Sigma shook up the camera world back in April by announcing its new 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM lens — the world’s first zoom lens with a fixed maximum aperture of f/1.8. It turns out the revolutionary lens will have a revolutionary price tag as well: the company announced today that the lens will cost just $799.
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Entekaphobia is fear of the number 11. I’m a resolution fanatic. I test every new lens for resolution. For personal use, I’ll choose the lens with higher resolution over the one with creamy bokeh every time. When choosing a camera, I have a (yes, I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s true) strong tendency to want the most megapixels. I’m a resoholic.
Being a resoholic, I’ve always been somewhat fanatical about apertures. Whenever possible I shoot with the lens stopped down at least one stop to wring the maximum sharpness out of my lens. But I’m always careful not to stop down too far because I was taught, soon after I picked up a camera, that if you stopped down too far the dreaded diffraction softening would kick in.
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If you’ve been thinking about buying a copy of Apple’s Aperture 3 for your post-processing work, you might want to hold off for a bit. A replacement may be on the near horizon — at least according to a new book listing that has popped up over on Amazon Canada.
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A little earlier today, we reported on how Sohail Mamdani of BorrowLenses had discovered that one particular Nikon D600 he was testing was consistently overexposing photographs by two stops. After searching long and hard for the cause, he stumbled upon the culprit: the D600 wasn’t closing the aperture blades to the correct opening size.
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Check out this awesome exposure triangle graphic found in this Exposure Guide tutorial on the fundamentals of exposure:
When these three elements are combined, they represent a given exposure value (EV) for a given setting. Any change in any one of the three elements will have a measurable and specific impact on how the remaining two elements react to expose the film frame or image sensor and how the image ultimately looks. For example, if you increase the f-stop, you decrease the size of the lens’ diaphragm thus reducing the amount of light hitting the image sensor, but also increasing the DOF (depth of field) in the final image. Reducing the shutter speed affects how motion is captured, in that this can cause the background or subject to become blurry. However, reducing shutter speed (keeping the shutter open longer) also increases the amount of light hitting the image sensor, so everything is brighter. Increasing the ISO, allows for shooting in lower light situations, but you increase the amount of digital noise inherent in the photo. It is impossible to make an independent change in one of the elements and not obtain an opposite effect in how the other elements affect the image, and ultimately change the EV.
If you’re just starting out in photography, do yourself a favor and work through the Photography Basics page over on Exposure Guide. It’s a fantastic resource.
Exposure – ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed Explained [Exposure Guide via Reddit]
Photographer Casey McCallister reverse engineered Instagram’s filters, turning them into actions and presets for Photoshop, Aperture, and Lightroom that allow you to retro-fy your photos with one click. The download packs include all 17 Instagram filters and are “latte-priced” at $5.
Photoshop, Aperture, and Lightroom Presets [Casey Mac Photo]
Rounding out a day packed with Apple announcements and general excitement at the WWDC 2012, here’s one final Apple tidbit coming from rumor site Apple Insider. According to them, recent job postings at Apple hint at the possibility of an Aperture mobile app coming in the near future. After receiving a tip from an anonymous user, Apple Insider found that the Aperture team is looking to fill quite a few manager and developer positions, many of which require experience developing on the iOS platform in one form or another. Read more…
Ever wonder what the f-number of your eyes are? It can easily be calculated using the human eye’s focal length (~22mm) and physical aperture size. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
Computing the f-number of the human eye involves computing the physical aperture and focal length of the eye. The pupil can be as large as 6–7 mm wide open, which translates into the maximum physical aperture.
The f-number of the human eye varies from about f/8.3 in a very brightly lit place to about f/2.1 in the dark. The presented maximum f-number has been questioned, as it seems to only match the focal length that assumes outgoing light rays. According to the incoming rays of light (what we actually see), the focal length of the eye is a bit longer, resulting in minimum f-number of f/3.2.
The article also notes that the eye cannot be considered an ordinary air-filled camera since it’s filled with light refracting liquid.
F-number: Human Eye (via Reddit)
Image credit: eye 172/365 by attila acs
Matthew Gore of Light & Matter created this beginner-friendly video tutorial on the three basic elements of exposure: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. It’s explained with easy to understand illustrations and examples, and features graphics and sounds that are reminiscent of old 8-bit video games. You can also find a text-based version of the tutorial here.
Even if you have a good command of using f-stop numbers and properly exposing photographs, you might not understand the math behind why f-stop numbers are what they are. Here’s a simple (albeit math-filled) explanation by Dylan Bennett of what f-stop is, including a simple trick you can use to memorize the f-stop scale.
