Fun With Photography

Photography is a new medium for me and I invite you to come along for the ride and share in what will probably be a stumbling ramble of learning, interesting discoveries and probably some hilarious failures. So let's go!!!

I shoot with the Fuji XT-30 with 15-45 lens...I only have the one lens, as I said, I am a complete noob when it comes to photography.

So without further ado, let's get started with the first Photography Friday!

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The 3 Basics: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO

Image : Blue Gold Winter Morning (unedited)

This photo was taken on a walk one morning this past February (2021). The camera gives me this information: ISO 160 15MM -0.33 ev. ⨍/8 (aperture) 1/420 s (shutter speed)

Three factors determine the exposure of your pictures: ISO, shutter speed and aperture. ISO refers to the camera's sensitivity to light or, how light or dark the photo will be. Daven Mathies of Digital Trends describes aperture as the amount of light that makes it to the sensor in the camera.

"The aperture is simply the opening within the lens that limits the amount of light that can pass through it. By changing the aperture value, you increase or decrease the size of that opening, thereby allowing more or less light into the camera."

Shutter speed is just what it sounds like, it is how fast the shutter opens and closes allowing light exposure to the shot. Shutter speed and aperture work with each other as aperture determines how much light gets through while shutter speed decides how much time the camera's sensor is exposed to the light.

What does all of this mean? Well like anything else my motto is guess, check, delete, retake, repeat. That is the way my brain works with most things in life. Get the shot, ajust, retake and then see what I can do in the rendering stage with LightRoom or Photoshop.

That is why photography is so much fun! The goal is quantity over quality. The more pictures you take the more risks and experimentation which hopefully leads to more creative shots. The final image:

Image: Blue Gold Winter Morning (edited with LightRoom)

I brightened the light values in the center of the image and brought up the luminance of the yellows and oranges. I also increased the saturation of the dark blues, which worked out really well when contrasted with the golds.

The editing is a lot of fun. I love to play with all the tools available and really dig LightRoom! If you are just getting started in photography, or if you are interested in diving into some of the tech stuff I recommend digitaltrends.com and photographylife.com. Next time...my attempts to capture birds on film (with that one lens.) Cheers! RD