Category: Photography 1

Take five pictures every day for the next five days. The subjects of your pictures can include a series of different objects, people and landscapes. The focus of this activity is to put into practice what you have learned so far about exposure and composition. This includes: Depth of Field, Motion Blurr, High Key, Low Key, Pattern, Symmetry, Texture, Lines, Framing, Perspective, Space, Balance and Colour. Apply
the manual settings as explained. Submit your six best pictures at the end of the week, listing the following with each picture:

• ISO 
• Aperture 
• Shutter speed

Here are the 6 photos.

Selecting the proper White Balance:

Take your camera outside during daylight and photograph the same scene using different white-balance settings. Move indoors and repeat the exercise with shooting in a tungsten-lighting environment. Finally, find a fluorescent light source and repeat one more time. Pay close attention to how each setting affects the overall colour cast of your images in different lighting environments and write down your findings.

My camera has 10 different white-balance setting that’s is premade, so I took the same picture in all 10 modes:

1. Daylight
2. Shade
3. Cloudy
4. Incandescent
5. Fluorescent: Warm white
6. Fluorescent: Cool white
7. Fluorescent: Day white
8. Fluorescent: Daylight
9. Flash
10. Underwater auto

I used the same object out in daylight, in a room with tungsten-lightning and in a room with fluorescent lightning. You can clearly see that all of the different settings makes the color much colder outside in daylight than under a tungsten and fluorescent light. Out of all these 10 settings on these photos I prefer the underwater auto setting, this is because I feel this has the best balance between cold and warm.

Experimenting with Focus Modes:

Change your camera settings so that you are focusing using the Single-Point focus mode. Try using all of the different focus points to see how they work in focusing your scene. Then set your focus mode to AF-S and practice focusing on a stationary subject and then recomposing before actually taking the picture. Try doing this with subjects at varying distances. Lastly, change your focus mode from autofocus to manual focus and practice a little manual-focus photography. Get familiar with where the focus ring is and how to use it to achieve sharp images. Write down what you learned from the different focus modes

AF-S is something I barely use, I always use MF or AF-C (for moving objects) so I actually had to do some research on this task. Mostly because I had to double check the names on the focus, I use sony so it’s called flexible spot and not single-point af. I think I understood the task right but to be honest it’s a bit confusing.

By using flexible spot (small) I moved the spot around to change the focus to where I wanted it, I have marked it in the photos so you can see where I moved the spot. For this I used AF-S mode and flexible point (small) on focus area. I might have used AF-A instead of but the result is the same since I have to move the spot around anyway.

Using AF-S while recomposing is easy as long as you know where you focus area is, if you want to be quick, I would probably not use flexible spot since then its always focus on where the spot is, I would probably use wide or zone just so the AF has more space to move. But if you are shooting something that is moving, or if you move to recomposing, I would use AF-C, just since I can lock the focus on the object while the object (or me) is moving. But I use MF when I’m shooting everything else than animals/bird because I like to have fully control over the focus.

Question 2

Observation and analysis (2 hours)

After watching the video: Introduction to Photography: The Camera by Ben Long (1h 52m), please answer the following questions. If necessary, refer to your Camera Manual:

• Name all the functions / buttons on the front of your camera
• Name all the functions / buttons on the back of your camera
• Explain how you would set the correct ISO
• Explain how you would change the aperture
• Explain how you would change the shutter speed

My camera is Sony a7iii

ISO : I always keep the ISO as low as possible, as of today I have never intentionally used high ISO to get a noisy photo. But who know? Maybe one day? On my camera I can have a pretty high ISO before it gets to noisy, but it require a lot of work in photoshop to get the noise down. And the ISO I change on the Control Wheel.

