Photo Class: Out and About

The assignment for today's photo class was to take a picture outdoors, so I took a quick detour on my way to work this morning.


Deschenes Rapids, Ottawa River
ISO/100, f/8, 1/800

Yawn. Not a horrible photo, but not great either.

But - and here's the good news - I finally found the manual setting on my camera! I don't think it has manual focus, but everything else was manual. The above picture came out slightly underexposed, but otherwise okay.

But then I wandered down towards a little duck pond, which happened to be in the shade and forgot to adjust my settings! Here's what happened.

That's a mama duck, luring me away from her nest, which must be somewhere behind her.
The drake joined us quickly and quacked at me to back the heck off.
ISO/100, f/8, 1/800

Nothing I could do with software would save this picture.

Then I continued on my way, taking another short stop, this time at a decrepit plant.



Yep. Still set at ISO/100, f/8, 1/800

This one also was underexposed because I was facing the shaded side of the building, but it was salvageable. In fact, I could even do some fun, artsy stuff with it.



This was done with the "HDR-ish" effect.

I love how the windows appear to have been silvered - they were my favourite part of the building.

So the biggest lesson I learned to day is that using manual settings means you have to keep on checking them! Crazy, man!