Photo of the Day – Holiday lights

With the holidays fast approaching, trees, houses and fences across the world are beginning to glow with decorative lights of all shapes and sizes. Whatever your religion or beliefs, these festive displays add a burst of warmth and color to the dark days of December. Flickr user herb.g does a great job of capturing this holiday spirit in today’s shot from Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania – the flickering colors and soft-focus blur of the lights create an eye-catching work of abstract art.

Taken any great photos during your recent travels? Why not add them to the Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Travel Photo Tips: What is aperture, and how does it affect my pictures?

You’ve schooled yourself on ISO, and you’re starting to get a handle on shutter speed. Next stop? Aperture. This particular setting is exceedingly important when trying to wrap your head around the basics of manually controlling a camera, but it’s also one of the more confusing. For starters, not every camera and lens can achieve the same f/stops (in case you couldn’t guess, aperture levels are measured as f/[number]), and similar to shutter speed, changing the f/stop does more than just one thing.

Tweaking the aperture can change the outcome of your photo in a drastic way. But before you go cranking that number beside the “f” on your camera screen, let’s break down the basics on what aperture is, what it affects and why you should care. Read on for a few pointers that every shooter should know.Have you ever noticed those black blades within your lenses? In optics, an aperture is simply the hole through which light travels. As you can imagine, changing the size of that hole can make a huge difference in the look and feel of your photographs. There’s an exhaustive definition of the topic over at Wikipedia if you’re interested, but we’re assuming you stopped here because you’re just looking for the long and short of it. Here are a few general rules to understanding aperture:

  • The lower the f/stop, the more light is allowed in.
  • Exceptionally low f/stops (f/1.2 through f/2, for example) are only found on a handful of lenses, primarily professional DSLR lenses.
  • Most point-and-shoot cameras only stop as low as f/3.5 (at best), limiting the amount of light you can fetch when shooting in dimly lit scenarios.
  • You’ll pay dearly for exceptionally low f/stops. A Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 can be found for ~$100; the same lens with an f/1.4 rating (just one step lower) is three times more expensive at ~$300.
  • Lower f/stops narrow your depth of field; a shot at f/2 will have a very tight focal point, with a tremendously blurred background, whereas a shot at f/14 (as an example) will focus on the foreground and background with essentially no ‘bokeh‘ to speak of.

Now that you’ve got a grip on that, we’re going to break down the most common uses of aperture when it comes time to compose a shot.

  • A lowered f/stop can be artisically chosen if you want to focus in tight on a foreground subject while introducing a silky, beautiful blur (that’s the ‘bokeh’ we mentioned above) around the subject. This is great for focusing on a person with a less-than-exciting backdrop.
  • A higher f/stop is useful for capturing vast groups, where you want the persons on the edges to be just as sharp and in-focus as the person in the center of the image.
  • A lower f/stop is very useful for letting more light enter an image during dimly lit or dark situations; this prevents you from having to boost your ISO (and thus, inject noise and grain) or dramatically slow your shutter speed (and thus, potentially introduce unwanted blur from hand-shake).

Let’s look at an example of how lowering your f/stop can be beneficial at night and in situations where you want oodles of bokeh surrounding the subject. The image below shows an identical shot at f/1.4 and at f/8, both taken in a dimly lit room with very little ambient light around. Lowering the f/stop allows a tremendous amount of light to flood in, in turn giving us a useful image without resorting to firing a flash. The moral of this story? Lower your f/stop when you’re in dimly lit areas — your images will thank you!


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Now, let’s look at an example of injecting bokeh into a shot. These two pictures were taken with a f/1.4 (left) and f/16 (right) aperture. You’ll notice the shot on the left has a soft, silky, progressive blur surrounding the focal point. This highlights the subject and simultaneously hides the ho hum background. The f/16 shot has most of the background in focus, effectively destroying your ability to focus only on the foreground subject and disregard the lackluster backdrop. On the flipside, your backdrop is in focus, so if that is your goal for a shot, now you know how to accomplish it. The moral of this story? Lower your f/stop if you want to introduce bokeh, bring out the foreground subject and blur the background; raising the f/stop will help you to focus on a larger image, such as capturing an entire soccer team.


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Our suggestion now is to give it a try! If you have a camera where you can adjust the aperture manually, try placing your camera in Aperture Priority (the “A” mode on the dial) and stopping it completely down as low as it’ll go. This will vary based on the lens, but toggle the f/stop and lower it to the smallest number allowed by whatever lens you are using. Focus close on a foreground object, and snap the shot. Check out that bokeh! If you’re having a hard time getting the bokeh effect, try holding an object out in your hand and focusing; that’s an easy way to get the background to blur nicely. Now, try that same shot with an aperture of f/8 or greater in order to see how wide your focal range becomes.

