How To: Shoot Silhouettes - And a Bit About Dynamic Range

Before I start, I want to take a few lines to apologize for my upcoming blog post sabbatical. As I mentioned in an earlier post, whenever I'm at home, my limited internet access prevents me from doing much blogging. I'm currently sitting in Savannah, GA. and will be catching a flight back home to Virginia tomorrow morning (Sat. Apr. 25th). Instead of being back at work on Monday for more blogging, I will be taking my vacation next week. I'm headed to the Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace Casino in Nassau Bahamas! I've read that internet access isn't free at the hotel, which blows my mind. What year is this?....1998? Anyways, I'll likely be shooting photos, relaxing on the beach, scuba diving, or finding some nightlife. I'll be back to work Monday, May 4th. Expect a new post shortly after with photos from my trip, and oh!....I'm also attending the Langley AirPower over Hampton Roads air-show this upcoming Sunday! Expect a blog post about how to photograph an air-show sometime on my return week as well.

As for my upcoming posts, the majority of the basics have been covered and I'll now be posting more specific how-to type posts. We'll start today with how to shoot silhouettes.

What is a silhouette? - A silhouette is a view of an object or scene consisting of the outline and a featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. The term was initially applied in the 18th century to portraits or other pictorial representations cut from thin black card. The term has been extended to describe the sight or image of a person, object or scene that is backlit, and appears dark against a lighter background. Because a silhouette emphasises the outline, the word has also been used in the fields of fashion and fitness to describe the shape of a person's body or the shape created by wearing clothing of a particular style or period. - Source: Wikipedia

In terms of photography, the italicized bold text in the paragraph above describes a silhouette perfectly.

An important term when referring to a silhouette is dynamic range.

Dynamic range is the ratio of light to dark that the cameras "eye" can see. The greater the dynamic range, the more details you'll get in both the highlights and the shadows. Unfortunately the cameras dynamic range is nowhere near that of the human eye. The human eye can see a considerably larger amount of details in highlights and shadows of a scene. While this can cause a lot of problems with getting a photo to look the way you want it, it works very nicely for silhouette images.

All you really have to do for a silhouette is set your exposure for a bright light source behind your subject. The limited dynamic range of your camera will automatically lose all or most of the details in the shadows and retain all the details in the light source, or the highlights.

With that said, a great light source to use for silhouettes is a sunset or sunrise. This is because the colors are very dramatic, and if you have a lot of clouds in the sky, you'll get even more visual interest in your photo. A sunset or sunrise, however, is not required. You could stand your subject in front of a window on the inside of the building, expose for what is outside of the window, and your subject will be silhouetted against the background. (See the flip-flop photos below)

So let's break this down into steps:

1. Look for or create a subject with a strong visual interest. In other words, use something that will be very recognizable just by it's outline or shape alone.
2. Place your subject in front of a light source so that there is a lot of light behind the subject, and as little as possible falling on the camera side of the subject itself.
3. Ensure there isn't a lot of other items in the frame of your shot that will distract from the main subject or clutter the photo excessively.
4. Set your exposure so that the background (light source) is properly exposed and not blown out (a term for losing detail in the highlights) or underexposed (a term for losing detail in the shadows). With the proper exposure on the background and no light falling on the subject, the subject itself should be underexposed which will give you the silhouette you're trying to achieve. Remember...exposure is set by varying aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
5. Once you're photo is properly exposed, focus the camera on your subject. This will ensure the subject has a nice crisp outline, and isn't blurry. On occasion, there may be times when you want the background to be in perfect focus and the silhouette to have a blurry outline. For example, I had a shot of my pug, Fez, looking out the window at a girl on the street. I exposed for the girl on the street as well as focused on the girl in the street. I wanted the focus on the girl so you could tell what Fez was looking at. I framed the shot so both the girl and Fez were in the viewfinder and snapped the photo.
6. Once you've achieved your desired focus, and have framed the subject nicely, press the shutter button to take the photo.
7. Thanks to the digital camera age, you now have instant results on your cameras LCD screen. Review your shot and make any adjustments to exposure, focus, and subject framing as necessary and continue shooting. With a few repetitions, you'll find that you can now confidently shoot a silhouette image.

A few tips:

• Try using a wide array of aperture settings to see the different results. First try a very small aperture (large F number) so that the subject has a crisp outline, and the background is in focus as well. Then try a large aperture (small F number) so that your subject is crisp and the background is a nice smooth blur of color. Thinking back to an earlier post, if you change your aperture, you'll need to change your shutter speed to compensate for the addition or subtraction of light. This will keep your photos exposure the same, but change the artistic effects associated with aperture.
• Angle the camera a considerable amount to give your photo an unusual perspective and add interest to the photo. (See the photo at the top of this post)
• Don't use flash. By using flash, you'll light the subject even if the background is properly exposed. This is obviously the exact opposite of what a silhouette is.

