manual mode

i'm taking a photography class in zebulon taught by one of the local photography "celebrities", leslie privette.  she's a super nice and down to earth woman - about my age, and has 4 kids about the same ages as melissa's kids.  i met her at faith's 2nd(?) birthday party years ago when melissa lived here - one of her children was there.  anyway, that was before i knew her as a photographer. 

i've never had anything done by her nor have i had any close personal friends have anything done by her (that i know of) - but, i don't exactly live in zebulon.  she is a super instructor and has definately caused me to put myself outside my comfort zone.

last week, our homework was to learn about (through practice) aperture and shutterspeed (and ISO).  i already know how to use these functions, but, turns out that i needed the practice.  especially after my horrible photos today.  last week, the kids gave me two toys (uncle rob and thomas) and i set up a sheet outside and photographed them out of the direct sunlight (but still bright light).  if i can find the picture, i'll update this blog and post it.

this week, we learned about white balance, metering, and using the effectiveness of a flash to fill in shadows.  we had to use two different models, both wearing hats for part of the time.  no way could my kids have been my model, so mom and dad did it for me.  i got some AWESOME shots of them both. (though neither of them actually gave me permission to post a picture, i'm gonna guess that mom will say "NO" and dad will say "I DON'T CARE" - so mom if you have a different answer, let me know so i can update.)

so, yesterday we were playing with the kids in the yard and i decided to practice yet again with my camera in the manual mode.  problem #1. kids don't stand still.  when they move from left to right, the light changes so i need to meter again.  i ended up just picking an aperture and just adjusting the shutter speed depending on where they were in relation to me and the setting sun.  my shutter speed is adjustable with my thumb.  so, i could do it fairly quickly while following them.
problem#2.  i still ended up with over/under exposed pictures.  and if they weren't over or under exposed, they were blurry - motion blurry, not out-of-focus blurry.  so, that meant my shutterspeed was too slow.  HOWEVER, my aperture was as open as it could get (letting in as much light as possible), as to allow for the fastest shutter speed as possible.  or so i thought.

after about 70 blurry pictures (well, a few of them were clear, but then i had to deal with bugger nose or weird faces or back of heads or a random arm or something like that...), i decided to put it into one of the program mode. 

i'm not so happy (but sorta happy) to say that i still didn't get that many clear shots.  i guess the bottom line(s) are these:
#1 my kids move fast.
#2 i need a lens with a wider aperature (a smaller f-stop number). 
or,
#3 i am just limited to bright light conditions for photo taking.  i guess i could get a auxilary flash.  those cost more than lenses.
but none the less,
#4 my kids hate my camera (or me, i hope it is the camera though).  they will not look at me, not acknowledge me, run from me, ignore me, not participate in anything i suggest, avoid me, etc.  even the flip down see-what-i-just-took viewer doesn't even lure them in anymore.

so here are a few of the decent ones from yesterday.