Does This Happen To YOU?

When I first got my camera, I kept it on AUTO 100% of the time.  I didn't really understand how all the different buttons worked together and for heaven's sake, compared to my old point and shoot, this thing was a monster...so the less I touched (or messed with) the better off I would be right?

And really, compared to the blurry action shots of my little P&S, the pictures were a TON better than before...

However...does this ever happen to you?  Take a look at that top picture...I was in a hurry and thought, I'll just stick it on "auto" for a second and see what happens. 

Well...it did what I thought it was going to do.  You see, auto works GREAT in the perfect conditions...those overcast days where you don't have to worry about shadows or bright light.  It is wonderful in those situations because, I think it just "thinks" better for itself when it's not overloaded with extremes.


But, I gotta tell you...I'm the QUEEN of extremes...it seems like everytime I pull out my camera, I've either got too much sun or not enough light...a shadow on the side of someone's face or I can't even SEE their face...or my sweet pop up flash just pops up for no reason and I, all of a sudden, discover that my children's faces look like ghosts!

In this particular instance, it was noon...the sun was directly overhead and the men were shooting.  I wanted to catch some quick action here in the "bunker"...what happened when I left it on auto was that the camera was left to decide what was most important...how to expose the picture...and she (yes, my camera has a name and it is Missy, for those that don't already know) decided that the lovely blue sky in the background with the puffy clouds needed to be recognized. She also deemed that there was enough light to see whatever it was that I wanted to see because there was enough contrast everywhere else.

What "she" didn't understand was that I didn't really care about the clouds all that much, but I wanted to "enlighten" the person actually doing the shooting. 

This meant that I had to control what she metered, how much of the area she metered and finally, take into consideration that she's just a machine, after all...and if I need to overexpose a bit, to get the shot I wanted...well, I was going to have to tell her what to do:)

Therefore, you have the 2nd picture...I kept my aperture the same because I wanted more in focus for this shot...however, I lowered my shutterspeed to allow for more light...yes, it blasted the back out a bit more, but I got what I needed this time.

The Snapshop class is this Sunday.  It's "this" kind of information that we cover in class.  We're heading into the throes of summer...today was the last day of school...are you going to be ready to get pictures that tell the story of your summer?  We'd LOVE to have you join us still...I possibly have one more spot available...I don't allow the class to get too large so that we have a good class ratio when getting into the material and practicing with our cameras...Email me at ctphotomemories@gmail.com ifyou are interested!!!


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