I did some one-on-one photography tutoring in Sunapee Harbor Thursday with a very enthusiastic photographer. I took few photos; I mostly helped with shooting modes and methods.
It is important to understand camera settings, particularly the various exposure and autofocus modes.
I have always recommended Aperture Priority coupled with Exposure Compensation to address challenging lighting situations. When handholding in this mode one needs to be mindful of shutter speed which can be controlled over a large range by a combination of aperture and ISO settings.
Autofocus can be continuous or lock-on and can use a single focus spot which is movable or a multiplicity of focus spots. All the focus modes have their place depending on the situation, so understanding and using them can be very important, especially when shooting moving subjects quickly.
I tooks some photos to demonstrate the importance of a tripod and polarizer when photographing moving water. This pair of photos was shot with an exposure time for 1 second.
I shot the pair below to illustrate depth of field as we walked along Lake Avenue.
The early morning fog was nice.
I used a 24mm lens on a full-frame body for the shot below to try to give depth to the photo of the new covered bridge.
We saw many dogs. She asked permission to photograph each one. I “bootlegged” this photo of one of them thinking of Kim who loves Pugs.
Before we met she stated she loves herons and hoped to see one. I told her not to expect that. Well, we saw 4 in the harbor — two were flyovers — including this one in the Sugar River.
A short time after we went our separate ways I got lucky and got this one.
A quick tip. Exposure is important. It is hard to judge the exposure by looking at the image in the monitor. Using the Histogram and “Blinkies” (Highlight Indicators) is a much better method. If you are willing to do some simple processing of your images, the best exposure is the brightest possible image without overexposing the highlights. This gives the lowest noise.
Here is a brief slide show of the other photos I took while we were together.
