Project: Getting to know your camera
The reason I enrolled on The Art Of Photography was simply to improve my image making technique and ability. In order to achieve this it made perfect sense to refresh my knowledge of how to actually operate my camera. A couple of hours spent sat down with my manual and camera to hand was time well spent. Indeed it was somewhat refreshing to discover one or two elements of operation hitherto unknown to me. I plan to revisit my manual in six months, to ensure retention of knowledge. Of course a camera is nothing without a lens. Lenses for DSLR cameras are available in a number of focal lengths from wide-angle to telephoto, offering various angles of view.
Exercise: Focal length and angle of view
I selected a place with which I was familiar and which offered content I considered useful for the purpose of this exercise. I made a note of the exact spot at which I set up the tripod. I adjusted my short zoom lens so that the image seen in the viewfinder was approximately equal to the view from my unaided eye. This, somewhat surprisingly, gave me a focal length of almost exactly 50mm. I was expecting a much shorter focal length, around the 32mm mark. I took photograph 1.
This is fairly representative of the view seen with the naked eye, not allowing for peripheral vision. We can see an expanse of buildings with the river in the foreground. Everything appears to be in order, from the flat barge, to the larger, higher wall, then the larger still three storey building and finally on to the skyscrapers.
I then set the focal length of my lens to 17mm and took Photograph 2.
With the aid of the telephoto focal length the scene now seems very much closer. There is no sign of the river in the foreground and the objects we can see are barely perceptible at the17mm focal length. In addition to this, the buildings also look closer to each other than they actually are, a result of the image being "compressed" by the increased focal length. We now only have the centre of the original frame visible to us and this is shown with much greater detail than in the previous two photographs.
I returned a few days later with prints of the photographs in hand. I held out photograph 1 and discovered that I had to hold this at arms length to fit it into the scene before me. When I held photograph 2 up and fitted it into the scene, it was actually blurred because it was so close to my eyes. No more than about eight inches away. I couldn't hold photograph 3 far enough away for it to fit into the scene. I estimate it would have been about fifty inches away from me.
This exercise has demonstrated the effects brought about by changes in focal length. At one end of the scale, 17mm wide-angle, not only do we have a wider angle of view, the main subject of the composition appears to be much farther away from us than it actually is. At the telephoto end of the scale the subject has been drawn much closer to us. Additionally, any distance between the subjects viewed through a telephoto lens appears to be reduced.
I selected a place with which I was familiar and which offered content I considered useful for the purpose of this exercise. I made a note of the exact spot at which I set up the tripod. I adjusted my short zoom lens so that the image seen in the viewfinder was approximately equal to the view from my unaided eye. This, somewhat surprisingly, gave me a focal length of almost exactly 50mm. I was expecting a much shorter focal length, around the 32mm mark. I took photograph 1.
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| Photograph 1 @50mm |
This is fairly representative of the view seen with the naked eye, not allowing for peripheral vision. We can see an expanse of buildings with the river in the foreground. Everything appears to be in order, from the flat barge, to the larger, higher wall, then the larger still three storey building and finally on to the skyscrapers.
I then set the focal length of my lens to 17mm and took Photograph 2.
 |
| Photograph 2 @17mm |
Now the angle of view has changed dramatically. Much more of the river in the foreground can be seen and the expanse of buildings look much farther away than they actually are. There are more buildings visible to the left and right and further objects have appeared in the foreground, specifically the stern of the ship to the right. This actually appears to be larger than the skyscrapers as the short focal length has altered the perspective.
For the next image I replaced my standard zoom lens with a telephoto zoom and selected a focal length of 270mm, then took photograph 3
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| Photograph 3 @270mm |
With the aid of the telephoto focal length the scene now seems very much closer. There is no sign of the river in the foreground and the objects we can see are barely perceptible at the17mm focal length. In addition to this, the buildings also look closer to each other than they actually are, a result of the image being "compressed" by the increased focal length. We now only have the centre of the original frame visible to us and this is shown with much greater detail than in the previous two photographs.
I returned a few days later with prints of the photographs in hand. I held out photograph 1 and discovered that I had to hold this at arms length to fit it into the scene before me. When I held photograph 2 up and fitted it into the scene, it was actually blurred because it was so close to my eyes. No more than about eight inches away. I couldn't hold photograph 3 far enough away for it to fit into the scene. I estimate it would have been about fifty inches away from me.
This exercise has demonstrated the effects brought about by changes in focal length. At one end of the scale, 17mm wide-angle, not only do we have a wider angle of view, the main subject of the composition appears to be much farther away from us than it actually is. At the telephoto end of the scale the subject has been drawn much closer to us. Additionally, any distance between the subjects viewed through a telephoto lens appears to be reduced.
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