In 2016, I bought my first DSLR camera. I have a few film SLRs but I was tired of not having an easy way to share images. Not only that, I have rolls of film that were never developed because where do we go to develop film these days? I know the answer to that. I’ve had film developed. It just takes too damn long and I don’t have the funds nor space to have my own darkroom (hashtag photographer goals).
Anyway.
I have a Canon EOS Rebel T5i (700D) . Since I bought the camera, I’ve not really given her the attention she deserves. I was overwhelmed with all of the buttons. I’d only ever photographed with manual settings. I couldn’t understand what ISO means when you don’t have film. It was just so much. I’ve done some reading here and there but never got organized about it.
Since this year has been a dumpster fire, I was drawn back to photography because I needed some joy. I created a notebook for all things photography related, to keep notes, thoughts, ideas, etc. I even bought a course from Udemy during a sale. I decided the course would be my refresher of old concepts and the beginnings of new ones. Today I made it to the first assignment. I was tasked with taking 3 photographs with different light conditions to practice finding the correct exposure. In other words, I had to focus on aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Before I touched the camera, my confidence was much higher than it had been in years. I guess sometimes, you have to go backwards to go forwards, huh?
I submitted the images below:
Since the assignment was about exposure, here the settings for each:
Juicie: f/4, 1/10 s, ISO 1600, 21 mm
Purple Heart: f/4, 1/6 s, ISO 800, 29 mm
Dead Plants: f/4.5, 1/25 s, ISO 200, 20 mm
My goal with each of these was to get comfortable with the light meter inside my camera. These are the first successful images I’ve captured in full manual mode with my camera. I’m very proud of myself and glad I took the time to get to know her (she really needs a name).
Bonus!
Here is my favorite image of the day.
