Step 1 Lighting (Part B)
Hello everyone! Sorry that it's been a while since my last post. It has been a busy week in the Harlow household. We have spent a great deal of time with family and friends and even took a weekend trip. Since my husband is obsessed with cars, we visited Mopar Nationals in Hebron, OH. I'll share a few pics later.
I think I might have made the last post in this series too long, but I want to share with you all that I feel is important (or at least all that I know) about lighting. I didn't get around to talking about working in Auto. If you feel that you're not ready to switch to manual, don't feel alone. I spent several years (yes, years, but I was only a teen when I started using a DSLR) in Auto. It is understandable to be nervous about it. If you don't fully understand the settings, many of your pictures will not be great, or even view-able (like totally blow out or black). That could completely ruin a special even or photo (imagine not having any decent photos of a child's birthday or graduation :/). It could be bad. It is important to eventually get away from auto and into manual to get your best photos, but for now you can shoot in auto and be happy with you pictures.
Both photos are SOOC
Those of you who are JUST getting started with photography might ask what is wrong with the photo on top. Nothing, if all you want is a snapshot, but you won't need an expensive camera of lens to get that photo. Any point and shoot and any photographer (or camera holder) could do it. But if that was all you wanted you probably wouldn't be reading photography blogs. The photo on the bottom was also taken in auto. What's the difference? In the "before" photo my model's (mom's) back is facing the light (that's my dining room window) and my camera is pointed into it. This made my camera believe that it needed flash in order to properly expose the photo. You can see that the flash is not flattering and makes the photo look flat and colorless. This is not what you want. In the after photo I turned my model 180 degrees and stood between her and the light. This told my camera that her face was illuminated and the flash was not needed. I'll list some simple steps to make sure that your camera is taking a good photo on auto.
1. Make sure that the model is facing the light. If you want the light to be directional turn your model at an angle to the light, but make sure that it's getting there.
2. Don't be afraid to try using aperture priority mode, particularly in low light. Keeping the aperture wide will help get enough light into the camera.
3. You might have to manually adjust the ISO to keep your camera from wanting to use the flash. If you camera insists on flashing, just turn the ISO to a higher number, but don't go too high.
4. If the light is really low and you must use flash, try bouncing it or diffusing it by holding a sheet of paper in front of it. That will keep the photo from looking so harshly lit and flat.
Those steps are pretty simple and for the absolute beginner. If you've been using a DSLR for a while, don't be afraid to step into manual or at least aperture and shutter priority. Just be sure to continue using auto at special events until you're comfortable with manual. Using auto can take great pictures in normal light, but they do not allow for the control that you can have with manual. Look at the next two pictures for proof.
This photo was taken at sunset. The exposure is fine. The color is fine. It's not a great photo, but good enough. Since it was on auto and she was not facing the light the camera did decide to use a flash. This was what it considered to be a properly exposed photo. And it is.
But this is what I wanted. Well, close to what I wanted. I know that I needed to diffuse the flash and probably use a warming gel for my speedlight, but I took this photo for nothing more than a demonstration. This is why you need to use manual. I will talk about exposure and camera settings in the next part of this series, but for now I'll explain how I got this shot.
It was pretty simple. I just turned up the shutter speed until the camera said that the photo was underexposed and turned on my speedlight (I don't have one of those nice ones that you can control, it's just a simple one). Then I took the shot and this is what I got. I also set the color temperature to over 6000 K to make the photo a little warmer. I will work on getting a better sunset photo and share it with you.
Now I'll share the photos that I took over this fun-filled week.
I spent many hours teaching my mom to use my camera. I set all of the camera settings, but needed to teach her about composition and focus in order to get a good photo of myself. It was a partly cloudy day and we had to take advantage of the shade when we had it.
Finally got a good family picture. For some reason, I don't usually like large group photos. I guess they don't seem sharp because the faces are so small. This one looks okay, but I wish we had all dressed the part. We took this photo in the shade. Notice that my dad's hair is totally blown out. I could have fixed this in several ways because I did notice it while we were shooting, but I chose to leave it. I could have taken a shot where the photo was slightly underexposed and brightened everything but his hair in post processing. I could have taken two RAW files and layered them in post processing, but I like natural and this is what his hair actually looked like in that light. It's VERY white.
I wanted to post this one to brag on my mom's newly found composition skills (or maybe my teaching skills ;p). For some reason, I like it. This one was also taken in the shade and using manual. It is also SOOC (except the watermark). I did shoot it using JPEG just because I don't like post processing. I just don't find it to be fun. Though it was taken in manual, aperture was the most important setting and I'll explain about that in the next part of this series.
And finally, just a cute pic of our weekend trip. This is my hubby drooling over a car. We had a great time, and I hope you had a great time reading. I would be happy to answer any questions (about photography, and grad school, and living on a budget, not cars...I know nothing about cars). Leave a comment if you're interested in a tutorial on any specific picture or just to give feedback. Thanks for reading! Next up is Part 2: Camera Settings!
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