It was foggy... and I was underwhelmed by today's crop of photos... this one merely serves to illustrate the overall pea-soupiness of the day (and of my brain for forgetting to check my settings... what the heck is A-dep for anyway????)...
btw, this is the colour of the photo... I did not desaturate...
I kinda like the mistiness of this shot...let's face it...we all have days like this...either physically or psychologically foggy...and this exemplifies that quite well.
It really is cool looking fog. I had a day like this on Sunday. If you figure out what A-dep is for, please let me know. I've been trying to learn all the manual buttons on my camera and it's been a challenge. Luckily so many people on here are so, so helpful.
@lauriehiggins i googled around a bit, and it seems like it's an auto DOF setting, which i don't quite get the point of... usually i shoot on aperture priority unless i'm messing with light in which case i go manual... but i don't really know what i am doing most of the time so it's all trial and error... must have bumped the knobs in my bag and it ended up on a-dep without me realizing it...
@shutterbugger oh yeah... when we first got on the gardiner you couldn't even see the tower... and the lake looked like the "here be dragons" portion of a map... i tried to take photos of that, but didn't work too well from a moving car... took some photos around city hall and the sky was weirdly pure WHITE...
I like fog shots too, the tower looks somewhat mysterious here. A-dep, I could not help you with...I am a Nikon gal. I almost always shoot in manual. The crop illustrates the tallness of our beloved tower.
Wow - no colour adjustments! That's a grey day indeed! But such a cool shot of the CN tower in fog. I like shooting different structures around Van in all types of weather. Now you have a foggy tower shot to check off your list:)
I love the fog - very unique view of the tower. And the cranes show just how busy our real estate market continues to be. They are building on every square inch of empty space!
Since I seem to be in teaching mode today, A-DEP is a completely pointless mode made to confuse photographers.
No, wait, that's not right. A-DEP allows the camera to work out what it thinks the minimum aperture should be to get all elements of the photo in focus (or at least, all of the elements of the photo that intersect the focus points you can see through the viewfinder).
This is a really good example of a narrow depth of field -- but imagine you wanted to get all of the M&Ms in focus. You could manually set a large aperture value, but how large? Make it too large and you'll be pointlessly using a longer shutter speed than necessary, showing up dust on your sensor, and reducing the sharpness of the image (something that happens at very large aperture values)
By putting the camera in A-DEP mode, it will (in theory) calculate and select the aperture that is required to get all of the M&Ms in focus, and nothing more than that. That allows you to take the photo without any trial and error in your aperture settings (which, if what you're photographing moves around more than M&Ms, might be useful).
Realistically, I've never actually found anyone who has used it as it's meant to be used -- most people forget about it, and when I've tried it I've never been entirely convinced it's getting it right. But that's what it's supposed to do -- just so you know :)
In the case of this photo, it looks like it took exactly the same shot as would have been taken in 'P' mode -- so the only downside is that it chose an aperture of f/5, where f/8 in aperture priority mode might have been very slightly sharper (aperture numbers close to the lower limit of your lens also reduce sharpness, for a different reason). But since you're looking through fog, I'll bet you couldn't tell any difference.
@abirkill tx for the info Alexis! i have to confess that i know nothing about P mode either... i mostly stick with AV or manual if i'm trying to do something special like long exposures... how you happened upon that wretched m&m photo is mind-boggling to me... one of the photos i desperately want to ditch... altho' one day i should get back to doing what i was trying to do with that shot (only next time i won't be using m&m's!!!!!) tx for the follow and the lovely comments... really appreciated :)
@northy I don't think it's all that wretched! It's always annoying to not have a photo turn out as you'd pictured it, though.
P mode is one step up from green square mode. In green square mode, the camera takes control of everything, from exposure (shutter and aperture) to popping up the flash and deciding the ISO, and you, as the photographer, are pretty much limited to one control -- the shutter release.
P mode still calculates the exposure for you automatically (giving you no control over either aperture or shutter), but will allow you to apply minor adjustments such as exposure compensation, allow you to override the flash, and so on.
It's always fun when walking around to spot photographers with ridiculously expensive equipment (top-end full-frame DSLRs, L-glass lenses) who are using green square mode. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they're probably not getting much value for money!)
July 28th, 2012
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Since I seem to be in teaching mode today, A-DEP is a completely pointless mode made to confuse photographers.
No, wait, that's not right. A-DEP allows the camera to work out what it thinks the minimum aperture should be to get all elements of the photo in focus (or at least, all of the elements of the photo that intersect the focus points you can see through the viewfinder).
If you take a shot like your photo from 5th March:
http://365project.org/northy/365/2012-03-05
This is a really good example of a narrow depth of field -- but imagine you wanted to get all of the M&Ms in focus. You could manually set a large aperture value, but how large? Make it too large and you'll be pointlessly using a longer shutter speed than necessary, showing up dust on your sensor, and reducing the sharpness of the image (something that happens at very large aperture values)
By putting the camera in A-DEP mode, it will (in theory) calculate and select the aperture that is required to get all of the M&Ms in focus, and nothing more than that. That allows you to take the photo without any trial and error in your aperture settings (which, if what you're photographing moves around more than M&Ms, might be useful).
Realistically, I've never actually found anyone who has used it as it's meant to be used -- most people forget about it, and when I've tried it I've never been entirely convinced it's getting it right. But that's what it's supposed to do -- just so you know :)
In the case of this photo, it looks like it took exactly the same shot as would have been taken in 'P' mode -- so the only downside is that it chose an aperture of f/5, where f/8 in aperture priority mode might have been very slightly sharper (aperture numbers close to the lower limit of your lens also reduce sharpness, for a different reason). But since you're looking through fog, I'll bet you couldn't tell any difference.
P mode is one step up from green square mode. In green square mode, the camera takes control of everything, from exposure (shutter and aperture) to popping up the flash and deciding the ISO, and you, as the photographer, are pretty much limited to one control -- the shutter release.
P mode still calculates the exposure for you automatically (giving you no control over either aperture or shutter), but will allow you to apply minor adjustments such as exposure compensation, allow you to override the flash, and so on.
It's always fun when walking around to spot photographers with ridiculously expensive equipment (top-end full-frame DSLRs, L-glass lenses) who are using green square mode. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they're probably not getting much value for money!)