Hi, I've always wanted to know how can I take better pictures and have a good register of my travels. The SLRs cameras always seems very complex and too bulky to me, so I asked a photographer friend of mine which camera he'd recommended me, he mentioned the Canon G series saying that it's a compact camera with all the manual settings. I bought a Canon G12 and since then I'm in love with it. I can take HDR photos, RAW and 16:9 format pictures but I mostly use it on the Program and Automatic Mode. I feel that I'm not using all the potential my camera has and I want the best pictures that I could get, that's why I'm taking this class.

12-07-2013

I started the course today and I've already had some tests that I did based on what I've learned so far, here it goes:

I Don't Want To Be a Monkey - image 1 - student project

This morning was a beautiful pre-summer day in São Paulo, very sunny, so we took my girlfriend's dog for a walk on a square nearby. This picture, I set the ISO to automatic (80) and the Aperture I set to the largest possible F 3.2 and the Shutter speed to 1/30 for a 0 exposure. I took a RAW image and didn't work on it later, I just save the a reduced JPEG and post it here.

I Don't Want To Be a Monkey - image 2 - student project

I loved the colors of this one, the ISO was automatic (80) and the Aperture I set to the smallest possible F 8.0 and the Shutter speed was 1/60 for a 0 exposure. I also didn't post process it on Photoshop or Lightroom I want to focus on what the exercise is about for the best evaluation.

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07-01-2014

Happy New Year everyone!

I enjoyed the holidays with my family and I had the opportunity to exercise what I've learned and get rid of the "auto mode" for good!

I share with you some pictures that I think fit the deliverables of this class.

1 - Depth of Field

I Don't Want To Be a Monkey - image 3 - student project

I followed this lizard through my father's yard and when he finally stopped, I was able to shoot this picture. I took Paul's advice and I bumped the ISO to 200 to get a faster Shutter speed, 1/400. The Aperture I set to F4.5 to get some sharpness and still blur the background, since I was not very close to it.

2 - Leading Lines

I Don't Want To Be a Monkey - image 4 - student project

For this one, I was in a Ibirapuera park in São Paulo and I found this huge tree. I put my camera on the ground and I tried to capture the impact of the branches. The settings were, ISO 400, Shutter Speed 1/25, Aperture F 8.0 was the maximun stopped down that I could get for a great depth of field.

3 - Rule of Thirds

I Don't Want To Be a Monkey - image 5 - student project

I was playing with the Shutter speed trying to get the motion of the fan without blurring to much and not freezing it either. I composed the image, to the left third to emphasize the circular motion. ISO 80, Shutter Speed 0.5" and Aperture F8.0

4 - Perspective

I Don't Want To Be a Monkey - image 6 - student project

I was playing hide and seek with my nephew and I caught him inside the car. I quickly took the picture from the car window. I set the ISO 640, Shutter Speed 1/60 and Aperture F 2.8. His face is a little blurry and I'm deducing that the shutter speed could have been faster.

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I still have to provide a photograph using the negative space. I have a few here, but I'm still don't like them. I'll try to post until the end of the week.

All comments and critiques are appreciated.

Thanks!

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02-01-2014

A bit late, here's my last photo.

5 - Negative space

I Don't Want To Be a Monkey - image 7 - student project

It's the same lizard form the first picture, it was on a shadowed area and I didn't like the picture much at first. But I figure it could fit this assignment. ISO 250, Shutter Speed 1/400 and Aperture F 4.5

It was an amazing class and those experimentations really gave me the security I need to get out of the automatic mode. I still have some trouble shooting children and objects in motion. I'll keep experimenting the relation between shutter speeds and aperture. Thanks everyone for the feedback. Thank you very much Paul, for sharing this!

Cheers!

- Helio

Helio Salema

I'm trying to know everything

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