Tamron Blog: Angle of View

Shrine Pass Hyperfocal Distance

By Rob Moody

Northwest of Vail Pass in the Sawatch Range of Central Colorado, the wildflowers peak at high altitude this time of the year. My goal on this day was to create images with extreme depth of field. I wanted flowers in focus in the foreground and mountains sharp in the background.

I would use hyperfocal distance to maximize my depth of field (DOF) and bring everything into focus. Roughly stated, when you focus a lens on a subject at any f/stop, the area in focus (DOF) will be represented by approximately 1/3 of the area in front and 2/3 of the area behind the subject in focus. Knowing this, I can use apertures or f/stops like f/8 – f/22 to render both the flowers and the mountains in focus on the image. Unfortunately, using autofocus can make achieving this difficult. This is best done with a tripod while manually focusing the lens.

Look for a depth of field preview button on your camera. Some have, some do not. If your camera doesn’t have a depth of field preview button, you can still use the hyperfocal distance principal to take the picture, you just can’t preview it. Then by reviewing the image using the magnifying glass and the direction buttons, you can inspect both the closest object and then the furthest object for sharpness. If you are unable to bring both into focus, choose a higher f/stop and or recompose your image.

For those of us with DOF Preview buttons, while engaging the DPF Preview button will result in reduced viewing brightness, it will allow you to preview the DOF of the selected f/stop through the viewfinder. To start, manually focus approximately 1/3 of the distance into your scene. It is important to focus 1/3 of the way into your viewfinder view, not at the actual physical distance of 1/3 of the distance to the mountains in the background. With the depth of field preview button depressed, slightly adjust the manual focus to bring both the flowers and the mountains in focus. If you are unable to bring both into focus, choose a higher f/stop and/or recompose your image. You should still perform a magnify and sharpness inspection to confirm accuracy.

Use this tip to maximize your depth of field. The chip in your camera is on the same plane as the optic in your lens. The ground you stand on is generally at a 90 degree angle in comparison to the chip and the optic in the camera. This makes getting everything in focus difficult if not impossible. By leaning your camera and thus the chip and lens of your digital camera toward the plane of the ground, DOF becomes more up and down instead of front to back. This allows you to carry more depth of field by optimizing it to your advantage.

Windy environments, as during this day, will present a challenge as log exposures are needed to compensate for more closed down apertures. I used a Nikon D7000 and a Tamron SP AF10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di II to make the following images. I also used a circular polarizer to reduce the reflected light in the scene.

The State of Maine is a State of Mind Part 2, Shooting Vertical

By Ken Hubbard

For most people new to photography it is only natural for them to pick up their camera and hold it in the horizontal perspective, for one it's the most stable and comfortable way to hold the camera. So, in turn, all their images are horizontal even though some may have looked better vertically. The question from most new photographers usually is, "how do I know when something may look better in a horizontal or vertical orientation"? I answer them first by saying, "when you have the time, photograph your subjects both ways, this way when you go back to review your images you can choose what looks best to you”. This may seem like a simple solution, and it is, but the first step is to train your photographic eye to see your subjects both vertically and horizontally, and the only way to do this is to actually take the images and review them. Of course there are a few subjects that generally work out better vertically, and you can start with these in mind if you don’t want to shoot everything both ways. Vertical lines, trees, flag poles, tall buildings all work well vertically, of course it is not a “rule” that all vertical lines must be shot vertically, just a starting point to get you to turn your camera vertically. Portraits are a second type of image that may look better in a vertical orientation. For me it depends on how many people I’m working with. 1, 2 or 3 people I will shoot vertically more often than a larger group which I will shoot horizontally.

Below are three vertical images all shot with the Tamron AF18-270mm VC PZD lens. The first is a group of very tall sailboat masts shot vertical to show off their height, I cropped out the boat because it was docked in an area that was crowded and it got lost amongst everything around it. The second once again, I used the vertical line of the flag pole and the vertical lines of the water being shot out of the boats engines to create a strong vertical image. Lastly, my interpretation of a portrait, which of course, doesn’t always have to be human. I went on an Eco Tour where the guide held up (with the help of one of us) a lobster to show us how to recognize if it’s a male or female (still don’t know) lobster. I will be honest, I shot this both vertically and horizontal, I ended up liking the vertical better because of the way the arm coming in from the bottom left leads you up to the (vertical) lobster, which then leads you to the arm on the right. The key is to experiment and shoot your images many different ways, the more ways you shoot them the better your eye becomes.

