Tag Archives: aperture

Prime Vs. Zoom Lenses

Prime lenses are lenses with a fixed focal length, which means that you can’t zoom them at all, which may sound odd, but they do have distinct advantages. Zoom lenses have their obvious advantage, as they allow you to change how the photo is cropped, but this comes at a price; quality and aperture. The post should clear up any misconceptions you have about either, and help you to find the right lens for you. So which is best; prime vs. zoom.

Prime Lenses

As I stated above, prime lenses simply mean that you can’t change the focal length, which is both a good and a bad thing. It’s bad because it means that you may not be able to get the photo framed exactly how you want it, but it’s good at the same time because it forces you to experiment more, and think of a different way around taking a photo, which you may have missed before. There are two distinct reasons that people buy prime lenses though, and that’s the quality and the aperture.

Quality

The quality of a prime lens is often vastly superior to that of a zoom, as they don’t have as many moving parts as zooms, so the glass inside of a prime lens is very precise, which results in much sharper images. This used to be a much bigger difference when zoom lenses were first around, because the technology wasn’t as good, but now you can get zoom lenses that are just as good as some primes, it they comes at a price.

I paid £1000 for my 24-70mm f/2.8, and £1040 for my 35mm f/1.4, and the quality of the zoom lens is very good, but it’s not quite up to scratch with the f/1.4. Even when you’re investing a lot of money in a zoom lens, you’re still making a compromise. You can see how sharp the image is below, it’s hard to believe that this was shot at f/1.4; the widest aperture I have.

Aperture

Prime lenses have a lot less moving parts, so they’re not constricted by the zooming action, and can focus on the job in hand, which is the aperture. This allows them to open up to much wider apertures than zoom lenses, in fact, the prime lens that I mentioned above, allows almost four times as much light into the lens, than the zoom, even though f/2.8 is very good for a zoom lens.

The main advantage of having a wide aperture is that you can take photos in low light, because the wider aperture allows more light into the lens. This makes it ideal for shooting indoors, perhaps in a bar or club, or in a dimly lit room, where you don’t want to push your ISO. Along with aperture, we also have the advantage of being able to produce a shallow depth of field, which can have a whole range of creative uses. Again, the photo below was shot at f/1.4.

Price

Another big advantage of prime lenses is that they can be picked up very cheaply, although they tend to get expensive very easily, as you probably saw above. A 50mm f/1.8 ranges from around $110-$220, and for that price, you’ll see a dramatic increase in quality over your kit lens, as well as the ability to play around with depth of field.

Zoom Lenses

Zoom lenses are a lot more complicated, and the prices range a lot more, depending on what they do. It’s a common misconception for a beginner to think that a 18-250mm lens should cost more than a 24-70mm, because it zooms further, but that’s not true, because it does it at a price. When it comes to zoom lenses, you really do get what you pay for, and it would be hard to compare the two lenses that I just mentioned, because they’re built for very different purposes.

An 18-250mm is built with a hobbyist in mind, who doesn’t want to carry around multiple lenses, perhaps for someone who travels a lot. A 24-70mm is for a much more serious shooter because they understand the compromises that are made when building a lens with a much longer zoom range, but at the same time, need to be able to freely change the way they’re framing a photo, which you can’t do with a prime lens. A 18-250mm is built for someone who only wants one lens, whereas a 24-70mm is built as a kit lens for professionals.

Quality

The overall quality of a zoom lens is catching up with that of a prime lens, but I reckon it’s still got quite far to go. I still notice that my zoom isn’t as sharp as my prime lens, but I knew that when I bought it, and I’m still very happy with the results that I’m getting. You could call it a happy compromise. One thing I have noticed from using both types of lenses is that the photos appear to be a lot softer when the aperture is all the way open, and the photos look better a stop or two narrower. This was definitely more noticeable with a zoom lens, but that’s just part of the compromise.

Aperture

Because the aperture is f/2.8 throughout the zoom range, I always know what I’m working with, which is not often the case with cheaper lenses. A cheaper zoom, such as a Canon 18-55mm kit lens, will have an aperture of f/3.5 when it’s zoomed all the way out at 18mm, but it will slowly narrow the aperture to 5.6, which is less than half the amount of light. To reach f/2.8 throughout the whole range is a really good achievement, and is not very common with crop sensor lenses.

