You have the control.

The number 2 reason: you are actually smarter than your camera.

For example:

My mother and I recently went to look at the hugest fish you will ever see in your whole life. Seriously. They were like 8 foot long Sturgeon. Anyways. I wanted to get a picture of my mom in front of these giant fish and one very old and ugly salmon. I set my camera to automatic and this is the picture I got:

Umm, yeah. This just isn’t going to cut it. I didn’t know about the lighting and the glass and so I thought automatic would take care of me. Nu-uh. Terrible, terrible. So I opened up my aperture and slowed down my shutter speed, held really still and then I got this picture:

Much better. My mother actually has a face.

You might be asking, “But Lesli, couldn’t you have just used a flash.”

“Well yes. But then you get a glare and reflection off the glass.” So, you see. Don’t always trust your autmatic settings on your fancy cameras. Switch to manual. Then you have the control and the power over what your picture looks like. Because baby, you are much smarter than a piece of machine.

If you don’t have a fancy camera, well . . . . . This is probably the number one reason why I got one. I wanted all the power and control.

But I’m not a control freak.

I promise.

Okay,

maybe just a little.

As I’m learning more and more about aperture and shutter speed and shooting on manual, I like to go out and experiment.

One thing that I read about was capturing water.

You could take a perfectly sharp photo of a creek like this.

Or you could stretch out your exposure time by adjusting your shutter speed. For the photo above, my shutter speed was set at 1/200. But the photo below was set at 1/4. That means that the shutter was open for 1/4 of a second thus allowing the water to move and the camera to capture it.

One important thing to remember when you are trying to capture water moving is to tighten up your aperture. Because your shutter is open longer, more light is coming into your camera, so you have to increase your aperture (which is really shrinking the size of the hole in your camera that captures light).

For example, in this shot the aperture is set at 5.6, the shutter speed is 1/125.

For this shot the aperture is set at 25 and the shutter speed is 1/13.

Because the shutter is open longer you have to close the aperture so that you don’t get too much light in and end up with something like this:

I hardly ever take pictures of people.  One of the main reasons is that I don’t really have too many people around me who are screaming “take pictures of me please!”  Because of that, I shy away from taking pictures of people.  But the other day I read this great blog post about taking portrait photographs.  Basically, it mentioned that the best focal length to take portraits is 70-100 mm and to stand 6-10 feet away.  I was really impressed by it and thought that I wanted to try it out.  So, I took my camera to a BBQ that a member of my staff was giving and took some shots.  They knew I was taking pictures, but most of them didn’t know I was taking pictures of them at the time.  I really liked it!  You see, when you zoom in on people, but stand further away, the backgrounds get a little blurry and soft and I really like that look.

These two are brothers. So cute!

Jeannie caught me and smiled for the camera. I’m not really happy about the lighting on her face. We were under the tree, in the shade. The sun was pretty harsh overhead and all the pictures I took of people not in the shade didn’t turn out. Since then I read this post about taking pictures in the sunlight.

I loved catching people as they really are. Russ like to talk with his hands and his father is more quiet and a listener. You can really see that in this photo.

My principal. He is a soft talker. You know the kind that you have to lean into to hear properly. When I look at this photo I can totally see that.

What a goof – Hannah!

Joel’s a little embarrassed. I think at the time we were teasing him about his girlfriend.

Anyways – I really did enjoy taking impromptu portraits. Over the next little bit, I want to try and take more and more portraits and try to get just a little bit better.

Some people are just so experienced at taking photos on Manual mode that they can just do it.  They set their aperture, set their shutter speed and go.

Not me  . . .  well not yet that is.

Step one:  I knew when I went to an indoor rodeo that I would not have good lighting.  So I knew I would have to open my aperture as far as I could and set the ISO really high.  So I did.  Then I took a test shot.

Okay, so that is a little blurry. That means I need to increase my shutter speed even though my light meter says that it is at a good place. The problem is that I didn’t use a tripod and a human just can’t hold that still. Also, I knew that with all the rodeo action, I needed a high shutter speed to catch it all.

Better, but a little dark. That means that the ISO isn’t set high enough. I had my aperture set as wide as I could get it.

Got it! It was a little blurry, but I wasn’t too concerned about that just yet.

Now to test it on some cowboys.

Whoa! Still blurry. So I upped the shutter speed again. These people were actually moving – unlike the rodeo banner.

Got it! Perfect and away we go!

