Moving subjects!!!!!!!

OK , so I am kind of getting the hang of using manual for a fixed subject, but what about a moving one??? Not so easy thats for blooming sure ,it was a real hit or a miss! I went along with my sister to the mother and baby swimming, it was so cute!!!! Here are a couple of pictures from that day. The main trouble was my sister seemed to spend most of her time in the part of the pool that was full of direct sunlight which caused all sorts of glare, the second problem was that they were moving about constantly , I don't think I got my shutter speed high enough as many were blurred. Any ideas welcome as Im planning to go back next week and try again!

(1/85 f3 and 1/50 f3)

Mothers Day

I decided to take myself off for 1/2 hour on Mothers day to the local harbour, it was cold,wet and miserable but I did enjoy the peace! The 3 pictures are taken on manual at 1/15 F2.8 ISO 80, 1/25 F3.4 ISO 800 and the last one 1/125 F3.4 ISO 800. Now I think that I may be trying to run before I can walk because I was trying to capture the dark colours of the boat and also keep the boats through the gap in focus,  of course the water through the gap was much brighter which caused me problems. After studying the pictures when I got home I concluded that... I need to choose an easier subject to photograph!! haha, seriously though, I think it may help to have a longer shutter speed and reduce the ISO to stop it being so grainy, I would also alter my point of focus next time between the boat and the gap to see which would of worked better. Please feel free to chip in with your opinions on how I could have captured this clearer!

1st outing in manual!

Ok so this was my first trip out using manual, it was a very cold day and I got quite frustrated with myself having to spend so long fiddling to try to get the readings to look ok.  The first two pictures are taken from the same angle but with slightly different settings, I can see a distinct difference between the pictures, the stonework is definately clearer in the first one.  The stone work on the angel grave was really amazing and I am pretty pleased with the overall quality of the photo. I did find that using a high ISO (anything over 800) on my camera comes out really grainy, I don't know if its because I dont have a long enough shutter speed or whether thats the best my camera performs at that setting?? I'll have to have a longer play I think!

One more thing! this course has definately helped me see more of the city I live in, I've lived in Edinburgh all my life apart from a brief stay in Durham for Uni, its shocking how little I have seen of the city I live in!  

The scarey "M" word!

Well today I took my first steps into the world of manual photography and thoroughly enjoyed myself twiddling all the buttons and watching the changes in histograms. I began to figure out what was going to work and what wasn't, I found it helpful to work in reverse for some reason?? ie I would aim to change the settings so that the picture would be completely overexposed / underexposed. The area I think Im going to have to look at further is the length of the shutter speed, Im really rubbish at maths and keep getting confused to whats a  long exposure and whats a really short exposure. 

Anyway, here are the pictures I took today, I have posted the good , the bad and the ugly ones to help re-inforce things for me.

This picture is my favourite of the day, nature is such a wonderful thing!

How amazing are the colours in these flowers!I think I'd like to have my entire house painted in that shade! LOL 

Another picture that had me lying at very strange angles to try to capture it, Im not sure what plant this is but the flowers are really tiny, so I was quite pleased with the end result

How cute is this Robin! at first I thought it was a fake one as it didn't move an inch when I zoomed in with my camera. Don't know what's happening to my text, its gone blue and is underlined???

A simple blossom flower, but oh so pretty

I like the light shining off the droplet in this picture, good job too because I nearly poked my eye out getting this picture. LOL

At last I found some time!

Well I've been going round and round in circles trying to think of a theme and got nowhere fast! My friend phoned this morning and invited me over for lunch so , wham! decision made... the Gardens! It was a pretty foggy day so I thought I wouldn't get many "keepers" however I was pretty chuffed to come up with these. The blurred background was a style I couldn't get the hang of in PWL course, so I am well chuffed with these shots! I think the histogram is starting to sink in and I will definately play around with it some more. It is interesting though that all of my favourites turned out to be at 200 ISO, co-incidence or not? mmmmm Im not sure??

This adorable little chappie is my nephew Matthew, no doubt about it you will be seeing a LOT more of him!! Although there is a problem with shadows in this picture it is one of my favourites as I love the fact that you can see his tiny little hands from different angles and the beginnings of a little smile. 

Another picture using skills learnt from the PWL course on changing the focus point of pictures, I haven't quite mastered the completely blurred background but I am definately heading in the right direction

This picture was taken at my local beach, I love it! It looks like something from a science fiction film. I would never have taken shots like this before taking the PWL course but now I take them all the time, much to my husbands annoyance as walks now take forever as Im always stopping to click, click , click!

Oh my!! has techno phobic of the year managed to set up a blog??? Time will tell...

This blog is primarily for the photography course PWL via  UKS but who knows, I may just find out that I am a natural blogger and continue on with it after the course ends...