Chickerdoodle13's Photography Classroom (*New Assignment* Pg6 Post54)

[Chickerdoodle13]

Quote:
That is a gorgeous lightning picture! I've tried so many times and every time I am just too slow to capture the lightning. How were you able to get that picture? I find focusing at night to be very difficult as well, because you can't really see enough to find out if you are actually focused. What I ended up having to do was focus by trial and error. I would focus, take a picture, then look at it to see if I came near being focused. Then I'd adjust it from there and take another picture. It took a while, especially since I was using such a slowwww shutter speed, but the nice thing was that once I was focused, I didn't have to do much esle except point and shoot. Here were some of my results using the above method:

The moon picture was pretty easy to focus, but the trees were sooo hard!

I was using a very, very slow shutter speed so I could get enough light into the camera which had a pretty cool effect with the clouds and airplane.

 

[tazcat70]

Quote:
That is a gorgeous lightning picture! I've tried so many times and every time I am just too slow to capture the lightning. How were you able to get that picture? I find focusing at night to be very difficult as well, because you can't really see enough to find out if you are actually focused. What I ended up having to do was focus by trial and error. I would focus, take a picture, then look at it to see if I came near being focused. Then I'd adjust it from there and take another picture. It took a while, especially since I was using such a slowwww shutter speed, but the nice thing was that once I was focused, I didn't have to do much esle except point and shoot. Here were some of my results using the above method:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne..._409923133084_713083084_4731802_5614445_n.jpg

The moon picture was pretty easy to focus, but the trees were sooo hard!
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne..._409923138084_713083084_4731803_1345986_n.jpg

I was using a very, very slow shutter speed so I could get enough light into the camera which had a pretty cool effect with the clouds and airplane.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne..._409923143084_713083084_4731804_6892476_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne..._409923148084_713083084_4731805_5543779_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne..._409923153084_713083084_4731806_3290391_n.jpg

Thank you. I feel like I cheated, we had a lot of lightening that night. I used a slow shutter speed. I played with it a lot to get it so that it still looked dark while having the lightening bright. I just looked at the properties of the pic. ISO 400 with an exposure of 6 sec. And then a lot of pushing the button and getting nothing....

I would love to do a moon shot like that! Did you use you 300mm? I have tried to get one but they do not turn out anywhere nearly as good as yours!

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Yeah, I used a 300mm lens but I had to play around a lot with the ISO and metering setting to get something I could use. After I downloaded the picture, I greyscaled it to get rid of the yellow and cropped the photo. A tripod is definitely a must though because I had some shots with an extremely long exposure time. I actually didn't think I would be able to get something like because my lens is really nothing special, but it is certainly possible!

 

[Two Creeks Farm]

Lightening can be fun

 

[tazcat70]

sigh...............and that is the type of lightening picture I want to take.

Absolutely gorgeous!!!!!!

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Wow, the one with the house is so pretty! How were you able to capture such nice strikes?

 

[Two Creeks Farm]

Perfect storm LOL! No wind, no rain....I chased it for over 50 miles and 5 hours. Ive tried hundreds of times with mixed results, that night it just all worked out. Tripod mount D3, 17-35mm lens, 30 second exposures. Multiple strikes were everywhere that night!

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Quote:
Very interesting! You know, it didn't occur to me that a longer exposure would pick up the lightning as opposed to many pictures just trying to get lucky! Now I'll have to cross my fingers for a good storm and perhaps polish up my storm chasing abilities! LOL

 

[TinyTotsSeramas]

1. My picture

2. Inspiration - Mistic Warrior, Son of the famous Sequoia (also my friend's horses)

3. Micro, Animals, plants, sunset, action shots

4. I take way too long taking the picture. The picture has to be *PERFECT*
I want to get faster at focusing and taking the picture..

5. I am always learning new things everyday. so any new lesson would be nice!

6. Canon SX30IS with no lenses

 

[FourPawz]

This is one of the better images I've got. I'll confess this one is photoshopped.

So, here's one that was shot and pretty much is presented "as is" (shot on black & white film, processed & printed by yours truly):



Trying to choose just one photo from an artist I admire is a nightmare. There are SO many talented folks and amazing work from which to choose:

Click to see image: http://robinlam.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/elliott-erwitt-1.jpg

I love Elliot Erwitt. I would love to have 1/1000th of his creativity and his sense of humor, which always makes me chuckle.

I'd love to get to the point where I could shoot more images that are framed to my liking "out of the box", that don't need as much cropping to get the actual finished image. The first photo I posted is a perfect example as it is cropped, the exposure is adjusted and it's converted to black & white.

I'd like to see a lesson that encourages us to study the true artists and groundbreakers of photography. It can really make a huge difference in how we see photography - there is a huge difference in using our camera to take "snapshots" and using our camera as an outlet for creative expression.

Oops, almost forgot my equipment - my primary camera these days is a Nikon d7000 and I shoot with a couple of prime lenses - a 50mm and a 60mm, plus a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 zoom to name a few. I sometimes shoot film but now that I'm not in class it's very difficult to do much with it, without a darkroom.