Starting some storyboards

I’ve been really bossy lately with all the technical talk. Taking a break from buttons and dials, let’s do something visual.

I’m a late bloomer, but I’m starting to play around with story boards. I can never pick just one photo when it comes time to print and frame, and I love how symmetrical storyboards can be. If you’re familiar with a photo editing software that allows you to work with layers, boards can be built that way and printed at whatever final size you like. Or you can get crafty with scissors and a matte board and go custom. My favourite is saving photos in groups for future photo books to detail milestones or events succinctly.

Options abound. You can have as many images in a board as you like, but I tend to run in multiples of three or four. Don’t know why, just seems to happen over here at Chez Isla. 

Here’s a set I did earlier this month when Isla first really discovered Baby Mum Mums…

And here’s one I did tonight after Isla took so much interest in our dinner (homemade veggie lasagna, can’t blame her) and pulled herself up on the coffee table for the first time. 

As you can see in the first frame, it was like something out of Jaws. Eep! You can see the full story of baby goodness here. 

There was a lot of cropping going on with these sets. The one from today alone had me cropping 90% of the photo out so that she would fill the square frame. It’s all personal preference, but I… well, I prefer the subject not just be front and center, but INYOFACE. 

Here’s one of the pics straight out of the camera (SOOC):

1/320 at f/2.8, ISO 800

As you can see, I cropped tight for the board and eliminated much of the visual clutter to bring the focus onto Isla and her creeping on our dinner. Cropping does wonders for pictures, even if it’s only slight. Just remember (here I’m getting technical again) to shoot high resolution shots or else you won’t be able to print the photo, much less blow it up, after it’s been cropped and adjusted. 

25 May 7 Permalink

More on BOKEH with a pinch of auto focus

Here are some notes connecting bokeh with auto focus and how the two can become trademark tools. I should add that I rarely manual focus anymore and only do when my subject is stationary. With a baby, nuh-uh. Hasn’t happened yet. But it’s a personal choice, and an option most lenses afford you with. 

Auto focus is when you half-press the shutter to reveal focus points. The camera will usually beep or the focus point may even blink telling you your focal point is locked. It’s then you press the shutter fully and the picture is snapped. With a large f/stop (small aperture), many focus points will show up as everything in the foreground and background will be sharp. With a small f/stop (large aperture), you may only get one or two. And even then, your camera will need to determine something of contrast before it locks a focal point. 

For example, the camera auto focused on Isla’s eyes, nose and lips. Once it locked, I clicked and got this shot featuring blur on both arms and down onto her romper. 

1/320 at f/2.8, ISO 800

See? A closer look…

Now, if you hold your finger in the half-press, you can lock the focus and reposition the camera, therefore recomposing the shot. This is key when using a small f/stop to get a large aperture for lots of yummy bokeh blur. 

That’s how I got this while we were just hanging on the couch:
1/320 at f/2.8, ISO 800
When I first half-pressed the shutter, the focus points rested on her toy. I then shifted the entire camera to point directly at Isla, half-pressed so her eye and ear were highlighted, kept my finger half-pressed on the locked focus and turned back to frame the shot this way. 
A closer look…

Even if bokeh is beyond old news to you and all “Camera 101” that has you rolling your eyes in the back row, take this week to play around with aperture either in manual or aperture priority. Once you know inside and out your sweet spots of blur, taking pictures on the fly without scratching your head over f/stops is in your future. Totally. A little birdie even told me so.

25 May 5 Permalink

Aperture priority. In a word: HANDY.

Ahhh. Aperture. Friend. Occasional frenemy. It’s the backwards, confusing mechanism of technical photography that usually has people reverting back to auto. It works like your eyes in terms of letting light into the camera: when it’s dark, your pupils are wide open and when it’s bright and sunny, they’re snapped tight.

Some notes on aperture:

• bigger f/stop (number) = the more your aperture is closed
• smaller f/stop (number) = the more your aperture is open

Aperture has a very intimate relationship with depth of field (DOF) which gives those dreamy, blurry shots with lots of bokeh or makes sure everything is in focus. 

Some notes on depth of field:

• what the heck is ‘bokeh’? it’s the (deliberate) blur in a photograph
• keep everything sharp/in focus = small aperture / large f/number
• make things blurry/bokeh = large aperture / small f/number

The easiest way to control exposure but take control of aperture is to put your DSLR into aperture priority mode (Av for Canon and A for Nikon). You set the aperture based on your lens and the camera will do the math on the rest. Good deal. 

For landscapes, group shots or times when you want everything in focus, etc. I tend to start at f/11 and adjust from there. Here, everything is in focus from the baby to the table to her highchair. 

1/250 at f/11, ISO 400

For up close shots or to get more creative, I drop to the lowest f/number available (f/1.8 on my 50mm, for example) and adjust from there. Here, you’ll see the foreground and background are blurred with only the elephant sharp. 

1/125 at f/1.8, ISO 800

For lil’ faces, I stick to a sweet spot around f/5.6 or close enough to give their face and full body focus but add some bokeh to the background. Here, you’ll see her main facial features are sharp but it starts to blur out as it hits the ears and bedspread. 

1/125 at f/5.6, ISO 100

Keep in mind that bokeh — however much or little of it — is a personal choice and artistically subjective. Have fun with it and experiment! Take a picture of a toy propped up on a table using a few different f/stops and compare the results for yourself!

25 May 4 Permalink