This content originally appeared on Laura Kalbag’s Blog Posts and was authored by Laura Kalbag
I’ve had a DSLR for nearly a year now. And I still only ever use it on the Auto modes. I studied photography (with film cameras) during my Art Foundation course ~10 years ago, but I think any decent photos were mostly luck, and I can’t remember much of it. So when Ashley set up her Girl With A Camera Course, “For the beginner photographer who wants to pick up their camera more,” I was instantly sold!
Over the next month, I’m going to try to blog some of my photos taken during Ashley’s exercises (and hopefully lots more that I’ve taken for fun!) Maybe I’ll be able to ditch the Auto modes by the end of it. I’ve not edited any of these photos yet, as tempting as it is, as I want to wait til we get to that bit of the course!
The first task was to switch my camera to manual…
**First photo on manual**. Fallen at the first hurdle, I turned my settings on to manual and fiddled with the shutter speed and aperture but couldn’t seem to get any exposure at all.
**Narrow depth of field**. Following the examples in Ashley’s email, I tried to get a narrow depth of field on Oskar. The shadow in the room made it a bit awkward, as your eyes are drawn to his leg rather than his head, but at least the background is blurry!
**Narrow aperture**. To mimic the landscape shot, I was a bit lazy and looked out of our back window. The built-up buildings round here are pretty maze-like.
**Shutter speed 1**. These next few shots were playing with the shutter speed to see what would be blurry, and what would be sharp. I couldn’t seem to get any of them very sharp!
**Shutter speed 2**. The sharpest of the Osky shots.
**Shutter speed 3**. The blurriest of the Osky shots.
I’m also going to try to take more than just dog photos!
Read the original post, 'Photography on manual: 1'.
This content originally appeared on Laura Kalbag’s Blog Posts and was authored by Laura Kalbag