Price

The price of a good zoom lens can get pretty expensive, but they do reach a limit, because a good zoom lens can only do so much, before the lens maker has to stop making compromises and start making a new lens, for a different focal range. When you start buying lenses, it’s often cheaper, and a more sensible option to buy a zoom lens, because ultimately, you can do more with it.

Conclusion

There will always be prime lenses, and zoom lenses in my camera bag, because they have very different uses. I will use a prime when I know what I’m shooting, and the focal length that I’m working with, or if I’m shooting in low light and want to allow more light into the lens, but I probably still use a zoom lens more often. It’s not a better lens, but it allows me to do more with it, and even though it’s heavier, it’s worth the extra weight.

I would encourage everyone to use a prime lens, because not only did I find that my photos were coming out a lot better, but it actually taught me a lot about aperture and depth of field.

A Beginner’s Guide To Photography

I’ve been writing on this site for a while now, and I’ve put together a lot of good content, but the trouble is that a lot of it can be hard to find, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. This post will walk you though everything that a beginner in photography should learn, and in the order that they’re supposed to learn it. Welcome to my 100th post.

You should know that there is now a video version of this post, and it can be viewed here.

Exposure

The most basic and essential part of photography is exposure. Learning how exposure works will help you to take control of your camera, and take better photos. As you start to learn what shutter speed, aperture and ISO does, you’ll learn about the other effects that each have on your photos, which can produce creative results. If you only have time to learn one aspect of photography, then this is it, as you’ll start to move away from full auto or program modes, and learn how to use your camera properly.

Aperture

If we cover exposure in the order that the light enters the camera, then the aperture always comes first. The linked article will explain aperture in much more detail, but to put it into layman’s terms, the aperture is very simliar to the pupil of your eye – the wider it is, the more light it will let in. There are side effects to using certain apertures, namely depth of field, but we’ll get to that in a post further down the page. I found exposure much more complicated before I learnt the aperture scale, so try to make sure that you memorise it, and understand the f-stop scale, so that you can use the knowledge to take better photos in the future.

The scale is as follows: f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22.

Here is the full tutorial on Aperture.

Shutter Speed

After aperture, comes shutter speed. It will effectively take the amount of light that the lens has let though, and then only use a fraction of a second’s worth (usually), depending on the lighting situation. Different speeds can have different uses. You would want to use a longer speed of around 30 seconds for night photography on a tripod, but you may want a speed of around 1/1000 of a second if you’re shooting a fast moving subject. It all depends on what you’re shooting and how much light you have available. Shutter speed was the first thing I learnt when I got my SLR because I wanted to be able to freeze motion and remove any potential blur. Looking back though, I wish I’d learnt aperture first.

Here is the full tutorial on Shutter Speed.

ISO

Once you’ve decided how much light you’re going to let through to the sensor, it’s then time to decide how much more you need. This may sound confusing, because surely you let in as much light as you need in the first place, right? Wrong. The problem is that you have to be able to change your aperture and shutter speed to suit your shooting situation if you want to get good, and unblurred results, but unfortunately this doesn’t always provide you with enough light. This is when you can then decide to increase your ISO to make the camera more sensitive to the light. Watch out though, because the higher the ISO, the more grain the camera will produce. More about that in the full post though.

Here is the full tutorial on ISO.

Understanding Your Camera

Metering Modes

Rather awkwardly for beginners, exposure isn’t as simple as learning about aperture, shutter speed and ISO, you also have to learn about how your camera looks at light. There are different metering modes, that can be used for different lighting situations, which will better instruct your camera how your want it to expose. This is especially important if you’re not shooting on manual because you leave part of the exposure up to the camera. By using various metering modes such as ‘spot metering’ you can completely change the amount of light going into the camera. Understanding this may just be the key to understanding why your photos are coming out underexposed.

Here is the full tutorial on Metering Modes.

Depth of Field

When you’re shooting in low light, you invariably have to widen your aperture to allow enough light into the lens, but this has one rather major side effect – shallow depth of field. This can be used very creatively, often to excess, but it’s not all good. There are many situations, such as group photos, where you’ll want to have a narrower aperture so that you can get everyone in focus. This tutorial will walk you though everything you need to know about choosing the right aperture for the right situation.

Here is the full tutorial on Depth of Field.

White Balance

White balance is something I wish I’d learnt more about much sooner than I did, because I look back on some photos now and wonder what I was thinking. The white balance changes the colour cast of the entire photo, and is responsible for the warmth of a photo. It is effectively shifting the colour from blue to orange, from cold to warm, and it does so depending on which balance you choose. Auto white balance doesn’t tend to do a particularly good job, particularly with tungsten light, so the sooner you learn how to control it yourself, the more accurate your photos will look.

