Short Attention Span Challenge | The Photographer

As time goes by, I feel like capturing every family moment in pictures is incredibly important.  Right now, we are using a fairly inexpensive "point and shoot" camera. It worked fine in the past, when it was just my husband and me taking posed pictures or scenery with little to no movement.  Now that I have kids, it has become more difficult. The kids are constantly moving, and even when I use the automatic features on our camera, the pictures never seem to turn out quite right.  

Last week, I was attempting to take some pictures of my kids playing in our yard. After struggling for a little while with the camera, I started fooling around with the manual settings.  A few of the pictures turned out okay, but I realized I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

The Challenge

Learn how to use the manual settings on my camera (and hopefully improve the pictures I feature on my blog!).

The Process

 I started simple, by just checking out the manual settings on the camera, with absolutely no guidance whatsoever.  As I looked at the screen I saw letters and numbers and had absolutely no idea what they were.  I would mess with some numbers, making them larger, and the pictures would get too bright.   I would change another number, and the picture would get blurry.  Surely, there is a magic formula that will make these numbers work together.  You betcha. 

So I checked out a couple great books, but mostly I used this one.

I could go into a whole bunch of explanation about the camera obscura, or a comparison of the camera to the human eye, but I am just going to keep this short and simple.

ISO 100--ss .3--f/4.5

ISO 100--ss 1/13---f/4.5

Shutter Speed: 

The shutter is like a little window, opening and closing.  Imagine someone opening and closing window curtains and a flash of light is allowed into a room.  If you keep the curtains opened longer, the light will shine longer.  Shutter speeds are measured in fractions of seconds, and each increase in speed is twice as fast as the shutter speed before it, according to my book. My camera's shutter speeds are as short as 1/2500 of a second to as long as 15 seconds.  The quicker shutter speed catch a clear shot of a moving object, but lets in less light.  The longer shutter speed will let in more light, but the picture might be blurry.  By the way, I did get a clear picture of this kid using the correct shutter speed, but trying to keep her semi-anonymous.

ISO 80--1/250---f/8.0

ISO---1/250---f/5.6

F-Stops:  The F-Stop determines how much light goes into the lens.  The bigger the f/number, the smaller the diaphragm opening of the iris, and the less light it lets in.  Good cameras are capable of smaller F numbers.  Mine starts at f/2.8 and goes up to f/8.

ISO: This is the sensitivity of your camera to light.  The higher the number, the lighter your pictures will be.  In addition, the higher the number, the more noise or blurry spots you will see in your picture.  My book suggested to use the lowest possible ISO for whatever environment you are in while taking the pictures.

ISO 100--1/100--f/2.8

ISO 400--1/100--f/

ISO 200--1/100--f/2.8

Once you have determined what your ISO will be, the relationship between the f/stops and the shutter speed should be in a lock step.  When you move up the number of the f/stop, you will need to slow down the shutter speed.

Using these components, and by placing your camera at the right place, you should be able to manipulate your depth of field.  The closer you get to something, the blurrier it will get.  You can also change the depth of field by changing the f/stop.

ISO 80--1/60--f/3.5

ISO 80--1/60--f/3.5

ISO80--1/60--f/3.5

The Result

I still have much to learn, but at least I know what those numbers on my camera are all about.  I only had a week to pursue this and I found it fascinating and fun.  I can't wait to keep playing with my camera, and luckily, with this blog, I have a great excuse to do it.