I took my camera into Costco today with the idea of doing two images using an f/4 aperture where my subjects were closer to the camera in one shot and set farther back from the camera in the other shot to see how depth of field compared. I love that both girls had their legs crossed at the ankle without me posing or coaching them or anything. When we were driving home and the girls were munching on bunches of grapes, I get a little choked up thinking about how I won't remember these mundane experiences for long. I won't remember the feel of getting those carts moving when they are loaded up with my two girls and a cart full of groceries. I'll forget the wake of smiles we leave in the aisles as we pass older shoppers who are charmed as Clara and Rose smile and wave and chat and sing. The memories of how Rose likes to pull me close and randomly give me hugs while we rumble between shelves of spices and pasta and cereal will fade with time. I hope that I can remember to not just capture the "beautiful" images but to try to hold onto these precious, regular, special-in-an-ordinary-everyday-kind-of-way moments through this 365 project.
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| 32 mm, ISO 400, f/5, SS 1/25 |
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| 60 mm, ISO 400, f/5, SS 1/25 |
After Rose's nap, I took the girls to Tilden Regional Park to check out the merry-go-round. I have been meaning to take the girls there for ages but have just never made it there because it is about 45 minutes away. But since week 2 of Mastering Manual deals with movement and I wanted to give panning and implied motion a try I decided to go for it. I need to review the lesson about changing shutter speeds and panning because this was a LOT harder than I thought it would be and I could not get my camera settings quite right. The shots I liked best were honestly more fluke than anything, but at least it is a start. We had such a fun time on this antique carousel that we might head back again this week to try again when Paul can come with us.
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| 24 mm, ISO 400, f/10, SS 1/3 |
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| 24 mm, ISO 400, f/11, SS 1/4 |
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| 24 mm, ISO 400, f/11, SS 1/4 |
Were your shutter speeds really as low as 1/3 and 1/4, or was that supposed to be 1/30 and 1/40? Man, if they were really that low I can't imagine you'd be able to get any shot at all, that's a long time! The carousel shots are very cool.
ReplyDeleteYep, they really were that low. Seriously I got so confused and frustrated about how to adjust shutter speed yesterday and didn't even figure it out until this morning when I got some feedback from other members of my Mastering Manual group who helped me figure out that I was using the wrong wheel on our Canon to adjust things. So the couple of images I got that were so-so were total flukes, lol. At least it as a learning experience and that is what this is all about, right? Oh, and I just learned today that a shutter speed of 1/60 is about the borderline of taking images without a tripod, which l am going to have to remember and implement too. SO MUCH TO REMEMBER AND KEEP IN MIND!!!
DeleteDon't I know it! It is SO hard. And yeah, panning is something that seems like it should be easy-peasy when you read the description, but it is really really tough. A rule-of-thumb I've heard that seems to work fairly well is that 1/focal length is about as slow a shutter speed as you should try without a tripod. So, if you're zoomed into 200 mm, you don't want to go too much below 1/200. I guess it makes sense, since with the closer zoom any small movement is more amplified. I typically don't go under 1/125 with people, and I prefer to start out more around 1/200 to 1/400 with the boys if I possibly can. Okay, long rambling comment (with information you probably know already anyway) is officially over. :-)
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