Telephoto Distortion and Perspective and How It Affects Your Images

Guest blog post from Christopher Fisher – my husband and occasional second shooter for large groups and weddings :).

Telephoto Distortion and zooming with your feet

Photographers often talk about “zooming with their feet”. If they are using a fixed lens or their telephoto lens and it cannot capture the size of subject they desire, they just move [with their feet] closer or further away from their subject.  To the new photographer, they may not realize that zooming with their feet might compromise the composition of their photo.  While the subject might be brought to size, the background will look significantly different.

This difference is due to an effect called telephoto distortion. A human eye (or a camera) is a small fixed point to which an image is projected. This can be visualized in the below diagram:

While a tree may be several times the size of a person, the image of a tree is focused into a single point:  the human eye or camera lens. If the person walks closer to the tree, the subject appears larger. If the human being walks away from the tree, the subject appears smaller.

Look at the different figures. In the first figure, only a small section of the tree is visible. In the second figure, the entire height of the tree and more can be seen. Let’s see what each figure will see from the eye’s perspective.

Now let’s add a second subject:

-Post by Christopher Fisher

-Christine Ann Photography
Duluth MN Photographer Website
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Why Your Photos Have An Orange, Red, Blue, or Purple Tint – White Balance and How to Set It (With Images)

Have you ever taken a photo that turned out extremely orange, red, or blue?  It seems inevitable, especially when you’re indoors.. however there is a very simple way to fix/prevent this!  You have fallen victim to auto white balance.  On auto white balance your camera is trying to guess your lighting situation.. sometimes it does a good job and sometimes it does not.  If you simply tell your camera what your lighting situation is instead of it guessing you can get much more accurate colors.
The times I most notice incorrect white balance is when I’m indoors and my photos turn out red/orange.  I remember a few years ago I took some Christmas photos and the coloring seemed off on all of them.. and I had no idea why or how to fix it (most of them were turned to black and white).  Put simply, the white balance is off.

All I need to do to fix this is go into my camera and tell it my white balance is “tungsten” or “fluorescent” (depending on what type of lighting is in the room).
This is the easiest way to try to get it right in camera however there are a few other options:

1.  Use a grey card.  You take a photo with the grey card in the photo, then take the rest without it and later, in your editing software, you can use the “white balance dropper” tool to select the grey card and tell your program what your white balance truly was and it adjusts the photo based on that.
2.  Adjust it in an editing program.  Most editing programs have ability to “warm” the image or “cool” it down and these sliders help a lot to fix WB.
In the following image, the first one is straight out of the camera, unedited (VERY blue) and the second edit is my edit adjustment in Lightroom, adjusted only with the “WB slider”.. I moved the WB from “as shot” to “auto” (LR tries to predict what the auto wb should be) and then I slightly tweaked the slider from there.  Super easy.

3.  Adjust WB in camera based on the presets such as “daylight” “cloudy” tungsten” “shade” etc.

After seeing how blue the first shot came out I changed the WB to (I believe?) tungsten and this is how it affected the image.. this image is unedited.

4.  Custom set your WB by telling your camera which temperature to shoot at.  The range on my camera is from 2500 (cool) to 10000 (very warm) .. I can set it at any increment of 100 between those 2 numbers.

Most photographers use the presets (cloudy/flash/etc) or set the temperature manually and then tweak it by hand during editing if necessary.

White Balance presets (ie:  daylight, cloudy, shade, flash etc):

Auto White Balance:

Auto White Balance ^.

Daylight:

^ Daylight.

Tungsten:

^ Tungsten.

Fluorescent:

^ Fluorescent.

As you can see,  the presets are pretty useful and accurate.. they are also very simple and make a big difference in the image.

If you select “color temp” you can manually enter what temperature you want the image to be taken at.  The range on my camera is 2500-10000 and it is measured in Kelvin.

2500 Kelvin – very “cool”:

^  2500 Kelvin.

3500 Kelvin:

^3500 Kelvin.

4500 Kelvin:

^4500 Kelvin.

9500 Kelvin:

^9500 Kelvin.

So as you can see there are many options when choosing how to set your white balance.  I feel that auto white balance often does a pretty good job but I usually use a preset (daylight, shade, flash, tungsten etc) and tweak during editing.. but everyone needs to try out different options and find for themselves what works the best for them and their style.

Hope this helps everyone in understanding what white balance is and how to accommodate it in your images to reflect the look you want!

