I’m about to try something crazy, photographically speaking. I’m going to try shooting the Magic Kingdom fireworks show in manual mode.
Woah… be afraid.
Exposure compensation like a boss, babie.
Tag: manual mode
New Flower Alert!
I’ve been checking the Japanese Peace Lilly in the bedroom every day, searching for signs of new flowers. Today that search paid off!
I had the little point and shoot in the room so I used it for that picture (with the flash). After two posts last night, can you guess what’s coming? Oh yeah, DSLR (no flash) Vivid vs Monochrome comparisons! WOOHOO!
I then got carried away and took a couple more…
I didn’t edit these in Apple Photos at all. I usually just use the auto setting as a tiny little tweak, but I left these alone.
One final pre-work-morning note. Two days ago I ran for a minute at the end of my 30 minute walkies. Yesterday I ran for two minutes. You might expect that I ran for three minutes today but no… I ran for five.
Who am I?
Rocks
Pretty sure the line of rocks marks the property line. Or maybe it did at some point in the past. Something like that. Whatever.
Manual Mode Part 3
It’s 20 minutes to 11pm and I am still up. I need to be getting to sleep soon because that sunrise is going to be here before I know it and I needs me some sleep. Still, I wanted to get the last round of pics from today’s Manual Mode Adventure out. I think it’s safe to say that nothing I took today is very good, but at least it’s all there.
Note that even if I was trying to sleep right now I wouldn’t be able to because one of our neighbors just set off a roman candle and it sounds like the Union Army artillery during Pickett’s Charge.
But I digress. These are all from Walnut Grove Cemetery. I tried shooting on film at this spot, but this is where the camera jammed on me and I fucked up my first attempt at a roll of my own (my first actual roll of film, what I will call my zeroeth roll because I am a programmer, was the one that Dad loaded back in the 80’s. I can’t really count that as one of my own even though almost all of the shots were mine. I will hopefully getting those images back early next week. Fingers crossed), so there are not going to be any film shots to compare against. It’s okay though, I just like this spot.
Manual Mode Part 2
The second part of our Manual Mode Extravaganza took place in the Bird Sanctuary near the Methuen Rail Trail. I even paid a visit to one of the little hiking trails. Who am I?
Manual Mode Part 1
I am about to post a bunch of pictures from this morning’s manual mode bonanza. I am going to break it into three posts. One will be downtown Methuen and the top of the Spicket Falls Dam, The second will be the Methuen Rail Trail and the Bird Sanctuary. The third will be Walnut Grove cemetery.
Here’s the downtown and the dam pics. I don’t think I will give any details, just pics.
All of these were shot with my Nikon D90 in manual mode because I am insane.
Another Round Tomorrow
I think I have decided that tomorrow morning, around sunrise time, I am going to retrace my steps from yesterday’s mini photo walk around Methuen. This time with my digital camera in Manual mode. Weather and sleepiness permitting, of course.
The idea will be to compare the results with the digital camera to the film camera. Assuming the film shots actually get developed and actually come out okay.
I’m kinda going off the deep end here, aren’t I.
Light Meter Breakthrough
99.999% of my fellow Nikon D90 users are going to want to punch me in the throat for being so clueless, but I’m a little tickled by today’s lunchtime discovery.
Dad’s camera has a light meter built into it. It’s a 100% manual device and the only electronic do-dad is the light meter. If it reads too high or low, you monkey with the aperture and the shutter speed until the little needle points to the middle of the meter. Without that little sucker in the viewfinder I don’t think I would have been able to do anything with the camera. I have been messing with a light meter app to suggest what settings I should start with, but once I have something setup I can tweak it as I look through the lens.
On my Nikon, I have never had a need for a light meter. I used an Auto function in almost every case. Sometimes I use shutter priority, so I set it to a certain time and then the camera calculates the aperture I need. I never had to figure out the settings for myself. The camera is smarter than I am anyway, so why question it?
Now that Dad’s Pentax is forcing me to actually do things for myself, I was wondering if the D90 could do the same thing when it’s in Manual mode? Turns out it can! There’s a button to set it up right on the top panel. It’s been there the whole time and I’ve never given it a thought. There is also a little digital meter display in the viewfinder. Again, I had never even noticed it. In fact, I want to go switch back to one of the auto settings and see if it goes away (I’ll do that another time). In manual mode though, there it is. Monkey with the aperture or the shutter speed and sure enough it moves around.
Right then, the next time I take the Nikon out for a stroll I am going full manual mode. Well… not for long exposures. I’ll stick to shutter priority for that, but everything else is manual mode!
Jump on this wagon with me, people! We’re rolling to a blurry, under/over exposed future!
Photos Coming
I took my Nikon out for a stroll this morning and the results are probably terrible. I went to Salisbury Beach and even though the weather reports said the sky was clear, there was pretty heavy cloud coverage. I got there with less than 15 minutes to spare before the sunrise and I dicked around, thinking I wasn’t going to get anything, and then poof the clouds on the horizon cleared and there was the top tip of the sun. I scrambled to get back on track and I am sure I screwed it all up. On an unrelated note, the waves were the biggest I’ve ever seen in Massachusetts. There must be a storm out there somewhere.
I drove back to Methuen and decided to hit a couple of spots that I have hit in the past. I remained water-focused and went to the city boat ramp on the Merrimack. The sky was gloomy (too early in the morning combined with some clouds, I bet) and the river was dead still. Nothing special will come out of that.
Next I went to a little park on the Spicket River on Osgood Street, but the damn was closed and there was barely any water to speak of. Also, the river bank is massively overgrown and I really couldn’t get anywhere near it. I gave up and went home.
I tried using manual settings but I think everything I did was garbage. I haven’t unloaded the camera yet, but just judging by the tiny little view screen I think all of my manual stuff is crap. I tried to use a thing Larry clued me in on, the Sunny 16 Rule. You set the aperture to F/16, then set the shutter speed to the reciprocal of the ISO speed. I was set at either 400 or 200 ISO so I set the shutter speed at 1/400 or 1/200 and I got a smidge above black. Apparently the rule doesn’t apply to the light conditions I was seeing. I wish I had seen this page before I left today. I might have had better results. Next time.
Anyway, while I unload the memory card, here’s a pic I snuck in with my phone.
A Little Better
I went back and tried to redo the picture of the guitar from the previous post. I did this in manual mode on my DSLR. Inside the camera, I had the aperture set to f/5.3 and the shutter set to 10. The ISO was set to 400 because that was the speed of the film I had in Dad’s camera.
The EXIF data in Flickr mostly matches, but where I would expect to see a shutter speed it gives an Exposure of 1/10. The too dark pic on the previous post was in Aperture priority mode, I think. This pic was in manual mode. The too dark pic was f5.0 and Exposure 1/30. Does that mean the shutter was 30? I don’t know. I think it might be time for me to finally start paying attention to these values. I’ll also note that I don’t think Dad’s camera can match these settings exactly, but I am hoping my camera can match what Dad’s camera does. I guess.
Anyway, this one looks pretty good to me. Not great, but pretty good.
Inside the Red Head's Head 