practicing DOF, how'd i do?

[naptime]

so today, the DSLR arrived in the mail.

and i am FINALLY able to start actually practicing some of my lessons, AND seeing the results.

tonight, i went back to my DOF lesson. which, made sense before, but i wasn't able to try and make sure that i really understood.

i put the camera on tripod, and lined up a few toys. i'm no cgipson, so i didn't have dino's handy. but a car, a truck, and a tube of carmex would do.

lighting in my office is not extremely bright. just 3 40w bulbs on a ceiling fan.

i did a few of these shots with the built in flash, but it was too harsh. i tried some at 1600 iso, but it was too grainy. so i opted for 100 iso, and slow shutter speed, because i for this, i wanted to work on depth of field. and try to better understand focal plane.

i'm pretty sure i got it.

everything was shot on a/v mode. the first three shots, are all iso 100 and f5.6, shutter speed was about 1 second average on each of them.


first i focus on the car only.


focus on car by jaythomson, on Flickr


then i focused on the truck only.


focus on truck by jaythomson, on Flickr

then i focused on the tube in the back only.


focus on tube by jaythomson, on Flickr


finally, i raised the fstop to 22. this lowered shutter speed to 30 seconds.


focus on all by jaythomson, on Flickr


edit: my bad... had the wrong link for the final image.

 

[naptime]

exif data exists for all. i'm not sure why i can't see here on the board with my plug-in. but i can see it all on flickr

 

[Josh66]

i'm pretty sure i got it.

I think you've got it.


Do your film bodies not have a DOF preview button? It can be hard to tell sometimes (and this is not o film vs. digital thing - digital is just as bad) because the viewfinder will get pretty dark, but DOF preview is a very nice feature...

 

[Rephargotohp]

You really worked more on Point of Focus than DOF, It may have been better to focus on Kenseth's car in all of them and then change your aperture from wide open and then increments till you get to f/22

You would have seen more DOF changes

 

[LightSpeed]

Looks ot me like you got a pretty good handle on it there, Naptime ole boy.

 

[o hey tyler]

Hey Jay, glad to see you got your camera out after the batteries were fully charged.

The thing with Flickr is that it won't allow you to right click and access the exif info (or whatever method you use).

What I've been using lately in lieu of Flickr has been Minus - Free Image and File Sharing which keeps all the EXIF intact. As well as gives you 10GB OF STORAGE!!! I'm strongly considering moving everything from flickr, and putting it on Minus.

It also has a nice drag and drop feature where you can drag the files into your browser (multiple at a time) and they'll all upload to the same folder. It's really intuitive and easy to use.

Now, just wait until you get your 50mm f/1.8... There will be LOTS of play with the DoF in your images.

As a test to see how the DoF changes, this works great. But as others have suggested, you should try focusing on one thing, and stopping the lens down to a smaller aperture. This will allow you to get a handle on how much your DoF changes at certain focal lengths.

It will become second nature after a while, but the exercise pays off. I'm really glad you made the jump to digital, and decided to stick around. I'm looking forward to seeing both yours, and Asia's photos with your new gear!

 

[naptime]

i'm pretty sure i got it.

I think you've got it.


Do your film bodies not have a DOF preview button? It can be hard to tell sometimes (and this is not o film vs. digital thing - digital is just as bad) because the viewfinder will get pretty dark, but DOF preview is a very nice feature...

yes, the digital and the film, all have dof preview button.. but honestly, all it appears to do, for me, is make everything dark, like it drops a shadow into the view finder.

so, it doesnt do me much good. perhaps i'm not seeing it properly.

 

[naptime]

You really worked more on Point of Focus than DOF, It may have been better to focus on Kenseth's car in all of them and then change your aperture from wide open and then increments till you get to f/22

You would have seen more DOF changes

then that's what i'm doing next :thumbup:

 

[naptime]

Hey Jay, glad to see you got your camera out after the batteries were fully charged.

The thing with Flickr is that it won't allow you to right click and access the exif info (or whatever method you use).

What I've been using lately in lieu of Flickr has been Minus - Free Image and File Sharing which keeps all the EXIF intact. As well as gives you 10GB OF STORAGE!!! I'm strongly considering moving everything from flickr, and putting it on Minus.

It also has a nice drag and drop feature where you can drag the files into your browser (multiple at a time) and they'll all upload to the same folder. It's really intuitive and easy to use.

Now, just wait until you get your 50mm f/1.8... There will be LOTS of play with the DoF in your images.

As a test to see how the DoF changes, this works great. But as others have suggested, you should try focusing on one thing, and stopping the lens down to a smaller aperture. This will allow you to get a handle on how much your DoF changes at certain focal lengths.

