Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Photography Lessons

Today Tony and the kids and I had to split up. They really wanted to go tubing, but since I’m already in my 33rd week of pregnancy I didn’t really want to go floating down a river for nearly 4 hours in the heat. So, while they were happily making their way down the Shenandoah River, I took a digital photography class.

The instructor was Todd Merica of From My Hand Photography. He was an enthusiastic instructor and was able to help us understand the very basics of photography. He spent the first hour teaching us about the different settings on our camera and then moved on to a little bit more advanced material like explaining what an f-stop is.

If nothing else, I came away from the class a more confident user. I’m not so afraid to mess with the settings on my camera and I’m going to start using the manual mode more often. I don’t think I’ve used it more than once or twice since I’ve had it! 

Here are my first attempts at using my new found skills:

IMG_1259

As you can see, I’ve got a long way to go.

IMG_1260 

The first photo isn’t terrible, but I needed to zoom in a bit to get more of that little waterfall, there’s just too much going on in that shot. The second photo isn’t awful if you keep it small…but, my cute subjects are seriously blurry.

I think I’m going to have to start carrying a notebook and writing down what settings I’m using and such; not all the time, but when I’m actually trying to get a specific shot. I guess now is as good a time as any to start learning how to use my camera more efficiently!

2 comments:

Sarah Lou said...

I think the third one is just to centre composed once you crop and do minor edits it will be a real real stunner!!!!!!!!!!!
I get a real lot from this site
http://digital-photography-school.com/

Diana Joy said...

I live on 'auto' with my camera. It's made to do fancy stuff but confuses me so much. Good luck learning and I'd have to be keeping notations also.

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