Look For The Opening In The Clutter

By Mike Moats

Getting that nice solid colored blurred background is all about finding the right camera angle. Most macro photographers that I have worked with in field workshops will find a subject, plop down in front of it, and shoot without ever exploring all the camera angles for the least clutter background.

Here is an image of a cluttered field with some white daisy flowers that I am going to shoot. My subject is the small white daisy just above the center of the frame. As you can see it is really cluttered all around the flower, but if you work all the camera angles, you can sometimes find a gap where the background is far enough away to get a nice solid colored blurred background.

I have shot this flower at different camera angles to show what you will get for a background if you are not paying attention. In the camera angle of the first image, you can see in the background a small flower near the bottom left corner, and stems of grass throughout the background. In this very tight cluttered surroundings you will have to shoot in the low f-stop numbers to help blur the background. I was shooting at f/3.5 with my 180mm Tamron macro lens. On all four images I placed the point of focus near the front part of the flowers yellow center area. Now at this small f/stop number and very shallow depth of field, you will not get the whole flower in focus. Under the conditions of all this close clutter and using a low f/stop number we will have to sacrifice some focus on the flower to get our nice solid blurred background if we are not using focus stacking.

In the next angle you see another flower in the background and more stems including some distracting beige colored stems that stand out and pull your eye away from the main subject.

On this third angle you are seeing the grey color of the 4X4 post and some more multi colored stems.

With the last image I was able to find a camera angle where there was a small opening through all the clutter with the background subjects far enough away that I could get a nice solid colored blurred background at f/3.5.

Although it is tough working in these conditions, you can still pull off a decent shoot by working the camera angles.

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Follow my daily macro posts at www.MikeMoatsBlog.com

Website www.tinylandscapes.com

New River Gorge

By Ed Heaton

I wanted to take a minute and share a few insights from my recent outing to the New River Gorge area in West Virginia. My visit was twofold, one to nail down the logistics for an upcoming workshop there in October and two a little personal time to shoot and relax.

The New River Gorge area is pretty spread out, so I spent a lot of time in the car traveling to the different areas. As with all my scouting visits I tend to take a lot of notes documenting various locations and timings, but this also means being in the right place at the right time which normally only happens twice a day, early in the morning or late in the evening. So to make the most of my midday visits I like to convert my images to black and white. Here are a few I wanted to share that I thought worked extremely well in midday light.

As a professional shooter it's extremely important to create solid images and it's always important to have the right lens with you. I always carry an assortment of Tamron lenses and I constantly put them to good use!

Best of Light,

Ed

Capturing Speed Racer, from Wide to Tele

By Ken Hubbard

It's amazing what happens when you put supposedly mature adults behind the wheel of a Go Cart. The youngster that is still in there somewhere comes out and all they want to do is go faster than the next guy!!! I had the pleasure of giving a technical field training for a local dealer sales staff in Northern California, and for the hands on workshop portion of it we spent time at the track. While one part of the staff put the petal to the metal racing the go carts around the course, the other half positioned themselves around the track, Tamron lenses in hand capturing images of their co-workers racing. It was fun to watch how the good friendships off the track soon turn to fierce racing competitors on the track back to laughing and joking about the fastest and slowest racers once they were done. I believe everyone had a great time and learned a ton about Tamron lenses and how well they perform. Below are two images I took that day.

The first image was taken with the Tamron SP AF10-24mm Di II lens, which is designed for the APS-C sized sensor cameras, I used it on a Nikon D7000. Since I was able to get very close to the racing barriers, which allowed the racers to get within 6 ft, I decided on this great wide angle lens. It allowed me to get some of the barrier in the foreground, the racers in the middle and the back wall with corporate logos on it all in the shot, I then decided to go with a very slow shutter speed of 1/25 second, I wanted it slow so when I panned the camera with the racer the background and foreground would have a motion blur to it, as well as blur in the wheels from their movement. If you use to fast of a shutter speed, everything will be too sharp and it will look like they are standing still on the race track. The motion blur background helps create the feeling of movement, just remember to pan along with the subject while firing the camera. As I said earlier I wanted the logos in the background, and that was to add contrast to the background creating a more effective blur. With multiple colors and both light and dark, you create a more noticeable blur than if it was a solid color background.

