2nd session of the course.

Well today, since it's Thursday once again I attended the photography course I've mentioned previously. Todya we went out of the studio onto the street, or to the old town of Poznan around the town square. Did I mention how coll the old streets look at night, must say very cool.

Anyway we learned to take photos at night without flash, and the rul to apply to judge what settings you must have in order for the pic to come out. A short version of it is, set camera onto S, flick down your aparture as far as it will go, say f3.5 in mine. Check your zoom, for instance say it's 20mm, than the minimum shutter speed you must have at least 1/20 or faster. If at the 1/20 speed you are getting underexposed dark photos than you need to bump up your ISO. Unfortunatly with the upped ISO, you will loose quality of the pic with noise appearing. But than again, it's better to have a sharp pic with noise than have non noise pic thats blurred.

What else, we player around with tripods, and taking longer shutter speed pics, ie; one pic I took was 30 sec. One thing the instructor has tought me is to use the A and S preselects more, I don;t need to do everything manually. Either one of these settings keeps you in control, the camera just does the manths for you.

Exposure compensation, well I finally got what that is today. Quite simply, if your pics are coming out to bright or to dark, and you want to change the exposure, well than rather than changing your speed or aparture, just dial in the + or - setting on your camera wihing 5 seconds, and away you go shooting. The camera does the maths once again.

Depth of field, we'll we learnt that the DOF depends on aparture, zoom and distance to the object. If you have the smallest aparture say f3.5, zoom at 200mm, and you are close to the subject, than the DOF will be small to put simply.

Anyway here is my latest post to the 365 project, and make sure you check out some of my other pics too. Leave a comment, they are always greatly appreciated.

Start of course

Well, started my photography course today. So far so good. Larned about aperture, shutter speed, ISO and focus importance in photography. Apparently technical aspects of photography. Well I am a lot better informed on these aspects now. Course is fun, and the other participants are keen amateurs like myself.

Next thurday we go out onto town to take some pics, if weather permits. Looking forward to that.

My day 9 entry into 365 comes from the simple pics we took at the course today, nothing special, but has learning vale in showing slow shutter speed effect on a picture.

Another day, another photo

Well, into day 8 of the project 365. A week has flown by, and although there were some picture blocks along the way, I've developed a forward thinking strategy and have already planned a few days ahead. I tell ya, with the cold outside most pics are planned indoors or more to the point in house. Cannot wait until the warmer weather and getting to the outdoors.

Awaiting my course to start, very excited about it, I think it will be a lot of fun and a hope I'll learn some new things that will take my pics to a new level.

For some reason I googled myself today (boredom of winter?). Anyway came across a blog which is dedicated to the suburb I used to live in Australia. More to the point the person running the blog used one of my pics on his blogs. THought I mark my work with as copyright, and the person did not ask if he/she could use the pic I really don't mind. Kind of makes me feel good, that someone would use my photo for something. Anyway must write the person an e-mail, with I guess a thanks for using the pic without my permission. Take a look at the blog if you'd like here.

Downloaded and installed LightRoom 3 today. Could just not work without it. Amazing how quickly you pickup a tool, and just cannot live without it. If you have not tried LightRoom yet, dowload the trial from the Adobe website. Post processing pictures with this tool is a dream, and with LR3 you have built in upload capability to flickr, smugmug & facebook thus making the process of getitng your art out is a dream.

Anyway, I'll add my most recent entries into the project here:

Day 6


Day 7


And today's entrie (Day 8)


The wife provided assistance by performing as a model for this session. You have to love her committment to my cause.

Day 5 of the 365 project

Well, it was the weekend, had family over, plus 50 minutes ago we have learned that a new family member has been born. Baby boy. To say the least a very busy weekend. Probably a good exuse for not being able to perform a pic for the project. I did not cop out, and although the pictures presented are not of a high calibre, I must admit both of this weekends pics involved a bit of learning. Saturday, flash work, with the sb-600, and today Sunday bit of playing around with light and long exposures. Both very entertaining, and challanging exercises. I am more the glad of the pictures for the reason it really was a hectic weekend, but I still found time to grab them.

