The Boat
Golden Ratio, Rule of thirds
There is often talk amoung photographers about the golden ratio. It is said that many famous painters in the past used the golden ratio to make their pieces truly brilliant and to draw the gaze of the viewer in to the painting, creating depth and harmony inside the painting. All this is attributed to the mathematical aesthetics of the golden ratio and many photographers teach us to use the golden ratio in photography in order to create pleasing compositions and framing of the subjects.
Similarly you hear people speak of the ”rule of thirds” as being gospel about how to compose your pictures. The rule of thirds is similar to, but not exactly the same, as the golden ratio and I will attempt to explain what they are here.
Golden ratio
The golden ratio is a mathematical construct that looks like this:
The special letter to the left is the greek letter ”phi” used to denote the golden ratio in mathematics. The way this works is more clear if we take a look at this picture here:
If this is the long side of a photograph we can see that a+b is the whole length of the photograph and the fraction of the whole length divided by a is the same as a divided by b. This produces a ratio which is roughly 62%.
Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds are similar, it means you divide your photo into sections that are 1/3 and 2/3 and try to put the objects of interest in where these lines intersect or just on the lines. The rule of thirds and golden ratio are similar although mathematically not the same thing. They do however give you a similar feeling when looking at a photograph and which one you prefer is up to you. The rule of thirds produce the longer distance to be 67% which is not terribly different from the golden ratio.
Many cameras also have built in guides in the view finder for the rule-of-thirds and some even with the golden ratio. You can say that the golden ratio intersection happens a little closer to the middle than the rule of thirds does.
How can this be applied in photography?
There is a number of ways to do this actually and the trick is to place objects of special interest in the golden ratio section, or where the lines meet. This is done by offsetting the interesting parts in a photograph from the middle and creating horizons which are not centered in the middle of the photograph, effectively turning the shot into two shots, one skyshot and one land or water shot. By moving the horizon off the middle, from the 50% mark to the 60% mark or thereabout we can create a much more pleasing image.
Here are some examples discussed individually on how to do this
The dead center
When doing technical shots the subject is usually placed in the center of the photograph. This is also referred to as the ”dead center” some times because sometimes when objects are placed in the middle of the image it does not give the same life to the picture.
The human eye is also suffers from a construction problem in where our eye sight is actually not very good in the middle of the eye. We see better if we focus the eye slightly to the side, above or under the subject we are looking at. This is apparently more obvious in the dark when you try to make out shapes in the dark looking slightly besides the place you want to look will make it easier to see.
I have no idea if this is part of the explanation for why putthing things in the middle of the frame is aesthetically less pleasing than moving them slightly to the side, top or bottom of the framing.
Break the rules
All these rules have but one purpose, it means you should try to frame your subject in a fashion that you avoid placing objects of interest in the ”dead center” and if you believe in the magic of the golden ratio or the rule of thirds does not matter, but it is however usually a pretty nice move to not center in on your horizons and subjects. Move them around. See what happens.
The same goes if your horizon is exactly ont he 1/3 or not, it does not matter, and as all rules when it comes to photography this is a rule that you can – and should break – whenever you feel like it. There are no such rules of thumb that will create good photos, only you will do that and although rules like these can help remind you to think of your composition there are absolutely times when a smack down the middle horizon is really cool also.
Course in Nature Photography
So I get home from a weary day and my lovely wife-to-be hands me a surprise. She’s signed me up for and paied for me to go off on a nature and landscape photographic course this Weekend. I was originally looking at this course several months ago but decided I did not presently have the budget to do it and here I come home to one of the best surprises in my life.
As usual the course holders Janne Hägerholm (email, homepage) and Laszlo Incze (email, homepage) was doing a splendid job and we had such good fortune with the weather. Yesterday was a bit cloudy and here are the pictures from this day, good light definitely and wonderful in many ways.
Day 1 pictures
Today we had brilliant sunshine instead and that was great too, for a different kind of photography where we could concentrate on the autumn colours and forget a little about the broad sweeping landscapes that are more difficult in these light conditions.
Day 2 pictures
More Macros
- This Thread is Screwed
- Nikon D70s, SB-600, Soligor extenders, Tamron SP Di 90/2.8 1:1 Macro, Adobe Lightroom
Pine Tree is Gone?!
Walking around Görvälns Castle we studied several interesting trees and other specimens. The great thing is that they have signs everywhere telling you the lating name, where they live naturally and other information as well.
When we got to the pine tree we got a surprise.
Foaming Fountain
I just walked past it. The workers looked like they’d kill the next student coming along. Apparently they were emptying the fountain from water so that it does not freeze in the winter time when someone dropped a bottle of washing up liquid into it. Great foaming ensued and the guys trying to empty it was the only ones not laughing…
Ginger
Well I got inspired by the picture in this post and had to roll my own. I love high key shots!
No ginger roots were harmed in this photo session.
Macro Mania
What are extension rings?
Above is a full set of Soligor extension tubes. You might be wondering what extension tubes are and what you can do with them and I wish to show you some interesting stuff. First of all, this article is for the beginners, if you already know what to do with them you can just skip on.
If you are new to advanced macro photography this is a really good help for you. If you already own a macro lens (I use the Tamron SP Di 90mm f/2.8 Macro 1:1 lens which is a very good lens in many ways but to achieve really close pictures you need more magnification than 1:1.
