Photography Tutorial: Shutter Speed & Motion

Canon EOS Rebel T3i digital SLR camera. Picture from retx.net.

I recently made the exciting purchase of a Canon EOS Rebel T3i digital SLR camera!  As I learn to master it, I'll share with you the lessons I learn, just as I share with you my lessons in digital art.

This first photography tutorial is on the concept of shutter speed.

Part 1: What is shutter speed?

Have you ever seen a photo of a fountain or waterfall, where the water was smooth and blurred?  Or a photo of a city scene where the cars seemed to streak by in a blur of motion?  (See examples below.)

Smooth, blurred waterfall

From Waterfall by ~xPhate on deviantART

Blur motion

From digital-photography-school.com

Blur motion

From smashingmagazine.com

Or, on the flip side, have you ever seen a photo where a moving subject is frozen mid-action, and water may appear as individual droplets, rather than a smooth blur?  (See examples below.)

Frozen action shot

From boston.com

Frozen action shot

From cruzine.com

Well, those pictures don't just happen!  They involve a photographer intentionally changing settings on his or her camera to make the image either blurred, or frozen in time.  The settings that will effect this are called the shutter speed.

Shutter speed is the speed at which photo is taken.  For example, a shutter speed of 1/30 means that the photograph was snapped in one-thirtieth of a second.  The faster the shutter speed, the clearer and more "frozen" the image will appear; the slower the shutter speed, the smoother and more blurred the image will appear. 

Shutter speed chart 

From miketurner-photography.co.uk

Think about it this way: If a photograph is taken at a fast shutter speed (1/100, for example), then the image is being recorded for one-one-hundredth of a second; it is only recording what happened in that extremely brief fraction of a second.  It makes sense that that would yield a crisp, frozen photograph.  

Alternatively, if a photograph is taken at a slow shutter speed (2 seconds, for example), then the image is being recorded for that much time; it captures all the movement that takes place in that period.  The result is a blur. 

The differences between fast and slow shutter speeds

From exposureguide.com

From digicamhelp.com

Part 2: How to change shutter speed

The way to change shutter speed on a Canon DSLR is by turning the Mode Dial to "TV" mode.

You can then change the shutter speed by turning the Main Dial, right behind the shutter button.  The changing shutter speed will display on the LCD monitor.

Part 3: Applying what we learned

You may be wondering: How fast or how slow should the shutter speed be?  The answer is... it depends!  While the chart above from Mike Turner Photography is definitely helpful, I will still say that the selection of shutter speed completely depends on what the photographer wants (do you want it to be frozen or blurred?), and on the setting and situation.  Experiment and see what you discover!

To illustrate the concepts of this tutorial further, here are some photos I took while experimenting with shutter speed for the first time. 

Fish tank bubbles

 

Notice how, as the shutter speed gets faster, the images get darker.  This is because the shutter inside the camera is opening and closing faster, which allows less light to enter the camera.  I believe the darkening effect of faster shutter speeds is counterbalanced by adjusting ISO, but that's a skill I still haven't learned, and it would be a topic for another tutorial!

Fireworks

I took these photos this Independence Day!  This first photo was taken with a really fast shutter speed (somewhere in the league of 1/200; I don't remember the exact number), causing the firework fountain's sparks to appear as individual particles, like bits of snow or dust.  Note also the light-sabers in the back that my brothers were swinging around, but do not look blurred.

Next I took pictures with a really slow shutter speed (again, I don't remember the exact number, but it must have been somewhere between 1/10 and 1"), and I had these fun, fountain looks.

Note how blurred the light-sabers are now!

Returning to a normal shutter speed (somewhere between 1/30 and 1/80) rendered an image that looks more like what we see with our eyes when watching a firework.

Conclusion

There are a lot of things you can do with shutter speed... go have fun with it!  Then, come back here for more photography tutorials, coming soon... and leave a comment about what you've been able to do with shutter speed.

Play safe and have a Happy Independence Day!

Blender modeling tutorial

Today we have a guest tutorial author!  My younger brother, who has recently joined me on the journey of teaching ourselves Blender (a free, open-source 3D modeling software), created an excellent, thorough tutorial of how he created a simple, yet highly maneuverable human model.  This model can be easily animated or posed.  Because the tutorial is composed entirely of pictures, with step-by-step instructions on each image, the entire tutorial is rather long for a traditional blog post.  Instead, we assembled it on a separate page, which can be accessed by the tab at the top of this blog, or by clicking the link below:

Blender modeling tutorial

Explosions in Bryce

Image from brycetech.daz3d.com

Check out this cool tutorial I found about using the randomize tool to create explosions in Bryce!

Click here to see the tutorial.

(If for some reason the link no longer works someday because this post is old, I found the tutorial at brycetech.daz3d.com.)

True beauty and the ethics of Photoshop

I find it fascinating how fake the models are that we see in magazines and ads.  Most models look like ordinary people before the makeup, lighting, and particularly the Photoshop adjustments, transform them into these artificial and flawless... what shall we call them?  Gods and goddesses?  Angels?  Aliens?  Whatever they are, they are not natural and they are not real.  Here are a few examples I pulled from www.hemmy.net:

(The original image is first; the Photoshop image is shown after.)

Is it just me, or do these pictures make you feel sick?  In each of these cases, I think the original model is physically attractive.  None of these photo edits make sense to me, with the exception of the blemish that was removed in the second picture (with a blemish that obvious, I think I'd remove it, too!).

And yet, it is these edited, counterfeit pictures of models that so many people -- girls and women in particular -- subconsciously look up to as standards for attractiveness and beauty.  According to a study in 2004, only 2% of women think they are beautiful (www.dove.co.uk).  This is a shockingly low number, but should it really be surprising, with the repulsive way beauty has been contorted by our media?

