Photography Tips

The Eye vs Camera

Eye vs CameraThe maximum and minimum focal ratio of the eye is more limited than a normal lens (f3.3 – f15 versus f1.8 – f22) but this is more than offset by a broad ISO range (1-800 ISO versus 100 ISO 3200 in a typical digital SLR). In addition, the dynamic range of the eye is infinitely superior: 1:10.000.

Instead, the shutter speed of the eye is single (1 / 100 sec.) which has an evolutionary point of view is perfectly adequate, but the camera clearly has more options (such as very fast shutter speeds, which allow you to freeze movement, something the eye can not do, or the opposite extreme, long exposures required to build light and see what is invisible to the eye).

And what about the sensor ? Well that’s where the difference is enormous: it is quite large (like a digital back CCD) and has pixels of similar sizes, but has a resolution equivalent of several hundreds of mega pixels, although this parameter is not exactly comparable: a point, the eye only processes a fraction of the total visible area, the rest remains out of focus black and white!

Let’s see a possible example: The human eye, on a sunny beach, with a shutter speed of 1 / 100 sec. to f11 and an ISO of 12 (and a resolution of, say, 350 Mpix.). The exposure equivalent of a digital SLR camera (of say 12 Mpix.) would be: f16, 1 / 500 sec. and ISO 100. This of course is only a theoretical calculation since all these parameters are not exactly comparable in reality or equivalent …

The Human Eye and Digital Camera (2)

Human Eye and Digital CameraNow let’s see how it compares with a digital camera from a quantitative standpoint.

Before, we relate the different parts of both: the goal is the combination of the lens and the cornea (which in turn serves as a UV filter as well). The diaphragm is constituted by the combination iris / pupil (which expands or contracts to change the opening), and the sensor is the retina. Finally, the image processor is the brain.

The Human Eye in Figures

There is some controversy regarding the focal length of the human eye: some authors speak of 16 -18 mm although it seems that consensus is another figure: 22-24 mm , whose value depends on several factors such as distance from the eye to the subject, age and health of the individual.

The Diaphragm

The maximum diameter of the pupil depends on the age (this is well know amateur Astronomy and Astro !) in young people come to dilate the pupil to 7 mm, a figure that is reduced from 5-6 mm of 40-45 years. In contrast, the minimum diameter of the pupil is 1.5 mm. With these figures we can calculate the focal ratio (f) of the human eye, from f3.3 (of 4.6 for adults over 45 years) to f16 at its opening minimal, ie, a relatively short range compared with a normal lens ( for example 50 mm f1.8 – f22).

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The Human Eye and Digital Camera (1)

Human Eye and Digital CameraEye are accustomed to reading about the rapid progress of digital cameras, with more and more mega pixels, anti-vibration systems, technologies, more accurate auto focus and a host of increasingly sophisticated technologies, we can have the feeling that they are prodigious machines. However, the camera perfect sophisticated and still the eye . And let’s see why.

The Human Eye: An Incredible Machine

First, it should be noted that the functioning of the human eye rests on the most sophisticated and powerful computer that exists on our planet: the brain . What we see is the result of what has caught the eye with what the brain has processed. The analogy in digital photography-relatively speaking-would capture raw (RAW file or data captured by the CCD) and processed image (in Photoshop or JPG file that the camera has been generated from data raw).

Example of this teamwork of the eye and the brain is the fact that the human eye actually sees the world upside down and reversed as in a mirror (like a camera optical bench). It is the brain that is responsible for correcting the image in the two axes. In fact, babies see the world uncorrected (this the the reason why they often look in the opposite direction to the movement trying to follow).

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Aerial Photography from Kites

Aerial Photography from KitesAerial Photography is a photographic discipline itself, since it is characterized primarily by the position from where the picture is taken: from the air . Thus, a photograph taken from a skyscraper would not be an aerial photograph, but from a helicopter flying over the same area could get the same framing and perspective. Aerial photography has traditionally from helicopters, airplanes and balloons. Today, thanks to digital photography have developed other methods are simpler and cheaper.

Aerial Photography from kites (KAP): Introduction

Aerial photography from kites (known in the Anglo world as KAP – Kite Aerial Photography) is performed primarily by hanging a camera from a kite-flying stably, and closing the shutter from the ground using radio control (RC), or by a intervalometer connected to the camera (in this case is usually called self KAP). Therefore we can define two different teams depending on whether land is controlled by RC, or automatically triggered by an intervalometer (auto KAP).

The basic equipment of KAP is as follows:

• A kite . It is not worth anyone. Has to be stable in flight and have sufficient strength to lift the camera equipment. There are two kinds of kites for KAP, with structure and unstructured. They differ among themselves, besides the presence or absence of structure-flight by the angle of each type of characteristic that is committed and the range of wind speeds in which it is able to fly (there is light wind kites and kite High Wind-there is a kite that can fly in winds of 5 km / h in 40 km / h for instance).

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Black and White Conversion

Black and White ConversionA digital age gives us, among others, the ability to convert a color picture to black and white. Before he took or color, or black and white. A bit of theory before going into details: The sensor captures light through micro-filters placed over each RGB photosite, which normally follow a pattern called BAYER (which has twice the green photosites red and blue, because the increased sensitivity of human eye to green wave LENGTH). Then interpolates (creates) the missing and generates an image in color.

