The camera sees all

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 21

The camera sees all

The camera sees all — all within its pictureframe, anyway. Do not be so carried away by the beauty of the landscape or of your subject that you do not notice details that spoil it. You will notice quiet clearly when

your prints arrive, and ever after if you can not take the photograph again.

Sometimes the awkward details are simply that, bits of rubbish blowing in the wind, or a

button out of place. Bra straps pop out from under top clothes; hair unexpect--edly sticks on end; animals or people stroll across the background; animals, and even sometimes people, do unmentionable things. Often the intruding details are poles, which sprout disconcertingly from people’s heads. The photographer’s bag or other equipment insinuates itself into far too many photographs. Try to look at the scene in the viewfinder as you would at the finished print. Perhaps the biggest difficulty is scale, details which are small in the viewfinder are not quite so small in actuality. With a single lens reflex (SLR) camera, you can often reduce the effect of unwanted background by putting the aperture to maximum. This reduces the depth of field so that only the main subject is in sharp focus and the background may be only a blur.

In the usual fixed-focus type of 35mm compact camera, the lens is wide angle at around 38mm, giving great depth of field.