Keep in mind that this is just a basic explanation of aperture to get you started. In future articles, we will cover tips on how to use changes in aperture for creative effects in scenarios related to travel. For example, using the aperture to help you focus on your kids while blurring crowds behind them, ensure that your entire background is in focus in self-portraits, and more. Hopefully with the pointers listed here and in our previous articles on ISO and shutter speed, you’ll be three steps closer to understanding your camera’s ‘Manual’ mode.

Let’s recap:

  • The lower you set your f/stop, the more light you’ll have access to. This allows you to rely less on a boosted ISO and a sluggish shutter speed to still get a usable image in low-light situations.
  • If you need to focus on a large group of people, or you want the ocean behind you to be sharp, use a higher f/stop.
  • If you want to introduce artistic blur (or ‘bokeh‘) into your images, use a lower f/stop.

Stay tuned for more tips on understanding metering, white balance and more! Our basic guide to understanding ISO and shutter speed can be seen here.

Through the Gadling Lens: try not to focus

There can be no doubt that a really lovely, crisp image with a sharp focus can make a shot — and in truth, focus can be one of the easiest technical aspects of a photograph that can be learned and controlled. But just this past week, I was instant-messaging a photographer friend of mine:

Me: Hey, have you ever taken a photograph, and you can’t tell whether the result is really crappy or really cool?

Josh: All the damned time.

Me: I just took one. I can’t tell. There’s no part of this image that is in sharp focus. But I think I like it anyway.

Josh: Meh. Focus is overrated.

I’ve thought about this conversation a lot since then, and I have to say, I agree with him: sometimes, focus is overrated. So this week, I thought I’d share some of the photographs in the Gadling Flickr pool which are great illustrations of how sometimes ignoring focus (or manipulating it, at least) can result in a great shot.

1. Shallow depths of field. One of the most fun ways to play with focus is to manipulate the “depth of field” — the amount of photograph which is actually in focus, as compared to the rest of the photograph. When you look at a photograph with a large depth of field, almost every portion of the photograph will be in focus. Conversely, if you look at a photograph with a shallow or small depth of field, only one portion of the photograph will be in focus, while the rest of it will be in “bokeh,” or fade smoothly out of focus.

Subjects in photographs with very shallow depths of field don’t look like the subject does in real life; however, it does add a lot of interest to the photograph, in that they help direct the viewer to a single point on the image. The easiest way of manipulating the depth of field is to play with a lens’ aperture — the smaller the aperature number, the shallower the depth of field (more on aperture can be found here). Simply set your camera to “aperture priority” (or just put the camera in full-on manual mode, if you wish), and set the aperature to a low number.

Some beautiful examples of shallow depth of field:

This great shot shared by (flicts) in the Gadling Flickr pool is a classic example of shallow depth of field. Notice how just the small barb of the fence is in focus, where the rest of the shot isn’t. You can still tell exactly what the image is — a verdent green field in the country — but the shallow depth of field directs your attention exactly where (flicts) wants it to go, on the tiny detail of the fence. Taking this photograph with a large depth of field would have resulted in a rather ordinary shot; instead, the depth of field makes the shot. Really spectacular.

Flowers are wonderful subjects for playing with depth of field, primarily because they generally have so much detail going on, the number of areas you can choose to have in focus are general endless. In this great shot shared by dog blue in the flickr pool, the very tips of the petals are in focus, while the rest of the flower (and its neighbours) rapidly fall into bokeh. Again, this would’ve been an ordinary shot if there was a large depth of field; but it makes for a great image when the depth of field is restricted. Lovely work.

2. Capture movement through blur. Oftentimes, when taking a photograph of a rapidly moving object — a car driving quickly, perhaps, or a child on a swing, for example — the natural tendency is to move the camera along with the moving object, in order to minimize blur. Instead, consider trying to capture the blur itself — forget about trying to get the moving object in focus, and instead, go with the flow: let the object whiz by, and capture the speed of the object

A few tips as you try to capture blur: consider placing an inanimate object (or an immobile person) in the foreground, and focus on that, instead. The stationery object/person will provide great contrast with the moving object, and give some context and contrast in the image.

Some amazing examples of blurry movement:



This shot of a New York City subway shared by ultraclay!
is a classic demonstration of capturing blur by juxtaposing a moving object against an immobile one. In this shot, by focusing on the stationary couple in front, the speed of the passing train is beautifully captured — you can almost imagine standing on the platform with them, with the sudden train rushing by taking your breath away.

