Time, Aperture, Lens, ISO, POV Process


   I overheard someone in the classroom say that the fair is an amazing place to take photos, and they were absolutely right. What surprised me the most was the variety of photo techniques that one could play with at the fair. The colorful lights at wider apertures were great for bokeh, and the colossal rides made for some great perspective shots.

   For my aperture shot, I was on a search for something that was in a row. This way, at f 2.0 I could show off how the background slowly pulls out of focus. I was lucky enough to find a shot with two parallel lines and a few small lights in the background in order to highlight this effect.

   When I was brainstorming shots to highlight ISO, I wanted to do an experiment to see how far I could push my ISO without producing an image that was insanely noisy. I made sure to shoot the image at night in a completely dark room with one light source (a cheap starry night projector for a children's room). I also made a point to shoot at 1/80 sec in order to let as much light into the camera without having to bump up the ISO too much. It turns out the sweet spot is around 800 ISO. In the edit, I did not do any noise reduction like I usually would as well.

   The lens shot of the cup on the beach was easily the hardest image for me. I have been accustomed to shooting on a prime lens for a long while now, so borrowing my brother's 70-300 mm lens was a struggle. This image was shot at 300 mm, but I wanted to make it work for the intimate and up close style of shooting that I enjoy.

   The fair is perfect for perspective shots because of the rides. This point of view shot from below this ride was interesting because it also relied on a really fast shutter speed (1/4000).

   Finally, the exposure time shot is my favorite of these. I took about 40 images of this ride itself, but this one stood out to me because of the movement expressed in the photo. This was also shot at 1/4000 and f 1.8.

   Overall, shooting these images has been some of the must fun and rewarding shoots that I have ever done. If I had another chance, I definitely would have brought a tripod to the fair. That way, I could get some long exposure shots of the Ferris wheel and other rides. You always remember the shots that you didn't get.

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