Another round of submissions to share :)

I have some more great submissions to share with you!

Our first one today is by Kelsy Propp, of AB, of her daughter, taken in the summer at Emma Lake in SK:

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel T1i at f/5.6, 1/60 sec.

So sweet!  Thanks for sharing, Kelsy!

Michelle Kuijer, of ON, practiced her depth of field on her Glimmer Mist.  Focusing on the first bottle causes each bottle behind to appear slightly less in focus than the one before:

Taken with Canon Rebel EOS XS 1000D at f/5, 1/6 sec., ISO 800

I’m jealous of your colour selection, Michelle!  Thanks for your submission!

Nathalie Cormier, of QC, writes, “When I was at the university,  my collegues were surprised that I had a lot of highlighters and pencils.  Each color had a function – blue for theorem, pink for definition, etc.” Her photo makes me smile, because I have the same habit at work – green for receipts, orange for expenses, etc…

Taken with Canon XSi at f/5.6, 1/15 sec., ISO 400

Thanks for the submission, Nathalie – and the reminder to scrapbook one of my idiosyncrasies!

And lastly, I’d like to share this photo by Michelle La Grue, of Ireland:

Taken with Canon Rebel XSi at f/5.6, 1/160, ISO 200

Yum!  Can’t you just TASTE it?  Thanks, Michelle!

Only a few more days, readers - have you sent me YOURS yet?

Cheers,

More January submissions!

The submissions are rolling in!  And they are awesome – so glad you are enjoying this assignment!

Dawn Hueser, of SK, sent me this photo for January’s assignment:

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi at f/11, 1/160 sec., ISO 200

Love the gorgeous fall colours – Thanks, Dawn!

Carla Ganske, of AB, sent me this cute photo of her daughter’s Snow Buddies! 

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi at f/4.5, 1/6 sec., ISO 400

(Don’t you love the bling bling on the dog in the foreground?!)  Thanks for your submission, Carla!

Using her granddaughter’s Littlest Pet Shop Pets, Helen Reid-Beecroft, of AB, practiced her depth of field by lining them up and focusing on her granddaughter’s favourite pet – the frog!

Taken with Canon Rebel TSi at f/5.0, 1/160 sec.

Great job, Helen – thank you!

And our last submissions for today come from Rhonda Steed, of AB:

Taken with Nikon D80 at f/2.8, 1/25 sec., ISO 400

Taken with Nikon D80 at f/2.8, 1/125 sec., ISO 400

Taken with Nikon D80 at f/1.8, 1/250 sec., ISO 400

Wonderful images – thank you, Rhonda!

We’re nearing the deadline for this month – send me your submissions by using the submission form found here by 11:59pm EST, January 31st, 2010 and you will be entered into a random draw for this great prize pack!

And don’t forget to spread the word of our blog and then leave a comment to be entered into our contest!!  Only FIVE more sleeps!   More details here…

Cheers,

Q & A: Round 1

Hello, everyone!  How is your January assignment coming along?

A reader left me a question in one of her comments, and it occured to me that others may have questions as well.  So each month, I will post a Q&A type of post to answer your questions regarding the assignment that month.  You can leave me your question in a comment or email me directly at sue (AT) canadianscrapbooker (DOT) com.

Here’s Sonia’s question:

How do you get a lower F setting? I could not get it lower then f/5.6.

The lowest f/ setting, or widest aperture, will depend on the lens speed.  If you are unsure of your lens speed, there are two easy ways to check: 

1) in manual mode, set your camera to manual or aperture priority, and dial down to the widest aperture – it will stop changing at the lowest number.  This is your lens speed.

or

2) look at your lens – there should be a bunch of numbers on the barrel or on the front rim, as shown below:

In the first photo, this is a 50mm fixed, or prime, lens, with a lens speed of f/1.4.  In the second photo, it is a lens with a varying focal length of 18-55mm.  As such it has a varying lens speed, depending on the focal length.  At the 18mm focal length, the lens speed is f/3.5 and at 55mm, it is f/5.6

Hope that answers your question, Sonia!

If you have any questions pertaining to this month’s assignment, or just in general, please ask! 

Cheers,

More DoF submissions!

I have some more submissions to share with you!

