Photography

Reasons to Photograph

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:22:00 GMT

Those of you who know me a bit better know that I like photography and that I have no fear in calling myself an amateur photographer. Perhaps I should restrain myself from using the word “photographer” associated with me, but I can’t help it, not because of the quality of my photos (sometimes doubtful, but hey, sometimes I manage to get decent ones, like the ones I’m adding to this article just for showing off purposes :D) but because I would love to actually be a photographer, so I try.

When I’m out and about on a holiday, though, I sometimes get lots of complaints (mostly from my wife :D) because I don’t take photos with people in them a lot, and also that there aren’t a lot of photos of me. I do try sometimes to take photos of the people that are on holiday with me, but when I am in a different place looking at the different things there are, I am a lot more prone to try to capture that place then who was there with me (or, for that matter, myself). Also, I am usually the one behind the camera and that makes it pretty hard (but not impossible) to take photos of myself. So, I guess my reasons to photograph are probably different than that of most people.

I was reading an article on creative photography and it got me thinking about all that and the reasons behind people photographing whatever it is they photograph, and I think I can justify the fact that I don’t take a lot of “family photos” or photos with known people in them if I talk about these reasons. So here I am. :)

Photographs can be taken to document things, to represent something (say, when you’re trying to sell something on eBay), to preserve memories, to flatter or indulge someone’s vanity, to embarrass someone, purely to make money (like photos of a gossip magazine… I doubt someone actually enjoys taking them), to tell a story or to try to prove something to someone (by documenting it through photography… I guess that’s the same as “to document things” :P). But, as Harold Davis said in one of his articles, I’m willing to bet that many of your best photos do none of these things. I know, simply from experience, trial and error, and literally thousands of photos, that most of mine don’t. Thinking about it, that is probably the reason why I almost don’t take posed photos with the people that are travelling with me or family photos and things like that. And when I do, they serve as a trip to memory lane but they are never my best photos. Not even my best photos of people! Those sometimes are posed, sometimes not, but they are taken not as family photos but thinking about subject, objective, and maybe the vanity of the subject.

It is also a lot easier for me to take photos without people in it. As a photographer, to create great images of people that are posing for you, you need to give them good instructions and they need to follow them. I am not good at making people feel comfortable, have the patience, and still follow what I would like them to do, like certain photographers are. Damn, I’ll never be a fashion photographer! :D I try to work on it though, when I have a chance, but what ends up happening when I am travelling is that I want to take the best possible photos and, as always when on a holiday, there is limited time, so I end up sticking to my comfort zone most of the time (that is, _no people_).

I take photographs because I enjoy doing it, for that simple fact alone. I enjoy taking photos, even if I wouldn’t look at them later. Of course I do look at them, and treat them, and select, and use them everywhere I can, but still, what I enjoy the most is to actually take a photo. And I believe my best photos were taken because I saw something beautiful that I would like to share with other people, or something unusual that other people wouldn’t see, or perhaps to call attention to a detail that would otherwise go without importance.

Another good point is the relevance of a person in a photo. A person as a subject usually means the background is not the subject itself or it is something that helps compose the photo, but the main subject, the “thing” you are trying to show and to call attention to, is the person. When I am taking photos, although I am totally an amateur, I am thinking about photos that will appeal to other people, to the general public, and not only to my family and friends, which means that there is a limit to what a model subject (i.e. my wife) can bring to holiday photos such as landscapes and other features, which then limits how many photos I want to take with people in them. :) In that sense, photos of unknown people sometimes are better because you’re actually using that unknown person as a subject due to whatever they are doing that is unique. Perhaps spontaneous photos of whoever is travelling with me would work, but they are usually paying attention to what I am doing so that is a hard one. My wife is going to kill me when she reads this. :D

Anyway, I end up with a lot of photos without anyone in them but I still think they are really good photos. Nowadays when I am on a holiday I try to take “my” photos, with no people in them, and then a couple of photos at the same places with people in them. That pleases everybody, but it takes more time. :) That’s ok, I suppose… One other thing that has worked quite well for me in the past was to take two cameras with me, my SLR and a normal point-and-shoot camera, and determine that “family photos” and similar ones will be taken with the point-and-shoot, and the “other” photos will be taken with my SLR. What ends up happening is that whoever is on holiday with me will take over the point-and-shoot at some point because I won’t be using it much, and take the family photos for me. That is the best arrangement ever! Hehehehe. Finally, I decided that the last photo I would add to this article would be a nice photo with a person in it (my wife – who else did you expect?! :D) that is still a really nice photo and that would definitely be within my “selected” collection.

Just one thing to finish: I would appreciate other people’s opinions to this matter, so please leave your comments or email me!

Zoom in Digital Cameras

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:23:38 GMT

I've just bought a new digital camera, a SLR, which is very nice. I used to have a film SLR and I basically bought a similar one, but digital. One of the first questions people make me when they find out that I have a new camera is (after asking how many Megapixels it has) how much optical and digital zoom the camera has. This is a much more difficult subject that people would imagine, so I have decided to write a little article on it.

