Real shallow (f1.8):

Not so shallow (f8):

The first photo was taken at f1.8 and the depth of field is very shallow, with only a few centimeters in focus. The second photo was taken at f8 and much of the scene is in focus (and cluttered!).

How to control depth of field with Aperture Priority.

Depth of field comes in handy to control clutter in a photo. If we just wanted a picture of a flower, the first photo is a lot more appealing since the shallow depth of field blurs out the rest of the photo. So as you can see, one of the factors that controls depth of field is the aperture. The larger the aperture (smaller the f#), the shallower the depth of field.

The easiest way to control the aperture is to use one of my favorite shooting modes, aperture priority. Aperture priority allows you to select your aperture and the camera will decide on the right shutter speed to produce the right exposure. To set your camera to aperture mode, rotate the shooting mode dial to “A“. Now use the scroll dial (usually right in front of the shutter button) to select your smallest f number and shoot like normal.

So the next time you want to take a portrait, use the smallest aperture you can to remove the clutter and “focus” on your subject. Don’t forget to set your metering to spot metering or center-weighted metering if you have a bright background…

Today is the start of a series of posts (they may not be in order, I am scattered sometimes) on lighting. Everything in photography revolves around light. You may not think you care about light or types of light, but I promise that if you stay with me, you will be able to use this knowledge to wow friends and take better digital pictures!

Specular == Spectacles == BAD
Specular light is what we generally think of as “harsh” light. It occurs in the form of direct sunlight or a bright flash pointed directly at someone or something. Some nasty side-effects to specular light are squinting and nasty shadows under people’s eyes, neither are too appealing in a portrait. Specular just means that the light has very little angle to it, it’s coming directly at the subject. When I think specular, I think about spectacles and burning, uh, leaves as a kid. You can use spectacles to channel light into a very direct source.

Diffused == Dispersed == GOOD
Diffused light is light that is coming at the subject from many different angles. It occurs in the form of (usually) something in between the light source and the subject, causing the light to break up and become less direct (or specular). What happens when someone “diffuses” the situation? They disperse the problem, or make it (seem at least) less direct, right? You get the picture (HA! Get it??), oh boy…

Big Light Source == Diffused == GOOD!
So we get to my goal for you today. There is an easy way to think about lighting when you are trying to find a spot to take your next portrait. The bigger the light source, the more diffused the light, and therefore better the quality of the light will be. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some examples:

1. Overcast day. What happens in an overcast day? Instead of the sun shining directly at the Earth, there is a layer of clouds diffusing the sun, thus creating a bigger light source!
2. Bounce flash. When you bounce the flash off of the ceiling or a wall, you are transforming the light source from those few inches of flash to an entire wall or ceiling, thus creating more diffused light!
3. Umbrellas and soft boxes in the studio. The last time you went to Wally World, did the photographer have the flash pointed directly at your kid? No, they bounced it off of an umbrella or shot the flash through a soft box. Both of those techniques create a bigger light source and thus softer, more diffused light.

So What Do I Do With This Knowledge?
First of all, the ability to create a bigger light source is one of the reasons why you really need an external flash for indoor photography. The ability to bounce the light off of other surfaces is key to create diffused and more pleasing light. If you are shooting photos outdoors and it’s overcast, no worries, you have a great big, diffused light source, fill up that memory card! But if you are out on one of those beautiful, cloudless days, you need to be concerned with the sun. Find a nice shady spot to take those photos. Make sure you set your DSLR settings to use spot or center-weighted metering to ensure that the bright background doesn’t cause your subject to be too dark!

Autofocus Inside?
At first thought, you might think that you can go out an buy any Nikon compatible lens and pop it on that shiny new D40 and it will work.  Well, you would be right, uh kind of…  You see, any Nikon “mount” lens (any lens made for Nikon cameras) will work on the D40, but not all of them will auto focus!  Yeah, that’s right, I bolded AND italicized that part because it is important to note.  You see, the Nikon D40 has no internal auto focus motor.  To make the entry-level camera smaller and cheaper, the camera manufacturer removed the auto focus motor and now includes said motor in certain lenses.  If you aren’t using these special lenses on the D40, you will be manually focusing that puppy.

