Catching Up And Two Awesome Videos Inspire Discussion

More often than not, Life gets in the way of things we'd much prefer to be doing. A quick update - the practice I've been doing lately has been at the zoo, then working with the homeless in my community. We'll take a quick look at the zoo experience and save the homeless photography for another post.

With my practice at the last zoo trip, I was working quite hard at manual shooting. Some success, and some exasperation. While AT the zoo, the exasperation was as soon as I'd get my shot set up, the animal had moved, causing a round robin effect of setting up manual, ready to shoot and starting all over again. I do think much more practice is needed on my part.

Further, upon returning to my computer and viewing the photos, I found that although I did focus on the critter or vegetation, I found that the focus was wrong when I enlarged the photo to 100% on the computer. Upon study, I realized that my biggest problem was aperture, opening the aperture so wide (smallest number) that my depth of field was so large that even the critter was focused great at one point and another point would be out of focus. (I will also say that some have told me that better lenses might help as well - I am using my kit lenses at this point). Here are a few photos for you to see what I'm talking about:

 

 

 

I mentioned in the title a couple of videos. Maybe some of you have heard of Jason Lanier who is a professional photographer who posts a lot of videos on YouTube. I follow him regularly. He recently posted a two part video of his interview by an amateur photographer. Here are the links to the two videos:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2T_ndu-7Tg 

 

Suggest that you watch the video first or watch it and follow along with my comments below:

 

OK, about 1/3 way through this video (and prior to, Jason gives a lot of good info), but he talks about photographing corporate events. I got to thinking - wow, how many different types of photography out there can be paid photography. Here's a good exercise, write a list of what kinds of things can photographers be paid for! I'll bet with a little imagination, we'll all surprise ourselves at the length of the list! Let's work on that and take the list up in a future blog.

 

What interested me about the corporate event photography is that I have just been assigned by the company that I work for as a sales person to take the photos at our large event in Nashville in September! WOW! This will be interesting and I hope to take some incredible shots that I can put in a portfolio for the future. I have no doubt that I can do OK at this event - same as all the other people who have taken photos with their point and shoots for the company before. I've even seen them taking the photos with iPhones and those photos being published! So, here's the big deal... I am now researching on YouTube and looking for videos that will help me learn how to maximize the photos that I take - I hope the videos will talk about settings on the camera, lighting and further, what to watch for at the event and what to shoot. I want to produce photos that will WOW them and make a name for myself with the company. I'll let you all know how it goes. Any input from your experience will be appreciated.

 

Then they get to talking about access. Then depart from that conversation - but Jason gives some great tips about getting started in professional photography. So many awesome points that we should all consider.

 

Would love to see what your thoughts are on this first video and what points were important to you and why.

 

We'll save the second video for tomorrow! Lots more discussion to come - Please feel free to post your comments - let's all help each other with comments and the things that we learn.

 

 

This weekend is scheduled for yet more practice - I hope that my guess about the error is correct. We shall see!

 

Hours logged - 12                                                            Study and Post-Processing - 6
Total - 31.75                                                                     Total - 20.5

©CynthiaG Photography
    CynthiaGPix@gmail.com 

A Little Chat About Gear

We should take a short break from the camera shooting lessons and talk a little bit about gear. This is the best time for you all to join in and comment with your ideas about what gear is necessary, what is a total enhancement and what gear is not necessary, but fun and maybe frivilous.

These are the absolute necessary things that I carry with me that I believe can make a difference in coming home with the pictures you want or possibly coming home empty handed! Of course, there is the camera and the lenses, which are also a matter of discussion here in this post. But I believe two of the very most important extra items one must have is memory cards and batteries! Thus far, I have carried about 4 memory cards with me at all times - some say that even that is not enough, although I have a 64 gig card that has definitely handled all of my shoots thus far. I should get another 64 gig, in case this one fails, but I have three extra cards with less memory that I carry with me at all times. The new 64 gig is on my list for a next purchase.

I also carry two batteries with me - always. One full one in the camera and one full one in the case. Just recently, I have noticed that my secondary battery doesn't last near as long as it used to. Upon the second time it gave up faster than normal, I right away ordered two more back-up batteries that should arrive no later than Tuesday!

