Leaves

Digital Camera Exploration
For my exploration of digital photography, I used a collage of leaves growing in my backyard, up against the side of the house. I was drawn to these leaves because of the different shapes and colors, and also because of the fungus or mold present, which contrasted sharply with the colors of the leaves. I used a Canon PowerShot A95 to take the pictures, which is a 5.0 mega pixel digital camera.

I used the camera's Program mode, which automatically set the correct aperture and shutter speed. I set the "film" sensitivity to ISO 200. I did this because it was a cloudy day, with not a great deal of available light, and I wanted to be able to disable the flash. Using the flash would have destroyed the natural hues, giving a strident appearance to the images. The higher ISO setting allowed me to use faster shutter speeds which helped to reduce blur. For calculating the exposure, I used the cameras multi-zone evaluative metering. I have found this works really well. The camera evaluates the exposure required by different areas of the frame, then calculates the ideal value.

Here is a photo that has been resized using the GIMP. This photo was originally 1.44 MB, and 2592x1944 pixels - this was the largest image file produced by the A95. I wanted to have the maximum number of pixels available to "play with" so I could apply some neat effects and filters. I figured I could always chop the file size down afterwards using the GIMP. After resizing, this image only uses 28.59 KB and measures 300x225 pixels - much more friendly in terms of display for web pages, and the storage space required!

I used the macro feature on my camera to shoot an extreme closeup: The metering system on the camera didn't catch as much light with the closeup, but I didn't want to use a flash to compensate. The result was a slight blur to the image. This shot gives a better view of the mottling and different colors on the leaf. Using the macro mode, I can focus as close as nine inches away from the subject!

I took three different shots from near, medium and far distances - I resized them to 200 pixels in width so they can be viewed across the page - easier to compare them that way. All these pictures were saved with an '85' quality setting in the GIMP. Reducing the quality would have reduced file sizes but diminished the detail of the images - perhaps not so important on the Web as it would be for prints. The image on the left really focues the attention on the two colored leaves with the most fungal growth. The far distance shot on the right gives more context, as well as bringing the creeping vine growing on the foundation right below the siding into the composition.

These three pictures show some of the different camera settings available. The same composition is used for each photo, but you can see how the image varies widely based on the camera setting. The image on the left is taken in black and white. The center image uses the sepia setting - I like this because it looks like a faded, antiqued photo from long ago. The last image on the right is 'vivid', with all the colors enhanced for maximum impact.

Here I have placed a ruler in the photos to give an indication of the size of the objects. The shot on the left is a landscape, while the shot on the right is a portrait orientation. I had to rotate the second image in the GIMP counterclockwise, then I resized it so the height was 225 pixels. The overall effect is liking cropping the horizontal dimension of the image.

This image gives the context and a sense of place for the leaves. The leaves I have focused on are in the middle of the frame, right at the base of the siding.

To get a sense of how a child and adult would view the same scene, the photo on the left was taken from a height of about five feet, while the photo on the left was taken from a height of two feet. You can see how this subtly alters the perception of the scene -for a child, the dark green leaves in the foreground block the leaves I used in the collage from view.