Random non snake photos

[zamora]

I have been having lots of difficulty with my DSLR camera lately and finally have gotten it to work again only to find out it needs to be cleaned (sensor needs cleaning). I used it anyway the other day to get some photos of my chickens and some old bridges in Southern Louisiana that I have always thought were pretty cool. I know they aren't even in the same hemisphere as say jb's photos or Kens but I thought some of you might enjoy looking at them anyway. (Just taking up server space LOL)

The girl's feathers are a bit ruffled from the wind and they aren't particularly happy about it!



See? Elsa is not happy.



Pose pretty now girl.









now some of the bridges















Next time we go to LA, we will hopefully have the time to stop and get some better shots of these bridges, these were taken through the windshield at 55mph. Hope you enjoyed anyway!

[natieb]

Re: Random non snake photos

Those chickens look delicious.

[zamora]

Re: Random non snake photos

Those chickens look delicious.

Silly dawg, those chickens are bred specifically for egg production, not meat. I honestly didn't know much about chickens when we first started keeping them but boy, have I learned a LOT! Kind of like snakes I suppose. I knew how to take care of them before I got them, how to feed etc but not all the intricacies of the breeds, egg production, molting...Just like morphs and localities in reptiles!

Weird how I tied chickens to reptiles without chickens being a food source. LOL

[natieb]

Re: Random non snake photos

I mean, those chickens look like they would provide delicious eggs.

[zamora]

Re: Random non snake photos

I mean, those chickens look like they would provide delicious eggs.

NOW you're talking!

[Jonathan Brady]

Re: Random non snake photos

Those are some beautiful animals!

I wrote a long post (thesis, really) about using a DSLR on RI. Copying and pasting it here in case it's helpful :-)

It's really pretty easy once you figure a few things out. There's the "exposure triangle" and how each of the settings affect the appearance of your image BEYOND exposure, and "autofocus". After that, you're learning about light and composition.


Exposure Triangle: Exposure, in today's photographic world, is made up of 3 things. Aperture of the lens. Shutter speed. And ISO.

• Aperture - aperture refers to a physical opening inside the lens. It's expressed as a fraction like this: f/11. Naturally, f/4 is larger than f/11 in the same way that if you divided a pizza into 4 slices and another pizza into 11 slices, the slices from the "4 slice pizza" would be larger. The larger the aperture, the more light is let in. If you make a circle with your thumb and forefinger, that mimics the aperture of a lens. Make the hole small. That would be a small aperture like f/16, or smaller, f/32, or smaller, f/64. Now make the hole big. That would be a large aperture like f/4, f/2.8, f/2, f/1.4, etc.
• Shutter Speed - this is, in the easiest terms, how long the "shutter" stays open on your camera to expose the sensor to light. The longer it stays open, the longer the light saturates the pixels on the sensor and the brighter the image is. Makes sense, right? It's like laying out in the sun. If you lay out in the sun for 2 seconds, you're not going to get sun burned unless you're pale like me ;-) But if you lay out for 4 hours, you're getting sun burned because the light was allowed to fall on your skin for a longer period of time. Shutter speeds are generally expressed as fractions as well. 1/60 of a second is a shorter amount of time the sensor is exposed to light than 1/30 of a second. MOST cameras have a maximum shutter speed of 1/8000. Some are 1/4000, some are 1/2000. The faster the shutter speed (ie, 1/8000), the better the camera is at freezing movement (so your subject isn't blurry). A motionless person posing for a picture is generally best shot at 1/60 or preferably, faster like 1/125 (kids? even faster like 1/250 because their eyes move all the time). Want to shoot football from the sidelines? 1/500 and probably faster like 1/800 or 1/1000. A sleeping snake? 1/10 (if you can steady the camera well enough to keep it from shaking - which also causes blur)
• ISO - ISO is fake brightness. It comes from amplifying the signal from the image sensor. It's kind of like a dimmer switch. The higher the number, the more the signal is amplified and the brighter the picture is. So, ISO 100 is generally the "base" ISO. If you're shooting in bright sunlight, chances are you're at ISO 100. If you're shooting inside of a dance club, you're probably at ISO 51,200 or higher (unless you use flash). The lower the ISO (like ISO 100), the "cleaner" your image is. The higher your ISO, the "noisier" it is. Back in the film days, they had ISO 100 film, ISO 200 film, ISO 400 film, etc. The higher the film, the more "grainy" the shots. Noise is akin to grain. Think of the amplification of the sensor to achieve higher ISO's like electrocuting something. Just a teeny bit of amplification is fine. Using a lot is probably going to kill it. Modern cameras handle higher ISO so much better than older sensors, and better than film. Larger sensors handle higher ISO better than smaller sensors.