So, for me, I know that I can shoot on Manual. But that means that I need to do a few (or five) test shots first. It was definitely worth it. That is, after all, why I got a DSLR. I wanted to control the shot.

For Christmas gifts this year, I took photo’s of Temple Square, framed them, and gave them as gifts.  I was in such a rush and with few days to get this done that I edited my photo’s at 11 pm one night.

Don’t do that.

Don’t edit your photo’s at night.  When you’re tired.  When you’ve just finished your second job.  And on the night you took the pictures.

I definitely think you need to pick your favorite pictures, but then let them marinate a few days after you do some initial editing.  Then print.  But wait.  You might have missed something.  I know I sure did.

Check out this photo I took.

Do you see it?  Do you see what is wrong?

I didn’t.  Here is how I edited it.

I boosted the color – made it more vibrant and all that.  I must say I was quite happy with myself.  I printed a bunch and started giving them away.

But then, as I was framing one, I noticed my problem.  Did you see it?

Here is an up-close shot of the problem.

Yeah, heads.  Lots of heads.  Heads of hair.  Bald heads.  Brown heads.  Blond heads.

Temple Square was crowded that night.

I was so upset.  I had already printed my pictures.  I had already given some out.  Who wants a picture of other people’s heads?  Not me!

Today, I finally went back and cropped out the heads.  So here is how to crop in Aperture 2.

Click on the crop tool.  It pops up this box.

You can click the drop down box and change it to a certain size – if you know what size you are printing – or you can choose custom.  This is nice because then you know exactly what will or won’t show up on the edges of the photo when you go to print.

Then you highlight the area you want in your picture.  You can also hand type in the height and width if you need it to be exact.

Here is the final product.

Thank you crop tool.  What would I do without you?  Oh, yeah.  Pass out Christmas photo’s that are embarrassingly ill-edited.

So, lessons learned.

1. Don’t edit at night.  My tired eyes don’t see anything apparently.
2. Don’t forget to look at the edges of my photo.
3. Zoom in and go to full screen.  It is amazing how much more I can see when I do that.  I must be getting old.

One night, while in Downtown Salt Lake City, I wanted to go up to Ensign Peak and take some pictures of the valley.  Here is what I took:

Oh, a little blurry – try again.

Hmmm, still blurry.  Change some settings.

Better, but. . .

Whoa!  That’s BAD!

Success!  But I want more.

That’s a little fuzzy, but no where near the worst.

Oh, pretty, but the bushes are a little big, don’t you think?

Hmmmm

Oh, here we go again with the blur.

Okay, not too bad, but the lights don’t seem bright enough.

Argh!  I’m really getting mad now!

Now I’m screaming!

Now, I’m crying.  Why can’t I get a good shot?

And then it hits me . . . Aperture and Shutter Speed.

To shoot at night, you aperture is wider and the shutter speed is slower in order to let in enough light.  That means I must hold very still – which I obviously can’t do!

Out of 14 shots, only 5 were in focus, and I really didn’t like any of them.

So, I need a tripod.  And once I get one, I’m going up there again and doing it all over.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

So, I wanted to do a post on one of my favorite places – the Copper Mine in Utah (more on that in a later post). So, I took my new camera out and took a drive and took some pictures. I went in the afternoon one day and thought, “Wow! I bet I’ll get some great sunset photos. Maybe the light from the sunset will really show off the copper-y-ness of the mine.” But, no.
So, you can’t see the mine very well because it is in shadow.  Yes, silly me forgot that when the sun starts to set it is behind the mountains and casts a shadow across the valley.  This was taken at about 4:30 pm, but because of daylight savings it is almost sunset.

When I got home I was so upset that I went the next day.  This time I went about noon.  I figured that the sun would at least be at its highest point in the sky.

Now this is from a differnt place, but it still makes the point.  Look at those colors and the sky!  Yes – copper-y-ness is now visible.  Look at the difference!

You would think they were taken in completely different places and not even within 24 hours of each other.

So, I guess I’ll just have to be careful from now on and watch where the sun and shadows are.  I’m sure that “experienced” photographers already know this lesson, but since I’m an amateur……  This also kinda bummed me out a bit.  Because it gets so dark here, I guess I won’t really be shooting too much during the next 6 months, unless it is on a Saturday.  I haven’t yet gotten myself up and out of bed to take pictures in the light of the sunrise, but I might just have to break down and do it.