Saturday, March 7, 2009

Practice, practice, practice, and camera adjustments

OK so I took my camera to Drill practice this morning, I found some other setting on my camera for shutter speed, I have been trying to minimize the blur from movement of the horse, especially the legs. So I set the shutter manually at 1/200, well this is what I got, didnt let enough light in in the indoor lighting situation. It may work outdoors on a sunny day.


So I went back to where I had it for a few pics, a lot of blur.......hmmm

So I started stepping it down each level until....
Still dark at 1/125


Still dark, boy there is a learning curve here LOL


I think I finally settled on the 1/60 setting, it is letting in the light and I am getting less blur. The rest of the settings, it says minimum shutter speed are, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 1. I still have to do some reading to figure out the optimums.





I like the result a lot better, there is a lot of dust in the air too, so much that you can not take flash pictures or it looks like it is snowing.




Pretty good wheel here! I like the lighting and the legs have minimum blurring, you can see the horses breath, the thermo in the truck said 37 degrees when we arrived, burrrrrr.








Now if I can just figure out the glare from the lights?? but I fear I cant have it all LOL









They have a bark dust footing in this arena, and it is dusty when it isnt watered, the horses tend to trip a lot too, not my favorite footing, but it is a really nice facility.

Anyone taken photography classes with a digital camera? any suggestions? I will get it figured out! LOL


8 comments:

  1. I got a digital for Christmas and I'm still trying to figure it out. Guess I'll need to take a class because that manual is making my eyes cross!

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  2. I'm still trying to figure out how to get good indoor arena and indoor basketball court shots. I remember having to delete the majority of pictures I took at an indoor horse show. They were blurry because the lens stayed open longer to let in more light. Then I'd go outside and get all these perfect shots.

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  3. The comminity college has a photography class just for digital cameras, I thought about takeing a class, I will have to see when the new community ed. classes come out for spring if there is anything in there. I love my new camera but it has so many bells and whistles I dont know which one to ring or blow LOL

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  4. Oh, how I know your pain. I DID take a photography class at the community college. There are so many variables to take into account. To cut down on some of them, I set my camera on Shutter priority (TV). Then you can set the shutter speed and it will match the aperature. You can also set the ISO (film speed) which inside you would need a faster one 400-800 to compensate for the low light. Have I confused you totally now? Here is the post I did right after my class on shutter and aperature. Maybe it will help ya.

    http://crazymranch.blogspot.com/2008/09/class-2-shutter-and-aperture.html

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  5. Yes, The wife, it does help, I will have to play with the settings again! at least with digital you dont waist a lot of film and development costs!

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  6. Read your manual too! You will be amazed at how helpful it is! The Wife gave some great tips. Read some Scott Kelby books or go to Flickr.com and find some groups that have your particular camera and ask there. I like to call Flickr, FlickrUniversity. Have learned tons there! Good luck. You'll get it!

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  7. I don't know what settings your camera has or doesn't have -- but if you can adjust the ISO, make it higher -- 800 or 1600 for indoors. That will give the camera greater light sensitivity while still keeping the shutter speed very quick for less blur. You may have to play with other settings, too, but that should help at least!

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  8. Katharine, it is a digital camera with minimal manual setting, although I am figuring those out. If I set the film speed to high the pics come out realy grainy, I have had the best luck at 400 or 800, it has so many settings it is going to take awhile to figure it out, although so far I do like its manual modes better than auto. Inside the arena it is pretty dusty so I have to turn the flash off or all it does is look like it is snowing, so the other setting have to compensate for the lack of flash. I am slowly figuring it out though!! it is a Panasonic Lumix TZ5.

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