New here and jumping in

Hi all!

Honestly, I'm not sure that I'm posting this in the correct forum. If it needs to be somewhere else please feel free to boot my post to another forum.

I am a mom of 4 who's goal is to obtain good volleyball captures of my oldest as well as grow enough in portraiture photography to someday perhaps go into business. Who knows if I'll ever reach that goal but I'm at least trying to learn all I can for now.

I'm currently trying to really work on my focus and setting. I generally shoot in Manual if I can. I adjust the settings so that the little flashing dash on the line (-2, 1, triangle, 1, +2) is as close to the middle as I can get it. (How's that for technical information?! LOL) As you can imagine, this doesn't always work so I'm trying to learn how to do it the RIGHT way. One thing I think I've learned so far is that the reason I often have a very small area that is in focus is because I have my aperture too small. Is that right? It's either that or the whole "focuse/recompose" thing that I can't seem to figure out. It's always set on AF but I don't know what point to put where.

So here are a few shots I took earlier today trying to practice a bit. These were all shot with my Canon XTi using my 50mm 1.8 lens. I'd love any advice anyone has to offer on these.


ISO100, 1/800, 2.2 RAW
I was sitting on my front porch when my youngest came to show me a rolly polly she captured. What should I have had this on so that it wouldn't have been so bright? I edited this in DPP adding the monochrom effect and changed the WB to auto because it was pretty blue. I almost ALWAYS end up changing WB in DPP. I darkened it a bit too because it was SO bright, her left shoulder is really blown.


ISO100, 1/1000, 1.8 RAW
Another daughter, looking up at me as she's writing in her "bug log". If I had opened this up to more like 4.0 would my focus have been better? I notice that the focus seems to fall on her right shoulder and hair. It was a bit dark as well so I actually ran a basic color action on it in PS. She's not actually under the porch as far as I am here but I wonder if I should have changed the ISO to 200 for more favorable results?


ISO100, 1/1000, 4.0 RAW
Again, I'm thinking ISO should have been higher. ??? I did open this one up more and it seems to be better focused. One thing I'd like to learn is to do a backlit photo. I think that's what it's called, I'm referring to photos with a bright sun in the background and a couple or children where you really only see the silhouette's.


Am I on the right track? I know I have a LOT to learn so any advice as steps to take to achieve my goals would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Margo

Yes, It's called the Law of Reciprocity

In photography we have what is called the Law of Reciprocity which means for every shutter speed there is a correct aperture to let the right amount of light into the camera. Adding to that is the digital equasion of ISO where it used to be we just would buy film that set that for us in the days of analog/film. In bright daylight we used film of ISO 100 but 200 and 400 were also used and in lower light we could use 800 or 100 speed film - but it made the image "noisy" and still does.

That said, if you have your camera set with an aperture of 4.0 (great for portraits where there is one person in the photo) your shutter speed might be at 500 depending on how sunny it is outside.

Those little lines with the triangle in the middle is your on camera light meter. If you are looking for a blurry background you might want your image to be 4.0 - that will mean that your background will be blurry but then you need a slower shutter speed to let enough light into the camera. The faster the shutter speed the less light = If your aperture is a low number, it is "Wide" and then more light is let in. If crisper you want your background the higher the aperture number needs to be. Think of f16-f32 of everything in the frame being in focus.

So when you are setting your shot, I like to start with my aperture setting. Do I want a blurry background for low depth of field? Or do I want everything crisp and in focus? Then I pick my number and the camera will help pick the shutter speed.

If I am shooting moving objects, then I might want to set my shutter speed a bit higher to freeze action. So I would have to open my aperture up (use a lower number) to adjust the light to work with my faster shutter.

I could also use flash to freeze the action, but, that is another lesson.

Shutter speed is important to avoid "camera shake" or motion blur. If you are using a camera with a 50 mm lense, then the rule of thumb for hand holding your camera would be the slowest shutter speed you should generally use is 50. So your little light meter says the speed is 25 and you are at f4, then your photo will be blurry from motion blur/ camera shake. That means you need to use a lower aperture number (stop down) to let more light into the camera.

Does that make sense to you?.

Margo, there's nothing wrong with your ISO here and you've got the right idea but your terminology is backwards. "Opening up" means wider f stop or bigger aperture (eg f 2.8) and "closing down" means smaller aperture (eg f4 or f5.6, f8 etc). Opening up will give you less depth of field (focus) and closing down will give you more depth of field. In your examples you probably should have closed down a stop or so - you had plenty of shutter speed so this wouldn't have required changing your iso. When using narrow DOF (wider apertures) it's also important to pay particular attention to the exact point of focus because focusing on the top of head or tip of the nose can leave the face and eyes slightly out of focus.

- DL

Kathy Rappaport said:

...Shutter speed is important to avoid "camera shake" or motion blur. If you are using a camera with a 50 mm lense, then the rule of thumb for hand holding your camera would be the slowest shutter speed you should generally use is 50. ....

Click to expand...

I totally agree with Kathy, but I want to add to what she said in the above quote.
You use XTi, a "cropped" sensor camera. It has a crop factor of 1.6x, meaning that a 50mm lens works like a 50x1.6 = 80 mm lens. To prevent any camera shake when you hand hold the camera with this lens, try using faster shutter speeds than 1/80 sec, preferably at 1/125sec or so.

Cheers,

PS: I was in the process of replying at lenght like Kathy did but I managed to crash my browser towards the end and lost all my text. Don't have the time to reproduce right now unfortunately. Write to you later.

Don Lashier said:

...When using narrow DOF (wider apertures) it's also important to pay particular attention to the exact point of focus because focusing on the top of head or tip of the nose can leave the face and eyes slightly out of focus...

Click to expand...

Don is absolutely right. Especially since you have used f1.8 or f2.2 which have a very narrow DOF. So do not focus with the central focus point but choose the focus point closest to the eyes or the bridge of the nose. Otherwise you'll run into the focus recompose problem. HTH.

Cheers,

Exercise

One of the exercises we did in beginning photography was to take the same picture over and over again but change one setting. So start with your aperture at 1.8 and see what the shutter speed is. Snap. Move the aperture one click and notice the shutter speed. Do that through the full range of aperture and then look at the images.

Thank you all for your information! I'm obvioulsy confused. LOL When I first got the camera I tried to learn all the terms. It confused me, then I got a full time job, and put photography on the backburner. Now I've decided (again) that I'd like to give it another shot. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to understand. I think the fact that there are so many terms...aperture, shutter speed, exposure, f stop...and some of those are even the same thing. Right? Ugh.

I think I'm going to start by getting the book that Diane mentioned on my other post. As well as maybe looking into an online course. Although I have to admit that part of me thinks I'll just never get it!

Margo Stewart said:

Thank you all for your information! I'm obvioulsy confused. LOL When I first got the camera I tried to learn all the terms. It confused me, then I got a full time job, and put photography on the backburner. Now I've decided (again) that I'd like to give it another shot. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to understand. I think the fact that there are so many terms...aperture, shutter speed, exposure, f stop...and some of those are even the same thing. Right? Ugh.

I think I'm going to start by getting the book that Diane mentioned on my other post. As well as maybe looking into an online course. Although I have to admit that part of me thinks I'll just never get it!

Click to expand...

Yes you will get it. Try the book on Undertandin Exposure and try Kathy's exercise. Experimenting and seeing the results will get it in your heard.

Diane