September 24, 2009 - Cleaning up from the flood

1/50

f4

ISO 400

27mm

RAW

I went to watch Emma at tennis practice today and heard some commotion in the woods behind the tennis courts. I found a county crew trying to clean out this massive drainage pipe, which had become clogged sometime during (or maybe even before) the flooding we had.

The pipe is what a small creek flows through as it goes under one of the roads in our neighborhood. Normally, the creek doesn't have much more than a trickle flowing through it, but was fairly raging during the flood because at least 20 yards empty into it just from our neighborhood alone.

Because of the clog, the creek backed up until it flowed over through one of the houses and over the street. Then it joined up with a larger creek and flooded out the tennis court and swimming pool area. The county crew was trying to clear out the clog so they could send an engineer into the pipe to inspect it for washout damage under the roadway.

This photo was kind of challenging because of the lighting. We were in the thick trees, but there were several open spots that was letting in quite a bit of light. This light was confusing the camera and making it underexpose the majority of the photo. I put the camera into 'P' mode (which on my Canon is one spot away from the fully automatic green mode). This allowed the camera to make all of the adjustments it thought it needed but also gave me the chance to override it.

Since the camera was underexposing the photo pretty severely, I used the exposure compensation setting to overexpose the shot by nearly one full stop. This canceled out the camera's confusion and gave me the exposure I wanted.

I wish I could have used the camera's flash, but that would have drawn a lot of attention to me and I wasn't sure I wanted it. I was worried a little that they might complain if it became obvious I was photographing their work. But if I could have used a flash it would have helped light up the shadows of the photo, especially in the pipe.

September 23, 2009 - Church volleyball

1/500

f2.0

ISO 1600

50mm

RAW

Getting a photo today was a challenge. I was busy all day, and then had a church youth group meeting after dinner. But when I showed up they were getting ready to play volleyball, so I pulled out my camera.

I quickly figured out, however, that the lighting in our church's simple gymnasium was pretty bad. I had to use my 50mm f1.8 lens, open all the way to f2, in order to get enough light (at ISO 1600) for stop action photos.

To make matters worse, this lens doesn't have a quick autofocus, so many of my photos were out of focus.

Here is one of the few acceptable ones I feel I got. It was taken during the serve and I cropped in on it to focus on the concentration on his face and the blur of the ball as it was hit. This blur really helps add a feeling of action to the shot.

Because of the light colored room divider behind him, the camera was fooled and it underexposed the photo a little. That is why it is so grainy. When shooting at high ISO's, it is vitally important to properly expose the photo during the shot. This will help reduce the graininess of the photo. The more you have to fix the exposure after the shot with your photo editing software, the worse the grain will be.

The lighting was also casting a horrible color that was really hard to nail down in post-processing. Due to being so behind in my posts, I didn't spend much time on it.

Basic Photo Tip: Exposure compensation

In the vast majority of photos, if you took all of the colors in the photo (when properly exposed) and swirled them all together, it would come out as a medium grey. They call this 18% grey. The light meter in your camera is designed to expose your photos to match 18% grey.

Most of the time this works with fantastic results. It is simply amazing that such a basic idea works out 80% of the time. However, there are a few instances when 18% grey won't work.

If you have an overly bright photo, like kids playing in the snow, your shot will likely have grey-colored snow. If the photo is overly dark, like a close-up of three Oakland Raiders in their black home uniforms, your shot will likely have grey uniforms and overexposed faces. The 18% grey is the culprit in both situations.

You can get past this problem by using the exposure compensation setting on your camera. Most cameras have it, even point-and-shoots. It allows you to add or subtract exposure from your shot.

By adding in one to two stops* of extra exposure in your shot of snow, everything should turn out looking bright and white. Similarly, by subtracting one to two stops of exposure in the close-up of the Raiders players, the uniforms should be brought down to their usual black.

You may need to experiment a little with what works best in each of your photo taking situations. Just don’t forget to dial that exposure compensation back to zero when you are done, or you will likely regret it the next time you pull out your camera!

*for information about what a stop is, see the lesson on aperture and ISO speeds.