Today I had a fun field trip with the Beginning Photography Class I am taking. We started at Shockoe Slip, went down by the canal walk, down by the river, up to Browns Island, and finished the loop by passing the RVA Street Festival Murals.
These two are my favorites from the photo shoot today.
Click on gallery below to see some of my other favorites.
I shot them all in manual mode! Which means that while I took over 200 photos most didn’t pan out. And even the ones that I am posting here, I had to tweak a few of them for exposure in Lightroom. I also darkened the blacks on the photos with the dried flowers and wall.
I learned a lot by forcing myself to play with the camera settings, and enjoyed playing with shutter speed to stop the water…but I also learned that I am very limited by my equipment. I hate the kit lens (18-55mm) and just couldn’t get the shots I wanted when I did try to use it because it just didn’t have the range (couldn’t get the kayakers). But was also limited by the lens I love, my 50mm 1.8, when it came to being able to get the action shots of the kayakers. With the kayakers I was able to use a high shutter speed and stop the motion and the water, but I had to edit/crop in Lightroom because I was using a prime lens which obviously made things not as in focus like I would want. However, I didn’t have to edit the kayakers for exposure! I also have no idea why I had the aperture so low (or is it high/wide? — it is a low number but larger opening) when I was shooting the kayakers. I would have gotten more in focus if I was at 7 or 8. But that is part of the learning process!
All and all a fun day and it was great to be able to spend two hours focusing (no pun intended) on using my camera.
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