In late February 2023, I provided a workshop demo session for a few group members of my idea of being able to take specific ‘weather’ scenes on any set day. Can we control the weather? Well, with imagination and ingenuity, we can create desired ‘weather’ within a limited scenario and have fun doing so.
The principle aims were to create a snow scene and some rain, showing how these scenes could be taken with: a mobile phone, compact camera (as I used) or an interchangeable lens camera. This can be achieved by creating a tableau of (in this case) Lego figures in a table-top ‘set’, with ‘weather’ provided by use of a few props and careful lighting and camera positioning.
This could perhaps serve as a project to try with a grandchild, if you have a rainy-day duties looking after one or two.
While I was playing with the figures, I also demonstrated several other concepts to help other members achieve success in their own efforts. For those that couldn’t make it on the day, I outline these below.
For example, how the camera to subject distance affects the relative size of the models to the background and also between the figures themselves – use of camera position and ‘zoom’ allow good choices. Depth of Field (how much looks sharp) was another aspect covered, this can be varied by choice of aperture (if possible). Plus the effects of lighting and use of ‘reflectors’ to brighten dark shadows was also covered.
Below – setting the scene, all shots were taken on Jackie’s kitchen worktop, sometimes using the sun, as here, or the LED torch (balanced on a couple of bottle caps), or the LED ring light visible to the right, to light the subjects.
Not shown are the two A4 sized ‘reflectors’ I used in most shots, these were obtained from a craft store, being double sided foam-core filled ‘cards’ in white and black. The card is cut through on one side, so the other side forms a hinge, making them easily stood up on a flat surface, as is visible in some shots with white or black backgrounds further below.
Notable aspects of the sunlight are the well defined shadows, use these if they’ll help your scene.
To be honest, the daylight was doing us no favours trying to demonstrate the lighting aspects and we had to block out some windows with a notice board, so if you can ‘work’ in a room without windows, or one with curtains, it will help you control the lighting.
The important thing to comprehend is that what you see with your naked eye is not what the camera sees, especially if you control the exposure, ‘auto’ works well most of the time, but for scenes like this, we may need to override that – look for a feature like exposure compensation’ on a camera, or ‘brightness’ on a mobile phone’s camera.
Camera positioning – effective use of zoom – background
Here, the camera was simply positioned in front of the subject until the figures were the required size in the photo. Most cameras start off with a wide angle of view, this forces you close to the subject, this has resulted in the subjects almost ‘overflowing’ the background.
Whereas, below, when I moved further from the figures and zoomed the lens in a bit*, I now have no problem in this respect, there’s plenty of background for a nice composition.
* if you cannot zoom in your lens, you could even achieve this by still moving back and cropping (trimming the edges off) the photo after it is ‘taken’, so you don’t show the rest of the room.
That said, even a mobile phone camera can zoom, just pinch/expand two fingers on the viewfinder screen.
What I learnt from the above photos was the unsuitability of a ‘background’ with a sheen, please use matte card or paper, not the plastic file dividers I picked up in a rush. If you want a single colour background, use a large (A3 or A2) sheet of coloured paper to recreate a scaled down photo-studio background.
Camera positioning – effective use of zoom – subject relativity
Relative size example: We know these two figures are almost the same size when standing, but not so in the photo below – why?
When the two figures are different distances from the camera lens, the closer you are to them, the much bigger the nearer one will appear, as below. Moving the camera further away from the figures, then zooming in (or cropping later) will show then as a more similar size (not shown here, but see Depth of Field photos). Since this also helps with the background, it would be my number one tip.
Bonus learning: Looking at the photo above, you can imagine the same size exaggeration effect will be apparent if the arm and hand were extended even closer towards the lens.
This also happens in full size portraiture, whichever part of the body is closest to the lens may well appear much larger than it should, especially if taking a ‘selfie’ at arm’s length, it can exaggerate the size of a nose or forehead. Much better to get a friend to take the shot from a bit further away and have them zoom in a bit, so you fill the frame. This could the subject of another workshop demo session, including sympathetic portrait lighting, if wished?