Nobody nearby for you to use as your stationary focal point? Look up: in this shot, Cazimiro used the interesting ceiling pattern as his stationary object — by focusing on that, the rushing train in this Washington DC subway is just a beautiful blur of light, and the entire shot is from an interesting perspective, rather than just looking straight on at the train. Outstanding job.


Finally, lest you think the “blur” technique only works for public transportation, check out the amazing shot above by Willy Volk, taken on a Florida beach. In this shot, Willy focused on the stationary sand, and let the ocean do its thing. An awesome shot – it makes you totally imagine the rushing waves over your feet, as your toes sink into the grainy sand. Of course, the warped perspective given by using the fisheye lens helps make this shot, as well.

3. For night shots, purposely make the lights out of focus. Lights at nighttime are magical — and sometimes purposely “unfocusing” the lights can make your images even more magical, as they flare against a darker sky. This technique is particularly effective when shooting holiday lights, strings of street lights, or any multitude of city lights against a darkening sky.

Something to keep in mind — this effect tends to work best at dusk, when you can still make out silhouettes against a dark blue sky, rather than at pitch black-darkness. Also, this can be a lovely effect when taking images in intimate restaurants or bars: place an object with a recognizable silhouette in the foregrounds, with the twinkling lights in the background.

Some really stellar examples of blurry lights:

This shot by ultraclay! is a perfect example of capturing an intimate feel in a bar or restaurant. Shot at a sake bar in New York City, by focusing on the candle in the foreground and keeping the other candles in blur in the back, the result is an image that makes you think of low conversations, the clink of sake glasses, and the occasional outburst of laughter. The photograph doesn’t just record an image, but it captures some of the mood around the image as well.


Additionally, this great shot by StrudelMonkey of holiday lights in Florida captures the magic of the season. The light tree in focus in the foreground provides the perspective and the setting; however, the blurred lights in the background let you know that the light tree isn’t just a one-off — the magic of the season goes on into the scene. Lovely piece of work.

4. Finally, just give up on focus altogether.

I’ve shared this photo with you before, but I can’t help it: I love this shot, mostly because it was a complete and total accident — I squeezed the shutter before the camera had time to find focus anywhere. But still — even without the focus, I’ve never had anyone fail to recognize the image above as one of the Houses of Parliament in London — and in fact, it’s the lack of focus that provides the interest.

The reason the shot above works is because (a) it’s an iconic image — one of an internationally-famous landmark; (b) there’s lots of colour and (c) there’s lots of lights. In other words, there’s more than just the shape of the subject, but light and colour keep the eye’s interest.

What (accidentally) taking this image taught me is that perhaps when taking pictures of iconic subjects — say, like the Statue of Liberty in an upcoming trip to New York, or the Great Wall of China (one of my future photography goals) — perhaps it make sense to grab a few shots with the subject out of focus — instead, let the colours and the contrast and the light of the surrounding area tell the story.

Hopefully all of these examples will inspire you to play with your focus a little bit — because, as my friend Josh says, sometimes focus is overrated. Keep taking your amazing shots, and keep sharing them in the Gadling Flickr pool. And as always, if you have any photography-related questions, don’t hesitate to send them to me at karen.walrondATweblogsincDOTcom – I’m happy to tackle them here on Through the Gadling Lens.

Karen is a writer and photographer in Houston, Texas. You can see more of her work at her site, Chookooloonks.
And for more Through the Gadling Lens, click here.

Through the Gadling Lens: learning photog lingo

One of the pieces of advice that I seem to find myself giving over and over again to those who are new to photography is about looking at as many photoblogs or Flickr pools as possible — if only to get some inspiration on different angles to try, different processing techniques, or even just want to expect when you finally embark on that long-awaited trip to that faraway land. If you’ve been doing this, you’ll find two things: (a) looking at beautiful images is addictive, and (b) photographers sometimes use some strange words, phrases, abbreviations or lingo to describe what’s going on with a picture, or how they took the shot. So this week, I thought I’d take a moment to define some of the more popular terminology that seems to be showing up on the internet these days — that way, when you upload and describe your own travel photographs, you’ll sound oh-so-in-the-know.

And so, on with the show:

Bokeh. One of the most common comments you’ll often read on Flickr has to do with bokeh. “Nice bokeh,” you’ll read. “How did you get that bokeh?” a viewer will say. I will admit to you that a year ago, I had no idea what people were talking about.

The term bokeh refers to a relatively shallow depth of field — in other words, bokeh appears when a part of an image is in sharp focus, and the rest of the image fades away to a smooth, buttery, out-of-focus blur (see the image above). According to Wikipedia, the term is derived from the Japanese word boke, which means “blurry.” You would be forgiven for not having ever heard the term before, as it’s relatively new — Wikipedia says the term was first published only as recently as 2000. And while, obviously, not every photograph has or requires bokeh, it obviously makes for an interesting shot. To add bokeh to your images, try setting your aperture to a low number — 1.4, say or 2.8 (and if the term “aperture” is a bit foreign to you, click here for a previous post on what aperture is all about).

