Photography Fun

In Photoshop this semester, we had a few days where we practiced photography techniques, learning about the exposure triangle--aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Here are some of my best shots.

Action Shot

The above cheer shot features my daughter in air smiling really big. I took this at a cheer competition this spring and the lighting was terrible. I used the highest ISO possible (3200) but could not use any faster shutter than 1/200 because it was so dark in the venue. I even added exposure compensation because I needed even more light. I probably could take this into Photoshop to bring up the Levels to improve the shot, but I like the clarity.

Light Painting

My youngest daughter helped me with this shot in our kitchen (notice the coats hanging on the wall?I I probably should have picked a better location!). Since we were doing light painting, I used the lowest ISO that I could on this camera, 80. I set the exposure time to 2 seconds to give her time to draw a heart with the light. Because I wanted it dark, I put the aperture as high as possible, which on this camera was f/8. I think it looks pretty good.

Macro Shots

Here is my outdoor macro shot of one of my Shopkins. I set the aperture as low as it would go at this zoom so I would have a big aperture and blurry background, F/3.2. Then, I just balanced the rest for good light. I started on macro mode and looked at the settings and then just gave it a faster shutter so it wasn't so bright. But, she looks darling. :)

The marble shot above was taken indoors and the lights were off, so I overcompensated to have more light by increasing the ISO to 800. My aperture was as low as it would go at this zoom, F/3.2 and then I messed with the shutter speed (took about 5 shots and went with this one).  I liked the shadow on this one. But, it looks pretty cool and might make a nice computer wallpaper. 

Portrait

I was using one of my fancy cameras to try to get this shot, but it was difficult. I really wanted a blurry background but since she is standing against the wall and there is no gap between her and the wall, the only was was to try an angle where some of the bricks were further away, so the bricks on the left side of the shot lose focus. This camera had a very wide aperture so I went as low as I could, F1.8. It was in teh shade, so I also increased ISO to 400. 

Silhouette

This isn't my favorite shot, but it's at least an example of a silhouette shot. I took a little horse and placed him in the shade, used a fast shutter of 1/1600, and to blur the background, a larger aperture hold with F3.5. Naturally, I wanted the horse dark so you can see just the silhouette and not the color so I set the ISO to the lowest, 100. You can still see that the horse is red, but it was just the best I could do on this one.