When I first started this blog, I mentioned that the posts would be geared towards shooting photos in full manual mode. If you happen to be using a point and shoot on automatic mode, you can still shoot silhouettes. Although I won't go into the extra details, I wanted to provide a link to a site that does describe how to create the effect on automatic mode: Easy Ways to Shoot a Silhouette

Below is an example pertaining to dynamic range:

You'll notice in the first photo, the shoes are properly exposed, but the details in the background are completely blown out. If it weren't for the second photo, you'd have no idea such a vibrant background existed. The second photo is exposed for the golf course and water in the background. You end up with a silhouetted image of the shoes, but you lose almost all detail in the subject. The reason for this is because of the cameras poor dynamic range. When I say poor, I mean in reference to the fact that as I looked at the shoes against the background with my eyes, I could see the detail in both the shoes and the golf course that lay behind. In comparison to what you can see with your eye, a camera has a poor dynamic range. Getting both the shoes and water properly exposed in the same image would require either adding a light source to the shoes so it is more closely matched with that of the background light source, or a number of post processing techniques such as exposure blending or HDR (high dynamic range). We'll get into these techniques at a later date.

I'll close this post with one more silhouette shot that I've taken. The photo below is of a PT6 turboprop airplane engine against a setting sun. I shot this photo en-route from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Indianapolis, Indiana back in December of 2008.

This has been how to shoot a silhouette "From the Ground Up!"

View the full post here...

Aperture & Shutter Speed (A Beautiful Relationship)

So today I want to hit a bit more on aperture and shutter speed.

As I said in the last post...

Aperture = Size of hole in the lens. Bigger hole equals more light. Smaller hole means less light. Bigger hole means shallower depth of field (less in focus in front of and behind your subject). Smaller hole means larger depth of field (more in focus in front of and behind your subject).

Lets add a bit to what we've already learned. The size of the aperture is referred to as an F-stop.

This is the confusing part... This will be tough for many people to wrap your heads around. I know it was for me at first

The larger the F-stop number (ex. F/22), the smaller the hole opening.

The smaller the F-stop number (ex. F/2.8), the larger the hole opening.

Let's lay this out in a table of sorts:

• Little number, Shallow DOF, More light
• F/2.8
• F/4
• F/5.6
• F/8
• F/11
• F/16
• F/22
• Big number, Large DOF, Less light

if you set your camera to manual and read the instructions on how to change aperture...

scroll through the numbers by changing the aperture. you'll notice there are other numbers between these that I have listed. i didn't list them because the numbers above are 1 full stop of light each. just know that you can change the F/number in smaller increments perhaps 1/3 a stop by using one of these other numbers.

So now what is a stop or an F stop?

A stop is how we measure how much light is being allowed to hit the sensor through the cameras aperture.

So lets say we shot a photo and it was really bright and overexposed. One way of fixing this is changing the size of the aperture, perhaps reducing it one stop of light (meaning a bigger F/number). This would in turn reduce the size of the aperture opening allowing less light to reach the sensor.

Shutter Speed - Length of time the shutter is open allowing a given amount of light to pass through the aperture opening to your cameras sensor. Slower shutter speed means more light. Faster shutter speed means less light. Slower shutter speed blurs movement. Faster shutter speed freezes the movement.

Again with the confusing part. When referring to shutter speed, a seemingly large number (1/1000) is actually a lesser amount of time than a seemingly smaller number (1/15). One one thousandths of a second is a very short period of time whereas one fifteenth of a second is a considerably longer amount of time. Keep this in mind.

• Small Number, Shorter period of time, Less light, Freezes action
• 1/1000 of a second
• 1/500
• 1/250
• 1/125
• 1/60
• 1/30
• 1/15
• 1/2
• 1 second
• Bigger number, Longer period of time, More light, Blurs movement

again each number in the table above represents one full stop of light. your camera settings will likely show numbers between these numbers but they are in increments of 1/3 of a stop.

So how does aperture and shutter speed relate to each other. It's rather genius really...

To keep a set exposure, but change the artistic effects, you can change either the aperture or shutter speed to reach the desired effect. If you change either of these things you will throw your exposure off soooooo: If you reduced the aperture by one stop to get a desired effect, you can increase the shutter speed by one stop to maintain the proper exposure. So what you do to one, you have to do the opposite to the other!!

