Masterclass In Photography PART 3: Creative Lens & Colour

In This Section:

It's so frustrating when you discover your photo isn't sharp so in this section that's where we'll begin.

Next we're going to learn all about white balance, what it is, how to use presets and custom white balance as well as the pros and cons of auto white balance.

Finally we're going to work with focal length, which in my opinion is the most overlooked creative tool in photography. Focal length does so much more than make far off things come closer or getting more into a landscape. Choosing an appropriate focal length adds mood, feeling and is best friends with composition

By the end of this section you will be choosing a focal length (or amount of zoom) for creative reasons - instead of merely zooming in and out hoping it'll look OK...

Don't forget to download your support notes and do the exercises.

Eye glasses are a pain. I don't know about you but I hate wearing glasses. They always seem to be in the way, holding your eye back from the viewfinder and prevent you from seeing what's going on all around the frame.

The quick and easy way around this problem is to set your viewfinder for your eyesight by adjusting the dioptre to suit your prescription. 

Camera shake is the no1 cause of blurry photos. When you look through a long lens everything jumps about because it's impossible for us to hand hold a camera completely still. The longer the lens the more movement you get. If it's windy, you or your subject is moving the movement intensifies.

To eliminate this movement you have to make the shutter speed fast enough to freeze it.

The difference between camera shake and mis-focussing:

• Mis-focussing: Usually some part of the image is sharp but it's not the part you want.

• Camera Shake: the entire photo is soft

A rough guide to avoid camera shake:

Use a shutter speed that is at least as fast as the lens is long.

• 25mm - 1/25th sec or faster

• 100mm - 1/100th sec or faster

• 200mm - 1/200th sec or faster

• 500mm - 1/500th sec or faster...

Auto focus is achieved by either taking up 1st pressure on the shutter button or using a small button on the back of the camera called a 'Back Button Focus'.

There are other settings which govern auto focus which we'll explore in the next lesson.

Cameras have many autofocus modes buried in their menus. In my experience most of them make little difference and are an example of adding extra features just for the sake of it.

In this lesson I'll show you the most useful, how and when to use them.

Manual focus is almost redundant because 99% of the time auto focus is faster and super accurate. Here's one of the few examples of when you might need it.

Keeping your camera kit clean eliminates one potential sharpness issue. Dirt on the sensor or lenses.

Keeping your lenses clean means you'll benefit from their optics. Lenses are very robust and you should clean yours whenever you need to. I have done professional shoots in environments where the lens has needed cleaning between every shot.

Dust will always find a way into your camera and once a dust spot is there, it'll show up on every photo until you clean the sensor. Usually a puff of clean air is enough, but there will be times when the sensor needs cleaning too. 

Let's talk colour management...

Light is made up of many different colours. If one colour is dominant your photos will have a colour cast. A photo taken at night indoors is likely to have a yellow colour cast because yellow is dominant in most household bulbs. We don't see these colour casts with our eyes because our brains colour correct it for us.

To get around this problem you can use presets or custom  settings to add the opposite colour and counteract the colour cast.

Auto white balance does a pretty good job in most situations. But cameras are limited by their un-thinking algorithms which can only work on averages. If your photo is not average and contains predominately one strong colour, auto white balance will add the opposite colour which can actually cause an unwanted colour cast.

It's the colour of light on the subject that's important. Not the light on you.

Some colours are best friends, others clash and are painful to look at.

Knowing which colours work well together can always give you an edge. Especially if you love setting up still lifes or more structured photography.

Focal length is how long or short your lens is and it does so much more than magnification. Focal length changes the entire mood and feel of an image. You can use it to isolate a subject and remove clutter. You can give the appearance of compressing things together and make tiny spaces look considerably bigger. Focal length can give a photo an intimate up close feeling, or that of a bystander.

Choosing a focal length for its creative properties will dramatically improve your composition because it helps impart emotion in a photo. Focal length and composition are more than best mates - they're in love...

There are several Focal Length exercises in this section - and in the support notes you downloaded at the start of A Masterclass In Photography part 3. If you want to fully exploit this creative tool in your photos, please do them as often as you need to for the knowledge to sink in and become experience.

If you completed Masterclass PT2 you’ll know all about Aperture's superpower - depth of field. But it shares that superpower with focal length.

