Blog Posts

The versatility of a zoom lens

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

A Spring afternoon in a park gave me the opportunity to grab my versatile 18-135 mm f/3,5-5,6 zoom lens and Canon DSLR and put it to the test. Just how flexible and versatile is a zoom lens? The weather was overcast and just a little too cold to be comfortable. There were some signs of Spring, but not many. I decided to focus on the trees. As there are no leaves the branches, the trunk and the reflections on the pond had to be the source of inspiration. Light, or lack of it, would be the challenge.

To get an idea of the park these fist few photographs are taken with a wide focal length, around 30mm, to capture the landscape.

There is no bright sunlight to provide vivid colours.

But with a longer exposure and a solid base a longer exposure time can provide a compromise. Take advantage of anything nearby. For example a post, bench, fence or in my case a tree.

Using the tree, as a support, and looking up towards the sky can give an unusual aspect and 0.8sec at ISO400 lets in more light.

Zooming in low light

Testing the zoom in low light conditions isn’t easy. As you zoom to the distant subject the light reduces so you must increase the exposure time. These 2 shots show a tree trunk that vaguely resembles a dinosaur foot. The first taken with 24mm at 1/125sec, the second 135mm at 1/25 sec. At 1/25sec the risk of camera movement spoiling the photo is significant. They do show the versatility of a zoom lens and with a tripod the slight shake would disappear.

Beaten by the dull light I decided to go with the flow. What can be move atmospheric and haunting that trees at dusk.? Let’s start embracing low light. Even making it more pronounced. Here are a series of darker and darker shots.

Unexpected bonus

The last unexpected shots came whilst taking the scenes above when a dove flew past a couple of times. Leading me into trying to capture movement in low light with a zoom lens. I quickly set the speed to 1/800s, even faster if you can, but I didn’t have time to be fussy. However I did ensure I was using servo auto focus. These were then taken at 56mm and 135mm. Not too bad considering. Demonstrating the versatility of my zoom lens. I did a quick edit to make them black and white as there was so little colour anyway.

You can find out more about the parc Meissonier, in Poissy, France at the departmental website, in French, or the town’s website also in French.

I did another post on zooming later in the year which you can find here.

Some of my photos are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store directly below. There are other landscape photos here.


Simulating Tilt-Shift photos to create a model village effect

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tilt-Shift is the technique used to create a photo that looks like a model village. You can simulate this effect in software. It is an illusion created by manipulating the focus in the picture. By blurring the image horizontally we confuse the viewer and the brain interprets the distance and scale differently. The image appears to present in focus objects as being tiny when compared to the normal sized objects which are blurred in the image. The effect is enhanced by increasing the colour saturation in the photo. Luminosity and contrast can be adjusted too if needed. Below I will take you through the steps to simulate tilt-shift photos.

Equipment

  1. For this you need a photo
  2. Editing software, such as Photoshop or the GIMP (The Free & Open Source Image Editor, available from their site)

Steps

Time needed: 15 minutes

Simple method to simulate tilt-shift photos

  1. Select the best photo

    Choose an suitable photo – this should be a wide angle photo that does not include the sun and sky. It should also be taken looking down on the scene

  2. Open the photo

    Open the photo in the software, for example the free GIMP.

  3. Duplicate the image and add a mask

    Duplicate the image and add a mask, which will be used to select the horizontal part of the image to remain focused while the rest is blurred.

  4. Blur the remainder of the image

    Select the image and apply a blur to the image. The choice of blur will depend on the software release you are using but is not critical. I use lens blur.

  5. Increase the saturation of the image

    Using the menu, Try +30 to start.

Other considerations

Photoshop has tilt-shift blur in the blur gallery, so you can see where the focus strip is and the result in real-time.

Sometimes items that need to be in focus to make sense of the image will not be in the straight horizontal strip. In this case you must adjust the mask to include them. Take this image below. The flags are not entirely in the same strip as the people. So the Photoshop tilt-shift blur gallery tool would have to include most of the image if we expanded the strip to include all the flags. This is not what we are trying to achieve.

The top part of the flags is blurred. This gives an unsatisfactory effect.

Keeping all the flag in focus is more pleasing and improves the simulation. Although in reality the flags are much closer to the photographer than the people. The result is more satisfactory.

We do this using a mask so we can be more selective and include all the flags in our selection to remain in focus.

In the gallery above there’s a picture of the beach at Trègastel. There’s another photo from Trègastel in the lighting section.

You can find another post relating to New York here.

There are more tips on this external site.

Purchase your own copy of my work

Some of my photos are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store or directly below.


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Using unusual lighting conditions to create interest and impress your audience

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute

Take any item and photograph it in unusual lighting conditions or from a different, maybe unexpected, angle. Using unusual lighting conditions to create interest is an easy technique. This makes for interesting shots that can also surprise the audience. Maybe keep them guessing on the actual nature of the object. Here I take a common food item. There are other examples of how lighting can be used here.

Let’s look at the golden image. It could be flames, maybe the sun, or a precious stone. It is a thin slice of a button mushroom on a backlit sheet of glass. Using unusual lighting conditions create interest.

Own my images

I have made some photographs available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store, and directly below or the link in the menu.


Good things come in threes

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute

Composing a nice balanced picture is critical. There is a well-known rule of thirds. This divides the picture into 3 horizontally and vertically. Like the # sign, but straight. When applying the rule the main subject of the photo should fall on the intersection of the lines. I discuss this in relation to landscape photos on this page. So why Good things come in threes? Because there is another rule of 3.

