Photography and Me!
Hello everyone,
I am back I apologize for not doing a blog last week but I was hired to shoot a civil wedding ceremony. It was quite an experience running into a couple of issues along the way but thankful for the experience that I have now to solve those issues. At the end of it I was left very happy with the results I was able to achieve. They were very happy with all the pictures as well. I was even surprise on how far I have actually come in my editing. I am not the best at editing my own photos that’s for sure but I have been teaching myself little by little and it’s definitely improved. I started photography in 2021 I remember it very well. The first few months I struggled. I knew the vision I had I knew what I was looking for when photographing but the results I was getting looked nothing with what I thought I had captured. I definitely wanted to give up after a few months. I was frustrated and confused with what was going on. Over time I started to see a trend on what I was doing. I started to see what my setting were before shooting a photo and started to notice my inconsistencies. I started to do research and watching videos on the problems that were arising and how to fix them. Eventually, my photos started to look much better. But I can’t attribute everything to the settings, lenses play such a big roll on how the pictures look. So what did I change in order to get better photos? Well, first I invested in a new camera and a new lens. I bought a canon m50 mark II a mirrorless camera that’s very cheap. Mirrorless cameras are the future of cameras in my opinion. While DSLR are great there is something about being able to see your photos and how they will look before capturing them that I really find super helpful. I also invested in a 24-70mm with image stabilization. This lens became my go to for landscapes my first photo with this lens was the photo I took at Scotts run nature preserve. I had really studied settings and I also bought a ND filter in order to slow down my shutter to get that veil effect in my photos. A couple of months later I ran into a beautiful bird and I wanted to photograph it but that lens could only reach so far. So with a bit of research I found a 100-400mm lens for sale. This was my next investment and the rest well you have seen my bird photos.
Growing up I was always fascinated with art and I admire those who could draw and create an image from there imagination. Art shows creativity and ingenuity. Art shows how complex our brains are and how we as humans can bring a simple idea to life. I always knew I wanted to be an artist as I had a vision on how I view life. I never learn how to draw but the urge to show my art was always there. When I was younger I will admit I never saw photography as an art form. It was until watching a YouTube video by Peter McKinnon that I was inspired to actually research photography. He has a way of shooting his pictures that left me scratching my head. How can a photo from a camera look so good. I watch his videos for months and with each shot he would show I was left asking more questions. How does he do it? How can I achieve something similar? Can I even be this creative with photography? My curiosity became an inspiration and that inspiration became my drive to bring artistic photos to life. If you haven’t heard of Peter McKinnon I highly recommend you check out his socials by searching up his name. He is one of those photographers that inspires me to do much more with my photography then just simply grabbing a camera and snapping a photo. He is one of those photographers that I would love to shoot with one day. Photography has become and art form for me, being able to pull out my camera framing and snapping the photo then coming back and editing to watch my art come to life is so rewarding. You may say photography is easy and well it can be if you are just snapping a photo with your phone and not really caring about how it looks. Photography actually becomes an art form when you take the time to freeze that moment and make it look bigger then life.
Understanding your camera is very important. A couple of blogs ago I talked about a couple of settings that are important to photography the exposure triangle. So what do my settings look like when I am photographing birds or wildlife? I will first like to say when photographing birds or wildlife I use the 100-400mm USM II lens with image stabilazation. Why is my lens important? well because my lens can shoot at f/4.5-5.6. What does that mean? Well that just means that depending on the distance I am shooting my lowest aperture can be between 4.5-5.6. For example if I was photographing a bird about 100mm away my lowest aperture can be f/4.5 which smoothest out the background. If the bird is really far I will shoot it at 400mm which my lowest aperture would be f/5.6. The lower that f number is on a lens the more expensive they are. I shoot in aperture priority meaning that I choose to change my aperture while the camera picks the shutter speed. I have my camera set up that way mostly because my aperture is always changing depending on the distance of my subject. The other setting that changes a lot for me is the ISO. My camera doesn’t do well with light since is a crop sensor so I constantly have to be changing my ISO. I change it manually as well because if I put it in auto my camera makes very grainy photos. I like my photos to be super smooth so there’s fine details in the birds I photograph. I usually keep my white balance in auto as I shoot raw to have more freedom when editing. If you have any other questions about my settings feel free to ask. I want to help out anyone that wants to start photography. I want to keep this weeks blog short as I have other stuff to get done. Check out my portfolios I have updated all of them. Until next week I hope everyone has a wonderful week.
