Back to Basics...

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! I hope this lovely evening finds you relaxed and excited about photography here in Hohenfels.

Today we’re going back to basics. We’re talking about one side of the “exposure triangle,” shutter speed.

Shutter speed is, of course, how fast your shutter opens and returns to the closed position. That sounds simple, but like all things in photography, it involves much more than that. Because SLRs use a single moving mirror to allow the composing of an image through your lens, and focusing through the lens, also, that has to be factored in. In long exposures, this can lead to vibrations and shake.

The complexities that go into allowing super fast shutter speeds are too many to discuss here, but we will touch on a couple issues.

Today’s shutters are usually made of metal blades, allowing them slide behind one another and achieve faster speeds. Because they are firm, they are also more durable. Early SLRs used silk shutters, which could snag and tear, or even develop pinholes, causing a waste of entire rolls of film. Most of the SLRs you’re likely to have encountered have curtain shutters that slide up and down. On older cameras, leaf shutters were common, which allowed flash synchronization at all speeds. They generally couldn’t achieve reliable speeds above 1/500 at the top end. They also used clockwork like mechanisms to open the shutter exposing the entire shot or sensor simultaneously to whatever light was present and exposed for.

On today’s cameras, shutter speeds that are very fast do not expose the entire sensor at once. Instead, they use a pair of “curtains” that travel along the focal plane and are synchronized to create a slit of light that progresses until the entirety of the sensor has been exposed. Due to this fact, most entry-level cameras can flash synch anywhere from 1/60-1/200, with high-end dSLRs being capable of synching up to 1/250. If you use your flash at any shutter speed faster than your sync speed, you will have dark bands along part of your scene.

Each halving or doubling of your shutter speed causes a doubling or halving of the exposure to which your sensor is exposed. Most of our better modern cameras can shoot from 30 seconds to 1/8000 second, and include a bulb mode for manual exposures longer than 30 seconds.

The series of shutter speeds, in full stops goes like this:
30 seconds, 15 seconds, 8 seconds, 4 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second, ½, ¼, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000, and 1/8000. Notice the halving of exposure with each change of speed.

Adding in half stops gives you:
24 seconds, 12 seconds, 6 seconds, 3 seconds, 1.5 seconds, 1/3, 1/6, 1/10, 1/20, 1/45, 1/90, 1/180, 1/350, 1/750, 1/1500, 1/3000, and 1/6000.

Finally adding in the third stop increments gives you the following series:
13 seconds, 10 seconds, 6 seconds, 5 seconds, 3 seconds, 2.5 seconds, 1.6 seconds, 1.3 seconds, .6 second, .4 second, 1/5, 1/6, 1/10, 1/13, 1/20, 1/25, 1/40, 1/50, 1/80, 1/100, 1/160, 1/200, 1/320, 1/400, 1/640, 1/800, 1/1250, 1/1600, 1/2500, 1/3200, 1/5000, and finally 1/6400.

The complete range allows for shooting in all lighting situations. They also allow for shots that will freeze even the fastest action or blur even the slightest movement. The creative potential of using your shutter speed in combination with the other sides of the triangle is limited only by your imagination. Try some motion blur, or try panning with a moving object to get the sense of motion and speed. Try to capture a hummingbird’s wings without blur. Remember, though, that every change in one side of the triangle requires a change in another side to maintain the same exposure.

Here's a photo, taken at a local fest, that shows how shutter speed can be used creatively.


ISO 125, f/16, 4 seconds
The ferris wheel, with a long exposure for motion blur in the ride, turned into a color wheel!

Back to basics, get there and get the shot using the knowledge you have and your unique vision. I’m convinced that shooting for the basics can help keep us on top of our game and give us another way to expand our potential.

I’d love to know what you think and what you’re doing with your photography. Where are you headed, and is there anything you’d like to see here? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Luminance Values and Exposure

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Spring, being upon us here in Hohenfels, is ripe with opportunities for our craft. Looking around, the trees are bright and clean, the flowers are bursting with color, and the Germany is waking up to a wonderful summer ahead.

Today’s post, delayed by unfortunate occurrences, is about luminance values, and how we can record, refer to, and use those values to improve our image. There will be some math here, but nothing major.

The first thing we need to discuss is the exposure formula. Ansel Adams described it as being the reciprocal of the luminance at a speeds key stop. The key stop for any speed is the square root of the speed. Here is a list of most speed/stop combinations.

