Blog Post
How do you use your lenses?
- By Mike
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- 02 Jun, 2016
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Of course when it comes to video and photography, there’s no correct way of doing anything. So long as it works for you and you’re happy with the shot. But there are ways of making your images look more interesting and dynamic – in this short blog we’ll be discussing two different properties of lenses.
Of course when it comes to video and photography, there's no correct way of doing anything. So as long as it works for you and you're happy with the shot then you're doing it right!
But there are ways of making your images look more interesting and dynamic – in this short blog we’ll be discussing two different properties of lenses, which when understood, could give your shot just that little bit more zing.
FOCAL LENGTH
The first property with lenses is something most people will know a lot about already: the length of the lens, or how wide/tight a shot is.
We’ve all used a wide angle lens when taking a picture of a landscape and we’ve all zoomed in when we want a closer picture of someone’s face. Typically, this is how most people use a lens. But what if we reverse this – what if we shoot portraits with a wide lens and landscapes on a long lens?
It might be subtle, but in the portrait shot above, you can see much more of the background around the width of the frame whilst the figure is still close up. Conversely with the long lens landscape, we can still see loads of nature, but it’s stacked up over the length of the frame.
Challenge yourself to use different focal lengths in order to make interesting and dynamic shots.
APERTURE
Aperture – what’s that, you say? It’s very simple. Aperture is basically the iris of a lens that controls how much light gets let into the camera. The measurements of apertures are called ‘f-stops’.
Why is this important when making cooler pictures? Because aperture also controls depth of field – how wide or shallow the focus area is. Basically, the wider open the aperture (or iris), the shallower the depth of field.
When the depth of field is nice and shallow, we get the background blurred out when the focus is on the subject. This is a technique used in a lot of portrait photography – it makes the subject stand out strongly in the image and draws our attention to what’s sharp.
One more thing of note when creating shallow depth of field – wider lenses are harder to get that blurry background. Zooming in will help out a lot.
So there you have it. Two small tips on how to get dynamic and interesting shots using your lenses in a slightly different way.
Take your camera out and give it a try!
Digital Masters Blog
Aerial photography and video work has exploded since the introduction of low cost drones, and the pace that it is advancing is rapid to say the least.
After using our DJI Phantom 3 Professional (Lenny) for the last 3 years, we decided it was time to keep up and ahead of the playing field, so meet our new baby, the DJI Inspire 2 with the X7 Camera Kit (or SkyNet it has now been nicknamed).
The new super 35mm sensor now matches the same sensor we use on our Sony FS7, which can film up to 6k RAW! With 14 stops of dynamic range, and a set of four lenses (16mm, 24mm, 35mm and 50mm) the images we can now get from the air are insane.
We have put together a small showreel from some recent shoots to show some of the drones capability.
After using our DJI Phantom 3 Professional (Lenny) for the last 3 years, we decided it was time to keep up and ahead of the playing field, so meet our new baby, the DJI Inspire 2 with the X7 Camera Kit (or SkyNet it has now been nicknamed).
The new super 35mm sensor now matches the same sensor we use on our Sony FS7, which can film up to 6k RAW! With 14 stops of dynamic range, and a set of four lenses (16mm, 24mm, 35mm and 50mm) the images we can now get from the air are insane.
We have put together a small showreel from some recent shoots to show some of the drones capability.
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