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Aug 20 |
Reply |
ALL: thanks for the compliments!!
Jim: I think I need to ramble on a bit to answer your questions so please bear with me. Also, much of what I say is based on my personal preferences and I'm not trying to say that it's the only way to get a good shot because it's not. There's always multiple ways of accomplishing the same goal in photography.
For this photo I used a full frame sensor camera with a fixed 28mm prime lens. My MO for street photo is to be prepared to take the shot spontaneously by setting my (1) aperture at f/2.8 to limit the DOF (more on this below) and adjust on the fly as I deem necessary; shutter to at least 1/250 to freeze motion and adjust on the fly as I deem necessary; and ISO to auto with +1 EV compensation. I do that because aperture and shutter speed define how a photo will look (DOF and motion freeze or blur) and in my mind ISO is the rubber band to adjust the exposure as needed. I'm not overly concerned with noise because today's sensors handle higher ISO's really well and any resulting noise can be handled in post. I do limit the camera to an ISO of 6400. Because this subject is very still, I could have slowed the shutter speed 1 or 2 stops which would have reduced the auto ISO and that's something I should pay more attention to in the future.
On a bright day I add a ND filter to give me the flexibility to slow the shutter speed for motion blur if I want. I've found the 3-stop filter to be a little too strong so I've started using a 2-stop filter now. Once the filter is screwed on, it would take several seconds to screw it off before taking a shot, which is time one doesn't usually have in street photography so I won't play with it if I don't have to.
DOF with a 28mm lens is relatively wide compared to longer lenses. For this photo the subject was somewhere around 15 feet from me. With my lens at f/3.5 DOF is about 28ft wide from about 9 ft to 37 ft. from the camera. Compare that to a 50mm lens which would have a DOF of only about 6 ft from about 13-19 ft from the camera. (I use an app called Photographer's Friend for these calcs).
I mentioned above that my MO is set the aperture to f/2.8 and adjust if needed. I typically find myself 6-8 ft from my main subject and at 2.8 I get relatively narrow DOF of say 2-4 ft. That's my preference. Many other Street photogs I've heard talk say they prefer a wide DOF to make sure the subject is in focus. Yes, I sometimes miss focus with my method but it's my preference.
Another thing about this photo is that the subject is in shade and everything around her is very bright. In this case I exposed for the subject in the shade which also forced the auto ISO up. The surrounding bright areas were too bright. In post I had to recover some of the shadows to bring out details in the subject and recover some highlights to balance the exposure.
This would be an interesting conversation to continue. I'd like to know how everyone uses the camera settings on the street.
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Aug 23rd |
