More Photography Learning

Yesterday, I went back to the photography room and this time I set up the space to take pictures of two of my cuffs that I am entering into the San Diego County Fair. Taking pictures of my entries is not a requirement but since I have been making display stands for them, they seemed the perfect subjects for this weeks practice lesson. 

This week my goal was to use the macro lens and to

1. take just a few pictures with the camera in auto mode; this is for comparison with those in manual mode.
2. then use full manual to get familiar with the setting I needed to adjust to get a good picture. 
3. and don't worry about using a light tent to prevent glare, reflection and shadow. 
4. No use of RAW at this time. 

I took 22 pictures total and the first picture with the camera on auto actually came out rather nice. As you can see the depth of field is really short as gold on the blossom is in focus and the background just below it is out of focus. Here are the specs on this picture: Shutter Speed (Tv): 1/80; Aperture (Av): 2.8; ISO: 200; WB:Auto ​

The next picture is MANUAL MODE.  YES, it is blue because the white balance was off and it is a bit dark; I adjusted that later. The spec's for this picture are: Tv: 1/125; Av: 2.8; ISO: 100; WB: Custom. 

I then adjusted the cuff but left all the settings the same.

Here I changed the White Balance: Auto and left the other settings alone. You can see how the color is much better. 

The camera has the ability to "set" a custom white balance based upon a picture you take of a white piece of paper under the lights you are using. Then it reads the picture and it adjusts how colors are read when you take a picture.  Here is the next picture I took with the correct custom white balance. Compared to the image above, I think the cuff actually looks more silver. 

Next I repositioned the cuff to get a full shot of it. As you can see the depth of field is still a bit off since the edges of the cuff are out of focus.  But at this point I switched out the Squash Blossom for the Tenacious Tentacle. 

This is one of the images I took of the cuff. The settings are a bit different.  Tv:1/30; Av: 8.0; ISO:100; WB: Custom. The image is a bit dark so to correct this I can lower the shutter speed to allow more light in OR I can increase the ISO which is what I did. 

After two more pictures, I had the ISO at 400 and this is the result. The image is NOT dark, the color looks good and you can even see the patina!

At this point I was done for the morning. I really saw and learned how to adjust the camera to get better pictures. Next I need to play with depth of field, reducing reflection and shadow.   Overall I would say I leveled up!