Bacon Lettuce Photo

by Joe

Thursdaisy was one in a series of daisy photos I’d put up that week. The week before, serendipity (in the form of a few bokeh-filled days amidst banks of the flowers) had brought an informal Bluebell Week. Am a big fan of bluebells and I loved how the photos had turned out. So the next week, I found myself with a bunch of daisy photos. Et voila! Daisy Week was born. The theme weeks have been a fun way to direct the photography for a while.

This shot was heavily cropped from a larger raw file. I shoot exclusively with the 50mmf/1.4 on a 40D and usually shoot with it wide open, sometimes stopping down to f/2.2 if I want a bit less depth of field. This was shot wide open - a set of daisies, this in the bottom right hand corner. I was kneeling to get this from the right angle. With the f/1.4, the light was such and the background was such that the bokeh was guaranteed. I’d played with the shot and wasn’t happy one bit until I isolated this little fella and cropped tight on him. It went through a bit of post processing in Lightroom - took the shadows down a bit, upped the brighter colours, desaturated a tad. I then added a gradient top left to give the daisy a target of light for his streeeetttccchhhhing.

If someone was looking to replicate this shot, you’d want that low aperture and lots of light to help the bokeh behind. The f/1.4 wasn’t strictly necessary, it could have been the nifty fifty f/1.8 (the best value lens on either a Canon or Nikon) rather than the f/1.4 and there wouldn’t be any great difference. In fact, the petals would probably have been in slightly sharper focus… The f/1.4 does give that lovely smooth rounded bokeh though. That and the 40D were the best purchases I’ve ever made.

Wow, some awesome advice on depth of field and the differences between f/1.8 and f/1.4. Thanks for that Harold. Make sure to check out Harold’s photostream.

And just cause he has some great stuff, here is a slideshow of his most recent work:

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by Joe

I’m a beginner at photography; my subjects of interest are macros of flowers, water drops & bokeh. At the moment I have modest point & shoot camera to pursue my photographic interest :).

About this shot, I wanted to depict a beautiful spring morning with cold breeze, soothing colors & dew drops on the flowers & I came across this lily in my garden which seemed to be perfect subject for what I had in mind.

Camera: Sony Cybershot W-50
Shooting Mode: Program
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 6.3 mm
ISO Speed: 80
Exposure Bias: -0.3 EV

You can see more of Usman’s photos here. Notice that the camera he is using is a cybershot. In my experience, point and shoot (POS) cameras can sometimes have amazing macro capabilities. Usually the macro setting is indicated by a flower icon. Set that and you can get extremely close to the subject and snap a picture.

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by Joe

It’s all about Aperture.

Aperture is what controls your cameras ability to create depth of field (DOF). Remember those nice portraits of someone with their face crystal clear and the background all blurry? That’s aperture. How about those photos of beautiful landscapes and sceneries where the foreground and background are all in focus? Aperture.

Here is an example, this is a little fun Valentine’s Day photo that I took.

Notice that part of the cupcake and the M&M are in focus while the rest of the image is blurred. That blur is called bokeh.

In technical info, the aperture is referred to as the f-stop. If you see data such as f/1.8 or f/22 it is referring to how open or closed the aperture is in the lens. The photo above was taken with a 50mm lens with an aperture of f/1.8

Think of aperture as the pupil of your eye. Expanding and contracting to allow light in but also allowing you to focus. If you close one eye, like a camera, and bring your finger close to your eye and focus on it, you will see bokeh in your peripheral vision.

To reduce the bokeh you just close down your aperture more by increasing the f-stop number. This will reduce the DOF.

Here is a photo that I took below is with an aperture of f/8.0

Notice that the background is clearer.

Here area couple diagrams.

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Now if you can think about how aperture works in coordination with shutter speed and ISO, you are on your way to taking great images.