Aperture : This one I change on the Front Dial. The aperture depends on what dept of field you want. Say if I take a landscape photo I usually am around f8-f9, just to get a wide area that’s sharp and in focus. And if I take a portrait of my dogs, wildlife photo I use as high aperture my lens will go. I love using f2-f2.8, if you get the focus on the eyes/face on the animal/human/flower etc. you will end up with an amazing blurred out background(bokeh).

Shutter speed: This one I change on the Rear Dial. Shutter speed the exposure, this means how long the shutter is open and how much light it will let pass in to the sensor frame. A fast shutter will freeze the image. So if you are into different sports, wildlife photography you want to have a fast shutter speed so you freeze the photo and don’t get a motion blur on it. If you want to have a photo with motion blur, night photo, astro photos, make the water to a veil you need a slow shutter speed. If you want a sharp image but still want to get those stars or that veil on the water you need to have a tripod, because if you move your camera just a tiny bit the photo will turn out not that good.

Question 1

Research, written and practical assignment (4 hours)

Throughout this lesson you’ve learnt about the various techniques used and inventors that contributed to the art form that is Photography.  Choose only one, do some additional research and in your own words write a report on why you think the chosen technique contributed to what we are able to do today through photography.

• Explain your research and choice of technique.
• Include any images which you think are necessary to explain your thought process.
• This should be 500 – 1000 words.

George Eastman – Kodak

George Eastman was born in 1854 in Waterwille, New York where he lived on a 10-acre farm with his two older sisters, Maria and Katie and parents. His father died in 1862 of a brain disorders, and his sister Katie died of polio in late 1870. At this time George was only 15 and ended up leaving the school so he could work and help and support the family.

In his early 20’s he was supposed to go on a trip to Santo Domingo and bought all the equipment that he really thought was big, heavy and expensive. Instead of taking this trip he ended up spending a lot of time in his mother kitchen. George was inspired by the big and heavy existing camera, and he wanted to make a camera that was smaller, lighter and easier for a average person to enjoy.

At this moment there where no dry plates, only wet plates. This required the photographer or an assistant to do the development of the photos. This would take considerably longer time and it was also very expensive. In a British publication he saw a formula for a “dry plate” emulsion, and after getting some guidance from two local photographers he formulated a gelatin-based paper film and a device for coating dry plates.

He resigned from his current bank job and in 1885 he went to the patent office with a roll-holder device that he and camera inventor William Hall Walker had developed. This roll-holder would allow the cameras to be much smaller and cheaper. In 1888 he developed the Kodak camera, witch was the first camera that was design to use roll film, the camera came with a roll that could take 100 exposures. He came up with the slogan, “ You press the button, we do the rest”. This meant that after the 100 exposures you would send the camera back to the company where they developed the photos, and then the photos and camera was sent back to the costumer. It was also possible for the customer to make a request for reloading the camera with fresh film for an additional &10 (about &250 today). The developed negatives was contact printed on gilded edged brown colored card stock. As film stock became standardized, George continued to lead in innovations, and refinements in colored film stock continued after his death in 1932.

I grew up with film rolls and I’ve seen how the camera has changed throughout the years, I’ve always been interested in photography, my grandfather has some really old cameras so I have always been fascinated how a camera works. The reason that I wanted to write about George Eastman and his invention of dry film is because this was a big game changing thing. This made the photo development prosses much quicker, the cameras was smaller and lighter. Ant the fact that he wanted the camera to be available for average people and not just the upper class people is such an good and inspiring way of thinking and taking actions. There would probably be someone else that would come up with this patent, but because George Eastman did it the camera history changed early. And because of that the cameras is by this day digital, gives us a insanely good quality, are small and light weighted and comes in a big variation price classes. If he didn’t invent this dry film I’m sure the camera industry wouldn’t be where it is today.

Sources
https://www.biography.com/inventor/george-eastman – History
https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Eastman – History
https://www.eastman.org/about-george-eastman – History + photos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eastman – History + photos
https://photofocus.com/inspiration/history/history-of-photography-introduction-of-kodak/ – History + photos