I am a firm believer in practice makes perfect. Probably once a week I take about 100 photos or more at one time. I think I took about 70 of my dog today. I usually like to use the manual setting. Today I had to take several photos until I get the settings the way I wanted them. And then when my dog moved to a new location I had to change them all again. The more I do this, the better I get at it.
My great shot from today was actually one I took inside of her. I love this photo.
It melts my heart.
My manual settings for this shot were f1.8 (aperture) 1/15s (shutter speed) and ISO 200. The sunlight was coming in through the window so I had good lighting.
My outside photos I used my automatic setting because I wanted to do action shots. I can’t adjust my camera fast enough for action shots so the auto just works better. An action shot must have a high shutter speed around 1/1000 to stop action and not have blur.
The auto action setting on most cameras is a running stick figure.
I took a ton of photos of my dog playing ball. She does pretty well considering she can’t see.
I thought it might be fun for you to try some action shots using your auto action mode and not using it to see the difference.
Another idea I wanted to try is macro shots. I read the true definition of macro photography and it is close up shots of very small objects like insects. My idea of macro is close up shots of home décor, flowers, food, etc.
The hardest thing about close up shots is getting your camera to focus when you are close to an object. Sometimes I have to crop a photo so that is looks more like a macro shot.
Here’s some of my macro shots.
I took this one back in October.
A trick to getting as close as possible is inch into the photo. Push your focus button and when it focuses move in a little closer and push it again. I am not sure why, but I can always get closer doing this and get my camera to focus. You can also try manually focusing your camera.
There is a macro setting on your camera that might make it easier.
It is the flower symbol.
I hope this all makes sense. I feel a little intimidated writing advice about something I am just learning myself. I realize that action shots aren’t something normally on a decorating/craft blog, but the more you practice with your camera the better you will get, however, most bloggers have children or grandchildren and the action mode works great when trying to capture kids on the move.
So let me know what you think. Is this good linky party material? Would you want to participate? I am thinking the macro one would be first. Let me know.
Tracy
