Learning To Snap - Attack of the Tripods...

Friday, October 26, 2007

As well as being great fun, I did pick up a few really useful tips. Allow me to share...

Oh go on....

1. Tripod bags are great.... Except when you're using the tripod, then they're a pain in the bum. If you're planning a night of tripod dancing, then leave its bag at home or find a way of packing it out of harms way (I used Stuart for this. Louise can hire him out at a reasonable fee)

2. Remotes rock. Much better to line up the shot and press the remote button when it's ready than to hit the timer button on the camera mount.... and watch the bus appear just as the shutter opened (OK, so once is an accident, but how many buses Louise? How many buses????)

3. Never walk behind a man with a fully extended tripod. I have leg prong things and I don't know how to use em...

4. F/8 is your friend when using the kit lens. Actually this is a serious one. I'd been tending towards either the upper or lower extreme with the kit lens and Darrell pointed out that the sharpest pictures come from the F/8 or F/9 settings

5. Always be careful of unusually bright things in the shot (take a look at the learningtosnap google gallery and check out my Big Wheel shots to see what I mean - in some the wheel is great but the city hall sucks, in others the wheel is blinding and the city hall ok)

5. Remember, your camera probably has the ability to under expose or over expose by a couple of stops automatically. Try it out - mine made a lot of difference

6. Use your camera lens cap to help shield annoying lights on the fringes of the shot.

7. Look around, sometimes the most fun snaps turn up in the weirdest places

I'm sure I learned much more than just this.

One other thing which happened on Wednesday night was finally passing the 1000 photos mark with the EOS 400D. By my reckoning thats 1000 photos in 3 months. Lets hope I learn as much from the next 1000.

Lessons Learned

Post Date: Friday, October 26, 2007 2:00:50 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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