12 Weeks To Better Photography | A Day in Mollywood

12 Weeks to Better Photography – Week 3

March 17, 2010 By Molly

Okay, I’m late on this but I promise I have a good excuse! I’ve come down with a nasty cold and as if that weren’t enough . . . I am having a terrible muscle spasm in my neck, which has affected my right arm and shoulder. I was laid up in bed with the heating pad yesterday. Even so, I decided to use the time wisely by doing lesson 3 and I’m glad I did! It was SO helpful . . . my favorite lesson out of the three I’ve done so far.

Hearing that Lesson 3 was all about white balance was intimidating. Now that I’ve read about it I realize that more than HALF of the photos I have taken with my camera have a very orange tint to them. I never even really took notice but almost ALL of my belly shots look so orange to me now. I guess my eye is more trained to notice the tint of an image now, which is super cool to know!

Anyway, I’m laying in bed reading the lesson and it’s like a light bulb went off! I can actually TELL my camera what to do. Yeah, whodathunk it? I take a lot of photos indoors and they all end up the wrong color mainly because we have very little natural light/sunlight flooding into our house and use whatever artificial light we have on in the house. Now I know that this is called Tungsten light and it usually gives photos an orange tint.

I never knew how to use the custom white balance setting on my camera. But all I had to do was hold up a white piece of paper (note: I actually took a photo of our white comforter so I didn’t have to get out of bed) and then set my custom white balance setting to that particular photo. This told the camera to “correct” the less than stellar lighting situation in the bedroom. Ha ha, take that overhead lighting! I am outsmarting you now!

Here are the three photos the lesson wanted me to take. I used Roxie the pug as my model because #1. she is lazy and #2. she was readily available. I think you’ll see that the difference is amazing!

(I used the Aperture Priority/AE setting instead of manual mode to take these photos. Still too scared of manual.)

First photo: taken with the auto white balance setting – (really orange tint, yuck)

Second photo: taken with the tungsten white balance setting (still an orange tint)

Third photo: taken with my custom white balance setting (success, hooray!)

I can’t believe how much better the color looks in the third photo. I mean, I was in my bedroom with the blind shut at 4:00 p.m. and it looks like we took this outside in pure sunlight! Pretty neat. This is the exact color of Roxie’s fur. Not sure I’ve ever been able to take a photo of her w/o making her look like an oompa loompa, lol. Now that I know that different lighting situations can cast such different colors onto my photos I think I’ll be able to “correct” the lighting before I even snap the photo.

What do you all think? I’m doing better : )

Filed Under: 12 Weeks to Better Photography, Roxie the Pug 7 Comments

12 Weeks to Better Photography – Week 2

March 9, 2010 By Molly

Are you ready for Week Two? I must admit I was pretty hesitant to try this again considering how frustrated I was during last week’s lesson but I’m too stubborn to quit.

First, I want to thank those of you who commented with advice, expertise and suggestions. I am contemplating purchasing this new *magical* lens that people mentioned and I have heard of before. Please understand my hesitation as #1. We’re on a budget and #2. I’m not even taking good photos with the first lens yet. But I promise, I will look into it sooner than later! I truly appreciate all your help as I learn to use my camera.

Lesson Two is all about ISO and Shutter Speed. The lesson instructed me to bump my ISO up between 1000 and 1600 if I were inside. And yep, because it’s raining today I am stuck inside. I opened the blind behind my kitchen sink but still had problems with my pictures being too dark. It didn’t seem to matter if I moved the ISO to 1600. My pictures were still dark. I even tried to change the white balance to cloudy or flourescent light. Nope, that didn’t work either. So, even though I wouldn’t consider these photos a FAIL like last week they are mediocre at best. I am only showing these kitchen sink ones because I can tell what the lesson was trying to teach me.

Low shutter speed . . . 1/60th of a second – ISO 400

Low shutter speed . . . 1/80th of a second – ISO 800

Higher shutter speed . . . 1/800th of a second – ISO 1600

As you can see . . . I am still having problems with the amount of light being let in even though I am changing my ISO. Blah. I don’t know what to do about this. It sucks and I’m frustrated. But I can at least tell that in the first picture the water is not very clear at all. In the second photo it gets a lot clearer and then in the last photo you can actually see the lines of water falling and hitting the bowl. So, I understand shutter speed. I still just can’t grasp the light issues I’m having.

But don’t be disappointed yet . . . remember how I told you it was raining today? And lesson two is using water, right? Well, what better way to try out lesson two than to go outside? Granted, once I got Landon and I all dressed up to go splash in puddles the rain had stopped. But there were still drips of water to practice with so that’s what I did! They aren’t the best examples ever and I still, even outside, had problems with over/underexposure but they are better than the kitchen sink photos.

Low shutter speed – 1/80th of a second – ISO 100

High shutter speed – 1/1000th of a second – ISO 800

In the first photo the raindrop is blurry. But in the second photo you can see two raindrops much more clearly.

Well, that’s it for this week. Due to the problems I’m having I think I am going to be forced to take some sort of a class. Internet lessons and reading the manual are only going to go so far with me. I’m still on the hunt for a good class before the baby arrives.

Filed Under: 12 Weeks to Better Photography 9 Comments

12 Weeks to Better Photography – Week 1

March 3, 2010 By Molly

Meredith over at La Buena Vida started the 12 Weeks to Better Photography tutorials on her blog. I made the decision to take part in these weekly lessons because I want so much to take better photos.

As I’ve mentioned before, my super duper husband purchased a DSLR camera as my Christmas present in December 2008. Sadly, I still have no idea how to use it. When I read Meredith’s blog the first lesson seemed simple enough so I decided to take out my camera last night and try it.

I read lesson 1 from Two Peas in a Bucket, which is all about aperature or f/stop. This means how much of your photo is in focus. Then I read it again. And again. Finally I was forced to crack open the rarely read manual. Why? Because the lesson was telling me to change the f/stop using a dial and I had no idea what dial they were talking about! See? I told you I suck at this. I just never took the time to learn what anything was on my camera.

For the most part, any of the photos that you see on my blog were taken with my DSLR but in auto setting. And if any of the photos look good it is all due to luck. I really have no idea what I’m doing and I often become frustrated because my camera won’t cooperate. I had always planned on taking a class but I haven’t been able to find one in my city that seemed worthy of the cost and time commitment. The only ones I can find last 8 weeks and cost $250+. That’s a good chunk of change and what if I still suck after the class and it was a waste of money and time?

So, back to last night. I worked for 2 hours . . . reading the manual, reading the tutorial, taking a TON of photos, changing settings on my damn camera and still nothing ever looked right. Let’s just say there was a lot of snapping and cursing going on (don’t worry, Landon was already asleep). I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. So if some of you lovely ladies who are participating in Meredith’s blog challenge or just know stuff about photography could please, please, PULEEEEEZE help me figure out what I’m doing wrong. Otherwise I’m going to give up after the first lesson and I don’t want to give up.

Here is some info on my camera in case you need it to help me.

Camera Type: Canon EOS Rebel XS
Lens: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS/II lens (I have no idea what any of this means. It came with the camera, folks)

And here are my three photos that the lesson told me to take. You will see that there is a big problem as I made the f/stop larger. My photos look nothing like any of the other girls’ photos who are participating. If it helps, I took these last night and the only light was the dining room chandelier above me. No natural light available. I tried changing the ISO even though the lesson told me that I should leave the ISO on auto. Obviously auto didn’t work and so I tried to move it up and down, which still never worked. ETA: the flash was NOT on.

f/4 photo (lower f/stop means less of the photo in focus)