The aperture is the opening in your lens that allows light to pass through it to the sensor.  It is usually the first setting we determine when shooting an image because it affects our scene greatly.  A large aperture has a very wide opening that allows a lot of light in.  A small aperture is a smaller opening so less light gets in.

The sensor of your camera will also affect the size of depth of field you can get.  The smaller the sensor, the larger the depth of field and vice-versa.  Smart phone or point-and-shoot digital cameras have very small sensors, so it is hard to create an image with a very shallow depth of field.  That’s one of the many reasons professional photographers rely on full-frame DSLR digital cameras – the sensor size helps provide more flexibility of depth-of-field.

Struggling with Chromatic Aberration? Who doesn’t like crisp and lively photographs? Everyone wants to capture their life moments in a perfect photo. But if the picture does not depict the moment in the same way, it is quite disappointing. You go for a tropical vacation and the colors of your picture sometimes make the picture…

How isSpectralonmade

Three grades of Spectralon reflectance material are available: optical-grade, laser-grade and space-grade. Optical-grade Spectralon is characterized by a high-reflectance and lambertian behavior over the UV-VIS-NIR wavelength region. Laser-grade Spectralon offers the same physical characteristics as optical-grade materials but is a different formulation of resin that gives enhanced performance when used in laser pump cavities. Space-grade Spectralon combines high-reflectance with an extremely lambertian reflectance profile and is the material of choice for terrestrial remote sensing applications.

Labsphere

Think of a large pool with varying levels of water, from 1.4 to 32 feet deep.  Think of the numerical f-stop number as the water level in a pool.  The smaller that number, the SHALLOWER the water is, right?  Conversely, the larger that numerical number, the DEEPER the water.

Spectralonwhite paint

With winter upon many of us, questions are beginning to come about taking photos in the cold weather. While it’s true that for most of us, business slows down in the colder months and we find ourselves with less work than the rest of the year, winter can still be a great time to take photos….

Photographers often use the terms bokeh or sharpness to describe depth of field.  But they aren’t the same thing.  Let’s go back to our original, simple definition:

Have you ever wondered how photographers get those gorgeous glowing outdoor portraits of their clients? You know – the ones that evoke thoughts of happy days and lazy summer evenings, using only backlight photography.  After diffused light aka cloudy days, backlight photography is one of an outdoor photographer’s best kinds of lighting. Soon you’ll know…

Aside from just portraits in general, you can use a shallow depth-of-field to create greater emphasis on the focal point of your image.  A very shallow depth-of-field creates a razor thin zone of focus.  So the area around your focal point will be sharp while the rest of the scene is blurry.

Portrait photographers most often want the focus of the image to be on the person and the background to fall away into creamy oblivion.  This look is achieved by creating a shallow depth of field using some combination of aperture, focal length and controlling the distance between the camera, subject and background.

The closer your subject is to your camera, the shallower your depth of field in the image.  To visualize this, hold up your index finger at eye level at arm’s length.  Then slowly move your finger closer to your eye.  As your finger gets closer, the shallower the depth of field is.

The surface and immediate subsurface structure of Spectralon exhibits highly lambertian behavior. The porous network of thermoplastic produces multiple reflections in the first few tenths of a millimeter of Spectralon. Although it is extremely hydrophobic, this “open structure” readily absorbs non-polar solvents, greases and oils. Impurities are difficult to remove from Spectralon; thus, the material should be kept free from contaminants to maintain its reflectance properties. The use of Spectralon should be limited to the UV-VIS-NIR. Spectralon exhibits absorbances at 2800 nm, then absorbs strongly (<20% reflectance) from 5.4 to 8 µm.

Spectralonpaint

Sometimes auto white balance is just a frenemy posing as a time-saving setting.  We’ll tell you why. Photographers are a picky bunch. We will tweak settings, move here and there and wait for the light to be juuuuusssst right before we take an image. We want to shoot in manual and choose focus points so…

An image with shallow depth of field can be very sharp, or crisp, with clearly defined edges.  An image with a deep depth of field can be soft, or a little blurry, because proper technique wasn’t use.  And an image with beautiful bokeh can also be sharp.  Photogrpahers often use these terms interchangeably, but they are all separate concepts and require different techniques to achieve the look in camera.

Lenses with a longer focal length have a narrow field of view, so a smaller portion of the background fills the frame.  This makes the background look magnified.  Photographers call this lens compression.  A longer focal length will squash everything together in your scene, making it look like there is physical space from front to back of your scene than there is.  Just remember, the longer the focal length, the shallower the depth of field.

