Week 8.1: I should've used RAW

I am supposed to be writing my dissertation right now. I'm on the fourth revision of my proposal, and I am beyond sick of it. To make sure I finish these revisions, I'm giving myself intermittent breaks of things I want to do. You guessed it!!! Photoging is on the TOP of that list :)!

So, here a few pictures I snapped in the haste of our morning routine. I'm going to show you what I've learned about the difference ISO, aperture, and shutter speed make.

ISO- 320     Aperture-1.8     SS- 400

I also used spot metering because I wanted her to appear brighter than the busy surroundings. The overall picture was took dark. I was already shooting wide open with a pretty decent shutter speed, but I may have ended up with a better exposure and image quality if I had raised the ISO. The ISO in this shot was on "auto". Rookie mistake :).

 ISO- 800     Aperture- 1.8     SS-400

The ISO is a bit higher in this shot, but the image is still a little grainy. Better than the first, but still not great. The focus and metering were the same as the first, and the ISO was still set to auto. The camera did a little better job here, but still not great.

 ISO- 2500     Aperture- 1.8     SS-250
I'm starting to get the hang of this thing! I kept the aperture wide open at 1.8, and I pulled the shutter speed down to 250. That's still a decent speed and it helps all her little movements to not make the picture blurry. I also took the ISO off of auto and set it myself at 2500. See how she's a little too white? We call that "blown out". Even pros make this mistake sometimes! To fix it I either need to increase my SS (which would have let in less light) or decrease my ISO (which would have resulted in less light compensation). Either way, it's still a better shot, overall, than the first! (Metering and focus did not change from previous 2.)

 ISO- 2000     Aperture- 1.8     SS-250

Okay. In this shot I kept the metering, focus, aperture, and SS sped the same as the previous shot. The only difference was that I lowered my ISO to 2000. Remember I said in the previous shot that I either needed to lower the ISO or raise the SS? I decided to lower the ISO because the lower the ISO, in my (unprofessional) opinion, the better the shot. Do you see the difference? Look at their faces. They aren't "blown out". You can see plenty of color and definition in their precious little faces. The wood on the tables is also a richer, more appropriate color. In terms of lighting, this was spot on. Yay me!!

ISO- 2000     Aperture- 1.8     SS- 250
Okay. So, I'm showing this to prove a point. All of the settings were the exact same as the picture above. EVERYTHING. Metering, focus, ISO, aperture, SS. It was ALL the same. However, while the previous picture was crisp and bright, this image is a bit grainy and dull. The difference??? She moved all of 3 feet from a spot where light was pouring in through the little horizontal panes above our windows to a spot where our blinds were closed and no light was coming into the room. The result is a picture where the exposure is out of whack! Now, your turn. What could I have done to make the picture brighter, resulting in a better exposure? Post your comments below!!

Now, were I comfortable shooting in raw, then these rookie mistakes could (from my place of ignorant "understanding") be corrected. Sadly, I was shooting in jpeg and not raw. Raw results in HUGE files. That much I know. I may be off to buy more memory cards this weekend :/.

Happy snapping,
~ Melissa ~