I recently found a weekly blog post designed to teach people how to use their digital SLR and use it to it’s fullest potential.
I really enjoy photography and always want to improve. I also must admit that while I knew exactly how to use all the settings on my old Pentax K1000(best camera ever!) and a lot of the settings on my 35mm SLR, I have never really bothered to learn my digital SLR. I guess I could attribute that to the fact that I got my digital SLR when I had an almost 5 year old and a 2 month old. It took great pictures on full auto and I left it at that.
I see so many fantastic pictures taken by family members and on other blogs, etc. I really want to improve my photography skills. I realize that my, now 5 year old, camera is a little outdated and that a new digital SLR would improve my pictures and abilities, however, that is not in the budget at the moment and I can still learn with what I’ve got. So with that in mind, I am slowly learning and practicing things from this blog series(The series is no longer on the site so I can’t link to it.). I thought I would share them with you. Hopefully, you will notice a difference in the photos on my blog as well!
The lesson I practiced for this blog post was on Aperture. I notice that her camera has aperture settings from 1.8 up to 18. The best I have been able to get my camera to give me is 3.5 up to 14. I also found that the further I zoomed in the higher up the aperture would go. For example, if I was as wide as my lens will go, I might be able to get my aperture to go to 3.5 but as I zoomed in it would go up and often the lowest I could get would be 5.0. I still have yet to pull out my camera manual and see the official capabilities of my camera, so I am a little confused as to why the aperture changes when I zoom in. Do you know why? If you do, please leave me a comment below or contact me via my contact page. Thanks so much! Of course I should also get the manual out to see exactly what my camera is capable of…wouldn’t that be handy.
Here are my pictures showing the different aperture settings. I don’t personally see as much difference in my pictures as I can see in hers. I am guessing there isn’t as distinct of a difference due to the cloudy day on which I took the pictures. I am guessing I might be able to see more of a difference on a bright sunny day. Again, if you know if this is correct, I would love feedback!
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