DAN: All right.
Everybody, welcome back to another week of exploring digital media.
This is our second lecture here in the cinema.
And this week we're going to be talking about framing composition and lens
basics.
And we'll actually tackle this in the reverse order today.
We're going to start with lenses.
So let's dive right in.
We have two typical types of lenses.
We have prime lenses and zoom lenses.
And who wants to give me a quick definition?
What's the difference?
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: A prime lens is a fixed focal length,
and a zoom will have a range from 70 to 200 [INAUDIBLE]..
DAN: OK.
Yeah.
So we have a fixed focal length on one, which means you can't zoom.
Right?
And a zoom lens or a variable focal length lens can zoom.
Which means you can literally crank a ring on the lens
and the image other enlarges or gets farther away.
Right?
All right.
Great.
Prime lenses.
Construction is pretty simple.
Inside we have a couple of lens element groups
that when you turn the focus ring, some of them move,
bring your image into focus or out of focus.
And a zoom lens is a bit more complicated.
As we look at this cross section here you've
got a couple different lens groupings that
move to either zoom your image in or zoom it out.
And also change your focus.
But I mean, look how complicated this thing is.
Look how many lenses we have and how many moving parts there are.
It's pretty crazy when you actually look at it.
But why might we choose one or the other?
Let's talk about some pros and cons.
When would you want to have a simple prime lens or a zoom lens?
Who's got some use cases for me?
And zoom, feel free to-- if you're in the distant audience feel
free to chime in as well.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: I guess you would use a zoom lens
if you want to be able to respond to the [INAUDIBLE]..
DAN: OK.
So when you want to respond quickly.
OK so maybe you don't know what's going to happen.
You're covering an event or and you need the versatility.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
How about an argument for a prime lens?
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: When you want to isolate your subjects with a shallow depth of field.
DAN: Oh.
A shallow depth of field.
OK.
But can you not have a shallow depth of field on a zoom lens?
AUDIENCE: You can if you zoom all the way up to 200.
DAN: OK.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] aperture.
DAN: So maybe there are some tricks to getting a shallow depth of field
with the zoom lens.
But maybe it's easier on the prime lens?
Is that always the case?
AUDIENCE: No.
But [INAUDIBLE].
DAN: Not necessarily.
So there's something in a zoom lens' construction
that might make it easier to have a shallow depth of field.
And we're going to talk more about what that means
a little bit next week when we talk about exposure.
Anybody have anything else?
How about our zoom audience?
Somebody give me a benefit of a prime lens over a zoom lens.
Just open your mic up and start talking.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Say it again, Alex.
DAN: Go ahead.
AUDIENCE: I think maybe prime lenses let in more light basically.
DAN: Let in more light.
So prime lenses tend to be faster.
Right?
They actually let more light down the barrel of the lens,
which means you get better low-light performance.
All right.
Great.
AUDIENCE: Prime lenses are lighter.
DAN: Prime lenses are lighter.
All right.
So the physicality of the lens is much smaller.
Easier to move around.
If you're going to carry a camera with you maybe
you're taking a prime lens with you.
Exactly.
Right?
So They're also-- they tend to be cheaper
because the construction is simpler.
We said faster.
I like to put forced creativity here because with the zoom lens
people stand in one place and will just zoom in or out to get
the shot that they want.
But it really forces you to get creative.
You have to actually get closer to your subject or farther away.
So I think that it's a really handy way as a starting photographer
to challenge yourself to build a more complicated frame.
They're lighter.
There's less to break.
So if you have to replace it, it's cheaper.
And zoom lenses tend to be more expensive.
They're slower as far as how much light comes down the barrel of the lens.
But you do get that versatility.
Right?
If you're going to cover an event it's much easier to have a zoom lens
so that you can snap in or snap out, depending
on what's happening with the action.
Or even if you don't want to carry a bunch of lenses with you.
Let's say you're going out to shoot in nature
and you just don't want to carry three lenses with you so
that you have the options.
A zoom lens will give all those to you.
All right.
So there are three categories that we define lenses in.
Either a wide-angle lens.
a normal lens, or a telephoto lens.
Are the three typical ways that we define these.
The three categories of lenses.
And so let's first just think about what we see with our human eye.
OK?
So we have a peripheral vision of about 180 degrees which is pretty wide.
But we can't focus on everything in our peripheral vision at once.
The area that we actually can kind of focus on is called your foveal vision
and it's about 40 degrees wide.
Which is pretty narrow when you think about it.
So a camera lens all have different fields of view.
And they're typically marked with this marking over here
that is something in millimeters.
So the lens on screen here is a 50-millimeter lens
and it has a field of view of 46 degrees.
And I have a little asterisk down here that's
on a full-frame 35-millimeter sensor.
And we'll get to what that means in a second.
And we measure this diagonally on the image.
So diagonally across an image.
And I do sneak pictures of my kids into my slides.
From corner to corner we have a 46 degree of view.
And that's just kind of interesting.
It's not the reason that a normal lens is called--
or a 50-millimeter lens is a normal lens on a full-frame sensor.
But it's just interesting that the degree of view that you see--
that you can pay attention to in any detail
is similar to what a normal lens is.
But really a normal lens defines the spatial relationships between objects,
whether things are distorted and pushed farther away--
or compressed in on top of each other.
A normal lens has the same properties of what your human eye sees.
So again, a normal lens on a full-frame sensor
is about 50-millimeter will just give you
a typical spatial relationship between objects that you see down your lens.
All right.
So a telephoto lens is anything that's zoomed in.
And I have pictured here prime lenses but certainly,
zoom lenses or telephoto as well.
This is an 85-millimeter lens, which has a field of view on a full-frame camera
of about 28 degrees.
So we're really narrowing down our field of view at this point.
Whereas the wide-angle lens is the opposite.
Right?
So a 35-millimeter will give us about 63 degrees for the field of view.
So which you might choose depends on what story you're going to go tell.
How much of an area do you need to see?
We've talked about what categories we have lenses in.
Let's now play a game where we can actually look at images
and describe what qualities we see in these.
So we'll play a little game called wide, normal, or telephoto.
All right.
And how we play this is, I'm going to put up an image.
And you're going to tell me, what do you think?
Are we looking at a wide-angle, a normal, or a telephoto?
So someone in the audience here.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Wide.
DAN: This is a wide-angle lens.
Why do you say that?
AUDIENCE: Because of the distortion with the ducks
are closer to the front element of the lens.
And you can see a lot of the background as well.
DAN: OK.
So I'm hearing that we have a lot of distortion in the lens.
Right?
So what is it that is distorted in this image?
AUDIENCE: The beak and the duck's head because that's not how the ducks look.
DAN: OK.
So this isn't quite how a duck looks.
Right?
This is kind of a wild looking image.
Right?
And it's the distance in this image that's spread out.
Right?
Like we're elongating the ducks nose because we're so close to it.
Right?
And the distance behind it is really--
things spread out and get really far away.
Even though these ducks aren't that big.
Right?
The trees presumably aren't as far away as they might seem in this image.
Right?
AUDIENCE: Right.
DAN: Very good.
And so this it's actually a very wide-angle lens.
The 35-millimeter equivalent is 7.2 millimeters.
So that's a very wide-angle lens.
How about this one?
Oh, crap.
I left it up there.
Spoiler.
Why [? done with a ?] telephoto?
I'll just stand over here.
Somebody else.
Ian, what do you think?
AUDIENCE: I don't know.
If you look at the width of the road and how it gets smaller
and the background-- the difference between proximity and sort
of the expansiveness of the space.
I'd say it's probably a little bit wider.
Maybe would be my guess.
DAN: So you are correct.
This is another very wide-angle lens.
The equivalent is 11.9 millimeters.
Another road.
So similar to what we just looked at.
Does this one feel different than the wide-angle lens we just saw?
Anyone,
AUDIENCE: Yes.
DAN: Right.
Yes, Dan.
It does.
It looks quite a bit different.
Right?
So instead of the road being wide up front as Ian said,
and narrowing off very quickly, it's almost the same shape all the way down.
And what is further away in the image feels much closer.
Right?
So we're probably looking at a--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
DAN: --or even a telephoto lens in this case.
I jumped right over normal lens and went right to telephoto.
So this image has a 135-millimeter lens on it.
This image does.
So this is actually a telephoto lens.
And things-- we're looking at a compression of space.
Whereas the wide-angle lens distorted and exaggerated distance.
A telephoto lens does the opposite.
It compresses space.
How about this one?
What do we think?
Kareem?
AUDIENCE: That feels wide.
DAN: It feels wide.
Why do you say?
AUDIENCE: The trees in back seem to be very far
away [? whether ?] they should be.
DAN: Yeah.
So distance again is a bit more exaggerated here.
Right?
You know we are looking at a landscape that presumably has distance in it.
But what is close feels exaggerated compared to what is far away.
Right?
You are correct.
This is a 28-millimeter lens.
So this is a wide-angle lens as well in this case.
This is a couple more here.
How about this?
We've got some interesting things happening here.
We've got some sharp elements and some blurred elements.
But that has nothing to do with our lens itself.
Do we think this is wide, normal, or telephoto?
AUDIENCE: Almost normal I would say.
DAN: Say it again.
AUDIENCE: Almost normal, I would say.
DAN: Almost normal?
AUDIENCE: Mm-hm.
DAN: Yes.
It's slightly wide but almost normal.
Much closer than the last one.
Right?
So 35 millimeters.
How about this one?
AUDIENCE: Telephoto lens.
DAN: A telephoto lens?
And give me the why.
I know we keep looking at same images but--
AUDIENCE: Because everything seems [INAUDIBLE] compressed [INAUDIBLE]..
DAN: Yeah.
Exactly.
It's that compression of space.
Right.
How far away is the mountain from Seattle here?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
DAN: Right?
It could almost be right in the city.
It's hard to tell.
Whereas if we look-- so again, 135-millimeter lens.
So a telephoto lens.
If we look at the same thing.
Right?
So in the previous image that we just looked at,
this is the Space Needle in Seattle.
Right?
On this slide here, this image is taken from the Space Needle.
Right?
So we're even closer than the last image was, yet
the mountain feels so much farther away.
Right?
And we see a lot more distance and space exaggerated in the city here.
So seeing the difference?
And this is an 8-millimeter lens almost.
How about this one?
This one's interesting.
We see a lot in this one.
Right?
We've got a whole bunch of mountains in the background.
But is it a wide-angle angle lens?
AUDIENCE: More normal.
DAN: You're going normal?
Anybody want to argue counter?
70-millimeter.
So just telephoto of normal?
But this is to show that you don't have--
like a telephoto lens, or a longer lens, doesn't have to be for a tight shot
every time.
Right?
You can use a telephoto lens for a wider shot.
You just have to back up.
All right.
And this feels different than that wide-angle lens.
Right?
The space is more compressed.
Like you mentioned something called depth of field.
Right?
How much is in focus.
How much is out of focus.
That's a little easier to do on a lens that's longer.
This one?
AUDIENCE: Did you input any panoramas or any trick photos or no?
DAN: No.
I did not.
I'm not pulling any trick punches today.
Trying to throw a couple of tricks in but nothing like that.
AUDIENCE: A wide?
DAN: A wide?
Why do you say wide?
AUDIENCE: Because it's like the beginning one.
You could see a lot of the shot.
DAN: Yeah.
You can see a lot of this shot.
You can see the mountains in the background.
But look specifically at the relationship
between the buildings in front and the background
elements here of the mountain.
Is there a lot of separation between them?
AUDIENCE: Mm-mm.
DAN: Not too much.
Right?
We've kind of compressed everything right up against.
