My photography course.

[Tracey]

That was taken in RAW so I'll have a look to see what I can do, failing that, I'll retake the photo... after all, I have got the "subject" in my garden, and its not going anywhere

[Hedgehog]

That was taken in RAW so I'll have a look to see what I can do, failing that, I'll retake the photo... after all, I have got the "subject" in my garden, and its not going anywhere

However, the leaves could be a different matter... 

[Tracey]

That was taken in RAW so I'll have a look to see what I can do, failing that, I'll retake the photo... after all, I have got the "subject" in my garden, and its not going anywhere

However, the leaves could be a different matter... 

Oh yeah. Hopefully the weather and light will be kind to me this weekend so I can try a few more shots. I dont really want to wait till spring to try again.

[Tracey]

I have to admit, I'm a little miffed with the course at the moment...

Not so much the course as such, but the way that there has been "groups" set up on Facebook and Flikr, so now the conversation in the main course website seems to be diluted, and you need to check the conversations on Facebook and Flikr. I dont have a flikr account, and I cant see the point in having one for the sake of this course (specially as we're supposed to post on the OU site) I dont have the time to chase round on all these extra places! I have enough on my plate trying to keep up with my coursework

[Tracey]

After surviving the previous week, getting my assignment in on time, and non having too many negative comments posted about it, I thought I'd start week 2 a day or so early, hoping to gain some time

Week 2 is for us to be able to resize/save and crop our images in a way that enhances the photo. We also now have to be more photographically technical when discussing our images, and to further understand what makes a good image. We're also introduced to the basic process of how the digital camera captures and translates the data, and how that data is stored on a computer, we're also starting to explore the various settings of the camera, firstly the ISO setting.

Apart from my whine about checking out all the various sources, this weeks lessons have been not too bad. I've seen different ways to crop an image, and how the crop could change a reasonable photo into a great photo.. and while testing out my ISO settings I've realised my poor little Oly doesnt cope very well at the higher settings (over 800 it becomes very noisy)

This weeks assignment - a photo of something/someone/somewhere you like! vague eh   I'm working on mine, and I'll post it up when I have done.

[Hedgehog]

After surviving the previous week, getting my assignment in on time, and non having too many negative comments posted about it, I thought I'd start week 2 a day or so early, hoping to gain some time

groan!

I always say you can't beat a good crop & today's gigapixel cameras allow this much more than when I started out on a 3mp Fuji... & the more you experiment with it the more you'll think about the framing when you're actually taking the shot, removing the need to crop future photo's 

[Tracey]

I tend to compose my photos reasonably carefully hoping to save myself crop-time, but I was looking at some of the skyscraper photos, as well as some of Newark castle, and I wish I'd left myself a bit of "wiggle-room" as I wanted to remove or lessen the converging parallels (is that the right term), but to do that it destroyed the photo, and meant having to crop huge amounts out...

How do you build in that sort of safeguard? or how do you lessen the effect of buildings toppling?

[Tracey]

Week 3

This week is/was all about controlling the exposure in different ways (ISO/aperture/shutter speed) and how each of those affect the overall photo in different ways, and to start to look into balancing the 3 to take a good photo (hopefully).

The assignment is all about creating images that show motion, creating images in difficult lighting conditions (bright and dark) and creating images in low light. I'm finding this assigment a lot more enjoyable than last weeks   Playing with torches in the dark to get movement, ghosting effects etc with a slow shutter speed... this seems to be a much more creative assignment... one I think I'll play about with after the course

We're also beginning to use layers in the software to create adjustments to brightness and contrast etc. These adjustment layers allow us to make changes to the photo without them becoming permanent adjustments until we are happy with them, and without risking the original photo.

[Grendel]

one trick astronomers use is to do long exposeres on a tripod to get star trails, and then paint in interesting trees / rocks etc with a torch. or you could take long exposures of a busy junction so you get the car lights trailing.
Grendel

[Tracey]

Well I was going to have a go at that this weekend, but I seem to have caught my childrens cold   I'm itching to try a long exposure of car trails and I have ideas for other long expsure photos too

[Tracey]

I've decided to wait with the low-light and long exposure shots   I'm taking the family to Blackpool for half-term and there will be ample opportunities to have a go at this while I'm there

[Tracey]

Right, onwards and upwards

Session 4 is about focus and depth of field....

It seems to be jumping in the deep end, explaining in technical terms how lenses work (    ) and how they focus and gather the light! I can see I'm going to get lost in this session very quickly, specially as there are formulas mentioned!

I'll be back in a while, when I need a break from this technical studying

[Hedgehog]

Oooh... the circle of confusion ... yup... there are various calcs you can do involving focal length, dist to subject, aperture & size of sensor/film that determine DoF (just google DoF Calculator), but ultimately you get used to the DoF you can get off your range of lenses on your camera fairly quickly. Understanding the principle is useful tho' 

[Tracey]

I sat there and read the techy description 3 times last night, and it went wooshing over my head

I'm going to have another go tonight... its the formulas that seem to be confusing me the most.

So, all these formulas are doing is trying to explain depth of field... or am I misunderstanding you too?

[Hedgehog]

That depends on what you're studying... their are formulas for Focal Length, Aperture & DoF.

While it may be handy to understand the principles behind the calcs it's not something you'd use while taking photo's.