Bethany Hoskin, of AB, wrote, “I’m scrapbooking a favorite toy page for my 6 yr old, so decided to practice on his Bakugans. He was happy to be my photo designer, setting them all up for me to photograph.”   What a great way to include your child in your assignment – Great job, Logan!  And you too, Bethany!

Taken with Canon REbel T1i at f/4.5, 1/160 sec., ISO 400

Karen Aldrin, of the U.K., sent me a couple of photos for this assignment, as well.  She used her 50mm f/1.8 lens and as you can see in this first photo, the prime lens opened at the widest aperture gives Karen an incredibly narrow depth of field:

Taken with Canon EOS 400D at f/1.8, 1/50 sec., ISO 400

In her second submission, she used a wider aperture of f/3.2, which increases the depth of field but still blurs the background nicely:

Taken with Canon EOS 400D at f/3.2, 1/125, ISO 400

Mmmmm, garlic!  Being Italian, this photo “speaks” to me! LOL!  Thanks for your beautiful submissions, Karen!

Sonia Rodriguez, of QC, also sent me a submission this month – I love the colour in this photo – and what great focus!

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi at f/5.6, 1/125 sec., ISO 800

This reminds me of Grade 9 Home Economics class…   Thanks for submitting, Sonia!

I love seeing everyone’s work, and sharing it with our blog followers - please keep on submitting!

Cheers!

January Submissions

How is everyone doing with their January assignment?!  Some of you may be stuck on finding a suitable subject for your photo, but as you can see from this next submission, it’s not the subject matter, but the technique that we want you to show us!

Lee-Anne Thornton, of AB, sent me this photo for the January assignment:

Taken with Canon EOS 30D at f/4.5, 1/50 sec., ISO 800

Now you may just see canned goods, but I see some great depth of field!  Notice how her cans in the fore- and backgrounds are out of focus, while her 2nd can is in sharp focus?  Great job, Lee-Anne!

I also received this submission from Melanie Smith, of NL:

Taken with Canon Digital Rebel XT at f/2, 1/160 sec., ISO 400

Her focus on this photo is on Baby Jesus, with Mary & Joseph slightly out of focus (see Mary’s hand?), and the angel even more so.  Lovely! 

Thank you both for your submissions!  There’s still just over a week left to submit photos to be entered into the random draw for our January prize so be sure to send me YOUR submission!  And there’s still time to enter our contest too!

Cheers,

Revealed!

Here’s the January prize pack from Me and My Big Ideas that is up for grabs!

How’s that for incentive to get up and start playing with your camera?  *wink*  You can find the January tutorial and assignment here.

Cheers,

January Prize Pack…

is from Me and My Big Ideas!!

Photo to follow tomorrow night sometime!!

Cheers,

January assignment: Depth of Field

Ever notice how some photos have subjects that just seem to POP off the background?  More than likely, they are photos with a very shallow depth of field.  The term, depth of field (DoF), is ”the portion of a scene that appears acceptably sharp in the image”¹.

DoF is a relatively straight-forward technique and is determined by a number of factors, such as subject distance, focal length, aperture and format size¹.  However, for this tutorial, we are going to concentrate on using aperture to control our DoF.

 The premise of the technique is that the smaller your aperture, the larger your DoF.  To understand DoF, you must understand aperture, shutter speed and the correlation between the two.  You may recall this discussion in my article in the Spring 2008 issue of Canadian Scrapbooker, Capturing the Light: Aperture & Exposure.  Aperture is the measure of the shutter’s opening which allows light to enter the lens.   I have found that the part that sometimes confuses people is that a higher (or smaller) aperture is represented by a larger number (e.g.: f/22).  Conversely, a lower (or larger) aperture is denoted by a smaller number, such as f/1.8.  Once you can remember this, it will become easier!

I have taken a series of photographs to demonstrate the effects of changing your aperture to control your DoF.  I lined up our personalized mugs and using various apertures, snapped these photos.  In all photos, I was focused on my name on the red mug.    In the first photo, the small aperture of f/22 allowed for a large enough DoF to allow all four mugs to be in focus, relatively.  The mugs on the outer edges are a bit softer but this is due to my close proximity to the subjects.

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/22, 1/2.5 sec., ISO 800

 Next, I increased my aperture by half, to f/11.  Note how the DoF is changing and becoming smaller.