Here is the full tutorial on White Balance.

Focal Length

This was actually the first tutorial that I wrote, because at the time, it wasn’t something I understood too well. Have you ever wondered what the millimeter on your lens actually means? Or why people use longer focal lengths for portraits? It’s all discussed in this tutorial, as the focal length affects more than just the zoom, it changes the perspective too. I also cover which focal length you would use in certain situations, as well as their possible side effects. It’s really a worthwhile read and one of my favourite tutorials to date.

Here is the full tutorial on Focal Length.

Crop Factor

A lot of you may not realise it, but unless you spend about $3000 on your camera, then you’re more than likely going to be shooting on a crop sensor. That basically means that your sensor is smaller than professional SLR cameras, and that basically crops the image. This has a range of effects on your photos, as it’ll crop the image to a narrower viewing angle, and will influence your choice of lens purchases in the future. This tutorial is a must for any beginner photographer who wants to understand their camera more.

Here is the full tutorial on the Crop Factor.

The Nifty Fifty

What can I say about the nifty fifty? What’s not to love? For those of you that don’t know, when I talk about the nifty fifty, I’m talking about the 50mm f/1.8 prime lens that can be picked up very cheap for most digital SLRs. It’s a great introduction to buying better quality lenses, and an excellent way of getting to grips with aperture. The article linked is a review and a guide, and I wrote it because I recommend this lens as the first upgrade that every beginner photographer should make. It’s easy to use, and for the price, will yield some excellent results.

Here is the full tutorial on the 50mm f/1.8.

Composition

It’s important to understand exposure, but if you can’t get to grips with basic composition, then you’ll struggle to take really good photos. I’m not saying that good photos always include compositional rules, because that’s often far from true, but it helps to learn these rules so that you can forget them in the future. That may sound stupid, but these rules are really only guides, and the more you know about them, the better your understanding will be of how a photo works.

Rule of Thirds

This is probably the first compositional rule that any photographer comes across, and that’s for a very good reason – it’s simple and it works. The basic premise is that you divide your camera’s frame up into thirds and plant key objects in these lines, and the composition will work better. This often works really well and if you’ve not learnt much about photography yet – it’s a great way of dramatically improving your photos and making them more interesting. The idea is that the viewer gets to see more than just the subject and is free to, and encouraged, to explore the photo themselves.

Here is the full tutorial on the Rule of Thirds.

Visual Weight

Visual weigh is different to size or weight as we know it, and it’s largely down to different elements, such as human eyes and writing. When you can understand visual weight a lot more, you’ll start to understand how people look at photos, and how you can position certain elements in a frame to direct the viewers attention. It’s no so much a tool, or a rule, as it is an understanding.
Here is the full tutorial on Visual Weight.

Balance

Balance in a photo has a big affect on how we feel when we look at the photo, as an unbalanced photo can make us feel uneasy, where as a balanced photo, will make us feel more relaxed. It really doesn’t matter whether you choose to make the photo balanced or unbalanced, but you should understand why you’ve chosen one or the other, and have reasons to justify this choice. Again, it’s one of those situations where the more you know, the easier it will be to produce the desired effect.

Here is the full tutorial on Balance.

This was my 100th tutorial today, so I hope you’ve gotten something out of it, I know I’ve gotten a lot out of writing them. If you have any questions, please come over to Facebook and I’ll be happy to help. Thanks, Josh.

The 50mm f/1.8 Lens Review & Guide

Important Introduction

When it comes down to quality for price, bang for buck, a 50mm 1.8 is one of the best lenses on the market, and an upgrade that I recommend to every new SLR user. For a very small investment of $105 for the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 or slightly more for Nikon, you can have one of the best upgrades that you can make to your camera.

The Right lens for your Camera

If you’re a Canon user, you have only one real choice, and that’s the Canon 50mm f/1.8 which I linked to above, but if you’re a Nikon user, it’s a little bit more complicated. You actually have 3 choices, depending on which camera you have. If you’re not using a Nikon D40, D40X, D60, D3000, D3100, D5000, and D5100, then your camera body will have an autofocus motor and you can buy the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF for $125.