So, if you shoot a picture in full auto and you get a well exposed image (perfect brightness to your eyes), but you want to change one of the settings for some reason, you'll need to change 1 or 2 other settings to compensate. For instance, if you shoot a perfectly exposed picture at 1/200 shutter speed, f/4, and ISO 100 but it's a picture of your kid running and it's blurry because the shutter speed is too slow, you could change it to this: 1/800, f/4, and ISO 400. The image would be slightly noisier, but it wouldn't be blurry. And a noisy picture is (almost) ALWAYS better than a blurry picture. You could also have done this: 1/800, f/2, and ISO 100.


In both examples above, the shutter speed got faster which means the sensor is getting less light. So, in example 1, I increased the amplification of the sensor (ISO) to compensate for the faster shutter speed. In the second example, I made the aperture larger to let in more light. A third example could have been that I increased the ISO AND opened up the aperture, but just not as much as the prior examples. That could have been 1/800, f/2.8, and ISO 200. All three of these examples would yield a picture with the same brightness.


I touched on the effect of shutter speed for pictures, blurry vs not blurry, and the two types of blur (subject motion vs camera shake). I also touched on the benefits and consequences of changing ISO (more noise vs less noise). What I didn't touch on was the benefit and consequence of changing the aperture.


Hopefully you understand a large aperture (ie, f/2) vs a small aperture (ie, f/16). So, what's the effect of changing aperture in your picture, besides brightness? DOF (Depth Of Field). DOF is how much of your image from the front of the scene to the back of the scene is in focus. Here are two images with differing depth of field.


On her new bike by Jonathan Brady, on Flickr


Sunset at dinner by Jonathan Brady, on Flickr


In both images, there's a vast amount of space in the scene. But in the first image, I blurred the background out (thin depth of field) by using a large aperture (f/2.5) and in the second image, I got the foreground and background in focus (deep depth of field) by using f/8. (the focal length of the lenses also contributed)


Now, other aspects of setting up your image will affect DOF like distance to your subject, distance of your subject from the background, and the size of the sensor - larger sensors have a thinner DOF at the same aperture (ie, f/8).


Generally, choosing the appropriate shutter speed and aperture are more important than choosing the appropriate ISO (again, a noisy picture is better than a blurry picture or one where what you want to capture doesn't have enough depth of field). So, many people will shoot in "M" (Manual Mode) and choose the shutter speed and aperture they want and set the camera to "auto ISO" and let the camera choose the ISO to achieve a well exposed (perfect brightness) image. When shutter speed and aperture are perfect but the image is too noisy, you need more light! (flash/strobes)


As for the second aspect I mentioned above; autofocus. Most people leave their camera in full auto and don't tell the camera where to focus. GENERALLY, a camera will focus on the closest thing to the camera where there is an autofocus point. With snake pictures, if the snake is coiled up in front of the camera and it's body is towards the camera and it's head is resting at the back of the coils, the camera will focus on the body up close and the head will be out of focus. That's fine if you want to show some feature of the body, but in general, having the head, and especially the eye(s) in focus is what's desired. So for that, you need a camera which allows you to take control of the focus point and put the focus point over the eye of your subject. (OR more depth of field)


Here's an example of how to place the AF point over the eye of your subject...


mayaafpoint by Jonathan Brady, on Flickr


Notice that there are a couple of black boxes in the image (some are hard to see bc of her fur), but the one that's lit up in red is on her eye. The result is that the sharpest, most in-focus part of the image is her eye. You can also see the VERY thin depth of field (look at the carpet and see the thin line that's in focus). The depth of field is like a piece of glass, perpendicular to your camera. It can be super thin (daughter and dog pics) or super thick (landscape pic). But it's always perpendicular to your camera.


