Playing with light, height and other things.

Taking good photo's of your tree's can be challenging. Discuss your ideas and tips here.
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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by fossil finder »

Hi Bodhi
1) Your cameras light meter is looking out and giving you underexposed shots because of all that bright sky lighting in the background. Try overriding metering. If you have spot metering try that by aiming straight at tree for appropriate exposure. When you give the shot more exposure the already bright background will be too bright if the background isn't changed. Try using blanket or simliar to remedy or just shoot when the light is different.

If you block light from one side and introduce another light source like a torch or simliar.
2) If you want to throw the backround out of focus use a lens say 70-135mm range. The longer the lens focal length the more the background is thrown out of focus. The problem with that is that depth of field then becomes an issue. Depth of field is the amount of the image that is in focus. To acheive good depth of field use the smallest apeture you can given that the shutter speed needs to be slower to acheive correct exposure. Each full apeture stop is the equal amount of light as each full shutter speed. So if you change the apeture down 2 full stops (2.8 -4-5.6 the shutter speed(500-250-100) needs to go up 2 full stops to acheive same exposure. Using a tripod is the easiest way to deal with having to use very low speeds needed to get adequate depth of field and correct exposure...or use a flash.
3) If you don't have a zoom try movng the background further away from the tree. 4)Best photo advice I was ever given was to get all distractions to the subject removed by framing, lighting, limiting depth of field. The simpler the image the better generally


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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by fossil finder »

Just to expand on what I was saying if you move the background away from the tree further the tree won't cast a shadow on the background and the background being out of focus because it is further out of the depth of field is OK.
Taking a photo like you are you focus on the nearest point and the rest falls into the area in focus depending on what apeture you are using. MOST lenses used today work best from f 8- f16. The closer to the subject the camera is the shallower the depth of field is.
To further explain another aspect to consider other than depth of field is the point of focus. If you were taking a picture of a car and standing at an angle about 45'.You can see the front of car and down along one side of the car. The best place to focus is about the rear view mirror on the door. This is because of how depth of field works and how you sometimes have to compromise on perfect focus to acheive overall focus.
Lighting can be hard. Generally overcast conditions are ideal allowing you to obtain details in the shadows. If it isn't overcast you will need to get creative with some sheets or some other movable shadow creating object. You can also use light colour paper and the like next to tree but out of image view to reflect light back into darker areas.
Shooting at night is a good way of working if you use a led torch or simliar to light the object. Grab the duct tape and play around (taking photos as you do) with the lighting until are satisfied with results. That's a honker of a tree you have there!

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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by petegreg »

OK, in any case I would give it a try... Just turn around your studio setup. Sure strong daylight can make problems, but diffused daylight in the shade might be helpful. You're not going to take pictures every day and all day long. This is not critique, I'am learning as well.
Concerning the theory of photography I have found some handy apps for smartphones, some of them with a nice graphical explanation e.g. Exposure Calculator or Hyperfocal Pro.
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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by bodhidharma »

Thank you for the in depth helpful advice! I am finding out that photography is another discipline that requires an enormous amount of knowledge and practise :reading:
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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by petegreg »

I've found these set of photographic threads when looking for How to...learning as well. I think I need to take 100s-1000s pictures to master it. But systematically. Sure, some theoretical knowledge required as well.
BTW your tree is fantastic and the photo is pretty good for given environment. Pale backgrounds are very suitable for leafless trees in my opinion. Just try to increase the distance between the tree and background up to 1.5 m as already advised. The camera seems to be very good too. Consider its confusion coming from the colour of the photographed object and the part of it that was in focuse area. Just play with the light and camera settings and it'll be perfect. Have you tried to capture a pic. of more coloured trees in the same set of conditions- I mean with leaves, flowers... and what is the result, how it works?
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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by fossil finder »

Many cameras have a depth of field preview button near the base of lens on body of camera. When you press the button the view through the viewfinder will show how much depth of field you will get with the present apeture setting. The view will be darker but this doesn't affect exposure.

The great thing about digital cameras is that it doesn't cost anything to take a lot of pictures, delete the duds and re-take if necessary so don't hold back. Despite this revolutionary change many people still shoot like we used to do with film i.e. shooting one or two shots here and there to conserve film.

