Thursday, March 22, 2012

Chilly March Afternoon

1/500 second, f/3.2


1/500 second, f/3.2


1/500 second, f/3.2


1/500 second, f/3.2

Another photographic milestone this afternoon, when Mabel Watson Payne and I went on our own to our favorite Chinatown playground. I wanted to see if my technique with the new camera was slick enough by now to keep up with this extremely busy baby. The answer was that I still have a long way to go, as my failure rate with the D-SLR was about double the failure rate I had got used to with the most recent point-and-shoot. Also, I simply took fewer playground pictures than usual today because I set the camera aside whenever the level of attention it demanded was preventing me from serving as a proper play partner. Only in this one sequence (with Mabel getting on and off the pretend-train) was I able to persuade 1) the daylight and 2) the camera-settings and 3) a certain amount of baby-style self-sufficiency to collaborate successfully. ISO on all of these was 250 (probably too low).


1/500 second, f/2.8


1/500 second, f/2.8


1/500 second, f/3.2

But in the camera's favor I need to remind myself that these last two pictures are the kind of stop-motion I couldn't hope for with the point-and-shoot. Thinking about this fact prompted me to read the manual and I discovered two different focusing features I could be using but have not yet tried when I want unblurred pictures of figures-in-motion. Something to try at the next opportunity.