Hey Mandy!! April Suggestion . . .

[Diane Margetts]

I don't know what you have planned for April but I know ISO was tossed around. I have been whining about a focus problem and I finally took it to a 4/3 photographer forum for advice. I found the answer to be most interesting--a photography approach involving ISO that I had never considered. It's almost the opposite of the March assigment because you use different ISO settings to change shutter speeds while shooting in aperture priority. I am going to practice this weekend and thought it may be interesting for the group as an ISO assignment unless you have something already planned. . . Here is my question to the photographer and his comment back..

 

Q:  . . . myfrustration is, no matter what shutter speed I select, my camera always selects ISO 100--even though I have set the ISO to AUTO--and my pics are soft. Why is my camera consistently defaulting to ISO 100? I guess that's my question and frustration . . .
This, for example (bad pic but demonstrates what I'm talking about)--it's very soft and I just don't know what I'm doing differently:
(my selection)1/1250, (camera selections) f4.4, ISO 100
 

 

A: "You have f4.4 which will give you a fairly shallow depth of field and a moving target, if you look in the very centre of the image the focus is good, this is where the auto focus has locked, for most moving targets you are better with aperture priority so that you are controlling the depth of field, then you can use ISO setting to give you a range of shutter speeds. looking at your second image I would try f/8.0 ISO 400 with "A" set on the camera. This should keep the dog in focus and it would be better if the dog was at the centre of the image so that the auto focus is concentrated there, I hope this helps and is not to complicated. keep on shooting."

[F, Calla & Luca]

I'm tired so right now this is written in Greek but I'm sure it will make sense later.

[Diane Margetts]

OK, let me try again . . . (In fact, I just got an endorsment for the suggestion from the same Olympus forum.) Try action shots using the following method:
1. Select aperture as the shooting mode.
2. Decide the depth of field you want and select the appropriate aperture (the smaller the aperture number, the more the background blurs)
3. Control your shutter speed with your ISO selection (I have not practiced this, but to force a higher shutter speed--which you need to "freeze" action--you select a larger ISO. It is recommender to keep the ISO as low as possible to keep the "noise" level down, so start at 100 and work up until you achieve your desired effect.)
I plan to play with this idea this weekend!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

I hear you loud and clear now.