Speed Key Stop
100 10
125 11
160 12
250 16
320 17
400 20
480/500 22
620 25
800 28
1000 32

I began the table at ISO 100 and ended at ISO 1000. ISO 100 is the lowest most consumer cameras go, and f/32 is about as high as most consumer lenses get today.

By setting your camera to any of the pairs in the table, you can read the luminance of your metered object, measured in candles/square foot, or c/ft2. For instance at ISO 125, f/11, metering 1/125, then the luminance value is 125 c/ft2. If your meter shows 30 seconds, then the luminance is 1/30 c/ft2. That will put you at 18%, or neutral gray reference values. This is what I refer to as M, or an M exposure.

When photographing normal scenes, we often encounter a scale of values that for any given exposure will run from approximately M-5 and lower to M+5 or higher. By learning to look at luminance values as described above, you learn to tame that range, creating an image that will make you justifiably proud.

An example of exposing for your luminance reading is when you meter the clear sky; you should read about f/11, ISO125, 1/300. This will put your sky into the range of 18% reflectance. We know that a clear Northern sky should fall about M+1, which means we should expose for the sky at f/11, ISO125, 1/150. Of course, this goes back to place and fall exposures. You must decide the key elements within your scene and where they should be placed. Once this exposure and placement is determined, all other values fall where their luminance levels impact your sensor. Knowing these values will help you determine where you wish to place elements and where your remaining elements will fall.

Even metering clouds, you will find a range of luminance values that may run from 200 c/ft2 to 1000 c/ft2. By meter the brightest part, 1000 c/ft2, then adding 3 stops, you bring your 200 c/ft2 up to nearly M+1 ½ in the exposure range, which is slightly brighter than the surrounding blue sky, and significantly darker than the brights in the clouds. Your brights will print out with slight tonal variations, and darker areas will have adequate or better textural ranges. You also bring areas metering at 50 c/ft2 up to the equivalent exposure of 400 c/ft2. These equivalent values are in relation to your original metering from the bright part of the clouds.

Recording your luminance values across the range of your scene will help you learn to recognize values, and expose with more confidence. It will also help in editing your images and preparing them for either printing or display. I would suggest metering across the range of M-4 to M+4 after determining your priorities, and noting the results. Even if you’re shooting at some combination not listed above, take the luminance readings using a combination. After reading the values, switch to your desired settings, compose, and make your image. Values for M+ and M- can be extrapolated by halving or doubling the values obtained with your meter. This is less accurate, but still of considerable value in perfecting your images.

Another great advantage of knowing your luminance and place values, is the ability to tell anyone about your exposure without giving the ISO, f/stop, EI, shutter speed, and so on. Tell them you metered this at 250 c/ft2, and gave M+1 to get the exposure where you wanted it. Regardless of your settings, they will know that to get that exposure from 250 c/ft2, then they give M+1 at whatever aperture and speed they desire, for instance ISO 125, f/8, 1/250 or ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/1600. Both will give the same results, and use the same values, 250 c/ft2 +1 stop, and make exposing a scene more consistent. It’s also useful when referring to edits performed. Taking the last example, you may have shot at M+1, and then edited it to M to decrease contrast. In this case, you can say this was shot at 250 c/ft2 +1 stop, then edited to M for the final effect. This will help others understand and help you remember your shots without having to know every little bit of detail.

There are other ways of expressing luminance, for instance EV or c/m2, or lumens, and as long as you find a consistent method of evaluating and expressing that exposure, your images will be consistent with your vision. Don’t get hung up on what I use, try it and if it doesn’t work, try something else. You’ll still have a working system, and you’ll still be enjoying what we love to do!

Time to get out and do some shooting, I hope you’ll be out today getting your shots in, too!

I’m looking forward to seeing your results and hearing from you. Let me know what you think and how you’re using your camera! Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Placing and Falling

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Lovely weather is starting to work its way around to us again. Slowly, but it’s coming!

Today we’re going to talk about metering and level placements. First things first, though, you need to know your camera and how to set metering types.

We need to start with our visualization and an assessment of the scene we’re trying to bring to life. Where are the most important details, where do we want to keep detail, and where can we sacrifice some detail to get our image to match our vision?

Once we’ve done our initial assessment, we need to place our camera’s metering mode to spot mode. In spot mode, we’re going to meter several places in AV mode, with our aperture set to the key stop for our ISO. Remember, your key stop is the square root of your ISO. To keep things simple, we can go to ISO 125, f/11, and be set. Having 2 sides of the triangle will help us get our exposure the way we want.

