Morguefile : Classroom : lesson 3

In lesson two we briefly touched on lenses when we talked about aperture, but for the most part, we
simply discussed the basics of how a camera works by looking at the most basic camera of all, a
pinhole camera. The pinhole camera is really an amazing thing when you think about it, but it's not
practical at all for most of the purposes we want a camera for. Without a lens, it's not possible to get
a really sharp picture, and the tiny amount of light that a pinhole lets into the camera means you
need a shutter speed of anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours, depending on how much light is
on your subject. That wouldn't be very useful if you wanted to take a picture of a high jumper in
mid-flight.

To eliminate these two issues, we

simply put a glass lens in our camera. The lens then gathers waaaaaay more light than that little
pinhole and sharply focuses that light into a picture on our film.

The lens is really the most important part of your camera. If you're using a compact camera that has
it's own non-removable lens, you may want to consider upgrading in the future to a camera that lets
you change lenses. A good, sharp lens will be a huge asset to you in your photography as you become
more and more concerned about the quality of your images. Lens quality is a much more complex
issue than you might think at first. A really good, sharp lens uses special glass - several layers of
different kinds of optical glass that have been precisely ground and then inserted into a mechanism
that you can move around to focus all of those layers on your subject. Good lenses are spendy, but
they will be well worth it if you're interested in producing the best possible photographs.

Choosing a camera lens would be easy if all you had to worry about was getting a good quality lens,
but the many different variables - focal lengths, zoom lenses, lens "speed" - complicate the choice.
We'll go over some of the aspects of camera lenses and how those should influence your decision
when you're trying to find the right lens for what you want to do with your camera.

If you do have an interchangeable lens camera, the camera will most oftentimes come with what's
considered a "normal" lens - a 50 mm lens. That focal length lens is regarded as "normal" because the
image it makes is very close to what the human eye sees. This is a great place to start. I recommend
using that sort of lens until you're very familiar with it and comfortable using it and start to feel the
need for a lens that is suited for some area of photography that you're particularly interested in. Let's
do a quick overview of different focal lengths of lenses and their common uses.
Wide-Angle Lenses
Wide-angle lenses have a couple of practical uses. They include much more of the scene in front of
the camera than your normal lens. The following chart should give you a general idea of the amount
of area in front of your camera that each type of lens covers.

This can be useful in several instances, like when you're taking photographs in small, enclosed
spaces. Wide-angle lenses are also very common for landscape photography. A 24 mm lens will
pack four times more of the scene in front of you into your photo than a 50 mm lens, so in landscape
photography you'll wind up with more foreground and vast, dramatic skies. There are three sub-
categories of wide-angle lenses.
24 mm - 35
Wide-Angle
mm
17 mm - 21
Ultra Wide-Angle
mm
6 mm - 15 mm Fisheye
 The wider the angle of your lens, the more linear
distortion you'll have in your image. You can see what I mean by linear distortion in this image.

Notice in this photo of the aftermath of a forest fire the way that the ground seems to almost "bubble".
The wider lens you use, the more apparent that will become. Sort of like looking into one of those
convex mirrors you see in the corners of convenience stores and such - it also will make things seem
out of proportion, in that the closer an object is to the lens, the larger it will seem. A good example of
this is a close up photograph of a person or animal using a wide-angle lens - their nose will appear
very large in proportion to the rest of their face, creating a comical effect. Those kinds of photos have
been a big hit in the greeting card industry as of late. This can also be used very effectively in
landscapes to draw attention to the foreground of an image and add depth to the overall image.
 This image showcases the rocks in the foreground,
drawing the viewer in and giving them the feeling that they are "right there". Wide-angle lenses are a
must for landscape photography, so if your interests lie there, you might want to consider adding one
of these lenses to your inventory.

Another unusual effect that wide-angle lenses tend to create is the problem of converging vertical
lines. This effect is most noticeable when taking a photograph of a building from a low angle, looking
up. In the following photograph, notice how the building's lines curve in towards the top.

Notice the curving bottom line, also. A full fisheye lens actually makes a photograph that is circular
in nature. A fun lens to use, but probably not the first on your list of lenses that you need.

Long-Focus Lenses
Long-focus lenses are basically the opposite of wide-angle lenses. The term is used for almost all
lenses that are longer than "normal" focal length. They're also oftentimes referred to as "telephoto
lenses". When discussing focal length in the last lesson, I made a general statement that the number of
the focal length is generally how many millimeters it is from the front of the camera to the film plane
inside of the camera. If you happen to have a 400 mm lens lying around and decide to whip out your
ruler and measure it, however, you'll probably notice that it is not 400 mm long. That's because inside
of the lens barrel they use elements that magnify the image. A lens that is actually shorter than its
focal length is technically called a telephoto lens. If your 400 mm lens actually happens to be 400 mm
long, you've got a long-focus lens that is not a telephoto, even though they're all commonly called
telephoto lenses. That's just a bit of trivia for you. I'll use the terms interchangeably in this section,
but now you know the difference.