It will become second nature after a while, but the exercise pays off. I'm really glad you made the jump to digital, and decided to stick around. I'm looking forward to seeing both yours, and Asia's photos with your new gear!

i'll check it out. i've been using photobucket for years. only signed up for flickr because most here were using it. but i really don't care much for it at all.

 

[blackrose89]

I think you did well. But... AAAHHHHH!!!! I went through the SAME thing you went through Naptime! I went out with my cash, went to about 6 different places NONE of them have the DSLR I want in stock. I traveled a bit to a particular area I thought was garunteed to have it seeing as they have a ton of electronic and camera stores. I finally tracked down a place that has it and has one on hold for me. The women working promised a free memory card for my troubles!! So heres to hoping, tomorrow should be the day!

But looks like first day for you was awesome!

 

[EIngerson]

Congrats Naptime!! Welcome to the world of instant feedback. Nice work,

 

[DiskoJoe]

Hey Jay, glad to see you got your camera out after the batteries were fully charged.

The thing with Flickr is that it won't allow you to right click and access the exif info (or whatever method you use).

What I've been using lately in lieu of Flickr has been Minus - Free Image and File Sharing which keeps all the EXIF intact. As well as gives you 10GB OF STORAGE!!! I'm strongly considering moving everything from flickr, and putting it on Minus.

It also has a nice drag and drop feature where you can drag the files into your browser (multiple at a time) and they'll all upload to the same folder. It's really intuitive and easy to use.

Now, just wait until you get your 50mm f/1.8... There will be LOTS of play with the DoF in your images.

As a test to see how the DoF changes, this works great. But as others have suggested, you should try focusing on one thing, and stopping the lens down to a smaller aperture. This will allow you to get a handle on how much your DoF changes at certain focal lengths.

It will become second nature after a while, but the exercise pays off. I'm really glad you made the jump to digital, and decided to stick around. I'm looking forward to seeing both yours, and Asia's photos with your new gear!

ON flickr you have to click where it lists his camera below his name and it will pull up the exif data.

You might contemplate purchasing a prime lens too so you can work with dof more. I see here that you only had this at f5.6 so im guessing your had you kit lens on. Get a prime and drop it to f2 and can have some real fun. You can get old m42 prime lens and an adaptor pretty cheap but you could probably get a new canon 50mm f1.8 for not much more.

 

[Joey_Ricard]

Jay, I haven't been following along - you are coming from film going to digital? Just trying to catch up here

 

[naptime]

Hey Jay, glad to see you got your camera out after the batteries were fully charged.

The thing with Flickr is that it won't allow you to right click and access the exif info (or whatever method you use).

What I've been using lately in lieu of Flickr has been Minus - Free Image and File Sharing which keeps all the EXIF intact. As well as gives you 10GB OF STORAGE!!! I'm strongly considering moving everything from flickr, and putting it on Minus.

It also has a nice drag and drop feature where you can drag the files into your browser (multiple at a time) and they'll all upload to the same folder. It's really intuitive and easy to use.

Now, just wait until you get your 50mm f/1.8... There will be LOTS of play with the DoF in your images.

As a test to see how the DoF changes, this works great. But as others have suggested, you should try focusing on one thing, and stopping the lens down to a smaller aperture. This will allow you to get a handle on how much your DoF changes at certain focal lengths.

It will become second nature after a while, but the exercise pays off. I'm really glad you made the jump to digital, and decided to stick around. I'm looking forward to seeing both yours, and Asia's photos with your new gear!

ON flickr you have to click where it lists his camera below his name and it will pull up the exif data.

You might contemplate purchasing a prime lens too so you can work with dof more. I see here that you only had this at f5.6 so im guessing your had you kit lens on. Get a prime and drop it to f2 and can have some real fun. You can get old m42 prime lens and an adaptor pretty cheap but you could probably get a new canon 50mm f1.8 for not much more.

yeah, we ordered a 50mm 1.8 also. it will be here today !!!!

you are correct, these pics were shot with the 18-55 kit lens, as it is our newest.

our other lenses are canon eos as well, but a bit older. 28-80 and a 35-80. we also have a quantaray 70-300. and now an 18-55, along with the 50mm prime.

 

[naptime]

Jay, I haven't been following along - you are coming from film going to digital? Just trying to catch up here

yes, my daughter and i both got started at christmas, with film. we shot a few rolls of color. but primarliy we shot black & white, and processed at home as well.

but it's not like we shot for years in film. we are pure beginners.

2 rolls of color and 4 rolls of black and white. each.


my 450d came in yesterday, and my daughters is due to arrive today.