Day 11 | Tips for shooting Manually

Day 11 | Tips for Shooting Manual

First of all, a bit of a summary of the last few days of 31 Days to a Better Photo:

Day 8 covered the Exposure Triangle. Darcy shared another great analogy (skin type, sunscreen and sun exposure) to help explain the relationships between the 3 elements discussed in the previous week - Shutter Speed, ISO and Aperture.

Day 9 covered the Scales of the 3 elements discussed and Darcy explained that there is more than one way to get the same amount of light into your camera. The key lesson I took away was: 

The fast you shoot - the brighter the image

The higher the ISO - the brighter and noisier the image

The wider the aperture (small number) - the brighter the image and more shallow the depth of field.

Day 10 was about In-Camera Metering and this was a real eye-opener for me.

"Your camera will tell you when you've got the exposure triangle right. You don't have to guess."

I have noticed the meter in my viewfinder, but never really understood how to manipulate it correctly. Yet it is so easy! If you understand the exposure triangle, but are struggling to take correctly exposed photos  without tons of trial and error (which for me was taking a lot of time whenever I grabbed my camera) I highly recommend reading Day 10! What a difference it was taking photos in manual mode once I had a visual cue to guide me towards the best and correct equation for my shot.

Now to Day 11. The assignment for today:

Shoot manual

And a few of the tips and reminders to get started:

• Turn off your flash
• Set the ISO as low as possible, initially.
• Shooting slowly requires a tripod.
• Kids and pets generally cannot freeze motion below 1/125sec (1/250+ is better).
• If you have subjects on many planes that you want in focus, you need a smaller aperture (larger number). Start by keeping your aperture smaller than the number of subjects in the photo that are in different planes. I prefer to start with # of subjects x 1.5 and go larger if I can pose them well. So if I have 4 people, 4 x 1.5 = 6. I like to shoot at f/6.3 or greater as a starting point.
• Learn the "Sunny 16 Rule": On a sunny day, shoot at f/16 with a shutter speed of 1/ISO#. So ISO 100 at 1/100s or ISO 200 at 1/200s. For overcast days, the rule is "Cloudy 8". Start at f/8 with a shutter speed of 1/ISO# as a guesstimate.
• Focus on your subject when you are metering. If you focus on the sky or shadows, your camera will meter the light for those areas rather than the subject(s).
• Keep the in-camera meter on zero for the proper exposure.

So here are my shots.

The relevant specs for this first series - My sick boy:

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6

Shutter Speed: 1/60sec (I know this is much lower than Darcy recommends for shooting children - but a couple of qualifying statements: these were taken at 4pm on a cloudy rainy day and I didn't want to have a huge ISO with lots of noise; my baby boy was very sick with gastro and so I knew freezing his movements was not going to be too much of a problem - I was thinking he would actually be asleep).

Photo 1: ISO 500, f/3.3 (Top Left)

Photo 2: ISO 400, f/3.3 (Top Right)

Photo 3: ISO 400, f/3.3 (Middle Left)

Photo 4: ISO 500, f/4 (Middle Right)

Photo 5: ISO 400, f/3.8 (Bottom Left)

Photo 6: ISO 400, f/3.3 (Bottom Left)

The specs for this second series - Searching for clover:

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6

ISO: 100

Photo 1: f/9, 1/200s (Top Left)

Photo 2: f/5.6, 1/500s (Centre)

Photo 3: f/5.6, 1/400s (Top Right)

Photo 4: f/5.6, 1/500s (Bottom Left)

Photo 5: f/10, 1/250s (Bottom Right)

The specs for this final series - Lego fun

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6

Photo 1: ISO 400, f/3.3, 1/125s (Top Left)

Photo 2: ISO 500, f/4.2, 1/80s (Top Right)

Photo 3: ISO 400, f/3.3, 1/200s (Bottom Left)

Photo 4: ISO 500, f/5.6, 1/80s (Bottom Centre)

Photo 5: ISO 400, f/3.3, 1/125s (Bottom Right)

I had so much fun with taking all these shots. When I wanted to have Beau of Noah in focus and a blurred foreground or background, I knew how to change my aperture. When I wanted to freeze Noah's movements out in the garden, I knew how to do that. I felt so much more in control of getting the shot I was envisaging in my mind. More art, less point-and-shoot. FINALLY!

Day 4 | Controlling the Faucet - Learning ISO

Day 4 | Controlling the Faucet - Learning ISO
ISO is a measurement of how sensitive your camera is to light. Together, ISO and shutter speed control how much light gets to your sensor.
Grab that trusty camera, put it on program mode. 
Set your ISO to the lowest number you can see. 
Take a picture and note the shutter speed your camera chooses. 
Stay in the same place, shoot the same subject again. 
Move the dial one notch - doubling your ISO. 
Take a photo, and note the new shutter speed.

My sister's boyfriend helped me re-learn ISO a few months ago when we were taking long exposure photos of the night sky whilst on holiday. I have appreciated feeling more flexible with the amount of light I can allow to reach the sensor by manipulating this variable since then.

I really REALLY appreciated learning the shortcut to changing ISO on my camera when reading my camera manual a few days ago. So easy now! I was previously reluctant to change it much as I had to go through the shooting menu and this is time consuming. time consuming and shooting impromptu photos of a 3 and 1 year old don't really go hand-in-hand. By the time I've made my way through the menu's the moment is usually over. But the shortcut I learnt this week changes all that.

For today's assignment I snapped these shots of my son at 3pm on a rainy grey afternoon. We were confined indoors and so light was an issue. Hence the shutter speeds chosen in program mode are very low - lower than I would ever consider shooting my kids. There is considerable blur in the first couple of shots, and as you can see, my son was a fairly reluctant participant by the last shot! And the "noise" evident at the larger ISO values is quite considerable (though perhaps not that evident in the size of the images below).

The relevant specs for these shots:
Camera: Nikon D80
Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6
Photo 1: ISO 100 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/4 (Top left)
Photo 2: ISO 200 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/8 (Top centre)
Photo 3: ISO 400 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/20 (Top right)
Photo 4: ISO 800 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/40 (Bottom left)
Photo 5: ISO 1600 Aperture f/3.5 Shutter Speed 1/50 (Bottom centre)
Photo 6: ISO 3200 Aperture f/4.5 Shutter Speed 1/80 (Bottom right)

Four days in and I have learnt so much already. The extra practice of using the different features on my camera is really helping me, and its only taking 10 minutes a day. Awesome for a Mum of 2 small rambunctious boys (and who this week seem to going downhill yet again with illness). Tomorrow I want to try out the High ISO NR option I have just re-read in my camera manual. Actually, its an app of my camera manual called D80 DSLR. I am loving having my camera manual on my iPhone - I don't always have my manual with me, but I do always have my iPhone. Genius.