Photography

 

And now for something completely different! Since 2008 I have been collecting various bits of information that I learned or read about, plus some calculators that I use every once in a while, and all of that can be found on these pages. This was never meant as a tutorial as it is a fun project of mine to serve as a backup should my grey cells fail me, and I most certainly do not have the illusion of knowing everything there is to know about photography. But since it might help others who are looking for some information on photography, I've decided to rewrite it a little bit and put it online. But it is everything except complete and it is and will always be an ongoing process, so I'll be adding new parts when I feel like doing so. Word of warning: Some parts may have a very high geek factor and contain scary things like formulas, graphs and strange schemes.

 

Cameras

 

• Sensor

    ▹ Effective vs actual pixels

    ▹ Aliasing

    ▹ Pixel pitch ()

• Shutter

• ISO

• Stops

• Dynamic range (DR)

• How the camera sees the world

• Tripod

    ▹ Mirror lock up and shutter delay

 

Lenses

 

• Camera obscura

• Focal length

• Aperture ()

    ▹ Diffraction ()

• Angle of view (AOV) and field of view (FOV) ()

• Magnification ()

• 35 mm equivalent and crop factor ()

• Lens characteristics

    ▹ Spherical aberration

    ▹ Coma

    ▹ Chromatic aberration

    ▹ Field curvature

    ▹ Astigmatism

    ▹ Distortion

    ▹ Flare

    ▹ Vignetting

    ▹ Bokeh and cat's eye effect

    ▹ Sensor reflection

• Vibration reduction (VR)

• Tilt-shift lenses

    ▹ Shift

    ▹ Tilt ()

 

Filters

 

• Polarizer

    ▹ Clouds and the sky

    ▹ The sky at night

    ▹ Reflections

    ▹ Rainbows

    ▹ TFT screens

    ▹ The theory behind polarization

    ▹ Circular vs linear polarizer

• ND filter

    ▹ Viewfinder cover

• Gradual ND filter

    ▹ Reflections

    ▹ A poor man's gradual ND filter

• Combining filters

 

Meters & micrometers

 

• Circle of confusion (CoC) ()

• Hyperfocal distance ()

• Depth of field (DOF) ()

    ▹ Depth of field and focal length

    ▹ Depth of field and focus distance

    ▹ Depth of field and sensor size

    ▹ Taking diffraction into account ()

• Infinity blur ()

    ▹ Infinity blur and focal length

 

Types of light

 

• Light calculator ()

    ▹ Table form ()

• Daylight

• Cloudy

• Mist

• Sunset, sunrise and golden hour

• Twilight and blue hour

• Night

    ▹ Using the moon

    ▹ Using the aurora

• Artificial light

    ▹ Using a flash ()

    ▹ Tent Illuminating Device (TID)

    ▹ Light painting

    ▹ Ultraviolet induced visible fluorescence (UVIVF)

 

Editing

 

• White balance

• Curves

• Contrast mask

• Local contrast enhancement (LCE)

• Luminosity masks

• Dodging/burning

• Sharpening

    ▹ Unsharp mask

    ▹ High pass filter

• Focus stacking

• Stitching

    ▹ Bokehrama

• Blending

• High dynamic range (HDR)

• Dust removal

 

Bits & bites

 

• Histogram

• Bit depth

    ▹ Posterization

• Noise

    ▹ Causes of noise

    ▹ Types of noise

    ▹ Expose to the right/ISO to the right (ETTR/ITTR)

    ▹ Expose to the right/ISO to the right and combining exposures

    ▹ The theory behind expose to the right

    ▹ The theory behind ISO to the right

    ▹ Stacking

• Film vs digital

• RAW vs JPG

 

Color management

 

• Hue, saturation and brightness

• Color models

• Color spaces

• ICC profiles

    ▹ Assigning and converting profiles

• Does your browser support color management?

 

 

 

 

Photographing the sky

 

• Sun and moon photography ()

    ▹ Solar filter

    ▹ Solar latitude ()

• Night photography

    ▹ Stars ()

    ▹ Star trails

    ▹ Directions for star trail photos

    ▹ Photographing stars with a tracker

    ▹ Removing airplanes from night photos

    ▹ Meteors

    ▹ Meteor showers

    ▹ Iridium flares

    ▹ Viewfinder cover

    ▹ Dark frames

    ▹ Stacking

    ▹ Light pollution

• Aurora photography

    ▹ When to go outside

    ▹ What is the aurora?

    ▹ Eyes vs camera

• Airglow

• Noctilucent clouds ()

 

Macro photography

 

• Macro photography

• Higher magnification

    ▹ Extension tubes/bellows

    ▹ Reversed lenses

    ▹ Combining lenses

    ▹ Microscope lenses

• Lighting

    ▹ Flash

    ▹ Background

• Polarizer

• Focus and perspective

• Field of view ()

• Depth of field ()

• Focus stacking

    ▹ Step size for focus stacking ()

    ▹ Stacking artifacts

    ▹ Out of focus parts

• Viewfinder cover

• Wide-angle macro photography

    ▹ Peephole lens

    ▹ CCTV lens

 

Microscope photography

 

• Microscope photography

• Microscope set-up

• Illumination techniques

    ▹ Brightfield

    ▹ Darkfield

    ▹ Phase contrast

    ▹ Cross-polarized light

    ▹ Cross-polarized light with cellophane retardation

    ▹ UVIVF

    ▹ Rheinberg filters

• Focus stacking

• Stitching

 

Infrared photography

 

• Infrared photography

• Type of light

• Camera

    ▹ Internal filter vs external filter

    ▹ Internal filter and dust removal

• Lenses

    ▹ Hotspots

    ▹ Flares

    ▹ Coma

• Focusing and exposure measurement

• White balance

• Filters

    ▹ ND filter

    ▹ Gradual ND filter

    ▹ Polarizer

• Channel swapping

 

Stereo photography

 

• Stereo photography

• Viewing stereo photos

• Creating stereo photos

    ▹ One camera

    ▹ Two cameras

    ▹ Distance between the photos

    ▹ Points of overlap in the photos

    ▹ Synthetic stereo (focus stacking)

 

 

 

Solargraphy

 

• Solargraphy

• How it works

• Solargraphy and weather

• Making the can ()

• The paper

• Scanning and processing

• Water damage

 

 

 

Matting calculator

 

• Matting calculator