Photography Exam
Know all whole shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 second
1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000
What are the three things that determine depth of field?
Aperture - f/stop Shutter speed ISO- refers merely to the camera sensor's sensitivity to light.
What is panning and how does it work?
This motion is similar to the motion of a person when they turn their head on their neck from left to right. In the resulting image, the view seems to "pass by" the spectator as new material appears on one ... When photographing a moving subject, the panning technique is achieved by keeping the subject in the same position of the frame for the duration of the exposure. The length of the exposure must be long enough to allow the background to blur due to the movement of the camera as the photographer follows the subject in the viewfinder. The exact length of exposure required will depend on the speed at which the subject is moving, the focal length of the lens and the distance from the subject and background
What is ISO?
Refers to the camera sensor's sensitivity to light.
Explain the importance of width, height and resolution. How can the crop tool adversely affect resolution?
Resolution = pixels per inch keep radius at 1 when editing for sharpness
What is slow sync and know the difference between front/rear sync
Slow sync - flash with long exposure, longer than 1/60 Front flash - flash goes off at beginning of exposure Rear flash - flash goes off at end of exposure (ex: sunset in background, sun has enough time to build up surrounding, 1/30)
Why use RAW when shooting instead of JPEG and TIF?
Uncompressed file, not filtered by camera settings, captures more detail and can edit more, more information to work with
Why do you sync a flash with shutter speed?
Use to make it look "not" like flash Find exposure using 1/60 without flash Flash synced to 1/60 for shutter speed, flashes and covers the whole image What flash looks best, want sun to look like dominant like source
What is bracketing? Give an example.
bracketing is taking multiple photos of the same subject using different settings for different exposures. Can be thought of as an insurance ensure one properly exposed image Make a 2/3rd stop bracket based on the camera's light meter reading for each different scene: Normal/correct exposure, 1/3rd stop underexposed, 2/3rd stop underexposed, 1/3rd stop overexposed, 2/3rd stop overexposed (N, -1/3, -2/3, +1/3, +2/3)
When should tripod be used?
Anything below 1/60 you can't hold it cause your breathing and camera shake
What happens to exposure if you open one stop? If you close one stop?
A stop is a doubling or halving of the amount of light let in when taking a photo. For example, if you hear a photographer say he's going to increase his exposure by 1 stop, he simply means he's going to capture twice as much light as on the previous shot. Shutter speed measures how long your camera's shutter is left open during a shot. The longer it's open, the more light it lets in, and the greater your total exposure will be. Doubling or halving your shutter speed produces an increase or decrease of 1 stop of exposure. For example, changing from 1/100 of a second to 1/200 lets in half as much light, so we can say we've decreased the exposure by 1 stop. Similarly, going from 1/60 to 1/30 lets in twice as much light, giving a 1 stop increase in exposure.
What is the law of reciprocity?
Aperture half open, double the time In photography, reciprocity refers to the relationship whereby the total light energy - proportional to the total exposure, the product of the light intensity and exposure time, controlled by aperture and shutter speed, respectively - determines the effect of the light on the film. Reciprocity is the law of the relationship between shutter and aperture. It stipulates that one stop increase in aperture is equivalent to the shutter duration doubling. Both increase light by one stop. Thus, once you have the correct level of light for a perfect exposure, you can choose to increase aperture by one stop and trade this off with a doubling of the shutter speed (halving of the shutter duration). Twice as much light coming in for half the time equals the same amount of light. This allows the photographer to retain the same exposure but change either aperture or shutter speed for artistic or practical reasons.
What is an aperture?
Aperture refers to the opening of a lens's diaphragm through which light passes
What is the difference between Bridge's Camera Raw and Photoshop?
Camera Raw wants to protect files as much as possible so compresses them less Photoshop makes you convert to JPEG to save, distorts, compresses and reprocesses, can't change white balance Can only keep RAW file in Bridge
What are circles of confusion?
Circles of unfocused light, becomes enhanced with big open aperture
Be able to describe content aware and free transform
Content aware: don't want something, lasso tool to select and then shift delete, can also use brush tool Free transform: can select image, right click and make big, small, skinny, wide, distort
What is depth of field range and where is it located in relation to the plane of critical focus?
DOF range: acceptable focus from subject 1/3 in front of subject 2/3 behind subject
What is depth of field and how does it work?
Depth of field is defined as "the zone of acceptable sharpness in front of and behind the subject on which the lens is focused." Simply put: how sharp or blurry is the area behind your subject. Here's the equation: The lower the f/stop—the larger the opening in the lens—the less depth of field—the blurrier the background. The higher the f/stop—the smaller the opening in the lens—the greater the depth of field—the sharper the background.
Know all whole f-stops from f2 to f32
F2, f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22, f32
What is the reason for using the "preset" function in white balance?
Get the colors in your images as accurate as possible and some images have different sources of light have a different color or temperature to them . Fluorescent lighting adds a bluish cast to photos whereas tungsten (incandescent/bulbs) lights add a yellowish tinge to photos. Different Presets Auto - this is where the camera makes a best guess on a shot by shot basis. You'll find it works in many situations but it's worth venturing out of it for trickier lighting. Tungsten - this mode is usually symbolized with a little bulb and is for shooting indoors, especially under tungsten (incandescent) lighting (such as bulb lighting). It generally cools down the colors in photos. Fluorescent - this compensates for the 'cool' light of fluorescent light and will warm up your shots. Daylight/Sunny - not all cameras have this setting because it sets things as fairly 'normal' white balance settings. Cloudy - this setting generally warms things up a touch more than 'daylight' mode. Flash - the flash of a camera can be quite a cool light so in Flash WB mode you'll find it warms up your shots a touch. Shade - the light in shade is generally cooler (bluer) than shooting in direct sunlight so this mode will warm things up a little.