Here's a little break from all my chatter - I know how all of us photo people love pictures:

I was invited to bring some of my photos to a local "Small" town's art hop. They just asked for me to put up a few small prints as you see above. This is just a head's up. I had never attended any of their events prior, and naturally assumed that there would be at least some in attendance. The photo you see here was Thursday afternoon when I took the photos to the coffee shop. Today was the art hop, and I went to the coffee shop to be present for the event. Sadly, when I arrived, the shop appeared the same as you see in the above photo - and remained that way for the full 4 hours that I sat there. No, it wasn't because of my offering, there was just simply no attendance to any of the locations at this event. So, I'm just sharing my experience with you - be sure to do your homework on any event you're invited to participate in, prior to going to the work to make the display. No, I'm not angry, maybe a tad disappointed. BUT, I am glad for the experiencs and look at all the great prints I have now to frame and hang in my home!

Back to the gear discussion. A friend of mine just asked me earlier this morning what filters I use when he viewed my Facebook album of the Zoo animals. I answered him, "none." Then I heard nothing back from him. I don't know what kind of filters I should be using. Does anybody know? Some of my photos were taken outside - some in the sun, some in the shade. Also other photos were taken inside some of the buildings at the zoo. I'd sure like to know what kind of filters I should be looking for.

And now - to talk about lenses. I have a standard 35 to 55 and a 55 to 300 lens. Also a wide angle lens, a macro lens and a 50 mm lens. When I tell people which lenses I have, they say that I am pretty well covered. I'm not really sure - I'd love input on lenses.

Also, I have one flash to mount on my camera. I do believe I could use another one or two. Plus if I do any studio shooting, there are stationary lights I should get. Comments on all that?

I suppose this conversation could go on and on. Any input would be appreciated, and it would be nice to have a conversational thread going with this post. Hopefully to educate me and others who read this blog!

More tomorrow - we'll get back to photographing in tomorrow's talk.

Have a great day!


 Hours logged - .5                                                            Study and Post-Processing - 0
Total - 19.75                                                                     Total - 14.5

©CynthiaG Photography
    CynthiaGPix@gmail.com

Shooting in Manual - Take a Deep Breath - Give it a Go!

Here we go! Take the big leap and turn your camera to Manual! YIKES, What do I do now?

Breathe easy. You'll be surprised at what you already know! Yeah, yeah, we all learned the three in the triangle, aperture, shutter speed and ISO, but how do we make them all come together, you ask?

When I became absolutely determined to get the whole manual recipe to work together for me, I first went to YouTube. Note - just as you do, I already knew how to work each of the three separately, but was totally confused as how to make all three work together when I had the camera set to manual. I searched my camera make and model and the work manual mode. I.E. Nikon D5200 Manual Mode.

Then I chose several videos - with camera in hand. I watched the videos one at a time, while following along and pausing the video as I learned how to put it all together! I got the IDEA!

Also, you need to learn about how you look through your viewfinder and see the little line that looks like a ruler. You use your three different settings to bring all the little lines to the Zero Point. You should see that demonstrated in at least some of the videos.

OK, FINE! Now I could sit at my desk and make the camera do what the dudes on the YouTube videos told me, but would the photos turn out any good when I put the whole thing into play.

Please remember, I'm not here to teach anybody. I'm just recounting what I have done and am going to do on my trek of 10,000 hours to what I hope might be "World Class" Photos.

I set up a makeshift backdrop in my living room, utilizing some black felt. Then I chose a few items from around the house and decided to try out this Manual Mode thing. Further, I realized it was time to haul out the tripod. Further, I quickly found out that it was necessary to use a remote shutter release. In my case, the D5200 doesn't have WiFi, so I have a little WiFi chip that I plug into the camera and I use the Nikon App for my iPhone. Works great! With each of you, you'll have to find out what works with your camera.

Unfortunately, I made a mistake and deleted the photos that had the settings attached. But I do have the photos of this exercise. Here's just a couple of them.

Note: After taking the shots I did take them into Photoshop, pull them from the background, then drop them into a new image that was a completely black background.

After performing this exercise, I finally had all the mechanics necessary to operate each of the three - aperture, shutter speed, and ISO down pat and imbedded in my memory bank! To me this was a massive step in the right direction!

Then, just today, I took the camera to the zoo to practice manual shooting in real life. This time I do have the settings on the photos I'm about to share. AND this time all shots were hand-held, no tri-pod, no remote shutter release. Here's a few of my favorites:

The above shot was taken indoors, in the reptile house. Very subdued light and the frog was behind glass. Here's the settings: f-5.6, 1/80 sec, ISO 400, 55 mm, no flash.