So what are telephoto lenses used for? Let's look at the following example of the same scene taken
from the exact same spot, using both a wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens:

Whereas a wide-angle lens will make objects in your foreground larger and objects in the distance
smaller, a telephoto will make objects that are far away seem much closer. Telephotos are commonly
used for wildlife photography. It's very difficult to get near many wild animals and birds, and a good
wildlife photographer will take his or her telephoto lens out into the wild and sit, unmoving, for very
long periods of time to get that great shot.
 Another thing that telephoto lenses are
good for is eliminating those converging vertical lines that I mentioned when talking about wide-
angle lenses.

This shot was taken from quite a distance using a telephoto lens. Notice that the lines of the building
don't seem to curve like the old brick schoolhouse in the previous example. If you can keep your lens
and film plane parallel to the surface you're shooting, you'll have good luck with eliminating those
converging verticals. They also make special lenses called Perspective Control (or PC) lenses that can
help you correct this problem if you can't get far enough away to use your telephoto - unless you are
planning on doing a lot of architectural photography, though, I wouldn't recommend one of these.
They're rather expensive.

There are a few disadvantages to buying telephoto lenses, so unless this is the type of photography
you're really interested in, I wouldn't recommend one. Long-focus lenses can be very expensive -
when you take a picture at a great distance like the telephoto example of the barn above, you tend to
get a bit of haze to your image. Only the purest environment will eliminate this. They're also very
bulky, and yes - expensive. A 200 mm telephoto will probably take care of most of your needs, unless
you're planning on photographing something small, like birds, from a great distance.

You can also enhance your telephoto lens with something called a "tele-extender". It is another lens
that you put on your camera, and then your regular lens attaches to the front of it. A 2x tele-extender
will double the size of your image. They're reasonably inexpensive, not huge and bulky, and give you
a lot of versatility. Their disadvantages: you won't get quite as sharp of an image using a tele-
extender, and you'll have to open up your camera by 2 stops with a 2x tele-extender because they
decrease the amount of light that comes into your camera. But if all you have is a 200 mm lens and
that rare African Ruby Throated Ring Necked Swallowtail shows up, you can throw on a 2x tele-
extender and increase your lens power to 400 mm. They even make them in 3x and a few other
variations.

Portrait Lenses
Lenses that are between 85 mm and 135 mm are called "portrait lenses". Remember how we talked
about wide angle noses causing the "big nose" effect? This is called perspective distortion, and here's
an example of that, along with a portrait taken using a 110 mm lens, which is what I generally like to
shoot portraits with.

These are both self-portraits. Notice the caricature feeling of the shot taken with the wide-angle lens
and the more in-proportion feeling of the nose in the standard portrait. If this is an area of
photography you're interested in, this might be one of the first lens purchases to put on your list. I find
a focal length of right around 100 mm to 110 mm to be very flattering in portraiture. You'll be able to
get close enough to fill your entire frame with your subject while still standing a reasonable distance
from them, too.

Macro Lenses
A macro lens is used to take pictures very close up of objects. A true macro lens will make an image
on the film that is exactly the same size as the subject. They're commonly used to photograph flowers,
insects, coins, etc. I do a lot of macro photography and it's one lens that I couldn't live without. Macro
lenses can come in any focal length - 24 mm, 50 mm, even 200 mm. In addition to being able to
function as standard lenses, they will also focus much closer than regular lenses have the ability to do.
The following images were taken with macro lenses:
Zoom Lenses
There are also zoom lenses. These will let you change the focal length that you are using without
changing lenses. They tend to be expensive, and because of all of the mechanical stuff inside the lens
barrel that allows you to zoom in and out, the optics tend to not be quite as sharp as a fixed-focal
length lens. However, some of them aren't too bad and they can be very handy if you're out shooting
and want the versatility of more than one lens without the hassle of carrying various lenses around
with you.

Aperture and Depth Of Field

In the last lesson we talked about aperture and shutter speed and how they affect your photograph's
exposure. Aperture also controls something called depth of field.

