And It Keeps Gettin' Better

Look at the Camera

2010-01-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

I was working on exposure and handling the controls. I just could not get Hunter to look at the camera. Oh well.

Don't Blow it!

2010-01-09T16:43:00.000-08:00

My goal for this photo was to properly expose the sky. It was 2:00pm and sunny. In these conditions I have noticed, when shooting a landscape, that I tend to overexposed the sky and blow out any detail.

I set the f-stop to f/5.6 for a large depth of field and kept the sun off my right shoulder so I would not be shooting into the sun. I metered off the sky, set the shutter speed to 1/640 and then recomposed the shot.

It's a Commitment

2010-01-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

This photo is all about keeping my commitment. I didn't spend a lot of time shooting and I wasn't very creative but part of getting the camera out everyday is to get faster and more confident with the controls. Yesterday I got closer to that goal. Here is 7/365:

Come and get it!

2010-01-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

Jason and I tried some food photography last night and had several objectives in mind when starting out. We did not want the entire plate in focus and we wanted soft lighting. We selected the Canon 50MM 1.8 lens, from our two lens arsonal, because it would allow us to open up the apeture and have a shallow depth of field. Next we set up a canon 580exII speedlite in an Westcott Apollo Softbox. The speedlite is a hotshoe flash that you can put on your camera. Taking it off camera and putting it in a softbox makes the light softer and larger. Here is the image:

What I didn't like about the photo is the milk looks gray. I have some ideas why that would be and will try to have more on that later.

Here are some more from the shoot that didn't work so well because of mainly the persective and where I selected to focus:

It's So Bad But I Love it

2010-01-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, this photo is so technically bad it's off the charts, but I love it anyway. I will be retrying this one again the next time we are at the park if I can get Mr. Monkey to throw a dog a bone.

Edited on 1/6/10 to add:

I want to add some information to this post and include more detailed information about the photos I post. I follow several photographers' blogs, and I have gone back and read their past posts. I have been able to see great growth in their photography skills, and I wish they would have written about what they learned and changed along the way.

The idea, besides posting a photo a day for 365 days, is to record my "vision" for a particular image, where I achieved it and where I didn't. Having said that, I will start with this image. This is the photo straight out of the camera:

It is way overexposed, and here is why. I pulled the camera out of the bag and asked Hunter to lean against the bridge. I shot a photo and then looked at the LCD and saw the picture above. It was taken at about 1:00 pm on a sunny day. The settings on the camera indicated that the aperture was last set to f/3.5 with a shutter speed of 1/200. I didn't take any time to look at the settings I just pushed the button. The aperture was okay with me because I wanted a shallow depth of field. (I wanted the background out of focus.) But this lets a lot of light into the camera so I needed to reduce the amount of time the light was let in to the camera. I set the shutter speed to 1/1600 and this is what I got:

.

This looked much better to me. The sky and the floor planks on the bridge are too bright but I didn't see that at the time. I shot a few more, but I could not get Hunter to pose like I wanted again.

When I got home, I uploaded the photos to Lightroom, and the first thing I noticed was the settings on the camera. My ISO had been set to 400. ISO makes the sensor more sensitive to light which is not such a good thing on a sunny afternoon at 1:00pm. I needed to remember to check this when I was shooting, and I didn't. Additionally, a higher ISO setting can increase the noise in the image. (Little dots on the photo can be distracting and affect detail). I tried to salvage this photo in Lightroom by reducing the exposure, increasing the blacks and increasing the recovery sliders. The weird artifacts on his hands are from the corrections I did.

My goals for when I try to reshoot this are to go later in the afternoon when the light is less harsh, pay attention to the ISO, contrast and color saturation.

I Love a Black and White

2010-01-04T22:06:00.000-08:00

Jason and I practiced with our strobes today and I didn't achieve what I wanted but I will keep trying. This means there might be photos that look similar but I want to keep after it. Anyway, here is today's photo.

It's All About the Light

2010-01-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

I took photos of Hunter through the sliding glass door again today in the late afternoon. The light was still pretty harsh. Here is an example on the left. Harsh shadows and blown highlights.

This was not what I was going for so I pulled out a scrim. This is transparent fabric like parachute material and diffuses the light and makes it a bigger light source. Here is after the scrim. Better.

I kept shooting and this is what I selected for today's photo. Jason helped with selecting and editing. Thanks!

The Drive Home

2010-01-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

Jason and I stopped along the road on the way home from the store to grab this image. Nice drive huh? I am not jumping for joy over it but I have some ideas for improving it (she rubs her hands together). There is a cloud hanging over the water that I wish stood out more and I generally want the picture to have more contrast in the middle. I took photos through out the day but wasn't happy with them. The great thing is I am looking for shots when I wouldn't even give it a thought so today was a success.

It's a Start

2010-01-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

I thought I needed a new project and a reason to pull out the camera everyday. The goal is a photo everyday for 365 days. This is day one and I shot this photo of Hunter facing the glass door in our house and me shooting into the living room. I am trying to learn how to work with light and at first I didn't realize I need to have him face the light (she shakes her head). Hunter will not be the subject of all the photos but it is a good place to start.