November 07, 2011

Photo Challenge Day 7 -  Shadowy Silhouettes


This is the tree in our front yard.  I caught its shadow right around 12:30.  The sun is south of us enough this time of year to cast big shadows in the middle of the day.  I played with where to set the focus on this picture.  Some of them I set the focus on the tree, and some I set further out in the shadow.  This is the one I liked the best.



Thanks for all the comments.  I love getting them.  For those of you with fancy shmancy cameras that want to take beautiful photos too, here are a few things I've learned:

1.  Set your camera to manual and read your camera manual to learn how to set the F-stop, shutter speed, and ISO to make the light work for you.  When I get all of these aligned right, the light meter in my camera reads at about a +1.

2.  I think that a lot of the pretty blurred backgrounds in my photos have to do with the lens.  I bought my camera body separate from my lens, per the recommendation of several photographers.  I've heard that kit lenses are a waste of money and will not produce anything close to what you think you should be getting.  So, I bought a f/1.8 50mm lens to start with (per the recommendation of several photographers).  The photographer I bought the camera body from said that if I could splurge to get the f/1.4 50mm, but I wasn't in a position to splurge.  This lens has been a dream so far.  I love it!  It is a fixed focus lens, so no zooming.  I bought the lens on B&H for about $100.  For that price it has more than paid for itself with the images I've captured already. 

Happy Photo-ing!

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