Blog Entry 2 (Depth of Field and Motion)


Project Outline:
This project was assigned with focus on depth of field and motion. For this project, I undertook attempts to capture and shoot images that follow the central focuses.

The material that will be included in this entry's notes are: composition and what makes good composition, the potential distractions and attractions of an image, focused on base material on depth of field and movement.

Class Notes:
Depth of Field
Depth of field controls how much of an image is in focus (or acceptably in focus). The definition is the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear acceptably sharp in an image. The keyword here is "acceptably", because although a small aperture may create a deep depth of field, there is still in reality only one point in the image that is sharp and the others are only close to it. The things that affect the depth of field of an image are: aperture, focal length and the distance from the subject. It's commonly used to create interesting compositions, mainly with macros. A commonly held belief is that when an image doesn't look that great, get closer - and this is where depth of field becomes useful.

A large aperture creates a shallow depth of field. This type of depth of field is normally used when the photographer is trying to focus exclusively on one subject in the image and blur everything else so there are less distractions. It could, for example, be used for picking out a single person in a crowd and blurring out the rest. A small aperture creates a deep depth of field. This type of depth of field is typically used when the photographer wants most or all of the image in focus. A common application of deep depth of field is landscape photography. There are some problems, however, because a small aperture means less light is being let in. The result may be that a photographer is forced to up either the ISO or slow down the shutter speed. Upping the ISO means grainier images (especially undesirable when blowing up large landscape photography) while slowing the shutter speed sometimes means unwanted blur. A tripod is almost necessary for this type of photography.

There is something we call the Reciprocal Rule which helps us keep things in focus with the right amount of light. The deeper end of acceptable focus after the point of focus is behind the focal point at 2/3 whereas there is roughly 1/3 in acceptable focus in front of the focal point.

Motion
Motion in photography is an area that allows for the feeling of movement in an image. Although there is obviously nothing moving in an image, the flow or direction of subjects or composition in an image can make it feel like there is something moving. Whereas most images appear static, images can do this. Photography that incorporates movement typically utilises slow shutter speed, such as with water or some object moving with a trail behind it. On the other hand, a fast shutter speed can still produce an image that incorporates movement. This type of movement, however, is different - it relies on direction and gravity more than the flow or trailing of composition.

Certain techniques for motion in photography are: panning - rotary panning and radial panning. It is of note that these techniques are impossible in bright light because the slow shutter speed required for them will produce an overexposed image. An alternative is to use a filter that neutralises the exposure. In rotary panning, a very common technique for sports or fast moving objects, the camera is turned while focused on one subject in the centre. Everything else becomes a blur whereas the centred subject stays relatively in focus. It is near impossible to do this without keeping the subject in the centre because it becomes too difficult to keep the subject in focus anywhere else. In radial panning, the camera can be zoomed in or out during capture or alternatively by walking to or from the subject. It creates a sort of ring, zooming effect in the image. This technique is not as common as rotary panning.

Researched Notes and Images:
For this, I used the exemplar to reach a site that calculates the near, far and total distance of focus in depth of field. The site URL is: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

There is also a Wikipedia page that gives a nice broad, general explanation and information on depth of field. It's a given though that, since it's a Wikipedia source, it should be taken with a grain of salt. The site URL is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

Here is a beginner's guide on using motion in photography: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/a-beginners-to-capturing-motion-in-your-photography (I also found the moving headlights image, the last of the 4 following images, from this site)

The following are images I found to represent each compositional feature.

This image incorporates depth of field. As with all portrait photography (admittedly this is animal portraiture), the eye is the focal point. From there, the near and far limit of acceptable focus will typically include the face and the features. This image is a good demonstration of that. The focus is so that towards the back, the feathers lose focus and by the time the background is reached, it is completely out of focus. This focuses the viewer onto the owl itself, the clarity and vibrance of its eyes and its general facial/feather features.

On the opposite hand, this image demonstrates a deep depth of field for scenic/industrial photography. At the same time, there is also evidence of slow shutter speed as shown with the car headlights on the bridge. This image is a good demonstration of all the features associated with deep depth of field. Because there is not enough light when using a small aperture for deep depth of field, the shutter speed was slowed and as a result the headlights became blurred into lines. This, of course, doesn't actually detract from the image and actually adds to its allure. Meanwhile, the entire image is in acceptable focus as well and the focal point is likely one of the closer ships or the first arch on the bridge - an inference from the 2/3 behind and 1/3 in front focal rule.

