Lens based Image Making

1. Sport photography

Using fast shutter speed and a tripod will bring you good results while filming sports/action.

2. Still Life

The key to good still life photo is a decent composition.

3. Landscape

It is important to follow basic composition rules, like golden ratio or rule of thirds when shooting landscapes.

4. Reportage Journalistic - documentary

For journalistic photography you should be able to spot and shoot things fast without disturbing anyone arround.

5. Macro

MAcrolenses are good for shooting subjects close to the camera and staying in focus.

6. Portaiture/figurative



7. Advertising/commercial – fashion

Good lighting and good retouching skills will be helpful when making commercial photos.

8. Fine art



Task 2 Write about different types of lenses



Kit Lenses – These days the lens that is offered as a package with the DSLR is generally called the ‘kit



lens’. It is generally an entry level quality zoom lens. They are usually a fairly general purpose lens



designed for everyday shooting. My personal preference is always to buy the DSLR as a body only



and to upgrade the lens from the kit lens as they are generally at a lower to medium end of the



spectrum of lenses.



Prime Lenses – A prime lens is a lens that has one focal length only. They are becoming



less popular in an age where photographers like to have the convenience of a range of focal



lengths at their finger tips (see zoom lenses) but they are definitely worth considering. Zoom



lenses are increasing in the quality that they offer but prime lenses are known (especially at



the top end) for their image quality and speed (faster aperture).



While many like the convenience of zoom lenses I actually enjoy the challenge of prime



lenses and find that they make me think about my photography a little more than when I have



a zoom attached (I get a little lazy).



Telephoto Zoom Lenses – Zoom lenses are the most popular



DSLR lenses at present and come in a range of configurations and



levels of quality. Obviously the benefit of zooms are that you do



not need to physically get closer to your subject to get a tighter



framing of the image. These lenses can have quite narrow ranges or



quite long ones.



Keep in mind that if you buy one with a long focal length (for



examples you can get them in lengths ranging up to 300mm or



longer) that the longer your focal length the more impact that



camera shake has on your images. More and more lenses these days are being released with



Image Stabilisation (IS) to combat camera shake.



Macro Lenses – these lenses are specifically designed for shooting objects up close. Many



lenses and cameras come with a ‘macro’ setting but true macro lenses will produce images



that are life size and that enable you to get in incredibly close from the subject you’re



shooting.



Wide Angle Lenses – As their name suggests, these lenses enable their users to take shots



with a very wide perspective. They are useful for landscapes and for getting in nice and close



to subjects still fitting a lot of them in.



Wide angle lenses come both as prime lenses but also are being found at the lower end of



telephoto zoom lenses increasingly. Be aware that very wide lenses will sometimes distort



your image a little (or a lot), especially at the edges of your photos where they can be quite



curved. This can be used to great effect but can also be quite frustrating at times.



At the extreme end of the ‘wide angle’ range are ‘fisheye lenses’ which purposely distort



your image in a curved way to get more into the shot. Again this is a style of photography



that many love but is an art to get right.

Beate

Location photography

I had to be inspired by Beate Gutschow, who takes geometric humanless urban photography.

I tried the best I could, but still did them in my own way.
She uses wide angle lenses and surreal object in the composition, while I was using 50mm lens and more pattern based content.

Akos Major photography

Akos Major is a hungarian photographer, who uses minimalictic approach to his works. In majority of his photos he shoots industrial and nature landscapes. He also likes to use a lot of white space, which makes his photographies to seem very light and easy.

Reflection

Theese are photos, where I was exploring reflection on different surfaces.

Because of asphalt surface, the further from it the object is, the more diffused reflection is. So if you look closely, you wont notice anything, but if you look at it from a distance you can notice some figure there.

Although the surface is nearly smooth, it still is little bit curved, which causes reflections to distort.

The snow on glossy surface gives us interesting pattern.

I choosed all photos to be black and white, to focus more attention on the reflection.

Chelsea Photography

My plan for Chelsea photo shoot was to take picture of every shop in King's road,

Which I did. Almost.

