Asignment III

[100264]

I admit the pigeon photo is kinda was taken in 2010 but I thought why not give something I took when I 1st started for a 'getting started' technical course :p The 2nd image was taken recently though after I read the lesson on light painting. I noticed a LOT of people did panning so I thought why not try something in the darkness...

[Instructor]

Can you shoot another shallow depth of field photo? A more recent image? I'd like to ensure that you know how to do this. Thanks!

When you re-submit I will critique both images.

[100264]

Yes sir.

Here's the replacement for the shallow dof photo.

[Instructor]

Thanks for submitting another assignment. I was hoping you would shoot something with more intense shallow depth of field but these are still good. Your photograph of the pigeon is decent and I know how challenging it is to get a photograph of a bird in flight that is in focus. I often use the continuous autofocus mode on my camera because sometimes it's just not possible to manual focus fast enough.

Now this assignment is about seeing if you can show motion and achieve shallow depth of field in your photographs.

You have done that with your images.

Your shallow depth of field image of the boys with the cups is good. Though, you'll want to keep in mind it's often challenging to achieve nice shallow depth of field with wide angle lenses. It's easier optically to use telephoto lenses. In the case of this photograph specifically I'm actually more interested in the people's expressions than the cups so blurring the cups might have been more interesting to me.

Try to start thinking about using shallow depth of field to focus the viewer's attention on what you want them to look at or what is the most interesting aspect of the frame.

Now your slow shutter image is quite interesting.

It immediately reminded me of some fun shots I took a while back:

Note how blown out the white shirt is in the last one... Too much light!

The best way to shoot these is to actually use a strobe/flash and just leave the shutter open and then fire the strobe/flash and then make the subject move in between. (i didn't have a flash for the above photos so we used an actual flashlight...)

The trick with these is make sure there is almost no movement when the light is on the subject if you want to freeze the motion. If you want some motion blur than have your subject move slightly while they are lit.

Overall nice job here.

See you on the next assignment.