Lesson 3 Assignment

[Laura Marie ODonnell]

After playing with the camera settings I felt discouraged with the waves being to light.
I turned the aperture to the smallest opening of light F20 because if I opened it the entire picture it became a white blank screen. The lower the shutter speed the more it became a blank screen also. I shot this at 12:00pm so the sun was very intense wondering how to work around this for next time so I dont have so much white in the picture.
Slow shutter speed motion blur pictures:
[attachment=2:3uy8qhys]DSC_0719.jpg[/attachment:3uy8qhys]
[attachment=1:3uy8qhys]DSC_0757.jpg[/attachment:3uy8qhys]
Here I still had a hard time of getting the grass out of the picture in the front and capturing Zoey’s facial expressions. The grass seemed to take away from her and it looked a bit gray/white. I tried cutting it away but it’s grass and she was being very patient. I didn’t want to lose the moment as she was over the idea of being my “model”. Any ideas of the settings i could have done better to enhance this picture? Thanks looking forward for this critique! 😀
Shallow DOF Picture
[attachment=0:3uy8qhys]2013 01 31_2019_edited-1.jpg[/attachment:3uy8qhys]

[Duncan Rawlinson]

This will be critiqued by end of day Monday. (assignments are not critiqued on weekends)

I would highly recommend you wait until you have completed one assignment before moving onto the next one. Often students are asked to re-shoot if it’s not clear that have understood the assignment… The assignments cascade and each builds off the previous.

Thanks!

[Laura Marie ODonnell]

Oh Sorry! Gotcha my bad.
I’m in my 8th month of pregnancy and my poor husband says ive started in my “nesting phase” of pregnancy.
I think I just realized what he’s talking about. 🙄
Any assignments I have already submitted I’d be happy to reshoot if requested.
I just love photography and am really excited about completing this course before baby comes.
I promise to take a chill pill and focus my nesting elsewhere.
My poor husband 😕 haha

[Duncan Rawlinson]

No worries. I’d like to ensure you understand each assignment before you move onto the next.

In this assignment one of the things that is highlighted is that order to show motion you have to be able to control light. You’re faced with a situation where there is too much light. Hmm what to do!

I’m not going to tell you the exact settings because the exact wrong way to approach learning photography. It’s like that old Chinese proverb:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

It’s the same thing here, if I just tell you what fstop to shoot at or what shutter speed you won’t learn anything. I want you to understand what settings to use and to choose them.

Here is the EXIF data:
[attachment=6:2k30h1tt]DSC_0719 EXIF.png[/attachment:2k30h1tt]
Date Time Original: 2013:02:01 01:12:02
Exposure Time: 1/30
F Number: f / 16
Exposure Program: Manual
ISO Speed Ratings: 100
Metering Mode: Spot
Flash: Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected
Focal Length: 70mm
White Balance: Auto white balance
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D7000
LensInfo: 240/10 700/10 28/10 28/10
LensModel: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Exif Version:
Date Time Digitized: 2013:02:01 01:12:02
Subsec Time Original: 70
Subsec Time Digitized: 70
Shutter Speed Value: 4.91
Aperture Value: 8
Max Aperture Value: 3
Light Source: Unknown
Sensing Method: One-chip color area sensor
File Source: DSC
Scene Type: Directly photographed
CFA Pattern: 752
Custom Rendered: Normal process
Exposure Mode: 1
Digital Zoom Ration: 1
Focal Length In 35mm Film: 105mm
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Gain Control: None
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Subject Distance Range: Unknown
ExifIFDPointer: 218
X Resolution: 240
Y Resolution: 240
Resolution Unit: 2
Date Time: 2013:02:01 16:40:16
Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1 (Macintosh)
DateCreated: 2013-02-01T01:12:02.70

[attachment=7:2k30h1tt]DSC_0757 EXIF.png[/attachment:2k30h1tt]
Date Time Original: 2013:02:01 01:20:20
Exposure Time: 1/12
F Number: f / 22
Exposure Program: Manual
ISO Speed Ratings: 100
Metering Mode: Spot
Flash: Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected
Focal Length: 60mm
White Balance: Auto white balance
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D7000
LensInfo: 240/10 700/10 28/10 28/10
LensModel: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Exif Version:
Date Time Digitized: 2013:02:01 01:20:20
Subsec Time Original: 60
Subsec Time Digitized: 60
Shutter Speed Value: 3.70
Aperture Value: 8.92
Max Aperture Value: 3
Light Source: Unknown
Sensing Method: One-chip color area sensor
File Source: DSC
Scene Type: Directly photographed
CFA Pattern: 752
Custom Rendered: Normal process
Exposure Mode: 1
Digital Zoom Ration: 1
Focal Length In 35mm Film: 90mm
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Gain Control: None
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Subject Distance Range: Unknown
ExifIFDPointer: 218
X Resolution: 240
Y Resolution: 240
Resolution Unit: 2
Date Time: 2013:02:01 16:40:31
Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1 (Macintosh)
DateCreated: 2013-02-01T01:20:20.60