First, let me start by making a strong statement: there is no such thing as digital zoom. Digital zoom is a simulation of zoom done by cropping the image. Look at the image below to get an idea of how it is done. Image 01 on the left is the actual image without any "digital zoom". Image 02 shows the part where we will zoom in, using digital zoom, and finally image 03 is the final "zoomed" image, which is basically the square selected in image 02 stretched to meet the correct size. This stretching is something that most digital cameras don't even do, they just save the little square from image 02 in that small size, which is a basic cropping. When you print your photo it will be stretched to meet the paper size, and that stretching means loosing quality as it is clear on image 03.

So, I can't call that "zoom", for me that is "cropping". Agreed? I always recommend people not to use it. Take the whole photo and crop it later in your computer using Photoshop or something else, which will crop it much better than your regular point-and-shoot camera. SLR cameras usually don't have "digital zoom", I think. At least mine doesn't.

Now let's talk about the optical zoom. When you buy zoom lenses for a SLR camera, what you get in the specs, among other things, is usually the focal length, i.e. 70-300mm. Usually, when you buy a point-and-shoot camera the optical zoom is referred as an "X" value: 12X, 3X, etc. Now that is a very tricky value, let me explain why.

The "X" value is easy to think about because most of us are used to multiply which is what the X stands for. The problem is that the multiplication is not to what we think it will be. When you read on a camera specs that it has 12X optical zoom you think that it will increase the image you can see 12 times, don't you? That's the thing, it might not, and most of the times it doesn't. It does increase the smaller image that those lenses can take by 12 times, but the smaller image is usually smaller than what you see with the naked eye.

For example, the Canon PowerShot S5 IS (great camera, by the way) says that it has a 12X zoom, which is ok because it does increase its farthest image 12 times, but the farthest image has an approximate zoom of 0.72 times relative to the naked eye in that camera which means that its maximum zoom is of 8.64 times (0.72 x 12), again, when comparing to the naked eye. It is still a great zoom, but the number doesn't mean what most people think it would mean.

The problem with this "X" measure is that the base can be different. We can see above that the Canon PowerShot S5 IS has a "starting point" of 0.72 times relative to the naked eye. The Canon Digital IXUS 860 IS on the other hand is advertised having a 3.8X zoom but its "starting point" is of 0.56 times approximately which means that its "real" zoom is of 2.13 times (to the naked eye, always). So if you set your PowerShot S5 IS to 3.8X it will increase the actual image by 2.74 times but your IXUS 860 IS will increase the actual image by 2.13 times when set to the same 3.8X.

That is why when you buy a SLR you usually don't find the "X" in the lenses specs, only the focal length. The "X" figure is useful though, when related to the naked eye image, because we can relate to it better, so here is how you calculate it from the focal length. On a 35mm camera (the usual film camera) a 50mm focal length gives roughly a 1X image, so all you need to do is divide the focal length of your lenses by 50 to have the "X" number, meaning that a 200mm focal length gives a 4X image. The problem with digital cameras is that the image sensor (CCD) has a different size than the film; it is usually smaller than 35mm, meaning that 50mm will not provide a 1X image anymore, it will be bigger. The smaller the CCD, the bigger the image a 50mm will make. To find out the "X" number for your lenses in your digital camera the equation is: X = (35 / CCD) x (FL / 50), where CCD is the size of the CCD in mm and FL is the focal length of your lenses in mm.

SLRs will usually have a bigger CCD because bigger CCDs will give you a better quality of image. On the other hand, to have a big zoom you will need lenses with bigger focal lengths, meaning these lenses will be more expensive. For example, a Nikon D40 has a CCD size of 23.7mm while the Canon PowerShot S5 IS has a CCD size of approximately 5.83mm. The lenses that come with the PowerShot S5 IS are 06-72mm and those 72mm will give a real zoom of 8.64X ((35 / 5.83) * (72 / 50)) and the 06mm will pull up to 0.72X. If you put the same lenses on the Nikon D40, you will get a real zoom of about 2.13X with the 72mm but your image will have a much better quality. To have the same zoom as a PowerShot S5 IS you would need lenses with a focal length of 292.53mm, that is, a 300mm to round it up, and that is going to cost you much more than that 72mm of the PowerShot.

So everything is a trade off, of course, meaning that if you want top quality combined with a big zoom you will need top lenses and you will pay top money for them. On the other hand, most people will find that the Canon I used as an example here (the PowerShot S5 IS) will give them quality enough and a big zoom. Canon also compensates its smaller CCD with more pixels (8MP) to improve the quality of the photo, while the Nikon D40 will give you a really nice quality for its photos but it has fewer pixels (6.1MP) to keep its price lower, basically. Note that in my opinion 6.1MP is more than enough for people printing photos up to 8x6" which is bigger than most people will usually print.

That's it, I hope I've helped. Keep in mind that the number of Megapixels isn't always the most important thing in a digital camera, especially when you're over 5MP and that digital zoom doesn't exist and finally that if you really want to get into it you should also know what kind of lenses your camera has and what kind of CCD sensor it has. If you don't want to get into it, take the camera for a trial and shoot some photos, some inside, some outside, some of people and some of close objects, to give it a good try and see if that's the camera you want. Print the photos in a shop to see the real quality of them, and then buy your camera. :)

Oh yeah, and my new camera is a Nikon D40. Brilliant!