How about this weather? Spring flowers are popping out all over our neighborhood. Our neighbor’s quince started blooming in January.
I’m taking a five-week photography class and I decided to use the quince blooms for last week’s homework assignment on “equivalent exposures” (basically taking the same shot, but messing with the depth of field). So the top picture blurs the background (my neighbor’s house).
I’m excited that I now know how to use my camera on manual mode. But this class has mainly just confirmed my camera is possessed by Satan. The first week of class, the instructor said “the camera will always focus on what is closer.” Nope. Not my camera anyway.
The only thing that should differ between these two pictures is how much of the picture from front to back is in focus. But even though I set the focus point to be the stamen in the middle of that main flower and used a tripod, the stamen are not in focus in both pictures, even though all I did was change the aperture and shutter speed. I even checked to make sure the red focus dot hadn’t moved. I’ve discussed this issue with my instructor and she can’t explain this. I clearly need a new camera, right?!?
Happy Spring Winter!
That’s an amazing difference – how cool. Share more photography stuff, please!
Thanks, Jill! Just finished the 5-week course this week. I’m so excited to have learned how to do stuff on manual mode, but there’s still so much more to learn. Maybe I’ll finally get around to reading the book I got about my specific camera model…
Very cool. I wish I could do cool things like that with a camera.
Katie, I’m sort of embarrassed how little there was to this particular exercise (once the instructor explained a few things). The hardest thing was deciding where to put the tripod and what to focus on. My instructor was very clear and also inspiring. I want to steal several of her ideas!
Tracy, love the photos- both of them. I’m in Portland and just saw my first lilacs (!) on a walk today. It’s only February- what’s going on?!
Our daffodils are probably within a couple weeks of blooming. I’m worried about a very lackluster spring–all the flowers will be done blooming so early!
I’m always fascinated by what that tiny little machine can do! Bokeh is my favorite photography effect (or maybe it’s a technique???) by a mile. Looks like your class is paying off!!!
My class ended this week and now I’m on my own again. I enjoyed having an instructor to ask about problems every week. I’ve seen the bokeh effect on some websites, and it’s cool-looking, but I don’t know how to do it. Baby steps…