Exercise 1

What:The brief of this exercise was to explore the focal length of the camera, the angle of view and the relationship between a camera lenses focal length and the eye. This was done by taking three photographs, one at a wide angle, one which aligns to what can be seen by the eye and one which had been zoomed in on a feature of the subject.
Where: Medieval Dovecot beside the physic garden in Haddington
When: Just after 11 O'clock. The weather was dry with a bright low sun and scattered clouds
How: Camera Settings were set to an aperture of f/11 and ISO 200. The camera was set on a tripod to allow the changing of lenses without losing position. I used 2 lenses a 18-55 and a 55-200, both of them basic kit lenses. The photos have had no software manipulation, just a straight conversion from RAW to JPG.

Image 1 18mm,f/11, 1/250, ISO200


Image 2 52mm, f/11, 1/320, ISO200


Image 3 130mm, f/11, 1/400, ISO200

This final image is a rough approximate comparison of the three focal lengths all together.

My first learning point is that I had not considered that the focal length of 52(ish)mm on a camera aligns with what the human eye sees as standard. I achieved this point by looking past the camera at the subject and moving the lenses focal length up and down the scale until what I could see side by side was aligned. This focal length is around about 35mm in print once the crop factor of the sensor is taken into consideration.

It was not until I printed out the photos that I noticed that the zoomed photo has become flattened through loss of perspective at the longer focal length, something that I had not really look at or for before.