Madison Photo Shop

5 Elements of Composition

1. Pattern

(plants at Blue Mounds State Park)

2. Symmetry

(a Gruyere cheese house in Switzerland)

3. Depth of field

(a street in France)

4. Texture

(a frozen bush outside our apt.)

5. Lines

(a road in France that I just fell in love with)

(a tree in Shorewood. I looked up and saw the sun through the branches and thought it looked so cool.)

Composition Tips

1. The Rule of Thirds
*Notice in the following photos how the subject(s) are in the upper/lower/left/right thirds of the photograph. This will make for a more interesting composition than placing the subject(s) directly in the center.

2. Off center your subject

(You'll notice this shot is very grainy. It's because I didn't use a flash and there was no sunlight coming into the window on him. Which is too bad, because it's our favorite expression of him as an infant. Moral of the story?... Take notice of the light! But love the photos anyway even if they're not "perfect".)

(a fill in flash here would have been good to pop open his eyes and even his skin)

3. Keep horizons straight (and try to follow the rule of thirds):

4. Frame the subject

5. Zoom in

6. Watch out for distractions in the background (notice the bug)

Portrait Tips
(and these apply to landscape too, of course)

1. Rule of triangles:

2. Alter your perspective:

3. Shoot into the light:

4. Shoot from slightly below your subject’s eyeline:

5. Take a series of shots:

6. Subject(s) should look within the frame (meaning, give space within the photo for your subject to look):

(I probably should have been paying more attention to the sunlight coming in through the leaves, but I think I really like the little flecks of sunlight.)

7. Tilt your camera or your subject:

Slide 2

How your camera works

(in 20 words or less)

Shutter opens to let light in.

Light interacts with a sensitive photo-receptor (think: computer chip)

Image is recorded

ISO

International Organization for Standardization

The number refers to how sensitive it is to light. The lower the number (100) the less sensitive it is. The higher the number (400) the more sensitive it is.

Use 100 for outdoor, lots of light situations

Use 400 for indoor, less light situations

Shutter Speed and ISO

The lower the ISO the higher the shutter speed (to let in less light).

The higher the ISO the lower the shutter speed (to let in more light).

Example: ISO 100 in midday might need a shutter speed of 1/250 to expose the picture.

Depth of Field
Depth of field is an optical figure that is influenced by a few factors:

The distance of the object from the camera: This is obvious to understand when taken to the extreme. Shooting an object 10 feet from the camera will result in a smaller depth of field than shooting an object 100 feet from the camera.

The aperture: The wider the aperture (f number decreases) the smaller the depth of field and vice versa: the narrower the aperture (f number increases) the greater the depth of field. Just remember that the depth of field changes along with the f number: when the f number increases and depth of field increases and vice versa. Unfortunately you can not just change the aperture as you wish. Changing the aperture results in a need to change the shutter speed (either manually or the camera can most likely do that for you automatically). The wider the aperture the more light that penetrates the lens and the faster the shutter speed needs to be so there is a limit to how wide you can set the aperture to.
***The focal length of the lens: The shorter the focal length the greater the depth of field and vice versa the longer the focal length the smaller the depth of field. For example if you use normal lenses at somewhere around 50mm your depth of field will be much greater than if you use zoom lenses at 200mm. With long focal length the depth of field can be extremely small. For that reason zoom lenses are a good choice in order to shoot a good blurry photo that is practically focused only on the object.

Aperture

Measured in “f/stops” or f/numbers…

f/2, f/5.6, f/11, etc.

The lower the f/stop the larger the opening and vice versa.

f/stops are the ratio of the focal length of the lens divided by the diameter of the opening of the diaphragm. Thus, when you divide the focal length of the lens by a very small opening, you get a large number, while dividing the focal length by a comparatively large diameter gives you a smaller number.

Slide 14

Trying the "blurry background" effect with your point and shoot

1.Zoom in

2.Lower your f/stop (f/number)

3.Check shutter speed and ISO for lighting

(lower) (raising)

(Just know that it’s difficult to achieve blurry results with anything less than a 35mm.)

Slide 18

Lighting

Great outdoor and indoor lighting:

Any time is fine if you use your camera and some help props properly.

Slide 19Midday sun Use fill in flash (aka: turn the flash on)

Use a white poster board, tin foil, a car... anything! to reflect some light

Overcast sky is good.

No shadows. ( although there is lack of vivid color)

No squinting

Even light.

Late afternoon.

Intense sun.
Watch the shadows.

Watch the sweat.

Evening sun is warm.

Can still be bright, make other squint, so use a sheet to cover the subjects but leave the background lit.

Or take with side light.

Or in the shade

Slide 24

Great outdoor night photos:

To avoid this-

or this-

Use a TRIPOD!

Or set the camera on a table, bench, solid object, etc.

Longer exposure= more camera shake, so use the timer.

Night setting usually works well if you don’t shake the camera.

Use the flash to illuminate the foreground and distance yourself.

Slide 27Normally you won’t want to use the flash at all. Especially for landscapes.

Slide 28

Great Indoor Photos during the day:

** Use natural light whenever possible. Move to a window. Turn your flash off. This picture was taken on his changing table under the bedroom window.

This was taken on our black couch by the window in the afternoon sun.

Great indoor photos at night:

* Put you camera onto M for manual (this is the setting on most models)
* Set you aperture to as big as it will go eg. F4.0 or F2.8.
* Set your shutter speed to around 1/60. It is hard to shoot handheld with anything below 1/60. As a rule of thumb you should never shoot lower than your focal distance while handheld. Eg on a 50mm lense you should never shoot lower than 1/50 sec.
* You will then need to use you external flash, if you can bounce your flash do this, if you have a catch light reflector built into your flash even better. If you have a built in flash use Kleenex, tissue paper, or your hand, to cover the flash or lower the flash strength
* Take a few shots and see what they look like.
* If they are not bright enough try bumping up your ISO to 200 then 400 and so on until you achieve an acceptable result.