All pro photographers bracket (shoot a range of exposures) to ensure an acceptable image will be attained. The more shots you take the better your likelyhood of success. It's as simple as that.

One last point is about all those numbers on a cameras lens. They look pretty daunting and intimidate many would be photographers. The bottom line is each apeture number and shutter speed number are just increments of light. f4 is twice the light value of f5.6 and shutter speed of 1/250th of a second is half the light value of 1/125 of a second. Once this concept is grasped the interaction between shutter speed and apeture can be exploited to get a better shot.

For instance if you need a faster shutter speed (less time) you need more light to prevent underexposure so you open (say f8 -f5.6)the apeture more. If you want better depth of field (smaller apeture) you would need to use a slower shutter speed to prevent underexposure. As Craig suggested you a close to getting a really nice shot.

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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by bodhidharma »

Thanks Gentlemen :worship: I also am playing with different coloured backgrounds which is another whole new ball game.Black for instance has its difficulty's but i will keep playing.
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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by petegreg »

Here is one more link just recommended to me:

http://www.thephotoargus.com/15-must-se ... ographers/

...nice one
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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by Kevin »

Hello Bodhidharma,

You have already been given great tips.

My observations involved just one problem, being - refining the metering. This is where the S5600 sensors the 'average' light and adjusts accordingly. The problem is your little bonsai is far from average and in the photos attached to this thread is somewhat darker than the rest of the scene and generally always will be. However, depending on the adjustments and controls available to the user were my concerns, hence requiring the camera spec's before i could accurately advise.

The Finepix S5600 isn't to be found on Fuji.com.au - very unusual.

My first suggestion was going to be - check for firmware updates, something that always slips my mind. Inherent problems with the device when manufactured can be rectified via logging into the manufacturer's website - support - downloads - firmware - model number (generally in that order).

So without the spec's i located the manual, via US source (i think), it lists the S5200 and S5600 together. Where i discovered, your camera is basically fully automated. In the old days they called them 'Point and Shoot'.
Nothing wrong with 'Point and Shoot' and your photos have definitely proved that - their quality is superb, just a tad dark across the bonsai facade.

I have noticed since this thread your more recent 'studio' has been modified somewhat allowing less ambient light to enter. The more recent photos of your bonsai are now brighter across their facade, however, the light source coming in from the right still causes a shadow on the left side of your bonsai.

You have the equipment now to rectify this darkish / shadow across the bonsai facade - that professional studio light (i presume) sitting enclosed under that soft box diffuser. Simply place the studio light with the softbox diffuser to the left, maybe 45 - 90 degrees in front (presuming you are at 180 degrees), also how close or far the light is from the bonsai will depend upon how bright that ambient light to the right is and at the same height as the bonsai. You need to match the 2 light source intensities in Kelvins, generally that means unless it's one of the golden hours (sunrise / sunset) - no less than 4000K - white light - Although the studio light looks professional as long as they supplied the globes for you , you'll be sweet.

Also, the set up you had in this thread was fine, you were not getting the studio shots BUT the ambient light was even and this caused an even shadow across your bonsai facade. I have used several photo processing software over the years, always basic ones and they have all had the function - SHADOW ADJUSTMENT - raising this adjustment reduces shadows and will make your bonsai superb.

Hope this helps - the easiest option is the latter, but i would suggest try both - no, go the latter first. I do believe their is free software, but not sure where or how to obtain. For many years now i have just used Adobe Lightroom - but i do shot in RAW mode @ 72 -74mb each before processing. Your camera shots in RAW too. Ave' a go - total control in your hands then - lotsa work too.

EDIT - P.S. - I do recall Fuji.com.au having software available for RAW processing, i would presume free and probably meaning for processing too?

Thanks,
Kevin
Last edited by Kevin on February 29th, 2016, 10:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playing with light, height and other things.

Post by bodhidharma »

Thanks for all that feedback Kevin (and also others). I am enjoying the process of developing skills in photography as i know it makes a huge difference to showing off your Bonsai. Well worth pursuing the skill set. Patience, patience, patience!
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