Photography lessons week 1

I've started to take a little photography class that is offered at a church nearby. You don't have to have a special camera. He will teach you with what you have. Our first lesson for this week is to get comfortable changing the ISO. We changed our ISO to 100, which is good for direct sunlight and would need to be increased for indoor pictures. I'm excited about the class! I've already learned a few things from one class.

So here are some of the things I learned:

1. If you have the date printed on the front of your pictures, it can actually change the way the photo looks. It somehow messes up the lighting. So first thing he had everyone do is to make sure that was turned off.


2. Then we made sure that the date and time were correctly programmed into our camera.


3. He said there are 2 kinds of zoom, optical and digital. Digital is useless and basically just crops the photo. So we turned that off in our camera.


4. We learned what the camera is thinking and what it considers to be the perfect picture. (which is basically all grey)


5. We learned that there are 3 things that makes up a picture. The ISO- sensitivity of camera to light, Aperture- how much light is allowed in and Time-how long the lens is open to receive light. My camera does not have a feature where I can change the aperture or time. The best setting for direct sunlight would be ISO 100, 1/25 Time and 5.6 Aperture.


6. We learned what several of the different symbols on our cameras meant- but didn't go into detail on any of them.


7. The higher your ISO the grainier your picture will be, but sometimes you need the higher ISO to get the indoor picture you want.


8. We learned to use our self-timer and he had us all take a group photo.


9. And he said our manuals can be our best friend. They can be easy to understand when you know what you are looking for.

Next week will learn more of the camera basics and what each button means.

I do like how the water looks in this picture of Aussie swimming.