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07/31/2007 07:22:58 AM · #1 |
| i read somewhere that i can take a picture of an animal beyond a cage without showing the bars i have a 400d but it never works..is there something am i missing ? |
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07/31/2007 07:23:39 AM · #2 |
| get the animal in front of the cage. |
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07/31/2007 07:27:21 AM · #3 |
| it's not the body, it's the glass and your dof. your tamron *may* come close at 3.5, but you'll probably still have some post-processing to completely clean the lines out. a long lens with a short dof does this very nicely. |
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07/31/2007 07:28:34 AM · #4 |
LOL, hanneke.
Use a very large aperture (lower f-stop, like f/2.8 or f/4) and a long focal length. This way, the focal plane is very narrow, so what's behind and in front of your subject is blurred.
Edit: Skip's right, large aperture with long focal length (your best bet is your Tamron at 300mm and f/5.6)
This was shot with my Sigma through netting. You can see some of the gray from the net, but it's not bad:
Message edited by author 2007-07-31 11:34:40. |
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07/31/2007 07:33:45 AM · #5 |
| If you can get close enough position the camera between the bars, or at a Little League game in the middle of the square of chain link. At least this used to work with my P&S camera. It may not do so well with large diameter lenses. |
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07/31/2007 07:39:00 AM · #6 |
Getting extremely close to an object and getting it enough out of focus can make it disappear completely in your photo. Chain-link fences can be done quite easily, bars are much larger and become much trickier to make disappear. Camera apertures and relative distances to subject and the blocking obstacles become much more of a factor. This is where experimentation comes into play.
Chain-link fence...
If not done correctly your photo will become extremely soft and out of focus appearing.
Message edited by author 2007-07-31 11:45:12. |
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07/31/2007 07:39:16 AM · #7 |
Check out the write-up on this shot by  scalvert.
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07/31/2007 07:42:13 AM · #8 |
Ok, sorry to be lame in my first post ;)
But: how can that happen, in the photo from scalvert? there's something in the way between the cam and the animal, but you can still see the whole animal! I'd say that's impossible..? |
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07/31/2007 07:43:13 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by biteme:
Ok, sorry to be lame in my first post ;)
But: how can that happen, in the photo from scalvert? there's something in the way between the cam and the animal, but you can still see the whole animal! I'd say that's impossible..? |
Physics, light, and magic! =D sans the magic.
Think about it. If the aperture were tiny - you're right - the bar is completely blocking the view. But since the aperture is large, the whole animal's face is visible to some parts of the lens. By focusing on the animal with the large aperture, the lens is collecting the images of the animal from different places in the large aperture and aligning them, making the face nicely in focus, and blurring everything else.
The smaller the aperture, the fewer "perspectives are available", the more everything is in focus because it's all from one perspective, the more light you need because there are fewer images*.
At least, that's how I understand it. =)
* ... Alright, there aren't "fewer" images with a smaller aperture. There are infinite images in both cases, but the ones from the smaller aperture are darker (so you need longer exposure) and more similar (from the same perspective) so less blurry.
Message edited by author 2007-07-31 12:05:32. |
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07/31/2007 07:45:06 AM · #10 |
| hmmm is it because the glass / lens has different angles and therefore can "see" the whole animal? |
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07/31/2007 07:46:13 AM · #11 |
all these were shot with a 70-300mm with as described above, usually around the 300mm mark and as open as I can get the aperture through various sized bars/fences.
 
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07/31/2007 07:51:13 AM · #12 |
Originally posted by biteme:
hmmm is it because the glass / lens has different angles and therefore can "see" the whole animal? |
exactly |
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07/31/2007 07:53:18 AM · #13 |
Originally posted by smurfguy:
Originally posted by biteme:
hmmm is it because the glass / lens has different angles and therefore can "see" the whole animal? |
exactly |
oh wauw. I never thought I had a question like this right, by myself! :D
thanks for the bigger explenation, now I understand it with the whole package ;) |
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07/31/2007 08:15:20 AM · #14 |
Taken through a fence at a small zoo in High Park.