What to Look For in Lenses for the Nikon D40
Now that we understand there is a difference, let’s talk about what to look for when buying lenses for the Nikon D40.  Nikon has two series of lenses that will auto focus on the Nikon D40.  AF-I lenses, which stands for “Auto Focus Internal”, were made by Nikon in the 90’s and as the name suggests they had an internal focusing motor that would allow you to focus on the Nikon D40.  To my knowledge, these lenses are not made any more so they are harder to find and tend to be on the expensive side.  If you have some older AF-I lenses though, you are in luck and they will auto focus on the Nikon D40!

For the rest of us without a closet full of old lenses, we want to look for the newer AF-S series from Nikon.  AF-S stands for “auto focus silent”, which was Nikon’s way of marketing their silent wave auto focus motor.  To you, AF-S means “auto focus, SWEET” because these lenses will auto focus on the Nikon D40.  The family of AF-S lenses for the Nikon D40 seems to be growing each year.  As cameras get smaller, they need for these lenses with internal motors grows as well.  That is great news for those of us with these entry-level cameras, we have more choices!  Sigma, a third party lens manufacturer, also makes lenses that will auto focus on the Nikon D40.  Look for the “HSM” series of lenses from Sigma, they are a great and sometimes cheaper alternative to the Nikon lens family.

Prime Time
As I previously discussed in my DSLR lens recommendation post, I am a big fan ot “prime” lenses.  Prime lenses are lenses with fixed focal ranges, in other words, they don’t zoom.  The advantage to prime lenses is that they are normally “faster” than their zoom equivalents, meaning they have a much larger maximum aperture.  This means you can take photos in much lower light without having to use a flash.

There are many great prime lenses for the Nikon D40.  Here are a few of my recommendations from Amazon, who I have found offers the best prices and services on camera gear on the Internet.  Some other sites like www.bhphoto.com and www.adorama.com have great selections and service as well, but it’s hard to beat Amazon.

Zoom Zoom
Prime lenses are great, but a lot of people prefer the versatility of zoom lenses.  Obviously with prime lenses, you have to actually move to change the zoom of the photo.  For more active subjects, such as photographing your kids playing or participating in sports, zoom lenses are often a better choice.  Again, there are plenty of good choices for the Nikon D40 from both Nikon and Sigma.  In zoom lenses, professional lenses can get pricey.  A prfessional lens is generally a lens with a constant ‘f’ value, in most cases f2.8.  Though expensive, these lenses will outlast all of your camera bodies, hold their value and will most likely be handed down to your kids!  This is why most people will recommend that you invest more in lenses than cameras.  Cameras come and go, but great lenses are part of the family. Here are some choices from Amazon:

Here are the alternatives to the Nikon lenses for the Nikon D40. Sigma makes a great lens and in some cases, you can save a lot of money by going with the Sigmas.

So there you have it, many choices for lenses for the Nikon D40. The D40 is a great camera and as long as you know it’s limitations, you can select lenses that will outlast the camera body and produce some great photos. As I said before, lenses are an investment and will outlast many cameras if you buy quality lenses. Just remember, the professional lenses hold their values much better than the “kit” lenses that come with these cameras. This is simply because more people get the kit lenses with the camera. Buy professional lenses for your Nikon D40 when you can afford it. You can always do like I do and sell one on eBay or Craigslist if you get tired of it!

Shooting Mode Functions of a Digital Camera
1. Portrait mode. This mode usually has an icon of a woman on the mode select dial of your camera. Why is it always a woman? Who knows, maybe because most men hate getting their pictures taken. Anyways, this mode simply attempts to create a shallow depth of field (see previous lesson for more details on depth of field) and blur out the background of an image, making the subject stand out as much as possible in the photo. The problem is, the camera doesn’t always pick your widest aperture and often pops up the built in flash to compensate. We already know that creates unflattering and unnatural light. A better idea than portrait mode would be to use Aperture priority and select your widest aperture to blur out the background even more and control the use of your flash. Better yet, use an external flash!

