Archive for March, 2009
Technical Problems Resolved
Posted by: | CommentsHi Everyone,
Some of you (those using Internet Explorer) may have had issues loading my blog since mid last week.
For this I apologise, once it was brought to my attention I spent many hours trying to diagnose it and finally found the issue.
Hope to have a new post up soon now too 
Stuart
Industrial Black and White Photography
Posted by: | CommentsNow that I am nearing the final weeks of my photography course, I decided that I wanted to get out and do some black and white photography.
After pondering for a while I decided that some old abandoned industrial estates would be a great place to do this. However not being one for illegally trespassing, my girlfriend managed to discover Cockatoo Island in the heart of Sydney. Essentially Cockatoo Island is abandoned industrial estate, for the most part it is accessible, there are some areas that have been blocked off to public access as they are extremely unsafe, therefore I chose to steer clear of such areas.
I came out with the following photos which I thought would look great in black and white (or in some cases sepia). These are just a few selections, the full black and white gallery has some additional photos in it and in some cases different angles of the same subject.
This first photo I found to be really quite catching, it almost looks as though it was taken 30 or 40 years ago. Generally I do like to keep my subject matter simple, however in this case I thought that the additional industrial background added to the effect of the image.
This second set of shots were of what I could only describe as an antique electrical breakout bay and the electrical switch boxes and fuse boxes. Although these did not really work well with colour, I found once I converted them to black and white the contrast in the wood and cables really came out and gave the pictures additional character.
And this brings me to the final shots which were my favourite of the day.
I loved these shots as it really showed a part of the island that has been left seemingly untouched for a long time. Although these images seemed slightly depressing I did love the character that these images seemed to have.
All in all I enjoyed discovering the benefits that can come with black and white photography and the fact that shadows and contrasts become so much more important than when using a colour image.
I do welcome any feedback and once again you can see the full black and white gallery for more of the photos where you can also leave comments on each of the photos if you desire. I will get the full image sets up at some point in the near future (including those in colour).
What is shutter speed and what does it do?
Posted by: | CommentsAs a part of the photography course that I am studying at the moment, we were taken out on an excursion to go around Sydney’s CBD and take a range of photos.
A lot of these photos were very technical based shots and therefore lacked any elegance… however this the reason I wanted to share them. After going on this excursion and then seeing the photos side by side, I found that the overall picture of how shutter speed affects a photo being taken became far clearer.
Essentially from what I have learned, shutter speed (also known as exposure time) controls the effect of how quickly a moment is captured in time. For example, the higher the shutter speed, the quicker the moment is captured. The easiest way I have found to remember this is that if you take a photo of a fountain with an extremely high shutter speed you will be able to see each individual droplet caught in time, however on a slower shutter speed you would tend to see the flowing effect of the water rather than individual droplets.
So lets go through a few examples (click on any image to expand it):
This photo has the following technical specs (so to speak):
Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Exposure Time: 0.004s (1/250)
Aperture : f/9.0
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 56mm (89.6mm in 35mm)
Note the exposure time (shutter speed) for this photo is 1/250th of a second, which is known as a fast(ish) shutter speed. If you take a look at the photo you will notice that all the cars are in focus including the blue car in the foreground which was moving at the time.
The technical specs for this second shot are:
Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Exposure Time: 0.0166s (1/60)
Aperture: f/16.0
ISO: 800
Focal Length” 56mm (89.6mm in 35mm)
In this photo the exposure time has been dropped to 1/60th of a second and you can see that all the cars in the background remain in sharp focus as they are not moving. However the red car in the foreground has begun to become blurred due to the movement of the car and the lower shutter speed.
As we take this to the other extreme of the scale we begin to get significant blurring on moving objects as you will see in this final image.
Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Exposure Time: 0.25s (1/4)
Aperture : f/32.0
ISO: 320
Focal Length: 56mm (89.6mm in 35mm)
This image was taken with an exposure time of only a quarter of a second which meant that the car had time to move across the field of vision in between the time that the shutter opened and closed and this is what causes the blurring.
You may have also noticed that the Aperture was raised incrementally in line with the lowering shutter speed, this is due to the direct relationship between the aperture and exposure time (or shutter speed if you prefer). I will however cover this at a later time.
If you want you can see even further increments in between the ones I have placed above which I have placed in my Eccentric Reality gallery and they are on pages one and two at the link above.
As a final note I wanted to provide one slightly more practical example which I mentioned above and that has assisted me in remembering how shutter speed affects a photograph. If you take a look at this photo you will see the effect that I mentioned earlier in regards to freezing a droplet of water in time. Had a lower shutter speed been used the water would have simply looked like it was flowing or in other words, more blurry.
Keep an eye out for the next post on aperture. In the mean time if you want to see all the photos that I took on my recent outing with all the technical details listed alongside you can check out the album here.
