Week 7

This was a fun one to do!

This week's exercise is super fun. It involves playing with eggs and a lamp. You'll need only one egg, unless of course you break it, in which case you'll need a replacement (or 5 or maybe just a nice styrofoam ball if you're clumsy) and one 40W or more lamp of any kind (halogen, energy saver fluorescent, tungsten.) I'd make you go through the process of moving the object further and further from the light but if you did Week 6's Exercise, you already know how it ends, so we'll just get to the good stuff.

Find your white balance and make sure it's set to AWB (auto.) Place your egg close enough to your light source to get an exposure you like. (Bonus points for creativity!) Without adjusting any other settings, use at least 3 other white balance presets. For your last exposure, I'd like you to challenge yourself and attempt to do a custom white balance. Please note the type of bulb (tungsten, fluorescent, etc.) you shot with when you post your images. Feel free to try with different type of light, too (another type of bulb or even natural window light!)

The bulb I used was a fluorescent

Image 1 - AWB

Image 2 - Daylight

Image 3 - Shade

Image 4 - White Fluorescent

Image 5 - custom

Week 5

This one was neat - it did take my daughter about 50 walk throughs before I was able to get her in the frame - either walking too slow or too fast! Tricky, tricky!

Cameras in M, manual focus again, and you will need to use a tripod or surface area with your 2 second delay for some parts of this exercise. No need for daylight, though you may want to try this one both during the day with natural light and in the evening with available light just for fun, though I suggest that an evening indoors will illustrate results better.

Pick a nice spot indoors to place your camera so that you (or your husband or your children or your dogs) are able to walk in front of it. (Please, no throwing cats through the frame, though stuffed animals are fair game.) Put your camera to f11.0, ISO 200. Guesstimate what your shutter speed needs to be at to get a clear picture of whatever room you're shooting in - how close were you? Once you have an exposure you are satisfied with, use the 2-second delay and get someone to walk through the frame while it's shooting. You should have a rather ghostly-looking picture, no?

I was about 3 ft away and had my camera propped on the table while she walked through.

Week 3

Once you have your still life setup, set your ISO to 400, your aperture to 3.5, and adjust your shutter speed accordingly to get an exposure you like. Get as close to your still life as you can and position yourself so that you can see all the objects, either slightly above or to one side, and focus on the third (centre) object only. Take your first image, then adjust your aperture to f5.6 and take a second shot. It is going to be underexposed, so you will have no choice but to adjust either your ISO or your shutter speed in order to get a proper exposure. If you were on film I'd feel bad about letting you all figure it out on your own if you've forgotten, but since I know you're all digital... figure it out! ~smirk~

Keeping your focus on the middle object repeat this process at f8.0, f11.0, and f16.0. What do you notice about your ISO? What do you notice about your shutter speed? Is the relationship between aperture, ISO sensitivity, and shutter speed starting to make sense as it applies to the Law of Reciprocity? What do you notice about the foreground and the background of your images?

Picture 1 - ISO 400, F 3.5 1/40 second

Picture 2 - ISO 500, F 5.6 1/20 second

Picture 3 - ISO 500, F 8.0 1/10 second

Picture 4 - ISO 600, F 11.0 1/4 second

Picture 5 - ISO 800, F 16.0''4

Week 2 exercise -

I've managed to redo my weekly exercises - The challenge I found was not from the exercises themselves (well okay maybe slightly lol), but more from my 18 month old son trying to take said objects away. He was quite upset when I wouldn't let him eat the mini mandarins until I was finished.

For some reason the 5th photo in the week 2 exercise would not upload properly...so I only have 4...sorry!

Your challenge this week is manual focus. Set your camera to M(anual) F(ocus), in M(anual) mode. Select 5 similar or same objects and set them in a row along a flat surface. Make sure you pick someplace that has good natural light. For example, you may want to make a row of apples on your coffee table, set up some stones on your windowsill, or put a set of Little People on your kitchen counter. As long as you've got good light, be as creative as you like. Try pennies, buttons, oranges, beer bottles.

Once you have your still life setup, put your ISO to 400, your aperture to f3.5, and adjust your shutter speed accordingly to get an exposure you like. If you are below 1/60, you may have to change something to be more sensitive ~hint hint~ Get as close to your still life as you can. You are going to shoot from the same spot for each picture, so you will need to select an angle you can see all of your objects - either slightly off to one side or from above. Your first picture should be taken from the minimum focusing distance. (If you forget what that is, remember bringing your hand towards your face until you can't focus anymore and remember the lens works the same as your eyes in that regard...) Position yourself so that you can see all the objects, either slightly above or to one side. (If you have your objects on a glass surface you could even try shooting from below!) Manually focus on your first object and take a picture. Then manually focus on your second object and take a picture. Repeat for your third, fourth, and fifth.

Frustration!

Last weekend I was all caught up in my exercises and I procrastinated uploading the images...until today. I learned that my card is an expensive pile of &%#@ so I'm having to redo the lessons.

Here are the exercises from week 4:

Shot @ ISO 3200, 1600, 800, 400 and 200 F 3.5 1/60 respectively