Things You Eye Doesn't Perceive: Class #7

Our task for Class #7 was to photograph things your eye doesn't perceive. Here were my submissions...

The other day at "the farm" this swing was being whipped around by the wind.  I liked capturing the motion

I don't know if you can see this or not, but Addie was rolling a yo-yo that illuminates when it drops.  I was trying to capture the "dropping illumination."

 Same idea here...

The reason I like this is because if you look closely, in the ball you see both my piano and Addie sitting there having just spun the thing-a-ma-jig.

Addie was playing the piano by running her finger down the keyboard trying to capture the motion of the keys hammering.

Nice Timing!

One other thing that struck me from the class is when shooting manually,from a clean exposure you move the aperture the same number of clicks as you do the shutter speed to obtain an equivalent exposure -- generally.  Each camera may vary and you should experiment with you camera.  But, this helps when trying to shoot in manual quickly!

Delaware Art Museum Photography Class #2 (Part 4 - the homework asignment - shutter speed and diagonal)

Although it's fun to play around with the shutter speeds on both ends of the spectrum of my camera, and to look for diagonals, the homework assignment was to do both of these things in one picture.  So, this is what I came up with to submit..

This pair of dogs, at the dog park, create an "implied" diagonal and were moving at a quick pace.   They were were funny to watch... and a little scarey too! This picture was shot at 1/500 of a second and an ISO of 1600.  Our teacher told us that 1/500 is a good shutter speed for sporting events.

My daughter was practicing her violin, and of course the violin creates the diagonal, but it was fun to get her fingers moving.  These pictures were taken at a shutter speed of 1/250 and an ISO of 3200.

She doesn't like this picture, due to the funny way her fingers look, but I think it makes the point.  She was moving quickly and while the violin scroll is clear, her fingers seem pretty clear to me too, I was sitting below her, and the light over head shines nicely on the violin, but her pointer finger is too dark, I think.

 

My daughter was spinning her "walking stick" at a diagonal.

And, my other daughter reaching out to touch a beautiful horse on the farm...

Delaware Art Museum Photography Class #2: (Part 2: Shutter Speed)

The second thing we explored in our second class was shutter speed.  The range of my camera is from 30 seconds to 1/4000 of a second.  I can keep my shutter open longer with a setting called "bulb" but I haven't explored that too much yet (but that is how you would take a pictures of the stars in motion and that kind of thing).

Near by me, is a dog park.  I figured dogs in actions would help me test my faster shutter speeds. This beautiful, big, white dog was giving his head a good shake!  This picture was taken at 1/1250 of a second shutter speed and an ISO of 3200.  So, when I shot at a quicker shutter speed, the ISO needed to be higher in order to make the camera more sensitive to light so that I could get the picture clearly. But when I got much beyond 1/1250 the picture became too dark.

Mr. Beagle was hysterical.  Everyone else was playing quietly, but boy did he let us know he was there! I kept hearing him but wasn't watching him when he was baying.  Right as I was getting ready to leave, I kept my eye on him and out it came...

 I was curious about shooting fire at high speed as it is beautiful to watch but in the past, my fireplace shots have always been washed out because my flash would come on and I didn't know how to correct that.  This first shot was set at 1/80th of a second, hand held, with an ISO of 3200.

1/125 of a second, ISO of 3200...

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I tried using my tripod and taking a longer shutter speed.  The first shot was taken with a 25 second shutter speed and an ISO of 3200.

And, this one was 30 seconds with an ISO of 3200. Which, although brighter, are much grainier.

Capturing the motion of water is always fun, and I think beautiful. These were taken at 1/500 of  second shutter speed and an ISO of 1600.

And, I was excited to be able to capture glistening ice on my Japanese Maple at night time...

Delaware Art Museum Photograph Class #2: Shutter Speed and Looking for Diagnols (Part 1: Special Effects)

I found this class to be particularly amusing and of interest.  One of my biggest problems has been being able to shoot at night time and capture the effect of light at night without flushing it out with the flash.  For example, the lights on a Christmas Tree. 

The setting "TV" on my camera stands for "time variable", which basically means I can set the amount of time the shutter is open (shutter speed) but the camera automatically sets the ISO and the aperture.

One of the things we learned is that you can generally hand hold your camera at 1/80 of a second without blurring the picture unless you have a stabilizer on your lens at which point you can usually do 1/8 of a second for a hand held shot.  But, if you want to have a longer shutter speed than 1/8 it's best to use a tripod or to stabilize the camera with something. There are other ways to stabilize your camera if you don't have a tripod.

A fun exercise we did was setting our shutter speed at 3.5 seconds and then moving the camera around in circles to get a blur.  I went home and did this with a few different things.  This may seem obvious, but I actually had to think about it.  When you have a longer shutter speed, the first click you hear when you press down is the main portion of the picture and then for 3.5 second whatever you do with your camera is what gives the effect.  I wasn't sure if the effect comes first and then the final picture, but that is not the case.  Here are a few samples of this kind of "art."

Below, I was trying to write the letter "L" in cursive in the frame.  At first I was making the "L" motion too large so it exceeded the scope of the initial shot.  Once I realized that I got something closer to an "L" in the second picture below....

 

 

Our instructor told us about a shot he did at a Mexican food restaurant.  While shooting the strobe light signs, he moved his camera around and it made a really interesting effect.  Apparently strobe light flash on and off, unperceived by your eye, so it make an especially interesting picture which apparently is hanging in a museum in Germany.  A fun thing to play around with!