Sunday 11 August 2013

Exercise 11 - Standing Back (Project Medium Telephoto)

What: The main brief of this exercise was to find a comfortable situation and concentrate on photographing people in “action” without attracting their attention
Where: Edinburgh, Outdoors
When: Morning and Afternoon on a bright sunny day.
How: I had a route planned that I wanted to travel so that I had enough time to locate a photograph subjects that I found interesting.

Having previously used a telephoto lens to photograph people unaware I was reasonably comfortable that I could obtain the objectives of the exercise.

This time around however I did not have the advantage of a slightly higher position to photograph from. This meant that I had to negotiate the foot traffic of passing people and hope that during the photograph that they did not travel though the frame blocking the view.

The extra distance did allow for framing however there were a number of immediate disadvantages, a lower position meant that the frame could be interfered with by items in the foreground as well as items in the background. I did find that I had to “hunt” positions where I could photograph from. Also being low to the ground meant that people did not always see me and occasionally they would walk into me or push me out of the way. When this happened I had to stop and martial my confidence again before bringing the camera back up to my eye.


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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/250 second, ISO 100, Daylight white balance, Centre Weight metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

One of the first problems I encountered was that the foreground was not always as clear as I wanted it to be, as in this case I had a metal fence between myself and the subjects. I tried to use the circles and top bar of the fence to draw the eye into the frame, but I am not sure if I succeeded.


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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/250 second, ISO 100, Auto white balance, Centre Weight metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,
I also found that I quickly lost the bright light, and that personally the weight of the camera and lens was too much when it was being hand held.

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I found that this interfered slightly with composition and framing.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/350 second, ISO 100, Daylight white balance, Centre Weight metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

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It did however allow for the opportunity to locate and isolate subjects. In this case the subject was handing out leaflets to passing foot traffic and from his expression I could see that it was not fulfilling. I would have preferred to have a f-stop or two more to allow me to isolate him from his background but the long focal length is enough to enhance the focus onto the individual.


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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/750 second, ISO 100, Daylight white balance, Centre Weight metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,


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Again the practical difficulty of maintaining a steady hand caused a few problems, on review of a number of images, I found that the camera when set on continuous focus sometimes suddenly adjusted the focus when someone moved into the bottom or side of the frame, this along with struggling to maintain focus on the original subject due to shaking hands and arms meant that I lost the choice of image that I wanted. Here while tracking the walking woman from left to right the camera wanted to refocus on the subjects who entered the frame from the bottom.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/250 second, ISO 100, Daylight white balance, Centre Weight metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

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I did find that passers-by and traffic sometimes either blocked the view or entered the frame just as I was setting off the shutter, therefore spoiling the image. In those cases I just had to start again.  Once or twice I found myself being knocked by a passer-by causing me to lose balance and lose the shot.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/500 second, ISO 100, Daylight white balance, Centre Weight metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,


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The great advantage of course is that I could pick and choose my subjects without their knowledge allowing for natural un-posed images

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/500 second, ISO 200, Daylight white balance, Centre Weight metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,



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Overall I enjoyed the exercise, as it allowed me to pick and isolate my subject matter without interfering in their actions. I found it allowed me to be more creative in selection of subject matter and in finding a good shooting position and work from it rather than having to get right into the subject and lose my own personal focus as I have to become more focused on ensuring that I am not knocked over.


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