Tell Us About The Shot

[MarkBarbieri]

This thread is for people to post a picture and explain how they got it. This will allow others to learn by example. So pick a picture that was more than just a full-auto snapshot and explain what your thinking was behind the picture. The thoughts behind the picture can include anything from how you picked the location, how you handled the lighting, why you picked that composition, how you set up the camera, or anything else others might learn from.

I'll start.

This is a shot I took of my boys in the Spring of '07. My wife wanted to get a bluebonnet picture with the boys.

I waited for a cloudy day before taking the shot. On a sunny day, I would have had harsh shadows. With a cloudy day, everything was soft. Because the sky was cloudy, I had to compose the picture with no sky in it.

My wife picked yellow shirts for them because she felt that the colors would contrast, but not too harshly. I'm lousy at picking colors, so I just played along.

I wanted to maximize the number of flowers in the picture and make it look densely packed with blooms. To do that, I used a long lens (260mm in 35mm eqivalent terms) and stood pretty far back. Longer lens and longer shooting distances lead to compressed perspectives (things seem closer together) while wider lens and closer shooting distances make everything look spread out.

I picked an aperture of f/5.0 because I wanted enough depth-of-field to make the boys and flowers immediately around them sharp, but I wanted the near and far flowers to be soft. I thought this would draw more attention to the boys.

Because I was primarily concerned with the aperture, I used aperture priority mode. Because the scene was evenly lit and primarily neutral tones, I left the camera in evaluative metering mode and didn't dial in any compensation. There was plenty of light, so I tired ISO 100. That gave me a shutter speed of 1/200s. With a still subject (no breeze) and a tripod, I felt that was good enough. If it had been much slower, I would have bumped the ISO to 200.

If I was better at posing, I would have had my older son lower his legs. The knees sticking up are distracting. He also didn't give me a very good smile. I guess I wasn't as entertaining as I should have been.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I took this one last week. I really like it because of the way the mom, dad, and baby are positioned in relation to eachother, as well as the reflections and the fact that you can distinguish the baby's eyes. I was definitely wishing I had a longer tele lens. I did crop it a bit.

f/5.4, 1/25 sec, ISO 100, 132mm

So how did I get it? Well it was kind of rushed, as the swans were becoming nervous seeing me there and beginning to swim away. I got as close as I could, yet was trying to be as quiet and non-threatening as I could. I used a monopod, which I had attached to my camera doing waterfall shots when someone pointed out the swan family to me. I was frantically changing settings trying to capture the best exposure I could in the short time I had. It was beginning to get dark out. This was the best of several dozen photos, and to be honest, I'm not sure exactly which setting this was, it could well have been auto as those seemed to be coming out better than any of the other modes I was trying. I believe I tried Aperture Priority and Portrait mode also, which often produces pretty nice shots for me.

I actually went back there today and baby was gone. DH thinks a snapping turtle might have gotten him. I was hoping he was back in the nest or something. I think the swan pics might have come out better than they did last week, not sure. Will look at them tonight and post if I get a good one for comparison.

 

[SC Mouse Fan]

I have posted this one before on another thread but I will use this as an example.

This was taken in March at Myrtle Beach, SC. I was taking a photography class and the instructor wanted us to practice taking pics using manual mode. I went to the beach for a conference for work. After we checked into the hotel, I went out to the beach to try some shots. Many of the shots I took were too light but at just the right time, this one came out pretty good. There were a lot of seagulls on the beach which would not happen in the summer because it would be full of people. They were just sitting on the beach but someone walked through the middle of them and a bunch took off. I pointed the camera towards the sea and got lucky. The iso was 200, 1/1000 sec, and F 5.6 but this was all by chance. I certainly didn't know if it would come out or not. I was just lucky.

 

[Furgus]

I have posted this one before, but like SC Mouse Fan, I thought I would use it for an example.