Lets say you have a photo where you've nailed down the exposure. It's really great. The only problem is that the photo is blurring the movement and you really want to capture that car moving by freezing the action:

Sample Settings for desired exposure: 1/30th second & F/11

If you refer to the above table you'll see that you change your shutter speed to something more suitable for a moving car say... 1/250th of a second. That's 3 stops of light. You must then drop the F/stop down by 3 stops. The trusty table above will show the appropriate F/number to maintain your exposure is F/4.

We've just changed the artistic effect without hindering our desired exposure.

Another example:

You have a portrait and you'd like the background to be blurrier or more out of focus (OOF).

Current settings: 1/30th second & F/8

We want to make the f-number smaller or the hole larger (don't forget that trickery). To do this we may stop down the F-number to something like F/4. Conveniently F/4 is exactly 2 stops of light less than F/8. To maintain our desired exposure we should then increase the shutter speed by two stops. Trusty table above says 2 stops of light difference would be 1/125th of a second.

So again we've changed the artistic effect without changing our shutter speed.

it should also be noted that since your camera allows you to choose stops in 1/3 increments as mentioned above....three clicks of the wheel in either direction would adjust your setting 1 full stop. so if you want to decrease you're aperture one full stop you'd click the aperture wheel 3 clicks to the left. in turn, you'd click the shutter speed wheel 3 clicks to the right to maintain that desired exposure.

To wrap this up, let's take a glance at a few examples of the artistic effects available with aperture and shutter speed.

Desired Effect: Blur everything closer than and beyond our focal point (the little knob sticking out of the tree). We need a large aperture opening to gain the desired effect aka a small F/number.

F/4, 1/80th second

Desired effect: Subject (people) and background in focus. We need a small aperture opening (large number) to gain this desired effect.

F/22, 1/100th second

Desired effect: Freeze the action. We need a fast shutter speed.

F/2.8 1/4000th second

Desired Effect: Blur the movement. We need a slower or longer shutter speed.

F/4.5, 1/25th second

In conclusion: Whatever you change in either aperture or shutter speed, you must then change the other in the opposite direction to maintain a desired exposure.

This has been aperture and shutter speed "From The Ground Up!"

View the full post here...

Automatic Vs. Manual

So you've just gone out and bought yourself a shiny new DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera to replace that point and shoot you've been using for the longest time. Sweet better photos are on the way.

Or are they?

That will greatly depend on a few things...mainly if you intend to use your DSLR as a fancy point and shoot.

Some aspects of your photos will likely improve just with the purchase of your DSLR. Some of these things include:

-Better Image Sensors (better resolution [Megapixels], color accuracy, tonal range, etc)

-Better Dynamic Range (better ratio of light to dark to capture more detail in the highlights and shadows in the same photo)

-No Shutter Lag (helps to not miss that once in a life time shot due to a delay from your camera)

-More Frames Per Second (more photos shot in a short period of time - up to 10 fps in some camera models)

But aside from these few things, if you shoot on automatic mode with your DSLR, you're losing out on the best features built into your new toy.

Automatic modes choose all your in camera settings for you in an attempt to get a properly exposed photo every shot. Wow! That's great! Exactly what I want! Or is it?

By doing this, the photographer (you) loses control of the artistic effects that you'd be capable of achieving by shooting in manual mode.

With that said, lets define the different things that the camera is deciding for you.

Aperture - The opening in your cameras lens through which light passes through that in turn reaches the image sensor. The size of the hole is adjustable to let more or less light reach the sensor. In addition to changing the amount of light coming in, it also has an added artistic effect. The bigger the hole, or the wider the aperture, the more blur will be added in front of and behind your focal point. The smaller the hole, or the smaller the aperture, the more that will be in focus in front of and behind your focal point. This matter of focus in front of and behind your subject is referred to as Depth of Field (DOF).

Shutter Speed - For starters, the shutter is the mechanism in your camera that blocks light from hitting the sensor when a photo is not being taken. When you click the shutter button, you send a signal to open the shutter for a preset amount of time to allow light to pass through the aperture to reach the sensor. When this preset amount of time elapses, the shutter closes, blocking further light from reaching the sensor. The amount of time the shutter is open is referred to as shutter speed. The shorter amount of time the shutter is open, the less light is allowed to reach the sensor. The longer it's open, the more light reaches the sensor. Faster shutter speeds (1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/4000, etc) allow you to capture something moving and prevent motion blur from occurring. Slower shutter speeds (1/25, 1/8, 1/2, 1 sec, 30 sec, etc) allow motion blur to occur. The fractions above are fractions of a second.

