This week was the first week I was able to get my hands on a camera, so it was really beneficial in finally being able to put what we had been taught into practice. I found that throughout the previous workshops Karl and Ruth were delivering, it was hard to fully engage and understand the crucial technical aspects without being able to physically do it at the same time, so this session was instrumental in developing my understanding.

Previously, I’d been using Proshot on my phone to take pictures. Although the iPhone quality is really great, and Proshot allows you to alter/manipulate the camera settings, I still just wasn’t getting the results I wanted. I also wasn’t fully understanding the settings – I had focus confused with aperture which can be seen on my ‘Workshop Task 4’ post.

The photos above are a selection of photos taken with a high shutterspeed. As demonstrated, a high shutterspeed essentially freezes an action into one photo – perfect for capturing action shots.

These photos were examples of my exploration with aperture. They all have a lower F-stop which gives the photo a shallow depth of field. This is achieved by the diameter of the lens decreasing to avoid lots of light reaching the image sensor, so the camera will focus on clearly on one thing. I like the effect this has and will definitely apply it to my final project. rogre

I feel the most important thing before I plan to do my final shoot is to know that I really have a good understanding of the basics of my camera so on the day, I don’t have to be overly concerned with whether I’m utilising the camera properly to get the most out of the shot, but rather I can concentrate on what shots will be the most captivating. I’d like to try and get near the point were adjusting the settings on my camera become like second nature so to ensure the shoot is as stress-free as possible.

Before I took these test shots I revisited the powerpoints that Karl and Ruth provided to familiarise myself with ISO, aperture and shutter-speed.

The selection of photographs below, although all very similar, were taken with the intention of exploring the exact effects of ISO, aperture and shutter-speed to see and further understand the different creative outcomes. With every picture being arranged the same, it allows to me to really easily compare and see the differences in light, clarity and depth of field.

You can see where I have allowed too much light in on pictures 1 and 3; in comparison to picture 4, they have more ‘noise’ which comes from having a high ISO. Picture 4 is a much crisper image. Picture 2, however, needs a lot more light – I could’ve achieved this by either lowering the F-stop or increasing the ISO.

I thought pictures 8 and 9 were good examples of a shallow depth of field. They contrast picture 10 which has a higher aperture meaning more of the photo is in focus.

The test shots above are further examples of my exploration with aperture. Pictures 18 and 19 are really clear examples of the difference that a high or low F-stop can have.