Week 7: Video 101

Photography> Video> Composition

Professional Video Composition

With this post I'm exceeding the scope of the usual photography blog. This is for two reasons: 

• I'll need to create both photo and video assets in any instructional design position. I'm anxious to become familiar with professional standards and current practices
• My experience in this area has been limited. Practicing the skills I've recorded in this blog will increase my ability to serve as an instructional designer. 

According to my favorite sources, the basics of professional video start with three-point lighting

Three-point Lighting for Video

The three lights include 

• key light: The strongest light on the subject, or the primary light. The key and the fill light are usually the same power lights, but the key is closer to the subject. The key should be set at a 45 degree angle from the camera. This allows the light to wrap around the face to create depth as opposed to a "flat" look when the light is directly in front of the subject.
• fill light: Fills in any shadows left by the key
• rim light: This creates a rim of light on the subject's head and shoulders to distinguish them from the background, and provide visual depth to the shot. Be careful not to aim the light directly into the camera.

Check out my video lighting learning activity.

Week 6: More Lighting Tips

Photography> Art> Light & Shadow

Light is a photographers tool. Professional photographers minimize or maximize lights at certain positions to create their art. Today I'm outlining five textbook lighting strategies for portraits.

1. Rembrandt

The light is at 45 degrees on either side of the subject with the subject turned slightly so that the light behind the nose creates a triangle on the subject's cheek.
















2. Split

  
Light is far to the subject's left or right. The light on the subject is dramatically split down the subject's nose. May add fill lights to this to reduce dramatic contrast.















3. Butterfly
The light (softened with a screen or softbox) is in line with the camera, but above it.  The light creates a shadow just beneath the nose with a slight chin and cheek shadow. May add a white fill directly below the subject's face to light the chin area. This is beauty shot lighting.














4. Broad

The light is placed just to the subject's left or right. Subject faces away from light. The front side of the face is broadly lit with a shadow on the far side.

5. Loop

The light is above but to the subject's left or right. The light creates a small loop of light on the cheek opposite the light. The effect is to highlight one side with a slight shadow on the other. 

Week 5: Concept Map & Portrait Photography

Photography> Photos> Genre> Portrait

Photography Concept map

Photography>

Camera, hardware components> flash, lens, power, maintenance

Camera, software components> mode, file size, shutter speed, ISO, aperture, effects

Video> settings, frame rate, size, audio, output requirements, formats, composition
Photos, still> action, genre (food, sports, portrait, landscape, etc.)

Tools> lights, fills, flags

Art> Framing, Light, shadow, color, tone,  retouching and Photoshop

Portrait Photography

This week I've become interested in learning about light as a photographer's tool. I'm just starting out and don't have any equipment. But apparently there are some pretty neat tricks that can be done with only one light for portrait photography.

Trick 1: Cinematic headshot lighting

Tools: one light, three "modifiers"Trick: 

• "Key" light placed 45 degrees to the right of the subject.
• Flag: Black light blocker placed directly to the right of the subject. This blocks any key light from the background. The reason for doing this is to separate the subject from the background.
• Fill: White hard surface panel placed directly to the left of subject. This reflects the light from the key source onto the subject's left side.
• Flag: one final black flag placed directly over the subject's head to cut down the influence of the room lighting.

Trick 2: Finding a person's "best side"

Think about your subject in terms of how they will be framed. Study their features to get the best look.

The left eye is slightly larger than the right. There are two methods for addressing this, and which one you use depends on what you see in the moment.

1. Compensation: Choose to frame the smaller eye closer to the camera to give the illusion that the eyes are the same size.
2. Perspective: Choose to frame the smaller eye further away from the camera since our brains are used to seeing things further away appear smaller.

Week 4: Using my Camera

Week 4: Using My Camera

This week I learned about Exposure Modes and how to apply ISO, aperture, and shutter speed for a purpose.

Exposure Modes P, S, A, M

There are so many individual settings possible, and some are probably not useful to me. I learned the purpose of the M, A, S, P modes is to allow the photographer to choose a manual option, and allow the camera to activate the most appropriate automated settings. This is meant to simplify getting the best shot. 

P: Programmed. For point and shoot photos

S: Shutter-priority auto:  Use this to freeze or blur motion. I choose the shutter speed, camera selects aperture.

A: Auto Aperture Mode. Use to blur background, or to bring both foreground and background into focus. In this setting, I choose the aperture, the camera chooses the best shutter speed.

M: Manual:  I select both shutter speed, aperture.

