It’s Not All Firewood

In portrait photography, a medium telephoto lens is used to reduce the barrel distortion that is common in pictures taken with wide angle lenses. We’ve all seen the picture of a young child sitting on a chair with their legs and feet pointing straight at the camera. Remember how HUGE the feet appeared? Imagine how this distortion will change the appearance of your art object.
As in many aspects of photography, we have yet another trade off; barrel distortion vs. depth of field. In 35mm photography, the range of focal lengths from approximately eighty mm to one hundred and thirty-five mm is considered appropriate for portrait photography because it will reduce the barrel distortion and at the same time provide a fair amount of depth of field. Portraits can have the tip of the nose in sharp focus as well as the back of the ear.
Since there is a nice range of focal lengths from which to choose, it will be quite convenient to zoom in the necessary amount to fill the viewfinder with a tiny object or to zoom out to accommodate a larger object. Also don’t forget to allow space in case the camera must be moved back to accomodate the larger object.
If you have questions or need some clarification on any of this, please ask.

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There are two types of cameras – digital and film, and each type has several different categories, we’ll limit our discussion to the kind that is generally referred to as point and shoot and the SLR (Single Lens Reflex) varieties.

Today, the vast majority of cameras available are digital, but film cameras have their benefits as well. Film has far superior resolution and the resulting print will always be sharper than any of today’s digital cameras. Digital may eventually catch up but it will take a very long time. Another benefit of celluloid film cameras is that they can use slide film which results in exactly what the photographer took. Slides can be printed in ultra high quality Ciba Chrome or projected on a white wall or silver screen.

Let’s assume that digital pictures are the desired end result, suitable for alteration on the computer and posting on a blog or sending via e-mail. What camera features will be required to photograph a woodturning (or any other similar object)?

1. Manual white balance settings

2. Manual or semi-automatic exposure settings

3. Medium telephoto lens

4.Tripod socket

5. Self timer/Camera shake stabilizing system

6. Large memory card capacity

7. RAW format picture files

8. More than one battery

9. Easy downloading to computer

10. Auto Exposure/Auto Focus Lock

In the next pages I’ll expand on each of these points. Some are more important than others.

If you have any questions, please ask.

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