DVPhoto

As with all tutorials you may find in this blog, this is put here to help both me, as well as you the reader, learn. Reading something is a great start to learning, but doing is much better; and with something like photography, learning and understanding the science behind it will help you even more. So write down notes, practice taking photos with what you have learnt, and record the results. It requires effort, but the benefits will be immense

The Basics

So you want to know what aperture and f-stop are in a couple of lines? Well aperture governs the amount of light that a lens lets through to the film/digital sensor, and aperture is indicated by the f-stop. f-stop numbers available vary by lens, but most will have a series of f-stops somewhere in the following range: f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, f/32, f/45.

The smaller the f-stop, the larger the aperture; so f/1 is a very large aperture, letting in a lot of light, while f/45 is extremely small letting in almost no light. Each increase in f-stop (i.e. from 1 to 1.4, or 4 to 5.6) halves the amount of light going through the lens, and thus to maintain the same exposure you must also slow the shutter speed down by half (i.e. 1/250th sec will need to be 1/125th sec). So when a photographer says to “stop down”, you need to increase the f-stop number; and using a lens “wide open” means using the lens with the smallest f-number available to it.

So why was this strange and seemingly random set of numbers chosen? Well first we need to look at how light works… Read the rest of this entry »

• Neat Image

OpenRAW have launched a new survey to “measure the full range of opinions on RAW imaging issues”. Help promote open RAW standards by taking 15 minutes of your time to fill out the survey.

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Yesterday I purchased some close up filters (amongst other things) for my 55-200mm lens. The Marumi set contains a +1, a +2 & a +4 fliter. With just a +1 on, the lens goes from having a minimum focusing distance of 1.2m, down to around 0.6m; allowing for some much nicer bokeh (blur) even when the object is close behind the focus.

Finally got a panning shot of a flying bird sort of right.

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Samsung has announced the release of their long awaited/rumoured digital SLR, the GX-1S. The camera is essentially a rebranded Pentax *ist DS2, and is compatible with Pentax KAF2, KAF, KA mount lenses. With 6.1 megapixels on a 1.5x crop factor sensor, this camera is aimed squarely at the amateur SLR market, or those with an existing collection of Pentax lenses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thought that Canon’s 16 megapixel camera was as larger resolution as you could get in a digital camera? Well think again, Hasselblad have just released their new 39 megapixel digital backs for medium format camera’s, a whopping 17 megapixel increase over their previous 22 megapixel models.

Read the rest of this entry »