The images I am including here were taken back in May of this year at a family gathering to commemorate the birthday and celebrate the memory of a loved one who had died a few years ago. This park along the Little Wolf river has long been one of our favorite places to visit and share time together in a beautiful and peaceful setting.
My intention that day was not to get great pictures, but rather to create some mementos that I could share with others. My purpose here is not to beat myself up over the “mistakes” I made, but to take some lessons from what I learned while reviewing the images later.
My ISO was what
Most of my photographic life I have used film cameras and mostly shot in aperture priority. When I got my new mirrorless camera in March of this year I decided I wanted to take more creative control over the images I was capturing. After watching some videos and doing a little testing on my own, I adjusted my settings to shoot in manual mode with auto ISO. I felt that gave me a good deal of control while still allowing me to get reasonably well exposed images in rapidly changing conditions.
When I started reviewing these pictures I was a little disappointed that they appeared to be quite grainy. A quick look at the settings and it became obvious that the culprit was the ISO which ranged from 640 all the way up to 6400. Given that it was a fairly sunny day that seemed awfully high until I noticed my shutter speed was set at 1/1000 of a second. I’m not sure what I was thinking there, but clearly I should have stepped that down to a more reasonable speed that would have been better suited to the images I was trying to get.
It’s the composition, stupid
Some aggressive editing and noise reduction could help with image quality, but when I look at the compositions they don’t really seem worth the effort. They are decent snapshots that serve as a reminder of the day and that is all they were really intended to be. Here again, though, if I remain open to learning and growing I can find lessons in all sorts of unexpected places.
My takeaways
- Regardless of the mode I am shooting in, it is good to be aware of what my settings are and be prepared to adjust them if needed.
- Sometimes I need to do what needs to be done to get the shot and then clean it up in post, but that should never be my first option.
- Choose my subject then simplify. Sometimes the chaos is the subject, but I need to make sure that is a conscious decision.
- Just because I have a camera with me doesn’t mean I have to come home with great images. There are lots of times when just being present is the most important thing I can do.