Landscape with Trash

Nikon D810, 35mm (18-35), 1/125, f/16, ISO 100

While out doing some landscape photography (limited, because we were stuck on campus) with my students, I noticed an opportunity for a depth of field teaching moment.

In the shot above, the narrow aperture gives me a wide field. I can keep the whole scene in focus at once. Aside from the vertical orientation, this is a standard landscape shot.

In the shot below, I’ve opened up the aperture. That narrows the focus down to the discarded bag in the foreground. Now it stands out, because the blurry background is easier to ignore.

They also have a slightly different emotional feel, though that’s likely to be subjective and harder to define.

Nikon D810, 35mm (18-35), 1/1250, f/4.5, ISO 100

Full disclosure: I used Photoshop to align the two pictures, so they’ve both been adjusted slightly.

Easter eggs

Nikon D7000, 45mm (35-80), 1/1000, f/4.2, ISO 200

Happy Easter!

A carton of Easter eggs gave me an opportunity to do a little selective focus. With the aperture open that wide, the depth of field is fairly narrow. It’s a nice effect, particularly with the spring green in the background.

Tattoo machines

Nikon D7000, 35mm (35-80), 1/40, f/4.5, ISO 1000, focus stacked

The topic for this week is focus stacking. This is a handy digital post-production tool that allows you to create shots with a ton of depth of field even if your lens and lighting conditions made you shoot shallower when you were in the field.

Take a close look at the four photos below. The light in my friend Danny’s tattooing room generally isn’t the best for photography (though when he’s working he uses a better light). As you can see from the tech specs, I’m pushing my equipment nearly as far as I can. The shutter is at 1/40; any slower and I’ll start getting camera shake. The aperture is at 4.5, the wider end of the lens’s range. The ISO is at 1000; any higher, and the photos may start showing grain and inaccurate color.

But with these settings, I can’t keep the whole subject in focus. As you can see, each shot blurs at least part of the rack of Danny’s machines.

That’s where focus stacking comes in. Photoshop (and other software packages) will automatically combine several photos into a single image, using only the crisply in-focus parts of each shot. It also rotates and shifts photos automatically so they all line up. So all I have to do is make sure I shoot a series with enough partially-focused shots that Photoshop can then merge into a wholly focused image.

The outcome is the picture at the top of this post. The results aren’t always completely perfect. You can see some awkward blurring along the left edge, which I would have cropped out if I wasn’t using this as an example. But it’s way better than the unwelcome bokeh I was getting thanks to the limits I was working with.

Not that bokeh doesn’t have its place, even in this shoot.

Nikon D7000, 35mm (35-80), 1/40, f/4.5, ISO 1000

Nikon D7000, 35mm (35-80), 1/40, f/4.5, ISO 1000

Nikon D7000, 35mm (35-80), 1/40, f/4.5, ISO 1000

Nikon D7000, 35mm (35-80), 1/40, f/4.5, ISO 1000

Devil rat

Nikon D7000, 50mm, 1/60, f/1.8, ISO 1250

Okay, actually this is neither a devil nor a rat. It’s some sort of ferret or weasel that was converted into a tobacco pouch. And then later it became a museum exhibit.

The first time I tried photographing it, the picture looked terrible. I had to crank the ISO up so high that it turned into a festival of grainy crap. And it was still too dark.

Nikon D3000, 42mm (18-55), 1/60, f/5.6, ISO 3200

So when I tried it again recently, I used a “faster” lens (a 50mm prime that allowed for a wider f-stop). The trade-off was field depth, the narrowness of which you can clearly see in the photo. But without recourse to a tripod (not permitted in the Nelson art museum), this is the best I could hope for.

Getting tattooed

Nikon D7000, 80mm (35-80), 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 640, adjusted

Hot off the presses! Amy got tattooed earlier this evening, and I decided to post the photos. I don’t think any of the previous entries on the blog are photos I shot the day the entry was posted.

Here Danny and Amy are getting ready to start:

Nikon D7000, 35mm (35-80), 1/80, f/4.2, ISO 400, adjusted

And here’s the new work partway done, with the lines complete but the shading dots yet to come:

Nikon D7000, 48mm (35-80), 1/40, f/4.5, ISO 800, adjusted

Just so there’s actually a technique lesson here, I can use a narrow depth of field to change the story I’m telling. In this shot the emphasis is on the work in progress:

Nikon D7000, 80mm (35-80), 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 900, adjusted

But by changing the focus just a bit, I switch to a more subtle emphasis. Here Danny is the in-focus subject, even though he appears in the shot only in silhouette:

Nikon D7000, 80mm (35-80), 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 900, adjusted

Omaha Zoo – Lemurs

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 400, cropped

The zoo featured a good-sized, outdoor lemur enclosure. This was the best of photographic conditions: outdoor light and no bars between the lens and the subject. As a result, none of the photos in this post have been retouched.

One of the first shots I got was the walking lemur above. However, for some reason the majority of the little guys seemed to be going the other way. That led to a lot of pictures like this:

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 400, cropped

While Cute Overload goes crazy for this sort of thing every year during “Tocktober,” I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the critter butt shot.

Fortunately for me, the zoo train came by, made a lot of noise and spooked the lemurs. So I got some pictures of them headed the other way in a hurry.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 400, cropped

Some of the lemurs had the misfortune (or perhaps fortune on a hot day) of living indoors in the Madagascar building. A few of them – such as this pensive-looking subject – were in somewhat well lit areas.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/50, f/5.6, ISO 4000

Quick technical note: the combination of a wide aperture and longer focal length leads to a narrow depth of field, which is why the lemur is the only thing in clear focus in the shot. In this case, that’s actually a good thing, as I don’t want the tree or the background to draw attention away from the subject.

Others were in a nocturnal area. I’d pretty much given up any hope of shooting in the dark when I noticed a handful of lemurs hanging out next to a light. They ended up being one of the best shots I got all day. I even made an I Can Has Cheezburger post out of this, though as of this writing it hasn’t gotten enough likes to make the main page.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 4000

Bee

Nikon D7000, 300mm (75-300), 1/80, f/11, ISO 200, cropped

Every spring the bumblebees return to the tree in our front yard. And every year I shoot some pictures of them (assuming I catch them during the brief day or two when they’re here).

This year I used a 75-300mm zoom with macro focus to get in way closer than I’d actually care to with a shorter lens. While the bees are working, the whole tree hums with their busy buzzing. I don’t care to find out what would happen if I upset them by trespassing on their space.

At this focal length, shooting conditions are fairly unforgiving. The field depth is paper thin, so only the bee is in clear focus. Thanks to the bright sunlight, I was able to close the aperture down a bit and thus widen the field a little. However, I needed to keep the ISO low so I could “blow up” the images without making them look grainy.

With so many factors in play, many of the photos in the set ended up with technical problems of one kind or another. Still, all I need for a blog entry is one good one.

Bee and flower

Nikon D7000, 55mm (18-55), 1/250, f/8, ISO 110

This shot should probably have been one of the Unblogged Favorites of 2012. I took it on the college’s nature trail during a class exercise.

For this shot I zoomed in as far as the lens would let me in order to avoid disturbing the subject. At this focal length, the depth of field is fairly narrow. The background is a complete blur, which is good because it helps focus attention on the foreground.