ISO - or International Organization for Standardization, refers to the sensors sensitivity to a given amount of light. This relates to film speed in non-digital cameras. The higher the number the faster the film. 100 being low speed, and 800 or more considered high speed film. By increasing the sensitivity of the image sensor, you are making it more sensitive to a given amount of light. So for example lets say you need to take a photograph in a dark room. You may start by trying to make the aperture it's largest possible size to let the most light reach the sensor. You may then try to make the shutter speed longer to get the light you need. Well if you have the shutter speed to slow (or open longer) you may capture the image at a proper exposure but your image will likely be blurred if you were hand holding the camera (as opposed to mounting it on a tripod). So what can you do about that? Increase the sensitivity of the sensor. By bumping up the ISO to a higher number, one can shoot at a shutter speed that wont cause any motion blur. Without adjusting the ISO, the image will look dark and underexposed. By increasing the ISO, the light that is available in the room will seem more apparent in your photos because of the increased sensitivity to light.

White Balance - refers to the representation of colors in your image. Different light sources cast different colors on your subject. Lets say for example you had a piece of white notebook paper on the table and it was lit by a tungsten bulb (normal lamp). If there was no white balance adjustment, the image will appear to be very warm and orangey in color due to the color cast from the lamp. Your white paper won't look so white. Lets say it was under the light of a fluorescent lamp. These lights cast a blue color on your subject. The image will look cool and blue in color. Who wants blue or orange paper...or anything in between? Well you may want a color cast if you're going for an artistic effect, but by adjusting white balance whether automatically, or manually, the camera will warm up or cool down the image to bring that paper back to a nice white color.

So in automatic mode, the camera is making all of these choices for you. In manual mode you have the power to change these things individually and render the artistic effect that you desire in your images.

But this all sounds so hard. There's to many options and I'll likely mess up the image because I took to long to make the choices, or I made the wrong choices. Well let me say... you're probably right. You're going to make mistakes with your images when you first start using Manual exposure modes. That's the great thing about digital! You get instant feedback without wasting money as you screw up images. With film cameras you had to pay for the film and it was costly to make mistakes. I'm not advocating that if you choose to shoot film cameras, you should do everything on the automatic modes it may or may not give you. I'm just saying you have the ability to learn from your mistakes in an instant so why not shoot manual.

It will give you a better appreciation of your own images when you capture them well. You'll likely become a better photographer for doing so.

Well my dads reunion is tomorrow and I just got this DSLR and I can't afford to mess up the shots...Ok so shoot on automatic early on if it's vital that you at least capture keepable images from the event. But everywhere else, you should be striving to shoot manual. Before you know it you'll be able to dial in the desired settings in not much more time than it would have taken you to shoot the photo in manual.

Up until this point I've been referring to your cameras ability to choose how the photo is exposed. Another thing to think about is Automatic vs. Manual focusing.

To be quite honest, the Auto focus systems on cameras have come a long way. I shoot on Automatic focus 90% of the time. You may choose to do otherwise but I just wanted to explain the differences and let you decide for yourself.

There's not necessarily any right or wrong image to use manual focus on.

However, there are instances when manual focus will be a great benefit to you.

In my opinion, macro photography (close-up photography) is much easier by using manual focus. The DOF (depth of field) is so narrow that a slight hairs length of movement can cause the desired part of the image to be completely out of focus. This sounds hard to do by hand but it can be harder using auto focus. Auto focus in these situations tends to focus on an undesired point on your subject.

Another instance would be shooting through glass. I often find when shooting through glass, the auto focus system tends to pick up on dirt and reflections in the glass making it nearly impossible to get a subject on the other side of the glass in focus.

Fast moving subjects, or action photography can be much easier using manual focus. Let's say you're at an air show and the planes are going left to right at the same distance away from you. By setting the focus to manual and then getting your subject in focus, you'll find that every shot is in focus and you don't have to wait for your auto focus system to hunt back and forth looking for the subject every time it passes at 500-mph.

Low-light photography can prove to be a good time to shoot on manual. Many auto focus systems have trouble finding the subject to focus on in dimly lit conditions. By switching to manual, you can get the subject in focus without the headache of an unusable auto focus system.

So there you have it. Now you know the advantages to shooting with manual modes as opposed to automatic modes.

When I got my first DSLR, I just told myself to pretend that the automatic modes were broken. I never let myself resort to the automatic modes. I came home with alot of crappy photos, but when I got one right, it felt soooo good. Now manual mode is second nature to me and I couldn't even imagine shooting with an automatic exposure mode.

I encourage you to pretend your auto exposure mode is broken as well.

From now on, my entries will be based around shooting with a Digital SLR camera in full manual exposure mode.

The next entries will be going into more detail on aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white-balance, etc.

This has been Automatic Vs. Manual . . . "From The Ground Up!"

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