Here is an excellent chart to summarize everything and make it concrete:

–Christine Ann
Duluth MN Photographer
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Instantly Improve Your Editing With Layer Masks

There are about 5 million different things you can do to edit a photo in Photoshop.  Some of the things you learn will be totally pointless and some will be invaluable.  I am going to brush up on one of the most valuable editing techniques (in my opinion):  how to add a layer mask to your layers and why they are important.  This will benefit you in so many ways!  And it is SO EASY! Learning new things in Photoshop is always intimidating but this is literally something you can do in a couple clicks.  (To summarize:  you layer 2 photos on top of each other, click the layer mask button, select a black or white paintbrush to hide/reveal the bottom image and that’s it!). Directions for adding a layer mask: Open up a photo in Photoshop.  Pick another photo to layer on top of it (you can just copy and paste it on top).  Click on the top layer so it is highlighted and then click the square with a circle inside it at the bottom of the layer palette (The layer palette is where you see all your layers towards the right side of Photoshop).  The icon I am referencing, if you hover your mouse over the top of it it will say “add layer mask”.  It looks like this: Click on the white box that appears next to your top layer. That’s it! You are done, you’ve applied a layer mask! Now how do you use it?  Also very easy.  Select the paintbrush icon and make the color that it paints white.  (Image below shows where to select the paintbrush and where to change the color of it at). Paint wherever you’d like to reveal the image below and you will reveal the image beneath it!  If you make a mistake simply change the “white” color of the brush to black and it brings back the original image. ^ Example Photos: Color photo on bottom, black and white photo on top, layer mask selected (you select it by just clicking on it), select the paintbrush and make it black and just start painting.. it will reveal the photo beneath it.  If you make a mistake and want to bring the black and white image back, simply turn it white, like in the second photo.  :). Boom.  Done :). This method is perfect for head swaps (place the new face underneath the one you want to change and reveal the photo below it).  It is also perfect for doing selective coloring (adding color to black and white images).  You can change the background of your photo by adding a nice background behind the image and masking the original background off.  You can edit things out like power lines by moving the bottom image a few centimeters to the right and masking  them out.  There are so many possibilities! TIPS: 1.  You can change the opacity of your brush.. so if you only want to kind of reveal the background but not entirely, just set the opacity of your brush 50% (vs 100% and it will only bring 50% of the background in and leave 50% of the original intact.  You can also build on it by changing it to 10% and doing another round, bringing it to 60% revealed).  It looks much  more natural if you build up in that way vs just doing it at 100%! 2.  If you right click on the “background” (the bottom) layer and select “layer from background” you “unlock” the layer and can now move it around.  You need to be sure to highlight (click on) this layer when you want to apply changes to it (such as moving it.  You can move it using the move tool).. and then when you want to apply the layer mask with the white and black brush, be sure to click the white box next to the top photo :).  Any changes you make will occur on whatever is highlighted in the layer’s palette. 3.  There is a learning curve to using layer masks in a realistic way.. such as when you get to the edges you need to make the brush smaller and that it really  helps to lower the opacity of the brush to blend it better.  But after a few rounds of practicing you’ll start learning how to do it better and better. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! -Christine Ann [website] Duluth Photographer Christine Ann Photography Facebook Maternity, newborn, senior, wedding, family, children, portrait photography.

1 Tip Which Will Improve Your Color Pop/Selective Color Images

I frequent many photography forums and one topic that comes up often is “color selection” or “color pop” edits.  This is when you have a black and white images and you bring back color on just a couple select spots.  These images are not often well received by lot of pros.  I am amongst this group 🙂 but they do have their place :).
I think the worst part about color selection is just how harsh the color is in the image.  It doesn’t flow well.  This is when I created my own way of doing color selection photos, where you just bring back about half of the color instead of all the color.  It makes a huge difference!  And I definitely much prefer the subtle color to the sharp, vivid color.

How do you accomplish this?  If you are layering a color image over a black and white image and erasing, then erase away at around 30-40% opacity.
If you are using a layer mask, set your paintbrush to around 30-40% opacity.  tada!  Very simple indeed.  This will make a huge difference in how the photo looks after you edit it.