Spectralon reflectance material gives the highest diffuse reflectance of any known material or coating over the UV-VIS-NIR region of the spectrum. The reflectance is generally >99% over a range from 400 to 1500 nm and >95% from 250 to 2500 nm. Surface or subsurface contamination may lower the reflectance at the extreme upper and lower ends of the spectral range. The material is also highly lambertian at wavelengths from 0.257 µm to 10.6 µm, although the material exhibits much lower reflectance at 10.6 µm due to absorbance by the resin.

Spectralon reflectance material is a thermoplastic resin that gives the highest diffuse reflectance of any known material or coating over the UV-VIS-NIR region of the spectrum and exhibits highly lambertian behavior. It can be machined into a wide variety of shapes for the construction of optical components such as calibration targets, integrating spheres and laser cavities.

Lambertian surface

We’ve gathered together our best photography tutorials in one location! Are you overwhelmed with learning photography?  There are so many awesome resources, it’s hard to know where to start.  Or what to learn next.  Or maybe you start learning one skill only to get sidetracked by a separate lesson and you fall down a rabbit…

Spectralon's optical properties make it ideal as a reference surface in remote sensing. For instance, it is used to obtain leaf reflectance and bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) in the laboratory. It can also be applied to obtain vegetation fluorescence using the Fraunhofer lines [1]. Basically spectralon allows removing the contributions in the emitted light that are not directly linked to the surface (leaf) properties but to geometrical factors.

For example, a portrait may have a shallow DOF.  There is a very small zone of that is in focus in the scene from front to back.

It comes from the Japanese word “boke”, meaning blur or fuzziness.  Photographers often use it when talking about a background that is out of focus.  That’s not exactly true.  Bokeh is really defined as the way the lens renders out of focus points of light.  So it’s technically about the quality of an out of focus background, not just that the background is out of focus.  That may sound like I’m splitting hairs.  But bokeh is more about how that out of focus background looks, not just that it’s out of focus.

Aperture affects how bright your scene is, but it also controls depth of field.  As you make the physical aperture opening smaller, you increase your depth of field.  I’m not going to get into a technical discussion of f-stops and how they work.  If you’re interested in that and want to geek out a bit, click here for a full explanation.   What’s important to remember when it comes to f-stops and depth of field is this:

The material has a hardness roughly equal to that of high-density polyethylene and is thermally stable to >350° C. It is chemically inert to all but the most powerful bases such as sodium amide and organo-sodium or lithium compounds. The material is extremely hydrophobic. Gross contamination of the material or marring of the optical surface can be remedied by sanding under a stream of running water. This surface refinishing both restores the original topography of the surface and returns the material to its original reflectance. Weathering tests on the material show no damage upon exposure to atmospheric UV flux. The material shows no sign of optical or physical degradation after long-term immersion testing in sea water.

There are a lot of things you can do to make a portrait more interesting, and shooting it in black and white mode is very popular. Many people tend to associate color with emotion, but some of the most powerful and evocative portraits are in monochrome. Black and white portraits have a certain “soulfulness” that…

Non Lambertian effects

As a young photographer in college, depth of field was one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp. When I finally understood it, years later, was when my skill as a photographer really started to take off.  So I’m going to forgo as much of the technical jargon as I can and approach DOF and focus in a way that made sense for me, with the hope that it finally clicks for you too!

Getting the precise look you want takes practice and experimentation.  Changing any part of steps #1-5 above will result in a different look and feel to your image.  I can’t give you a precise formula.  You must play with distance, f-stop and even angles to bring your vision to life.  Understanding aperture and mastering the use of depth of field will help you create more compelling and visually interesting scenes.  Use depth of field to draw views into a scene, draw their eye to your focal point and create those WOW! images that pop off the screen.

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When you take a photo, there will be an area in front and behind of your focal point (usually your subject) that is in focus.  If that zone is very large, we call that a deep depth of field.  If that zone is small, we call that a shallow depth of field.

The dictionary definition of depth of field is the distance between the nearest and farthers objects that give an imaged judged to be in focus in a camera.

Browse any photography forum and you’re likely to see the acronym DOF bandied about, along with accompanying discussions of a term called depth of field.  Understanding depth of field (DOF) and knowing how to use it correctly is an important skill for every photographer to have.  Mastering depth of field will allow you to photograph the scene as you envision it, from crisp, clean landscapes to portraits with that creamy blurry background.