**Photography Chat** Version 1.0

kenchan

Parker- thanks! Thats a nice shot. On the vw did u focus on the door where it meets the side window?

I'm usually standing about 15-20ft from my car using my kit lens at 22-35mm f8 or higher number.
if I was taking a pict like your sig pict ( your blue Z on an angle) where should I put focus?

When I stand too far back and zoom in, my car looks too flat in the picture like part of the background... I cant seem to get a good focus throughout the car. Is this me or limitation of my setup?

Nick911sc

22-35 on a crop sensor IMO isn't wide enough compared to a full framed camera. You just don't get that same effect with auto photography.

And i def wouldn't go any higher than F8.

Also, when you zoom it seems flat due to the same reason I suggest using a wider angle lens.

I'm no pro though just some of my observations

kenchan

Nick- thanks for the response. So I need to study the difference between my camera and a full framed camera. If this is just the limitation of my camera im fine with it. I thought it was me doing something wrong.

So wat lens would u recommend for car shots? Basically im only going to be taking shots of my car and mods mostly.

Nick911sc

Well, if you want to get an idea of crop vs full frame think of it this way. Generally speaking the crop factor is 1.6 times. So if you're shooting with the canon kit lens at 18mm that would be equivalent to a full frame camera shooting at roughly 28mm. So the full frame gets a much wider shot than the crop camera without having to have a super wide lens in terms of the mm.

I own a tamron 17-50mm 2.8 and I love it to death as far as zooms go. Sharp as a tack.

But if I were you and I'm assuming you're using the 18-55 kit lens, I'd probably be shooting it at 18mm F/5.6 and then adjust the shot accordingly by moving backwards and forwards instead of zooming. Standing closer with a wider angle will get you way better pictures for cars than zooming into the car further back.

Nick911sc

I don't claim to be a pro at car photography, because to be honest it's one of the areas I spend the least amount of time. I took these at a local car show. I don't exactly remember the settings off the top of my head, but I'm sure they were at 17mm and F/4(wide open being 2.8). I just had them uploaded on facebook, straight out of camera with no editing, so a lot of the quality was sucked out of them by that god awful site.

kenchan

thanks for the info... i think i need to study more about full frame lens. not that im going to be buying anything i just want to learn.

yah, i really like the 18-20mm but depending on how close i am to the car it would put too much emphasis on the center like a fisheye look. in some shots i prefer that, in some shots the image is too distorted as far as straight/veriticle lines.


yah your shots with F/5.6 - 8 looks sharp. ive been real careful not to shake the camera but using a wider apeture (faster shutter) would net me less blurry images for sure... im trying to figure out if my apeture setting is causing my slight blurr or me shacking the camera.

so my other question was about focus point. where exactly are you focusing on your car images at f/5.6-f/8? do you take the center plane of the car or do you aim at the headlights or middle of hood, or emblem, or ... (?) im a pretty confused kenchan..

Nick911sc

Aperture setting should have no variable in the photo being blurred, a wide open aperture takes in more light, so if anything it should be less blurry since you need a slower shutter speed. Rule of thumb is.. Whatever the mm you're shooting at should be your minimum shutter speed. So if you're shooting at 50mm your minimum shutter speed for a non blurry photo should be AT LEAST 1/50 and so on.(I usually end up doubling if I can)

In those photos I was using a center focusing point, when you're shooting at a higher F stop the sharpness starts at the middle and progressively gets sharper towards the edges as the f stop increases, so really the whole picture should be sharp with the center shot being the sharpest.

Placement in the photo I'd also would say has to do with your general composition that you're looking for the photo overall. Rule of thirds, etc.

Do you own an external flash for your camera?

kenchan

Thanks again, nick. i really appreciate your help.

huh, i thought apeture would determine DOF so a higher number was preferred if i wanted to get a big object like an entire car in focus..(?) maybe im mis-understanding the depth of say f/5.6 with 20mm lens 3meters away would be 1.325m near focus limit... ohhh.... DOF is infinite. it's when im using more like 23mm+ i need to worry about the rear focal limit.

(kenchan using DofF calculator on his droidx... )

so the shorter the lens the less i need to worry about DOF... ok ok.. thanks for that! i will shoot f/5.6-8 18mm-20mm from now on.

thanks for the focus point. im starting to understand this. so there's actually 2 areas the camera can focus on... DOF plane + within that plane, the actual focal point using the camera's artificial RED DOT focal point.

is that wat you're saying?

phelan

^ i was debating to myself for a bit to invest in an external flash or not. i've generally gone on the presumption to not use flash for anything yet, as i'm still learning the ropes, but i've taken more than one shot where i wish i could bounce some light off the ceiling or get some good fill.

and aperture does control DOF, ken. i think nick was pointing to that later in his post, as your f/stop increases, the sharpness also starts crawling out towards the edges.

__________________

凛 ('Rin') - 2009 Nissan 370Z
With silence comes peace. With peace comes freedom. With freedom comes silence.

Nick911sc

When you shoot wide open, you get more of a DOF so the center is in focus but as you move away from the center you begin to get out of focus. So if you're shooting wide open at say.. 1.8 as you move away from the center it will begin to lose sharpness and if something is further away you'll get the blurring(bokeh) in the photo. So if you take that same lens and boost the F/ to 4 more of the image will be in focus including things that may be further away from the focusing point. The mm of the lens itself does not really effect DOF. If you shoot at 90mm with 2.8(like my macro shots or at macro 1:1 with a higher F stop which is a totally different lesson lol) you're getting that same DOF effect.

IMO an external flash increases picture quality 10 fold. But natural light I find better obviously in situations like shooting cars.

Nitex

Nick! great info ty for all the advice. I have a lot to learn it seems

__________________
2013 Drivers ED GTI | Stage 2 Unitronic

Parkerman

The focal length of a lens does effect its depth of field. 200mm at 2.8 will have a much shallower DoF than 24mm at 2.8.

__________________

Nick911sc

Yea, I should have made it clear I was talking more about the kit lens and other similar lenses though. IMO 18mm, 50mm and even 90mm is way different compared to something as long as 200mm.

phelan

lol let's leave the telephoto lenses out of the discussion for now

__________________

凛 ('Rin') - 2009 Nissan 370Z
With silence comes peace. With peace comes freedom. With freedom comes silence.

kenchan

hey phelan. yep, i understood that part and nick's explanation. what didnt' come to me was that up to about 20mm length the rear DOF is infinite vs using a longer lens based on the DofF calculator. which means i shouldn't need to use a large f/stop number to get the tail of my car in focus.

here's wat the calc says based on me standing 3meters from the car using f/5.6

18mm near focus limit 1.17m DOF: infinite /far focus limit is infinity
20mm near focus limit 1.33m DOF: intinite /far focus limit is infinity
23mm near focus limit 1.53m DOF: 65.18m /far focus limit is 66.72m

that's a lot of dept of field i can use at f/5.6 with a short lens.

on the contrary if i use a 55mm setting...
55mm near focus limit 2.56m DOF: 1.02m /far focus limit is 3.594m


yah, so you're saying that the camera's center is focus based on apeture and DOF and you can selectively focus using the REDDOT but the apeture setting will mandate how well the camera can focus within that DOF. i think i understand how this thing works now.

forgot to reply on your question about flash. i dont have external flash, just the one that pops up on my D3100.

i dont intend to go deep into photograpy. i already have another expensive hobby (music) besides my car which not only eats at my wallet but my time and determination as well. photography is more like just a icing on the cake for my car hobby.