Photography Class by Camilla Lesson 2

[Camilla and Darwin]

Okay, this is going to be a fun one I think, and we will be learning together because I haven't used this mode very much. 

 

Shutter Priority mode! On a Canon camera, this is "TV", and on Nikon and Olympus, I believe it is "S"

 

Shutter priority mode allows you to set your shutter speed and adjusts the other settings to match. If you remember from the previous discussion, shutter speed is like your eyelid. It controls how long the shutter is open, therefore how much light is let in. If you want to freeze action, you will want the shutter to open and close very quickly, if you want to capture a blur or lots of light, keep your shutter open longer. Here are some examples. 

 

A LONG shutter speed of 10 full seconds. For reference, you will usually be shooting at faster than 1/60th of a second during the daytime. I wanted to have the shutter open for a long time to capture all the lights from the passing cars. 

 

The following photos were shot with a relatively long shutter speed. This was because there was little light available so in order to let in more light I needed to slow that shutter down. These were shot at below 1/60sec. Now, I would recommend that if you are shooting below 1/80th a second, you use a tripod, otherwise camera shake will be a problem for you.

 

 

Now this photo was shoot at a very fast shutter speed of 1/2000sec. I wanted the shutter to open and close super fast, so that I could freeze the motion of this water drop. 

 

 

 

These were all using relatively high shutter speeds as well, over 1/500sec, two were at 1/1000 sec

 

 

So now that you have seen these examples of higher and lower shutter speeds, I want you to go out and experiment. Keep it simple. Don't worry about how blurred your background is for now. Set your camera to shutter priority mode, and go experiment with different shutter speeds. Try to freeze action, and try to take a lower light photo with a slower shutter speed (perhaps a candle in the dark?). Experiment and see what results you get. The idea here is to see what happens when you change your shutter speed. Try shooting in different situations.A running doodle, a car passing by, dripping water, a river or waterfall, anything. I want you to all focus on capturing movement. You are welcome to experiment with how this affects lighting as well, but start with a focus on action. Get a blurred shot, get a frozen shot. I would recommend setting your ISO to Auto for this assignment, so you can focus on changing your shutter settings alone.

 

Good luck!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Jarka, These are great!

[DJ & Chance]

Love these!

[Sue & Lily Grace]

Wow, great shots.

[Anne & Mr. Haley]

I love these, Jarka.  Double the fun! 

[Ann Kendig]

Nice shots really like the third one. Mike

[Camilla and Darwin]

Really good!

[Sue]

You were standing farther away in the second picture right? That means more is in focus.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Maybe. I don't really do full manual so if I choose the aperture I let the camera figure out an adequate speed.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Your aperture is pretty open and your speed kind of slow. I don't have this lens so I don't know it's characteristics, but in general I would try not to work with such a large aperture which will give you a narrow depth of field. That said the top picture is only slightly off.

[Ann Kendig]

You do have a shallow depth of field maybe a snouts worth.  You mentioned you targeted focus on the eyes but the top one looks like the focus hit just behind the eyes so the nose is too far from the focus point.  Look how sharp the fur on top of the head is.  The second one the focus hit at the nose the fur just between the eyes is showing signs of softness due to the shallow depth of field. You mentioned 5.6 aperture may have been better, I agree if you want eyes to nose to be sharp. Mike

[Camilla and Darwin]

If it's out of focus you definitely need more depth of field. Narrow it even more, maybe to f/5.6. Or scoot back and take it from further away.

[Elizabeth, Bailey & Bruin]

Oh Hattie what big teeth you have LOL

These are beautiful!