Photography Class

Remember that one time I casually mentioned I was taking a photography class and then never talked about it again?
Woops.
Well, I finally uploaded some "project" pictures and figured it'd be a good time to talk about it.

I have to say, if you ever have a chance to take a Community Education class in an area you're interested in, do it. Not that I am, by any means, an expert in photography, but I can't tell you how nice it is to have at least a loose concept of how to "fix" my photos, now. Low light, but don't want to use your flash? Raise the ISO! Your photos have a golden, yellowy hue to them? Because you haven't changed your white balance! I'll show you some of the difference in the photos I took.

NONE of these have been touched with an editing program. This just goes to show you how much you can effect your photos just using your camera!

Before I show you some photos, here are some basic settings.

1. Spot Metering

When you turn your camera on, and all the settings appear on the back, you should see an icon that resembles the one above. You want your camera on Spot, ideally, and if not possible- Partial.

My camera (since it's only a Rebel T3) doesn't have "spot" metering, the best I could do was Partial.

Why is this important: This function is how you choose which part of the photo the camera focuses on. In evaluative, the camera decides which is most important, and focuses on that. Ever try to take a photo in front of a window, only to have the entire thing look white, and the subject dark? That's because your camera evaluates all of it equally, and it washes out the photo. '

Once you set this? leave it. 

2. Picture Style

See the above photo? See the bottom setting, "Picture Style"? Unless you're shooting landscapes, I was told this should remain in the "Neutral" setting. 

Why is this important: This effects color temperature. It'll soften wrinkles if on portrait, or make blues and greens brighter if on landscape. BUT, since you can do most of that in photoshop on the back end, it's best to leave this setting the same. 

3. ISO
ISO measures the camera's sensitivity to light. It determines how much "noise" there is in the photo. The higher the ISO, the grainer the photo. The higher the ISO, the faster the shutter speed, also. 

Why is this important: In low light situations, raising the ISO will brighten a photo, allowing you to shoot without a flash. (another way you can improve photos/low-light shooting is investing in a f.18, 50 mm lens. Most cameras come with a "kit" lens that shoots f 4.5 17-55 mm). 
  
4. AWB
In the above photo of the back of a camera, do you see the little "WB" below the \/ button?
I had no idea, but changing this can radically change the outcome of your photos. If you want your whites to appear white, and not "golden", it's especially important to change this. So if you click on WB, this pops up:

 From L-R, that's auto (AWB), sun, shade, clouds, tungsten, fluorescent, flash, and custom.

Why is this important: If you want your whites, white, it's important to adjust this off auto and to what the actual settings you're shooting in. To see what I mean, just play around with it. Take the same photo in every setting and watch the colors change. (You'll see some of what I mean below)

5. Exposure compensation 
This effects the overall exposure of the photos. Another way to make a photo appear lighter/darker.  The exposure compensation is that little bar you see below that says -3..2..1..0..1..2..+3. The "-" side will darken a photo, while the "+" side will brighten it.(Ignore the ISO explanation..it was the best photo I could find of exposure)

 In practice, here's how it looks.
Our field trip last week took us to the relatively famous Minneapolis landmark, the stone arch bridge. 
(ALL these photos were taken in Aperature Priority mode.)

 

This photo was taken by changing the "picture style" to "black and white." (I was just experimenting)

 

 The above photo was taken with the white balance set to "cloudy" since it was, in fact, a cloudy day

Here's what the exact same photo taken using the tungsten mode:

Neat, huh?

Here's another slight difference using just one function on the camera.

 Do you see how the bottom photo is slightly lighter? We were shooting the bridge on a cloudy night, which actually made it bright outside (all the lights on the buildings reflecting off the haze)...but we wanted to get those fabulous pitch black photos of the stone arch, illuminated, that you often see.

SO, to make it appear darker than it really is, we dropped our exposure down like I discussed above.

All these photos were taken on a tripod. You can see the 2nd photo above, the water looks really smooth and "fuzzy" almost.. whereas the first few photos, you can see the ripples. The difference there is the shutter speed. The slower shutter speed is also what gives the lights on the bridge that awesome "starry" effect.

This is my favorite pic from the night:

Squeee! (Fun fact, you can actually see the window to my office in this photo. No, I'm not telling which one. :P)

I think I'm going to frame a few of the shots to go next to this guy, that I painted at the MN Bloggers Painting Class:

I'm still thinking of doing a more detailed series on what some of these functions do, and why you want to do them. But, this is it for now. :)

So, that's a very broad overview of a few functions that can make a huge difference on your pictures!

