Class July 1 Material

Shooting fireworks

~ Tripod
~ Cable Release
~ Manual exposure and focus (focus to infinity and “pull it back” a little. Or put it in auto, focus on something far away, and switch to manual)
~ Start with aperture at about f/10, adjust as needed to control exposure
~ Shutter speed slow.. he says 3-6 seconds but I’ve found that can be too long. Try 1/2 to 1 second. Or better yet, bulb mode and you can close the shutter at the peak moment.
~ ISO 100 or 200

 

In the video you’ll notice he says focus all the way to infinity and then pull it back a little bit… this might help explain it: Why does my lens focus past infinity?

For Thursday! Bring interesting light-colored objects to shoot motion blur against black background. For example, a white or metal/silver yo-yo, a coin (bigger the better), white streamers, etc. One thing that worked well one semester was a bunch of dollar bills (we threw them up in the air and let them come down). (not just saying that so I can keep them)

Selective color handout for Stained Glass..

Balancing flash and ambient light

Here’s a good article for those interested in using speedlights….

Essentially, find the exposure before you even turn the flash on. Then make it a little darker (for example f/5 to f/11). Then add the flash on the subject while keeping the other settings where they are.

Nice explanation of RGB

And again.. as you are working with your images, how does this information become practical? Because you can measure the RGB values of a particular area and understand what those numbers imply. If the RGB values are the same (or close) you know it’s a neutral tone (black, grey, white). If the blue value is higher you know it has a more blue tone, green higher a more green tone, etc.

It also helps you gauge the brightness of that area. Anything that is supposed to be “white” should be at about 95% in each channel (RGB). That comes out to About 242 out of 255 for the brightness value (each pixel can have a value of 0-255).