Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Lesson 1 - Dull Days do not a picture make
I think I mentioned the other day that I ended up in Donegal at the weekend. Well, it was my first real opportunity to get out for an hour with my shiny new camera and see if I could point it at things and make it work.

To my mind, the aim of the day was to get out and point the camera at objects, to get comfortable with it in my hands and using viewfinders and things again. I didn't intend to make use of the manual settings on the camera (I'll start looking at Aperture and Shutter priorities soon I guess).

Anyway, I went back to Cloughglass Beach since it's close and I'd visited it a lot.

The August summer weather was what you expect, dull grey, rainy.

The sky was an almost solid grey, but it had a moody feel to it - I have no idea how to get that into a picture. Maybe someone with more experience will happen in here and tell me the secret? My own overriding impression of the day was that if the sky is like that again I'm not going to expect to get much from it.

Other lessons I learned...

  1. The tide is coming in means THE TIDE IS COMING IN. Thou shalt get wet feet if you stand there too long

  2. Carrying a tripod is not fun. Using it may be, but carrying the bugger is a pain in the bum

  3. Think about what you need in your camera bag before you go - AKA- There probably isn't a plug on the beach, so you didn't need to bring your battery charger


As this blog grows I'll probably post more turkey giblets than turkey dinners on this site. Here's one (you can decide which) from Cloughglass Beach.

Grey Lousy Days

(1/800, f/4.0, metering - matrix, focal length - 18.0mm, 04/08/07 15:56)

Learning To Snap
400D | Donegal | photography
Post Date: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 9:15:10 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Disclaimer | Comments [5] |    # Related posts:
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The Pier
Wednesday, August 08, 2007 10:14:56 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

You can sometimes make a great feature of overcast skies using an infra-red filter. Depending on the sky you can sometimes get a great moody or stormy look, giving a really dramatic effect.

Of course, other times it's complete pants.

Luckily, with digital cameras you don't need to carry around a specific infra red film (and be damned into taking 35 irrelevant infra red shots because you really wanted to take the 36th) like the old days. You can just get an infra red filter.

This page [http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/infrared/] looks like it has some useful information on using infra red with a digital camera. And you'll really need that tripod.

Don't get your feet wet (again),

Geoff
Geoff
Wednesday, August 08, 2007 10:20:03 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Did I ever show you this?

http://www.learningtosnap.com/pics/4_IR.jpg

I actually have an IR lens for my E550. It's on my list of things to try next time it's a bright day and I have both cameras with me.

And you're right about the tripod for it.
learningtosnap
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:46:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I was just looking at the IR photo, I have always had a soft spot for black & white landspaces (ansel is my hero). I couldn't help but feel that the foreground was distracting. Hope you don't mind but I took a copy of it and did a little croping. http://picasaweb.google.com/stu.mackey/CroppingExamples

I did this with some of the photos that Lou took recently and I felt that it was a way to turn a fairly ordinary photo into something a little more interesting.

Of course the other possiblity is that I am basis towards long thin photos.
Stu
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:55:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Oh yes, another thing. We think you should be uploading more photos. You don't have to upload them onto the blog. Upload them to your picasa page or flicker, even if you don't like them that much it would be interesting to see more of what you are taking.
Stu
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 2:02:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Hi Stu,
Not a problem on you playing with the image - Does this make me a published photographer now? It's an interesting crop - something I might try with some other pictures I have in the house.
Geoff has been on at me to write soemthing up about cropping and positioning, and Bumps did post a comment somewhere about guidelines for the rule of thirds (or a link to such).

The reason I don't post more pictures here is because I'm trying to understand what I'm doing. By only posting a selection I can try to understand why I like this over that and why somethig works. I'm supidly busy at the moment which is cutting down on picture time and it's one of the dilemas I have - I want to post andI want to leanr but I don't have the shots to leanr on.

With regard to picasa and flikr and such.... Still haven't decided if these sites are a force for good or evil. I might make use of one at some point, but for now....
learningtosnap
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