Saturday, January 30, 2010

Week 2 - Part 1

OK... a few months later, I'm back. I haven't stopped completely the course, but I slowed down, and stopped posting. Anyway, I'm here now, trying to keep up. :)

Week 2 was all about color. I took these pictures in September/November, and had so much fun finding color around me!
First day:


f/1.4@1/499 ISO 100


f/8@1/80 ISO 100


f/8@1/20 ISO 100


f/1.4@1/80 ISO 100


f/1.4@1/125 ISO 100


f/4@1/15 ISO 100


f/4@1/125 ISO 100


f/4@1/249 ISO 100


f/4@1/400 ISO 100


f/4@1/320 ISO 100


f/4@1/80 ISO 100


f/4@1/60 ISO 100


f/1.4@1/200 ISO 100

Second day:


f/1.4@1/60 ISO 100


f/4@1/15 ISO 100


f/2.8@1/15 ISO 100


f/2.2@1/25 ISO 100


f/2.2@1/320 ISO 100


f/8@1/25 ISO 100


f/4@1/80 ISO 100

Day 3 - this day I was having so much fun taking pictures, that I completely lost track of time and had to literally run to Church and I barely made it there in time for Mass! It was hilarious! ;)


f/4@1/249 ISO 100


f/4@1/800 ISO 100


f/4@1/400 ISO 100


f/4@1/640 ISO 100


f/4@1/249 ISO 100


f/2.8@1/249 ISO 100


f/2.8@1/200 ISO 100


f/2.8@1/200 ISO 100


f/2.8@1/320 ISO 100


f/16@1/10 ISO 100


f/5.6@1/25 ISO 100


f/5.6@1/80 ISO 100


f/3.2@1/40 ISO 100


f/3.2@1/25 ISO 100


f/5.6@1/20 ISO 100


f/2.8@1/40 ISO 100


f/2.5@1/50 ISO 100


f/4@1/50 ISO 400


f/8@1/40 ISO 400


f/4@1/160 ISO 400


f/4@1/160 ISO 400

OK, sorry about that, I fell in love with all that orange urban grunginess. ;)

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Week 1: Reciprocity

The first week of class made me learn a lot of things and gain more confidence with my camera.
It was about reciprocity, but more importantly, I learned a lot of small, very useful things.

First of all, embarassing as it may sound, I found out how to hold my camera properly. I was doing it all wrong, clinging to the camera with my right hand and supporting most of the weight that way. The right way to do it? Check out this article on DPS to see a picture: your left hand has to support the weight of the camera.

Another big milestone of this week is that I shot my first picture using the manual mode. And, surprisingly enough, I find it EASY! Just decide what ISO you want, set your aperture (or the shutter speed - SS), set the SS (or the aperture) according to what gives a good exposure reading, and you're done! :)
So far I'd only used the manual mode twice, and exclusively because I needed the bulb setting (to take pictures of fireworks and such), but since I started using it for this week's assignment, I've been mainly shooting pictures in manual mode!

Another thing I've been working on is manual focus. Hmmm... why would someone want to do that, when the AF works pretty well? Good question! Especially since I don't quite nail the manual focus yet and it's more of a hit or miss process.. But it's important to be able to get the portion of the image you want in focus, without relying on the camera to do it for you. And even though as I said I don't always nail it, I've already improved since I started focusing manually.

Now, I'm ready to share my 36 shots for this week's assignment. Some of the shots with longer SS turned out a bit blurry, but overall I found out I have a much steadier hand than I thought! :)


f/4@1/25 ISO 200


f/8@1/8 ISO 200


f/16@1/2 ISO 200


f/4@1/1250 ISO 200


f/8@1/320 ISO 200


f/16@1/80 ISO 200


f/4@1/499 ISO 200


f/8@1/125 ISO 200


f/16@1/30 ISO 200


f/4@1/499 ISO 200


f/8@1/125 ISO 200


f/16@1/30 ISO 200


f/4@1/1250 ISO 200


Seagull f/8
f/8@1/320 ISO 200


f/16@1/80 ISO 200


f/4@1/50 ISO 200


f/8@1/13 ISO 200


f/16@3/10 ISO 200

Eagle f/4
f/4@1/249 ISO 200

Eagle f/8
f/8@1/60 ISO 200

Eagle f/16
f/16@1/15 ISO 200

Berries f/4
f/4@1/160 ISO 200

Berries f/8
f/16@1/40 ISO 200

Berries f/16
f/16@1/10 ISO 200

Grass f/4
f/4@1/400 ISO 200

Grass f/8
f/8@1/100 ISO 200

Grass f/16
f/16@1/25 ISO 200
These shots made me realize how useful it is to just count the clicks to switch between one aperture setting and the next, since the sun was shining from my right hand side and I couldn't see any number in the viewfinder! ;)

Flower f/4
f/4@1/200 ISO 200
I purposefully underexposed this shot, because what the camera signed as a correct exposure caused the flower to be blown out. I then counted 6 clicks for the shutter speed to take the next aperture shot, 2 stops away.

Flower f/8
f/8@1/50 ISO 200

Flower f/16
f/16@1/13 ISO 200 

Spruce f/4
f/4@1/499 ISO 200

Spruce f/8
f/8@1/125 ISO 200

Spruce f/16
f/16@1/30 ISO 200

Fence f/4
f/4@1/160 ISO 200

Fence f/8
f/8@1/40 ISO 200

Fence f/16
f/16@1/10 ISO 200