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07/31/2007 09:37:30 AM · #15 |
| works for baseball games too. :) |
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07/31/2007 11:37:20 AM · #16 |
Get as close to the cage/barrier as possible. Have the animal pose as far away from you as possible. ;o)
As has already been mentioned, use the longest focal length possible and shoot wide open. This will give you the shallowest possible dof.
Lens was almost touching the cage for this one. Kitty was at the back of the enclosure. |
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07/31/2007 11:38:56 AM · #17 |
Sorry wrong thread....Oh...well shallow DOF!
Message edited by author 2007-07-31 15:39:48. |
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07/31/2007 11:45:41 AM · #18 |
Originally posted by biteme:
hmmm is it because the glass / lens has different angles and therefore can "see" the whole animal? |
Hold a paper clip right in front of your eye and focus on something far away. The paper clip will mostly disappear because it's so far out of the focal plane. A fast telephoto will have a much shallower DOF than your eye, so the bars or fence will be completely out of focus. That renders them invisible. |
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07/31/2007 11:47:19 AM · #19 |
I did this one last week. you can still see the cross hatch marks of the fence but they are very blurry. I thought maybe I just couldn't get the lens physically close enough to the fence because there was a barrier between the sidewalk and the fence but it could have been my aperature wasn't low enough? or I wasn't using a long enough focal distance? ...man, confusing. |
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07/31/2007 11:54:42 AM · #20 |
Originally posted by jaded_youth:
I did this one last week. you can still see the cross hatch marks of the fence but they are very blurry. I thought maybe I just couldn't get the lens physically close enough to the fence because there was a barrier between the sidewalk and the fence but it could have been my aperature wasn't low enough? or I wasn't using a long enough focal distance? ...man, confusing. |
You will never be able to eliminate the marks completely, but they can become pretty invisible if blurred enough.
Of the three conditions you mention, they all result in the fence being more visible:
These two conditions (not large enough aperture, focal length not long enough) increase the focal plane depth, making the fence less blurry.
This condition (not close enough to fence) puts the fence closer to the focal plane, making the fence less blurry.
Personally, I don't really see the fence in your shot. =) |
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07/31/2007 11:58:33 AM · #21 |
ok. so now I think my head may explode. so I have to be further away from the bars? have a LARGER aperature(doesn't that make more of the image in focus making it harder to get the foreground blurry? and also less focal length? like closer to the subject??..I totally don;t get it now. in practice it seems closer to the fence and lower ap. worked better. thank goodness we got the family annual pass I need to go back and practice these techniques.
oh..no wait when I said smaller aperature I meant smaller number you meant larger opening right?..ok so I think we are on the same page there. just wording it differently.
Message edited by author 2007-07-31 16:00:23. |
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07/31/2007 12:10:17 PM · #22 |
Sorry, Crystal - I don't not talk in double negatives. People who code for computers all day long assume this is completely comprehensible. =) The inverse aperture naming system doesn't help. Perhaps the more savvy simply say "fast" to avoid confusion. =)
In summary:
- Get as close as possible to the fence, with the animal as far as possible
- Fast aperture (small f number - i.e. f/2.8)
- Long focal length (i.e. 300mm)
Do these to the extent possible. |
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07/31/2007 12:13:00 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by smurfguy:
Sorry, Crystal - I don't not talk in double negatives. People who code for computers all day long assume this is completely comprehensible. =) The inverse aperture naming system doesn't help. Perhaps the more savvy simply say "fast" to avoid confusion. =)
In summary:
- Get as close as possible to the fence, with the animal as far as possible
- Fast aperture (small f number - i.e. f/2.8)
- Long focal length (i.e. 300mm)
Do these to the extent possible. |
ok. Gotcha now. that's what I meant too. There should be universal wording that makes total undeniable sense. alas, not the case. But I got it now! |
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07/31/2007 12:18:51 PM · #24 |
Different subject, but same principle. The window I shot this through was covered with rain droplets, but the 50mm lens at f-1.8 focused on the biker and the nearly entire photo appears to have turned out clear. I had actually been wondering how the heck I managed that in a torrential downpour and found this thread. It explains a lot!
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07/31/2007 12:34:40 PM · #25 |
Go to a zoo where they let you in the cage -
;) |
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