Exam Study Guide

LaBrie Photography 2

SAFETY & DARKROOM:

Safety/Handling & First Aid with Chemicals:

Spilled liquids should be wiped up immediately to avoid slipping.

Keep your hands away from your eyes when using chemicals. Wash your hands after using chemicals.
USE TONGS to get paper out of chemicals.
Everyone is responsible for safety in the class, not just the teacher
In all cases of eye contact with chemicals, flood the eye with water or saline solution immediately,
continuously and gently for at least 15 minutes.
A safety eyewash device is located by the door for this purpose.

Chemicals Used:

Film Developer (film)

Paper Developer (darkroom)
Stop Bath (film & darkroom)
Fixer (film & darkroom)

Enlarging:

Contact Sheet: A sheet that lets you see what all of your negatives look like, so you can decide on which
image to enlarge.

Test Strip: The first step to enlarging, which allows you to see your image at different exposure times and
then decide which exposure is best for that image.

EXPOSURE:
ISO SPEED: Will control the sensitivity of the sensor
to light
*

The lower the number, the less

sensitive

APERTURE: Controls the size of the diaphragm (hole) that lets light
into the camera.

SHUTTERSPEED: Determines how fast the diaphragm (hole) closes

while taking a picture.

The faster the shutter, the less light enters the camera
The slower the shutter the more light will enter the camera.

CONTRAST in a black and white image is the difference between the light (white), dark (black) and the amount of
greys in between.

CAMERA MODES

SAVING AN IMAGE
Images can be saved in different file formats. The most widely used we will use in class:

.psd: (working document) Photoshop Document (PSD/PDD). This format is a Photoshop-native document,
which means that it was created for the application itself. When you save a file as a PSD document, you'll be
able to retain layers, channels, paths and every other attribute that can be applied in Photoshop.

.jpg: (good for printing) a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital photography (image). The
degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image
quality. is the most common image format used by digital cameras and other photographic image capture
devices

.tiff: (good for printing) One of the most common formats for Photoshop users is the TIFF format.

A TIFF

(Tagged Image File Format) is the most widely used printing format on both Macintosh and PC platforms.
There are few compatibility issues, because most graphic programs will identify a TIFF and interpret the file
correctly. So, if you want to print an image, the TIFF format is the best choice.

.png: (good for web viewing) Common file format when saving for web viewing.

This is a lossless format

that creates a smaller size image without losing quality and supports alpha transparency when saving in
photoshop.

Depth of Field is how much of an image that is in focus.

Depth of Field is changed with aperture.

Focal Plane is the area of an image that is in focus (such as the foreground, middle ground or background)
Destructive Editing is when you perform edits on the original image data.

This cannot be changed or undone

easily.

Non-Destructive Editing is when you perform changes to a file by creating new layers and editing on those
layers. This type of editing does not alter the original image data and can be easily changed later or removed.

Critique is when someone evaluates a photograph, determining what is good about it and what could be done
better.

Watermark is when a photographer places their logo on an image to signify that it is their work.
Forced Perspective is a photography technique that uses optical illusion to make an object appear larger,
smaller, closer or farther away than it actually is.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.

This is the process of taking multiple exposures and merging them together

into one image

CAMERA TYPES
Viewfinder Camera:
This camera allows you to see the image through a viewfinder placed
above or slightly to the side of the lens. This means that what you see is
a little different than the picture that will actually be captured by the
lens.
The difference between what the
viewfinder sees and what the lens sees
increases as the subject moves closer to
the lens. This is called PARALLAX

Rangefinder Camera:
Similar to a viewfinder camera, it relies on a separate viewing system
from the lens for aiming and focus. It allows for accurate focus by using
2 views of the same subject to adjust focus. They have 2 viewing
windows in the front of the camera. This creates 2 images in the
viewfinder. When the 2 images line up with one another the shot is in
focus.

Twin Lens Reflex

This is a medium format camera that uses film larger than 35mm (what
we use in class). This camera was very popular after World War II. It has
2 lenses mounted on eon top of another. The lower lens focuses the
image directly on the film, while the top lens uses a mirror to focus the
image on a glass focusing screen. The light paths are equal, so that when
the scene on the focusing screen is in focus, it means they are both in
focus.

View Camera
These cameras are primarily used by professional photographers. The
film formats are 4 x 5 or 8 x 10 inches. Film is loaded in a darkroom on 2
sided holders and inserted in the back of the camera. The camera can be
tilted to compensate for visual effects.