There are some, however, who use the term bokeh to simply mean “out of focus” — for example, I got some kind and complimentary bokeh comments when I uploaded this shot into my flickr stream:


But I would argue that the above shot doesn’t actually have any bokeh, since there’s no part of that image that is in focus — it’s just a blurry (albeit kind of interesting) image. Greater minds, obviously, might differ.

SOOC. “SOOC” is a commonly-used acronym for “straight out of camera” — in other words, the image you’re looking at (in this case, the woman with the pinkish-purple wig, above) hasn’t been post-camera processed at all — this is how it looked exactly as I downloaded it out of the camera. It is a perfectly acceptable image.

What I think is interesting, however, is that the term “SOOC” is not usually used as a point of comparison between the pre-processed work and the post-processed work. Instead, it’s primarily used to illustrate how perfect an image is without processing at all. And while, certainly, it is possible to take a photograph which, really, is better left unprocessed, please remember that there is no real shame in processing images digitally after downloading: as I mentioned before, all photographers pre-digital-era processed their images, they just did it with chemicals rather than computers.

In other words, don’t let a term like “SOOC” make you afraid to process your image. There’s nothing dishonest about it, if you use post-camera processing to help communicate what you’d like the viewer to notice and receive from your image. For example, in the image above, I was struck by the woman’s bright hair colour, her funky glasses, and the message on her shirt. So with a bit of post-camera processing …

… I help draw the viewer’s eye to those items — but the photograph is no less honest than the original. And if your original really can’t be improved by post-camera processing, then more’s the better.

Rule of Thirds. This refers to a general rule of design and photography that says that the eye tends to find images which are slightly off-kilter more interesting than one that is perfectly symmetrical. For example, in the shot above, I could have taken the picture of my daughter so that she was exactly in the middle of the frame, but theoretically, it’s a more interesting picture because she isn’t. See? It’s pretty much that simple.

Oh, you want the technical explanation?

Okay, then.

The Rule of Thirds, speaking more technically, says that if you were to divide each dimension of the frame, or viewfinder, into thirds, by drawing lines like so:


then to increase visual interest, your subject should line up along one of the lines or axes that you’ve drawn.

Now, obviously, it’s sort of impossible to actually draw lines on your viewfinder; however, the idea is to just ballpark it. And this technique works for more than just portraits. For example, in the following image of a street in St. Ives, what struck me was the little old man walking quietly up the road:

So, you’ll notice that the little old man lies directly along one of the Rule of Thirds axes:

Make sense?

Again, this “Rule of Thirds” doesn’t mean that you have to take every image with your camera in this manner — it’s just something to keep in mind while you’re shooting, to add a little variety to the images you capture.

Through the Viewfinder (or “TtV”). This actually refers to a cool little technique that is currently gaining popularity online — the use of a vintage camera to help capture images that look retro and grainy, and therefore somewhat timeless. Here’s how it works:

The photographer gets her hands on a duaflex, or twin-lens reflex camera — one of those cool box cameras that were popular starting from about the 1960’s — you know the ones, where the photographer holds the camera about waist-high, and looks down into the top of the camera through the viewfinder? They’re lovely little cameras, and can often be purchased on eBay for as little as US$ 25. Once purch
ased (or borrowed), the photographer often creates a tube that fits over the viewfinder, to help block out light and glare. Then, though the open end of the tube, the photographer inserts her digital SLR camera lens into the tube and focuses through the vintage viewfinder — the result is a square format image, which can then be manipulated within Photoshop or other post-camera processing software. The final image often shows the imperfections of the vintage lens, giving a soft, retro feel to the shot (as shown above, or in the Through the Viewfinder pool on Flickr).

Twin-lens reflex camera purists would argue that these cameras are being wasted — that the photographer should just buy the appropriate film and run it through the vintage camera. Still, it’s hard to argue the convenience of digital media, and the ease by which the resulting image can be manipulated. Either way, the result is sort of a fun twist on the type of photography and images you can capture on your travels.

Obviously, there are many more terms which are used by photographers: the traditional terms, as well as the more trendy ones, as shown here. But hopefully this sheds a bit of light on what all those online photographers are talking about — and helps gives you some ideas for how to add a bit of variety to your own travel images going forward.

Karen is a writer and photographer in Houston, Texas. You can see more of her work at her site, Chookooloonks.
And for more Through the Gadling Lens, click here.