"I wish I looked like such-and-such an actress!" a woman may moan.  But I would plead in response:  "Please understand that you probably do!!"

If you haven't seen Dove's video "Evolution", you need to.  This is another excellent glimpse into the phony world of modeling:



Now, don't misunderstand me: I am not necessarily opposed to editing photos.  I've done it myself on a small scale.  I understand; sometimes the lighting of our photos isn't good.  Sometimes models wake up on photo day with big zits on their foreheads (GACK!!).  That isn't what I'm talking about.

What I am talking about is morphing someone into an unnatural, impossible non-human that no person could ever physically rival in real life.  I'm talking about making aliens into our standard for beauty.  I mean, you might as well make this our standard for beauty (I am talking about the left half of the picture, of course):

By the way, I have no idea what this book is about, I'm not endorsing it, and I couldn't tell you if it was extremely inappropriate or terribly written. I'm just borrowing the cover to emphasize my point... 

As computer artists, we have these questions to ask ourselves:  What is most important or valuable, as we make our computer art, or edit our photos?  What is our highest priority in this matter?  What should be our highest priority?  What power do we wield, as computer artists and culture influencers, and what are we personally doing with that power?  Let me be more specific:  Are we doing more harm or more good with that power?  And if we are doing more harm... what should we do differently so we are doing more good?

What do you think?

Bryce/Photoshop tutorial: underwater iceberg

© 2012 Brianna da Silva

This tutorial is an example of combining Bryce and Photoshop to create an image.  (By the way, if you're interested in 3D design and Bryce, the software makers are offering it for free for a limited time!)  The concepts in this tutorial can be applied to the creation of many other Bryce/Photoshop images.

I wanted to make an image something like these pictures (these were just random photos and drawings I pulled off the Internet):



I wanted the classic tip-of-the-iceberg picture, showing the rest of the iceberg underwater.  How would I go about making this, I wondered?  I knew that Bryce did not have a split-screen, half-above/half-underwater capability.  In Bryce, you're either above water, or you're underwater!  So, I decided to use a combination of Bryce and Photoshop (mostly Photoshop) to get the effect I wanted.

Phase 1: Bryce


Step 1: Above water

First, I created the above-water image of the iceberg.  I did this by creating a lattice (learn more about lattices in a former post), which I made really big so the details later would look more realistic.  (General rule of thumb: If the object you're making is big in real life, make it big in Bryce!)

I gave the lattice the iceberg material (go figure!).

Then, I created a water plane, and moved the lattice down so it was roughly halfway "submerged" in the water.

I gave the water the material called deep blue.

I also gave the sky a preset called The Big Deep for lighting purposes.  (Mostly so the water would look dark blue, which didn't really matter anyway.)

Next, I duplicated the lattice a couple times, making smaller icebergs in the distance, just for variety in the picture.

I made these icebergs a little rounder-looking, by first opening the Edit window (found by clicking the E that appears next to an object when it is selected), clicking New under "Editing Tools", and drawing a rough, blobbish shape with the paint tool.

For a more detailed guide on editing terrains and lattices, I recommend this tutorial.  A couple things to keep in mind: In the tools on the left, you can change the size and softness of the brush (I used a big brush with medium softness), and you can adjust the elevation of the brush with the slider.  The higher the red dot, and the lighter the color of your brush, the higher it is; the lower the red dot, and the darker the color of your brush, the lower it is.

Finally, I got my view where I wanted it -- just about level with the water line -- and rendered.  This was the image I got:

Step 2: Underwater


The next step was to create the underwater view.

First, I saved the document as a new project, so I wouldn't loose my first work. Then I deleted the water plane, moved the icebergs up and zoomed out so I could completely see them, and stretched and enlarged them so they would be bigger than their above-water counterparts.

I used this tutorial, found though googling, to change the atmosphere so it had the allusion of being underwater.

This was the result: (Ignoring the cloud and sky; that wouldn't be used in the final image)

Later, I also temporarily removed the icebergs and rendered an image of just the "underwater" scene (I found out, while working in Photoshop, that I would need it):

Phase 2: Photoshop


Now the real work began!  This phase took more time, by far.

Step 1: Basic image


I used the marquee tool in Photoshop to copy the underwater portions of the iceberg, and then paste them on the above-water image.

Using the marquee tool again, I took the plain underwater image (without the icebergs) and put it behind the underwater iceberg layers, to fill in all the gaps.  (Learn more about Photoshop layers here.)

I erased the water around the underwater iceberg layers, stopping right at the edge of the ice.

Step 2: Dark line


I added a dark blue line at the edge of the water, to make the edge look sharper and a little more realistic.  Tip learned: Hold down the shift key while painting, to paint in a straight line!

Step 3: Light rays

My brother suggested I try making light rays in the water, so I gave it a try.

I chose a soft brush, gave it a white color, and painted diagonal streaks in the water.  I gave the light ray layers a very low opacity (8%), and used a soft eraser to taper the streaks to a point. 

Step 4: Darkening water

I made the water get darker as it went further down by painting horizontal streaks, using a soft brush, and making the color just slightly darker with each stroke.  The result was a smooth, subtle transition to a somewhat darker blue.

At last...


Finally, as a sort of small, side adjustment, I darkened the horizon a little by painting a light gray layer with a low opacity.

The picture still wasn't perfect.  The water probably should have been darker, and the iceberg ended up with a strange purplish hue (probably a poor choice of lighting... lighting in Bryce is next on my list of things to learn!).  However, the result was more or less what I imagined.  Regardless, it was a fun example of how a Bryce image can be completely transformed in Photoshop!

The final image:

© 2012 Brianna da Silva