Remember last week when I said I was going to start practising what all the buttons do on my cam and move away from auto-everything? Well here’s my first couple of days experimenting with the aperture priority setting. Now before any pros look and say how bad it is – Please be gentle – I’m learning – Gotta start somewhere!

For those who are in the same boat as me -The aperture setting controls depth of field… Look…

Left Pic – F8 – High DOF background flowers and path more in focus… and Right Pic F2.8 Low DOF – Background is blurred.

Now in my notes I wrote down Big Aperture = Small Number i.e F2.8 – Small Aperture = Big Number i.e F8 (or F22 in pro terms but my camera isn’t that good). That’s the bit where I get confused… Like my brain can’t process it. How can a big apperture be a small number which produces a low depth of field. So to get around that I’m taking two pics each time – One F8, one F2 – Or as high / low as I can get. Hmmm I hope I got that right – If you’re a newbie please double check all that incase I messed up on my notes!!

So, continuing with the practise…

Left Photo – F8 —————————————————- Right Photo F2.8

I have to take one each on the opposite end of the scale right now just to see for myself what the differences are! One background in focus… one background outa focus… Ok, I’m getting it now!

Right, last practise shots for the moment!

Left Photo – F8 ———————————————- Right Photo F2.8

Those were all shot with the ISO at 200, hand-held and I think that’s where I went wrong – Quite noisy when viewed large at 100%. So next I have to figure out this ISO thing… and buy a new decent tripod as my old one just isn’t stable enough for the big camera. Also would quite like a remote control shutter release thingy whatsit.

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