Manual oooh errr!

My first foray into manual on my camera! OMG, so much to think about!!! Not only aperture and speed, but making sure the little meter is in the middle! Then, I forgot about ISO and white balance! Hey ho!Here's some photos I have just taken:

DH cleaning his bike. f9, 1/60th, 200 ISO, white balance cloudy, manual focus!!

I have cropped this a little, too many bicycles in the background.

really pleased with this one, manual focus!!!

f4.5, 1/250th, 70mm focal length, iso 200, wb cloudy. I am really pleased that I got the focus just on the right bit of the plant!

Another one I am pleased with! manual focus again. f4.5, 1/400th.

This one highlights a pitfall of manual! I was so intent on getting the focus and everything else right, I forgot about composition! LOL I was focusing on Merlin's eye, and that of course was in the middle of the viewfinder. All I had to do was move the view down a bit!

These next few are for my A-Z album of everyday things, D is for dinner! This one has been cropped from landscape to portrait. f4.5, 1/60th, ISO 1250, wb sunny. I quite like this one, DD seems to be pretty much in focus. Maybe not as sharp as I'd like, but I guess that's the high ISO.

DH cooked dinner today while I cleaned the bathroom and tidied upstairs! What a great dinner, roast lamb and tons of veg! Our favourite!

I love the way this one highlights the steam!

MMMMM tasty!

Trying harder!

Trying a bit harder this morning! Here's me reflected in my bedroom mirror, definately an everyday thing! This time I have cleaned my lens and made a note of the settings, and sketched the hsitogram.

All these pics are taken on 800 ISO, although I am not sure I like the graininess of a higher ISO!

This photo is taken on f4.5 1/40th sec





I am pleased with this picture of my washing basket!! LOL It's full of clean ironed washing waiting to be put away!! I really like the angle of the shot, much more interesting. That's DDs bedroom door in the background with her dangly curtain thingy!

f4.5 speed 1/30














These 2 pics are of my pots of make up on my dressing table. I think I will come back to these, because I love the texture of the pots, and the reflections both in the top and in the make up!

This one f4.5 speed 1/80








This one f4.5 speed 1/100

I thought I would like the first one best, because it is a more interesting angle, but actually I prefer this one, because of the wonderful reflections! I love the way the rich wood has come out in the photo.





Still not to sure what the histogram is telling me, but I will keep it on show and as I take more photos, I guess I will learn from experience!

Shutter speeds were quite low with this lot of photos, and that maybe a reason for my blurry shots before. I also think that when I shoot on f4.5 and 70mm, I sometimes get the wrong bit kn focus!! All a bit hit and miss still at the moment! LOL

I don't like these shots!

Taken today at Wakehurst Place. What a beuatiful day it has been! Trouble was, I went with a friend and we walked around chatting, so I wasn't able to concentrate on my photography really. I do love trees at this time of year and the beautiful patterns the bare branches make against the blue sky!














My digital radio, that I have constantly tuned to Radio2!




















A true everyday thing, my tin of WW soup for dinner!

I am not sure why I don't like these pics. I am a bit disappointed with all my photos lately. The second 2 were taken on a high ISO setting, and so seem a little grainy. But my photos generally seem a little bit out of focus. Perhaps my lens needs cleaning or maybe there's a bit of camera shake. Certainly on my close ups, I keep getting the wrong bit in focus! For example, (I deleted it now!) I took another pic of the tin of soup which had the lid in focus but the writing out of focus and it didn't work for me.

Week One -Exposure

Here are some photos I took this morning on our dog walk (an everyday thing!) We walked along the river at Shoreham, so most of my photos don't fit with the everyday thing theme!

I tried out different exposures and looked at the histogram. But I am not sure how to read the histogram. I understand that there is not a perfect histogram, but there is an optimum of 2 peaks towards the edges of the graph. But most of mine just had one peak in the middle! Think I need to read up on it more. Off to find my manual.

The car had a lovely reflection of the house in it! I think it makes the photo look a bit messy.

Theme

I have chosen my theme: EVERYDAY THINGS.

I am keen to scrapbook my everyday life this year, so this course will hopefully get me taking some good photos for this project! I think it's wide enough to cover all the modules, and easy enough to find subjects to photogrpah (I don't have to go anywhere!)

It's a lovely bright morning out there, so off I go!

Cheryl's masterclass

I have signed up for Cheryl's Masterclass http://www.feelgoodphotos.co.uk/. So I am going to use this blog as a place to record my thoughts, post inspirational photos, and post my own photos.

This week is EXPOSURE. So this weekend I intend to take my camera with me wherever I go and take photos changing the exposure. I do normally use Aperture priority on my camera, and change apperture for the depth of field that I want. So now I must experiment some more! And check the histogram - not something I do at the moment, mainly cos I don't know what it means!!