You can't tell if this mountain is--
I don't know-- I'm going to exaggerate distance here-- five miles or 10 miles.
Right?
Whereas if it was a wide-angle lens I think
that we would actually see a much bigger spread of distance here.
Like, the little town that we're looking at is almost like a flat plain
even though we know that the buildings have space.
So this is actually a telephoto lens.
It's a 300-millimeter lens.
IAN: I think in all your examples we've seen a loss of the middle ground.
Or the foreground elements are always all there very prominently,
and the background objects get compressed in
to be almost relatively as prominent.
And that middle ground that we're used to seeing, it sort of disappears.
And it's almost as if you take a piece of paper
and you fold it and bring them closer together in some ways.
Right?
DAN: All right.
So this is our last image in this little game that we're playing.
I know was having a great time.
Wide, normal, or telephoto?
What do you think, Scully?
AUDIENCE: I think it's a telephoto.
DAN: All right.
Why?
Give me the why.
AUDIENCE: Because the distance between the trees is very condensed.
And the size of the people in comparison to the trees
is, I would say they look--
I mean-- they are relatively small physically compared to the trees.
But they're all similar on similar planes.
DAN: Cool.
Anybody want to argue counter?
AUDIENCE: There hasn't been one normal one this whole time.
That's [INAUDIBLE].
DAN: It's actually-- this is a wide-angle lens.
Right?
It's a little bit of a trick.
And I think part of what confuses it is the mist that's in the background
because it does have the flattening effect.
But if you look at the size of the trees and how cavernous
it is before we get to these people.
It's a tricky one.
It's definitely not a straightforward one.
All right.
So yeah.
We talked about the wide lens as well.
And I keep saying the equivalency on a 35-millimeter sensor.
This is something that's an important distinction.
And so what we're talking about is the actual sensor size in your camera
that is going to affect what a 35-millimeter lens looks like.
So digital cameras have a whole bunch of different sensor sizes.
And you need to look up your specifications
to see what size is in your camera.
But the two typical ones that we see these days in most consumer,
and prosumer cameras, are the APS-C-sized lenses.
Which canon and Nikon have very similar sizes.
As well as the full-frame 35-millimeter sensor.
This blue line here.
And what is the actual impact on our images
when we put a lens on our camera?
Let's take a look.
Right?
So if this is our image circle that our lens projects, and we put the same lens
on both cameras, the red box is going to be what
the full-frame sensor is going to see.
And the blue frame is going to be with the APS-C or the smaller sensor sees.
And so the effect is that if you put a 50-millimeter lens--
which you might have heard is a normal lens--
on a 35-millimeter sensor, it's not going
to be the same when you put it on to an APS-C-sized sensor.
Because it's actually going to have the effect of cropping in and feeling
more like a telephoto lens-- or it will be a more telephoto lens.
So if we take these comparison side by side, you're going to see on the left
here that you actually get a whole lot more image out of the same image.
You get a lot more space out of the same lens.
And on the right side, you're a bit more cropped in.
So this is just to say just because a lens says 50 millimeters or 30
millimeters, it doesn't mean that it is categorically a wide, or a normal,
or a telephoto lens.
It depends on the camera that you put it on.
So to give you a sense of what kind of fields of view
you get on a full-frame sensor.
14 millimeters is about one of the wider lenses that you're going to find.
And you can work your way in.
That's going to give you about 114 degrees of field of view.
Right?
24 is going to give you about 84 degrees.
35 millimeter-- this purple here--
is going to give you 63 degrees field of view.
And we can work our way in.
But it's interesting to compare this directly
against the APS-C-sized sensor.
So on an APS-C-sized sensor--
so all these down here.
These degrees are about the same.
The exact equivalent doesn't exist but you need to put these size lenses on
to get the same fields of view.
So it's just an interesting thing to consider.
Like, when you pick up a lens--
a 35-millimeter lens is not always the same depending on your camera system.
I just want to hammer that home.
IAN: Well, to be clear, the lens is always the same just the angle of view
is what changes.
Right?
So that there is sort of a relativity of how
a lens might act based off of the hardware-- the camera--
that you attach to it.
OK?
If that makes a little bit more sense.
DAN: All right.
So why is it that all lenses are marked in millimeters if that's not
a constant between cameras?
Right?
And it's because of how the distance inside
of the lens from where that goes to the actual sensor plane or film plane,
depending on your camera system.
But it's just important to know that if you're using APS-C,
we talk about the crop factor or the equivalency.
So usually if we talk about lenses we bring it back the equivalency
to the 35-millimeter sensor.
And so to convert an APS-C magnification,
we need to multiply by 1.6 X or so.
So that means that a 30-millimeter lens is going
to turn into a 48-millimeter lens.
And the range of a normal lens is about 45, 50 millimeters, to 60, 70.
It varies a little bit.
And then a 60-millimeter lens like the lens on the right here,
is going to be multiplied and it's going to be
the equivalent of a 96-millimeter millimeter
lens on a 35-millimeter sensor.
Hopefully, this is making sense.
We're going to pick apart what some of these markings on the lenses mean.
So this is a zoom lens.
You can see that on this ring here it goes from 18 millimeters
to 135 millimeters.
It's a little bit pixelated on this screen.
But this is a lens that's made to go on an APS-C lens.
And so that means that the equivalent-- when we do the math--
is a 28-millimeter lens to a 216 equivalent--
not actual lens-- the equivalency.
So am I making sense, Ian?
I feel like I'm [INAUDIBLE]--
IAN: Yeah, so--
DAN: [INAUDIBLE].
IAN: I think the thing is that focal length for any given lens
is defined by where the position of the glass elements are.
And it doesn't change from lens the lens.
So a 35-millimeter lens is always a 35-millimeter lens.
OK?
But whether that lens acts as a wide-angle lens, or a telephoto lens,
or a normal lens, and has the visual art effects
that we were just looking at when we were analyzing those images,
depends on the camera body that lens is attached to.
So in some ways.
When we talk about crop factor, what we're just saying
is that if you use this lens on a 35-millimeter camera body
it'll be normal.
But if you put it on APS-C, it actually gets a little bit more telephoto.
And so the artifacts that we noticed in the telephoto images
will crop up in those images a little bit.
But so at the end of the day, because there's
so much variability in the size of sensors, and the types of lenses,
that we have through--
pretty much just colloquially-- settled on 35-millimeter full frames
as our moment of reference.
So you'll hear a lot of people say that a 50-millimeter is a normal lens.
And that is true on a 35-millimeter camera.
And so that's why they're colloquially saying that that's a normal sentence.
But it's not entirely true because you could make that lens look telephoto.
And you even with a bigger sensor, could make that lens look more wide angle.
It's just that conventionally it's much easier
to talk about these things in reference to one specific sensor size.
And so because of the prevalence of 35-millimeter film
over the history of photography, we settled on the 35-millimeter full frame
size.
OK?
And so I think what we're trying to illustrate
is that the lenses have a specific focal length.
And that there are visual artifacts based off
of whether those lenses are acting as wide, normal, or telephoto lenses.
And that the body that you attach to that lens matters.
And so there's this relationship between the size of the sensor and the lens,
that will be important for you understanding whether this lens acts
as a telephoto or acts as a normal.
OK?
So it's just something to be aware of.
And for the most part, when you buy, say, an APS-C camera, then
you're going to get a kit lens that maybe goes from 14 to 60.
But when you buy a 35-millimeter camera with a kit lens,
maybe it goes from 24 to 85.
So the manufacturers are aware of this relationship.
And so the lenses that you get with any specific camera body
are usually designed to be the range that you will find most useful.
A little bit wide, some normal, and a little bit telephoto.
OK?
But just do be aware that when you mix and match bodies and lenses,
that you can run into get some of these weird effects
where a lens actually appears more telephoto
than maybe you might be expecting.
DAN: OK.
Perfectly distilled.
Thank you.
All right.
So let's just look at some of the other markings on this lens
since we're talking about lenses today.
So here we have a Canon zoom lens.
We have this EF-S and that's Canon-specific nomenclature
for "this is an APS-C lens."
It's made to go on our smaller sensor size.
This is the focal length of the lens.
It's 10 to 18 millimeters.
And then we've got this ratio here, 1 to 4.5 to 5.6.
Does anybody know what that means?
This is a little bit of a teaser for next time.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Aperture.
DAN: It's the aperture.
Right.
And what is the aperture?
AUDIENCE: The hole in the lens.
DAN: Sure.
It's that opening that opens and closes and controls how much light comes down
the barrel of the lens.
Yeah.
And do you know why we have two different markings on it?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Because it's the zoom so it's widest is that 4.5 and when it zooms,
all the way to 5.6.
I've never understood that one in the code.
DAN: That one?
It's just the ratio.
So yeah.
So what we're saying here is the zoom-- what is your name again?
AUDIENCE: Ralph.
DAN: Ralph.
So Ralph is saying our widest aperture on this lens when we're all the way
zoomed out is 4.5.
And when you zoom in, actually you can't get that wide anymore.
Your maximum aperture-- the widest it can be--
is 5.6.
And we'll get to what those numbers mean when we talk about exposure.
But just know that this means that the aperture is actually variable as well.
And you don't have a ton of control when you're
zoomed in because there's that is the widest it can be.
IS.
Anybody know what this stands for?
And this is different depending on camera brand.
Yes, Connor.
AUDIENCE: Image stabilization.
DAN: Image stabilization.
So this lens has image stabilization in it.
And STM is simply the model of lens that this is.
So Canon has the STM series.
They have L series, where the L series is their our top tier.
The STM's the step below, but a lot cheaper.
And so you might get a very similar lens with slightly different construction.
All right.
And so the equivalent-- if we talk about the equivale3ncy--
is 16-millimeter to 28-millimeter on this lens for a full-frame sensor.
All right.
And just to reiterate, If you were to take a APS-C lens
and put it on a full-frame camera this is what's going to happen.
You're going to actually vignette the edges of your frame
if your red frame is the full-frame sensor.
So you need to be careful that you buy the right lens for your camera.
Because otherwise, this could happen to you.
Or maybe the lens doesn't even fit.
That's the other thing that could happen to you.
So just be aware when you buy.
AUDIENCE: One what other devices
IAN: Yeah.
So if you have a lens design for a full-frame camera.
Right?
As long as the lens mount and the flange up--
which is this distance up that mount to the sensor--
work for that camera body--
it has enough coverage.
Right?
This circle that we have projected here is the lens projection.
It's called coverage.
It has enough coverage.
Just always cover a smaller sensor.
But it doesn't go the other way.
Or it often doesn't go the other way.
Because if you think about it, there's sort
of a economic reason why you might have a small-- like a lens with less
coverage, it has less glass in it.
It's less materials.
So it's cheaper.
It ends up being smaller.
And if you will, that will work for a camera with a small sensor size.
But if all of a sudden you put that on a camera with a larger sensor size,
then you end up with this vignetting around the edges.
And I think maybe we've all seen this in old pictures.
Where you get that sort of darkness on the edges and
it makes more of a circular oval.
DAN: And so if you're investing in camera hardware,
you might be like, oh, I'm going to not spend much money on a camera body,
but I'm going to spend a lot of money on the lens.
This is what might happen to you in reverse.
You might buy a coverage that gives you all of this coverage,
but you're really only using the center of that lens at any given time.
So if you're buying a camera with a smaller sensor-- like Ian just
described-- it might make more sense to buy
the lens that has the circle that's a closer approximation to your sensor
just because it's cheaper.
And when you upgrade camera systems, at that point you consider
do I upgrade my lenses as well?
DAN: All right.
