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How fast is your shutter? #mamarazzi #photography101

I am a big fan of the semi-automatic modes on a camera. Everyone seems to believe that the only way to shoot decent images is to be fully manual and be in control of all aspects of the image.

well…yes…maybe…. but there is a really big BUT…

You have to be able to know what you are doing in manual and moreover know how to set and change your settings very quickly….. not such a problem i grant you if you are shooting a landscape..because a landscape ย isnt going to get all ants in its pants about sitting still on that lovely bench you have just plonked it on with its siblings.

No, most of us are mamarazzi, we are photographing our children and lets face it kids are often busy little things who don’t take much to being asked to stay still.

Unless they are asleep…and then you can knock yourself out playing with manual settings on your camera. ๐Ÿ˜‰

But the truth of it is we want to capture memories and moments along the journey that is our own family story and i can tell you for nothin’ no kid of yours is going to look back at a picture of them proudly taking their first wicket in cricket and solemnly say to you ‘so what ISO did you have that on mama?’ ๐Ÿ˜‰

Sometimes you just have to get the shot. In the can. If you don’t have time to faff with camera settings or you are not sure..wizz round to the ever faithful green square on that expensive camera of yours, pop the shutter and be PROUD. ย Remember whats important and prioritise.

So anyway… semi-automatics. Like it suggests it controls some of the picture taking parts but not all. The main two that all most reasonable cameras will have is AV(aperture) or TV/S (shutter).

Basically they work like this:

Aperture Priority – lets you control the aperture (thats what gives you the blur) – the camera then picks the shutter and the ISO

Shutter Priority – lets you control the shutter (coping with movement) – the camera picks the aperture and the ISO

Now in theory – your camera should pick the right settings so that you get a reasonably exposed image. But that will depend on where you are and what the light is like.

These settings are a great way of learning how that one particular process (aperture or shutter) works.

Shutter- Speed

Do me a favour and if you have a dslr go and set it to a shutter speed of 1/10. Right press the shutter and listen and watch the front of your camera. The snapping sound is the shutter opening for one tenth of a second.

You can have it open for longer, if you can scroll up to a number with a symbol like this ” on the side. That is an entire second..so you can have your shutter open for 8 seconds if you like? Enough for you to go in and out the kettle on! Now wind it back up to 1/500 (if you can) and listen to how fast it goes..POW. Its all about action and thats what you are talking about with shutter speeds.

You can experiment with slow shutters – gives that lovely blurry effect and can give a real impression of movement..

These two pairs below are the same image but shot with a different shutter. Its more dramatic in the water one but you can see in the picture of my son how much clearer the jump is on the faster shutter (look at his finger tips)

So when you are planning on taking some pictures of something or someone moving fast then switching up to shutter priority would be a good move. Or if you want to capture the flow of water like the first two images here then go back down to a slow shutter speed and get some of those gorgeous effects. Just a little note though when your shutter is opening very slowly the camera will be effected by any movement…your hands moving, breathing..so you might want to think tripod ย or just jam yourself against something like a wall and hold your breath when you press the shutter ๐Ÿ˜‰

There is the classic jumping on the trampoline..try and do this without shooting through the mesh..its a bit tricky to pull off when your subject is moving all the time.

Playing with shutter speeds can give you a lovely capture of smallest of movements. Hair blowing in the wind…and other things blowing in wind. In the interest of authenticity i didn’t edit out the spit ๐Ÿ˜‰

The one that we all are after, the school sports day shot.

Slower shutter produce really dramatic effects, like slowing down and blurring the gorgeous flames of the fire

couldn’t do a post on shutter speeds without the firework one. I didnt have my camera on a tripod for this shot. I should have but what i did do was wedge myself against the doorframe for a bit more stability.

There you have it, so how about popping your camera onto shutter mode and getting out there and having a play.

Do let me know how you got on!

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So whats with Silhouettes? #mamarazzi #photography101

There is a really easy way to give your photo extreme drama! Its shooting your subject in silhouette. You can do this in extreme light situations. Generally the light will be behind your subject and usually its the sun.

In this scenario you are exposing for the sky instead of the subject. This leaves your subject underexposed, remember what i said about kids not being as bright as the sun! ๐Ÿ˜‰

The goal is to have them pretty much blackened out and then you produce a lovely silhouette and not a muddy, dark subject in the foreground.

