I decided to take this course because I needed another art credit and I've always liked photography. I didn't know exactly what it was going to include but it sounded fun. I wnated to buy an SLR camera but my economy didn't want to. SO luckily, I was able to borrow a camera, a NIKON D40, which I'm very happy about because it's so much more fun to take pictures with that than with my little CANON point and shoot. The first thing that I learned was the camera, since it wasn't even mine and I had never used an SLR before, and there is a lot of buttons and settings in it that I didn’t even know what it meant. It took me a while to figure out all the buttons and settings that the camera has and still, even though I’m way better at it, I don't know it all.
I learned how to put my settings for different shots. I learned what the difference modes are: aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode and manual and I found that I preferred using aperture priority because I thought it was easier to get my subject in focus that way. Using aperture mode I learned how to take clear pictures where my subject was in focus. I learned to adjust the aperture depending on how much I wanted in focus and I really like having something in focus and blur in the background.
Then I learned the visual priorities: red is more attractive than yellow, large draws more attention than small, difference draws more attention than conformity, jagged lines are more striking than curved lines, diagonal lines are more attractive than vertical lines, sharpness is more attractive than blur and light is more attractive than dark. These rules are very important and I understand that now after taking a lot of pictures. I try to think about this when I take my pictures and it usually helps to improve the pictures a lot. I like taking pictures of bright things, and using the “red-rule” helps to create a good picture.
Another thing that I try to use when I’m out taking pictures is the Rule of Thirds. The rule of Thirds help the eyes see the important things in the picture and I find the picture more interesting when the rule is applied. Sometimes it’s hard to apply it because scenes look different with the eye than in a picture, but I try and I have succeeded a few times. I’ve also used the rule but I didn’t recognize it until I edited the picture later.
Photoshop is another thing that I learned, at least a little bit. I didn’t know that there was so much you can do in Photoshop. You can change a picture from its original into something totally different. It makes me both sad and happy at the same time. I tried to not use Photoshop too much i8n my pictures, but I almost always did something, such as boosting the saturation and the brightness to improve the picture. I learned many tools and what to look for when editing my photos. I usually made sure I didn’t have any spots on the lens or on the sensor. It is fun to play with Photoshop, but after changing the pictures to something else I wouldn’t call it photography anymore, I would call it art, which is fine.
I’ve improved a lot from taking this class. I never thought about how to take the picture before I just saw the subject. I I totally changed my ways and thoughts when taking pictures now. I know what makes a good picture and what doesn’t so it’ll help me when taking pictures in the future even though it’s just with my little point and shoot. I look at the nature different now too, I always look at the sky and comment on it when I see something interesting. I see beautiful things in rocks, trees and other things that I would never have thought of before. I’ve a created a serious interest for photography and I know that as soon as I can get the money I will buy my own SLR and just go CRAZY!
This was also taken in Yellowstone National Park. I had to be fast so I never had time to adjust my settings on this one.I really like how the bear is looking straight at me. The picture was a little too dark so I had to brighten it and I also lightened up his face to see it more clearly.
Yellowstone National park once again. This picture was also not very interesting but after editing it, boosting contrast and saturation it turned out to be an okay picture so I chose to keep it in my final pictures.
Yellowstone National Park, sunset .I'm not too happy with this picture, it turned out really dark so I had to brighten it as much as I could almost, but I like that it looks almost mystical.
Yellowstone National Park. This tree was interesting and just standing there alone. I really like the fog around it. I enhanced the yellows and greens to get some more color in this pretty gray image.
Nikon D40. Lens: 55-200mm. Aperture Priority.
F-stop: 6.3, Exposure time: 1/320, Focal length: 200. ISO 200
In Yellowstone, watching a wolf take a little nap before attacking an injured bison. Pretty interesting and the wolf was really pretty.
Nikon D40. Lens: 55-200mm. Shutter Priority.
F[stop: 8, Exposure time: 1/320, Focal length: 200. ISO 200
One of my favourite animal pictures just becasue the coyote was looking up, which allowes a good view of his face. I had to brighten up his face a little to be able to see it well.
