The next day however, I woke up feeling inspired, trying to remember what ISO and f-something and white balance and focal points and all that other jazz meant and, in a delusional state of hoping I’d soaked at least something up - decided it was time to take my SLR out for its first adventure. After about 15 mins of annoying Simone (I might as well give this wonderful fiancée of mine a name) and taking pics of her putting on her shoe laces and other exciting household chores, I decided it was time to get serious and test my skills..... so.... in dutiful style I looked out the back porch, saw some flowers, and thought, presto.... this is it!
To be honest, I think pictures of flowers are a little boring, but, again, for the most basic of beginners, they are pretty damn awesome to photograph! They don't move, the sun doesn’t really get in the way that much, their naturally nice to look at and they have the ability to make even the most average photographer out there (such as myself) have those "wow... this really looks professional" thoughts, on an all too constant basis.
And that is how my first snaps ended up… close up of flowers, completely forgetting the world of apertures and depth of focus and white balance and ISO’s - for at least one half of an afternoon! And the result…. (drum roll) all from the wonderful green rectangle setting on my new Canon EOS 550D… are as follows:
(in the spirit of full disclosure i completely forgot my camera had a macro setting for these - not sure what effect it would have had to be honest - but i did try something i remembered my dad telling me years ago about focusing (the half down button) then moving the view to something different....)
Nice work first up mate!!! The hold the button half way down trick is a good one!!! Also, go to the A setting, crank it down to the lowest number you can, which means minimum depth of field, and have an experiment with that ... Also, try different white balance settings on the manual functions, they change things up a lot!! Have fun!!
ReplyDeleteCheers Shannon.... The A-depth thing is something I have been doing some reading about and seems a great way to get some good shots! Took simone down to the beach this arvo to try it out and other than a few over exposure probs (which i gather, if i shoot in RAW should cease to be an issue), they came out nicely... topic for blos # 3 i think
ReplyDeleteHeh, I think I did the same thing when I first got my camera - went outside and took photos of my parents' flowers!
ReplyDeleteI found it helpful starting on Auto and getting the hang of white balance and ISO initially, then moving up to Av/Tv to throw in aperture or shutterspeed (but not both at the same time), then finally getting to full manual mode.
It's better to get exposure as close as possible in camera, but if you shoot in RAW you can tone it up or down to some extent in post-processing. But if you can't be bothered processing then just stick with jpg!
Oh and the manual made zero sense to me, but it just took a second of a friend explaining things to get the general idea of things - so get someone to show you if you can!
ReplyDeleteSounds like your dad had some great ideas.
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Thanks Shann and Chisa for the tips - Simone is out today doing dress fittings and hair trials leaving me to my own devices. THink I'll go exploring and try to get a better hang of ISO's and white balances.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you'll have loads of fun with your DSLR but watch out for lens addiction! It'll send you broke.
ReplyDeleteGrab a 50mm f/1.8 next (if you don't already have one) fast apertures is where it is at.
I agree with the others that AV (Aperture Priority) is a good place to be - that way you control the 'creative' style - depth of field etc and let the camera sort out exposure.
A UV filter on digital won't do anything except be a barrier for scratches - I tend to leave them off my cheap lenses, but have a good quality one on my better ones.
I write for digitalrev - check out my articles, this one in particular will be useful for you -> http://www.digitalrev.com/en/taking-control-progressing-from-full-auto-6726-article.html
http://www.froknowsphoto.com/ is always good for tips too.
Cheers for those links! I am quite confident I will develop a lens addiction! Already thinking of ones I want!
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