About 25 minutes before I had to leave for class I remembered that I didn't do my homework. Oops! I wanted to try out my new 50mm f/1.8 lens but it was still in the unopened box. I thought what the heck. I put it on my camera and started snapping shots. Let me say that I'm not used to the 50mm lens at all. I kept wanting to use my hands to zoom the lens. How difficult it is to learn that my body is the zoom...and I need to move in closer to my subject. I ran downstairs and downloaded my few photos. I was a little upset with the outcome but I was out of time.
Once at class we spent the first 1-1/2 hours going over everyone's homework. Below is mine...and I tried to remember some of his criticism.
He liked the photo but felt it was too centered. He would have like to seen the ball on the left cropped partialy out. He also said it might have a better effect if the balls were more at an angle. He did like the reflection in the glass though.
Again he felt the subject was too centered. He thought that I should have used the shape of the blinds to my advantage in this photo.
He didn't like this photo. He felt I should have taken the photo straight on and focused on one or two of the flower stems.
He liked that I looked down on the subject but didn't like the glare. (If I had a filter that fit this lens I would have used it.) He thought that I should be using a lens hood...and that the photo needed more contrast.
He thought that I should have been looking at this object straight on and again I should have cropped it a bit.
After going over all the homework we went over today's lesson. We talked about Manual Controls (F-Stop, Shutter Speed, White Balance - auto, daylight, cloudy, indoor, fluorescent. We went over Shooting types (Portrait, Action/Sports, Night Shot, Macro, Burst, Bracket). By the way he believes that anyone with a DSLR should avoid "picture icons" like the plague. We also discussed Still Lifes, Cityscapes and people.
Some extra things I got off of my teacher's ramblings this week were as follows: He always shoots in AV unless shooting a night scene or a special event. He likes AV because you can change your depth of field. The best f-stops for abstracts are f/2 - f/4.5, for portraits f/5.6 - f/11 and for landscape, f/11 - f/22. He recommends always using a tripod when shooting landscapes or storms. His favorite filter is the split level neutral density filter. He says not to center subjects in the photo, remember the rule of thirds and crop your photo. He says that if you have a DSLR you should always shoot in continuous mode with children, pets and scenes.
ASSIGNMENT:
Our assignment for next week is to take photos of objects or people. We are to try some different lighting techniques (natural light with a diffusor), or arrange some similar lights to illuminate our subject without having to use our flash. We are to experiment with some different white balance situations. We are to try shooting vertical and to use the rule of thirds.
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