After perusing my classmates blogs I am getting the sneaky suspicion that this will also be the case. Oh well. I am a slow learner and I don't mind boosting moral and self worth.
Come. I will be chronicling my experience, lessons learned, and why I am an idget.
Singular Theme
The concept: Sharpness is deliberately limited to a single area in the frame. Preferred f/5 and below.
f/1.8
I like singular Theme the best because for some reason it is what my camera likes the most. (I get the brightest clean images). We went a'looking for punkins with the kiddos. So, my first pic was this:
I set my aperture to the lowest setting and then metered my camera and voila.
Then I backed up a bit (so my camera wouldn't spas) and took this at the f/8
Then I backed up even more and took this at f/22
The first thing I noticed in this exercise was how much difference your aperture makes in metering. (LIKE A LOT)This is because each aperture setting lets in a different amount of light Oh, and Brooke, don't look at dapples or where the light is coming from because that is a different lesson--right? This is where I am an idget. To have been true to the assignment I probably shouldn't have backed up on each exposure, because I think the point was to take the same picture with the aperture at different settings.
Story telling Aperture
The concept: It has a beginning, middle, and end--like a story. Preferred f/16 and f/22
Let it be noted, that I hate this picture. I am fairly confident I did everything wrong. And, if I had not procrastinated my assignment I would retake it, but alas, daylight is gone. I do not even have three pictures to show because they all looked equally dreadful. This brings me to a brooke question. Brooke: Why do my pictures get so grainy when the object is far away? Is it my camera? I am metering correctly. (I think...)
Who Cares Aperture
The concept: Everything is on the same plane. Preferred f/8 or f/11
I cheated on this one. Kind of. I put my "oh so not obedient" model in front of a brick wall to: a. corral her and b. so that it was all on the same plane. Then I tried several different apertures. It is too late to call Brooke (BROOKE...you wake?) so I don't know how to find the digital info to know exactly which aperture was which. However....I have this sneaky suspicion that I didn't get anything below f/5 because they were blurry and I deleted them. (Darn fidgety model)
While this setting (not aperture, but framing of said wily creature in front of wall) showed for the least variance in results I did notice that it was easiest to meter at the preferred settings.
In conclusion I would like to say that even though I did not get the greatest results for this assignment, the information finally stuck. (Brooke, remember how I had to take drivers ed twice? This might be the time I actually get it!) I already think differently every time I take a picture...my intention is more acute.
Now, just for a finale I would like to share this pic taken from a point-and-shoot. My husband told our daughter to get some old clothing on so that she could carve the pumpkin. She wore this outfit down the stairs....Goggles for pumpkin carving....Ha ha. What a kid.
10 comments:
I love your pictures! Very cute family. I was reading your post and thought "gosh I'm an idiot. Look how much better her pictures turned out when she was backing up for the different stops"...then you said you didn't think you were supposed too..Haha I think that was a great example & kinda wished I would have been smart, instead of endlessly frustrated to do that too!
Hey thanks. I can't wait until I can actually capture my cute family. This has been a good learning experience!
I LOVE pumpkin patch photos. I spent quite a bit of time in on this week as well. I just think they are the perfect backdrop for photos. I also wondered about backing up for each of the different stops, but kept in the same place. I suppose I should have thought to clarify this with Brooke before it was too late for me to do so.
We are all in this learning process together! I am also interested in figuring out what you do on a boring sky day (besides photoshopping in a new sky.) Great thoughts and questions. I love your pumpkin patch pictures. The vivid colors are inspiring!
The pumpkin patch colors are so vibrant - great job! With your cute family you'll have SO many photo ops. Even though the storytelling photo seems hazy, I'm sure we'll all learn how to "get it right"...:)
That pumpkin patch looks so fun! I really enjoyed looking at your photos. I found that my storytelling photos were pretty grainy as well. I can't tell you if that is normal or not, but you should know that you're not alone. :)
Lindsey!
Great job! You are not an "idget"... whatever that is. I'll have to look it up :)
The idea for the assignment was to take the shot the same and just change your aperture to see how it affects your depth of field. HOWEVER, I still love what you did! And actually, I really think the choices you made in regards to your different focal lengths, were great choices!
Here's a few thoughts:
1. I'm glad that you are noticing a difference that aperture makes to the meter reading. Indeed, this is a great lesson on how shutter speed and aperture work together to expose for your image. You reduce the amount of light coming in, thus you need to increase the length of time the shutter stays open and vice versa. Hooray for picking up on that!
2. Grainy images.
Grainy images are a result of likely two things:
a) HIGH ISO's.... (which hooray, we get to learn about this week!
or
b) Poor light.
Your hazy image for storytelling looks to me like you were shooting right into the sun. That creates some haze simply from facing the sun AND, since you shot it at a really high aperture (which sharpens things up) its going to make it a little more grainy. You probably would still have a hazy image at a lower aperture, but since it wasn't such a high depth aperture setting you wouldn't notice any "grain" as much.
3. Blurry photos. Usually a result of slow shutter speeds.
Be sure that when you are "metering"--which this past week meant that we were adjusting our shutter speed to zero to expose correctly for the aperture that we selected--that you notice what your shutter speed is. If it indicates that 1/100 or even slower is the correct shutter speed for the aperture you have selected, you'll need to be careful that your subject is not a mover :)
We learn all about shutter speed this week! Right in time too!
Overall though, loved the pumpkins, loved the festive nature, the photojournalistic feel and the great opportunity of documenting what is most important: Our families. Nice work!
Lindsey! I love your pictures, and the goggles at the end are my favorite!
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