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
f/4@1/249 ISO 200
f/8@1/60 ISO 200
f/16@1/15 ISO 200
f/4@1/160 ISO 200
f/16@1/40 ISO 200
f/16@1/10 ISO 200
f/4@1/400 ISO 200
f/8@1/100 ISO 200
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! ;)
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.
f/8@1/50 ISO 200
f/16@1/13 ISO 200
f/4@1/499 ISO 200
f/8@1/125 ISO 200
f/16@1/30 ISO 200
f/4@1/160 ISO 200
f/8@1/40 ISO 200
f/16@1/10 ISO 200
