Green!

About This Photo
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure: 1/40
Focal Length: 200mm
ISO: 100
Lens: 70-200mm f/2.8 IS

Water droplets are among my favorite things in the world to photograph. What in the world is it that makes them so endlessly fascinating? Every time it rains, it's like they're little jewels making everything they touch glitter.

When I processed this one, I sharpened the heck out of it. I figured I could afford to since the ISO was set nice and low and the aperture was open wide as it could be -- I wasn't really afraid of it getting too grainy-looking. Then I enhanced the greens. And that's pretty much it.

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Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• A photo need not have anything especially complex about it to be beautiful.

The Kitchen Sink

About This Photo:
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure: 1/2500
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 1600
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

I love water splashing photos. Water is fascinating to photograph. Depending on your settings, you can make it look soft and lacy, or you can make it look like this: seeing little droplets frozen in mid-air.

I've been wanting to try to take a good photo water in action for awhile. But to get water splashing, you need a lot of light coming into the lens and a really fast shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed (this shot was taken at 1/2500 of a second), there is obviously less time for the light to get in to take the shot. I didn't have any special lighting set up, so I opened the aperture as wide as it would go, bumped up the ISO to the maximum, and set the shutter speed at a speed that was fast enough to capture the droplets without also going too dark.

The photo ends up with a somewhat noisy (i.e., "grainy") look because of the high ISO, but in this case I think it kind of works -- makes it feel kind of nostalgic somehow. Ideally, it would be great if it looked smoother, but sometimes I'm okay with a little imperfection.

You know how it is: just keepin' it real.

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Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• Everyday moments like doing to the dishes can afford new and interesting opportunity to expand one's photography skills. I got so wrapped up in taking photos of water, I forgot why I had it running in the first place.
• If you're going to do a picture like this of splashing water, try LOTS of different shots lots of different ways. Out of a hundred or so shots that I took of the water, this was the only one that I felt like was worth sharing. 

Fire & Water

About This Photo:Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure: 1/2000
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

What, no baby picture?!

I know, I know. Occasionally it's good to share something other than photos of adorable babies -- even if she does supply seemingly endless fodder for her photographer-mother.

After church and a nap yesterday, we all walked to a park that is happily situated about half a mile from our house. The sun was out, there was not a cloud in the sky, and it wasn't too humid to be out.

Since there was SO MUCH natural light available (obviously), I put the ISO at the lowest setting, bumped up the shutter speed (as in waaaaaaaaay up), and set the lens at a smaller aperture than the maximum permitted by the lens. I experimented with different shutter speeds (I tried 1/2500 and 1/4000) and apertures (going as wide as f/2.0) to see what worked best, and this was the winning combo.

When I was taking the picture, I wanted the water to have a kind of softer look (meaning I couldn't have too tight an aperture), but I still wanted to capture the brilliance of the sunlight reflecting off the water, capturing the way it sparkled and seemed to create a starburst effect on the water (meaning I couldn't have too fast or too slow a shutter speed).

Take a look at the detail on the water in this zoomed in (100% resolution) version.

It took some trial and error with my settings, but I got exactly what I wanted. Look at those reflected starbursts of sunlight. Gah!! I love it!!

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Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• Try the same shot with a variety of settings to get the effect you want. You just might be surprised!
• Playing with the camera is fun!