2. Landscape mode, the mountain icon on your dial. Why do people typically take landscape photos? They are usually trying to capture the beauty of their surroundings at the time, so they can later brag about their vacation to their friends that work too much! So in this case, the goal of a landscape photo is to show as much detail of the entire photo as possible. Therefore th function of a digital camera’s landscape mode is to set the aperture small and capture greater depth of field. In other words, think of landscape mode as the complete opposite of portrait mode.

3. Close-up mode, the flower on your dial. To be honest, I have no idea why manufacturers put in the close-up, or macro shooting mode. Macro mode again attempts to create shallow depth of field through larger apertures, just like portrait mode. True macro photography though requires getting closer to your subject, and that is more of a function of the lens than the camera.

4. Action mode, usually an icon of someone running. Action mode give priority to shutter speed so that you can “freeze” the action. Hmm, priority….shutter, HEY that sounds like shutter priority! You are right, action mode and the ‘S’ on your dial do pretty much the same thing, though the ‘S’ mode allows you to choose your own shutter speed and the action mode does it for you. So the next time you are 2 hours into your kid’s tee ball game, experiement with shutter priority instead of the action setting. Setting that shutter priority higher creates a faster shutter speed does a better job freezing the action. Then try setting it lower and pan your camera while your kids runs down to first for the 12th time today. You will get some nice blur as you lower that shutter speed, creating some cool effects.

5. Night portrait mode, icon of a person with a star behind them. The goal of night shooting mode is to show more of the background in a dimly lit scene. In order to do this, the camera must pump up your ISO (what’s that? Read more here…) to let more light in and brighten the background. Unfortunately, if you are just using the built in pop up flash, night portrait mode is probably going to create a lot of grain in your photo with that higher ISO setting. To take better night portraits, you really need an external flash. You will get a much better bight portrait by shotting in Aperture priority mode, selecting your widest aperture and then pointing your flash at the ceiling to bounce the light. You will brighten up the background with that bounced light and create much softer, more natural and flattering light for your subject.

Experiment!
So now that you know what the camera is trying to do, go out and experiment with these modes. You bought a digital camera because you wanted instant feedback on each photo. You bought a digital SLR because you knew it would make you look like you knew what you were doing! In my opinion, buying a digital SLR and letting the camera make all of the decisions is a waste. Step out of your comfort zone, take that camera out of auto pilot and experiment with your aperture and shutter speed!

Go BIG…Aperture
As we started to learn in our lesson on aperture and shutter speed, larger apertures provide more flexibility in low light situations. For that reason, lenses with apertures of f2.8 and larger are considered “professional” lenses by most and carry a pretty hefty price tag. The good news is, they also hold their value really well, much better even than the camera itself. Professional zoom lenses are especially pricey, so prime lenses are the way to go when starting out.

Prime lenses are simply lenses that do not zoom, they have a constant focal length like 55mm. Since they are a constant focal length, they are less complicated and therefore less expensive. I have a few lenses that are just amazing professional zoom lenses. These lenses will be handed down to my son one day, they are like family but don’t talk back, carry germs or want to watch Noggin ALL day long. But I have to say my favorite lens still is my prime lens, a 50mm f1.8. This lens is “old school”, it’s like the Sinatra of camera lenses, it’s just always going to be cool. I shoot probably 60% of all of my indoor wedding shots with that lens and guess what, it is my CHEAPEST lens.

With $4.00+ gas now, I have another way to justify purchases (to myself at least). So the way I see it, something costs more or less than a tank of gas, makes it seem so cheap. Check out these two “professional” quality lenses that cost about as much as it costs to fill up an SUV (and much “greener” too!).

For you Canon folks, consider this bad boy. It will cost you about one tank of REGULAR unleaded!

If you fill up with 90+ octane, you are probably richer than me, so you might have enough pocket change to purchase this one if you are a Nikon person:

So if you really want to be “green”, car pool or ride your bike or hoof it to work next week and buy a professional lens. Put your camera on aperture priority, dial in f1.8, pump up your ISO to 800 and play around with low light shooting.