Well If You Would Read The Manual

Heard frequently at our house, "Yes Dear. I know you have been telling me that for years but I do read manuals. I just don't memorize them like you want me to."

I got out my camera manual again because I was determined to learn some new things about it. I cannot be photo illiterate forever can I? No! I didn't figure out what I set out to learn but I learned some other cool stuff while I was at it. I'm so excited about it that I have to share a few of them with you today and I hope I can make some sense with my limited photography knowledge and vocabulary.

Remember this photo of my kid's bathroom?

When I took the same photo on the Auto setting it looked like this. A huge difference!

The camera reads the light from the window and makes the rest of the photo too dark.

This is how I fixed that on my Fuji FinePix F30. You might have to get your manual out (gasp!) to find out how to do it on your camera. I turned my camera to the Manual setting, pushed the menu button and found a little thing called Photometry. I can only guess that this reads the light coming into the camera. Pretty smart, eh? I have three choices, Multi, Spot, and Average. I like to pick the Spot setting which makes the lighting just right for whatever I focus the camera on.

In this next photo I focused directly on the window. (To focus you push the button down half way and hold it, then position the photo the way you want it and push the button all the way down to take the picture.) This would be fine if I wanted a picture of the window but I didn't.

In the first photo I focused on a spot on the wall to the left. The camera didn't read as much light there so it lightened up the photo quite a bit and gave the details of the bathroom the way I wanted. The window is a blur of light but that's ok and actually looks kind of cool.

So play around with your Photometry button to see what you can do with it. It also works great for taking photos in the shade or of people with their backs to the sun. It brightens their faces instead of making them too dark.

Another little option I have started using is the timer button. I don't like using my flash so that means the shutter has to slow way down when I am indoors in order to get enough light. The slower the shutter speed, the blurrier your picture will be. You can try to hold as still as you can but every time you push that button to take the photo you are moving the camera.

This isn't such a great options with kids who can't hold still but it works great for still photos. I set up my camera the way I want it and then push the 2 second timer button. That way when the photo is taken two seconds later the camera and I are holding as still as we possibly can.

I took this photo without using the timer. See how fuzzy the beads are?

I took this next photo using the timer button. It's a lot more in focus.

In this photo I used the Sharpen option in my editing program.

So there are a few ideas for your next photo shoot. Let me know if they work for you and head over to Rocks In My Dryer for more WFMW tips.