Nikon D200 200mm at f/9 for 1/320 second

Couple of weeks ago in Long Beach, CA my family and I visited a Civil War Reenactment. Lots of fun. Post processed this image in Lightroom with a special preset.

An early photo with my SB800 Speedlight. I placed the flash somewhere below and behind the lily. The most difficult portion of this shot was reducing the light. The flash is so strong I had to stop it down very low and stop down my aperture.


Nikon D200 50mm at f/11 for 1/60 second

This article is related to my last writing titled "What are these letters on my camera?". There I threw out some technical information but did not mention how to actually apply any of that information. So lets get to it.

How do I make sure my background is blurry?

Often your shots will come out this way, with a blurry background. However, many times your shots don't have that nice blurry background.
Why have a blurry or soft background? When you are taking a shot of your child, a somewhat sharp background gives your child a good chance of blending in with that background. He or she doesn't pop out of the image.

So how do we accomplish the soft background? The most simple method is having a zoom lens and backing away from the subject. Whether you have point & shoot with a decent magnification or an SLR with zoom lens, you can make your subjects pop out of the picture. You can test this by standing close to your subject using the least amount of magnification (zoomed out), take a shot. Next, stand further away and using the highest magnification (zoomed in) and take a shot. The higher magnification your zoom is, the more the background will change. Easy stuff!

There is another way to accomplish the blurry background. Using your Aperture. The aperture is the iris of the lens.
Without getting too technical we will see how to use it. For how to change this setting, you may have to consult your camera's manual.
While you are setting the aperture value with this setting, don't worry your camera adjusts the shutter speed to compensate.

The symbol for this setting is A or Av. There is a scale with aperture values and this scale is the F Stop. Again without getting too technical I will simply mention that the lower the F stop number, the more light will enter the lens and the more blurry the background will end up. A higher F stop will limit the amount of light entering the lens and will result with a sharper background. Great for landscapes.

You will see numbers like this: F/1.8, F/2.8, F/4, F/5.6 and so on to numbers like F/22. F/4 will result with a soft background unlike F/8 which will result in a sharper background. A combination of the two methods is a larger aperture like F/4 while you are zoomed in and standing further away.

Both of these methods do assume the background is at least several feet behind your subject. The further your subject is from the background, the more blurry the trees, rocks or buildings will appear.

Please try the zoom in/out exercise and post your results, will be interesting to see the changes. I'll post a few as well.

In these uncertain times I believe family and friends are more important than ever before, at least in our life time. One of many ways to bring us closer is with the camera. How else can we easily share our memories than with a digital camera and Facebook! In fact, as of October 31st, 2008, Facebook's Doug Beaver said they store over 10 billion photos. Yikes!

So it is safe to say, the picture is quite important to us and worthy of attention. In this article I want to take a few minutes to explain some of the technical settings of your camera. We are all busy, so I will split this article into two messages. A quick explanation of certain settings for those who simply want a quick tutorial and a more detailed message explaining how those settings will result in more creative pictures. The 2nd message to this article will arrive in a few days.

I would like to mention that just because I know these technical details does not mean I am an expert in applying this knowledge. I am still learning the same as everyone reading this. As with most things in life, you will only get better with practice...and yes I need to practice more.

Does this article apply to my camera?
When one talks about getting creative with your camera we are usually talking about the SLR. SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex. Basically we are looking through the lens when setting up our shot. The other common camera is the digital point & shoot. Rather than looking into a viewfinder as with a SLR, we look at the rear LCD screen to setup the shot. Both camera styles allow us to see what the camera sees. However, the digital SLR typically affords more control over camera settings. Therefore this article applies to all SLR's and some higher end point & shoot cameras which include the Canon G10 and Panasonic Lumix LX3.
These two cameras are commonly used by photographers when shooting for personal yet creative purposes.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong10/
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicdmclx3/

====================================
Message One
So let's get to it.
There are several settings which determine how a picture will look. The scope of this article addresses just two of these settings.

The first setting is the Aperture Value and is the "iris" of the lens.
In a given amount of time, this setting allows more or less light to hit the sensor. In other words, opening a faucet half way for five seconds allows for more water to flow than opening a faucet a quarter way for the same five seconds. The opening determines the amount of water to flow.

The other setting is the Shutter Speed.
With a given aperture value, this setting changes the amount of TIME for light to hit the sensor. In other words, opening a faucet half way for ten seconds allows for more water to flow than for only three seconds. Here, the time determines the amount of water to flow.

In short, aperture is the size of the opening while shutter speed is the amount of time.
In the 2nd message, I will explain how your images are affected by changing these settings.

Typically there is a dial or button arrangement at the top of the camera.
Let's first address the four items ubiquitous to cameras with such a dial or button.

P - Program Mode
No this does not stand for Professional. :)
With this setting, you are allowing the camera to change the aperture value and shutter speed to accomplish a properly exposed picture. Even your digital SLR camera behaves like a quality point & shoot in program mode.

A or Av - Aperture Priority
With this setting, you only set the aperture value (faucet opening). The camera then decides the best shutter speed value to accomplish a properly exposed picture. Now you are getting creative!

S or Tv - Shutter Priority
With this setting, you only set the shutter speed value (faucet running time). The camera then decides the best aperture value to accomplish a properly exposed picture. Once again, use this for creative reasons.

M - Manual
With this setting, you set both the aperture and shutter speed values. In this case, the decisions are removed from the camera.
Once in a while, your camera simply cannot obtain the proper exposure and you are forced to take over the settings. Other times you simply want a specific effect.

----------------------------------------------
This first message explained Aperture and Shutter Speed. However, we did not discuss how those settings affect your pictures.
I should point out that most of your shooting (and mine) will be done in Program Mode as your camera typically does a fine job with adjusting settings. Additionally, program Mode is especially handy with busy situations involving kids or animals.

In my next message, we will discuss how aperture changes the way your camera focuses and how shutter speed can freeze the scene or create a since of motion.

Happy Shooting!
Ryan Miller

Laurel insisted on showing me the flowers she had recently pulled from a nearby plant. At first, I acknowledged how pretty the flowers were and kept shooting. Suddenly it hit me and I asked for the flowers and promptly placed them above her ear.

When I told her I was going to take a picture of her with the flowers, she was all for it. How could she pass it up!

To achieve the bright face without a flash I bridged a large silver reflector from the back of a chair to her lap which illuminated her face quite nicely with natural light. I managed to squeeze two shots before she decided she had to once again touch and mangle the flowers. The other image is of her looking up to her left. Didn't come out nearly as well. The nice blurry background is the result of a wide aperture of f/2.8.

Here's the image. I hope you like it!

Click the image for a larger version

Nikon D200 50mm at f/2.8 for 1/45 second.