The second image was shot with Tamron’s new SP 70-300mm VC USD lens. The speed of this lenses new USD focusing motor really came in handy trying to keep up with the racers. Looking at the lines of the track and picking a spot where I may be able to get more than one racer in the image was important for the shot I was trying to create. I decided to zoom out to 270mm to get a bit of a tighter crop, but still trying to create a more dimensional image, I positioned myself to get a little of the barrier in the bottom of the frame, the nice S curve of the barrier in the top right hand corner, as well as a second racer in the background. The compression a telephoto lens creates make it look like the racer in the background is only feet away from the person in front, when in actuality she was about 30-40 feet away. Again going with a slower shutter speed of about 1/60 second to blur some of the movement.

5 Tips for Shooting Live Performance

By Andre Costantini

Shooting live theatre, dance and music can be challenging when you start out. The most common problems have to deal with exposure and blur. Though technique is important, in this case so is the equipment. I recommend a 70-200 f2.8 lens. The combination of the telephoto focal length and fast f2.8 aperture make this THE lens for the technical conditions. The 70-200 f2.8 is also used on a regular basis by photojournalists and sports photographers because of these unique attributes. Theatre by nature is drama and so dramatic lighting is often used as an element to convey mood or to highlight a specific action. This will look fine to your eyes but not necessarily to your camera. In order to translate this to your images I have 5 tips to maximize the quality of your live performance images. The images featured here were taken this summer for the Boston Early Music Festival and their production of Niobe.

1. Concentrate on one moment. Sometimes trying to incorporate everything that is happening all at once is too much information. A lens like a Tamron 70-200 f2.8 is the ideal lens for shooting this type of thing.

2. Control your camera settings. Your camera's meter makes an exposure decision based on what it sees in the frame. Often, especially with theatre and dance, the backgrounds may have a lot of dark tones based on the theatre lighting. If you leave the camera to make the exposure decision you will have an image that is overexposed, where there is no detail in faces. I always set my camera on Manual exposure mode, then I look at the settings that the camera meter suggests (it's still on in Manual mode) and usually under expose the scene by at least one f-stop. This is a general rule but it depends based on the lighting design and what is in the frame. If there is a lot of dark in the frame you will need to compensate more.

3. Use wide apertures and high ISOs. Because theatre lighting is not usually extremely bright, I set my aperture to f2.8 (to let the most light in possible) and my ISO to between 800-1600. This usually gives me a fast enough shutter speed (between 125th and 500th) to get sharp images. If the shutter speed still is not fast enough you can up your ISO to 3200. If there is not enough light on stage and you have a slow lens, it will likely be difficult to get sharp images.

4. Shoot the dress rehearsal. Chances are that all you have to do is ask and you can get access to shoot the dress rehearsal. You should then have access to move around the theatre and the sound of your camera shutter will not disturb the other patrons. Make sure if you are shooting images for the company, it is a full dress rehearsal. I had a client who was paying me to shoot a dress rehearsal to send images to the press and was going to run it without costumes so the performers wouldn't sweat in their costumes. I had to remind them that the press prefers to have images in costume.

5. Try to catch peak action. Theatre and dance are blocked and choreographed to convey information, visually. If you can capture moments of peak action, where a gesture or a move conveys the spirit of the scene or defines a character, your images will be stronger.

You Can Tell ‘Em I Said It!

By Hernan Rodriguez

I recently did a shoot with the famous Eddie Griffin! Eddie needed some promotion images. So I put together a Blog featuring my shoot with Eddie. Why the title of this blog? That’s the name of Eddie Griffin’s latest DVD comedy special release flying off shelves. www.eddiegriffin.com

Griffin co-starred opposite Malcolm Jamal in the successful sitcom, Malcolm & Eddie, branching out into roles in such films:

•  2007: Norbit alongside Eddie Murphy

•  2002: John Q with Denzel Washington earning him respect as a dramatic actor

•  2002: Undercover Brother his lead role as Anton Jackson Griffin most recently

•  2001: Double Take alongside Orlando Jones

Eddie Griffin has conquered not only the stage! He is currently listed on Comedy Central’s Top 100 Greatest Stand-ups of all time. In addition to his comedic skills, Griffin is also a gifted Dancer, Choreographer and Singer.

