Below is a collection of stills I've captured with my Sony Handicam (you can take stills on standby with it as long as you have a memory stick). I used two lenses that I've acquired separately over the years. There is no way that a video camera's (at least broad consumer price) default lens will ever suffice. You've gotta at least pick up a standard wide angle lens. Anyway, with these photos, I'm covering a decent array of "types" of shots around my house with my doggy, K.C. In addition, I've amassed a bunch of shots of myself in my room, playing around with rudimentary lighting principals (I don't own any legitimate lighting equipment; I simply McGuyvered a crude room lamp setup).
In the first set of the outdoor stills, its obvious that I'm a fan of deep focus shots. There is just something about the shallowing of the depth of field that creates really interesting looking images that gives them this vague tinge of professionalism, regardless of what quality camera you're using. You pull off a deep focus shot, and you're automatically a cut above the conventionally mundane rest.
Framed by architecture or nature: I used my back deck stair banister to provide a physical border or frame for my dog within the actual shot.
Depth of field for attention: in this trio of shots, I've got a deep focus of my dog right of frame in the foreground, with an approaching young man with sports gear down the sidewalk left of frame. In the first two shots, we've got a generally empty middle ground with the dude in the background. In the final still, he occupies the foreground space (if only there had been one more person approaching about fifteen/twenty yards behind the sports dude, so I would have filled all three spacial planes).
Depth of field for Attention/suggestion of movement: here is local neighborhood legend "Mike Bike" doing his thing down my street. I feel the shallow depth of field, in addition to Mike's framing left as he approaches, accomplishes this.
Depth of Field for attention 2: I threw in another deep focus, this time of two skater boys trailing some relative in the rose red Jeep.
Above, my neighbor approaches in the far background walking his dog, while K.C. is chilling in the foreground, left of frame. In the first shot, I use a wide angle lens, getting a deep depth of field; K.C. has much dimension and volume, and the mid and background seem to be on such separate planes and just stretch on. Also, the skater tween and his dog seem to be over fifty yards away; they appear as just a tiny black shape way off in the background. In the subsequent stills, I had switched lenses, from wide to long. See the difference? I shallow the depth of field, and in doing so, K.C. appears flat and not as sharp and focused, seeming to merge into the background. Also, the approaching kid, not all that much closer at this point, is now clearly visible. In the final shot, skater boy and his dog approach midground, and all three planes seem to be shorter and not as separate.
The above shot is simply to utilize negative space in a way that balances out the shot in regards to the statue's basic indicating lines of direction.
Horizontal Composition: My backyard; the fence, covered pool, and surrounding houses/garages all follow a basic midground horizon line, albeit curved.
Symmetry: I threw this shot in just for the hell of it. I like being able to get a nice, symmetrical composition.
Vertical Composition: I figured the fire hydrant located directly in front of my house is a given for a low angle, center framed vertical line indicator. I also threw in my porch's roof column and chimney on the side of the house, both of which I gave a bit of a dutch tilt to enhance their overall composition.
Here, the back of my house, for a rudimentary horizontal composition.Second Set: Indoor Dramatic Lighting
Use of Negative Space/Nose Room: I framed myself off to one side, leaving no other subject within frame, thus creating negative space, but in such a way that I'm balanced out by the corner lamp.
I made a crude three way lamp setup in my pint-sized man cave, and for this shot I used only two to create fast falloff with a backlit edge. I've got my one lamp just a few feet to the front left of me for the key, and another directly behind me, just below my shoulders as the backlight to rim me out nicely.
With this one, I tried to get as high key as I could get for low key lighting. The floor lamp I had in the corner of my room was the fill. As a result I'm fully yet softly lit, with a slow falloff on my face.
With this one i kinda went for the same thing, except I moved the key closer to my face to give it a more dynamic look.
With this shot, the lighting set up was the same as the previous two, only I had shut off the fill lamp, leaving the right side of my face (left side in terms of the frame) in shadow with fast falloff. The key was moved away slightly as well, so the lighted part of my face is dulled a bit and not quite as brilliant.
This is one of my favorites. The lighting setup was the same as the former, only I really wanted to get that nice, highlighted contour, which required me to merely move the backlight in closer and just a tad higher. As a result, you can see how much stronger the backlighting rims me out here.
In this shot I pulled back a bit for a center-framed medium close up, and turned my fill back on. So I'm generally fully lit with a slower falloff, replete with strong backlit highlighting that extracts me slightly, giving me more volume.
Here are four slightly varied experiments with cameo lighting. In the first, I kept the backlight, but pushed it further down and back, keeping it minimum. I'm a fan of the second shot, which is bordering on an extreme closeup, splitting my face with a very high contrast between the lighted part and the shadowed. I've also made the backlight slightly more prominent. The third and fourth closeups are the same minus the backlight, and in turn, my highly shadowed right side isn't separated from the background and seems to just blend right in. The extremely fast falloff in my face, set off against the dark background, is similar to a crescent moon in the night sky, where the lit part seems to be the whole portion's sole existence in terms of what lighting allows the viewer to see.
Here are two shots of below eye level lighting. Also know as "Halloween lighting", this lighting technique is so archetypal, as every kid at some point has shone a flashlight from underneath the face to look scary and/or complement the mood in telling a horrific tale.