Another zoom lens.
It's the same markings.
We've got our EF series.
That's Canons mount.
We've got the zoom range.
We've got the aperture.
This one is not variable.
All right?
So this is a zoom lens.
But the aperture is fixed at 2.8.
Which means that the aperture, even if you zoom all the way in, doesn't shift.
It's always going to be 2.8.
And again, we're going to talk about what 2.8 means next time.
This little mark down here just tells you the diameter of the lens.
So if you're going to buy a filter for it,
that's the size filter you need to buy.
That's not actually the focal length of the lens.
All right.
And this is an EF lens.
So like we just talked about, if you put this onto an APS-C sensor
it's going to crop in.
All right.
So now, let's see what this does relationally.
So this is specifically looking at our subject and background.
So where is this guy?
Do we know?
AUDIENCE: Not exactly.
DAN: Not exactly.
OK.
What do we see?
Do we see something in the background?
Take a guess.
Where is he?
AUDIENCE: A street.
DAN: A street?
OK.
We go a little bit wider.
And so the size of our subject is the same.
This is roughly a medium shot or a medium close-up.
Right?
That hasn't changed.
But what we see has changed.
Right?
And even how he looks has changed a little bit.
And so what we've done is we've gone from a--
they're down here in the corner--
we've gone from a 280-millimeter to 100 millimeters.
All right.
And so we can see a little bit more of what's going on here.
Keep coming out.
We're starting to see a lot more information the farther out we come.
Right?
So we're down to a 50-millimeter lens or a normal lens.
So we're out of the telephoto range.
He looks pretty normal still.
But we can now see he's in an alley.
We see some cars.
All right.
Coming out even wider.
Now, the cars are even getting farther away.
So this is interesting.
What's actually happening for the photographer
here to keep the shot the same as we change our zoom?
Ralph?
AUDIENCE: You have to get closer.
DAN: OK.
Yeah.
So when we were back at 280 millimeters if I was shooting Ian
I was probably some number of feet away.
And as I zoom out or change my focal length to be farther out,
then I'm walking in closer to get the same shot.
Right?
But what's happening to the background is really interesting as we do that.
And here we go.
We're down at 25 millimeters now.
Starting to really get a little bit distorted.
Would you say?
Now we're getting that exaggeration that we saw with the ducks.
Right?
Is it flattering on a human being?
No.
I'm getting a head shake down here.
Anybody in the back?
No.
And we get all the way.
This is the widest we went.
This is a 60-millimeter lens on a 35-millimeter sensor.
So the equivalency is 60 millimeters.
And you can almost no longer see those cars that we saw initially.
Right?
They were the biggest things in the frame.
And now they're completely covered by him.
So but he looks very different.
Right?
So.
Very interesting trade-off that we're making here.
The human body.
It's the same thing.
Things tend to be more flattering at longer lenses.
And so at this lens here where we're at 400 millimeters, it's the same thing.
Right?
She's right in front of the storefront as far as we can tell.
There's no sense of space.
We don't know how much depth there is--
how far away she is from the store.
Whereas if we move all the way down the spectrum to 24 millimeters,
you're almost wondering where is that painted monkey storefront.
Right?
It's actually behind her because we feel like she's miles away from it now.
So the relationship between your subject and the background
probably depend on distance, but also depend
on what lens you have on the camera--
whether it's wide, normal, or telephoto.
Specifically, looking at the human face.
16 millimeters versus 280 millimeters.
If you were getting your photo taken, let's say for work for a company page,
which lens would you want to be photographed with?
I'm sorry say it little louder.
AUDIENCE: 85.
DAN: 85?
OK.
So down here.
What happens is we come up here.
Is there a big difference between these as we go way up?
Not really.
Right?
It gets to the point where it's almost like his face is
kind of shrinking inward a little bit which is interesting.
But the biggest difference you'll notice just like we saw in the alleyway,
is it's actually the background that changes the most drastically.
And once we get past roughly here, it's the background
that changes most drastically.
You can see just how much bigger that background gets each time.
But this isn't very flattering.
Right?
We wouldn't want to have our portraits taken
with a wide-angle lens for how much distortion it adds
and how much it elongates into your face.
IAN: But conversely if you do have, say, a character in a situation
where you want them to appear slightly unsettling or unnerving, choosing
a wider angle lens to increase the distortion on the facial features
might be very effective.
And this happens often in suspenseful moments in films, or horror films,
or some sci-fi films.
Where they'll use the lensing to distort the features a little bit so that it
just feels a little bit off.
Right?
And you can imagine in a conversation back and forth.
If you shot me tight with a white on the lens and my features
were really distorted.
And you shot Dan from a little further away with an 85-millimeter
and he looked really handsome, there would be this interesting flip-flop
as we talked back and forth.
And a difference in the way we were looking.
And so you could use that to your advantage
to set up some kind of relationship between us in some ways.
Right?
So all of these things-- even though conventionally we might say,
oh, we want to take a beautiful portrait of someone.
We're going to use sort of an 85 maybe a 100-millimeter lens.
Don't shy away from using the artifacts of these lenses
to do something a little bit stranger.
Right?
DAN: And I think the key there is little bit.
Right?
It's not it's not a binary thing, where you're either using 16 or 280.
But you've got everything in between.
So if you want to make somebody feel off just a little bit.
Even getting close to the 24 millimeter lens or even
the 35 is going to just add a little bit of distortion.
So something to consider.
The same goes for video.
This is a video clip we've got Scully here in this video clip.
But this shows the relationship between two people with different lenses.
An inch-- or two frames show this.
But this has the range in between as well.
So let's just take a look at this.
So these two characters on a 15-millimeter lens.
Right here's 35.
Watch the size of them relative to each other as we go in here.
50 millimeters.
75.
100.
150.
Right?
Where Scully was very large in the frame before,
who's becoming the dominant person in the frame now?
I mean, all the attention is on Dan--
the gentleman on the right.
So 260 millimeters.
I think this is the farthest in we went.
But I always think it's funny to do this.
Right?
Because you don't really notice it as it's a progression over time.
But when you just whip back into the A to B comparison.
Like, where are they?
Now, you can tell.
You get a sense of the space that they're in.
And then bam, all the way to the other side.
Right?
Very, very different relationship between the two people.
And very different message that you're sending between these two frames.
So that takes us to this clip from Raiders of the Lost Ark
which is a movie from 1981 where lens compression was used to the advantage
here.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CROWD SHOUTING]
High drama.
They're right behind him.
- (SHOUTING) Start the engine!
Get it up!
[END PLAYBACK]
DAN: What happened?
They were right behind him.
AUDIENCE: He went really fast.
DAN: All right.
So someone describe for me, what did we just
see in the first clip-- in the first shot that we saw?
Lens compression.
I see-- Ralph is making the hand motion.
But lens compression.
Right?
We're shooting on a telephoto lens which compresses space
and we can't tell how far away they are.
And then we jump to this shot, which what does this do for us?
I mean, it's an interesting choice.
But it takes you out of the moment.
Right?
This element of, "they're right behind him," goes away.
And now like--
AUDIENCE: It gives him a chance to escape.
DAN: Yeah.
It gives him a chance to escape.
Right?
So it might give us as the audience some breathing room.
But you know, also it kind of ratchets down this tension that's been building.
So I think it's just an interesting choice to look at.
All right.
So we keep looking at different shots sizes.
So let's start to talk about the way that we describe shots.
And this is particularly relevant to video.
And the reason we do this-- we categorize
shot sizes is to keep everybody on the same page.
So when I say, hey, I want to go get a wide shot or a medium shot.
The rest of the people on the crew who are shooting with me
know exactly what kind of shot we're going to get.
So we standardized our language for this.
So we have the extreme wide shot, which this is an example of.
It's abbreviated either EWS or XWS.
And these are just if you're making a shot list, or making notes to yourself,
you might just abbreviate.
But what is it that we get from an extreme wide shot?
A very big sense of scale.
Right?
You get a sense of place.
If you're establishing a location this might be a shot
that you choose because you get so much information in the frame.
Right?
And we'll work our way in here.
So a wide shot, also handy to establish a scene.
You get a lot of information out of it.
You get more detail.
Right?
And this is the theme of working your way in tighter
as you start to see more details.
But you might lose the sense of scale or the overall sense of place.
All right.
You guys know, the wide shot.
We've seen this one before.
Right?
Hopefully, this was a fun assignment for you.
And like I said, just because you have a wide shot doesn't
mean that you're on a wide-angle lens.
So we can look at a very similar shot.
Right?
But on this frame here this is, I believe, a normal lens or slightly
telephoto lens.
And this one is a wide-angle lens.
They're roughly the same.
Right?
This one's a little bit wide.
But the two frames feel very different.
So which you might choose, it totally depends on what kind of story
you're trying to tell, or what you're trying to say,
or if you want things to feel weird.
What's the other difference in this besides the previous one?
AUDIENCE: The carpet is distorted.
DAN: Yeah.
It's distorted.
The carpet?
Yeah.
And why do we notice the carpet more?
Where's the camera that does that?
AUDIENCE: Down low.
DAN: Down low.
Yeah.
So the camera's almost on the ground in this one.
Right?
And with a wide lens, it exaggerates them, their height.
They feel taller.
All the lines get distorted up top, and we see more of the carpet.
IAN: Well, it also becomes a little bit more about the environment
that they're in.
Whereas the previous shot was a lot about their relationship together.
And this in some ways feels a little bit more
about their experience in this larger space.
And so you can think about using this for narrative intent too.
If you have some kind of story that is about, say,
it's the opening of a new building.
Then maybe you're going to use a wide-angle lens
to show the expansiveness of the building
while you're interviewing the director of that building or something.
Or conversely, if you have a story that's
maybe just two people who are in a relationship or something,
and the environment doesn't matter.
Then maybe you'll choose something that really focuses in on them
and feels much more contained and confined.
OK.
DAN: All right.
Continuing to work our way in.
Here's a full shot.
And this is typically somebody's body from head
to toe without cutting them off.
And it's the same thing.
You can multiple people in a full shot.
But the idea is it's about the height of a person
and depending on the width of your frame you'll
get all the information around them.
All right.
So here's three people.
And we've even got someone's shoulder cut off at the edge of the frame here.
All right.
Medium-wide shot.
So now we're above the ankle.
We're below the waist still and this is working our way in.
Another medium wide shot.
Right?
So it's a little bit looser than the waist.
Good shot to put multiple people together
on if you're trying to give a full sense of people
and the relationship between them.
Medium shot this one is pretty much at the waist to just above the head
all right and it doesn't matter what the frame
you could have a square frame or a 16 X 9 frame
and it's the same amount of space.
Right?
Still at the waist to just over the head.
That is what makes up a medium shot.
Medium close-up.
right?
We're starting to lose, in particular, the background.
And we know we can cheat this by using a different lens.
If we used a wider-angle lens we might see more of the background .
But we're starting to really focus on our character at this point.
It's becoming very clearly about them, or an item
or whatever is in your frame.
All right?
Close-up.
We're now starting to possibly cut off the top of the head.
We're just below the chin typically.
And so this is where you get a lot more detail.
Right?
We're starting to see a lot more of the eyes
and get the expression, and the emotional state of the character.
And then we have extreme close-up.
This is kind of the opposite of our extreme wide shot.
Right?
This is just a piece of something.
And oftentimes it's used to reveal a different detail where you
might see what somebody is looking at.
Or you might get a sense of how they're feeling
because of how their eyes are moving.
There's lots of different reasons to use this.
And it doesn't have to be of a person.
We usually talk about shot sizes in relation to people
but you can have an extreme close-up of an object
where you only see a piece of it.
