If you've taken my workshop, you probably recognize her!
This weekend we found a little time to head to Clemyjontri Park in McLean, VA. As I usually do, I took a few photos and didn’t think much of it, but last night when I told my wife a couple of subjects I had planned to blog about, she asked me why I didn’t just blog about the photos I took this weekend. I had never thought about that as a blog topic simply because I was just out being a dad snapping a few photos. Now, I have to mention that I started taking photos at probably about age five since my dad was a photographer, so there is a lot in photography I just take for granted like simply taking in focus, frozen, properly exposed photos. I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant but I just sort of do it without having to think about it.
Now, if I do take a step back and think about what I’m actually doing, I can see where it might be harder than I think. In my workshop, I harp on these techniques and preach a lot of practice because to me that’s the only way to get there.
Anyway, Saturday was bright and sunny outside. It was the type of bright and sunny that usually evokes a “what a beautiful day!” out of people, but us photographers know that bright and sunny makes your life a bit more difficult.
I brought my Nikon D700 and two lenses with me. My 14-24mm and 70-200mm. I figured I’d bring the 70-200mm with me so I could stay back and get some shots of our daughter playing without her getting distracted with me in her face. I brought the 14-24mm so if I wanted to get close and show a lot more park background I would be able to do that, too. I didn’t bring a flash because if I bring a flash, then I would need my diffuser and I just didn’t feel like lugging around a lot of equipment. (As if what I already had wasn’t heavy enough!)
Oh yeah, I also brought a Canon T2i that my wife was nice enough to carry for me. I just bought it and wanted to play around with it some more in real life situations since it still has that brand new smell.
So on to the photos!
Aperture Mode 24mm f5 1/1250th sec ISO 250 - This one was a bit of luck. I had just put on the 14-24mm, took a couple of quick shots, then looked down at the camera and the lens was on manual focus! Thanks to the wide angle, this shot is perfectly in focus.
Aperture Mode 86mm f4 1/1600th sec ISO 250 - No need for the camera to try to follow my action... It can't. For all of the swing shots, I just left my active focusing sensor (in red) at the top and waited for her to hit it and then would take 2 or 3 shots at a time.
Aperture Mode 200mm f4 1/2000th sec ISO 250 - Here's one without the focusing sensors.
This is a zoomed in portion of the last photo to show that's it's nice and sharp when you give your camera some easy contrast to lock onto.
Aperture Mode 90mm f4 1/2000th sec ISO 250 - 1/2000 is pretty fast. Do I need my shutter speed that fast? Probably not, but if the light is there I'll take it. I wouldn't want anymore of the background in focus anyway.
Aperture Mode 150mm f2.8 1/2500th sec ISO 500 - We're in the shade now. Again, I don't need 1/2500 sec, but if the light is free and my camera can handle 500 ISO (most cameras can nowadays) I'll take it.
Aperture Mode 50mm f2.8 1/2000th sec ISO 400 - This is the only one I took with the Canon T2i and I only own a 50mm for it so that made my lens choice pretty easy. This is about as easy as it gets. Put your focusing sensor on her eye and shoot away... as long as she cooperates. 
Aperture Mode 200mm f2.8 1/1250th sec ISO 500 - I really liked the backlighting here. Taking a flash would have helped, but then I would have looked like I was in full photo shoot mode! She was about done by now so we couldn't get a big smile out of her.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you set your WB to AUTO? I often find myself what to do with WB. I usually set it to AUTO though. I do shoot in RAW.
Hey Eric, I just leave it on Auto and make my white balance decision when I get home. Notice I don’t say “fix it” when I get home, just making the decision later. Last time I switched off auto was shooting a model in regular daylight. I set it on fluorescent because I was going to use it in my workshop to show that it makes no difference. When the model saw the pics with that weird color she loved them so I sent a version of the jpegs with that white balance. Go figure. NOTE, this is assuming you’re shooting RAW files. If you’re shooting JPEGs, sign up for my workshop!
I’m seriously considering taking your workshop. I’m especially interested in “Take Your Camera Off Program Mode! Part II @ Saturday Sep 18, 2010: 02:30 PM”. I never had any formal education or classes on photography but just love taking pictures. I don’t think I’m really early beginner but then I’m no good amateur either. I do know all the terms, ISO, Aperture, etc and what they do.
What do you cover in Part II?