This image illustrates the effect that a slow shutter speed has. It creates, like the image above and the image below, a trail that we can see as movement. It is the result of the light of the object that used to be there and then the tracking trail of light as the object moved through the plane of the image. These two dice a simple demonstration and don't hold too much value as pieces of art, but are quite effective. It may even potentially link into flash photography because the dice are in focus where the trail ends - a trait of end-sync flash photography. I'm not particularly fond of this image, though, and I would not deign to hang this up. Anyways, despite its lack of artistic or aesthetic value, it's a good demonstration of basic motion photography.

This image uses just as the two above images a slow shutter speed to create motion. The lines of light originate from car headlights. The result is the trail of light, although in this case, there is no flash and no trace of car, but the lights are there because they hold a much higher intensity of light than the cars, which move by quickly and leave little trace of light. Notice that the rest of the background is in focus.

Contact Sheet:

In this contact sheet are my attempts at shooting images using depth of field as the focus on compositional change. This set of shoots was done over a course of 3 hours, setting up and inking a rose black and then sprinkling the ink over music sheets. Images were taken every 15 or so minutes, to determine if the level of shine had gone down enough or if the image looked better a certain way. In the end, the best images were those of a dry rose but with wet and fresh droplets of ink on the music. Many of the changes in rose position were a result of slight camera movement, different levels of zoom and focus adjustments.

In this contact sheet are my attempts at shooting images using movement as the major compositional change. This set of images was taken over a course of about an hour, although there aren't many images to show for it. For all of these, I focused on using long exposure times - up to 6 seconds of exposure. In the end, the lack of a stable surface to anchor my camera to forced me to give up on using too long an exposure. Even now, there is a slight overlapping of background (unintentional) with the quicker exposure times. I am satisfied with my variety of traffic shots, however.

Final Selection:
These are my final selections. There are two for depth of field and one for motion.

This selection is my proudest image. I took over 2 hours to prepare this setting, inking a rose black, setting up music sheets and sprinkling black ink over them. I had no tripod, and had to rest the camera on top of a surface that could still move (and was placed on a carpet, so there was actually a degree of compression and extra movement). Still yet, after shooting and deciding better of it, my end result is this after post-processing. The image is different from those in the contact sheet, mostly because the blacks and the contrast have been enhanced greatly. There is little to no detail left in the rose itself, and is more silhouetted than textured. The bubbles of ink still sparkle, which I found quite nice. This image I first settled with naming Melancholy Melody, although I eventually settled on The Transcendentalism of Suffering, as a reference to the hardships that people have to face in life. The failures, trials and successes - I believe this image speaks to all of them.

This selection was based on showing deep depth of field. I don't like it as much as my other images, but it's a good example of deep depth of field where basically everything in the image is in acceptable focus. In this image, I made the focal point the mounds of dirt in the foreground. This decision was based on the 2/3 behind and 1/3 in front rule for small apertures.

This selection was one of my motion images. It was taken at roughly 9 PM on a Saturday night on one of the many floating walkways above the roads. Both of these roads are one-way, which is why there are two sets of them separated by a line of trees. I rather liked this image not just because of the motion evoked by the blurring headlights and taillights, but also because there is a wonderful juxtaposition of the red taillights and the white, blue or even yellow headlights that we see on the closer road. The road looks like there's a sheen to it, lit by the many passing cars over the length of exposure I used for this image (4 seconds).

Description of Learning:

In this unit, I learnt about incorporating motion and depth of field into photography and its application, rules and compositional guidelines. I did already know quite a bit about depth of field although I hadn't focused on its application prior to this project. I think with depth of field I was able to explore more styles of artistic manipulation with scenes and imagery than I had before with other compositional features. Motion, however, was difficult for me. It took me a while to figure out what to do because I didn't fully understand how to show my understanding. What's more, I had to make do with resting my camera on mostly unstable surfaces when trying to use long exposures and it make it very difficult for me to keep things I wanted in focus in focus. It was fun anyway, and I enjoyed making city photography part of my focus for motion. It was quite cool to take something I normally hate (traffic) and turn it into something that is more aesthetically pleasing.

Development Options:
If I were to do this project again, I think I would keep my depth of field section the same. I would, however, focus on changing my motion shots. I'd prefer water shots, despite their difficulty, over traffic or cityscape shots that use motion and blurring. For further enhancement of my motion shots, I think I would not only use water motion, but also put in warm colours - hopefully with the sunset.