IAN: Right.
And think about the Hitchcock rule that Dan alluded to a couple of weeks ago,
where the larger an object, the more important it is.
And much of our job as editors, and directors, and filmmakers,
focusing attention.
So the extreme global close-up is really useful if there's some sort of item
that you really want to draw the audience's attention to.
And you'll see that a lot.
The close-up on the briefcase, or something like that.
AUDIENCE: What focal length would you reach
for when you know you want to frame a shot on someone's face, for instance.
DAN: So what focal length would you want if you
wanted to get a shot someone's face?
It depends on what you want to tell.
We've seen that you can use a wide-angle lens and get very close to somebody
and have an extreme close-up.
But the effect is you're going to really distort their face and elongate it.
And you're going to get a wide area of the background.
Whereas if you want to focus on them you might reach for a telephoto lens
where you compress the background, throw it
in soft focus and not really notice what's there,
but really focus on the person themselves.
So it depends on what it is you're trying to achieve.
All right.
Quick quiz.
You guys have been sitting here letting us do all the talking up here.
So let's play this game.
What shot size is this?
Max?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
DAN: I heard close-up.
No.
Not focal length, Max.
What shot size.
Right?
So this is a close-up up.
Exactly.
Right?
So we're chopping off just the top of the head.
We're just below the chin.
How about this?
AUDIENCE: XWS.
DAN: XWS?
Possibly.
Or maybe just a wide shot.
AUDIENCE: Maybe.
DAN: Right?
It's in-between.
We don't have a full sense of where we are necessarily.
AUDIENCE: Just a wide shot.
DAN: But, yeah.
Wide shot.
And these-- we're going to differ on exactly what our definitions are too.
it's not a hard and fast rule.
These are just guidelines as filmmakers.
And we can communicate with each other quickly.
I say, hey, go set up the camera and give me a wide shot.
Right?
You know I'm expecting something along the lines of this.
Whereas if I said give me an extreme close-up,
you're going to reach for a different lens probably.
Or you're going to put the camera in a different position.
So it's all about just kind of fluidity of working quickly
together or visualizing your shots.
You might you might make a shot list and say
I want to go from the medium shot to the close-up up shot
to the extreme close-up.
And everybody knows what that progression
looks like as you're talking about it even if you don't know exactly
what the frame is going to look like.
This one?
AUDIENCE: Medium close-up.
DAN: Medium close-up.
Very good.
Yeah.
So we're above the waist by quite a bit.
We're at the chest to just over the head.
Somebody new.
How about someone from the internet.
What's this one?
Just unmute yourself and let me know.
Oh, man.
We got crickets on the internet tonight.
Kareem, what's this?
AUDIENCE: I'm seeing-- sorry.
Sorry.
I'm seeing medium wide shot from [? Jacqueline. ?]
DAN: Medium wide shot.
Scully, I like it.
That's what it is.
AUDIENCE: I'm saying from [? Jacqueline. ?]
DAN: Oh.
OK.
Great.
You're relaying from [? Jacqueline. ?] So yes.
This is a medium wide shot.
So we're cutting off the feet a little bit.
And this could be a little bit tighter.
I like this shot because they also call it the cowboy.
And the idea is you can see the guns get pulled.
Right?
So the cowboy shot from the holsters.
AUDIENCE: Also seeing a full shot.
DAN: It was close to a full shot.
Right?
Full shot would traditionally be feet to head.
We were cutting off the feet a little bit in the previous frame.
How about this one?
AUDIENCE: Medium shot.
DAN: Medium shot.
Yeah.
Right at the waist.
Right?
AUDIENCE: Extreme close-up.
DAN: Extreme close-up.
This one's obvious right?
But again, we're seeing what's being reflected in the eye
more so than what we're seeing--
well, I guess we're seeing the eye.
But a good chance to see what is being seen in this case.
A big white card in the lens.
So--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
DAN: Yeah.
That's true.
This one?
AUDIENCE: Full.
DAN: Full shot.
Yeah.
Head to toe.
Very good.
Another-- well, don't get confused by what lens we used.
Right?
This is all the size of the person.
I'm sorry.
You're saying?
AUDIENCE: Medium close-up.
DAN: Medium close-up.
Yeah.
How about this one?
AUDIENCE: Wide.
Medium wide.
DAN: Medium wide.
Why?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
DAN: But we're not talking about the lens,
we're talking about the shot size.
Right?
So these are both medium closeups.
Right?
From the chest to top of head.
Right?
From the chest the top of head.
It's the same shot but because we've added this element of a wide lens
they feel very different.
Right?
So much more important is all the elements
that make up your frame than just, what shot size is it?
Right.
When you're talking about intention.
All right.
So we're almost an hour into our lecture here.
We're next going to go into what is composition.
But I think this might actually be a good point
to take a quick five minute break.
Use the bathroom.
Work out any online audio issues we're having.
And we'll see you in about five minutes.
All right sorry to interrupt what's going on online here.
I just want to come back real quick.
So welcome back to the lecture.
There was some confusion about some of the stuff
that we talked about in the first half of the lecture.
And I just want to address focal length real quick.
So focal length is a measurement in the lens that describes
the distance in the lens itself.
But that's irrelevant.
And even the millimeters that we're talking about is irrelevant.
Because what you really need to do is put the lens on the camera
and look through it.
Because that'll give you a sense of, is the lens to have a wide field of view,
a normal field of view, or a telephoto field of view?
So are you seeing a lot of Information?
Is there distortion?
Is the space exaggerated?
Or is it normal?
Like, it's a spatial relationship similar to what
we see with the human eye?
Or do people overlap in the same way?
Or it's a telephoto where space is compressed
and we can no longer see what it is that-- or how far apart things are?
It's like Ian described earlier.
It's like taking a piece of paper and folding it in half.
You can move the distance back and forth and you
can't tell because it's just two flat planes that are compressed together.
So that's all we're really talking about.
If you take nothing else away just know that we describe focal length
in these three broad categories of wide, normal, and telephoto.
And what you really need to do is look down.
Put the lens on your camera and look down it
to see what you're actually looking at.
And the characteristics being expansion of space, compression of space,
or somewhere in between.
Does that make sense?
All right.
So onto composition.
And so I love this quote.
I just think it's a really good summation
of what it is that we're doing.
So composition selects and emphasizes elements such as size, shape, order,
dominance, hierarchy pattern, resonance, and discordance,
in ways that give meaning to things beyond being
photographed that goes beyond the simple-- this is really
the key moment here.
Forget my bumble there--
beyond the simple "here they are."
Right?
So this is showing an image with intention.
Showing your subject with intention and making decisions
about why you're putting it out there.
So that's what we're doing with composition is we are going beyond,
hey, I took a snapshot.
Doesn't this look cool?
And we're saying I'm intentionally showing you this image this way.
All right?
And so in our normal daily life, we see things in three dimensions.
Right?
Things have an X and a Y and a Z axis.
But we need to overcome this in a frame.
Because the still image is typically still just two dimensions.
And we need to overcome this by adding elements that give us depth.
That's a lot of what creating depth is all about.
And there are some tricks to this.
So for one, we create depth by having things in the foreground.
All right?
That's the things that are in front of your subject.
We have the middle ground of our image, which typically is the subject.
And then we have the background as well.
And we think about these three things separately as three different planes
in our image.
And how far away your foreground is from middle ground to your background
depends on your lens choice and how you put your image together.
But we'll talk about foreground, middle ground, and background elements
as we create depth in an image.
All right.
So here's an image.
Right?
We've got some foreground elements leading us into this image.
We've got our subject in the middle ground
and then our background falls nicely out of focus really highlighting
my son here.
IAN: The handsome young man.
DAN: The handsome young man.
Thank you.
So putting these elements together to build a strong frame.
And there are some basic design elements that go back to your art history days
that we use to put our frame together.
And these are line, shape, form, pattern, texture, and color.
There are others as well but these are the ones that we're going to focus on.
So let's look at line.
So lines are typically straight elements that can also be curved.
But they really guide your eye through a frame.
They give you an entry point or an exit point sometimes.
And they will move you around the frame depending on what direction
they're going in, how thick they are.
They'll give you flow.
But this is all to give you a sense of what you're looking at
and how you should look at it.
So let's look at an image that has a strong line in it.
So let's-- plainly, what is this?
What are we looking at?
AUDIENCE: A staircase.
DAN: A staircase.
But it's not how you would typically look at a staircase
but it's really interesting.
Right?
We're looking straight up at it.
And where does your eye enter the frame and where does your eye exit the frame?
AUDIENCE: Top right?
At the center.
DAN: Top right.
OK.
So I'm hearing a couple of things.
Some people say there they go right to the center.
My eye follows this line right in and kind of spirals up into the center
here.
So but it's a very strong thing that we see here
that moves us through the frame.
Right?
So a nice--
IAN: Are there any other elements besides the linear elements that guide
our eye to the center of the frame?
AUDIENCE: Light.
DAN: Light.
Yeah.
IAN: Yeah.
So it's a play between light and dark.
Absolutely.
Right?
So our eye is attracted to the brightest parts of the images often.
DAN: Yeah.
All right.
And we'll put the metadata inside here just so
that we can have reference for it.
But we don't need to talk about it specifically.
How about this one?
How would you describe this frame?
All right.
It's much more abstract than what we just looked at.
Well, maybe not.
It's a very abstract frame.
Right?
We're not exactly sure what it is we're looking at.
We can presume that it's windows of a building.
And some say it's very busy.
It's very busy.
OK.
Maybe strong.
Right?
A lot of vertical lines especially when they're straight
can make a frame feel much stronger.
How about, where do your eyes enter and exit this frame?
AUDIENCE: Converges at the center pillar.
DAN: Yeah.
Converges at the center.
Right?
All these lines converging.
You're naturally following them in.
Right?
And so maybe if you wanted to highlight what s at the center.
I don't know if in case.
This is not particularly attractive or nice
but you definitely drive your viewers eyes into the middle
by using these lines to move them around.
Right?
How about this one?
There's a lot of lines in this one.
This is a frame from Shutter Island, which is a movie.
What do you feel when you see this frame?
AUDIENCE: Trapped.
DAN: Trapped.
Enclosed.
Right?
Pinned in.
AUDIENCE: Ambiguity.
DAN: Say it a little louder.
AUDIENCE: Mystery.
DAN: Mystery.
OK.
Yeah.
Like, part of that shadow.
Right?
We don't know.
There's no light on these subjects.
We don't know what they're meeting about.
But all these lines add to this element of mystery.
Right?
And so this also is an easy way visually to communicate to the viewer.
And this is a video clip from Shutter Island as well.
And let's take a quick look at this.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- This is Hopkins [INAUDIBLE].
[BUZZER]
- IDs, gentlemen.
[LIGHT BULB BUZZES]
[DOOR CREEKS]
[DOOR SLAMS SHUT]
Show your badges, gentlemen.
[END PLAYBACK]
DAN: Right?
So there's a lot of very straight and rigid elements to that.
A lot of strong vertical lines.
Right?
Even when we come inside here.
We think about where we could've put the camera
to get the shot of everybody entering.
Right?
We put it up above the walkway where we see this guard walking down
with a strong line come into the frame.
And even where the desk is where they're talking and checking in
is segmented off in it's a little corner of the frame.
It feels very different than if we had put the camera down on the ground level
and just showed the desk.
We would have lost a lot of the mystery, and intrigue, and feeling of being
penned in that this image offers us.
IAN: Yeah.
And there's a visual relationship to the idea of prison bars as well.
Right?
