N-Photo

Lenses & perspective

The second afternoon is the perfect time to make use of

the last light to get to grips with lenses and perspective

What you’ll learn

How changing your

zoom setting affects

your images – and

what it doesn’t

affect at all.

What you’ll need

For this simple

exercise all you need

is your standard

zoom, along with a

suitable subject.

8 | Changing focal length

Background distance

Another worthwhile

exercise is to experiment

with how the distance of

the background from your

subject affects how blurred

the background is. For

a given focal length,

the further away the

background is, the more

blurred it will be. To test

this, position your subject

against a background

that’s very close, fire off a

shot using a longish lens

(the long end of a kit lens

is fine), and then ask your

subject to take a few giant

strides towards you. Move

back so they’re in the same

position in the frame, and

fire off another shot. You’ll

see that the background is

now more blurred, and the

subject stands out more.

Put your subject in position,

then choose a viewpoint

where you can frame them

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zoom. So, start at the widest setting and

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subject, then set your Nikon to aperture-

pr ior it y e x posu re mode a nd selec t a n

aper t u re of f/5.6. Wit hout mov i ng towa rds

or away from them, take a series of images

at the widest, middle and longest focal

lengths available.

When you come to review the results you

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background, the relative sizes of the two

remain the same. This is because you can

only change this relationship, known as

perspective, by changing your viewpoint,

not by si mply c ha ng i ng you r len s or you r

zoom setting.

While the perspective doesn’t alter

between the different images, using a

longer focal length lens will reduce the

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as the background is a long way from the

subject, you should be able to see that the

background is more blurred in the images

shot with the longest focal length than

those at the shorter ones. The longer the

lens, the more pronounced this effect.

TAKE IT FURTHER

10

mins

25mm

50mm

75mm

32 March 2016 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com

MASTER YOUR NIKON

IN A WEEKEND

DAY 2 | AFTERNOON