This is what extension tubes do. They move the lens away from the camera, meaning that the image the lens produces falls outside the sensor. Think of it as if your digital camera just suddenly saw a tiny part of the picture the lens produce and then made the picture from this part. Exactly this is the purpose of these extenders.
The extension tubes can be used separately for lower magnifications and together to provide a wide variety of magnification ranges depending on what you are shooting. Here are all the possible combinations in increasing length:
- 12 mm
- 20 mm
- 32 mm (12+20)
- 36 mm
- 48 mm (12+36)
- 56 mm (20+36)
- 68 mm (12+20+36)
There are variants of course, many other brands to chose from. I chose Soligor because they were easily available, the cost was low and – in my opinion this is important, they allow the camera to meter and autofocuse when they are mounted, the cheapest onese usually don’t do that.
Now, with advanced macro phootage you may not be able to focus with AF anyway, the depth of field is so shallow that it is easy for the focussing mechanism in the camera to actually step over it and miss the sweet spot. With a bit of practicing that’s not a problem you will learn to focus manually.
These rings – or tubes – also have the electrical connectors that allows the camera to transfer information to and from the lens. This is important for the metering feature to work properly. If your rings do not do this you will have to go fully manual on your camera to use them.
What is the good things about them?
They allow you to get close. I mean really close to your subject. They also allow you to do crazy shallow focus depth (DOF, depth of field) meaning that the space where your subject is in focus is very very small. This is very interesting for some types of shots. Some examples here:
- Rollerball ink pen with green ink
- Stitch remover
- Laser pen end
These were all taken using my trusty Tamron SP Di 90mm f/2.8 Macron 1:1 lens which I love dearly. But extenders can be used with other lenses as well. I have tested it with my Nikkor AF 50/1.8D lens and this works well.
So if you do not have a macro lens, a cheap way of getting macro shots anyway is to use a good lens you already have and then add extension tubes. This works not so good with wide angles or too long telephoto lenses, you should probably be somewhere around 30-100 mm in focal range for this to work well.
Together with a macro though it allows you some crazy control over the pictures. Macro lenses also often have the possibility to step down to something like f/48 or f/64 which means you have good control over the depth of field and can definitely play around with it.
Drawbacks of using the tubes?
There are some drawbacks of course. When they are mounted the camera can no longer focus at infinity. You can not use these to enhance your telephoto lens for this purpose you need a different breed called a teleconverter which is not just a tube but also has a lens to correct for the focal length change.
Autofocus may become difficult since the extension makes the depth of field very shallow it may be difficult. The light through the lens is also diminished somewhat but the camera compensates for this but some cameras needs very good light for their focus sensors to work. Mine works pretty well down to about f/8 but not beyond that generally.
Because of the light conditions, the very shallow dof you will most likely need a very good light source as well. I use my SB-600 flash, but on a tether (cable) so that I can move it around and work with it from different angles. I recommend something like that or a ring flash or similar because you need good light to be able to work f/40 to get something that looks like a decent DOF when useing the extension tubes.
But then light is always a problem of macro photography, not only of extension tubes.
What should you consider when buying extension tubes?
Check that they have the electrical and mechanical couplings necessary to transfer information to your body for metering and autofocus to work. If these two things does not feel that important to you, if you are happy to shoot on manual and focus manually then by all means you can get the cheaper tubes of course. I personally prefer to have the option of using the AF and 3D metering that my camera offers, even if I wish to turn it off.
Get a known brand of them and google what people say about it being used on the lens mount and camera type you are using — i have heard people who use really cheap bad ones had trouble getting their lens to fit or the rings to fit the camera house, the precision may not bee very good on these.
The rings are different for different camera brands, make sure you get the right ones for your camera brand and lens mount.
What is the price?
Around €110 (£70 GBP, $165 USD) for a full set or varying where you buy them. I got mine online in sweden at Cyberphoto. You may also pick up used ones on Ebay or similar trading places. The ones without the electrical connectors are cheaper and then there are some very cheap ones I would not recommend because of the poor quality. You don’t want to damage your camera lens mount or your expensive lenses.
Swedish Center Illegally Uses Photographs
The Swedish Center in San Diego have used one of my pictures without permission. I have deliberately broken the link with them now so their picture comes up with the Flickr standard logo. It is clear on everyone of my picture pages that the pictures are Copyright and I reserve all rights.
I have never said no if someone has asked me kindly to use a picture or two, I find it very flattering actually, but the Swedish Center never even linked back to my photo page (a violation of Flickr’s terms and conditions) and never even attributed me as the photographer.
Most likely they found the picture in a search engine somewhere and just used it on their web site. This is of course not legal unless the picture is explicitly a public domain photo or you have express (written) permission of the owner.
Despite me leaving a comment on the page violating my legal rights and Flickr’s terms of service there has for about a week now been no reply. The comment has not even been moderated so it is not visible to anyone else but the admins on the site or myself at the moment.
Autumn Woods
This time of the year is my favourite for photography, you can just go outside and get some really nice photos, grandiose colours and exiting subjecs, the surroundings is excellent, just your ordinary park offers a lot of things that are just waiting to be photographed.
Here are some of my autumn photos for inspiration or to just enjoy:
