Assignment 5: Colour

WHY could I not have gone through the course at this rate the whole way through?!

This week was all about colour, learning how to saturate and desaturate images. I loved learning about these things.

The assignment this week was:

Go out with your camera and look for colour. Take photos close to subjects, so that the colours fill the frame – it doesn’t matter if the viewer cannot immediately tell what the subject is. Consider the following guidelines:

• Look for images composed of vivid colours (highly saturated) as well as more muted colours.
• Look for complementary colours (those opposite each other on the colour wheel) and harmonious colour combinations.
• Consider images that consist of single colours and multiple colours.
• Think about balance, unity, dynamism and focus of attention when composing and editing your images.

Assignment 4: Depth of Field

Sheesh, when will I be on time with things? The fact that we have an assessment to hand in has made me go "AAAARGH" and I am trying to catch up major-stylie while trying to organise my sons birthday party, birthday, and packing for our holiday.

So this week (well, week 4!) was all about depth of field, something I like the results of immensely and is what attracted me to the world of DSLR in the first instance.

This first picture, "Taraxacum Maximus" is a macro of a dandelion - I picked it outside then brought it in, placed in in a bottle and used my macro lens and a large aperture of f/4 to compensate for this I used a fast shutter speed of 1/200. The seeds on the dandelion are very soft, and I wanted to compliment this using a soft focus which I got from the large aperture. As I was inside with bright lights on the ISO was 100. I didn't need to do any work on this - this shot is straight from the camera.



""Stand back", he said..." is a picture I set up specifically for this assignment using some of my sons' toy men. I used my light tent to ensure a clean background and efficient lighting and, keeping in mind the lesson taught in Week 4 of using the longest focal length length to achieve a shallow depth of field. I used my telephoto lens at a focal length of 92mm. As I was using the light tent with 2 lights, I set the ISO to 100. As I needed a large aperture to create a shallow depth of field I set it at f/5 with a shutter speed of 1/200. I cropped the shot to remove some of the excess background using PSE6, and curved the corners using flickr (must learn how to do this is PSE6!)



"CrAyOnS" is another I set up with this assignment in mind. Using my light tent and lights, I only needed an ISO of 100 and used my macro lens to achieve the kind of close up I was after. I used an aperture of f/2.8 to give a really shallow depth of field, and a shutter speed of 1/200. Looking at it on my computer, I think the shot looks slightly over exposed, but I did have a play with the levels in PSE6 and it didnt look better! I'm not keen on the reflections on the crayons. If I were to set this shot up again I would try to use different settings so I wouldn't need to use a flash.

A Rule to Remember

Here's something I just read that I wanted to note for future reference:

"There is a guiding rule in photography to counteract camera shake that says you should ensure that the shutter speed is at least the reciprocal of the effective focal length (1/EFL). So if you are using a lens with an EFL of 300 mm then you should take hand-held images at a shutter speed of 1/300th or faster. Similarly, if it were a 28 mm wide angle lens then the shutter speed would need to be 1/28th of a second, which rounds to 1/30th."

A Reflection on Week 3

Well I know I haven't actually finished the assignment yet, but I am worried about falling too far behind. I will complete it but I want to get cracking with Week 4's material.

Week 3's apeture stuff really had me stumped - I just dont *get it*! I am going to read my 'Understanding Exposure' book, because I so really do want to understand it.

I enjoyed learning about the histograms and levels in Photoshop Elements and it all seems pretty common sense.

One thing I did learn this week which I had no idea about before, was the little scale on the LCD display that tells you when you are getting correct exposure. Only taken 5 months, doh!

Assignment 3 (A3) - Exposure

Assignment 3 is as follows:

Capture and share two well exposed images from at least two of the following categories of varied and challenging lighting conditions:

* Creative motion blur in low or normal light conditions (e.g. walking, cycling, cars, sugar falling from a spoon, running water, car lights after dark). For this task you will need to steady your camera by either resting it on something or using a tripod. Avoid camera shake.


* Low light, high speed (high ISO) still photography (e.g. moonlight, street lights). This can be hand-held if the shutter speed is fast enough or using a tripod or other camera support as appropriate. Avoid camera shake.


* High contrast photography (bright indoor lights, or bright daylight, or highly reflective subjects).


So far I have only managed one... more to follow


A Spoon-Full of Sugar..., originally uploaded by AlicePalice.

Blimey O'Riley!

Just as I was feeling better, along came another illness to bite me on the bum. I'm feeling semi-human so I figured I neeeeeeeeded to get on with Week 3, printed it all out... WOAH! It certainly is getting a little more tough!

This week we are learning about exposure. The whole aperture thing has always confused me - the smaller f-stops referring to large apertures and all that, I can't seem to make logic of it.

I had to write some notes while reading the aperture section. I am adding them here so I will always have them if I need to refer to them:

• Brighter light = smaller aperture (large f-stop number which results in not much dof)

• Need longer exposures in low light - slower shutter speeds to allow more light to hit the sensor

• Flash used in daylight is called "fill in flash". Useful when taking close up shots of a subject that is back lit

• Small f-stops refer to large apertures, large f-stops to small apertures

• Aperture f-stop numbers measure the ration of the focal length to the effective diameter of the lens, i.e. f/4 = aperture is 1/4 of the focal length of the lens. (e.g. diameter of about 25,, on a 100mm lens) f/8 = 1/8th. 1/16 = 16th etc etc

• As an equation, f = focal length, / = divided by. So with a 100mm lens and an aperture value of f/8, f=100 divided by (/) 8 (f number) = 12.5, so 12.5 is the physical opening for the 100mm set at f/8

• All doubling and halving of aperture is called a stop

• Each full stop doubles the area of aperture, and so doubles the exposure. Slowing shutter speed from 1/60th sec to 1/30th sec also increases exposure 1 stop, as does ISO 100 to ISO 200

• Important to identify intervals of one stop on f scale:

  f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22

• Some cameras offer 1/2 and 1/3 stops

• Larger apertures = "faster" - less time for same exposure of sensor

• Aperture area doubles as you reduce the f-number by 1 stop, and halves as you increase the f-number by 1 stop.

Arghhh - brain ache!

A Reflection on Week Two

It all started off so well - I had the course material printed off, I was reading through it at a rate of knots.... then I got tonsillitus. Week 3 should have started yesterday but I only finished off the last half of Week 2's material today.

I didn't do any of the small activities that were part of the reading material, and although they are things I might have done before, I was determined that this course would make me take lots more photos.

I would have loved to have spent the 4 hours which was allowed on the Week 2 assignment - I just felt too rough.

Anyway, I'm feeling loads better this afternoon so hopefully 3rd week lucky!