Light Touches
Light Touches
Written by Wednesday, 22 October 2008 00:00
"Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art." Ansel Adams
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Iris germanica The photo of these iris shoots was taken in my garden in the morning while they were backlit by the rising sun. I used manual focus with live view to focus exactly on the plant. Photo by Frank Panis Shooting Data: Camera: Nikon D300 |
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Playing with Light Photography is about light. Light falling on subjects, creating shadows and hues, bringing colours to life. Sometimes you feel like playing with light. In the series of photos that follow, I tried to use light to "isolate" the subject while keeping the natural colours of the surroundings. In the first photo, the sun was lighting the right side of the plant, only. I didn't want to use fill in flash, so I decided to take two meterings (bright and dark side) and then move across the plant till the meter showed the average value. I then locked both exposure and focus and took the picture. The final result shows the plant standing out from the background correctly lit. The use of a very long lens and a large aperture blurred the background. I had to raise the ISO to 400 to ensure that I could use a high shutter speed since it was a windy day. Under those conditions, the slightest movement of the main subject, especially if it has such a complicated structure and texture will result in a totally blurred image. I set the speed at 1/1250 sec and allowed the camera to select the aperture (making sure it was a large one). When I shot the rose tree the sun was behind and a bit to the left of the plant. I saw the sun falling on the young leaves bringing out their red colour and texture as well as the shadows. I used fill-in flash at a close distance which resulted in a fairly limited depth of field and increased detail on the branches which would otherwise be very dark. The lens was stopped down to f/8 which allowed some of the leaves to be in perfect focus while the background stayed blurred. The third photo shows a lone cactus. The sun was lighting the field with the light coloured plants behind it while the cactus was under a pine tree, in the shadow. I took a metering of the scene in matrix mode and locked exposure to create a dark image of the cactus. I had to raise the ISO to 640 in order to use a high speed to freeze the grass close to the cactus which was moving because of the wind. Using the matrix mode ensured that not all detail and colour would be lost from the main subject, while the long focal length and large aperture used created a very shallow depth of field which added to this picture. Photos by George J. Reclos Shooting Data: 1. Camera: Nikon D300 2. Camera: Nikon D300 3. Camera: Nikon D70 |
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