Secondly, the family whom were over agreed next time we are over, their daughter will model for me with her gitar which she has just started to learn how to play recently. Should be fun.

Here is my day 4 entry:



and the day 5 entry:

Day 3 of 365

Well here we are, day 3 of project 365. Hmm, not far in but the days are ticking away. Had a few kind words of encouragment already from a couple of users and the wife seems to think the idea is a stupid one. Well, this makes me all that more determined to ensure I get through this. As I did not add my 2nd day pic here already, here it is:



Not sure if I'm doing this right, or how the pics are coming out, but I must admit I am not 100% satisfied with them so far. I am an amateur photographer, and have a LOT to learn still. I take a look at some of the other pics on flickr or other sites, and think how the hell do these people do it. So I recognise I have far to go!!!! very far it seems. It's encouraging to get words of wisdom and support from other users around the world, hey there is always someone out there whom can teach you something, thus if I get the opportunity to pickup something new I go for it.

Yesterday, I was scratching my head to get a pic in for the project (yes it was only day 2). I did manage to get it in, at 11:30pm!!! Talk about cutting it close. Did get a word of encouragment from another flickr user (here are his pics on flickr) to keep at it. This has (and my wife) has installed new determiation in me, where I now have a few ideas for the upcoming days. Forward thinking seems to be the way to go.. ;)

Anyway, I got my Nikon Speedlight SB-600 out today to use with my idea of the 3rd submission into the project (see below). Have not played with flash much before, but since I have this beauty which I purchased before we migrated, I though better get it out and use it. This flas is a beaut. Now don't ask me about the techs of if, as to put it quite simply I don't know. What I do know it's easy to use, and it pairs up with my D90 nicely. I must admit I read the Ken Rockwell site quite often (if you never been there ensure you do), he does a lot of product reviews and I find them very useful being quite new to photography. I checked the SB600 out on his site, and if Ken say's it's good it must be good (aren't I a good consumer). Not it's not quite simple as that, I do ready other forums and ask friends whom are into photography, to ensure I get a good product, that suits my needs and budget. So if you have a Nikon DSLR, I do recommend an SB-600.




Lastly I got the nod from a local photography course, that at start of Feb a course will begin, signed up and will be attending the 2 month once a week course. I have learned a lot from reading, internet, and playing around with my camera but am looking forward to getting some pro help. Will let you know how I go with that. In case you are wondering, the course is based in Poznan, Poland, thus not sure if there are any readers out there from this area, but their website can be found here. I'll write a quick review once am into it.

Lastly in my SB-600 look up on youtube I found this great guy whom does (i think) some great lessons on how to take photographs, name PhotoClassPro, check it out.

Project 365

Today I started the 'project 365' on flickr. Yes, I have committed myself to take a picture a day over the next 365 days? A monumental task, yes probably. I am not quite sure I realise what I am getting myself involved with. Anyway, an attempt at this shall be made, let's see how I go.

Here is my first entry for the project.



As we have now moved to Poland, from Australia, and are still not quite done with setting up our new next my PC is still packed away. On my PC I have my 'Lightroom' and 'Adobe Elements' apps which I love to use so much to process my photos. Thus up until the point where I do have it setup I will not be able to touch up my pics, which I am not too thrilled about. Wat can you do though, will have to put up with it.

On a brighter side, as I have started the project365, I must also advised I attended a job interview today at a US company opening up it's office here in Poznan, Poland. I will not mention the name of the business at this stage though, unsure if I would be hurting my chances of employment. Anyway I must say I left the interview feeling very positive about the way it went, if successful I will still need to go through a technical interview. So bring them on.

On the attic reno side, well it's progressing. The tradies are doin a fine job of it, and all the internal walls have now been covered with plasterboard, and they are applying the plaster to ensure a nice even & smooth finish.

Our little one ...

Amelka, our little daughter is growing ... she tuned 16 weeks yesterday which we are pleased about. Here is a pic of her .. at Easter (what a lovely bunnny .. :)