Start by metering the darkest part of the scene. Meter the brightest part of the scene, and move through to the middle levels. Take note of what these shutter speeds are. Find the darkest part in which you want to retain full detail and texture and meter off it. Take note of that setting, perhaps you’re showing 1/60 in your most important dark area, and read your brightest area where you want full detail.

Deciding upon which is more important, based on your vision, highlights or shadows, you need to set your exposure. If you decide the shadows are the most important, then you’d set your exposure 2 stop down. If you metered your darkest detail area at 1/60 at f/11 for ISO 125, you’ll want to shoot 2 stops down. You could go 1/125 at f/16 for maximum DOF, or 1/500 at f/8. Alternatively, you could go 1/250 at f/11, which would be 2 stops down. That will place your shadow details 2 stops below middle gray, or about 18% reflectance. This is about zone 3 in the zone system.

This concept is known as place and fall. By deciding the most important part of your image, you are deciding where you want it exposed. As mentioned in the example above, we’re placing our shadows which we find important into zone 3, letting the other values fall where their new levels will be. The same works in reverse for highlights. By moving our desired highlights up 3 stops, we’re placing them at about zone 8. This gives us a range of exposures in our image that should be about what we visualized.

By placing our levels where we want them, we can minimize our editing time, which means more time shooting! It also gives us a starting place for our previous post on developing for our vision. Try shooting a few scenes in monochrome this way, and then try it in color. You’ll see a change in your image and the way you see and approach a scene and photographing it. You’ll also notice that you have a more vibrant color and tonal range than before.

Exposure is the base of all we do in photography. Even printing an image was traditionally done by exposing the paper to light. Most high quality printing by large firms is still exposure using lasers. Learning the triangle and how to manipulate it, in ways beyond the conventional can make for incredible images. Your vision is the starting point to making it happen!

Here’s hoping you find the right light, the right scene, and have your camera by your side to capture it!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Reviewing the Basics

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Brrr. That’s our word of the day!

Today we’re going to review some of the basics of photography and exposure. This can all be found on our Introduction to Photography page. We should all have a good idea of this stuff, but it always helps to refresh the cup, so to speak.

First, we’ll address our exposure triangle. The triangle consists of 1- ISO or film speed, 2- shutter speed, and 3- aperture. To change exposure, you change any side of the triangle. To keep the same exposure, you have to change at least 2 sides. For instance, we set up on a sunny day at ISO 100, f/16, and 1/100. According to the “sunny 16 rule,” we’re good to go. But we want less DOF, so we need to increase our aperture. We go to f/4 to give us a shallow focus. If we don’t change another side of our triangle, we overexpose and create a mess. We have a 4-stop increase in the amount of light coming in, so we need a four-stop increase in shutter speed or 4-stop decrease in ISO. Since we can’t bring our ISO lower, we need to change our shutter speed to 1/1600. At 1/1600 at f/4, that gives us the same as 1/100 at f/16. If we want to increase our exposure, we can change any 1 side and either decrease our exposure or increase it depending on our new settings. For instance we want to increase our exposure on ISO 100, f/16, 1/100 2 stops, so increasing our aperture to f/8, decreasing our shutter speed to 1/25, or increasing our ISO to 400 will do just that. Remember, when we meter something, or a scene, the meter gives us the exposure for 18% gray, which is zone 5. Knowing this allows us to place the item we meter into different zones or exposure levels.

Next up, we’ll look quickly at depth of field, or DOF. This is a product of our focal length and aperture. The longer our lens’s focal length is, the shallower our DOF. The wider our aperture is, the shallower our DOF. This can be a good way to remove or minimize distractions. A 100mm lens at f/16 has about the same DOF as a 50mm lens at f/4. Focused at 10 feet, both give a DOF running from about 9.17 to 11 feet. Seeing that, you can deduce that a shorter lens has a wider DOF.

Remember, these 2 topics we’ve reviewed go together. By adjusting your aperture for a shallower DOF, you’ll have to change something else to maintain your exposure. If you wish to move into a new zone, you’ll change your DOF if you use your aperture to move zones.

We’ll review composition and inspiration in our next talk. Remember to vote and get your pics in early. I hope you’ll all participate in this week’s theme, solitude. We’re aiming for more votes for our theme, so get involved and let’s enjoy the journey together!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't foget, we're on Google+, too!

Tech Talk: Candles and Calculations

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place!

