Day 8 - What I've learned so far

Sometimes my blog posts, and pictures can get a little monotonous. For me, at least. So I think every week, I'm going to do a post about what I've learned so far in my Manual Mode Journey.

First off, I babysat my two neighbor boys today. The past couple of weeks I haven't had to babysit them because their dad has been home. Needless to say it was kind of fun to have some new subjects, however, the four year old thought I was kind of crazy taking pictures of him, but then I said I was giving them to his mom, and then he was all for it. Ha ha!

Here are the pics, and what I've learned:

 First off, this was just cute/funny. They were coloring with sidewalk chalk outside, and Jonas was so concerned that he had chalk on his thumb. He kept saying "uh-oh"

Secondly, as I've been taking pictures for a week and editing them, I've noticed a lot of them are kind of noisy/blurry when I zoom in on them. That is not ok. Look at this example. Looks good, right?

 

Well, not really! Look at this zoomed in! Not really in focus.

Now look at this picture. Again, looks good, right?

 Here is that picture zoomed in. Can you tell a difference? The eyes are in focus. It's sharp, it's good!

What's the problem? Many things actually, since I've been researching this problem and how to fix it. First off, my shutter speed probably isn't quick enough for some shots, my own hands are shaking the camera (like the above example with the boy in the green jacket), or I have tried to make it have better exposure in photoshop. I read that if you try to fix the exposure too much in photoshop, that can affect if the image is sharp and in focus. Interesting. Another reason to get the exposure correct right out of the camera as opposed to later.

There are so many things to remember and think about when you take pictures. It's fun. But hopefully I'll be better at getting things in focus. I think most of my problems are from my hands shaking or the shutterspeed not quick enough. It's hard when I'm indoors though, because of light, but I will get better at it. That's why I'm doing this.