Technically it's the distance between you and the point of focus that affects depth of field in this 'focal length' conversation. But as you change focal length and move yourself to compensate for the change in magnification, you are changing the distance between you and the subject - without having to crop the photo.

In this lesson I'm going to show you and explain the theory. Then we'll go do it for real...

As you change focal length the field of view changes with it. Field of view is the amount you can see to either side, above and below.

Please repeat what I do in the first part of this lesson for yourself. It's a great exercise that will help you fully grasp the impact field of view has on your photos.

Long lenses have less depth of field than short lenses (or focal lengths)

That makes a short lens great for front to back sharpness (large depth of field) and longer lenses great for blurry backgrounds.

As you increase focal length (zoom) the magnification has the effect of making elements of a photo stack up and compress together.

As you decrease focal length (zoom) it has the opposite effect and has the effect of pushing them further apart.

Technically speaking it's distance to subject with causes this effect, however changing the length of you lens, forces you to change the distance whilst maintaining the same composition.

In this lesson I'll demonstrate the effects of focal length by shooting several portraits of my PA Emmalene, whilst maintaining the same composition for each image.

The only difference will between them will be focal length which will be doubled between each photo. Remember the demonstration with the stones and how different focal lengths affected field of view, depth of field and compression effect?

Now we're going to combine these creative Superpowers on a person. Emmalene will occupy the same space in the composition of each image, but the look and feel of the image will radically change as we change the focal length.

Please do this exercise for yourself. It's one thing to 'know' something intellectually and quite another to experience it for yourself.

∞ This is an Infinity symbol and you may have it marked on the zoom ring of your lens(es). It's the distance from the camera beyond which everything will be sharp, regardless of which aperture or focal length you use.

If you've correctly chosen the widest aperture to blur the background of a photo, but it stayed sharp, that's because the point of focus was beyond the infinity point. 

Sometimes where to focus is critical depending on how much depth of field you want and the focal length (or amount of zoom) being used. But there are other times when it doesn't matter where you focus because everything is beyond infinity and therefore will be sharp regardless of which aperture you choose.

Footnote:

Photography is holistic. Everything has an impact on everything else and few things in photography work in isolation. It's a moving feast of combinations of settings, concepts, thinking your way through them and applying them appropriately for every photo.

This is why you can only master photography by getting out there and doing it, experimenting to see what will happen. Photography is Experiencial learning (learning by doing and experiencing) which is why the more you practise and do this, the faster you'll master it.

This exercise will help you understand the fluid relationship depth of field has with aperture, distance to point of focus, focal length and how it's like a block of sharpness you can move back and fourth, expanding and contracting as you do it.

Once you understand and get used to doing this, it will be of massive value for you to nail depth of field.

Download the photos I took and compare them on your own screen

There is no rule that says you 'must' use a particular length lens for any photo. The next three lessons are only to give you some ideas. Generally speaking a short / wide lens is great for...

• Landscapes - when you want to include a lot of the scene

• A feeling of intimacy, being up close and personal

• Making small spaces appear bigger than they are

The closest approximation of how we see the world with our eyes is around 35mm on cameras with a crop sensor and 50mm on a full frame. This makes mid rage lenses great for a natural look. An 18-55mm zoom is my preferred focal range lens for most photography because I like the 'natural' look.

This does not mean it's better - it just means I like it and have used that focal length lens for the majority of this course. 

Mid range lenses are great for...

• Portraits

• Landscapes

• Close ups

• Street photography

Long lenses reduce the field of view and are great for isolating a subject from its surroundings. Besides making far off things come closer, they're great for...

• Portraits

• Isolating part of a landscape

• Sports

• Close ups and details

What Should You Do Next?

Practise everything learned in this part of 'Masterclass' until you no longer need to refer back to lessons, support notes or exercise instructions. Because when you can use these skills and techniques without having to think about them it means you've truly mastered them and are ready to concentrate on being creative with composition and light.

Composition and light are what will make your photos pop and that's what you'll learn in PT4...

• Copy/paste this link: https://www.udemy.com/user/mike-browne-8/

• Search for my name Mike Browne

• Or visit my instructor bio page to find all parts of this series of courses.

Hope to see you soon...