Miss Colby

This photo shoot was seriously so much fun! I can't get over the vibrant colors and textures of this spot we stumbled upon. It was the perfect Florida summer day! Isn't she the most beautiful pre-school teacher you've ever seen?!

 

 

Perfect Exposure… Every time

For the past few weeks, I've tried to master exposure settings. It's one of the trickiest things to grasp really. My workflow usually consisted of snapping a picture, viewing the result, then fiddling with each setting randomly, then doing the process all over again until I finally stumble upon a somewhat satisfied result. It's an immensely frustrating procedure, especially for an amateur photographer with no formal training. 

Well, I just learned today that it doesn't have to be that difficult!

Seriously, this trick is a game changer. 

Ok, are you ready for this?! Everything you need know to guide you to the "sweet spot" of exposure is in your viewfinder. 

Let me first briefly explain the three pillars of exposure to fully understand what you are looking for in your viewfinder. No matter how many times I read about this, I always get confused. So, here's a refresher…. 

Exposure loosely refers to the amount of light that touches the sensor of your camera. How much light that is let in is a function of your shutter speed and aperture. Shutter speed is the amount of time your shutter is open to allow light to past through, shown as 1/125, 1/50, etc. The smaller the denominator, the longer the exposure. 

Aperture works exactly like the pupil in your eye. Measured in focal length (f/x), aperture refers to the size of the opening. The smaller the number (f/1.8 for instance) the larger the opening. Depth of Field is correlated to aperture in that the smaller the denominator, the less will be in focus around your subject. 

Your ISO also affects brightness as well as the quality of your photos. The higher the number, the brighter the picture and, unfortunately, the lower the quality. Higher ISO tend to create noise and fuzz. 

Basic principle when shooting in full manual mode is this: If you need your image to be brighter, decrease the denominator in both the aperture and shutter speed and increase the ISO. If you need your image to be darker, increase the denominator in both the aperture and shutter speed and decrease the ISO.

Ok, now that we're through that, we can get to the good stuff. Try pointing your camera at an object and hold down the shoot button half way. Hear that beep? Do you see a bunch of numbers? This beep signifies much more than the autofocus. These indicators will light up and show you the exact setting you selected and how your camera interprets the available light. It might look something like this… 

This viewfinder is telling us that we've selected our shutter speed to be at 1/125, aperture at f/4 and ISO at 200. The real magic lies within the Exposure Level Indicator. This is telling us that we're not letting enough light in. Now, without even taking your eye off the viewfinder, you are able to adjust this by simply moving the dial next to the shoot button. This changes the shutter speed. Move the dial to the right, it will move left, and visa versa. You are able to change the other settings, but you must consult your manual for those short cuts. 

The trick is to get the little guy right on the center and you will have beautiful shots almost every time!  

 

My first photo shoot

It has taken me quite some time to grasp all that photography entails. A heck of a lot longer than I thought, at least. While each lesson on it's own makes perfect sense, it's when you actually take a subject out for a day and do your own photo shoot that things are forgotten and steps are skipped. I had some overexposed shots and some out-of-focus shots. But, I must say, I am fairly proud of the way some of these photos turned out. 

I nanny an 11-year-old after school and I forced her to be the subject of my first photo shoot. She had quite the model behavior once we got started, though. These are my favorites from our little photo sesh!

The D.O.F.

Depth of Field is one of the first big hurdles in photography. I've heard that once I am able to tackle this, I will gain infinite amounts of confidence in my photography. Here's hoping!

So, your camera can only focus its lens on a single point, but there is an area that stretches in front and behind that point. That zone is Depth of Field. It's either described as shallow (where just a narrow zone appears sharp) or deep (where more of the picture appears sharp). When photographing a landscape, you'll want to capture detail from the entire foreground to the horizon, so a deeper DOF is desired. But in portraiture, you'll want a shallow DOF to blur out distraction so the focal point is on the subject.

In order to achieve your desired DOF, you'll need to control your aperture. Remember, an aperture at f/2.8 is wide, while an aperture of f/22 is small. To tie it all together, shallow depths of field coincide with wider f-stops, whereas smaller f-stops create a deeper depth of field.

So, I had a little experiment with DOF the other day with my boyfriend. I brought out my 50mm lens (by far my favorite lens) and took pics at each f-stop. You'll see that with each notch, everything in the background become more clear. 

PS. I have no apologies for my boyfriend's silliness!

 ISO 100 f/1.8 1/4000

 ISO 100 f/2.2 1/2500

 ISO 100 f/2.8 1/1600

 ISO 100 f/3.5 1/1250

 ISO 100 f/4.5 1/800

 ISO 100 f/5.6 1/500

ISO 100 f/8 1/160