Depth of Field – effective use of aperture
Depth of Field examples, the first below was taken with a wide aperture (f/2.8) with focus set on the closest figure, note how blurry the furthest one is.
Now (below) focus has been moved to the rearmost figure, rendering the closest very blurry, still at an aperture of f/2.8 (wide).
Below, with a much narrower aperture (f/11), although focus is on the closest figure, the distant one is almost sharp enough, had I focused at a point between the two, I could have got both the same, small amount of blurriness, although given a choice, it is usually better to have the subject closest to the lens properly sharp.
The only thing to be wary of is if the shutter speed drops too low with use of a narrow aperture, so take your photos with elbows well braced to prevent ‘the wobbles’ spoiling the photo.
Lighting your subjects
Photographers will often describe light light as ‘hard’ or ‘soft’, each has their uses, but beyond that is the contrast ratio of a lit surface and unlit part (of the same surface).
The photo below has a bright side-light source (the LED torch), close to the subject, with shadows forming on the unlit side of the subject’s face and helmet.
Whereas the photo below has a white ‘reflector’ directing quite a lot of torchlight back on to the right hand side of the rider’s face and helmet.
The torch light skimming the surface (above) shows how scrupulously dust-free a professional photo studio needs to be – lesson learnt.
The room was not as dark as the background above suggests, this is where the camera’s exposure and our eye differ. The figures are brightly lit by the torch and the camera’s exposure is set for them, so the background goes darker than the eye perceives, especially as the torch is aimed to not allow light to fall on the background. If you don’t have a narrow beam LED torch, just stand something opaque between the torch and the background so it is in shadow.
Another example, below, of a hard (side) light applied, I may have used the black card to absorb light reflecting onto the LHS (as seen).
Whereas below is an example of ‘soft’ light, which also happens to be from the front, as can be seen by the shadows. Note this isn’t so helpful for suspending reality, as it has lit the background and floor fully, making it obvious what that is.
Weather photos – snow
Below is the headline ‘snow’ photo, complete with snowball – a member suggestion!
Clearly, I should have made more ‘snow’ and spread/pressed a lot to form a white floor (and used white paper below the figures). However, the fake snow, from a leading on-line retailer, is very effective, it cost less than a fiver and is just mixed with water. It was supplied in a small test tube, but expands in volume a lot when mixed. I only used about 15%, so I have lots left.
Weather photos – rain
Setting the scene: you can see the LED torch ready to back-light the rain, plus the ring light giving a general illumination, aimed so as not to illuminate the black background too much. Janice is about to ‘fire’ the rain on a count of three. Thanks to John for this photo.
First the figures were posed as required and lighting angles and reflector were set up and exposure checked, as below.
We soon found it was essential to have one person counting “one-two-three”, so we could synchronise the squirt (from water misting bottle) with pressing the camera’s shutter.
The image below is ‘as shot’, with lens flare from a drop that got on the lens, take care with the direction and reach of spray droplets.
The image below was cropped to avoid the flare and background issue on right – and it’s beginning to look effective.
To complete the job, I used Photoshop to remove ‘snow’ from the worktop and also remove a few splashes not ‘falling’ in the desired direction. Flip back and forth between the two images below to appreciate the difference a bit of spot-healing makes to a finished photograph.
Sure it could be (much) better, but this was a ‘quick and dirty’ demonstration, in fact once we’d synchronised spray with shutter, this was the only shot we took, it was ‘job done’.
We were lucky in that the (automatically selected) shutter speed just happened to be perfect to demonstrate the effect desired. If it had needed adjusting, to lengthen or shorten the ‘rain’, I could have fiddled with the aperture (within limits) or the ‘ISO’ speed.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading our story of ‘learning the u3a way’, with members helping each other. Even though I am far from an expert, I hope it helps others and even inspires a few to have a go themselves.
Dave Humphries.