These shadows on the floor and these vertical moments and it all
builds to the sense of incarceration.
Right?
Absolutely.
DAN: Not the only way to use lines for sure.
But an effective way to quickly give you a sense of what this place looks
like if you're introducing the inside of this penitentiary or whatever it is.
It very quickly communicate to the audience what kind of space we're in.
All right.
Our next element is shape.
And so shape can be defined as just a 2D object in your frame.
Right?
A line is like a outline or a straight or curved line,
but a shape is actually a filled object that gives you a sense of its shape.
And these can be geometric like a typical square, triangle, circle, et
cetera.
Or you can have organic shapes which are like the outline of a person
or the outline of whatever.
But it's typically like you can think of a silhouette as a good example.
Where you just see the shape of something but you
have no sense of its depth.
Right?
And these can provide scale for you.
If an item repeated becomes a pattern and then
it's a good way to add interest.
And often you'll see this used as a positive or negative space.
Where you've got all black around a frame
and you're focused on one thing, or the opposite
where you've got the remainder of the space that's
left over outlining a positive
So here's an image with a very strong shape in it.
And so what does this do for us in this instance?
One, it makes it very interesting.
Right?
It gives us a frame around our image.
AUDIENCE: It isolates.
DAN: It isolates?
AUDIENCE: It isolates.
DAN: Yeah.
Totally.
All right.
Here's a little technical info if you're interested.
Here's another shape.
What shape do we see in this one?
AUDIENCE: Organic.
DAN: An organic shape.
So it could be like, the organic shape is the outline of the person.
Right?
But we don't-- it's mostly silhouette.
It's almost like two different shapes on top
of each other, which is interesting.
I think the triangle is particularly interesting from the light.
Because there's nothing actually defining the edges of it.
It's just a beam of light in space.
So there's two different shapes for you.
More camera info.
Here's another one.
These are interesting shapes.
This one's got like some layers to it.
Right?
So in the foreground, we've got this tree.
We have no sense of depth of the tree.
But it does tell us a lot.
Having no detail in it almost highlights the shape of it in this case.
Right?
Get a sense that is this old weathered tree that's been dead for some time.
IAN: It's a beautiful use of atmospheric perspective
too, where you can see the colors muting and getting hazier
and hazier the further the image goes back.
DAN: Yeah.
Absolutely.
AUDIENCE: The direction that we have combats the horizontal [INAUDIBLE]..
IAN: Yeah.
So there's a beautiful contrast there.
Exactly.
It draws your attention to it because it stands out as so much differently.
DAN: Right.
And you've even-- contrast I think is a good word to use here.
Contrast by definition being the lightest points in your frame
and the darkest points in your frame and the distance between them.
But we literally have a representation of contrast
here because the foreground of the frame is dark black.
Right?
And the top of the frame is more or less is the lightest part of the image.
And it's just interesting to see it laid out this way, where
we work our way almost like a gradient going from dark to light as well.
But some strong lines in here as well.
We've got the lines of the hills going across forming shapes themselves.
So as we look at images, you're not looking at one element
typically at a time.
You're looking at a combination of elements building on top of each other
to build our composition.
So more technical info.
How about this?
What is this object?
AUDIENCE: A shadow.
DAN: Shadow?
AUDIENCE: Coffee mug.
DAN: It's a coffee mug.
Right.
Which is interesting because you're seeing a circle
with a rectangle attached to it.
But the giveaway is this other shape down here.
Which we know as humans is a shadow because the light
is being cast across it.
And so it's interesting because we get the context
from the combination of the two shapes.
But we're not actually seeing any of the 3D depth of the object itself.
All right.
So which brings us to form.
Form is like shape but with another dimension.
So it's the coffee mug with some depth to it.
Right?
We'll be probably moving the camera around it
so that we can get a sense of what shape it is.
And this is often done with like light and shadow
because you'll see how light is cast across the surface of something
and reveals the form or the shape of it.
So you can think of things that are good examples of form,
or a sphere, or a cube.
Something that has depth to it.
And this can add dimensionality to your object or your frame.
And it really defines the physicality of an object.
So there's the promise coffee mug.
So instead of looking straight overhead, we've moved alongside it.
And this gradient that comes across the image
really helps you get a sense of what shape it is.
And even the light hitting back over here on the handle,
gives you a sense of just how rounded it is.
And so no longer do we have just a typical two dimensional circle
and coffee cup shadow.
We actually get the form of a coffee cup and you can kind of
imagine what it's like to pick it up in your hand.
How about this?
I love this image.
It's beautiful.
A simple piece of garlic.
Right?
But look at all the detail in it.
Right?
Look you can see where each--
I don't know.
What is a garlic--
IAN: Clove?
DAN: Clove.
Yeah.
Where all the cloves hug the body.
Right?
You can really see the waviness of it.
And you get a sense of what it would be like to pick it up.
And the paper on the outside has so much detail in it
that you get a real sense of it.
Right?
And so this is mostly done by shooting close up in this case
and having light that really exaggerates-- or exaggerates is
the wrong word.
But enhances,
IAN: Yeah.
Accentuate.
DAN: The shape of the image.
Yeah.
Accentuates the shape of the image.
Right?
But this is a good example of form.
Some more technical info.
I love food can I say?
So this is a pepper doing the same kind of thing.
And this is interesting because this is the only thing in the frame.
Right?
And just literally black behind it and the gray on the sides
are just for illustration purposes of where the frame itself ends.
Right?
But you really get a sense of the texture almost.
A good texture example.
But a sense of texture of the image and the natural organic waviness of it.
Same kind of thing.
Strawberry.
You really just want to bite into it.
You can get a sense of just how plump it is.
And you know the color does a nice little touch to it as well.
So that is form.
AUDIENCE: Question.
DAN: Yes.
AUDIENCE: The last two images, can you explain to me how they are not to be?
[INAUDIBLE]
DAN: Yeah.
So it is a flat image like you're saying.
But I would argue that it's the contours from the shadow that
give you a sense of the shape of it.
Right?
It's not-- this is flat.
It's not-- if we had moved the camera up a little bit
and got more of an angle of the top, you would have maybe
a better sense of the three dimension.
So we could certainly argue whether this is a good example or not.
AUDIENCE: i just don't want to get them confused in my head.
Because I was like, this one's almost But I can see the light and depth.
I see it very little but I get it.
DAN: Totally.
No.
I picked it just because you get the sense of the shape of it
on the outside.
But I totally take your point that it feels a little bit less
like a 3D image.
And it almost feels more like texture.
IAN: It's also the flat side of the pepper too.
Right?
DAN: Yeah.
IAN: So that it is sort of a plane that we're looking at.
But that the curves come out at just the edges and undulations of the pepper
skin.
DAN: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Can we go over this with the coffee cup again?
DAN: The garlic?
The coffee cup?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
The 2D and the 3D.
Go back and forth.
DAN: Oh.
I can't jump quite because there's a slide in between.
AUDIENCE: So at first I was like this one's 3D maybe because of the shadow.
But then when you guys showed the 3D image, and I was like, I see it.
Because the real 3D image because you can see
this one's shape up top, so straight down.
But then you go to the 3D image you see that circle top part of the cup
is what gives it the most strong obvious [INAUDIBLE]..
DAN: This up here for you?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It was just flat and puzzling.
What was going to be the difference?
And then when I saw it I was like, wow.
DAN: Well, this one was meant to be a trick.
Right?
Because if you look at it your brain says, oh, this is a coffee cup.
I know what it looks like because I've seen a million coffee cups.
Right?
But really what you're looking at, I was trying
to accentuate that you're looking at a circle, a little rectangle, and then
the shape of a coffee cup.
But it's all very flat.
Right?
There's no depth to this image.
It's all-- it's flat shapes.
And your brain is tricking you and saying there's depth to it
because I know what a coffee cup looks like.
But in this one you actually get the shape in the form of it put together.
So you see how round it is from the top and from the light being
cast across it.
All right.
I'm moving ahead here.
All right.
Patterns.
So we talked about pattern a moment ago when
we talked about a repetition of shape.
But pattern is a really good way to get things to stand out as well.
And this is a common theme in making a strong image
and having good composition.
As your subject, you want to find a way to make
it stand out somehow or the opposite.
But typically using tricks like pattern, and strong lines, and shape,
and texture are going to be the things that
are you're going to put together and build
a frame that stands out and is strong.
All right.
And so pattern can bring harmony and comfort.
Or it can do the opposite and give you views of regular patterns
that can be chaotic.
So but as I just said it can also make contrasting elements stand out.
So here's some pattern.
All right?
So we know as humans that this is a series of windows on a wall.
Right?
But it's interesting because if you distill it down,
it's really a bunch of lines and rectangles.
And so the things that stand out, to me at least,
are these windows that are different.
Right.
So down here we've got this white box.
Right?
That you might not notice immediately at first.
Right?
And then you've got a couple of open windows as well.
How about this?
This is a beautiful image.
Right?
It's very abstract.
Well, what is it though?
AUDIENCE: A fence.
DAN: A fence.
Yeah.
A chain link fence.
But we're so close to it and we've made it so abstract.
And we get a good sense--
look at the form of it where you can see the curve of the fence
itself the light being cast across it.
You get a good sense of texture.
If you look at the kind of close up rust on it.
You really get a good sense of what it is while having
it be very abstract at the same time.
IAN: There's also a nice rhythm to it.
Right?
DAN: Yeah.
IAN: Just this repetition of visual elements.
I don't know.
It's in some ways calming.
But and it also has this nice linear effect going up
as well with the size of the links getting bigger and bigger.
DAN: Yeah.
All right.
Here's another idea of pattern and contrast.
So I mean, it's right in the middle of the image
but this definitely jumps out at you.
And if it's a drain or whatever it is, but you
get this pattern with the one element that stands out because it's different.
So very strong contrasting element in here.
Some technical info.
And then texture.
This is the last of our elements that we're going to talk about.
But this is literally what the surface of the image
would feel like if you were to touch it.
Right?
Exactly what it sounds like.
Texture.
Right?
Is it smooth?
Is it rough?
Is it hard?
Is it bumpy?
Is it soft?
So we describe visually how something looks or feels.
And it is a good way to convey, almost time.
Right?
A sense of where-- is something new and shiny?
Is something old and kind of rotten?
Just like the fence we just looked at.
What texture does it have to it?
The rust clearly illustrates how long it's been sitting there.
So here's some interesting texture.
Right?
What are these?
AUDIENCE: Those are slot canyons in Utah and Arizona.
DAN: All right.
Slot canyons from Utah, Arizona.
Thank you.
Yes.
I don't actually know if that's where they are but beautiful.
I love this because it's like the texture of the walls
feels like a cross-section of time to me.
Right?
You can imagine how many years it took for the water
to carve its way through here.
And it really gives you a sense of just what
it would be like to run your hand along the side of it.
And you'll notice we've taken color away in this one too.
What does that do for our texture?
Well, it desaturates--
AUDIENCE: It puts a lot more emphasis on the texture.
The colors make it a very different image.
DAN: Exactly.
Right?
So when we take away the color it's one less thing
for our brains to focus on and get confused about
and it emphasizes the other things.
AUDIENCE: It also compliments [INAUDIBLE]..
DAN: Yeah.
And it also accentuates contrast.
Exactly.
How about this?
What would this tastes like to bite into?
Or not taste like, what texture would have if you bit into it?
And I love food.
AUDIENCE: Flaky.
DAN: Flaky.
Crumbly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Right?
You can imagine just from this little giveaway down here in particular,
if you were to pick this up just how it would crumb apart in your hand.
And how crispy.
