Saturday, September 29, 2012

First wedding photo experience

I went to a wedding today and I now have a whole new respect for wedding photographers.  I don't even know where to start my story.

My favorite part of photographing the event was the candid shots. The challenge I had was the location; outside with a combination of shade and direct sunlight. One advantage professional photographers have is having more than one camera, which allows them to utilize different lenses quickly. In addition to trying to adjust to the shade / sunlight, I made an incorrect adjustment when changing lenses and ended up really screwing up all of the ceremony shots..gggggrrrr. Thank goodness I wasn't the only person taking pictures (hopefully someone captured the ceremony), of the 750 pictures 155 were worthy of passing on to the bride and groom.

Here are a few pictures from the day. I am going to post good and bad...  I look forward to the day I have more good than bad shots to share.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Just had to take this shot

I was driving home from work yesterday and happened to look to the east and saw these poles/lines. I have driven by these weekly for the past 14 years and never gave them a second glance, but this time I saw them as a photo opportunity. So later this morning I packed my equipment to get my shot. I was really excited when I got there because there were two hawks on two of the poles, but by the time I set up my Proline tripod and Nikon D5100 camera with my Sigma DG 150-500mm lens, both hawks had left. One day I will get a picture of a hawk, everytime I make an attempt I haven't been able to get my camera ready fast enough. But getting the hawk wasn't my goal this time so I wasn't disappointment to see they had flown away.

I have posted the original picture and an edited picture. If you remember my earlier posts I wasn't a fan of editing... well, as I develop I am finding a lot of benefits to using editing tools.




Sunday, September 23, 2012

First try at sports action photographs

I thought it was about time I try my hand at taking some action photographs. I pulled out my class notes and reviewed the lesson on shutter speed and asked Bill to take Roxy outside to play.  The picture below of Bill and Roxy was my first attempt at an action shot (6:00pm). Remember, I am sharing my journey so I will be showing where I start and how I progress as I figure out what the heck I am doing.

My next attempt was too late in the day, not enough light so I wasn't able to set the shutter speed high enough. Out of frustration I deleted all of the picture (oopsss). 

A co-worker of Bill coaches soccer and suggested I come out and take pictures of the team. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong by looking at the various settings on the camera. I made some adjustments and am happy with the outcome. I have two  photographs from the game I would like to share with you (2:00pm, very sunny day).

All three pictures were taken with my Sigma 150mm-500mm lens.




Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Night photography at the Palace of Fine Arts

This is my first attempt at night photography. I went on a photo safari in San Francisco with a group of photographers and instructors. We ended our day at the Palace of Fine Arts. I was a little intimidated when the instructor said we would not be using flash. I was very happy with the results. The water looks calm but it actually was rippling from the fountain. The effect was achieved due to the 30s exposure time. Here are the settings I used for this photograph.


Date: 8/12/2012
Nikon D5100
Time: 9:00pm
Weather: Cloudy
ISO: 100
Exposure: 30s
White Balance: Cloudy
Lens: Nikon 50mm
No Flash

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Silhouette

I have been wanting to try my hand at taking a silhouette shot, so Bill and I went out to Folsom Lake around 6:00pm. I set up the tripod with a Nikon 50mm lens and my Nikon ML-L3 wireless remote.  What did I learn:

1. The wireless remote does not read the infrared sensor when the camera is facing the sun. So for me to be in the picture with Bill I had to set it up on the 10 second timer.
2. The sun has to be at the right position. I think I went too late, the sun probably needed to be more over head. I guess I need to read up on this.

Here is the best picture I took. As much as I hate photoshop I have to admit I made a few alterations to this picture. I look forward to posting a better photo without editing, but the reason I decided to blog my experiences was to share my journey while I am learning.




Thursday, September 6, 2012

Photo awakening

Recently I spent a day walking around Union Square in San Francisco. Before this trip I spent a lot of time photographing objects. I stopped to photograph a clock and saw a street performer who was playing drums on empty paint cans, buckets and water bottles. I didn't have a lot of experience photographing people I don't know, but wanted to capture this person so my first photos of him were at a distance, from behind.

I packed up my camera bag and went accross the street to give him a few dollars. While I placed the money in his can I started talking to him and asked if I could photograph him. It was a different experience for me because while behind the camera we continued to talk. I felt really comfortable photographing him while we continued talking. He talked about his experiences on the street and how he makes enough money to rent a room by the week. He also talked about his dream to make enough money to rent a recording studio.  After downloading the pictures from my day in San Francisco I kept going back to the pictures of  this street performer. That one event changed me as a photographer because I realized at that point in time that my love of communicating with people is  able to be captured and portrayed through the lens of my camera.

 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Fun at the lake

Bill and I went out to Folsom Lake over the Labor Day weekend around 11am and I brought all of my camera gear. I set up my tripod and my Sigma 150x500mm lens (I really like my Sigma lens). The lens is very heavy so I usually keep it on my tripod when using it. I purchased a separate tripod mount just for this lens. Having a dedicated mount for the lens allows me to quickly attach the lens to the tripod and the camera to the lens.  I also recently purchased a Nikon Remote Cord (MC-DC2),  a must have piece of equipment. The remote allows you to take pictures without touching the camera while it is on the tripod, which minimizes camera movement. Here is one of my favorite pictures taken this day; Roxy, our Goldendoodle fetching a stick in the lake. I was very pleased with  the outcome.