undefinable

31 Days to a Better Photo

Day 12: what’s white balance?

White balance is what allows your camera to balance out colors by having a set “idea” of what neutral is. Most DSLRs have an option to set white balance manually using white balance cards; not my camera. I have a choice of the following:

• “Auto,” which allows the camera to choose what colors are supposed to look like; 
• “Daylight” for shooting in natural light; 
• “Tungsten,” for shooting in incandescent lighting because it attempts to neutralize the yellow tone of indoor photos by adding a (very) blue cast; 
• “Fluorescent,” for shooting under fluorescent lights, which are generally cool and the camera adds warmer tones; 
• and “Open Shade,” for shooting in natural light with shade, and is intended to add slightly warmer tones to some of the grays in that situation.

Of course, the Open Shade and Daylight are the best options for my white balance setting; I’ve been shooting on auto up until now. I need to do a test run on indoor shooting and see what I come up with. But I’ll have to edit this with those results at another time, because I killed the last set of batteries with this shoot. (I really should get some rechargeable lithiums.)

31 Days to a Better Photo

Day 8-11: the exposure triangle | scales | in camera metering

These three days are all about how ISO, shutter speed, and aperture fit together to make a picture properly exposed, and technically lovely. While I understand that ISO 200 is half as sensitive as ISO 400, and 1/1000 is twice as fast as 1/500… it doesn’t help my comprehension and application of the concepts. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be. Instead, I can remember this:

• ISO adjustment should be a last ditch effort. Higher ISO makes for noisy photos - undesirable.
• Motion shots are best at 1/250 or higher, especially with kids and pets.
• Shooting multiple subjects on multiple planes requires a smaller aperture, preferably a smaller number than the number of subjects in the photo. Remember: # of subjects x 1.5 = ideal aperture.
• “Sunny 16” rule: start shooting at f/16 with a shutter speed of 1/ISO#. “Cloudy 8 rule: starting at f/8 with a shutter speed of 1/ISO#.
• Underexposed? Slow shutter speed, increase aperture, or increase ISO. Reverse for overexposed.

31 Days to a Better Photo

Day 5-7: understanding aperture | tackling depth of field

(view photos from L-R, top to bottom) 

While I don’t fully understand aperture (yet), thanks to these pictures, I get bokeh and depth of field (sort of). I need practice, obviously. I mean, I get that aperture is how wide the lens is open and that depth of field is affected by the aperture because of the amount of light available to capture the shot. But somehow… it’s just not clicking yet. Maybe with the next lesson, it will.

31 Days to a Better Photo

Day 4: controlling the faucet - learning ISO

(Woo hoo! Batteries in the camera! Maybe one of these days I’ll start up another stock of rechargeables - I’ll need them for the kid, anyhow.)

“ISO is a measurement of how your camera responds to light.” Low ISO = sharper photos; high ISO = grainy or noisy photos. The lesson this time was more of an observational exercise - lock your shutter speed and change ISO by one ‘click’ per photo, then see what shutter speed your camera has chosen. 

Alternating from top left: ISO 80, 1/500; ISO 80, 1/750, f3.2; ISO 100, 1/750, f3.2; ISO 200, 1/750, f4.5; ISO 200, 1/1000, f4.5; ISO 400, 1/1000, f6.3

I’ll be honest, this exercise didn’t do much for me. I don’t know if it’s because I moved my shot too much (shaky hands, even perched on my knees), and therefore changed the lighting; or because I still haven’t permanently grasped shutter speed. I still keep having to remind myself. I’ll probably go back to shutter speed tomorrow, then re-do Day 4 with a steadied camera. 

Day 5 is Part I of Understanding Aperture; there is no lesson, so I’ll just use that as my Day 5 tomorrow, and mash Day 5 and Day 6 together.

31 Days to a Better Photo

Day 3: shutter speeds: shooting fast vs. shooting slow

(Lucky for me, my self-study calendar is like IDL college classes - I don’t have to show up every day, but it helps if I do it in order. With the storm cell that moved through, plus three days of garden planning and nursery building, I feel that I’m excused.)

I’ll be honest: the hardest part of this for me was to remember that shutter speed and aperture/f-stop are not the same. Somehow I managed to always get the three confused in the middle of shooting.

Fast shooting is to capture moments in time, and is best for motion stills, and for bright light shots. Slow shooting allows in more light, since the shutter is open longer, so it’s good for shady spots and motion shots that you want to show in motion.

The ‘practice’ for this was to lock ISO and aperture, and shoot several photos of a single subject, changing speed by one click every shot. All this to see the effects of speed on lighting and motion (if the subject in question was moving, of course). I took what I had to work with at 2000 on a Saturday night, and was pleased to be able to tell the effects of lighting as my speed decreased. I also learned I need a tripod, or a steady surface. I am one shaky-handed bitch. XD

All photos taken with a Kodak Z740; f/4, ISO400, 6mm, no flash. Shutter speeds are: 6”, 4”, 3”, 2”, 1.5”, 1”, .7”, .5”, 1/3, 1/4.

31 Days to a Better Photo

Day 2: find your camera manual.

Fortunate that Day 2 is this little gem of instruction, because I’m posting this from my phone. Our wifi is out, so thank God for an HTC and an unlimited data plan. I managed to find the manual to my camera (a Kodak Z740) and transfer it, roundabout, to the laptop. I’ve had the camera for almost five years, and learned most of its functions much the same way as I learned a computer - by playing around. I’ll admit, so far I’ve learned the flash-to-subject distance (though I don’t often use flash), and when my optical zoom is effectively utilized. Good to know!

Unrelated, I initialized Disqus comments yesterday. I don’t know if it does me as much good as I think, but at least I can comment back on a note.

31 Days to a Better Photo

Day 1: take the photo.

I am determined (finally) to stop fucking off and learn to use the DSLR I have. I’m not to going to be able to afford the camera of my dreams anytime soon; or better yet, have a decent understanding of how to properly utilize the camera of my dreams, without learning how to take a decent picture in the first place.

So I took the photo.