The brief:
Find a scene that has depth. From a fixed position, take a sequence of five or six shots at different focal lengths without changing your viewpoint.
Taking inspiration from the examples above or from your own research, create a final image for your sequence. In EYV the important thing is to present your work in context, so make it clear in your notes what you’ve been looking at and reading. The focus here is on imagination and research skills rather than the technical aspects of zoom.
The series:
A series of 8 shots taken of a treelined pathway which I believe shows a sufficient amount of depth. All shots were taken from a single position using a tripod and with the same aperture (f8.0) and ISO100. Camera was set to aperture priority mode so some changes in shutter speed were noted as the camera selected SS for exposure.
f8.0, SS 1/10s, 18mm, ISO100
f8.0, SS 1/8s, 24mm, ISO100
f8.0, SS 1/6s, 38mm, ISO100
f8.0, SS 1/6s, 52mm, ISO100
f8.0, SS 1/5s, 75mm, ISO100
f8.0, SS 1/8s, 95mm, ISO100
f8.0, SS 1/8s, 116mm, ISO100
f8.0, SS 1/8s, 140mm, ISO100
The series shows the intent behind the technical aspect of this exercise with the feeling of “walking through the scene”. In an attempt to emphasise this aspect further I created an MP4 with all 8 images in the series. This does help to visualise the effects of increasing focal length over the same subject.
Points noted:
At focal lengths below 35mm there is a notable wide angle effect where the centre of the image appears to be pulled further into the distance than is seen with the naked eye and the aspects on periphery of the scene appear pulled into the image.
The camera was set to multi-metering mode which in retrospect may not have been the best for this series. This mode attempts to meter for all areas within the scene, as the series progresses the increasing focal length removes some light from the top of the scene, this makes the images darker as the series progresses. Until the final image where the small amount of light in the centre becomes relatively larger in the scene.
Additional thoughts:
I was interested to see the effect on resolution in the scene at different focal lengths. This can be seen on the two cropped images below. Both are cropped down to a small section in the very centre of the image series around the puddle which emerges into view at around 50mm focal length. The first is a crop from the 75mm shot and the second from the 140mm shot. The cropped area is very small so both show pixelation however this is clearly more pronounced on the cropped 75mm shot reminiscent of a Thomas Ruff JPEG from earlier project work.
f8.0, SS 1/5s, 75mm, ISO100 – cropped
f8.0, SS 1/8s, 140mm, ISO100 – cropped
Final image
Typical for the genre a wide angle often provides powerful and interesting images which distort the image stretching the centre ground away into the distance and pul the edges in to the picture. The final image is taken from a few feet back from the series introducing the 3 bollards which help to emphasise the distorting effect of 18mm focal length.
Inspiration:
In considering this series I investigated use of zoom in landscape photography using Bridgeman Education online gallery resource and created a slideshow here of images using wide angle.
https://www-bridgemaneducation-com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/en/slideshow/3760
An example provided here.
Fig. 1 Kenny Muhammad – (June 2004) [Photograph] At: https://www-bridgemaneducation-com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/en/asset/3890769/summary?context=%7B%22route%22%3A%22slideshow_view%22%2C%22routeParameters%22%3A%7B%22_format%22%3A%22html%22%2C%22_locale%22%3A%22en%22%2C%22slideshowId%22%3A%223760%22%7D%7D
DKL_OCA_ExpressingYourVision_LearningLog 