Some Photography techniques

My eldest son has taken some interest into photography as well.

When I have time, I'd tutor him on some of the basics and gradually move to more advanced techniques.





This one was taken by him using Manual mode. He's attempting to capture a shot of raindrops on the car window in a moving car while it was raining to illustrate the concept of bokeh.

Bokeh, is a Japanese term, which in photography, describes the rendition of out-of-focus of a 'subject'.
Bokeh describes at the appearance of out-of-focus areas and not how far of something that is out-of-focus or the 'character' of the blurred 'subject' in the composition. In other words, bokeh is the quality of the out-of-focus 'subject' in a composition.

A good quality Bokeh composition can be easily achieved with a fast lens with a longer focal length, but those lens are 'out of my reach' for the moment.

In the composition below, the subject that is blurred (communications tower) shows some element bokeh concept. The Exif info of his composition is:

Focal Length: 55mm
F Number: 5.6
Shutter speed: 1/50
ISO: 140
Mode: Manual

I believe that a slightly lower F-number (larger aperture) and a longer focal length the bokeh effect would be quite good. But then he was using my standard 18-55mm lens with 3.5-5.6 F settings. That means he have gone with the lowest F-number he could with that focal length...

Not too bad for a 12 year old enthusiastic wanna-be....

I took the next photo at the beach in Kuala Ibai during my recent exercursion.

Exif info for the photo:

Focal Length: 160mm
F-Number: 5.3
Shutter speed: 1/1000
ISO: 400
Mode: Aperture Priority

Notice that the focused area of the photo is elliptical in nature detailing the graininess of the sandballs (created by the beach crabs), while the out-of-focus areas show some element of bokeh.


His (my son) next composition was to demonstrate panning of movement to achieve the sense of motion. While he was in the car that I was driving, it can be considered 'cheating' to achieve the sense of motion.. but for a 12 year old.... what the heck....

In this composition only the foremost tree (shrub?) is blurred (due to motion) while the rest are sharp and in focus. Quite ok, i guess...
 

Exif info of the composition:

Focal Length: 50mm
F-Number: 8
Shutter speed: 1/250

ISO: 100
Mode: Scenery Mode

.rr