Picture is taken in Riverfront park in Billings when I was watching the cross-country race in mid october. I was in shutter priority since I was shooting runners, but this picture I was just trying the settings and the picture was really dark. So I brightened it up and I actually like how it came out.
This picture I took in Banff, Canada and it took me a while to capture the ski lift exactly where I wanted it. I enhanced the blue colors to make the sky pop. I really like the fog at the bottom.
This picture is also taken in banff, Canada. I saw the side light and I really like the color of the light when the sun is about to set. I amde the trees pop a little bit and I also enhanced the blues in the sky and on the mountain.
This picture is taken in Lake Louise, I decided to have this one in my final 30, because I wanted something with a person in the picture and I think this picture is cool. I changed it to blacka nd white and then I cut out the sunglasses in it's original color.
This picture is also taken in Lake Louise, Canada. The Rocky Mountains are just so beautiful. I cropped this picture at the bottom because there were a lot of trees that were distracting at the bottom.
Nikon D40. Lens: 55-200mm. Aperture Priority.
F-stop: 14, Exposure time 1/160, Focal length 102. ISO 200
I took this picture right outside my house the other night when there was a beautiful sunset. I had to cropped a little bit at the bottom and I enhance the saturation and it turned out alright.
This picture was taken outside my house. I wanted a good macro picture so I tried for a long time to make this work. In photoshop I made the red pop more and I brightened it.
This picture I tried to capture the last part of the sunset, to get the blues and the yellows. The sky turned out almost black so I had to brighten it up, other than that I enhanced the saturation a little bit.
Nikon D40. Lens: 55-200mm. Aperture Priority.
F-stop: 18, Exposure time: 1/200, Focal length: 75. ISO 400
I took this picture at my coach's house where the sunset at night is just amazing. I got a lot of good pictures of the sky and this is my favorite one. The colors are incredible.
Nikon D40. Lens: 55-200mm. Aperture Priority.
F-stop: 6.3, Exposure time 1/40, Focal length: 55. ISO 400
Also at my coach's house. The sky in a totally different setting than the other picture.
Nikon D40. Aperture Priority.
F-stop: 22, Exposure time: 1/30, Focal length: 12
This image was taken in Yellowstone National Park. I used someone else's lens, and I can't remember what type it was, but it gave me a wider angle than my 200mm lens so I could capture the whole scene and not just the mountain.
This picture I took in Sandpoint, Idaho in September. It was taken with my little point and shoot which is a Canon IXUS. A really good camera, I'm surprised how nice this picture came out.
Nikon D40. Shutter Priority.
F-stop: 7.1, Exposure time 1/400. Focal length 700.
In this picture I used Dave's 700mm lens I believe, becaue my 200mm was not enough for this picture. I like how clear the eagle is and how pretty it is. I boosted the contrast and brightened up this picture a little.
Nikon D40. Lens: 55-200mm. Aperture Priority.
F-stop: 25, Exposure time: 1/80, Focal length: 200. ISO HIGH
This was a really hard picture to take. I don't have a tripod so I was leaning on the railing outside of Jorgenen hall. I tried many times and finally I got a picture where the moon didn't end up as a big white, bright spot.
When going out shooting it's important to bring memory cards to store the pictures on. The book recommends 1-2 GB memory cards so that if you somehow loose the data you've used more than one memory card for shooting. Pretty self-explained is that you should upload the pictures on a bigger hard drive or other device at the end of the day to make sure you have a back-up.
After taking all your pictures it's time for editing them. The image can now be processed from RAW format to standard TIFF, PSD, or JPEG formats that can be adjusted with image processing software and can be read by other computers. The best image editing software is according to the book Adobe Photoshop. It allows you to tune color balance and saturation, brightness and contrast, dodge and burn, remove imperfections, and also straighten horizons and many other editing functions.
It's really good to take pictures in RAW mode, which is what the professional photographers use. It saves the data as its original and it therefore allows you to do more changes on your own afterwards which gives you a lot more freedom. When you convert your photos, you should do so to TIFF or PSD format, JPEG loses data in compression.
