Camera class- lesson 3

In lesson 3 we learned about shutter speed, lens aperture and using a tripod. I never used a tripod much before this lesson.

Basically the aperture controls the depth of field (a blurry background or a clear background) and the shutter speed controls motion by either 'freezing' time or blurring for a sense of movement. It was a lot of fun to experiment.

The assignment was to show a creative use of aperture in one shot and a creative use of shutter speed in the other.

This first picture is one I submitted for my aperture shot, I blurred the background behind the leaf. For the aperture shots it is impossible to get the subject into focus without a tripod.

Another aperture shot...

For the motion shot at first I tried to 'freeze' Sweetie with the hula hoop but using a shutter speed that was fast enough made the entire picture too dark. I have since learned to adjust the ISO sensitivity to correct the problem but at the time I didn't know how to do that. I kind of like the picture though because the blur shows the movement of the hula hoop.

This is the shot I turned in for my shutter speed photo. I actually used the panning technique our instructor explained where you follow the subject through in a swinging arc. The blur of the background as well as her hands and feet shows a sense of motion.

This was my favorite assignment, it's really fun to experiment and to use the different settings to be creative in my photography.