I also think that when taking a photo of a group of things, there are other rules of 3. For example trying to organise the subjects into triangles is often a good idea. I also find that 3 inanimate objects is the minimum for a group photo if it is to look interesting. And to choose short depth of focus. In these shots I took some simple items in groups of 3. With 1 or 2 there’s not as much interesting depth, focus, lighting etc. Good things come in threes.

I have made these photos available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store.

Here you can see the photos all have shadows and reflections on the shiny surface. All adding more to the image without adding more items.

Other photos of mine are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store or directly below.


Stacked logs make an interesting shot

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute

It seemed that when I was looking for a photo of stacked logs the majority I found were all very similar. No surprise there as they were all in fact pictures of logs. But all nicely beige and circular seemed too good to be true. When I went to look at my stacks of wood for this winter they were not like that. Dare I say, more interesting with a variety of shapes and sizes with a nice selection of greys. In the end irregular stacked logs make an interesting shot.
Some are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store.

Other photos of mine are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store or directly below.


Shooting Sun Flares and Starbursts

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute

Sun flares and starbursts bring sparkle to any photo, and fortunately are not difficult to create.  They are created by the light passing through the aperture of the lens.  The aperture is formed by a small number of overlapping blades which reduce the hole as we increase the f-stops.  When the whole is small, for the sake of argument f/11 and above, the light is diffracted, or bent a little as its passes through the aperture.  This creates the starburst on the captured image.  The number of  points on the star is defined by the number of blades,  and the number of blades tends to increase with the price of the objective. Shooting sun flares and starbursts can be achieved in few simple steps.

Sunburst and flare at the Paris Metro
Sun flare through a tree in the woods

In these 2 photographs the light source is the sun, but it doesn’t have to be.  The first is taken at 1/125s f/11, the second 1/60 at f/16, both with a 50mm objective.

I have chosen to have a small sun flare in these two photos. You can adjust your settings and position to make them bigger.

Equipment:

  1. light source
  2. for example 18mm to 50mm focal length objective
  3. small aperture
  4. tripod

Steps:

Time needed: 10 minutes

Shooting Sun Flares and Starbursts

  1. Assess the lighting

    If pointing at the very bright sun, consider fixing a filter to the objective, if at night use a tripod

  2. Set to Aperture priority

  3. Set ISO to 100

  4. select F/22 to start

  5. Shoot without looking directly at the sun and adjust as needed

Some of my photos are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store or directly below.


Adding bokeh patterns to your photos

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

With your DSLR camera you can add some fun effects to your photos.  No need to spend hours on post-production, nor expensive equipment.  This simple technique adds custom shaped bokeh to your photos giving them new interest and originality.

In case you haven’t used the term bokeh, it refers to the blurred patches of the photo.  And here we hope to give these patches a shape. Let’s go though the simple steps you need to add bokeh patterns to your photos.

laurel bush with flower bokeh
Laurel bush with star bokeh

Equipment:

  1. Dark card or plastic
  2. Scissors or sharp knife
  3. Tape
  4. An objective with a wide aperture (f2.8 or wider if possible)

Steps:

Time needed: 45 minutes

Adding custom bokeh patterns to your photos

  1. Cut the card

    Cut the card into a disk the same size as the objective

  2. Design the custom pattern

    In the centre cut out the desired pattern, up to 2 cm across.

  3. Tape it to the objective

    with black electricians tape, fix the card to the objective leaving no gaps

  4. Set the apperture

    Set aperture to f2.8 or wider, and manual focus if you prefer

  5. Shoot

    Take a few shots and verify the effect. Move yourself and the camera to experiment taking the shot from different angles, elevations and positions.

When you take a photo you don’t control where the bokeh appear and the same is true here.  So experiment by moving in relation to the light source.  You may find that you need greater distance than you think between the light source and the object, especially if you are using a 50mm lens.

These 2 were taken using a 100mm macro lens at f2.8.  It’s a laurel bush in the sun.

Using 2 caches:  58mm diameter with 18mm and 22mm shapes.  They were made from the base of 2 black plastic plant pots. More details from an external website.

Other photos of mine are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store or directly below.


Create unique desktop wallpaper

Posted on by SteveH
Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute

An interesting idea to create some bright and unique desktop wallpaper.

Equipment:

  1. A large glass vase or dish
  2. Small blocks, for example lego, cotton reels
  3. Water
  4. Cooking oil
  5. Washing up liquid
  6. Colourful image

Steps:

Time needed: 1 hour

Colourful oil on water for bright wallpaper

  1. Put the blocks on the colourful paper

    If possible out of shot

  2. Put the dish on the small blocks

    Making sure it’s level

  3. Fill the dish with water

    carefully as splashing will spoil the paper, also not too full as could get you in trouble spilling the water when you have to empty the dish

  4. Add a few drops of washing up liquid

    start with 5; you can always add more

  5. Add oil to the water until the surface is covered with droplets

    a gentle stir can help

  6. Take the shot and experiment

    enjoy!

The results will vary depending on the lighting, the background,  the movement, if any, of the water. The result is guaranteed to be a unique desktop wallpaper.

In the above photo I went crazy and laid some garden flowers on the surface. More tips on this subject are available on the web, for example, here.

Some of my photos are available for purchase on my Adobe Stock store, via the link in the menu or directly below.