I took this picture the very first time I used off camera flash. I was just fooling around taking pictures of by DD in her crib. My wife cam in and picked her up and gave her a kiss. In that second she gave her the kiss, I was looking through my viewfinder and hoped I would get something good...well I mean any picture I take of my DD and DW is going be good, I just hoped this would be great. This is what I got, and I thought it was great. Almost angelic the way the flash is coming from the left to light them in this way. So details:
Camera Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Camera Model: NIKON D50
Image Date: 2008:02:28 19:19:23
Flash Used: No (off camera, manual, prob 1/16 of full power)
Focal Length: 75.0mm (35mm equivalent: 112mm)
Exposure Time: 0.017 s (1/60)
Aperture: f/4.0
White Balance: Auto
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: Manual
Exposure Mode: Manual

This is probably one of my best images I have taken.

 

[wdwensel]

I came to the photography board today contemplating an idea of starting a non-disney POTD thread. I saw Mark's thread here and I can say I'm both very excited by it, and a little intimidated. I'm excited about the things I can hopefully learn on it. I'm intimidated as I've had my camera for nine months and my technical skills are still very raw, so I'm not sure how much I can offer. With saying that, here is my entry:

First thing about this shot, I had planned on getting down to take it earlier in the evening while there was still some light in the sky. I obviously didn't make it on time. The challenge with taking this shot, and any others of the Minneapolis skyline at night is the insanely bright Wells Fargo building. Another challenge that was presented to me was the homeless man that was sleeping a few feet behind me. I had no idea what this man would do if he woke up, and I felt like I was standing in his living room. So I rushed myself through getting set up and taking a few pics. I had my tripod, and a cable shutter remote. I was using my only lens at the time, a Tamron 18-250 mm. After getting set up, I took a few test shots and then after making some adjustments, I took a few more. As I looked at the shots, I thought I had made the right adjustments, and I quickly packed up and got the heck out of there. When I got home and uploaded the pics, I found that the very first shot I took was the best one. I had the camera set at ISO 200, and this shot was at f/5 and 2.5 second exposure. I had the lense at 55mm.

The subjects in the shot, besides the Minneapolis skyline is the Stone Arch Bridge, and the Mississippi river. The Stone Arch bridge is currently a pedestrian and bike bridge. In the lower left you can see the ruins of the 1st flour mill in Minneapolis. It was for a long time the most important building in the city. It is now a museum the covers how the city was built on the flour mills back in the day.

 

[boBQuincy]

This was a planned photo. I was using Av (and too lazy to switch to Tv) so I set the aperture to f/13 to get a shutter speed of 1/6s and waited for a monorail. Manual focus assured I wouldn't have any last second focus issues. 2nd curtain flash was enabled to help fill in some dark spots but probably did little if anything.

A 10mm lens gave a nice angle of view as I was actually very close to the monorail crossing. At any small aperture almost everything is in focus with this lens. I always use a polarizer if there is enough light and had one on to reduce any glare on the water. A GorillaPod and cable release kept things steady.

I was prepared to wait for another monorail but the light was fading quickly and it looked like I got what I wanted on this try so I headed up to see Mo'Rockin.


Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Date/Time: 2007:02:07 17:59:54
Shutter speed: 1/6 sec
Aperture: 13
Exposure mode: Av
Flash: Built-in + 2nd curtain sync
Flash exposure compensation: -1
Metering mode: Evaluative
ISO: 200
Lens: 10 to 22mm
Focal length: 10mm
AF mode: Manual Focus
Image size: 3504 x 2336
Image quality: Raw
White balance: Auto
Color space: AdobeRGB
CFn 15: Shutter curtain sync: 2nd-curtain sync

 

[tjl1388]

At my Daughter Cheer competition. This is after the comp and they didn't do to well (first year for most to the team) This was a spur of the moment hope to god my setting are right fired shot. I got lucky and with a little added drama via PS I have one of my favorite shots.