These photo examples show the result of changing f-stop and shutter speed at a set ISO. Thinking about this week's readings, metacognition is the difference between taking a picture and photographing. My learning process is all about tasks, strategies, and goals. In order to make the photo with enough light, but not too much I have to think and plan to apply the concepts I'm learning together in the correct proportions. I have to constantly check myself as I read for understanding. 
Additionally, as a beginner, I feel there is so much to learn. I could easily overwhelm myself with the volume and complexity of so many great resources. As a strategy to prevent this, I'm using each week's blog as a way to pace myself, and net expect too much of myself. Image Source 

How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time!

I don't have the experience or perspective to understand when to use each exposure mode. So I checked in with an experienced photographer for more info.

Spyros Heniadas is a fantastic photographer. He answers photography questions through his vlog at selfhelpphotographer.com. He posted this video about how to choose the right aperture, shutter speed and ISO in Manual mode. It was super helpful as I considered how to capture shallow or great depth of field.

Spyros talked about making decisions about which settings to use based on the lighting and your subject. The content is both a production (if-then statement.), and a script. This video is full of sensory information, but I really just want to focus on the decision tree he talked about. Here's a summary of the options he mentioned regarding aperture. This chart will help me review the reasons for each decision until they're incorporated into my own schemata for aperture.

My Camera - Week 3

Nikon D3300 DSLR

Check out this awesome feature tour video.

This week I'm tackling two types of learning for this project. First, I'm taking my new camera with me to kids practices and events. This camera has a great built-in user guide. I'm going through this whenever I have a free moment. I've learned quite a bit about the interface. I've even been able to apply what I learned during week 1 about ISO sensitivity. This aspect mostly procedural knowledge. Second, I found some fantastic professional blogs and online photography journals that address lighting and composition.  I guess you could say I'm taking advantage of "the intellectual wealth in social and cultural spaces and groups," as described by Lev Vygotsky. This aspect is primarily conceptual knowledge.

Here's a summary of this week's learning:

• Reading my camera's user guide
• Setting ISO sensitivity for the lighting and action
• Utilizing manual focus
• Compiled a list of my favorite photography resources including:
• The Slanted Lens
• diyphotography.net
• Practicing taking photos of my son playing soccer to snap the photo at the right moment, not before or after the action. Still learning, but here are a few of the better shots.

Practice with Manual Focus

Photo 1. First shot

Photo 2. Focus in foreground, blurred background.

Photo 3. Practice with focus on foreground

Practice Catching the Action

Cameras & Features - Week 2

Last week I learned the basics of DSLR cameras. This week I'm looking at specific functions I'd like to have in a camera. I'll research and compare a few cameras to see which one best meets my requirements and make a purchase.

What am I looking for in a camera?

• User-friendly

I've had opportunities to use a professional quality Canon and Nikon. While I say "use" that's really not true.  It might be more accurate to say I've 'held' a few nice cameras, and utilized the automatic point and click functions to take photos. Really using a camera is dependent on a solid understanding of the concepts I wrote about last week, as well as the camera's settings, features and processes. Because of this, I'm looking for an entry-level DSLR camera with a user-friendly interface. This includes well-organized menu options that you can access in one or two clicks.

• At least 18MP
• Video capabilities are at least 1080p video, 3fps, external microphone port

I'd eventually like to use this camera to create training videos. The external mic port is a necessity for this. 3 fps is ok, but I'd like to find a camera within my price range that does a little better.

• Affordable

Models That Match My Criteria

While reading camera reviews this week, I took note of three cameras that take great photos (at least 18MP), video, and were recommended for entry-level photographers like me. The Pentax K-S2 for $596, the Nikon D3300 for $439, and the Canon T5 is available for about $385 (Prices differ depending on where you look, so I've shown the Google shopping price).

Let's start with that.

Compiling this chart gave me additional insight into the power of visual charts and tables. They cut right to the facts, enabling us to easily accumulate declarative knowledge, and add detail of our schema of a factual object.
After I read and processed a certain depth of info I felt comfortable choosing which features were most important to me and which I could do without. When I thought about what I knew about each camera, it seemed like I understood each camera's strengths and compromises. At that time, I think I had constructed a schema for "what I want in a camera." (hahaha This is interesting because it's not a real object, it's a concept that I created. Reminds me a bit of Plato's theory of pure forms and their manifestations.)

Here are some other resources that helped me accumulate a sufficient depth of fact and opinion into my schema for each camera.

• Fun and informative YouTube video review
• Side by side iconic comparison winner, runner-up
• Compare D33oo to the Pentax
• Pentax details

Stay tuned to find out which camera I choose.