For the most complimentary portrait, use approx 65 mm with the class cameras.
85 mm for a full frame sensor.
Focus
When shooting a portrait, the subject’s eyes must be in focus. Full stop. Period.
Generally, portraits are shot with shallow depth of field to separate the subject from the background.
Portrait Lighting Styles
There are a 5 basic lighting styles for portrait photography. Each style is defined by how light falls on the face.
Rembrandt Light – the model is face forward, main light is at 45 degrees and casts a light on the opposite side of the face to form a triangle on the cheek.
Michael B. Jordan. Photographer: Peggy Sirota
2. Broad Light-model’s face in 3/4 view-light falls on the side of the face with the visible ear. Good for controlling the reflections on glasses.
Danny Devito. Photographer: Gregory Heisler.
3. Short Light-model’s face is in 3/4 view, the light falls on the side of the face with the features. (Not on the side with the visible ear.)
Aretha Franklin. Photographer: Matthew Jordan Smith
Respect the presenter. Give them your full attention.
Ask questions about your colleague’s photography. This is not the time to ask questions about your personal concerns.
Start with the positive when you comment on your colleague’s works. Use the terms below that we have learned this semester.
Be generous. Offer your thoughts. Your opinion and judgements are important. Do not leave the work of giving feedback to the others in the class.
Conversely, please do not speak over your classmates.
Critique Guidelines
The midterm project is to make a statement about an issue by referencing a famous image. During the critique, please offer your colleagues insight into:
Does the image communicate a clear statement about the topic?
Is the reference to the famous image obvious?
How is the image visually engaging? Be specific and use the terms below.
Terms
Framing: How the frame brings together the elements inside the rectangle juxtaposing them, creating relationships between them
Types of shots: how much information is in the frame
a long shot
a medium shot
a close up
an extreme close up.
Frame within a frame – use elements in the frame to enclose the main subject and draw attention to it. A frame within a frame can be a window or door or it can be items in the foreground such as branches.
Angle of View: describes the camera position in relationship to the subject. The angle of view may be:
a worm’s-eye view
a low-angle
eye-level
a high-angle
a bird’s-eye or aerial or overhead view
an oblique angle.
Rule of Thirds – Instead of placing the main subject in the center of the frame, divide the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically and place the main subject at one of these intersections.
Fill the Frame – (get closer) – do not leave empty areas that do not add to the composition and plan to crop in later.
Perspective-the representation of a 3-dimensional space on a 2-dimensional surface by converging lines, diminishing scale and/or atmospheric perspective.
Depth of Field-The distance between the nearest and farthest points that appear in acceptably sharp focus in a photograph. Depth of field can be shallow or extensive. While the term includes the word depth, depth of field refers to focus.
Frozen Motion-Motion is stopped and captured in the frame with a fast shutter speed.
The Decisive Moment: A term coined by Cartier Bresson- “the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.”
Blurred motion-moving elements blur with a longer shutter speed.
Aspect Ratio-the proportion of the width of the image to the height of a 2D image
Clipping-the intensity of the light falls outside of what can be recorded by the camera and there is a loss of detail.
Color Profile-the data for a digital device, such as a printer or monitor, which describes its gamut, or range of colors. Used to match the gamut from one device to another.
Exif Data-information stored by the camera in the file.
Gamut-range of colors
Histogram- a graphic representation of the tones in an image. A spike of data on the left side indicates underexposure, on the right overexposure.
Neutral Value-RGB values are equal or gray
Non-destructive Editing-adjust the image without overwriting the original image data. Instructions are written to a sidecar file that tells the software how to interpret the image.
White Balance-the setting that adjusts for the color temperature of the light and that will make a white object appear white or a gray object a neutral value
Global Corrections
Global corrections adjust the entire file. In the Lightroom CC, it includes the controls under Light, Color and Effects. In Lightroom Classic, this includes everything in the basic panel: White balance, Tone and Presence.
Using the Histogram
The histogram is a graphic representation of the tones in the photograph. It is a guide to exposure decisions. Most images look best when there is a full range of tones from black to white in the image. But there are no iron clad rules.
To access the histogram in Lightroom, from the keyboard select: Command 0
Or get it from the three dots on the right menu bar.
From the top of the histogram, there is a triangular button. Toggle it to turn on/off show clipping.
To maximize the the tonal range, adjust a photo to have some tones that are totally black and totally white but only a few so that you don’t lose detail in either the shadows or the highlights.
Looking at the histogram, we can see that there is not a true black or white. To raise the contrast of the image and use the full tonal range, use the following adjustments:
Select show clipping on the top left of the histogram. Adjust the blacks slider to the left until you see bright blue flecks on your image.