You guys have any questions? I can try to answer them. haha. OH, and head over to Jess's blog, she was going to post some more tips and tricks today, too!

finding joy.

TGIF, people.
Maybe not for those of you who woke up to snow yesterday. On May 2nd. That was.....sweet.
Thankfully, my city was spared. Wee! and word on the street is, 70s are returning next week. So there's that.

In the days after I wrote the most emo post ever, I've been trying to do things to bust the funk. Of course, the 70+ degree weekend we had last weekend helped. But, I've decided to put in an effort to find some things that I have a bit more control of. Often I find myself reading blogs in which the blogger describes little "traditions" they have with their spouse, and I find myself smiling thinking "that's nice" and not doing anything about it. I talked a bit about M and I's "brunch date" we have going now, but I also recently suggested to him something I've wanted to do for a while.

Every night (or every night that M doesn't pass out at 9 p.m. on the couch which is sadly, quite often) we head upstairs and read a book together. As in, M reads a few pages out loud on his tablet, and then I read a few pages. Right now we're reading:

I had read Gone Girl a few months ago (and was pissed at the ending) but I heard this book was much better. It's not "chicky" so when M read the synopsis, he said it was something he could get into as well. I'm liking it so far. I think we're on Chapter 5. I also like crawling into bed at night, and instead of each of us browsing our phones (like we used to do/sometimes do when it's too late to read), we do something together.

In addition, despite my "meh" job outlook-- which has inadvertently turned me into a penny pincher- I suddenly have been REALLY GOOD at eating what I brought for lunch every day -- I pulled the trigger on a "me" expense I had been thinking about doing since November.

Yep.
For the next 5 Tuesday's, I'll be sitting in class. As a recovering law student I'm both amused and not surprised at this. I never hated school. I just hated being tested. So "fun" classes still have their appeal!

It seems like people with a DSLR (who go onto become photographers, or just take good photos) wear the "I never took a class, I learned on my own" mantra as a badge of honor. There's nothing wrong with that, but the stubborn person in me was all, "psh, if they can learn on their own so can I!" ... that's not really my problem though. My problem is that I never actually use my down time to teach myself said photography skills.

I'm pretty excited. If nothing else to have a set 2 hours a week to devote to something artistic. For someone who may appear super left-brained.. I'd die inside without a little creativity in my life.

SO despite the fact that I have no job news, things are looking up. Or rather, my mood about things is looking up :)

M was supposed to have a golf trip this weekend but, what with the copious amounts of snow, that got cancelled. SO we now have a weekend at home, with nothing on the calendar. Hoping to make it a good one! :)

Pulling the trigger.

Sometimes, I do this thing..where I really want something.

I know deep down it'll be a good buy, but, I waffle.

 

and then I pull the trigger on it,

 

and then I want to vomit.

Which is rare, because usually I'm not a second guesser. (I did this with my wedding dress too.. a brief moment of panic, if you will...that hit 3 days later.)

 

but last night, I decided, someone needed to come live with us. I clicked buy...filled out all the shipping information, the credit card, clicked "buy!" and the SECOND that screen went to white indicating a "thank you for your purchase!" screen was coming next, my heart dropped and I had 5 seconds of "OMG TAKE IT BACK WHAT DID I DO" panic.

 

needless to say, it happened, and this is who is coming to live with us:

yup, I did it.

 

I know I tweeted a little while back asking for reviews on cameras, and the overwhelming consensus (4 to 1) was the Canon Rebel.

 

The most "amateur" version they have out right now is the T3.

 

So, after all 4 of you said this was the best, and after reading 5 pages of reviews on best buy.com that basically said "even an idiot couldn't F up taking a nice photo on this thing" (hi, me.) I bought it.

 

5 minutes later I told M and he said "What!? really? aw. I was maybe going to buy it for you."

 

merka mer.

 

except, last night it was $100 off, included the lens and body, a free 16G camera card, aaannnnddd a free 8x8 shutterfly book ---> clearly, the shutterfly book sealed the deal. OH, and free shipping. So, while waiting to count my christmas money may have made sense, I would've paid more anyway.

 

I told him instead he could buy me something like this for Christmas: 

(via)

 

If I'm going to do the "nice camera' thing, I'm going to do it cute, damnit.

 

M also looked at me and said "you better use that thing." and scared the pants off me. SO, that ought to motivate me!

 

Here's my question for you other "nice camera" owners: how did you learn?

Had you tinkered with one before?

did you just mess around with it after you got it?

did you scour the manual?

is there some secret "how to" website on the internetz I NEED to know about?

 

Help.

please and thank you.