Black and White Conversion

In some pictures , new textures, shapes and contrasts emerge when converted to black and white. But it’s not as simple as desaturate the photo. These vary the brightness and contrast of each RGB channel until you find the combination that we like. Is a very useful tool that brings Photoshop CS4, which is the option to create an adjustment layer Black and White already has some presets useful. In this case, besides the RGB channels includes the ability to also modify the CMY channels. For example the picture I used the preset High Contrast Blue Filter .

The result adds a new dimension to heaven, earth and solar panels in the picture. The contrast ratio is radically changed by providing a different view, visually attractive. It is worth experimenting with different types of pictures to get familiar with what kind of settings work with what kind of colors.

Photography Info

Photography InfoPhotography is a language, a skill and an art. It’s a way to capture and graphically display visual reality. Each picture is a fragment, a cut actually played with our eyes through the camera.

It’s amazing how something ordinary, everyday thing can become fascinating when you look at it from a personal point of view.

Photography allows you to uncover that which was always there, explore, and unique moments frozen expressions and details that surround us are full of beauty, full of mystery, full of meaning. It’s simple aesthetic appreciation of a stage and the light of an unrepeatable moment.

I usually try to isolate a detail that stands out for its color, the contrast between highlights and shadows or the whim of the forms that are obtained when we fix our gaze in an anonymous corner. So in my photos for places I recognized. For me are the importance of their own beauty, the beauty that is there at the time and call me for the portrait. Nor thus have a symbolic meaning. They claim themselves and to help you personally I just like to add a title that does not explain what it is, but invited to imagine, to suggest situations or confused too, why not, the viewer is confronted with them by first time. “

Photography as an alternative art form

PhotographyFrom the 1860s to the 1890s, photography was conceived as an alternative to drawing and painting. The first standards of criticism applied to it were therefore those that were used to judge art, and accepted the idea that the camera could be used by artists, because it could capture the details more quickly and fidelity eye and hand.

In other words, photography was seen as an aid to the arts, as did Hill and Adamson. In fact, around 1870 it was accepted practice to pose the subjects in the study, and then tweak and refine the photos to make them appear paintings.

During the second half of the nineteenth century Swedish photographer Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson British discovered the method of creating a copy from several different negatives. Robinson, who began his career as an artist, he based his initial sketches descriptive images in pencil. His influence as an art photographer was great. For example, some of the work of his compatriot Julia Margaret Cameron, plays were composed like paintings of the era.

Art photography

Art photographyThe pioneering work of Daguerre and Talbot led to two different types of photography. The daguerreotype positive, appreciated for its clarity and detail, was used especially for family portraits as a substitute for more expensive painted portrait.

Later, the daguerreotype was supplanted in popularity by the carte de visite, which used glass plates instead of iron sheets. On the other hand, the procedure of Talbot calotype was less accurate in the details, but had the advantage of producing a negative that could get the number of copies desired.

Although the calotype was initially associated with landscape photography, from 1843 to 1848 is technique was used by the Scottish painter David Octavius ​​Hill and Robert Adamson contributor to photographic portraits.

Commercial and advertising photography

Commercial and advertising photographyThe photograph has been used to inspire and influence political or social views. Also, since the 1920′s has made use of it to promote and direct the consumerism, and as a component of advertising.

Commercial photographers make pictures that are used in advertising or as illustrations in books, magazines and other publications. To be attractive your images using a wide range of sophisticated techniques. The impact of this kind of imagery has been a strong cultural influence.

Commercial and advertising photography has also been a big boost in the graphics industry along with advances in the techniques of photographic reproduction quality. Excelled in this field Irving Penn and Cecil Beaton, high society photographer, Richard Avedon, who achieved fame as a fashion photographer, Helmut Newton and, controversial fashion photographer and portraitist whose works often feature a great erotic content.

Photojournalism

PhotojournalismPhotojournalism different from any other documentary photographic work that its purpose is to tell a particular story in visual terms. Photojournalists working for newspapers, magazines, news agencies and other publications which cover events in areas ranging from sports, arts and politics. One of the first was the journalist or French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson, who since 1930 was devoted to documenting what he called the “decisive moment”.

He argued that the dynamics of any given situation at some point reaches its climax, the moment that corresponds to the most significant image. Cartier-Bresson, master of this technique, the sensitivity had to pull the trigger at the right time. The technological advances of the thirties, in particular improvements in small cameras like the Leica, as well as the sensitivity of the film, provided that technique instantly. Many of the Cartier-Bresson’s images are so strong in conception and in what they say and are considered both artwork, documentary and photojournalism.

Brassaï, another French photojournalist born in Hungary, he devoted himself diligently to capture the fleeting moments of expression, which in his case showed more provocative side of the Parisian night. His photographs were collected and published in Paris by night (1933).

American war correspondent Robert Capa began his career with photographs of the Spanish Civil War, like Cartier-Bresson, captured both battle scenes and the situation of the civilian population. His photograph of a wounded militiaman went around the world as witness to the horror of war. Layer also covered the landing of American troops on D-Day in Europe during World War II and the war in Indochina, where he met his death in 1954. Another photographer, Tina Modotti, the Italian was also in Spain during the Civil War as a member of the Socorro Rojo.

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