How much butter must actually be in it to make it crisp up like that?
And we're so close on it.
Like almost, what it is itself doesn't matter
but it's just a beautiful texture that's emphasized here.
Some technical info.
And what's this?
It's a pretty flat image here too.
Right?
We've got a bunch of just lines going across.
We've got our texture of our cross-section of time
yet again, where the water is kind of eroded over time.
And then this building is interesting because it's so flat.
There's The photographer decided to get very squared up to it
and there's no depth to it.
Right?
This is just a rectangle with a series of smaller rectangles in it,
and yet another rectangle for the roof.
AUDIENCE: There's also-- it looks like it was shot in the middle of the day
so the shadows don't help with that feeling of depth at all.
DAN: Yeah.
That's interesting.
Right?
It was shot in the middle of the day.
So the sun being our primary light source
here was pretty straight overhead and there's very little shadow being cast.
So we've got a little bit.
Because we can see the texture on the wall here
but it's definitely a pretty flat image, which is accentuated by the sun
being on the straight overhead.
Right?
If we had shot this at the end of the day or early in the morning
we'd get a lot more shadow creeping across
and it would feel quite different.
IAN: And I think I think that's something
to consider too when you think about how to accentuate texture and photography.
The stucco wall is a good example.
That when the light is raking along the side of a flat plain or something,
you'll see the shadow of the texture of it.
And so waiting for the right moment to take a picture of something,
or lighting it in a way to sort of bring out that texture,
can really help accentuate these kinds of ideas.
Oh, color.
I totally forgot about color.
Right?
So we're not going to dwell on color too much in this class.
Hue being the color itself.
Value being how light or dark it is.
The intensity being the level of saturation.
So if something is either not saturated at all, it's black and white,
or if it's fully saturated, it's got all the color in it.
You could use color to convey emotions or enhance
the mood or feeling of an image.
But what we're going to focus on in this class
is three different elements of color.
Whether an image is warm, neutral, or cool,
are the three elements we're going to use.
So warm being on the orange side of things.
Like warm.
Inviting.
What you might expect.
And cool being on literally the cold end of the spectrum
where we have a lot more blues.
And neutral is somewhere in between where
when you calibrate your camera to your light source neutral is white, or gray,
or it doesn't have a cast either way.
Neither orange or blue.
All right.
So we'll talk about color temperature for that.
This is a very easy thing to change on your camera.
And we'll look at the menu in a second.
This is roughly the options you get.
So auto white balance being let your camera decide for you,
or you can be intentional and choose something.
So we have full sun, shadow, cloudy, overhead, tungsten light--
like an old-school light bulb, fluorescent light, flash--
which is the actual color temperature of the flash.
This is a custom mode right here, which is a pain in the butt
to set in most cameras.
And then the Kelvin value which is where you actually
pick a specific white point to set your camera to.
And we say Kelvin scale is this.
Right?
So we've got the warm end of the spectrum
and the cool end of the spectrum.
And we describe this in terms of Kelvin and how that scale stacks up
is something like a match or a candle.
It's going to be extremely orange or red as far as its wavelength
that the light the light bouncing off it emits.
And all the way up to its cool is a bright blue daylight at 10,000.
And so when you look at the presets on your camera,
the two typical ones that you might use are going to be that tungsten
or halogen bulb, which is at 3,200K.
And you don't need to know this number but we'll show you why it's handy.
And then the other one you might typically see is up here in this area,
it's 5,600K which is your typical daylight.
And that's what the sun icon is going to be.
So again, the little light bulb icon in your preset white balances is going
to be right here at 3,200K and your daylight is going to be 5,600K.
And that will calibrate your camera.
Right?
So if you want to go out in the middle of the day and shoot something and you
want it to be a neutral image-- you don't want it to have a warm cast
or a cool cast--
you might set your calibration of your white balance to somewhere right up
here in the 5,600K.
You might choose that sun icon.
And if you want to go out at sunrise or sunset
and you want to have it be neutral.
Again, you might want to shoot the sunset.
You might want it to be warm.
Right?
But if you want it to be more neutral you would choose a lower end
of the spectrum here such as the 3,200K.
And often if you want a neutral image you just
go look at the light sources that are around you.
If you're inside and there's a bunch of light bulbs in the ceiling
you're going to want to choose something like this.
And if you're outside in the daylight you're
going to want to choose somewhere up here in this spectrum
to make it a neutral image.
IAN: So I think the important thing to do to distill out of this
is that every light source that you come across
emits light at a specific color temperature somewhere on this scale.
And you can calibrate your camera to match that color temperature.
And if you do, the light will look neutral.
And if you don't, it will look either warm or cool
depending on how you calibrate your camera in relationship to that.
But do understand that different light sources have different color
temperatures.
And we can match cameras to those color temperatures or we can not match them.
And how we decide to not match them will define whether it looks warm or cool.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
IAN: Right.
Exactly.
So again, you don't need to know these numbers
but just know the lower the number the warmer end
of the spectrum we're going to be on.
And the higher the number, the cooler the calibration or your camera's
going to be.
And the effect of that is if you set your camera up here as a neutral point,
everything's actually going to be appear warmer because you're
looking back down the spectrum.
You can think of it that way.
And so if you're down here and you set your camera here,
everything's going to appear more blue because you're
looking back up the spectrum.
Does that make sense?
We're going to actually do an example of this
so it will hopefully make more sense.
But it's helpful as you look at this chart
to know that if you set your calibration down,
here you're looking up the spectrum, and if you set it up there
you're looking back.
Oh, and if you're shooting photos and you're shooting in RAW mode
this doesn't matter as much because this is something you can change.
We're not going to do too much RAW photography in this class.
We're going to go ahead and shoot JPEG.
So RAW photos you can change this later.
And if you're shooting JPEG or video, for the most part, it's baked in,
so you can't change this once you shoot it.
So it's very important if you're taking a JPEG photo
or shooting video to get this right as you shoot it.
All right.
So we're getting a little sleepy here.
We're going to put Ian up on the spot.
I'm going to put Max on the spot here as our videographer on camera here.
So let's go ahead and put this camera up on the screen.
So here is Ian.
And we're here in the cinema.
And maybe you've noticed if you come here in person,
what characteristic is the light here?
Well, sorry.
What color is it to your human eyes?
Right?
Our eyes are very versatile.
Right?
We don't typically see white as different colors
if we're inside and seeing tungsten lighter outside and seeing sunlight.
It all just looks natural to us.
Right?
But when you see in contrast-- so on the sides of the theater
here we have some warmer light.
Right?
Yeah.
Some tungsten light.
But did you notice--
I noticed this when we put the lights in.
It's super blue.
It's very cool light.
It looks neutral because we have calibrated the cameras to match.
And the reason that we've actually done this in this class is because the white
point of the TV that we're working with is 6,500K or Kelvin.
And the reason we want--
when you see us and when you see the image,
the cameras don't have this range that our eyes have.
So it sees one color or another.
So if we had set everything to the tungsten value or the warmer light,
the screen would appear incredibly blue.
So what we've done is we've calibrated the light and the cameras
to match the screen.
I'm losing everybody.
That was kind of a fun aside.
All right.
So let's make this more real.
So I brought this light panel here with us
and I'm going to ask the control room to dim the lights here in a second.
Or now.
And I'm going to turn this light on.
And so here we go.
Here is Ian.
We'll get the camera all focused up.
And Ian, is he warm, neutral, or cool?
AUDIENCE: Cool.
Cool
DAN: Cool?
OK.
And so what does that mean as far as how our camera is calibrated?
Like, so this light is probably calibrated around 6000 Kelvin right
now.
So if Ian is appearing cool is the Kelvin value
of the camera lower or higher?
AUDIENCE: Blue.
Lower.
DAN: It's calibrated lower because we're looking back up the spectrum.
Right?
So you know the light.
Let's see.
Does it actually have a number on it?
IAN: It does.
DAN: Hold on.
I got to look at it.
Oh, know.
It's just got a level.
It's all the way to daylight.
So all right.
Here is Ian.
I'm going to now turn the light color towards our tungsten light
or the warmer end of that spectrum and we can watch it change in real time.
All right.
Our cameras are fixed.
All right?
So that Ian feels very different right now.
Right?
This is warm, neutral, or cool?
Warm right?
Yeah.
Very warm.
It's very, very warm by comparison.
All right.
But we can effect this ourselves if we want to make our image warm, neutral,
or cool, by changing the camera.
So Max is our camera operator here.
What is your camera set to right now?
MAX: It's 5,600.
DAN: So it's 5,600K.
Right?
The same kind of preset for daylight.
That's the color of the light that we had in here.
Why don't you go ahead and set that to 3,200K or the tungsten value?
And we'll watch this change live.
So Max is adjusting the camera.
He's kind of scrolling.
Max, hit the advance button and actually dial it in.
It's more dramatic when it jumps.
MAX: 300--
DAN: 3,200.
Three, two, zero, zero.
All right?
And there we go.
And so now this worm light has turned what?
Warm, neutral, or cool?
AUDIENCE: Cool.
DAN: Cool.
Right?
IAN: But the light hasn't changed.
Right?
Nothing has changed about this light.
We haven't changed a dial or a setting on it.
But we did change the camera settings.
DAN: Yeah.
And so now if I turn this back up to daylight.
All right?
Have you ever seen an image that's on the wrong white balance setting?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
DAN: Right?
This looks like that.
Right?
It's very, very cool.
IAN: This is very sad.
DAN: Yeah.
But this could be used to effect.
Right?
What kind of emotion does this give you?
Ignore Ian's face.
But the cool cast alone connotes what?
AUDIENCE: Sadness.
DAN: Sadness.
Yeah.
Fear.
I mean--
AUDIENCE: VICE media.
DAN: Say it a little louder.
AUDIENCE: I feel like I'm watching a VICE documentary.
DAN: A VICE documentary.
OK.
So you're manipulating your audience though.
Right?
You want them to feel a certain way, you can
do that By calibrating your camera in a certain way
so that the color of the light is a certain color.
So let's do this somewhere in between now just
to prove that I'm not lying to you.
I'm going to set it right in the middle.
So let's call it about 4,500.
All right?
So this light source is now in the middle and if I don't touch the light,
but I ask max to turn his calibration to let's say 10,000.
What's that going to do for us?
MAX: 10,000K?
DAN: Yeah.
Dial it in and don't hit it yet.
What color?
AUDIENCE: Well, it should make him very warm.
MAX: OK.
DAN: Very warm.
OK.
Let's hit it, Max.
Bang.
Very warm.
All right.
For a light source that's somewhere in the middle of its range.
And at the other end of the spectrum, how low can you go?
I think it's like 1900 on that camera?
Bang.
We get a cool light source.
But that's really interesting how you can do this.
Right?
All right.
We can bring the lights back up I think.
Thank you, Ian.
We'll go back over to the slides here.
All right.
That was warm and cool with Ian.
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: So, Dan?
DAN: Yes.
AUDIENCE: What you were saying earlier if you
are shooting in RAW none of this would matter because you would
be able to change it from warm to cool.
DAN: Exactly.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] but if we're shooting in JPEG
and we got the cool we wouldn't be able to.
DAN: Yeah.
Exactly.
So if you're more technical and you're shooting your camera mode in actual RAW
capture, there's a setting in your menu that says RAW.
And there's also a setting for you JPEG.
Usually, you can capture both, but you might choose one or the other.
AUDIENCE: Can you describe just what RAW is?
DAN: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Just in a nutshell?
DAN: Yeah.
So if you're shooting RAW, what you're doing
is you're sensor is getting all of the light sent into it.