What is a shutter?
In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period, exposing photographic film or a light-sensitive electronic sensor to light in order to capture a permanent image of a scene. ... The speed of the shutter is controlled by a ring outside the camera, on which various timings are marked.
Know the Kelvin temperature scale and how it corresponds to the white balance on your camera. Know the different Kelvin temperatures for daylight, tungsten and flash.
Kelvin scale: color temps - radiated light applied to this form, where it glows is where its placed 1000-3,400 tungsten (A: red, orange B: yellow) 5,000-10,000 daylight 5,500 flash, strobes The range in different temperatures ranges from the very cool light of blue sky through to the very warm light of a candle. We don't generally notice this difference in temperature because our eyes adjust automatically for it. So unless the temperature of the light is very extreme a white sheet of paper will generally look white to us. However a digital camera doesn't have the smarts to make these adjustments automatically and sometimes will need us to tell it how to treat different light. So for cooler (blue or green) light you'll tell the camera to warm things up and in warm light you'll tell it to cool down.
What is the difference between ISO 100, 400 and 3200? Know their characteristics
LOOK AT YOUR CAMERA! You are doubling the sensitivity to light with each movement upwards. In other words ISO 200 lets in twice as much light as ISO 100. ISO 6400 also lets in twice as much light as ISO 3200. You are also increasing what they call noise with high ISO numbers into the quality of your photo's. ISO speed - The more you increase your camera's ISO, the more digital noise your photos will exhibit. This can make your image look grainy and reduce its sharpness. As with everything in photography, adjusting these three settings is a balancing act. You need to decide what effects you want in your shot and choose settings that will produce them while minimising the potential downsides.
Know different lighting patterns: Loop, Short, Broad, Rembrandt, Power, Butterfly, and Split
Loop: Loop Short: Loop Broad: Rembrandt: 1 triangle of light under eye Power: B shape, two triangles of light Butterfly: Split:
How aperture affects shutter speed
The f/stop also affects shutter speed. Using a low f/stop means more light is entering the lens and therefore the shutter doesn't need to stay open as long to make a correct exposure which translates into a faster shutter speed. Again, the reverse is true: using a high f/stop means that less light is entering the lens and therefore the shutter will need to stay open a little longer which translates into a slower shutter speed.
What is the plane of critical focus?
Where the subject of the photo is in focus (pinpoints of focused light, ex: eyelashes)
Why do you sharpen RAW images and how much?
With specific regard to RAW capture; Settings in-camera have no effect on the file at all. It's all handled by the RAW conversion software. However the sharpening setting DOES effect the jpg part of the RAW file that is used for review on the camera's LCD screen. If you set no in-camera sharpening, the back screen will often look soft and be unreliable for assessing final image sharpness. you need to sharpen the image if shot in RAW. These cameras all have an anti-aliasing filter that softens the image. Sharpening undoes that. When you shoot RAW you don't need to turn off sharpening as it already does not get applied to the RAW file. The whole point is it is literally RAW information as recorded on the sensor. +25 of sharpening to raw files In that case, it's worth knowing that it isn't sharpening per se. +25 is calibrated to be effectively zero. When Adobe adds support for a new camera, 25 on the Sharpness slider is calibrated only to counteract the effects of the antialiasing filter. To actually "sharpen" in the sense most people think of sharpening you gotta pump it past 25.
What is an f-stop and how is it calculated?
f-stop describes the diameter of the aperture. A lower f-number relates to a wider/larger aperture (one that lets in more light/more exposure), while a higher f-number means a narrower/smaller aperture (less light/less exposure). Because of the way f-numbers are calculated, a stop doesn't relate to a doubling or halving of the value, but to a multiplying or dividing by 1.41 (the square root of 2). For example, going from f/2.8 to f/4 is a decrease of 1 stop because 4 = 2.8 * 1.41. Changing from f/16 to f/11 is an increase of 1 stop because 11 = 16 / 1.41. As with shutter speed, most cameras let you control your aperture in 1/3 stop increments.
What is shutter speed and how does it work?
he shutter opens to let light through to the film or electronic sensor, and closes again. If you alter the length of time the shutter stays open, you can drastically change the kind of image you'll end up with. First, at slow shutter speeds -- when the shutter stays open for a longer time -- objects in motion will appear blurry in the photograph (and everything will get blurry if the camera itself isn't held still). That's because the same object is recorded in multiple places on the film or sensor as the object moves across the frame during the time that the shutter is open. Second, the longer the shutter is open, the more light reaches the film/sensor, resulting in a brighter overall image. Shutter speeds are standardized so that changing the speed will give you either one half or twice as much light (depending on which way you changed it). For example, changing from 1/30 to 1/60 results in half as much light hitting the sensor. Slow shutter speeds allow more light into the camera sensor and are used for low-light and night photography, while fast shutter speeds help to freeze motion.
