The Intensity of Light: Higher and Lower Sensitivity

I finally understand what exactly the ISO settings do with my photography. It makes the camera more sensitive to light, there by letting you use a higher shutter speed or smaller aperture for those shots that require them in low light conditions. But it does have it limits, so here are my test shots taken inside at late evening to explain what I found:

 

ISO 200, 1/30 secs, f5.3

ISO 200, 1/15 secs, f5.3

ISO 200, 1/4 secs, f5.3

As you can see with these first shots is that to begin with they are too dark, even on a very slow exposure, and on the last photograph the little bit of movement in the wings is distorted as the exposure is too long to capture the wings perfectly.

 

ISO 320, 1/2 secs, f5.3

ISO 320, 1/10 sec, f5.3

ISO 320, 1/10 secs, f5.6

With a slightly higher ISO I am able to capture the light how it appeared to me, but at a cost of having a completely blurred picture. A shorter exposure time darkens the images but is still unable to capture the images clearly with the birds fast movements.

 

ISO 500, 1/5 secs, f5.3

ISO 500, 1/8 secs, f5

ISO 500, 1/8 secs, f5

At ISO 500 I can capture the right amount of light very well at an exposure setting that freezes the birds movement if the bird itself is still. Unfortunately with any movement the camera is still unable to freeze the bird enough, even though it is now 5x more sensitive to the light.

ISO 800, 1/13 secs, f.5.6

ISO 800, 1/15 secs, f5.6

ISO 800, 1/25 secs, f5.3

800 ISO is almost perfect for capturing my budgies jumping around, and the right amount of light so that the images appear with the same light intensity of real life. The only time it doesn’t capture everything is when the bird moved very quickly, But his little hops around his cage were caught fine.

For one last test I bumped the ISO right up to 1600 just for an extreme comparison:

This time everything was sharp and the lighting was perfect! But the trade of is this:

These two images are portions of my final image and cropped at 100%. As you can see in the beak there are grainy particles and the image is not smooth, and in the second image which is actually the shadows in the black parts of the feathers, there are no clear lines at all and it is very distorted.

So using a higher ISO can be very useful in making the camera more sensitive to light so that you can use the shutter speed and aperture settings that you want to achieve the look you are going for, but it leaves a lot to be said about the quality of the image which becomes grainy and unfocused in areas that might actually hold detail that you need to make the image work. On the flip side though, you may like this effect as it can create the feeling of an old photograph, or the image may be so busy in other areas that you wouldn’t notice the tiny flaws in quality. It will also depend on the size you are going to produce the image at, the larger the image the more noticeable it will be, just like increasing the size to 100%.

The Intensity of Light: Measuring Exposure

Ok, Assignment 4 begins and I can nearly see the light at the end of the tunnel for this course. Ironic as the next chapter is all about light!

To start to understand how light works with my camera and affects my photography this first lesson is how to measure the exposure and how it changes the look of the image. I started by taking some photos and using the different metering modes on my camera and changing the exposure time to determine what the average exposure would be for that photo, i.e; the one that looked the most true to life. Then I chose a few that were deliberately darker or lighter than average:

This one is lighter, or over exposed to amplify the posts by the sea as I wanted them to be the most prominent feature, and I wanted the rest of the photo to appear washed out to give a feel for how the day was on that cold day at the beach.

 

This image was purposefully under exposed so that the whites in the roses would come forward, as they would be much brighter than the shadowy background. This was actually taken in the evening as the sun was going down so it was actually very light outside! It makes the picture feel a little more moody with darker lighting throughout.

Over exposed again but this time to express how light the morning was that this was taken, and also to intensify the light that was falling on my dogs fur, I liked how it was giving him a sort of halo and he looked so peaceful.

 

This last one comes from my cousins wedding. There was actually quite bright fluorescent lights in the barn this was held in, so I under exposed it to give it the evening feel and to soften the image which just looked far too bright and harsh the way it looked in reality.

 

 

So after choosing images that were specifically over and under exposed, I looked at a range of photos that went from over exposed to average and then under exposed so I could see how it would change the impact of that photo, and if the average settings actually turned out to be the best image at all.

Exposure: 1/60 sec

F Stop: f14

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/80 sec

F Stop: f14

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/200 sec

F Stop: f14

Average

 

 

Exposure: 1/320 sec

F Stop: f14

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/500 sec

F Stop: f14

 

 

 

As you can see the middle image is the one I chose as the average exposure as it captured the correct colours in the greens of the trees and the lightness in the clouds. the two images above this are very over exposed making the sky appear almost entirely white as too much light was let into the camera through the longer exposure time. I don’t think either of these images work particularly well because the sky is lost and the trees seem out of place in the vast whiteness. The two images below are under exposed and I feel that either could work in some capacity as they cast more shadows in the clouds and the trees to make the image feel darker and gives the highlights in the clouds more contrast.

Exposure: 1/40 sec

F Stop: f5.6

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/160 sec

F Stop: f5.6

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/250 sec

F Stop: f5.6

Average

 

 

Exposure: 1/400 sec

F Stop: f5.6

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/640 sec

F Stop: f5.6

 

 

 

This second series of photos really shows how you can make the image become much darker by changing the exposure so that it is under exposed. shadows become deeper and  lighter areas or colours really being to stand out. All of these images work in one way or another depending on the effect you want to get across. personally I quite like the over exposed first image, it might be a little too over exposed in places but with a few teaks it could make in interesting image showing off the vivid colours of the child’s toy without so many burnt out white highlights. I also think the under exposed images work well as it makes the scene appear dark as though it was a very dark cloudy day outside, which in fact it wasn’t.

Exposure: 1/200 sec

F Stop: f8

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/320 sec

F Stop: f8

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/500 sec

F Stop: f8

Average

 

 

Exposure: 1/800 sec

F Stop: f8

 

 

 

Exposure: 1/1250 sec

F Stop: f8

 

 

 

Not one of these images could be counted as being wrongly exposed as each one retains the quality of the image through the highlights and shadows, although to go even more under or over exposed with this image I feel would ruin the overall feel for the shot, being too brightly lit and loosing important details in the rose which is the focal point. if it was to become too dark it would spoil the relationship of the hues of blue and red and how they contrast together to project the rose forwards. I actually personally prefer the tones of blue in the 4th image as it seems to match more closely the warmth in the rose and the leaves and it much more pleasing on the eye than the harsh contrast of the tones in the under exposed shots.