And if you're shooting JPEG, it makes a decision
and formulates an image out of it.
If you're shooting RAW, your sensor takes all of that data
and it's just stores it.
Think of it as like a big blob that you can later figure out
what you want it to look like and form it
into a JPEG at another point in time.
The way I like to think about it is that you, when you're looking at RAW data,
you don't actually see the RAW image but you see a JPEG representation of it.
So if you're looking in Lightroom, you're
getting a representation at any given moment of what the RAW data looks like.
It's almost like a window into that RAW data.
And as you move the sliders around one of the sliders that you can move
is color temperature.
And so you can make the image warm or cool, or warmer or cooler.
In Lightroom, if you're shooting RAW, That's
something you get for free if you're shooting in the raw format.
But if you're shooting JPEG, this is something you can modify--
IAN: Not for free.
DAN: What's the trade-off?
IAN: The trade-off is size.
DAN: OK.
Fair.
So there's always a trade-off.
There's no free lunch.
Thank you, Ian.
All right.
So with RAW, you're storing a lot more data
because you're not throwing anything away.
You're saving all of those bits that comprise your image
and then later you can make that decision of what color temperature you
want it to be.
In this day and age, when we have so much space available
maybe it's a really minor trade-off to make.
But back in the day when you had to pay a lot of money
for every gigabyte on your memory card, this was a much bigger deal.
Question?
AUDIENCE: And when Max is making his adjustments
what is the camera doing physically?
Just changing some baseline value [INAUDIBLE]??
DAN: It's the process in the sensor that actually
decides what to show you the image as.
Because the sensor is seeing just light values bouncing into it.
And so when you see a representation of it you're setting the camera to say,
OK, I want to have the sensitivity of the brightness be set here.
I want the white point of the camera to be set here with my white balance.
And so it's the camera is making-- you're making those decisions when
you set the camera technically.
AUDIENCE: Is [INAUDIBLE].
The color white, the tone of the color white is predetermined basically?
DAN: Yeah.
I mean, It's not--
I mean, I would describe it as the neutral point of your camera Right?
So you determine what is neutrals.
And which means like if you're looking at a white element
the element will appear white versus having a warm or cool cast to it.
So when you set the color temperature or white balance on your camera
you're deciding what is white, for all intents and purposes.
And then the camera will shift everything else based on that.
IAN: And I think that's a bit of why it can be confusing sometimes.
Because conventionally we talk about it as white balance.
But really what we're talking about is an image.
If you focused on an image with no color in it, it would have no color in it.
Right?
And so you imagine like a grey card or a neutral subject that when you
photographed it, it would have no color cast at all to it.
OK?
But because a neutral object is reflecting light.
If that light has a color cast that strikes a neutral object--
right?
The neutral object will reflect some aspect of that color.
OK so what we're doing with the camera is saying OK,
the light has this color please subtract this color from the image
so that this neutral item looks neutral.
OK?
And so you can manipulate the camera controls
to have it add or subtract different elements of color
to the light that's going back.
DAN: And actually I meant to take a moment here and actually pull up
a camera example.
So Max, one, if you didn't say your white balance back
please get it back to 5,600.
And then two, if you can give me a close-up up shot on this camera.
I just want to show you-- actually, we can possibly do it with the screen
here.
Let's push a button down here.
Turn this on.
So if you're like, this is great.
You're talking about changing the white balance of my camera
but where do we actually do that?
Let me show you.
All right.
So this is a Canon camera.
Other brands will vary slightly.
But on a Canon camera in the red shooting menu, you can come down here.
I pressed the menu button to get here.
And then you can choose white balance.
And right now I'm preset to that Kelvin value.
And what the icons are telling us is that knob--
is this top knob here-- and as I turn that I'm
going to adjust that Kelvin value.
Right?
So if I wanted to lower my Kelvin value I just dial it down.
I can go to 3,200.
I can go lower but if I set it to 3,200 this is now
the same as that light bulb preset.
Right?
Or I can dial it up back to 5,600.
And this is the same as the sun preset.
But the beauty of understanding the numbers on the Kelvin scale
are that you can go somewhere in between.
Right?
And if you're not sure what it's going to do simply push this button.
Look down look at your screen and watch what happens to your image.
Does it get warmer or does it get cooler?
Right.
You don't have to understand exactly which way you're going
to go to just turn the knob and see it.
Right?
You'll see am I getting a warmer cast or am I getting a cooler cast?
AUDIENCE: I'm curious.
Does this, I guess, list white balances that we
have available as presets from the sun all the way to the flash,
is that in warmest to coolest?
DAN: No.
It's not.
Because the warmest one is going to be the light bulb.
So I don't know why it's in this order.
It does seem silly that it wouldn't be from warm to cool.
But the menu we are looking at is not set that way.
So maybe you should go into camera design
because that would be very smart.
But if we now-- let me actually put this into a live view mode.
And we can see if all goes well there's the side of the stage.
And so we can see that I'm still preset in my white balance.
I can push the button here.
And as I dial this around I can't actually
change the Kelvin value on this camera in live view
but I can change, hopefully--
there's auto, daylight.
So if you can see this hopefully nice and close up, we've got the daylight.
And I'm going to press it again, it keeps timing out.
There's shade.
It's pretty close.
Cloudy.
I don't know the exact values for these things so it's up to you
if you want to use them.
Just look down here in your screen and make the decision.
Right?
But this one's going to feel quite a bit cooler.
Right?
Because this is that 3,200K value because we're on the tungsten light
bulb.
Right?
Fluorescent is going to be somewhere in between.
Flash is going to make everything quite warm.
Because flash I think is around 10,000K.
Yeah.
But really again, the two-- if I can say there are two that you should
understand it's the daylight-- wow.
This is wacky.
It's the-- Oh, man.
It's the light bulb.
Ian, can you point for me?
IAN: Yes.
DAN: OK.
It's the light bulb, which is 3,200K.
And it's the sun which is 5,600K.
Right?
And then you can turn it into the Kelvin mode which is literally
that K. You can click this and you can choose
what to set it to if you want to be more advanced.
But simply jumping between those two presets
should be able to give you warm or cool.
IAN: And so your camera that you have may not allow you
to set the individual Kelvin values.
Maybe it only has presets.
Or maybe it only has an auto white balance functionality.
And if that's true, then knowing the presets, which ones to use.
Whether the one for daylight or one for tungsten will be really helpful.
And if you have to use an auto white balancing feature,
then focusing on a chroma neutral subject
or at worst case scenario a white subject
that you want to be neutral that's being hit by the light in your scene,
is a good way to do that.
OK?
But ultimately being able to set the Kelvin value incrementally
is incredibly helpful to control exactly how your images are going to look.
AUDIENCE: Is the change for the let's say
the digital file of the image the same whether you're doing it with a camera
[INAUDIBLE] preset basically, and the [INAUDIBLE]..
IAN: Well.
It depends on the mode you shoot in.
If you are, say, shooting in RAW, then you
have the ability to make changes later in Lightroom.
So maybe--
DAN: Which would be the same as doing it in camera.
IAN: Yes.
DAN: There's no trade-off there.
As far as--
IAN: But at the cost of say having to save a lot of data.
You save all this RAW data and then you decide how it's going to look later.
Whereas again, when we're talking about trade-offs.
When you have a camera you shoot JPEG mode, you decide in the moment
how it will look.
But that's it.
It's baked in and trying to remove that color cast,
usually degrades the image in a way that it's
no longer usable, or unacceptable for most situations.
DAN: Yeah.
And I will say like software is getting much better at this.
The first time I did a demo of editing in Lightroom
and I used a JPEG it tore apart.
The color didn't look good.
But I did it, I think last year or the year before,
and it was a pretty phenomenal how good of a job
the algorithms are getting that make this change for you.
So it's not to say that there's no flexibility.
If you edit your JPEG photos in something
like Lightroom or other software.
But you definitely have the most flexibility
if you're actually shooting it RAW.
AUDIENCE: But I guess it's a much more conscious decision when
you shoot the picture.
Do it at that moment.
DAN: Yeah.
And if you're comfortable that's we want to emphasize in this class,
is this is how you always used to have to do it.
Right?
You didn't have this magic ability to change the sensor data or that piece
of film back in the old days.
IAN: You loaded film and that was it.
You had 36 pictures at a specific ISO and a specific color temperature.
Right?
Film was daylight or tungsten and that was it.
Right?
And then you chose an ISO and that was it.
And you could change film canisters and things like that,
but you'd have to run out your camera and take all 36 pictures.
DAN: So we're lucky to have RAW at our fingertips
but I think it's really important as we start
to grow as photographers to understand the ability to change this frame.
And the assignment around this will help with that
because it's something you can play with as adding a warmer a cool cast to it.
All right.
So we're running out of time quickly here.
So we'll start to move a little bit more quickly as a recap.
Daylight is set to what Kelvin value?
AUDIENCE: 56.
DAN: 5,600?
Exactly.
What is this image?
Warm, neutral, or cool?
AUDIENCE: Cool.
DAN: All right.
And why?
Right?
We know it's a blue sky regardless because we're humans and have seen sky.
But what is it that tells you that this is cool?
AUDIENCE: Everything's blue.
DAN: Everything's blue.
And specifically, I think it's really handy
if you're unsure of what color cast it has look at the white elements
or the lighter elements in it.
And if you literally have a tool like a digital color meter
tool that's built into Macs and PCs, you can
hover over the highlight elements of your frame
and see does it come up as blue, or does it come up as orange,
or does it come up as a white?
And that'll help you determine if you're looking
at a warm, a neutral, or a cool image.
All right.
And so what was the camera set to for this cool image?
AUDIENCE: Warm.
DAN: Warm.
Right?
3,200K.
Or the equivalent of the tungsten light bulb.
OK?
How about this?
Same image.
I used Lightroom to modify this so it's the same image.
You get color for free.
But I export a JPEGs which we're looking at now.
Warm, neutral, or cool?
AUDIENCE: Neutral.
DAN: Pretty neutral.
Right?
OK.
So the daylight is 5,600K.
What was the camera set to?
AUDIENCE: 4,000.
DAN: I'm sorry.
4,000?
It's actually the same.
Right?
Because the image is neutral.
Right?
I've set the calibration of my camera.
I've calibrated it to the same thing as my light source.
My light source I know is 5,600K, so to get a neutral image I set my camera
to the exact same thing.
And this is the opposite.
Warm cast.
Right?
So if that is 5,600K what was the camera set to?
AUDIENCE: Something higher.
DAN: Something higher.
Right.
10,000.
You got it, Ralph.
And so that gives us this warm effect.
And so this is something you really need to think about
if you're shooting in JPEG and need to capture it in the moment.
You don't have much wiggle room later if you're
shooting an RAW the trade-off is space.
Right?
But then you can make this decision later.
All right.
So you can use these two effects.
We've talked about what kind of emotions a warm cast or a cool cast
will give you.
And I came across this image on the T back in 2017,
and this is really like, to use Ian's term,
a ham-fisted approach to using color.
Right?
So what we've got is a mother presumably kissing the boo-boo
off her daughter, or a nurse maybe.
And inside where the kiss is happening it's
this warm glow, and on the outside, we've got this blue fall-off.
Like she's kissing the boo-boo away so.
Just one way that you can use this, but I
thought this was a silly heavy-handed example that
is a good example of how it can be used to effect even if too strongly.
So bringing things back to composition.
There's a bunch of other elements of composition
that you should take into account--
which we're going to move through quickly--
when you're building your frame.
We talked about those classic design elements.
But there's a whole lot more that goes into building a frame.