When editing pictures, the first thing is usually to adjust the brightness of the picture. It is a fine-tuning of your exposure that you used taking the picture, and doing this makes judging other changes of the image more accurate. If you used the histogram when taking the image, usually you only need a minor adjustment. Then adjusting saturation is also a good feature to serve as reference, it makes a master correction to all colors. But avoid to pump up colors excessively, it makes it fake. Contrast is one of the most important qualities of an image. It's the degree of difference between adjacent colors. The last step of adjusting an image is the sharpening. It doesn't add more detail or resolution, it increases the contrsast between adjacent pixels so the detail is more succinct. Be careful so you don't oversharp which is the biggest risk.
For greater magnification, close-up lenses or add-on devices are required. The true macro lens is made to use for high-quality close-up picture taking. it has a focus range that goes from infinity to a close-up distance that yields 1:2 life-size reproduction. These lenses are quite expensive though, which is a big negative, but if you're interested in macro photography a lens like this would be really useful. Some accessories to get for macro shooting would be teleconverters, lens extensions, and close-up supplementary lenses.
Extension tubes and bellows permit varied magnification and produce quality image even at great reproduction, but a bad thing with them are that they reduce the amount of light transmitted by the lens and that will limit the range of stop-action photography under ambient light and it will be problematic when the wind is blowing.
Teleconverters is a good way to increase the focal length of the lens by 2X or 1.4X. You can do this and still keep the full focus range. They work well with telephoto lenses to take pictures of for example butterflies, frogs, and songbirds. Remember if you want edge-to-edge sharpness, stop down one or two stops from max aperture. Put the teleconverter on first on the body, then the extension tube and then the prime lens, if you're using it all.
Telephoto lenses are good because they let you maintain adequate working distance from subjects. They can also be used with telecoverters, extension tubes and bellows, and close-up supplementary lenses. It also works to combine all of them. If you're using a flash in nature, the best position for it is on the camera's hot shoe, but if you want you can put it to the side, above or behind the subject. In nature light illuminates the subject from any direction, but so can also your flash.
It's hard to shoot during mid-day when the sky is clear. Then it's needed to soften the sun's light, and one good way to do that is using a large umbrella of neutral color. This is used set up to block the direct sunlight from hitting the subject of the picture. Then you can use a matt white reflector to bounce the soft light back to the subject and the light will be softer. Doing this will be close to what it would have been like to shoot on a cloudy day.
To take good scenic pictures some clues are suggested in the beginning of part four in the book. The first one is a suggestion of having strong color as an indicator to create a nice photo. Here again, they remind us that the most attractive color is red so finding this hue in small batches and the picture has potential. This could be flowers, leaves, rocks or anything that can be taken in to a wider scene. And the red objects should get a lot of attention, and by doing so place them in the foreground in sharp detail to have the eye catch it right the way and the photograph will be interesting.
Something else really important for shooting landscape are the clouds. They give a good light to the picture and they can sometimes be really cool. And in sunrise and sunset, the clouds that are near the horizon can turn in many different colors and give opportunity to many nice photographs. Clouds give more detail and color to the landscapes than clear skies does.
A calm atmosphere is often beneficial to landscape photography. It allows to shoot with great depth of field and the chance of getting a good picture that you don't have to edit because they were blowing around in the wind. The best conditions for this usually occur before and after sunrise. Good landscape photos include an interesting foreground detail to grab the attention of the viewer and make the photograph more interesting. It's good if it contains something that drags the eyes to the picture.
If taking picture with the light from the side it give the landscape highlights and shadows and this make the photos very interesting. And the earlier in the day you take the picture, the more effect from the sidelight you will get. In the book there's an example to look at different planes when shooting landscape with with deep perspective scenics. The first plane is The foreground plane, that sets the scale for the composition. The second plane is the mid-ground plane, that leads the eye into the picture. The third plane is the feature plane which shows the center of interest. The fourth plane is the cloud plane and the fifth plane is the sky plane that comprises the different colors depending on what time of the day it is. Sometimes there's also a horizon plane in the background behind the feature plane.