My equipment was just Nikon camera with 18-55mm lens.

I had to adjust camera settings and focal lenght for each shop individually, as they all were differently lit, and made of different materials and colors. Later I combined all the photos in one sheet, which looks like this:



EVALUATION:

The main weakness of the photos is, that due to short amount of time we were alowed to spend, and a huge amount of shops located on King's road I had to take photos in great rush, and due to very different lighting conditions and shops paint I had to quickly adjust shutter speed, as I dont trust automatic settings. Because of reasons. This caused many photos to be overexposed or underexposed.
Also I had to wait, untill all bypassers bypassed so I could have picture of a shop, not them. It took time, and sometimes I had to react really quickly, so this also leaded to some defects.

HEALTH AND SAFETY:
Basicly, the road was crowdy, so I had to be aware not to run into someone, or fall.
Sometimes I had to take photos from  the road, to get better angle. This is quite dangerous, because I might get hit by a car or bus. So I had to ask someone to warn me, when the car drives, so I could escape.

Contact sheet of all pictures I took during the trip:

 

This photo was taken away from Chelsea during same trip.
I was inspired by Akos Major photography, and how he manages to get very easy and light photos of urban landscapes.

It was very sunny, so I chosed exposure around 1/1000, which, was enough to get sky not overexposed, but made shadows a bit too dark.

Beautifuly unhinged

Theese are photography based Beautifuly Unhinged book covers.







This is collage done using many and many photos and a big photo with a shiluette.

Foreground+background

Photo was taken from a footbridge over railway using mobile camera with automatic settings.
I put the bottle in the foreground to create illusion that background train and station are really just small toys.

Self portrait

This photo was taken using cheap Olympus camera with all automatic settings and a tripod. We were using 500w light facing white ceiling where it reflected back us diffused. I had to push button with my left hand as there was no timer. Later I desaturated photo in Photoshop and did some retouch magic.

Experimental photography

Photo was taken while preparing for the countryside photoshoot. I was testing the camera lens and camera settings. They were f1.8, 1/2000, ISO 200.

Experimental photography

Here I tried to capture moment where sky is getting brighter but there is still no sun. Photo was taken in the middle of the field near the abandoned railway. I used to shoot nearly from the ground to better express the mood and show the railway, because I loke them.



This photo was taken on a random walk using Canon 550D and old Zenit 50mm lens. The keylight was the streetlight from the front and for the backlight I had to wait for the car to pass by and be lucky enough to press button on right moment. This was really hard, as after midnight there weren't many cars on the street.

The photo doesn't have perfect focus and composition as it was done in very dark enviroment and in great rush.

Camera height, angle, cropping

This photo was taken without looking at the viewfinder, as the camera was so low to the ground, and it was impossible to look at it at that angle. And surprisingly it didn't looked bad. I  used 18mm lens, f5.6, iso 400.


This photo shows, how I can use crop to provide decent results. I also tried to keep all the lines straight.



Low camera hight, wide angle. I was pretending to be taking photo of the cars nehind, while I was actually was waiting for bypassers. Unfortunately, the lady heard be pushing the button and faced the camera.




While capturing the photo I tried to make it as minimalistic as possible, and symmetrical as well.


This photo was taken from above my head without looking at the camera. It seems nice to me because of all randomness that happens in it.


Camera is facing the bell at 90° angle. I also tried to follow rule of third.

Photographic experiments

To achieve this effect, I had to shake my phone really fast, and due to rolling shutter I got this wavy effect.




I took a picture of me with a beard using fixed camera and light, then shaved, and took another picture. After that I combined both in photoshop.





Here I took many pictures of the beach during the snowstorm, and in Photoshop combined them into the big panorama.



Also a panoramic picture of a shore, but during calm weaher.



Photo taken in London. I found it interesting, how the big and the small car were looking together.




Working lightbulb shot on a 1/4000 exposure.




Photo manipulation. I used photo taken from my mobile phone on a background, and painted a raven in the foreground.








Some more photo manipulations with animals added. I had to perfectly transfer the lighting and color from the photos to the added piece, to make them match together.