Select show clipping on the top right of the histogram. Adjust the whites slider to the right until you see bright red flecks on your image.
Most images improve with:
shadows slider to +50 add detail to the dark areas
the highlights slider brought to the left to bring detail into the highlights.
In this photo of the pier in Coney Island, the histogram shows that is underexposed. But we also know that it is an evening scene and that there is nothing in the photo that should be bright white.
Lightroom Workflow:
Optics: enable lens correction. If there is architecture or a strong horizon line, geometry>upright>auto
Crop.
Color. Adjust the white balance if necessary.
Light a. Exposure slider-use to adjust the overall tonality b. Set black point using show clipping c. Set white point using show clipping d. Use shadows slider to brighten mid tones.
Effects – Adjust clarity (mid tone contrast)
App: color – Adjust vibrance and or saturation
Detail panel – Sharpen-amount at least 50
Lightroom CC Resource
Lightroom Classic Resource
A few tips for Lightroom Mobile:
To access the histogram, tap on the image with two fingers. If you can’t really see the histogram background, brighten the display.
To see the image before your corrections, press on the image.
Oct 26th – Online class. You are also welcome to come into the classroom! Midterm presentations.
We will use the rest of the class period for each student to select, edit and submit their single best photo from the semester to the CUNY Photo Challenge.
Shutter Speed is the length of time that the sensor is exposed to light to create the photograph. It is measured in seconds or fractions of a second.
The full stops for shutter speed are: 30”, 15”, 8”, 4”, 2”, 1”, . sec, ., 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000, 1/8000
Doubling the time, doubles the amount of light that reaches the sensor.
When shooting with a cameraphone and the Lightroom Photoshop app, you can set the shutter speed of your cameraphone between 1/10,000 and 1 sec.
The general rule for getting a sharp image is that the shutter speed should be 1/focal length. So a sports photographer using a 500 mm lens should use a shutter speed of 1/500.
Image Stabilization can reduce blurriness when photographing a still subject in low light.
Turn off IS when mounting the camera on a tripod or photographing a moving subject..
A good rule of thumb when shooting with a camera is: Any shutter speeds slower then 1/60 require the use of a tripod. When shooting with a cameraphone, you will need a tripod to shoot at 1/15 or slower.
Strobe Lights
Strobes
Strobes have two bulbs:
the modeling light which helps you see where the light will fall
the flash that fires when you press the shutter release
A trigger on the camera uses radio waves to tell the receiver to fire the light. The power pack stores the power used to make the exposure.
Strobe Lights or Flash-The exposure triangle does not hold because the shutter speed is effectively replaced by the flash duration. We adjust the exposure primarily with the aperture or the ISO.
Flash duration
Flash duration is how long the flash of light is that takes the picture. It is the amount of time that the flash head goes from on to off.
If you want to freeze motion with available light, it is the shutter speed that will do it.
If you want to freeze motion with flash or studio strobes it is the flash duration that counts.
The higher the power that you use, the slower the flash duration.
With our Dynalight strobes this is about 1/700th of a second at full power.
Sync Speed
Sync Speed-is the fastest shutter speed for which the shutter curtains are completely open at the time of exposure (or when the flash fires). For shutter speeds above sync speed, the shutter curtains are no longer fully open and so you will see the shutter itself in the photo as a black area. the sync speed for our class cameras is 1/200 sec.
Blurring motion
Blurred motion-moving elements blur with a longer shutter speed.
Matthew Pillsbury
Matthew Pillsbury
Matthew Pillsbury
Duane Michals
Duane Michals
Duane Michals
How to blur motion:
Use a tripod.
Use a slower shutter speed – 1/4 sec to 30″ or even longer
Direction-if the subject moves parallel to the picture plane there is more visible movement than if the subject moves toward or away from the camera.
Focal length-a subject will appear blurrier when photographed with a telephoto lens than when photographed with a wide-angle lens.
Quiz Questions
Define shutter speed.
Set shutter speed to freeze motion in a photograph
Set shutter speed to blur motion in a photograph.
Define flash duration and understand its importance to capturing motion.
Oct 12 – Lighting Direction – Please bring in a small stuffed animal to work with. Try to bring in a toy that is made out of cloth and not plastic as it will be less reflective. So a stuffed animal rather than an action figure.
Quiz 1 – 4 pts. – Review weeks 1 – 5, Composition and framing, depth of field, motion, tripod use, strobes basics. There will be 3 technical questions with a right or wrong answer and a compare and contrast of two photos graded on correct use of vocabulary.
Oct 19th – class will be online.
Class topic: Digital Darkroom with Lightroom. Everyone should check that you have access to Lightroom from home this week.
Guest Speaker: Malik Dupree
Oct 26th – Class will be online. Midterm presentations.
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