Eddie brought such a fun atmosphere and was very approachable which made this photo shoot one of the most exciting and memorable shoots I have ever had! What I admired the most was his readiness to collaborate on making these images the best they can be. He truly is a class act! You can also see more of his photo session at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eddie-Griffin/73107530966

The shoot was a great success due in part to the proper planning and attention to all details of the shoot months beforehand.

All specifics were laid out and approved by Griffin’s manager, Ann Flagella. During this process, our team put together a series of sketches, diagramming our light schematics, props, backgrounds and wardrobe.

During this time we also planned on which lenses we would be using. When shooting celebrities, time becomes a huge part of the equation. We decided to use two Canon bodies equipped with a Tamron SP 90mm macro 2.8 on one, and a Tamron SP 70-200 2.8 on the second body. This helped to prevent any loss of time and attention, and keeping on schedule with Griffin’s shoot. In celebrity portraiture, all setups should be pre-lit, metered, white balanced, where the talent just walks in to the scene and you shoot away.

On high-end shoots, it’s always best to work with a stylist. Stylists Nataly and Marquita put together an amazing collection, pulling from Prada and Calvin Klein – just to name a few. With the notoriety of Eddie Griffin, it was quite easy for them to pull from many “high end” designers.

I did most of my research way before hand in regards to studying his facial analysis, personality and natural expressions which included a recent interview on the George Lopez show. This gave me an idea of the angles I wanted to shoot from.

POLISHED LOOK: This was a very polished commercial look for Griffin’s publicity shots. We chose to go with a classic Thunder Grey seamless to give these images a more versatile appeal. When I shoot celebrities, I like to start my setup with the background. I determine what the image use is for, and I build my light setup from that point. This setup starts as a classic portrait lighting setup but with a few added variations I might add.

LIGHTING: My Key Light was a Westcott Master Brush with the inner baffle in place. This diffuses the “hot spot” that might normally be on the face. I like to place this light right on my subjects face. No more than two feet away at times. I get a very nice soft wrap around light but still with some specularity. I added a one stop lavender Rosco gel to this main light which added a nice hint of color. It metered F8. The fill light was a large Westcott 60” White Satin Umbrella with Removeable Black Cover placed directly behind me for an open non-directional fill. This light metered at F5.6. For added fill under Griffin’s face,  a silver reflector was added which also added that extra sparkle to the eyes. Another light with a 20 degree grid was placed behind my subject and to camera left as an accent light. This edge light created nice highlights alongside Griffin’s face. This light was one stop over the Key Light. A variation I played with was adding a 72”x72” Silver Scrim Jim (large reflector) on the opposite side of the accent light and used as more fill. I also added a strobe directly in front of the Scrim Jim which added an extra accent on that side of the face. This light was powered to a stop over the Key Light as well. This gave me the option of pulling in that large reflector and playing around with the highlights.

TIP: You can experiment by placing the light closer and high in front of the scrim. It follows the principle of Angle of Incidence / Angle of Reflection Rule. It gives you a different effect than placing the accent directly on the subject. Do not be scared to experiment. Just make sure it’s not on your subject’s dime.

For these types of shoots, you want to make sure the talent is the most important focus in the image; nonetheless, you still want to add some mood and energy to the shot. This was just the right balance.

At the end of the day, I had a nice collection from both cameras with completely different compositions. The Tamron SP 90mm gave me my standard shots, which is more on the three quarter side. Shots that are a must for publicity purposes. Jumping onto the Tamron SP 70-200mm kit, I was able to recompose shots more freely without leaving my spot. I also covered more intimate close-ups which can be used for commercial headshot purposes.

THE SHOT I STOLE.

On a last note: Eddie Griffin came in with his grandfather who was 100 years young. This man was a charmer full of life. This shot I want to share with you, was completely in the moment and had I asked for him to pose, would not have been the same. He sat on the chair waiting for Eddie to enter the room. In the meanwhile, he called my son over to share with him his viewpoints on having good character and how it can carry over to the stage. In his time, he managed Richard Pryor.

Thank God I had my 70-200mm lens. In just the right instance, I was able to record a moment in time that is very precious to me. It reminded me why I became a photographer in the first place.