Some cameras will not let you select the AF point. These are usually "point and shoot" cameras. DSLR will allow you to choose the AF point, if you want to.


So, IMO, those are the two most important things to understand, and know how to change on a camera. The exposure triangle (shutter speed, aperture, and ISO) and the AF point. Once you know how to do that, you can start producing the types of pictures you want: not blurry, emphasis of the focus on your subject, and removing the emphasis from where you don't want it. And it's all pretty easy to learn honestly. Read the manual, learn how to adjust those features, then start playing. I recommend just setting the camera up on a tripod, or table, etc, take a picture in full auto, write the exposure triangle settings down, switch to full manual and then adjust each setting to see the effect on the image.


Here's some info on the exposure triangle that may be beneficial as well...


Stef photography chart by Jonathan Brady, on Flickr


Any questions, feel free to ask :-)

[zamora]

Re: Random non snake photos

Thank you SO much for putting all of this here, I really want to learn to use the camera I have before I think of upgrading and I know I need LOTS of practice! Hopefully I can incorporate what you have put here into some photos I plan on taking this weekend at the HERPS show in New Orleans. It should be a great time and I'll get to see some friends that I haven't seen in a couple of years (Abby Malvestuto is one) and meet some new faces (Diem of Celestial Exotics aka ShadowAceD).

I'll post them here next week and thanks again jb!


P.S. Your daughter is beautiful!

[Jonathan Brady]

Re: Random non snake photos

You're very welcome :-)

Light quality and quantity tends to be an issue at herp shows. So, you'll probably have to use a high ISO to get well exposed images. And to get the DOF you want, you'll probably want to stop down to f/5.6 or f/8. That's going to leave you with a pretty slow shutter speed. If the lens you're using has IS or VC (Image Stabilization or Vibration Compensation - same thing, just different names depending on the manufacturer), make sure it's on as that'll help stabilize the camera against your body/hand movements. Wait for the animals to be still and snap the image then. With a slow shutter speed, if the animal is moving, your image will be blurry.

With a stabilized 18-55mm lens, I've taken handheld photos at 1/10 of a second shutter speed and they've turned out extremely sharp when the subject was still. Before snapping the picture, steady your body, tuck your elbows into your body, steady your breathing, and if possible, wait for your exhale to press the shutter.

Another option is to use flash, but I'm not a big fan of on-camera flash. Because the images look like you took them with an on-board flash! lol

Btw, what kind of camera do you have and do you have an external flash? If so, what's the model number?

And thanks for the compliment on Kyla :-) She's beautiful in SO many ways, smart, funny, and SO strong too :-) Just like her mom :-)

[Jrock23]

Re: Random non snake photos

Please bring me a chicken so i can eat it LOL

[Zincubus]

Re: Random non snake photos

Nice idea for a thread ... Pics to follow


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[Zincubus]

Re: Random non snake photos




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[Noelle7206]

Re: Random non snake photos

Wow, those are great! Uh, lemme guess...online dating???

And why aren't MY leaves THAT PRETTY? I want a refund...

I love snuggling dogs....heck, I like them all!

[Zincubus]

Re: Random non snake photos

Wow, those are great! Uh, lemme guess...online dating???

And why aren't MY leaves THAT PRETTY? I want a refund...

I love snuggling dogs....heck, I like them all!

Online dating ???? Where did that come from

[Noelle7206]

Re: Random non snake photos

Online dating ???? Where did that come from

5th picture, the 'romantic guy' in the yellow shirt...(online dating often holds many surprises, or so I hear?)

[Zincubus]

Re: Random non snake photos

5th picture, the 'romantic guy' in the yellow shirt...(online dating often holds many surprises, or so I hear?)

Ah , I see now ....