Lesson 3, Assignment 1: Camera Optics... Focal Length

Another assignment for the Free Online Photography course, this time I am backtracking a little, and doing an assignment I skipped.  I am doing assignment 1 of lesson three.  The assignment was to, "Take a photograph using your widest angle lens possible and another using your longest lens possible. Compose them both so they are as interesting as possible."   I only have one lens so far, but its a zoom so I took the photos with the lens's widest angle possible, and then with the longest.

The assignment also said to put the camera on a tripod or other sturdy object, but I forgot that part, so I guess in this case my hands were the "other sturdy object".  I knelt in exactly the same spot for both photos.

So here are two photos of the same object, taken at 55 mm, f/8, shutter 1/125, ISO 200, Manual Mode, Auto focus.  I think this one makes a pretty good abstract.

And here is one taken at 18 mm, f/8, 1/160, ISO 200.

 

In case anyone is wondering what on earth my picture is of, it is a VERY OLD milk/cream separator.

Lesson 3, Assignment 2

Okay, its time for more assignments from the Free Online Photography Course I have been taking.  I haven't done assignment 1 of lesson 3 yet, but the order of the assignments doesn't really matter as much as actually DOING both of them. So here goes... the directions said, "Again, set your camera up and take two photographs - this time they should be exactly the same, but use your aperture to make your subject the only thing in focus in one of them and then to make everything in the picture in focus in the other one."

I decided to make my subject my favorite chess piece.  Both of these photos were taken with Aperture Priority.  In both photos I manually focused on the Knight's eye, to get the greatest detail in that spot, and in both photos the ISO was 100, there has been no post processing of either image.

On this one, the aperture was F32 (the smallest available)  and the shutter speed 5 seconds. Even though the point I manually focused on was the same as the second the photo notice the extreme difference in the results.  For the most part I like the second image the best, but I do kind of like the cross on top of the king in the foreground of this first one.  I wonder, if kept playing around, could I have gotten the cross AND the knight to be focused, while everything else was fuzzy?

 Now here is this one, the aperture was F5.0 (largest available) and the shutter speed 1/8 of a second.   Notice how my favorite piece now stands out from the rest of them!

Nature: Beautiful! Mesmerizing! Untainted?!?!

This first photo was taken out in the backyard of the client I cleaned house for today.  It is not that clear, because I didn't want to frighten the  deer away, and I don't have a telephoto lens (yet).

 

Next, are some pictures of the beach I pass 

 

As you can see, where I live I am surrounded by the beauty of nature.  Now here is the sign that is posted at this beach:

Sad, isn't it?

Blue and White