And the three things I think that are the most important
that we'll talk about in the remainder of our time
are perspective, balance, and contrast.
So perspective is literally where is the camera placed?
Is it on the level as our subject?
Is it below our subject?
Or is it above our subject?
Right?
They all feel different but you need to make a choice when you place the camera
because you have to put somewhere.
So and if you get high enough, you start to get even more interesting things
that happen potentially.
They can happen normally if you're at eye height.
But I guess with perspective too, where are most images taken that you see?
AUDIENCE: Eye height.
DAN: Eye height.
Right?
Most people take their camera out.
They either do this and click on their phone or they put it up to their eye
and they click like this.
Right?
When you see images like that they feel a bit more like-- to use that catch
phrase, pedestrian.
Right?
It's just very-- yeah.
Pedestrian.
Right?
But if you change that.
If you as a photographer take a knee and get low or climb up on something--
a ladder or a stool or even higher--
and get something.
It just like it makes your frame more interesting
because it's an angle that we don't typically
see when we're looking at images.
Right?
And especially if there's some interesting paint on the ground.
It gets really interesting.
Some technical info.
How about this one?
All right.
This one's a trick.
The image actually looks like this.
Right?
Which is fascinating.
All the photographer did was--
the houses presumably are straight because you don't
want to live in a house that's crooked.
But simply by turning the camera and leveling with a street and this truck
that was pointed uphill.
Right?
This turns into a really interesting image.
All right.
So an easy way to make your photo more interesting, change your perspective.
Simple as that.
If you're if you're taking out your phone if you're
doing this thing for one more second, either go higher or go lower
and just see what it looks like.
Maybe this is the right height to do it at but consider the alternatives.
A balance.
So literally everything in your frame is going to have kind of a weight to it.
And is the right side of your frame and the left side of your frame
weighted the same?
Right?
So in this photo from Wes Anderson, he shoots everything very straight
on and in a balanced way.
There's a whole bunch more images over here.
There's fewer over here.
But we've got this one bigger element up top to balance it out.
And just this idea of an equal weight, or not equal weight to your frame.
Right?
This can show itself in symmetry.
So here's an image that's very symmetrical.
And so this image is very well balanced because both sides of the frame
are basically the same thing.
Whereas a frame that is unbalanced might feel very different.
And this feels very comfortable, very easy to look at.
I don't have an unbalanced frame next.
I should have.
I'm sorry.
But an unbalanced frame can make you feel much more uncomfortable.
So in balance of your frame one thing we want
to consider when shooting human subjects is the headroom, which
is literally like how much space is there
from the top of the head to the top of the frame.
Or is there a lot?
Is there a little?
We can use this to effect.
So in this image, the subject is cut off.
Right?
Which might be a little bit disjointed for us
or make us feel more uncomfortable.
Right?
And when used in combination with everything else
this is a fairly wide-angle lens.
And we get a little bit of exaggeration.
His nose looks pretty big compared to the rest of his face.
With the head room cut off--
no headroom up here--
it just feels a bit more uncomfortable.
And so this is used to effect.
Here's a couple of frames.
On the left a frame for Mission Impossible.
We've got Alec Baldwin feeling important, for lack of a better term.
And on the right from The King's Speech, we have Colin Firth here.
How does he feel?
AUDIENCE: Lost.
DAN: Lost.
Right?
What makes you say that?
Is it like
AUDIENCE: Because he's hanging at the bottom of the screen.
DAN: He's hanging at the bottom.
He's has a ton of headroom.
Right?
So it's a very unbalanced frame in that sense.
Whereas Alec Baldwin, the camera angle's right at his height.
Right?
Or just slightly below him even.
Right?
Looking up at him, giving him some power.
And the correct amount of space on the side of the frame.
He's got the right amount of space over his head.
So it's a very strong confident character right there.
Where right on the flip side much less so.
So noseroom or leadroom is the idea that the gaze
of the person from where they're looking should
affect where they sit in the frame.
Are they center?
Are they to the side?
Right?
So this character is looking completely profile to the camera.
So they're weighted all the way to the side of the frame.
And that just feels more comfortable for us as viewers
because it's the convention that we're used to seeing.
So what happens when we change this?
Well, hold on.
Hold that thought.
When the character is looking center we tend to center them up.
Right?
And again it's just for a good balance to the frame.
And whereas if they're looking slightly to the side
they're typically put slightly on the side of the frame.
So she's weighted slightly right here but she's looking to the left.
Right?
So we're just balancing out the frame.
So the more extreme your subject is looking typically--
and this is very relevant in video in particular--
the more you might weight them to the side of the frame.
So all the way profile you might push them
all the way to the side of your frame.
And if they're looking at the camera you might want to center them up.
Does this makes sense?
All right.
Sorry.
We're moving quickly.
I want to get through all this.
So noseroom or leadroom.
Right?
So again, conversation between two people.
We have appropriate noseroom here on Leo in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Confident character but same thing.
And we look back at the King's speech.
This character's looking to the side and there's very little noseroom
or leadroom for him.
Right?
We've got all this extra space over here.
Which is a bit more uncomfortable for us as viewers
because it's not the convention we're used to seeing.
All right?
How about the color cast of this image while we're here?
Warm, neutral, or cool?
AUDIENCE: Cool.
Cool.
DAN: Cool right?
Look at those white elements, the highlights.
They're all blue.
Look at the side of his face.
It's got a blue cast to it.
Right?
It feels sad.
Uncomfortable more.
All right.
Just a few guidelines for you as you're starting to build your frames.
The rule of thirds.
Anybody know off hand the definition for the rule of thirds?
All right I'll spoil it because we're running out of time.
If you broke your frame up.
That this white box was your frame and you broke it up with these lines
to make the image into thirds, you should have your action fall
along these lines.
And where the lines meet at these kind of nodal points
is where you want to put your strongest action.
Right?
And so what that's going to do is give you balance
because you're putting something on one of these thirds it's going to balance--
I guess-- But that's not true.
It depends on where you place all the elements in your frame.
Let's look at some examples.
This will make it even better.
So we have some sheep here.
And if we look at the rule of thirds here.
We break up our image.
Right?
This vertical sign basically falls on the third.
And the sheep falls on this third over here.
And our horizon line even, one of the edges falls on the third.
And the result of that, I think, is that it's a pretty strong image.
Right?
It's got a pretty clear subject.
It's got a little bit of foreground element.
In this case are subject it really is at the edge of the foreground, start
of the middle ground.
Right?
We've got more space behind it and in the background way in the back.
All right?
Another image.
A good use of thirds.
I don't have the grid to overlay on this.
But what's interesting about the decision made here
is that our subjects are kind of on the top there with this one.
Right?
But it still feels comfortable to look at.
It's not uncomfortable.
IAN: Well, I think too if you look at the past two images
the horizon line actually falls on one of the third lines
and not directly bisecting the image.
Right?
And I think that that's something that maybe people often
do when they just pull up a phone and snap some snapshot something.
The horizon line sort of just bisects the middle of the image.
And you can use it to great effect if you shift it up or shift it down.
You know?
Just as it is.
Just a natural helpful moment to create some difference in weight
between the two edges of the frame.
DAN: All right.
Some technical info for that one.
And just a note.
As you're going about framing an image, look at the edges of your frame right
before you press the shutter.
Because you'll find something you might notice like this.
Right?
What stands out in this image?
AUDIENCE: She has a pole standing out of her head.
DAN: Yeah.
She's got a pole sticking out of her head.
Right?
And that's silly.
It ruins the image if you had spent all this time composing the shot
and then you get back later and realize that, oh, man,
something was sticking out.
Or there's somebody in the background staring deadpan into the camera.
Right?
You wish you had caught that in the moment.
And with digital tools, you can certainly manipulate all of this.
But give your edges of your frame a scan right
before you push the shutter because it'll
help you catch little things like that.
Some technical info.
Here's another one.
Couple of examples.
Right?
So the one on the left has presumably done street photography style
where the camera is just kind of held and placed
and snapped and cut off the head.
But this one on the right.
If somebody had spent this time building this frame of this church
and all of a sudden cut off the very top of it.
It feels like a mistake to us as an audience looking at this image.
And a simple scan of the edge of the frame
would have allowed us to catch that.
Right?
Instead of getting back at and be like, oh,
I should have just tilted my camera up a little bit more.
Just to hammer home the point of contrast.
Contrast is a really strong way to make your image strong.
Making the subject pop is really easy to do when you use contrast.
Whether that's pattern where you have a repetition with the one that stands out
that's different.
Or whether it's color where you've got all muted color
around this bright color.
Or whether it's depth of field where your subject is in sharp focus
and everything else is in soft focus.
Right?
These are all contrasting elements that we're
choosing to make a strong focal point for our subject.
Right?
Same thing here.
This is literally like if we think of contrast
is the whitest parts of our frame in the darkest parts of our frame,
and the range in between is the contrast of our image.
Right?
This mirrors that beautifully.
Where we have the darkest parts of our image
right up against the lightest parts of our image.
And the silhouette here is a reflection of that and makes for a strong frame.
In addition to just all of the other compositional elements in this,
we've got lines.
We've got shape.
Pattern.
Some technical info.
So as you're building your frame you want to figure out
what is your focal point going to be.
Right?
Where you want to put your subject and how you want to make them stand out.
And so the ways to put your frame together to achieve this
are to follow the rules of thirds, or break it if you're more comfortable.
But if you're uncomfortable as a photographer, and as one
of your first times going out to shoot.
And actually building the image more than that just, here.
Here's the image.
Here's a snapshot I took.
If you're actually going to compose your frame, the rule of thirds
is a fine place to start.
Use lines.
Use brightness.
Use depth of field and use negative space and all of the design elements
that we've talked about in this lecture to put the frame together
and really draw attention to your subject.
All right.
Depth of field here and talk more on next time
when we get to actual exposure we can show you how to control your camera
and make controlled up the field.
Compositional triangles.
So another just quick takeaway.
Right?
Is that there's a hidden triangle in this image which
shows you exactly what the most important point in the frame is.
Right?
There's a triangle.
Right?
And so this we can imagine is like an arrow
that draws your attention right to the most important part of the frame.
Right?
Again, this is just a guideline that you can
use if you're trying to figure out how to compose your image.
It's not a hard and fast rule.
But the more you look around the more you see these.
So in the Princess Bride, they're walking through a murky swamp
and there's this very deep cut which draws your attention right
to the location we're walking through.
And how hard it must be awful to walk on this like muddy straggly mess.
Right?
And there's no question who the most important person in this frame
is from the same movie.
Right?
All eyes right up to the crown.
And that's more than just this triangle.
But there's this definitive hierarchy that's been set up for us.
You know who is the most important person in the frame
just because not only is he taller than everybody else
but we've got one of the lightest parts on the crown
up there to draw your attention to as well.
All right.
So it all comes down to this question I think.
What is it that you want to say about your subject?
We talked about this when we were doing storytelling in our first lecture.
But when you know whose story it is and what story you're trying to tell.
That's when you take all of these compositional elements
and you put them together in a way that says Ian is my villain.
I want to vilify him.
I'm going to give him some cold light, some shadow.
I'm going to shoot a high angle on him and make it look very sinister.
Right?
Or Ian is my hero.
I'm going to give him some nice flattering light.
I'm going to shoot him on a long lens and I'm going to--
I don't know--
IAN: Make me look handsome.
DAN: Yeah.
Make him look handsome.
So it's all about taking these elements and putting them together
and to really be intentional about the frame that you're building.
So we are just a couple of minutes overtime
here so I'm going to end the formal lecture here,
but say thank you for joining us and we'll talk more
about this kind of stuff next week.