Was talking with a friend the other night and looking through some photos with him. He commented that it was good to see that not every photo I took was fabulous and amazing. Been thinking about that today. Along with a phrase I have heard. "The difference between Professional and Amateur Photographers is the size of their wastebaskets." I think there is a lot of truth in that statement. I may go out and shoot 100 frames and get 10 shots I like, or I may shoot 200 and get one, and that is when I am TRYING to take meaningful photos. Sometimes it is fun to just not have to think about composition, aperture, ISO, focus point, shutter speed in relation to focal length etc.... and just have a little fun.
That said even when I am not being "Serious" I have trouble being sloppy. Case in point: At the 2014 Festival of Trees I took only two lenses one for videoing my daughters dancing (My Pentax K35mm f3.5) and one to do close up details of the trees and gingerbread houses. (Pentax DFA 100mm f2.8 WR) They are both VERY sharp when handled correctly and do very well wide open (i.e. at the largest aperture they are capable of.) Not a zoom. Not that I don't like zooms, but I wanted to make myself work a little bit and not just stand in one place and zoom in and out.
What I did then was mount the DFA 100 and shoot it mostly wide open with the ISO pushed up to the 400-800 range, varying the ISO based on the shutter speed I was given by the metering system. As a side note I tend to shoot in Av mode mostly, I could have used a different mode on my Camera where I set the shutter speed and aperture and let the camera vary the ISO within a set range to get that combination. I just haven't used that much. And I am used to watching my shutter speed. It would have been easier to just ask for a shutter speed of 1/the focal length of the lens (1/100s for my lens) and f2.8, which is a tried and true method to avoid too much camera movement during an exposure.
Where was I? Oh yeah, snapshots. Here are a few, hand held, just quickly shooting as we shuffled past. Just looking for a few details that would remind me of the event.
Like I said, more fussy. All at f2.8.
