I went out today to get some photos in the afternoon. The morning was spent painting in my case and that mysterious action “tidying up” by Scamp. I got one painting completed and one sketch done. Scamp got some ‘tidying up’ done, and yes, I did notice the difference. The photographs today were better than yesterday, much better. The ISO was higher, but at least the aperture and the shutter speed were what I had programmed. No deer today, but the dragonflies were out in force as were the damsels and some hover flies. All in all, a successful foray into the jungles of St Mo’s. Dancing class at night and knackered after it.
A couple of days ago I was ranting about timing. Today I’d ranting about settings. The first thing I did when I got up this morning, after getting breakfast for Scamp and before getting my own, was to fry off the ox tail that was to be my dinner tonight. Once that was done and in the slow cooker, I chopped up and fried off the veg and covered the meat with it. Set it to cook for 7 hours and then had my breakfast. It was a dull day, but not really raining, just dull. What’s become summer in Scotland this year. It’s not all that cold, just boringly dull. No texture in the sky and no directional light to give form to anything. Very disappointing for all the poor kids and teachers on holiday. Even worse for the parents of those kids who need to devise some form of entertainment for them. However, we shouldn’t complain. That’s what we signed up for when we chose to live (or stay living) in Scotland. We get the scenery, but not the weather.
After the meat had been cooking for about about five hours, I decided to decant it into a cast iron Le Creuset casserole pot and continue to cook it in the oven as we were going out later and the residual heat from the cast iron would keep it cooking nicely. Set the gas to 5 and went for a walk to St Mo’s with the Nikon and the Tamron lens. Got what looked like a good shot of a common blue damselfly and then a dragonfly posed on top of a knapweed flower. Just after that I startled a young deer and added that to my tally. Light was low, but I was still getting 1/250th with a decent ISO reading.
Came home and switched off the oven and got ready to go out dancing. I’d deal with the photos when I got back. Came home and found that the meat was dried out and the veg frazzled. Gas mark 5 was not the right setting. Ox tail in the bin. So it was potatoes, cabbage and bacon for dinner – not a bad meal. Checked the photos and discovered why I was getting such a good shutter speed and ISO rating on such a dull day. The aperture was set wide open. Instead of my usual setting of Manual, I had the camera set to Program. Out of the 30 odd shots I managed to get about 8 ones that could be worked on and further reduced that to 4 that were worthwhile posting.
It IS all about the light, but the settings play a big part too, both in cooking or in photography.
This one was 1/200 @ f9 ISO 250. In other words, Normal.1/4000 @ f9 ISO25600. The grain or digital noise is obvious ;-(
For a few months now I’ve been setting my camera to Manual exposure, choosing a shutter speed around 1/250th and an aperture of around f9, then allowing the camera to choose the ISO to achieve those settings. I’d used it on the Nikon first because the E-PL1 didn’t have the ability to adjust the ISO in camera. When I got the E-PL5 back in early June, and after researching the ‘hidden menu‘, I found that it could do what the Nikon did. Since then, I’ve used the manual mode almost exclusively. Today after a morning of success and failure in painting, then digging up our tatties (just got enough for two dinners – not good) I went out on the bike hoping to get close to nature and get some photos of ‘beasties‘ using the E-PL5 with the Pano lens and extension tubes. After dosing myself with
The lacewing was ISO 8000. Acceptable, just.
insect repellant – a strange thing to do if you are hoping to get closeups of insects, but it keeps away the biting insects … sometimes. The first two or three shots were fine, then I must have accidentally changed the shutter speed from 1/250th to 1/4000th. This gave an underexposure of over 4 stops which meant the camera compensated by increasing the ISO proportionally. Silly Boy! The result of this is that the grain/noise on the shots was a lot more than normal, and I do mean a LOT! The shutter speed has now been returned to normal and I’ll be more careful in future.
Sorry JIC and others, I should have posted a technospeak alert! 😉
Other than that it was just a normal day, but at least there was no rain and for a while we got some sun. I don’t think it will be like that tomorrow, so I grabbed the sun while it was there. Oh, one last thing. Had a starter tonight of Black Pudding Pakora. Don’t, just don’t. It’s not a lovely, lovely thing as John Torode would say.
some ‘tidying up’ done, and yes, I did notice the difference. The photographs today were better than yesterday, much better. The ISO was higher, but at least the aperture and the shutter speed were what I had programmed. No deer today, but the dragonflies were out in force as were 
the damsels and some hover flies. All in all, a successful foray into the jungles of St Mo’s. Dancing class at night and knackered after it.