If you have one of the cameras mentioned, then your camera body doesn’t have an autofocus motor built in, which means that you have to buy a lens that does – marked with an ‘AF-S’. Unfortunately for you, this is more expensive at $219 – Nikon 50mm f/1.8G AF-S. Now, regardless of whether you have an autofocus motor or not, you can both buy the 35mm f/1.8 for $199, which will provide a better viewing angle on a crop sensor, for which you’ll likely be shooting on – Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S.

General Review

There are advantage of buying more expensive lenses, such as the Nikon ones listed above, as they have a better build quality. I used to regularly use my 50mm before I upgraded, and all that use does take its toll on the plastic build (glass inside) and toy-like features. The lenses are very light, small and are ideal if you’re looking to upgrade from your kit lens, but don’t want to carry around a load of extra weight. It’s true that you get what you pay for, but for a couple hundred bucks, you can produce some astounding results from these lenses. When you use a prime lens, which doesn’t zoom, the optics are usually much better quality as they’re not making as many compromises and the price comes down at the same time, so that’s why I endorse them so much.

Having used both the Canon and the Nikon, I can tell you that the focus does tend to suck on the lenses, as they’re slow and inconsistant. The small focus ring on each lens doesn’t do much to help with manual focus either, and the focus can tend to be quite loud, so watch out for that if you shoot video regularly. That being said, I’m looking back on these lenses now, after using much more expensive lenses, so my judgement has changed somewhat; you may not notice the difference so much if you’re using cheaper lenses to begin with.

Because of the crop factor on these lenses, the Canon feels more like a 80mm lens, the Nikon 50mm, is more like a 75mm lens, and the Nikon 35 looks like a 52.50mm lens. If you do choose a 50mm lens and you’re shooting on a crop sensor, then expect it to be quite far zoomed, although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They make ideal cheap portrait lenses in terms of focal length, but expect to have to walk backwards if someone asks for a group shot.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you should know all there is to know about how perspective changes at different focal lengths, but as I mentioned in my post on the crop factor, putting your full frame lens on a crop sensor body will not change the perspective – only crop it. This is a good thing because the way we see through our own eyes is generally considered to be similar to about 45mm, so by using a 50mm you’re quite accurately representing our natural view, and not compressing the perspective too much.

There are obvious downsides to cheaper lenses, but don’t be put off, because when you put a 50mm f/1.8 on your camera, you’re not going to want to take it off – I know I didn’t. It’s a tool for every photographers arsenal, and I personally don’t know anyone who has regretted the purchase. Enough of all this talk about why it’s so great, let me show you.

The Lens Guide

The very first thing you’ll notice about your new lens, is the ability to shoot in much lower light, without having to use the flash. This is because of the wider aperture, which allows more light in. If you don’t know your aperture scale, then I suggest you learn it, but for now, let me tell you that if your lens went as wide as f/3.5 before, it now lets in four times as much light, at f.1.8. When I say wide, I’m talking about the size of the hole in the lens that the light passes through. The photo below, was taken indoors in a dark room at f/1.8 for 1.200 of a second at ISO 100.

The next thing you’ll notice is that the depth of field (DoF), can go remarkably shallow, and that’s because of the way the light passes through the lens at a wider aperture. The wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. This can be used for great creative effect, and it works really well, but a common problem with a lot of people who get a 1.8, is that they think it looks so good, it’s all they ever use, so use it sparingly or it’ll lose its appeal. Notice from the photo below that the glasses on the face are in focus, but the end of the hat, and chin, are out of focus. This was also shot at f/1.8.

From the photo above, you may notice the circular shapes of colour in the background, and this is what’s referred to as Bokeh. Simply put, it’s the aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photograph. It relates to how nice the background blur looks when out-of-focus. When you’re shooting at wider apertures, the effect of the bokeh is accentuated, so it will look at lot more prominant than anything you would have seen with your kit lens. Because this is a cheap lens, made to a price, it’s not the highest quality (which you may see from the photo above), but when you use it properly, with distant light, you can produce some really nice effect. Again, the photo below was shot at f/1.8.

Selective focus with a f/1.8 is something that you may not have done too much of in the past. Because the depth of field can be made to look so shallow, it’s even more effective with this lens, and you can focus the viewers attention onto a certain part of the photo, while making them want to explore the rest at the same time. It’s a powerful technique, but like everything, remember not to overdo it.

When you’re shooting wide open, you’re going to produce some very soft photos, so if you want them to be sharper, you need to narrow your aperture a fair bit. I find around f/8 to be the sharpest point on my Canon 50mm f/1.8. The photo below was shot at f/7.1, and manages to keep the whole of the subject in focus, while making sure plenty of detail remained in the background, so that you could make out the burnt down pier. Experiment with wide apertures at first, but you may find that narrower ones suit your style a lot better.

