Photography Induction: Getting to grips with a DSLR

In last weeks photography induction we looked at how to work a DSLR camera and how to use the manual setting in order to use the caemra to its full potential. After sitting through pointers and tips and getting to grips with what certain controls did and how to adjust the camera to my desired needs, I was given the task of going out and experimenting with different shutter speeds and aperture settings.

To begin with I took a variety of images using different white balances to see how this would effect the tone and colour of the image.

I then experimented with adjusting the APERTURE to manipulate the depth of field (in simple terms this means adjusting the focus so the picture is either blurry in the background or clear). By using a LOW aperture number I was able to create an image that had a shallow depth a field, like so:

However, when using a low aperture setting I had to think about how this would effect the lighting, as the lens would allow more light through because the lens is wider (can't think of a better word, sorry). This meant that I had to adjust the ISO setting as well as the shutter speed (ISO determines the grain of the image and how much light is in the image a low ISO means little light and a high ISO means more light but also more grain on the image). 

After to successfully demonstrating my understanding of depth of field and how to adjust the aperture settings and such I moved on to experiment with shutter speed. This also involved adjusting the lighting and ISO, as the shutter of the camera would be open either for a longer period of time or for a shorter period. At first this was very difficult to get right as I struggled to get the balance of light right. However, I finally managed to get the hang of it and produced these images.

Overall, I found the session really helpful and I feel that I'll be able to use the knowledge I've gained within my future work, particularly if I experiment with stop motion animation.