Just so you know
auto mode is NOT your friend. I love my camera but feel like it has too many flaws. Well guess what, it's not the camera it's me. That's right, I have not been taking advantage of my cameras full potential for years now, how about try ever. I have been wanting to know how to shoot manually for awhile now and always felt like I was way in over my head every time I tried to look into it. Well I am still in over my head but decided to take baby steps. One of the helpful sites that I have been using is
My 3 Boybarians. I have been doing her "31 Days to a Better Photo" very, very helpful. Each day you learn some thing new about your camera, "baby steps" just what I needed.
My first experiment was on the Christmas tree. The
Unskinny Bobby has a great post about shooting Christmas tree's.
Let me show you what I mean.....
Here is my tree in auto mode. It makes my tree look messy and not very attractive.
You cant even tell that the lights are on on the tree.
(can you find our Elf on the Shelf??)
Using
Unskinny's tutorial I shot this in manual mode.
Fun huh!! I feel like this picture is one I could actually keep or scrapbook.
And no before you ask, I did not mess with this in photo shop.
I only added text to the top of the picture and voila, done!
Ready for another example??
Basket shot in auto-mode, not bad. The lighting isn't great though.
In order to get the right lighting on the basket, the flower on the top got over exposed.This is something that can easily be fixed in photo shop. I wanted to show this photo without any editing so I am leaving it the way it is for now. There is also a funny shadow on the wall from my window, remember I am still learning so obviously this picture is not perfect.
My main problem with my taking pictures is lighting, lighting, lighting. My camera always wants to use flash so most of the time I have to turn it to the auto setting without flash. The problem with this is that I can't take advantage of any other features. Manual mode is defiantly my new friend.
It's been fun learning a little more about my camera.
I hope this post inspires you to "ditch auto mode"
Baby steps!!