The cute zebra's settings were f 4.8, 1/200 sec. ISO 140, 100 mm.

Shooting the flamingos was great. Found a quiet corner of their pond area that was tucked away from the main stream of human traffic. The place was also nicely in the shade with a good view of the flock through a small stand of trees. I spent a lot of time here, simply messing around with the manual mode, trying a variety of the same shots, while changing ISO from one setting to another, then practicing making the changes with aperture and shutter speed to match and get the correct lighting. This was probably the best practice I've had thus far! I won't burden you with the boatload of photos I took, but here are the settings on the one above. f 5.6, 1/400 sec., ISO 100, 270 mm.

And finally, above is a picture that didn't quite come out the way I had anticipated. This is just to let you know that not all pictures turn out well as I practice (NOTE: I shot well over 400 photos today and after I'm all done with post-production, I'll probably end up with MAYBE 40 or so ones that I like). Here's the settings: f5, 1/125 sec., ISO 500, 165mm.

Let's talk about the one photo above. I chose to shoot at ISO 500, to challenge me to get the other two settings correctly. Obviously I didn't, even when looking at the little diagram inside my viewfinder. First, when looking at the diagram through the viewfinder, sometimes my camera drifts a bit from the subject, maybe into shade or a different intensity of light. Therefore a strong possibility of incorrect settings. SO, here's my thoughts. I wanted ISO, so first, I let too much light into the camera. Therefore, I should have used a smaller aperture or f-stop. BUT I didn't want to because I wanted the depth of field that I acquired. Therefore, I should have used a faster shutter speed.

Now all that being said above - while sitting home and critiqueing my settings, below is what I did while I was at the shoot:

 

Obviously a much better photograph. What I did was change my ISO to 250, but left the other settings the same - f-5 and 1/125 sec.

 

The whole point here is that there are so many variables and as we inch closer to that far away 10,000 hour mark, our photos will get better. We will develop more of a personal style, and more and more of this will become somewhat automatic.

 

Tomorrow, I attend an art hop in a little town south of here. I'll be taking my camera along to shoot photos of the crowd that stops to visit my few photos that are hanging in a local coffee shop. Then on Sunday, I'll head back to the zoo, to once again practice some of what I'm learning as I add hours to my experience!

 

Remember, comments are welcomed and encouraged, join in the fun! See ya all next time!

 

Hours logged - 5.5                                                            Study and Post-Processing - 3
Total - 19.25                                                                     Total - 14.5

©CynthiaG Photography
    CynthiaGPix@gmail.com

Photography -Does ISO Mean "In Search Of"?

Here we are again and in the next step toward World Class Photography. We have a long way to go!

Today, we'll take a look at ISO - I did some research on the internet to find out what ISO stood for in exact terms and got a lot of what I might call double-talk. Could find nothing totally definitive. so we'll just go with ISO. We'll also take just a moment to review the little chat we had a couple of posts ago about ISO/ASA. Back in the olden days (HA) when all cameras were film cameras, one would purchase the film and have to choose what ASA they wanted their film to be. I'm telling my age here, and I do know that ASA 100 was purchased for photography in bright light and ASA 400 was purchased for low light photography. That much I remember. I don't know how high the ASA numbers went, but I do remember the ASA 400.

Well, the same thing applies to ISO - if you want to shoot in broad daylight, ISO 100 is your best choice. The lower the light goes, the higher you should set your ISO. A very high ISO will capture the photo in VERY low light, even in pitch darkness if you leave your shutter open long enough. (Getting ahead of ourselves here). So here are some test shots - to give an idea of what ISO is all about:

First, an indoor shot at ISO 100 (no flash)

And below is the same shot at ISO 1250 (no flash)

You're probably thinking - "Ya, so?" They look pretty much alike. Well, think again!

Here's the first photo ISO 100, brought up to 100% then cropped to show detail.

 

And below is the same basic crop from the photo at ISO 1250:

 

 

 

See the fuzzies in the second picture, whereas the first picture is smooth? These fuzzies are called noise. And noise is what you get at higher ISO's. The higher you go (and the darker it is where you are) creates more "noise". Some of the "noise" can be fixed in post-production (Lightroom, Photoshop and other applications), again, that's another post/another day.

