So I Am Still Going Through Ecstasies
09/12/06 12:17 Filed in: Photography
On
Wednesday I took basically the greatest photo I have ever taken.
Have a look at the gallery and
guess which one it is in the comments. So through the haze of
photographic ecstasy, I've made a few other revelations:
Having a huge aperture means you actually have to pay attention when you are focussing. My old camera focussed very slowly, period, so I always had to take time. Since the Rebel can shoot so fast continuously,
AND it has a really wide aperture,
the possibility of having truly out of focus shots is greatly
magnified. The geisha shot from the previous gallery proves it - I
blasted away without taking much care to focus, and I got a very
fuzzy geisha. I've been using the maximum aperture most of the
time, and it has surprised me. The main "problem" has been, as in
the photo of the girl on the bridge with the yellow umbrella, that
only part of the main subject is in focus. I wanted the whole girl,
but the distance different between the edge of the umbrella and her
face meant that her face is blurry.
This certainly isn't bad - but it is a challenge. If I am using autofocus I need to make sure my aperture isn't too big, and that it has focussed on the right thing.
Another realization has been more psychological: I always wondered how pro photographers could get into peoples faces and take photos. For me, I have found that raising a camera to my face is sort of like hiding behind it. I'm not holding a digicam out at arm's length in a superobvious photo pose; instead I am concealing my face and looking at the world through a very small window, somehow cut off from reality a little. That, coupled with much faster shot taking time and a long lens that doesn't require me to really get into people's faces means that I am taking photos of strangers that look good for the first time.
Having a huge aperture means you actually have to pay attention when you are focussing. My old camera focussed very slowly, period, so I always had to take time. Since the Rebel can shoot so fast continuously,
This certainly isn't bad - but it is a challenge. If I am using autofocus I need to make sure my aperture isn't too big, and that it has focussed on the right thing.
Another realization has been more psychological: I always wondered how pro photographers could get into peoples faces and take photos. For me, I have found that raising a camera to my face is sort of like hiding behind it. I'm not holding a digicam out at arm's length in a superobvious photo pose; instead I am concealing my face and looking at the world through a very small window, somehow cut off from reality a little. That, coupled with much faster shot taking time and a long lens that doesn't require me to really get into people's faces means that I am taking photos of strangers that look good for the first time.
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