Quote:
Originally posted by hulkrogan@Jun 10 2005, 10:39 PM
Great post cowperson, I'd love to figure out how to do the first 2 with my camera if possible.
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Okay . . . . since you asked you get the long-winded version . . . . you can probably do most of those with any reasonable camera.
Look at the first picture . . . . what are the elements that need to be accomplished?
1) Something has to be in focus. Obviously the head of the dog. 2) Something has to be out of focus. Obviously the house a half mile away. You also want to bring the house closer to make it a more obvious part of the background (if that's your intent).
3) Move a short distance away, about 7-10 feet back of the dog, zoom in and secure a good focus on its head. That in turn also brings the house closer but also renders it hopelessly out of focus. Voila. If you had used a wide angle view, you would get the dog in focus but push the house away, making it merely a dot, and it might be in focus in the distance as well.
An example of the opposite, where you endeavour to bring everything together but keep EVERYTHING in focus is at the next link below where you stand about 30-35 feet behind the cat, and zoom in to bring objects closer to the cat. The farm is half a mile away and the road on the other side of the valley and up the other side is exactly one mile away. In spite of the gulf of distance, pretty much everything is in focus, with the cat only marginally out of focus.
http://www.goldentales.ca/P1000331_edited-13.jpg
In the second photo you asked about, the Horse Guard guys marching, you're "panning." The nearest line of marching Horse Guard are in focus and there is less arc to their movement as they pass by CLOSE in front of you versus the background which is successively further away. As you swing your camera to follow the first Horse Guard guy, ignoring everything else, the camera freezes him but each successive layer behind him has a greater arc and appears to have more motion as a result. You need a slower shutter speed.
Another example of an image where ALL action is frozen, with very little motion effect, indicating the importance of a slower shutter speed (this is a print image that was scanned):
http://www.goldentales.ca/sink3.jpg
In addition, the closer you are to the subject, the more the background should blur. The further away, as in this shot below of a running dog, the less feeling of motion you might see in the background. The shutter speed in this image is slow as it was with the Horse Guards, but the distance takes away some of the motion you see in the Horse Guard picture, which was taken from close up.
http://www.goldentales.ca/P1020242_edited-1.jpg
A few other things:
Silhouetting against the sun for effect. One light source from behind the object. And you let your camera get its light reading from the sun, therefore making the dog darker and bringing out the frost on the window.
http://www.goldentales.ca/P1030954_edited-2.jpg
. . . . and using flash against backlighting (although still kinda dark early in the day in this example). In this image, there is a light source in the background, the rising sun, and a light in the foreground, the flash. Don't be afraid to use flash in daylight to eliminate shadows.
http://www.goldentales.ca/P1020783_edited-1.jpg
Hope that helps. Its not that complicated. Just perspective. Take lots of frames. I think I read somewhere a typical National Geographic photog takes 200 rolls of film for the 11-14 images that might make it into the magazine. Neeper took 2400 images on his European trip. I took about 600 on my London trip. With digital, there's not much expense to taking bad shots and getting rid of them later.
I'm sure others can help with more technical things.
Cowperson