Today we’re going to go a little bit into what makes up your exposure numbers and how metering works. It sounds familiar, but we’ll be dealing with more math and other advanced parts of your exposure settings.

Let’s start with your ISO. Back in the old days there were lots of ways to label film sensitivity. There was by DIN number, ASA, Weston, and EV, as well as various others fallen by the wayside. Today we use ISO, which is for the most part ASA. Some folks use DIN, that’s why film still carries the DIN number. Under today’s scheme, 3 degrees DIN are equal to 1 full stop. ISO 100/21 has half the sensitivity of ISO 200/24. The Weston number, another popular standard used to gauge a film’s sensitivity, referencing Weston’s meters, is usually .8 times the ISO. Since we’re shooting today, we’ll use ISO, but there may be times we reference others in our future.

Moving on we come to light and light levels. Without the fancy gadgets we have to meter our exposure built into cameras, folks used external meters. Ansel Adams broke it down in his book The Negative. Meters used to measure light in candles, or candela, per square foot. That was the basis for your shutter speed. This will become important in a couple paragraphs.

Next we have aperture, the size of the opening through which light enters the camera. Each ISO had its native f/stop. To find the native stop for any ISO take its square root. For ISO 100 the native f/stop is f/10, for ISO 125 it’s 11, for 200 it’s about 14, and for 400 the native f/stop is 20. Apertures are measured in f/stop, which is a ratio based on the square root of 2, as each step is doubling or halving the light.

The last part is shutter speed. For a native aperture, the shutter speed should be 1/ the light measured in candles per square foot, or c/ft². If you read 125 c/ft², your shutter speed for a native aperture should be 1/125 second. It sounds easy doesn’t it? Well, don’t give up hope. Things are about to get tricky.

Since most light meters today don’t measure in c/ft², finding that speed may be difficult. Automation has taken away many of the tools used by those who came before us in every arena. You can buy a cheap ambient light meter and use it for your photography. The readings are usually in LUX. LUX can be converted, however, by dividing by 10.764. Just round to 10, and there you have it. 1000 LUX is 100 c/ft². At your native aperture, shoot 1/100 for zone 5 placement of what you just read and you’re cooking with gas. Using you digital camera’s metering, set your aperture to the ISO’s native aperture in AV mode. Then seeing the required shutter speed tells you there are that many c/ft² or 10 times that much in LUX.

It seems like talking about this doesn’t do much for you shooting digital, but knowing it will help you improve your light reading skill without your camera’s meter and make getting your exposure correct a lot easier. Plus, if you decide to go old school and shoot with an old camera or use an old meter it will help you to figure that stuff out. It also comes in handy when working with the zone system. Reading 1/100 at your native aperture, you have the knowledge of how to combine your speeds and apertures to get the right exposure for 100 c/ft². You also have the knowledge that you can move your image up or down a zone without playing guessing games as much. It’s quicker and easier to figure out once you try it a few times. A good example is on a bright, sunny, semi-cloudless day. The sky reads about 300 c/ft² when read usually. So for ISO 125 at f/11 you should be set for 1/300 as a good starting point. Then adjusting your speed inverse to any desired aperture changes, and you should have a decent exposure with the sky at zone 5. You can adjust just your aperture or speed to move the sky and other subjects into different zones and create what you visualized that way.

Ansel Adams described it as the exposure formula. He taught that zone 5 was 1/c/ft² at a film’s key aperture. It still holds true. Some minor adjustments may need to be made, but you should be almost dead on. It helps to spot meter for your highlights and shadows to get the best range in your image, but for quick shooting, try it out! I think you’ll see something very cool!

The new theme for this week is “Flattery (Not everything complimentary is flattery!)” You may have already guessed that this has to do with colors, right? Your shots should be composed with complimentary colors as a major element of your composition. Another aspect of your image must consist of contrast in your subject, as well as the contrasting complimentary colors. Perhaps age and youth, or hot and cold. I hope that you get the creative juices flowing for this one and get working on it soon! I also hope that we will see everyone out there submitting this time!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too!

Around Hohenfels: Christmas Time

Greetings and welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place. Pack your camera for another trip Around Hohenfels.

Today we’re going to Nuernberg’s Christmas market, so get your camera ready!

The best way to get there for our purposes is via the train. You can get a train in Parsberg and it takes about 30-45 minutes to get there. The trip costs about 30 euros if you get the Bayern pass, which is good for round trip, up to 5 adults.


