On Wednesday, I received my loaned Canon Rebel XT SLR for the photojournalism class at UNC-Chapel Hill this semester. On Thursday, I learned 175 ways not to combine shutter and aperture settings.
Oh, it was horrible. Washed out, blurred images, you name it, I’m sure I did it wrong. You’d have never known anyone was on the other side of the camera based on the final exposures.
I have been a point and shoot kind of person, love the automation, and instant gratification. But now, the task at hand: take one image that’s in focus while selecting the settings.
So, I ventured out, SLR in hand, with an idea of my composition, but no skill to achieve the exposure. And I do emphasize SKILL. I have great respect for photographers who shoot on the manual mode, especially the one’s who nail the shot time after time.
A few of my favorite photographers who always seem nail it are Stacy Borelli, Shane Snider, Christobal Perez, Chad A. Stevens and Jock Lauterer (the last two are UNC-CH professors.)
I read about the panning technique in one of my textbooks and wanted to try it. My results are below… you can imagine my surprise, they were actually decent photos.
