Bruises and Bandaids »

This picture was a quick snapshot. I didn’t want to miss the moment. My little boy was reading to his daddy in the morning. It was a story in bed and it was just so sweet. So there was no time to change the lighting. The windows were closed and that’s how they had to stay if I wanted to capture the moment. The overhead tungsten light was on, but that’s okay, that’s normal inside.

My manual settings for this shot:
ISO – 6400 (fortunately my camera has a pretty high ISO range. I can go up to 6400 to help with dark settings. It gets a bit grainy but not too bad.)
aperture – 2.2 (remember it was a darker room at the moment so I was looking to let in light, so I opened my lens up more to let in more light)
shutter speed – 1/160 second (again, wanted to let in as much light as possible, could have maybe even gone a little lower/slower shutter speed since they were sitting still… 1/125 or 1/100 would’ve probably worked)

Do you want to learn how to use your camera on manual? There are only a couple more spots left for my workshop on Saturday, September 18th. This is likely the last workshop for 2010 due to the busy fall that is approaching. So, if you’re interested sign up now or read more details about it.

The details on where I took this shot:
This was taken inside with natural light. No studio lighting and no flash were used. The windows were north facing and the little boy was facing east. So the window light is coming from the right side of the picture. Therefore the right side (when looking at the picture) of the subject is lit up more and the left side of him has more shadows on it. Some people try to avoid shadows, but I happen to like them. They make images realistic. Flash filled pictures have no depth. Everything is lit up. When a picture has shadows it allows the face to look natural, like we really look… for real. I like that. :)

My manual settings on this shot:
ISO – 1600 (inside near a window)
aperture – 2.8
shutter speed – 1/160 second
camera & lens – canon’s fabulous 5D mark II and my 50mm 1.2L (my current favorite lens)

Remember aperture? If not, check out my definitions page. It’s the opening in your lens that allows you to do two things. One, it allows more light in and two, it controls your depth of field (how much is going to be sharply in focus in the background.

These two pictures below are taken at the aperture (also known as f stop) of 2.2. That means the hole in my lens is open up really wide, the hole is big. So, my depth of field behind my subject is shallow, creating a blurry background. The background is not sharply in focus. Right? So that’s a shallow depth of field. Make sense? These two pictures were taken with the same settings but a different focus point. When taking the picture on the left I focused on my little boy’s eyes. In the picture on the right I didn’t change any of my settings, but instead I focused on the donut. :)

My manual settings for this shot were:
ISO – 800 (inside the donut shop)
aperture – 2.2 (open pretty wide open for light and for a very shallow depth of field)
shutter speed – 1/250 second

Do you have specific things you’d like to see on this bruises and bandaids blog? Do you have any questions or specific areas of confusion? If so, please leave a comment on this post letting me know what types of things you’d like me to cover on this blog. I would love for this to be a helpful place for you to continue to grow and learn your camera, it’s manual functions, composition, and how to see and use light. So…. leave a comment with a specific question. Too shy for that? Send me a private email message then through my contact page. If I don’t hear anything from all y’all people (assuming one or two people are actually reading my posts. Hee hee…hopefully) then I’ll just pick the topics myself and keep on going. :)

Until then, here’s a pic of my family on a little mini trip to the aquarium. I’ll let you in on how I chose my manual settings and why.

My manual camera settings for this shot below:
ISO – 320 (I chose 320 because it was inside the aquarium, but there was quite a bit of natural light coming through because it was essentially windows everywhere with a wave going over us.)
aperture – 4 (choosing an f stop like f4 allows all three of my boys to be sharply in focus and it also allows you to see a bit of what’s going on in the picture, expressions, some bubbles from the wave, etc)
shutter speed – 1/800 second (chose this shutter speed in order to make the exposure look right)
equipment – canon 5D mark II and my 50mm 1.2L lens

I blogged about this little girl’s pics previously but only when referring to the color and contrast. This time I’m going to focus on composition and my manual camera settings.

These shots were taken outside in the full shade of a building wall. Full shade is the best! Especially for those who are still learning. It’s much more forgiving and easier to shoot in than sun and other tricky lighting situations. Look at the composition of this shot below. She fits into the rule of thirds here.
My manual camera settings for all three of these shots were actually the same:
ISO – 200 (morning, but in full shade)
aperture – 3.2
shutter speed – 1/800

In this picture below the little girl is front and center. It’s all about her and her sweet little smile.

Same location, but pulled back a bit so you can see all of her. She’s sportin’ just a bit of attitude and I love it. :)

This little miss did not want to sit still, gaze silently into my camera, and smile. She didn’t quite get it. I don’t blame her either. How is she supposed to understand my goals and what I’m trying to create as an end result. Really? No. That’s not how it works with kids. Especially one year old little ones. They’re just too young to understand what we hope to gain from them. However… they do understand treats, candy, games, clapping, songs, and other fun stuff. So, make it fun for them. Don’t make it a difficult frustrating time. And then after all else doesn’t go exactly how you were hoping…. be very flexible. When your photographing children you have to be flexible. I was hoping for huge smiles, but instead, this little miss offered me sweet observation. I’ll take it and I actually happen to love it. Right? She’s still beautiful. Gorgeous in fact. And it documents what kind of little girl she was at one year old…. quiet and maybe more of an observer than a jumping off the couch rambunctious kid. I don’t know this little one super well, but by this image, that’s what I would guess. A quiet observer. Those are pretty sweet moments too. So, capture them, with your camera…. as they really are, not forced into someone they are not.

My manual camera settings:
ISO – 320 (evening)
aperture – 2.8
shutter speed – 1/250

It’s a bright sunny morning, 10:00am with the lovely bright summer sun. So, how do you take a photograph of a family without having everything blown out super bright and leaving way too many dark circles under everyone’s eyes? Well, here’s one shot that’s in the sun, not shade and here are my settings. I put my camera on manual and set….

ISO to 125
Aperture at 4.0
Shutter speed at 1/250 second
Using my favorite lens, the 50mm 1.2L

And I also pay attention to where the sun is at. I avoid having the sun hit directly on any of my lovely subjects’ faces, but rather have it a bit behind them, lighting up their hair in a way that almost makes it glow a bit. Pretty, huh? :)

Silhouettes at dusk. Ahhh. Love them.

Here are my manual settings for this shot:
ISO –500 (evening, dusk very little light left in the day)
shutter speed – 1/1600
aperture – 3.2
lens – 50mm 1.2L

Lovely evening lighting… especially summer light… how how i love you. :)

Here are my manual settings for this shot:
ISO –160 (evening, yes, but the sun is pretty bright still)
shutter speed – 1/320
aperture – 4.0 (two little people spaced a bit apart and I’m wanting to get them both pretty sharp in focus)
lens – 50mm 1.2L

If you look carefully at this shot you will notice that it is backlit by the sun. Meaning, the sun is behind the subjects. You have be careful about this. It adds a beautiful touch to an image (in my opinion) but you can’t have the sun coming too directly into the camera or there will be a lot of lens flare, creating those hexagonal shapes in your camera and on your image. For me, I use my subjects to kind of block the sun a bit until I like the way it looks. Sometimes they block most of the sun and other times, just a portion of it. It’s a preference thing really. Try it out. It needs to be when the sun is reaching close to the horizon, not quite dusk, but definitely getting close. :)

My settings:
ISO –1250 (inside of the swim america building)
shutter speed – 1/320
aperture – 3.2
lens – 50mm 1.2L