To get a great silhouette you need to think about the light that is behind your subject. A sunrise or sunset works really well. You can do it at other times of the day when the sun is out. But sunset and sunrise give you the beautiful ‘golden hour’ light when the sun is at its delicate most pretty light and it will just make your sky and image dreamy.

But there isnt many of us who will drag our kids out to the hilltop or beach at crack of dawn so lets just say use the sun when you can ๐Ÿ˜‰

Your camera, if you have it in auto, will be convinced that you need extra light in the dark situation and so will probably pop the flash up and try and add in some light. Make sure you turn the auto flash off.

So a basic approach to get a silhouette:

1. Point your camera toward the sky ( your light source)

2. Press your shutter halfway and keep it pressed down.

3. Now keeping your shutter pressed halfway aim the camera back at your subject. Its also good to aim to not move your camera back and forth but keep it up and down or side to side…just to stop your camera’s autofocus from jumping about.

4. Depress the shutter totally and BAM…there it is.

I find that really good silhouettes work better when there is a clear outline of your subject. So a beach or another open vista. If you are trying to do a silhouette where there are lots of trees you might find it hard to distinguish between the dark shapes, remember anything that isnt as bright as your light source that you are telling the camera to take its light reading from is going to be dark.

Here are some other examples.

Now that we seems to be heading towards spring a little, the sun might be putting in an appearance more often so get out there and give it a go.

Do let me know how you get on!!

 

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The day pink died #motivational monday #springcarnival

One of my favourite books when i was growing up was The Lorax, used to love the line ‘I am the Lorax and i speak for the trees’ It was one of those books that i can still remember reading as a kid. Recently the kids got the DVD version of the film that came out last year. They totally love it., it has big numbers in it and some big hollywood names voicing the characters. But what i love is that the message is still the same. Unless. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, its not – Dr. Seuss.

Now speaking of trees….As we live in a city sometimes trees can be a bit scarce. Well to be fair this city in itself isnt too bad. There are quite a lot of green areas. But in our own back yard its a bit different.

We don’t have a huge garden, when we moved in it had been fairly well landscaped with a family in mind and the only tree in the garden was a small, shocked, apple tree that had been hacked and trimmed within an inch of its life and its pretty much still trying to recover.

But the house that backed onto our neighbour was owned by an elderly lady and it had two beautiful, rambling and stunning pink blossom trees. Im sure there is a proper name for them but all i know that every spring we would all look forward to the bottom of the garden being accented with pink. The branches leaned over into our garden in such a generous way. Like the tree knew i would appreciate it. ๐Ÿ™‚

I cannot count how many pictures i have of this tree. It was so pretty i used to go out and photograph it a lot….playing with settings, lenses and filters.

The girls would bounce up and down on the trampoline which was under the tree and grab the blooms, giggling and threading the pretty green leaves through their hair.

At the end of spring it would slowly loose all its blooms onto the tramp and the deck and we would have a pretty pink blanket.

Truly such a lovely tree, it bought us pleasure every year. We watched it, enjoyed it, interacted with it. It was part of our seasons.

Sadly the lady who lived in the house passed away and the house was sold and a few weeks ago we heard that high pitched squeal of a chainsaw and our beautiful neighbour tree was gone. ๐Ÿ™

Just like that…

and being honest with you, and i do understand the reasons why the new owners have got rid of the tree, but i really miss it. Now its like looking at a picture and constantly wondering whats missing and then going ”oh yes…”

Even the kids have missed it. We miss our adopted pink tree. It had been largely uncared for by its owner but for years we loved it. It was part of our story and history in our garden.

thanks pink tree ๐Ÿ™‚

Im going to finish with a clip from the movie, we all love this song. Watch out for ย ‘you greedy dirtbag!’ My giveaway this week is a copy of ย The Lorax on DVD. It really is a lovely family movie. So to be in with a chance head over to rafflecopter below and follow the instructions and be sure to check back next week to find out if its coming your way!!

Last weeks winner of the Captain Calamari developmental toy was Helen Dickenson Anette! Congratulations. Please get in touch to claim your prize ๐Ÿ™‚

 

 

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Motivational Monday
Spring Carnival

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