You can't stick it on with soap, Peter. It needs sewing. That's the proper way to do it. Although, come to think of it, I've never thought about it before... um... sewing shadows, I mean.
- Wendy, Peter Pan
I took the photos below last week when Hollis was home sick. I used only natural light. No flash. I played around with my ISO settings to see what the different "film" speeds would do to my picture clarity and noise.
Have I mentioned that I love my new camera?
Before playing with the ISO settings, my first question was, "How does ISO work? How does it affect shutter speed and all that jazz?" The answer, for those of us who know nothing about photography, is this:
ISO is a measure of a film's sensitivity to light. The less sensitive a film is to light, the more exposure time (and the slower the shutter speed) it requires. Digital works the same way. While a higher ISO may allow you to shoot in lower light conditions, the drawback is a photo with more noise. (That grainy texture you sometimes see in shots.) So a higher ISO number indicates a "faster" film. The faster the film, the faster the shutter speed will be if all other conditions (lighting, etc...) are kept the same.
The goal, for the highest quality photo, is usually to shoot at the slowest possible speed for the light conditions you have. Not always, but I think I need to learn the rules before I start deliberately breaking them.
ISO 200
Exposure: .017 of a second (slower shutter speed)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO 400
Exposure: .077 of a second
Aperture: f/5.6
This photo was taken by a window in our living room on a cloudy day in the afternoon. Most of the other indoor photos I took at ISO400 didn't come out so hot because I wasn't using a tripod or flat surface to shoot all of them. The slower shutter speed needed at this ISO gives much more of an opportunity for motion blur in lower light.
ISO: 1000
Exposure (shutter speed): .033 of a second of exposure
Aperture: f/5.6
If I hadn't been playing around, I would probably never have tried using that speed unless I was taking photos at night or something. But with the right exposure, the photo really looks nice and crisp where I wanted it to be so (the eye). It works because the light was fairly low (although daylight), and the much faster shutter speed kept me from ending up with the motion blur that a slower shutter speed (like ISO 200) would cause without a tripod.
ISO 1100
Exposure:.033
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO 1250
Exposure: .033
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO 1250
Exposure: .033
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO 1400
Exposure: .033
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO 1600
Exposure: .04
Aperture: f/5.6
This one is a bit blurry, but I only shot a few at 1600 that weren't impossibly blurry or very noisy.
So now I can see how ISO affects the necessary exposure time for a shot. I must admit that my favorite photo was the one taken at ISO 1000 of Hollis's eye. That was certainly unexpected, but I'm sure I have many future surprises in store for me as I learn.
Earlier this week, I played around with my old camera to try and get some close-ups with indoor natural light. I took the photos when the light is best in our family room, at about 7:30am. I didn't use a flash. Normally, I get ultra-blurry indoor photos with no flash, even with a tripod or a level surface. These turned out a bit better than usual, but the focus was still a bit off.
I can't wait for my new toy!
I really like this shot. Holden was being intractable and uncooperative, so I got down on the floor with him.
I used the macro setting for this hand shot.
Macro setting again.
Women would kill to have those lips. Darn it. He gets them from T. The eyes are all mine, but Hollis looks just like his father here.
Here, I was trying to focus solely on Hollis's eyes. It's impossible to adjust depth of field with my P&S (point and shoot) camera, so I used some Photoshop blur to compensate for that after the fact.
My favorite of the Hollis close ups. No flash again, but there is a lamp lighting him from the top right hand side.Here are the promised photos of Hollis at Mt. Trashmore:
The focus here sucks, but I loved the expressions on the boys' faces when that remote control car zoomed by.
OK, so Holden is in this one too. I got a lot of noise in this photo, I think because there wasn't enough light with the storm coming in. To hide that problem, I made it a sepia photo.
Also had a lot of noise in this one. I couldn't convince Hollis to climb through the tires for me.
Be still my heart.
Anyway, most of these photos are of Holden since it was my turn to keep him from killing himself watch him. I do have some Hollis photos that I like, and I'll put those up tomorrow. The photos were all taken with my Nikon Coolpix L1 at mid-day. (Sorry, the new camera isn't here yet.) It was pretty cloudy and it began raining right after we left. I had so many great candid shots available to me and frustration with this photo session is really what pushed me to finally get a better camera.
Holden scooches down the "mountain" on his butt.
On top of Mt. Trashmore with the Virginia Beach skyline.
A different angle.
Sailing.
Holden does a lot of climbing.
Fearless.
This one's just adorable even though the focus sucks. I know I'm biased, but I swear that he could be in a Baby Gap ad if I just dressed him better.www.flickr.com
|