Single Lens Reflex

The most popular camera type today. It views and photographs through
one lens. Light enters the lens, the image gets bounced off a mirror,
through a prism and out the viewfinder to your eye. When its time to
capture the image, the mirror moves and the image you just saw is
recorded onto the film. Usually these cameras use 35mm film.

LENSES
How a camera lens works:
If several lenses (pieces of glass) are placed together, this is called a compound lens. Most camera lenses are
compound lenses.

Focal Length: The distance between the center of a lens and its focus.
Field of View:

This is measured in mm (millimeters).

How much of the world the camera can see.

Lens Speed:

Lenses are also referred to in terms of their speed. This refers to how bright of an image the lens
can produce. (If the lens can produce a bright image, a faster shutter-speed can be used, thus this is a fast lens.)
This is measured in f-stops and essentially states the largest aperture the lens is capable of. (So, a lens of f1.2 is a fast
lens where a lens of f5.6 is a slow lens).

Types of lenses:
WIDE ANGLE LENS:
18mm 35mm, a wide Angle lens has a very short focal length, allowing for a very wide field of view (more of the
subject). The smaller the focal length, the larger/wider the field of view.

STANDARD LENS:
35mm-55mm, a standard lens has a medium focal length, allowing the lens to take in the range which the human eye
would generally take into focus at one time.

TELEPHOTO LENS:
75mm 600mm, a telephoto lens has a long focal length, allowing for a narrow field of view. This allows the image
to appear close to the subject; cutting off outside areas from what is being focused on.

MACRO LENS:
A macro lens allows you to focus on a subject that is close to the lens,
making it appear lager. Macro lenses are often described by their
magnification factor.

ZOOM LENS:
A zoom lens is a lens that has a range of different focal lengths. This allows the photographer to change the focal
length without physically changing the lens. This allows for more versatility

PRIME LENS:
A prime lens is a lens that has a fixed focal length. In order to change the focal length, the photographer must change
the lens. This has less versatility. However, these lenses usually allow for a larger aperture than zoom lenses. This
can be helpful for low light as well as situations where very shallow depth of field is desired

Compositional Tools in Photography

Background
Have you ever taken what you thought would be a great shot, only to
find that the final image lacks impact because the subject blends into a
busy background? The human eye is excellent at distinguishing between
different elements in a scene, whereas a camera has a tendency to
flatten the foreground and background, and this can often ruin an
otherwise great photo. Thankfully this problem is usually easy to
overcome at the time of shooting - look around for a plain and
unobtrusive background and compose your shot so that it doesn't
distract or detract from the subject.

Depth:
Because photography is a two-dimensional medium, we have to choose
our composition carefully to conveys the sense of depth that was
present in the actual scene. You can create depth in a photo by including
objects in the foreground, middle ground and background. Another
useful composition technique is overlapping, where you deliberately
partially obscure one object with another. The human eye naturally
recognizes these layers and mentally separates them out, creating an
image with more depth.

Framing:
The world is full of objects which make perfect natural frames, such as
trees, archways and holes. By placing these around the edge of the
composition you help to isolate the main subject from the outside
world. The result is a more focused image which draws your eye
naturally to the main point of interest.

Rule of Thirds:
Imagine that your image is divided into 9 equal segments by 2 vertical
and 2 horizontal lines. The rule of thirds says that you should position
the most important elements in your scene along these lines, or at the
points where they intersect. Doing so will add balance and interest to
your photo.

Balancing Subjects:
Placing your main subject off-center, as with the rule of thirds, creates a
more interesting photo, but it can leave a void in the scene which can
make it feel empty. You should balance the "weight" of your subject by
including another object of lesser importance to fill the space.

Leading Lines:
When we look at a photo our eye is naturally drawn along lines. By
thinking about how you place lines in your composition, you can affect
the way we view the image, pulling us into the picture, towards the
subject, or on a journey "through" the scene. There are many different
types of line - straight, diagonal, curvy, zigzag, radial etc - and each can
be used to enhance our photo's composition.

Symmetry & Pattern:

We are surrounded by symmetry and patterns, both natural and manmade. They can make for very eye-catching compositions, particularly in
situations where they are not expected. Another great way to use them
is to break the symmetry or pattern in some way, introducing tension
and a focal point to the scene.

Viewpoint / Perspective:
Before photographing your subject, take time to think about where you
will shoot it from. Our viewpoint has a massive impact on the
composition of our photo, and as a result it can greatly affect the
message that the shot conveys. Rather than just shooting from eye
level, consider photographing from high above, down at ground level,
from the side, from the back, from a long way away, from very close up,
and so on.