[attachment=5:2k30h1tt]2013 01 31_2019_edited-1 EXIF.png[/attachment:2k30h1tt]
Date Time Original: 2013:01:31 22:26:08
Exposure Time: 1/250
F Number: f / 4.50
Exposure Program: Manual
ISO Speed Ratings: 100
Metering Mode: Spot
Flash: Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected
Focal Length: 44mm
White Balance: Auto white balance
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D7000
LensInfo: 240/10 700/10 28/10 28/10
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Exif Version:
Flashpix Version:
Color Space: 1
Pixel X Dimension: 4928
Pixel Y Dimension: 3264
CompressedBitsPerPixel: 2
Date Time Digitized: 2013:01:31 22:26:08
Subsec Time: 30
Subsec Time Digitized: 30
Shutter Speed Value: 7.97
Aperture Value: 4.34
Max Aperture Value: 3
Light Source: Unknown
Sensing Method: One-chip color area sensor
File Source: DSC
Scene Type: Directly photographed
CFA Pattern: 910
Custom Rendered: Normal process
Exposure Mode: 1
Digital Zoom Ration: 1
Focal Length In 35mm Film: 66mm
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Gain Control: None
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Subject Distance Range: Unknown
InteroperabilityIFDPointer: 928
Image Width: 4928px
Image Height: 3264px
ExifIFDPointer: 320
GPSInfoIFDPointer: 960
BitsPerSample: 3
PhotometricInterpretation: 2
Orientation: 1
SamplesPerPixel: 3
YCbCr Positioning: 2
X Resolution: 300
Y Resolution: 300
Resolution Unit: 2
Date Time: 2013:02:01 09:51:10
Software: Adobe Photoshop Elements 11.0 Macintosh
DateCreated: 2013-01-31T22:26:08-05:00

One thing I would recommend right away is to turn your flash off. It appears as though your flash was triggered in all of these photographs when it wasn’t needed.

When you got a white blank screen that means there is far too much light and your whole image is completely blown out. Way way way too much light.

In your photographs of the waves you have shown motion but you’ve noticed this creates a problem. A slow shutter speed and lots of light makes for blown out images. So you have to compensate somehow! You could use neutral density filters, use exposure compensation, shoot at a different time of day with less harsh light etc etc.

The key here is that you start to understand this relationship and start to play with it. It’s not totally obvious but you just need to work on it.

Now for your photograph of the dog and your attempt at shallow depth of field. You’ve done well but you need to understand a few things here. First when shooting something that has very shallow depth of field you have a very small area that is in focus by definition. With that in mind I want you to look at your image age. Notice how the dog’s foot is in focus but the dog’s nose is not in focus.

The lesson being that when you shoot shallow depth of field you want to absolutely nail your focus. And often the little screen on the back of your camera won’t show you unless you zoom right in to check focus.

Click on these photos and you’ll see what I mean:

[attachment=4:2k30h1tt]dog shallow depth of field.jpg[/attachment:2k30h1tt]

[attachment=3:2k30h1tt]dog shallow depth of field 2.jpg[/attachment:2k30h1tt]

Now if you look at the whole image at about the size you see it on the back of your camera you’d think it was in focus:

[attachment=2:2k30h1tt]2013 01 31_2019_edited-1 10 percent size.jpg[/attachment:2k30h1tt]

That said you’ve show an image with shallow depth of field and done well on that component of the lesson. Just be sure to nail your focus!

Overall I think there is a great deal to be learned here from these images.

Here are a couple of little cheat sheets for you 😉
[attachment=0:2k30h1tt]the expsoure triangle.jpg[/attachment:2k30h1tt]
photo by unleashingmephotography

[attachment=1:2k30h1tt]advanced exposure triangle.jpg[/attachment:2k30h1tt]
photo by bangdoll

Thanks!

[Laura Marie ODonnell]

Thanks for the helpful critiques and the charts will use them!

[Laura Marie ODonnell]

I decided to give this another attempt…
Motion Picture:
[attachment=0:2mtzsx8n]lesson 3.jpg[/attachment:2mtzsx8n]

[Duncan Rawlinson]

As a really vague/generalized rule of thumb the shutter speed should be something like:

1 / focal length

So if you’re shooting at 200 mm you should use a shutter speed of 200 or faster to avoid camera shake.

In a photograph like this at a very slow shutter speed and handheld it’s almost impossible to hold it steady and avoid camera shake.

So if you need to shoot a slow shutter speed photograph of something like this use a tripod. That will make everything that isn’t moving nice and sharp and the things that are moving will have that nice motion effect.

Did you order a tripod yet?

That said you’ve done well here.

Keep practicing!

😉

[Author]

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