Aperture

Winter Bosque Sunset New Mexico True Photography

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Winter Bosque Sunset New Mexico True Photography

Taking new gear to the Bosque at sunset

Wanting to try out my new Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art lens on my new Sony a7R V camera, I went to the Bosque at sunset time to see what kind of shots I could create with a long lens, albeit it one with a large aperture capable of very shallow DoF. By the time I got there the light was indeed fading fast. I chose to focus on foreground objects and leave the sunset itself out of focus. This results in a kind of melting effect to how the sunset looks. I actually liked shooting at f/1.4 at 85mm and getting most of what was in the photo out of focus. This is most easily seen in the above photo of the very fine grass sticking out toward the sunset. This grass was so hard to see even with the a7R V’s AI based autofocus, I had to manually focus the lens!

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Photography Tip - subject dictates lens dictates aperture

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If you find yourself thinking, which lens should I use?  Or if you are thinking, which aperture should I use?  Well, I suggest first thinking about what subject are you going to photograph.  I have lenses with the following focal lengths:  17-50mm, 50mm, 105mm, and 80-200mm.  Each one is very good at photographing different subjects.  After all, why have lenses that largely overlap in purpose?  Since I have these different lenses, how do I know which one to use?  And with what aperture?  I decide this by thinking of the subject first.  I phrase it like this:

subject dictates lens --> lens dictates aperture

Using the above image as a reference, if my subject was a single person for a headshot, that dictates to me I want to use my 80-200mm lens (pictured) and when I use that lens, I most often use it at f/5.6 (read this photography tip for more on which aperture for which lens).  In that way my subject dictates everything I need to know for making the shot as far as which lens & which aperture.  

Likewise, if my subject was a landscape, that would then dictate that I use my 17-50mm lens and that lens dictates that I most often want to use an aperture of f/11.  

So my advice is to always think of your subject first, then think which lens is best for that, and then for each lens you have you know which aperture you like to shoot at with it.  If you only have one lens, or a lens with a wide focal range of 18-200mm for example, you can still use the same process, just instead subject dictates lens dictates aperture, it would be subject dictates focal range dictates aperture.  I would think of the lens then as an 18-50mm and a 50mm-200mm in that regard.

Photography Tip - Which Aperture with which lens?

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When I put a lens on my DSLR, I already have an idea of which aperture I want to use because I know which aperture is usually best for that particular lens.  I may of course fine tune that aperture, or I may be shooting an unusual subject matter for that lens, but in general I start at these apertures for these lenses.

RECOMMENDED STARTING APERTURES FOR LENSES

  • 18-50mm lens --> f/11
  • 70-200mm lens --> f/5.6
  • 50mm lens --> f/2.8

So if you are looking for a good default aperture to start shooting with when using a particular lens, the apertures above are what I recommend.  

Aperture Digital Photograph Editing Lesson with Kathleen

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Photo by Kathleen, Editing by Jason - red barn in Ohio before and after using Aperture & PhotoshopMy DSLR Photography students are increasingly wanting to learn how to edit their photographs, in addition to how to use their DSLRs out in the field.  I am of course very happy about this as I highly recommend learning to shoot and edit simultaneously (read here).  I always say that publishing and printing photographs "straight out of the camera" or "getting everything right in camera" are nice myths that never existed, not even in the film days.  Of course one should show skill in the field and produce a very well exposed and composed shot in camera.  I do believe in the common axim of today that one should not think, "oh, I'll just fix that in Photoshop later."  If you realize a flaw in the field, do your best to get it fixed/corrected right then and there.  I often shoot weddings on beaches, if I can pause for 5 seconds to let a person passing by in the background get out of the frame, I will totally do that rather than thinking, "I'll just clone them out at home."  Cloning out the person would take a lot longer than 5 seconds!

Kathleen took a shooting-based DSLR photography lesson back in early June.  Since then she had been shooting some scenery in Ohio, including old barns (above).  She requested a lesson on editing and since she is an Aperture user as I am, I could show her my exact workflow from importing photographs to producing a finished photograph.  We also mixed in Photoshop (Elements) into her workflow from right within Aperture.  

The red barn is her photograph.  What I showed her in Aperture was getting the exposure and contrast corrected to remove what I call the "gray film" that coats many digital photographs, especially those taken on overcast days.  Note the overall lack of a dull gray cast on the bottom photo.  This is usually the number one flaw I see in people's digital photographs, the dull gray film coating.  

Next we gave the image a little pop using the vibrancy slider in Aperture and then started to bring in some details using the definition slider.  At that point we exported the image to Photoshop (Elements for her, CS5 for me) right from within Aperture and worked on selective editing.  We selected the red barn walls and adjusted the contrast just on that part to bring in even more detail and pop without effecting the rest of the image.  We did the same to the roof, but that did not cause much change.  Lastly, we applied unsharp mask (my preferred sharpening method) which brought even more detail, especially in the window shutters.  

I also taught Kathleen all the keyboard shortcuts that are massive time savers when using complicated, multi-tool apps like Aperture and Photoshop.  She filled a whole notebook page with them.  We have already scheduled our next editing lesson for two weeks from now! 

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