ISO 400, f/4.5, 1/50 second
Inside the old Handswerk area across from the Bahnhof. Using the lamps, leading lines take us into the tree.

As you exit the station, from underground, you are at the old walls and the Handswerk section. There are some great shots in this old area, especially at this time of year. Once you exit onto the main strip toward the market, you’ll be greeted by booths and vendors selling gluhwein, bratwurst, leibkuchen, and so on. The ½ meter feurwurst is hot and spicy, but has a nice taste and warms you up!


ISO 100, f/8, 1/4 second
Decorations on a bratwurst stall


ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/50 second
Brats of all types for sale.

As you proceed towards the actual “market proper,” you’ll encounter more booths selling everything from fruits to flowers, bratwurst to cocoa! What a walk, cold air, and a mug of your warm drink of choice. It feels like Christmas. Along the way, you're likely to see buskers dressed in holiday outfits.


ISO 100, f/8, 1/13 second
Santa and his dog take a break and pose for us.

Once you get into the market area, it’s crowded, people everywhere. Booths set up and selling all kinds of Christmas decorations, toys, food, and more gluhwein! Along the way you can buy a nice hot mug of real hot chocolate, the kind made with hot milk and real melted chocolate! Don’t dally with it, it starts skimming over, and unless you’re stirring or drinking it, gets pretty thick. If you have kids with you, it’s a real treat. They love it! Down one of the side ways is the kinder market, where rides of all types are available for the little shoppers. It’ll drain your pocket, and leave you no time for shopping if you don’t set a limit.


ISO 400, f/8, 1/32 second
Handmade decorations for sale. Putting the globes on one side, and balancing with the light makes a warm reminder of Christmases long ago, as well as a reminder of the light of Jesus entering our lives.

Back at the market, a trip through the booths and stands gives you some good choices for this year’s tree, both on it and under it! Don’t forget to take in the nativity scene and the towers erected for the celebrations, and keep an eye out for the Christmas angel making her rounds! It’s almost like a small town feeling here in the city. Don’t forget to visit the churches, as they are done up for the season, as well. Bring your flash and knowledge of the exposure triangle. Remember to make a small offering, it will be appreciated.

On your way back to the train, stop and get that cocoa or gluhwein, keep the cup, as the cost is included, Don’t forget to get that feurwurst to warm you up. Enjoy the train ride back to Parsberg and Hohenfels, while you review the great shots you got.

Back in Hohenfels now, you can work on planning and visualizing your shot for this week’s theme! It doesn’t have to be as deep as we discussed yesterday, just show a bit of your likes or dislikes, and make us see it, too. You’ll pull of something wonderful if you can make people feel what you want them to.

Remember to cast your vote for next week’s theme. Don’t forget to get your pics posted at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too!

The Exposure Triangle

Today’s post is on the “Exposure Triangle.”

You’ll find this everywhere on the Internet. A quick Google search turned up 18,300,000 results!

What is the exposure triangle? It’s basically the combination of the three factors that affect your exposure- ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. I put a pic on the Intro to Photography page with the rest of this article.

Remembering it is easy if think of a triangle and visualize that changing as you change your settings. That’s pretty much the gist of it.

Here’s a list as an example. Use that list to visualize your triangle and you’ll be off to the races, at least for the moment. I’ll use whole stops for simplicity. Each stop is either double or half the amount of light compared to the two numbers next to it.

ISO                                    APERTURE                SHUTTER SPEED
100                                           f/4                                  1/1600
                                                 f/5.6                               1/800
                                                 f/8                                  1/400
                                                 f/11                                1/200
                                                 f/16                                1/100

Looking at the first triangle 1/1600, f/4, at ISO 100, you can see that any changes require a change to another side to remain the same. I can change the exposure to 1/800, f/5.6, at ISO 100 and get the same exposure. Cool, huh?

Let’s try something else. This one will demonstrate the importance of the triangle and knowing how it works. At ISO 200, f/8, 1/400, my image is overexposed. How can I fix it? Try ISO 100, f/8, 1/400. That’s half the previous exposure level!

The first example showing how to get the same exposure is useful to figure out how much DOF you want and to help you keep your exposure constant in constant lighting.

The second example gives you an idea of how to use this tool to get more of your shots usable in changing lighting.

For the rest of this, visit our Intro to Photography page, and do a web search on it. Don't worry, though, more about exposure will be coming around soon!

Focal length will be our next topic.

Please leave your feedback here and on our Facebook page.

Enjoy the rest of your week!