Photography class
I recently started taking an informal online photography class. I'm really excited to learn how to use JP's camera. He takes such magnificent photos, and has such a good eye for composition. I, however, take the occasional marvelous photo, with lots of "just okay" ones. There are so many terms that are totally foreign to me, but I'm taking notes (like any good student should) and learning as I go.
I figured that as the family scrapbooker and the one who takes the majority of the photos of the kids, I probably should learn to take better pictures.
So now I have a tiny bit of a working understanding of aperture, otherwise known as f-stop. The smaller your aperture number the shallower your depth of field. So to take a nice crisp clear landscape picture, you want to use a higher aperture. To get a nice blurred background to your picture you want to use a lower aperture. I think that's right, LOL For now, my goal is to learn how the camera works in 'manual' and I'm trying to not worry about composition (that's a weak area for me) Here's what I've done so far for my week 1 and 2 assignments
Week one's assignment was to capture a landscape in a low aperture. This was taken at 22. This was a relatively easy assignment, although like I said I'm not very good at composition...yet...
Week 2's assignment was to use a larger aperture (but it's a smaller number!? strange) and to try to capture the effect called bokeh, where the background is blurry. This photo has an aperture of f3.5. This was s really tough assignment. It took me several hours to figure out why all my pictures kept whiting out. I needed to adjust my... hmmm, I can't remember what's it's called now, anyway I figured it out. And I did it! Do you see the bokeh in the background? I actually like the composition in this photo. Our old broken down fence makes a nice background.
So that's it for now. Stay tuned for more and more lovely pictures (hopefully) from me as I muddle through the next few months of learning how to use a digital SLR. :-)
I figured that as the family scrapbooker and the one who takes the majority of the photos of the kids, I probably should learn to take better pictures.
So now I have a tiny bit of a working understanding of aperture, otherwise known as f-stop. The smaller your aperture number the shallower your depth of field. So to take a nice crisp clear landscape picture, you want to use a higher aperture. To get a nice blurred background to your picture you want to use a lower aperture. I think that's right, LOL For now, my goal is to learn how the camera works in 'manual' and I'm trying to not worry about composition (that's a weak area for me) Here's what I've done so far for my week 1 and 2 assignments
Week one's assignment was to capture a landscape in a low aperture. This was taken at 22. This was a relatively easy assignment, although like I said I'm not very good at composition...yet...
Week 2's assignment was to use a larger aperture (but it's a smaller number!? strange) and to try to capture the effect called bokeh, where the background is blurry. This photo has an aperture of f3.5. This was s really tough assignment. It took me several hours to figure out why all my pictures kept whiting out. I needed to adjust my... hmmm, I can't remember what's it's called now, anyway I figured it out. And I did it! Do you see the bokeh in the background? I actually like the composition in this photo. Our old broken down fence makes a nice background.So that's it for now. Stay tuned for more and more lovely pictures (hopefully) from me as I muddle through the next few months of learning how to use a digital SLR. :-)
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