As I mentioned earlier, the crop factor does make this lens appear more zoomed than you may want it to be, but that can’t really be helped, unless you opt for the 35mm – it’s really a matter of personal preference and budget. It’s all about working with the gear that you’ve got at your disposal. When I took the photo below, I had no tripod on me, and just my 50mm lens. Because I knew what effect this would have on my photos, I chose to find a position that would work for me, rather than to simple give up, as I would have typically shot this photo with a wider angle. I found a position on a dock further away, and shot this photo at f/4.5 for 8 seconds and I was very happy with how it came out.

I’ve spoken a lot about f/1.8, but the lens aperture will go as narrow as f/22, which is fairly common. This will give you a much deeper DoF so that you can have your background and foreground in focus. The photo below was shot at f/22 for 4 seconds, and as you can see, the deep foreground is in good focus, and you can still work out all the minor details in the background on the pier. It’s important to remember that the lens does have more uses than just low light photography or shallow depth of field.

Finally, as you start to collect more gear, you can use that to make your photos look even better. A 50mm lens is great, but when you use it in conjunction with an external flash unit (and off camera transmitter for the photo below), you’ll get even better results. Like I said before, it’s about working with what you’ve got, and when you’ve got a little bit more, it can become a lot easier (when you know what you’re doing) to get better shots.

Excellent Free Alternatives To Photo Software

The biggest software usually has the biggest price tags and for amateur photographers, they’re just not an option. But this doesn’t mean that you have to go without, because there’s plenty of free alternatives out there that come very close to matching the real deal. Here’s a list of alternatives to the most popular photo software on the market.

Paid: Photoshop

Even if you’re not a photographer, you’ve heard of Photoshop, it’s become more than just a brand now, it’s become and verb and an adjective. If I’m editing a photo in Aperture, I refer to it as photoshopping usually, because for people what don’t know the software, they will understand what I’m doing. The main problem is that Adobe Photoshop CS5(link takes you to Windows version only) retails at $600, and that’s a lot of money for a beginner to be handing over, especially as it takes years to master.

Free: GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program

The Gimp is the open source image manipulation program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Paid: Aperture & Lightroom

These are the two most commonly used pieces of software used by photographers, to make post production corrections and manage files effectively. They do more then just edit a file though, they allow you to add a whole range of file management options, including key-wording, ranking and backing up. Aperture 3 is only available for Mac and it’s made by apple, costing around $225, although it can be bought through the App Store for only $79.99. Lightroom 3 is like a stripped down version of Photoshop, and the equivalent to Aperture, doing much the same. Deciding between the two is both dependant on your operating system and about as relevant as the Canon versus Nikon argument.

Free: Picasa & Phocus

This has been the hardest category to find a free alternative for because there’s not really a lot out there. The best two options are Picasa, which is made by the lovely people at Google, and Phocus, which rather ironically, is made by Hasselblad. I say ironically, because they offer a free alternative to a fairly cheap piece of software, but their cameras can cost over $40,000. Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great, and has all the modern bells and whistles, such as being able to easily share the photos and process RAW files. If you’ve ever used iPhoto, then you’ll be familiar with this type of program; it allows you to edit the photos and as well as order prints, add tags and locations etc. Overall, a very good program for free.

Phocus is on the list, because “Phocus software provides all the power, performance and advanced tools that discerning professionals desire in an easy-to-use and attractive working environment, making even the largest files simple to handle.” And it’s true, it really is a great piece of kit… unless you only ever shoot in RAW. The main problem with this software is that it will only process Hasselblad’s version of a RAW file, meaning that you’re left to use other software if you shoot in RAW. I personally shoot in RAW, but I don’t think it’s right for everyone, so if you have no interest in it, then Phocus is probably the software for you. Both Phocus and Picasa are available on Mac and PC, so no problems there.

Paid: Adobe Illustrator

“Adobe Illustrator CS5 software helps you create distinctive vector artwork for any project. Take advantage of the precision and power of sophisticated drawing tools, expressive natural brushes, and a host of time-savers.” Illustrator CS was the first version to include 3-dimensional capabilities allowing users to extrude or revolve shapes to create simple 3D objects. It’s a really powerful too for graphic designers, but as you can probably tell, It’s not cheap, costing over $500.

Free: Inkscape

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. It supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. And the best thing about it all… it’s free.