight Exposure) or "Sunny 16"

For a perfect exposure in bright, cloudless, hard sunlight (with the sun at least 20 degrees up from the east horizon 25 up from the west horizon)
use the setting: 1/ISO" @ f/16

100 ISO is a pretty good standard for minimizing film grain or digital noise, so let's use that.

Theoretically, your shutter would be 1/100" of a second at an aperture of f/16 to get a perfect daylight exposure. However, your camera, most likely won't have such a shutter speed. So, you speed it up by one third of a stop to 1/125". Speeding up the shutter means less light is hitting the film (or CCD) thus, you need to compensate for that and let that same amount of light in extra via another means, the aperture. Opening up the aperture one third of a stop from f/16 would be f/14 (or f/11 2/3).

Thus, your setting for a perfect exposure for 100 ISO would be 1/125" @ f/14.

Using that as a starting point, you can compensate for different lighting situations and always have a perfect exposure.

For example, for a thick, overcast day. You will need to let about 3 more stops of light in for an accurate exposure. You could do any of the following:

Slow down the shutter by 3 stops.
Slow down the shutter by 2 stops & open the aperture by 1 stop.
Slow down the shutter by 1 stop & open the aperture by 2 stops.
Open the aperture by 3 stops.

These all let in the equivelant of 3 stops of light extra to compensate for the loss of sunlight through the clouds.

The part where you get to play and make the adjustments accordingly are which of those 4 options you choose. Opening the aperture will make your depth of field (dof) more shallow, thus your point of critical focus is small, leaving foreground and background far out of focus. This will also allow you to maintain a faster shutter speed for freezing action if need be (shooting sports, moving cars, etc). Choosing to slow down your shutter instead will keep your depth of field larger, more things in sharp focus, but it will increase how much moving objects blur during the exposure, since you're recording that frame for a slightly longer period of time.

Just remember your full stops for shutter and aperture, so to keep your exposure the same, for every stop you speed up your shutter, you close down your aperture. For every stop you slow down your shutter, you open up your aperture.

Speed up, Open up
Slow down, Close down

Shutter speeds in full stops:
1/8000 1/4000 1/2000 1/1000 1/500 1/250 1/125 1/60 1/30 1/15 1/8 1/4 1/2 1"
(less light) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (more light)
(stop-action) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (motion blur)

Aperture settings in full stops:
1.4 2 2.8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22 32 45 64
(more light) - - - - - - - - - - - - -(less light)
(shallow dof) - - - - - - - - - - - - (large dof)

[miokomioko]

And because I'm really bored and procrastinating, as I'm reworking a bunch of old photographs for my editorial/fashion/celebrity/portraiture portfolio, I'll post some junk here.

3 years old, my old roomate Seth. Windowlight is one of the best ways to light a portrait.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...gfury/seth.jpg

Recent, my ex, this was with flash, froze her mid-jump.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...ury/jump-1.jpg

2 years old, some random, cute, Japanese girl off the street in SF.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...y/japanese.jpg

Recent, my roomate and his amazing Karl Lagerfeldt "Gangster Situations" shirt.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...ury/justin.jpg

5 years old, my ex, taken at "magic hour" (10 minutes after the sun goes down) for soft light
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5.../meganhair.jpg

Recent, some dude off the street, I did a series of 25 different complete strangers sitting here
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...y/stranger.jpg

1 year old, my friend Katie, this was supposed to mimick a Vanity Fair (Annie Liebovitz)-style cover.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...yfaircover.jpg

1 year old, same friend Katie, same assignment, but this was an inside spread
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...fairspread.jpg

[Ziphor]

Good info, miokomioko.

Rebel XTi here... im a nub photographer in terms of going out and finding some scenes to shoot, but i understand all the rules/compositional elements...


edit: what is your policy about shooting strangers? ask? don't ask? stalk and shoot? shoot then ask? i'm kinda worried with shooting peeps on the street