Turning point. by robz

Turning point.

So excited - new "Masterclass Digital Photography" book for Mother's Day. Learning to use my camera properly - not just on Auto!! Starting with ISO settings. I've tried to photograph this guy many times - he was always stark white and boring! Now he has character befitting his previous personality as a huge boar. Didn't need to do any editing!!
Enjoy your camera learning, some interesting shadows and shapes in this shot
May 16th, 2017  
Well, you certainly got a great range of tones here! Nothing stark about it. I see you used a much lower ISO on this than your camera had been using previously. I think you'll be very pleased with the results. Is this learning thing fun? (And i"m also trying to stave off dementia!)
May 16th, 2017  
@joannakate Thanks Joanna- this is enjoyable, even if quite frustrating sometimes. I'm pleased you liked his shades and shape. Cheers Rob Z
May 17th, 2017  
I really admire you for stretching yourself. I must admit I usually just put mine on auto.
May 17th, 2017  
@granagringa HI Granagringa - It is fun and very interesting ( makes the brain think it's enjoying itself haha!) I've found that the definition given on Google for each term includes a link to a basic introductory tutorial on that subject. My new book is way past such things!! Anyway, I was just going to play with ISO by itself for a while - silly me - I now realize that my auto setting for the rest will just compensate. Sooo - i figure if I play and get a good result eg I do like this fellow, I can then check the info on the Exif (whatever that stands for!) and see what worked for the other two. Hopefully that will allow an understanding good enough to start using THE BOOK. How long has it taken you to become familiar with the various manipulations? Cheers Rob
May 17th, 2017  
you are being so adventurous with your camera. I never seem to have the patience to spend time understanding.
May 18th, 2017  
@cruiser haha Chris - you should speak to my husband - he often has to tell me to stop playing!
May 18th, 2017  
@robz Hi RobZ...it's taken me a few days to get back here but here goes as I through my 2 cents in. I You asked how long it took to learn the manipulations...basically it comes from ole film days and ISO was really the least manipulative...you would buy a roll of film at a given ISO, generally 100, 200, or 400 unless you were doing specialty shooting - low-light or sports etc. And then that was the setting you had for the next 36 shots. So once the film was in you are left with aperture and shutter speed. So my recommendation would be to set the ISO at one of those 3 setting and then set your camera to aperture priority and take the same shot with different apertures letting your camera choose the shutter speed. (unless it's a moving object, then change to shutter priority and let the camera choose the aperture - easier the first way,) There are usually about 6 ranges where the it will work with under or over exposing and then you can see how the aperture affects the depth of field. I also got very good advice from a professional photographer when I told him I was overwhelmed with all the menus in the camera. He told me to forget them...just use the "triangle" of aperture/shutter speed/ISO. That way I wasn't intimidated by the camera. I've learned bits and pieces more of the camera as I've gone along...like aperture and focus lock and file numbering and changing to mono or not etc.
And I'm still learning about this stuff and trying to figure out right combinations to ge the exposures I want. Hope this is helpful...lots of folks on this site are so much better at all this than I am...but hope this helps you have fun with the learning curve!
May 19th, 2017  
@granagringa Hi Granagringa - thank you so much for your reply!! I really appreciate the time you have taken to outline an organized way of working out what goes on with the combinations. And you have made sense of what's going on - half the problem for me. I'll do exactly what you recommend with the aperture and shutter speed and hopefully be able to start to produce some better photos. Thank you ever so much for your advice - as you say - I'll try not to be intimidated by my camera. Cheers Rob
May 19th, 2017  
@robz My pleasure...let me knowhow it goes!
May 19th, 2017  
Well done for going off of auto! This is a great first shot - and now I am sure you will be working the settings from here on in!
Congrats!
Again - Thank you for entering the eotb challenge. Good luck!
May 30th, 2017  
@farmreporter Hi Wendy - thanks for your comments on all of the eotb entries - that is such good encouragement that I'm certainly going to keep trying out different settings to see what can be done with boring subjects. Cheers Rob Z
May 30th, 2017  
You are so welcome! I loved all your entries - each were so creative!
Experimenting with camera settings is so much fun and just remember that delete is your friend! That's what I love about digital photography - it is so easy to take a ton of photos all at different settings and delete the ones that do not work out.
May 30th, 2017  
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