Happy New Year!

A New Year Resolution for me and to share

It wasn’t meant to be this image. My Happy New Year post was preempted by events. Let me explain. I had been taking photos of light decorations. To get the exposure right I experimented a bit and found that 1/50s at f/4 and ISO 100 worked for the effect I was after. That meant manual settings, of course, including not letting the camera adjust the ISO setting for me – all manual. Then last Friday I wanted to get some images of the progress of our new Town Center construction. The fist shot became this “post card”.

We had glorious sunshine. So bright I could barely see the camera settings. Actually, I didn’t even try. Now if you remember the “f-16 rule” you already know what happened. An exposure of f/16 with the ISO and shutter speed the same usually gives good exposure on a bright sunny day. With ISO at 100 and 1/50 second that one stop over, with f/4 that four more stops. Overexposing by 5 stops is definitely “unrecoverable”. So here it is in all is embarrassing glory. See, I did manage to make something of it!

Moral and Resolution for 2018

Before putting the camera away, set Auto ISO sensitivity control to ON. Set the camera to any auto mode. For me that is usually Auto Aperture with f/8, letting the camera pick the shutter speed. That way when grabbing the camera for a quick shot you will very likely get a decently exposed image for that first photo. Then you can take a few seconds to set the camera more appropriately.

I do have the habit of checking the histogram for the first photo in a series. That saved me last Friday. I set proper exposure and got the rest properly exposed.

So that’s my bit of advise to you for the coming year. May 2018 bring you glorious images all year long!