Good morning friends,
Hope everyone is still in good health.
This morning I went out in the garden and tested my new 70-300mm lens on manual focus with a 2sec timer on a tripod using live view and my cable remote. Well I am still struggling to getting the hang of this manual focus and the fact that I must take off my glasses to see on the screen in very irritating. I uploaded all 10 photos and as I looked at it I deleted them one by one. They were all out of focus 😭 I never shoot on live view or with manual focus and I had much better results when I looked through the viewfinder and autofocus. But I am not going to give up. I will try again and again and again…… Until I master the art of manual focus. I think I must start on larger subjects and not flowers and also when it is not that windy. If I want my photos to be sharp and of better quality I will have to get outside of my comfort zone.
I have also ordered some ND grad filters for my camera. Not the expensive ones for now. At least I know that many landscape photographers started out using the cheapies to get the hang of it and that it will give a purple cast to my photos. But I am not going to spend hundreds of Rands on filters that I will never use. So these cheapies will give me an indication of what I really need here in the South African light.
I am also getting together a list of things I will need on my own landscape photography expeditions. For now it will only be a few hours hike at a time. I will have to get use to the bag on my back and not having my camera in my hand the whole time. Safer for me as well as my camera. I will also have to decide that I am only going to capture landscapes and not flowers, birds, insects and everything around me. This will end up making an 1 hour hike a 5 to 6 hour hike…. This is going to be the most difficult part of getting use to only capturing landscapes on a given day. The thing with flowers is they are here today but will they be there a week from now…. That is my dilemma. But it all comes down to choices that I will have to make, careful planning, and getting to know my new surroundings.
Photography is such a great career with so many opportunities. I can’t wait to get started on my photography assignment but first I need to get all better and a bit fitter than I am currently are. From Monday morning 20 September 2021 I will start walking on my treadmill again. And I am going to start with my Camerabag on by back with my hiking shoes. Don’t worry I will start slow and increase my my time and tempo over time. I do realize that walking on a treadmill and walking outside in the elements and in nature is not the same, but this will at least help me getting fitter a bit faster.
It is a beautiful cool morning outside and according to the weather forecast we are having a cold and windy Spring day. A maximum temperature of 16°C is predicted.
On my To-Do List for today
- Do more research on hiking trails in and around Cape Town
- Watch YouTube videos on landscape photography by Thomas Heaton and other photographers.
- Go through my photos and see if I can spot some of my mistakes.
- Prepare Dinner
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I am truly grateful for all the views, likes, follows and comments I get.
Wishing everyone a wonderful day.
🤗Big Virtual Hug 🤗
Coreen
I ‘graduated’ from autofocus to Aperture mode. I still try back and forth with Manual mode, but why is that so difficult?! Ugh. I am not giving up, but I feel your pain, Coreen.
I have been shooting manual mode for a few years now. It is not that difficult though the only problem is that as soon as your subject move or you move your settings change. You can’t just shoot and shoot like in Aperture mode. What I struggle with now is to start using manual focus instead of Autofocus. I have never used live view either and to make completely sure that everything is in focus I need to do it in live view. On-screen it looks in focus and when I get to the computer it is not in focus by a long shot. But I will get there…
Just keep practicing and remember to always look at your photo after shooting it. I try to keep my ISO at 100 and only play with my shutter speed. When I take photos of flowers I keep my aperture large between F4 and 5.6. If I want to capture a whole bush or tree I will use a smaller aperture of about F7 or F8. I use to take landscape photos at F5.6 but these days I use smaller apertures and play between F9 and F16. In short, my basic settings in Manual is ISO 100, F4-F16 depending on the type of photography and my shutter speed is all that I need to really worry about but this usually is between 1/60s and 1/200s. I don’t know if you edit, look at your settings in your edit program look at the photos that are underexposed and overexposed, and then look at the photos that you think are perfect. Keep the lighting conditions in mind, you will soon learn the best settings for your camera and lens. It took me a while but it helped me a lot when I started out in Manual Mode. Now it is time for me to move on and learn something new. One must always push yourself outside your comfort zone.
Coreen–thank you so much for this! I am going to get out and practice. Having my ISO set is one less thing to worry about. I appreciate all these tips.
Always a pleasure. Enjoy.