Hi, I’m starting a Photo Of The Week. It’ll be either a photo from the archives, or a new photo that I’ve taken.
I’m kicking it off with a photo of Dark Hallow Falls at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It was a nice hike to the water fall and back and what a beautiful park! And the cold water on a hot day was so refreshing!
ISO 400, Aperture f/8, Shutter Speed 1/125
Handheld, no tripod
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 35mm f/2 Lens
Processed with Adobe Lightroom 4
The water area was crowded, so it took a while to get a clean shot. I picked a spot, squatted down, and framed(composed) the shot that I wanted then waited to clear out. Patience in waiting for the moment is important in photography.
Since this was a landscape photo and I wanted lot of the scene in focus, I set my aperture at f/8 for more depth of field.
Even though it was a bright sunny day, I set my ISO to 400, because we were deep in the woods and it was a bit shady.
When I shoot in manual, I usually have my ISO and aperture picked out and adjust my exposure by changing the shutter speed. I make sure I’m not slowing down my shutter speed too much, because slow shutter speed will make my photos blurred and not sharp, especially handheld.
If the exposure was correct but the shutter speed happened to be too slow, I would have increased my ISO in this case, because depth of field was a priority to me.
What a great idea-especially explaining all about how you took the shot, whether it was in shadow and the camera settings and why use used them. This is what I am trying to get my head around – if you want a certain depth of field what I need to do with the other settings to achieve the result.
I will be looking forward to your weekly photos and your explanation how they were taken.
Cheers
Lyn
Also, re the photo of the week shot- could you tell me what spot of the scene you focused on before taking the shot .
Thanks
Lyn
Hi Lyn, I’m glad you excited about the new photo of the week series. I’ll do my best to stay consistent. I originally didn’t intent on writing up how I shot it but I did anyway, and since you find it helpful it was all worth it.
I don’t remember exactly where I focused, but when shooting at f/8(or higher), the accuracy of the focus point becomes less important because a large part of the scene will be in focus. However, it’s still important to pick a focus point relatively close to you, with a right brightness as it’ll be the same point where I’d meter from.
Most likely I focused near the center, on the brightest part of the rock. If I had picked a dark part to focus and meter, then it wouldn’t have metered correctly. When I shoot in high contrast situations where the scene is mixed with super bright parts and super dark/shady parts, I expose for the highlights. Meaning, I focus and meter for the brightest part. If I don’t, the brightest part will be overexposed. If I shot this in any of the auto mode and focused and metered on the dark shadow part of the rock, the water flowing down would have been overexposed. Hope this makes sense. I wrote a post on “Metering” where I explained this also. Thanks!