Preliminary Task- Photography

Photography Preliminary Task

Today, we carried out a photography preliminary task. This task would hopefully enable my peers and I to gain more experience of taking photographs, such as how to position a focal point in a frame and also how to control the aperture, shot speed and to become familiar with using DSLR cameras.

The task first required us to look at videos on how to change the mode and settings for each individual shot. I found this particularly useful, because it enabled me to gain an insight and visually see how to change these different modes. The video showed me how the green button is the automatic mode, P mode is the aperture and shutter speed where you can alter the white balance of the photo, TV mode allows for shutter priority which changes the aperture depending on the lighting, AV controls the depth of field- so how much of the shot is in focus. I also learnt that changing the ISO means how light sensitive the camera becomes; the higher the ISO, the more light sensitive it is. In a darker room, the ISO should be around 800, in a lighter room it should be set to 100 or 200. After watching this video, we selected a camera to use, which was the Cannon 700D as this is the camera we felt most confident with. Below, are the two videos we found particularly useful.

I was paired with Abi, and we were given a specific theme to follow which was Realism vs Surrealism. We had to consider this theme when taking our photographs. Abi and I were initially a little unsure on how to capture this theme through a series of images, however we decided to take images of real objects, such as trees and flowers for the realism aspect, and then we went to the textiles and art department in college to find some arty surreal pieces that we could photograph for the surrealism aspect. The images are shown below:

Surrealism:

Image Number: One
Theme: Surrealism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Manual. Depth of Field- Back image in focus, front out of focus.

Image Number: Two
Theme: Surrealism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'P' and then altered the white balance to the florescent setting, into warm white FL. Changed AB to 0-A6 which brought out the blue tones in the image. The Depth of Field was altered so that all of the image was in focus.

Image Number: Three
Theme: Surrealism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'P' and then altered the white balance to the florescent setting, into warm white FL. Changed AB to A1 + M6 to create a more washed out colour.

Image Number: Four
Theme: Surrealism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'P' and then altered the white balance to the florescent setting, into warm white FL. Changed AB to B6-M6 which altered the colours into being more orange and yellow toned.  The Depth of Field was altered the same as the previous image so that all of the image was in focus.  

Image Number: Five
Theme: Surrealism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'P' and then altered the white balance. Then, I used a Sepia effect to change image to this effect. This gives an almost retro feel to the images.

Image Number: Six
Theme: Surrealism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'P' and then altered the white balance. Then, I used a Sepia effect again, but this time we made it darker to change the image to this effect. This gives an almost retro feel to the images.

Image Number: Five
Theme: Surrealism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'P' and then altered the white balance. Then, I used a Sepia effect again, but this time altered and then manually changed the focus so that it wasn't blurred. This gives an almost retro feel to the images.

Realism:

Image Number: Six
Theme: Realism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'AV' and the depth of field to allow for the tree to be in focus. I like this image because it is very crisp and of high quality.

Image Number: Seven
Theme: Realism
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Mode: Changed mode to 'P' and then altered the white balance. This didn't work as well because the images were blurred and not clear. Therefore this photo isn't effective. 

 

What I learnt...

Overall, I don't think I am too pleased with the outcome of the photos. We were limited for time, and then had problems with importing the images as the SD card wouldn't register in the computer so we didn't obtain all of our images. Therefore, I am going to take some more photos in my own time in order to take some different images. However, I can learn that it is important to get the settings correct in order to obtain clear photographs.