 

Here's another example of what can happen with ISO. Below are two photos - both taken at ISO 100. The first photo is taken outdoors in full daylight. Note how the strawberry is in focus. The shutter speed was really fast at ISO 100 in broad daylight.

 

 

 

This second photo (below) was taken in a very low light room - same settings, same ISO of 100. Also taken hand-held. Obviously it is very out of focus. It's not out of focus because of the camera so much as it is the photographer. The shutter had to stay open for so long to let enough light in, that there was camera shake by the photographer holding the camera. (Of course this could have been prevented by using a tri-pod, but then the whole point of the exercise would not have been made).

 

So, the point is - try to use the lowest ISO possible, depending on the light available. As we grow in learning all this Photography stuff, I'm sure there will be many more things to learn about each of the three in the triangle - Aperture, shutter speed and ISO. For now, we have a pretty good grasp on what each is about.

 

The next step is to go to full Manual Mode with the camera. Fully understanding each of the three in the triangle mentioned above is necessary to be successful at Manual Mode. Before we get into that, it's important that we all check our user's manual and/or view any tutorials we can find on line so we know how to adjust all our settings while in Manual and reinforce what we've learned this far.

 

Looking forward to learning with us as we progress! Feel free to start a conversation in the comments section. Questions or discussion helps everybody to learn! Let's get ready to learn Manual!

 

P.S. Haha! Yes, I know it's a tomato! Have a good night all!

 

Hours logged - 1                                                            Study and Post-Processing - 1
Total - 13.75                                                                   Total - 11.5

©CynthiaG Photography
    CynthiaGPix@gmail.com






Shutter Speed Revisited and Sometimes Life Gets In The Way

Well, good evening, and this post it s full three days later than I originally anticipated. We just never know what's going to come our way.

It was promised that we'd take a second look at Shutter Speed and that, we will do! The exercise on ISO is going to have to wait for now, although we will touch on it just a bit.

First let's look at that waterfall that was promised last week.
Here is the first specimen. This shot was taken at a FAST shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second. Note how you can almost see every single droplet as it falls over the rocks. The fast shutter speeds are what we use to stop movement. Makes sense! (Side Note - the ISO on this photo was 1250. More discussion on that at the bottom of the page)

 

Now for the second shot below. This shot was taken at a much slower shutter speed of 1/20 of a second. Note the look of the water. It shows more of a flowing feel to the photo. The slower shutter speed allowed for the camera to take a longer shot of the water, thus in essence blurring the look of the water (Side Note - the ISO on this photo was 100)

 

Which version of this photo is your preference? Which looks most realistic to you? I imagine it's all a matter of preference.

And, now just a moment to address the matter of ISO briefly. When I was taking these pictures, I didn't have my tripod with me, and I wanted to be able to get as far of a range of difference in the photos to make a dramatic difference. NOTE: low number of ISO is made for bright light, allowing the camera to process that bright light efficiently. A high ISO is made for low light or it allowed for the fastest shutter speed I could get in a bright light. We'll discuss ISO more in a future blog.

Now, let's hope that tomorrow slows down a bit and allow for time to compile a proper study on ISO.

Hours logged - 1                                                            Study and Post-Processing - .5
Total - 12.75                                                                   Total - 10.5

©CynthiaG Photography
    cynthiagpix@gmail.com



Playing With Water - Shutter Speed Exercise

Here we are at day 5. Adding hours toward our 10,000 hour goal! I'm finding myself looking forward to each exercise at the end of the day. It's rather fun doing these exercises!

The playing with water thing.... well, it didn't work quite like it was supposed to. The reason for that is the nature of the little fountain that was used in the exercise. Regardless, we'll have a look to see what the outcome was.

First, if you're coming along with us in these exercises, you should have learned how to change the shutter speed in your camera. And if any of you did the exercises, please post your results in the comments. It would be great to share them with our viewers.

Here's what was produced by the shots of the fountain:

 

This shot was taken at a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second. A fairly fast shutter speed in an attempt to freeze motion. (A much faster speed could be taken outdoors in daylight. That was not possible today) Note, though the top two tiers of the waterfall in this photo. And now compare them with the second photo below.