One other tip I have is to pick just one focal point to selective color..a lot of people go a little crazy with their brush and bring back half the image so it’s half color and half black and white.  This looks a bit odd and unnatural and also there is no real concept behind it.  Usually you want to color pop something with meaning or symbolism or a concept (not always but like usually just an item vs a shirt).  In the sample image I am posting here I decided to have 2 color pops so they would balance each other out more but notice the items I picked were small so it doesn’t overwhelm the photo.  I believe my opacity for this image was around 30%.. to do it again I  might bump it up a bit higher, but you get the idea.

This is the image at 100% opacity.. this is the full color image brought back to the black and white image, and this is what most photographers who do color pop do:

^ Color brought back at full strength.

And the photo shown below is the same image with the color brought back around 30% opacity.  It might even be more like 20%. It is a little bit dull but it looks so much less distracting and more natural.. I much prefer it to the full color photo.

^Color brought back around 20-30% strength.

For one more example I’ll show one brought back around 50% opacity.

^Color brought back around 50% strength. This is my favorite edit of the three (I might tone it down a notch but overall the color isn’t too overbearing and “sharp” and it blends much better than at full strength – in my opinion anyway!).

As with all things in photography, which is better is subjective.  Surely there are people who prefer the first to the second.  If you do like the first you could even play around with bringing back the color around 70%-80% so it’s just not so vivid and contrasting.  While I’m not a huge fan of color pop photos, I do find myself much more receptive to them when done in a more subtle manner, just thought/style I would share with everyone :).

-Christine Ann
Duluth Minnesota Photographer
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Unedited Photos from T2i + 50mm Lens.

This blog is specifically dedicated to showing images straight from the T2i + 50mm lens.  This is the combo I used for a few years before upgrading to the Mark II 5D + 85mm 1.2L lens.  I got the upgrade about 2 years ago (a little less..) and have barely touched my T2i since (though I do still use the 50mm sometimes).  I picked up my T2i for the first time in a couple years and was surprised by how much better of photos I could get off it than I was ever able to before.  I could not have intentionally gotten as clear and nice of photos (though I did get some lucky ones!) when I used this combo about 2 years ago.  The equipment didn’t change, but I have :).  And I speculate if I pick it up in 2 more years they’ll be even better.  This isn’t to say you can’t get “nicer” photos on nicer equipment, but I recently compared photos from the Mark II 5d + 85mm 1.2L lens to photos on the Mark II 5D + 50mm 1.8 lens to photos on the T2i + 50mm 1.8 lens (IE:  $3,000 camera + $2,000 lens to $3,000 camera + $100 lens to $700 camera + $100 lens) and the results were not all that different from one another.  I was incredibly surprised!  You can see the image comparisons here:  https://christineannphotos.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/photos-taken-with-canon-rebel-t2i-50mm-1-8-lens/ keeping in mind they are unedited and you need to click them to see the full detail of each photo.
The point in all this is that if your photos are out of focus or not sharp it is almost definitely you and not your equipment.  I read a post from someone who has sent back the same 50mm 1.8 lens used in this blog post 2 times, got it a third time and was wondering if she should send it back again or get a different lens all together.  I can assure everyone it was not the lens any of those 3 times, it’s a lack of understanding how to use your camera and how/where to pose people and why.   You can give an artist crappy supplies and they can make something beautiful; you can give someone who is not an artist high end supplies and they will not be able to do much with it.  Focus your energy on practicing, improving, and learning how to use the equipment you have and how to edit.  My one piece of advice regarding equipment is that the kit lens is junk and if you only own a kit lens, it’s time to at least upgrade to the 50mm 1.8.. it is around $100 and you will see a quality improvement!  That is one thing my test shots did show.. a noticeable difference in quality regarding the kit lens to 50mm lens.  Anyway these are some images I have gotten off the T2i in the last couple months (most being from the last few days specifically for some blogs I want to do on starter equipment) they are unedited and I could further improve them by doing some editing 🙂 but then you wouldn’t know what is due to the equipment and what is due to the editing so I will leave them alone.

Unedited images from the T2i + 50mm lens  *CLICK EACH IMAGE FOR FULL DETAIL*:

*Click images for full detail.. the thumbnails look fuzzier than they are*.

*Click images for full detail*

*Click images for full detail*

*Click images for full detail*.

*Click images for full detail.. the thumbnails look fuzzy*.

*Click images for full detail*.

*Click images for full detail*.

*Click images for full detail*.

*Click images for full detail*.

-Christine Ann
Christine Ann Photography Web Site
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