When you focus your lens on a subject, anything at that same distance will similarly be in focus.
Things that are closer to or further from the camera lens will gradually - or drastically - be less sharp.
Your camera's aperture controls how large of a zone is acceptably in focus. This is called "depth of
field", and the smaller your camera's aperture, the larger that depth of field zone is.
 In this image, the tip of the red
pencil is sharply in focus and the acceptable focus zone fades quickly so that the other pencils are
more and more blurry. This was achieved by using a large camera aperture. Depth of field also
increases with distance. The farther you place the camera from your subject, the more of the subject
you can get in focus. Landscapes tend to have deep depth of field, while macros have a very shallow
depth of field because the subject is so close to the lens.
Shallow depth of field can be used in many interesting ways for impact in your photographs. Here are
two more photographs of the same subject using different depths of field to create different effects:
Likewise, this image uses shallow depth of field to achieve effect. This is the setup I used to take that
picture:

Of course, I could have just hired Roger Clemens to stand there and chuck baseballs at me and my
camera all day until I got a properly composed photograph with the ball in focus - and then snapped
the shutter at the exact time it all came together. This way was probably a lot easier, less expensive
and much safer.

Another creative use of depth of field is to use a shallow depth of field when taking a portrait if
you're in a less-than-ideal setting. Tightly focus on the subject's face and open up your aperture to
blur that city street or whatever is in the background and you'll have a portrait that jumps out at you.

Finally, don't take this to mean that stopping down your aperture and throwing your focus on infinity
will give you a completely in-focus landscape photograph. We've talked about shallow depth of field,
but when you want deep depth of field in a landscape image, you should use something called
"hyperfocal distance". If you go back and refer to the lake image used earlier in the lesson where I
noted the rocks in the foreground, that sharp focus throughout the image was achieved using this
method. It's the best way to assure your foreground is tack sharp as well as the rest of the photo.

First, you need a lens with a depth-of-field scale imprinted on it. A lot of lenses don't have this on
them, so if you're selecting a lens to buy, this is a good thing to look for. It's a bunch of numbers
written on the lens that coincide with the apertures on the lens. Each number is printed twice - once
on the left of the center position, once on the right.

If your lens has apertures running from f/2.8 through f/32, you will see a "2.8" written in the center
and a "32" printed way to the left and then again way to the right. I know, you're saying, "Man, all
those little numbers look so CONFUSING! What the heck am I supposed to do with those?" It's not
as hard as it looks, and I promise you'll be happy you learned this. This is what you do:
Set your lens to its smallest possible aperture. That's f/32 on the fictional camera I'm talking about, so
we'll stick with that. So now find the "32" markings on the depth-of-field scale on the lens. Got Ôem?
Okay, now instead of the normal procedure of positioning the infinity distance mark at the center,
position the infinity symbol above the "32" mark on the right. Now you are now focusing most
sharply on a distance of somewhere around ten feet or so, but infinity is just within your depth of
field, also sharp. Okay, now look at the left-hand marking that says "32" and it will tell you at what
distance your depth of field starts - from about three or four feet out all the way to infinity.

Tripods
Okay, if I don't get around to talking about tripods soon it's going to drive me crazy, so I guess this is
as good of a place as any, and it sort of fits in with the lesson on lenses.
Personally, I do my best to never - ever - take a photograph without using a tripod. There are some
circumstances where it's just not practical, but they are few and far between. Using a tripod will make
a big difference in your technical quality of your pictures.
That being said, there's sort of an informal rule that says it's okay to hand-hold a camera if your
shutter speed is at least equal to your focal length.
Huh?
Easier way to say it - if you're using a 100 mm lens, you should not hand-hold your camera at less
than 1/100 second. A 500 mm telephoto lens should not be hand held at less than 1/500 second. Even
if you are positive you have the steadiest hands in the world and you really don't need a tripod - trust
me - you do. Why am I so emphatic about this? The absolute worst mistake a beginning photographer
can make is to not use a tripod. I've seen some beautiful shots that have been worthless when viewed
up closely because of camera shake due to not using a tripod. I went through a stage where I thought
they weren't REALLY necessary, too, and had a good portion of my best early images ruined due to
this.
So what should you look for in a tripod? Several things.
Anything on the tripod that locks should lock really securely. If there are telescoping legs, extend
1. them, lock them and then try and push them back in before you buy. If they slip, move on to
another model.
Big, easy-to-handle knobs and handles. The last thing you want to worry about when you're
2.
shooting is figuring out which thing to grab and where it is.
3. A head that rotates 360 degrees and lets you tilt the camera straight up and straight down.
Overall sturdiness. Stand it up and press with good pressure on the center of the tripod. It
4.
shouldn't move.

I can't stress enough what a help this will be to improving your image quality. There are also
monopods on the market if you're hiking and a tripod is too much to carry.
Okay, assignments!

Assignment 1: Set your camera up on its tripod or other sturdy object. Take a photograph using
your widest angle lens possible and another using your longest lens possible. Compose them
both so they are as interesting as possible.

Assignment 2: Again, set your camera up and take two photographs - this time they should be
exactly the same, but use your aperture to make your subject the only thing in focus in one of
them and then to make everything in the picture in focus in the other one.
Have fun and be creative!

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