 

 

And here's our slow shutter speed, 1.6 seconds. Just over 1 1/2 seconds. The objective was to show still motion in the fast speed, and a blurred motion in the slow speed. You can see some of that difference by comparing the top two tiers. Although the exercise didn't work quite as hoped there is some difference with some blurring on the top two tiers in this second photo. Saturday's travels will put me in front of a nice outdoor waterfall. Look for the pictures of the second trial on Saturday.

 

Fear not! The ceiling fan was still available for this exercise, and this is what came of those photos:

 

Above is the fan taken at a shutter speed of 1/3 of a second (slow shutter speed). The paddles are virtually invisible!

 





 

 

While in the shot above that was taken at 1/125 of a second (very fast shutter speed), it almost stopped the motion.

 

This should give a pretty good idea of what happens with different shutter speeds. One also must remember that the shorter time a shutter is open, less light gets into the camera, thus a darker picture, as you can well see above.

 

Tomorrow we'll do some exercises on ISO settings. Once again, check your camera's User's Manual to learn how to set your ISO settings. This will also be an interesting exercise. One thing to keep in mind - possibly back in the "olden days" of film photography, one would purchase film with maybe a 100 ASA for photographing outdoors. If somebody wanted to photograph indoors one would purchase 400 ASA film. I don't know why they changed the name from ASA to ISO, and I did some research on the internet and got nothing but a bunch of talk about standards organizations, then they said that's not where it came from. Well, let's just look at ISO tomorrow, and we'll get a better idea of what it's all about!

 

Meanwhile, until tomorrow, here's a little video about 9 Species of Amateur Photographers that I found humorous. Maybe it will give you a chuckle too!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPNLjNDqy60

 

 

Hours logged .75                                                       Study and Post Process: .5

 

Total: 11.75 Hours                                                    Total:  10 Hours

 

©CynthiaG Photography

   CynthiaGPix@gmail.com

An Outdoor Field Trip - Aperture Reinforced

Today was a good day for a mini field trip. With camera slung over my shoulder, the search began for good opportunities to practice our experiences from yesterday. Choices had to be made. The perfect practice scene to show the differences in distant backgrounds by changing the aperture f-stops were a close object with a reasonable background quite some distance away. Here is our first subject:

 

 

Who doesn't love the bark of a sycamore tree? It's fascinating how it sheds it's bark each year. I love peeling the loose pieces off, but left them here today so you could enjoy the beauty too! This shot was taken at a small aperture opening, f-29. Notice how the brush and short fenceposts in the back are fairly clear and sharp as well as our foreground subject.

 

Meanwhile this shot of the sycamore taken at f-4.8. The big opening of the aperture blurs not only the brush and fence posts, but also the leaves from the other tree in the background. This leaves only the sycamore in focus. Let's do another one!

 

Above, we have a shot of the branches of a pecan tree in the foreground. The background is a tractor, farm trailer and shed. These background objects are pretty much in focus because we used a small aperture opening (large number) f-22. Again, small opening, large number provides for sharp backgrounds that are a distance from the subject.

 

This same basic shot of the pecan tree is this time set with a small aperture number (large opening), f-5.6. Note that the tractor, trailer and shed are all fairly blurred. It looks like we're getting this aperture thing down pat!

 

Now on to the second part of what we did yesterday - taking photos of objects that are just one distance away from us. In other words, there isn't any major distance between our subject and the background. Below is a deserted concrete boat hull. Rather fun subject with an interesting background, but that's another story!

 

 

This shot of the boat hull was taken with the small aperture opening (big number) f-32. It's a pretty far distance away and has a backdrop of trees.

 

And, here's our comparison shot. Large aperture opening (little number) f-5. And notice, our focus is the same - as both are the same distance. You might also ask, "Well, why are the trees in back in focus in both photos?" The reason is that the trees are quite close behind the boat, so they also remain in focus. This practice is sure helping! And adding hours toward making great photos!

Tomorrow is the first effort in practicing shutter speed. If you're playing along here and want something to look up before tomorrow's blog, check out how to control your camera's shutter speed. And, I do know this, it's going to include playing with water!

Until then, great photos might be just a click away.

Time accounting:

Behind the Camera - 1 hour                                     In Study and Post-Processing - .5 hours
Total                         11 hours                                   Total -                                      9.5 hours

WOW, guess what! We're already 1/1000 of the way to our 10,000 mark in behind the camera practice!

©CynthiaG Photography
   cynthiagpix@gmail.com