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Nov. 28th, 2005 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogSo I attended ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wooisme's last belly dance class, camera and related gear in hand, and plunked myself down in a corner to set up my tripod and extension cord. Through the course of the two hour class I shot about four hundred and fifty pictures, playing with various combinations of settings. I finally figured out that the reason my f-stop setting kept randomly (or so I thought at first) changing on me is that, when not zoomed all the way out, the camera is unable to use the lower f-stop settings. While there must be some physical reason for that, I'm not sure what it is. I'm just glad that I have the lesser frustration of knowing that it's a limitation of my camera rather than a very frustrating glitch.
Anyway, I got some good pictures, a very few great pictures, and a whole lot of -well- let's just say unremarkable pictures. This, though, is the way of things, and the reason the pros burn through sixty rolls of film a week is in the hunt for those elusive gems that come through lots of practice and barrels of patience.
But on to my point. Now that I have a few pictures that really stand out and beg to have something done with them, I'd like to try doing that. I've never done picture editing before. Assuming I can get my hands on a copy of Photoshop (I think I've got one lying around here somewhere), I'd like to see if I can make them even prettier. Can anyone point me to some good starter guides or tutorials? Or, even better, if you have any experience yourself, maybe get together with me sometime and show me the ropes? I'd be deeply indebted.
I'm learning more about my camera; it's a lot of fun to use, but as I noted, it has it's limitations. Another issue I've found with it is that the pictures really don't render very well under low light, ending up with a lot of graphical artifacts in dark spaces. Clearly, this camera isn't going to produce the kind of professional quality images under all the conditions I'd like it to, but it's a good tool to learn with. Someday, when I have money (hah!) I'll be able to afford a beautiful digital SLR like the oneedbook uses (you should take a look at his work by the way. He's a professional and one look at his work will make it clear why), but until then I plan to learn everything I can about the hardware I have and push it to it's limits.
On a related topic, I would be more than happy to burn CDs with the pictures I took for those who were at the class. Just let me know if you're interested and I'll bring them with next time we get together.
------------
After writing this, I searched online and found a wonderful review of the camera I have (The Canon Powershot A85), including, further on into the piece, some in depth exploration of it's technical characteristics and limitations. Fascinating reading if you have one of these! http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A85/A85A.HTM
wooisme's last belly dance class, camera and related gear in hand, and plunked myself down in a corner to set up my tripod and extension cord. Through the course of the two hour class I shot about four hundred and fifty pictures, playing with various combinations of settings. I finally figured out that the reason my f-stop setting kept randomly (or so I thought at first) changing on me is that, when not zoomed all the way out, the camera is unable to use the lower f-stop settings. While there must be some physical reason for that, I'm not sure what it is. I'm just glad that I have the lesser frustration of knowing that it's a limitation of my camera rather than a very frustrating glitch.Anyway, I got some good pictures, a very few great pictures, and a whole lot of -well- let's just say unremarkable pictures. This, though, is the way of things, and the reason the pros burn through sixty rolls of film a week is in the hunt for those elusive gems that come through lots of practice and barrels of patience.
But on to my point. Now that I have a few pictures that really stand out and beg to have something done with them, I'd like to try doing that. I've never done picture editing before. Assuming I can get my hands on a copy of Photoshop (I think I've got one lying around here somewhere), I'd like to see if I can make them even prettier. Can anyone point me to some good starter guides or tutorials? Or, even better, if you have any experience yourself, maybe get together with me sometime and show me the ropes? I'd be deeply indebted.
I'm learning more about my camera; it's a lot of fun to use, but as I noted, it has it's limitations. Another issue I've found with it is that the pictures really don't render very well under low light, ending up with a lot of graphical artifacts in dark spaces. Clearly, this camera isn't going to produce the kind of professional quality images under all the conditions I'd like it to, but it's a good tool to learn with. Someday, when I have money (hah!) I'll be able to afford a beautiful digital SLR like the one
edbook uses (you should take a look at his work by the way. He's a professional and one look at his work will make it clear why), but until then I plan to learn everything I can about the hardware I have and push it to it's limits.On a related topic, I would be more than happy to burn CDs with the pictures I took for those who were at the class. Just let me know if you're interested and I'll bring them with next time we get together.
------------
After writing this, I searched online and found a wonderful review of the camera I have (The Canon Powershot A85), including, further on into the piece, some in depth exploration of it's technical characteristics and limitations. Fascinating reading if you have one of these! http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A85/A85A.HTM