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/11, 1/10 sec., ISO 800

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/8, 1/15 sec., ISO 800

Decreasing my aperture by half again, to f/4, the outer cups are completely out of focus and the third cup is on its’ way:

¹ www.wikipedia.com

Are you ready?

Thanks to everyone who submitted photos for our December assignment on Bokeh!  They were, in order of posting:

1.  Gail Bidgood
2. Kristy Burton – Photo 1
3. Kristy Burton – Photo 2
4. Kristy Burton – Photo 3
5. Maxine Lozinski – Photo 1
6. Sonia Rodriguez
7. Maxine Lozinski – Photo 2
8. Lori McClelland
9. Corry Heinricks
10. Jessi Lute
11. Kim Collee
12. Teresa McNutt
13. Natalka Lindstrom

And thanks to a random number generator , we have a winner!

And our winner is Teresa McNutt, of Truro, NS for submitting this photo:

Taken with Nikon D40 at f/5.0, 1/800 sec., ISO 400

Congratulations, Teresa – we will mail out your Kelly Panacci prize pack to the address on your submission form!

Watch for the January assignment to be posted in the next day or two – get your cameras ready!  And don’t forget about our contest – it runs until the end of the month so there’s lots of time to start blogging, Tweeting and Facebooking about our site for a chance to win!  Be sure to leave me a comment on the contest post in order to receive your ballots!

Happy Clicking,

Bokeh, revisited – and more submissions

I have received alot of submissions over the last few days – I am loving everyone’s work!

However, I have had several photos sent that are not really in line with our December assignment.  I have tried to email everyone back as soon as I received their email, to let them know and to allow them enough time to re-submit another photo , but as we are wrapping up this assignment in the next hour, no more emails will be sent.

As I mentioned to many of you, I think that I may not have been very clear in my tutorial so I am going to try to explain it more thoroughly so even if the assignment deadline is over, you can still practice and try your hand at mastering this technique, which can be spectacular when done correctly.

Depending on who you ask and what you read, the term bokeh can mean several things.  As I tried to describe in my tutorial, I consider bokeh to be circular-type light sources (i.e. Christmas lights, candles, patches of sunlight through trees…) in the out-of-focus section of a photo.  To show you an example, I photographed this Santa ornament tonight:

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/4.5, 1/15 sec., ISO 800

(Please ignore the grainy-ness – in my haste, I forgot to set my ISO back to 200.)

Note the circles of light that are my Christmas tree lights in the background?  Bokeh.  The more circular and out of focus, the better, in my opinion!  But of course, depending on your settings and desired effects, you may feel differently.

Lori McLellan, of Calgary, AB, sent me this AWESOME photo of bokeh – aren’t those large circles of light such a beautiful backdrop for her ornament?

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel at f/2.8, 1/50 sec., ISO 1600

 Corry Heinricks, of Silver Valley, AB, also highlighted this sweet snowman with her Christmas tree lights:

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XTI at f/6.3, 1/25 sec., ISO 800

Taken with Canon Rebel XSi at f/4.5, 1/1000 sec., ISO 400

Taken with Nikon D80 at f/2.8, 1/1250 sec., ISO 1000

Teresa McNutt, of Truro, NS, too, this photo looking through her patio door, with the winter storm creating some subtle bokeh:

Taken with Nikon D40 at f/5.0, 1/800 sec., ISO 400

And Natalka Lindstrom, of Edmonton, AB, took this photo of the Meerkat at the Atlanta Zoo, using the diffused light through the reeds to create bokeh:

Taken with Nikon D60 at f/5.3, 1/500 sec., ISO 200

So how do you achieve bokeh?  Well, the trick is to use the largest aperture setting that you can, given your camera capabilities and your lighting.  The larger the setting (i.e. lower the f/stop number), the more blurred and pretty your bokeh will be!  Here are two examples that I photographed tonight to show you the difference between settings:

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/9, 1/6 sec., ISO 800

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/4.5, 1/15 sec., ISO 800

Note the difference in light with the larger f/stop – the bokeh consists of larger circles and provides a less distracting background.

I hope that helps to clarify things a bit – my apologies for confusing anyone!  There’s about an hour left to submit your photos so if you haven’t already done so, please do!  We’ve love to see!

And don’t forget about our contest – click here for more info!

Happy Clicking!