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| As some of you know, nearly all my
photos have been taken with one kind of "point and shoot"
camera or another. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, I used a
Nikon F3 as my camera of choice. But when we began going digital,
I started through a series of about 4 simple to use P&S devices. They certainly have had their advantages - especially their lightweight compact size that allows me to throw one into my purse and lug it around with me most places. But, the limitation of being able to really get in there and produce the quality photos I really wanted often seemed to frustrate me. On a recent trip over to the California Coast, my daughter, Jill, and I were passing my little Canon SX200 12.1 mp between us, and capturing shots of the trees above. The moon was waxing toward full, and we were trying to capture it between the branches of the majestic Eucalyptus trees surrounding us. In some photos I shot, I could barely see the moon. Neither taking the photo with flash or without it, created the wished for results. Yet, I noticed that my daughter was using a maneuver of pointing the camera at a neutral or ambient area of the surrounding environment to trick the camera meter into a solution to the washed out sky, thus providing more intense color and contrast. Debi Boucher wrote a great tutorial on the method shortly thereafter. If you watch the slide show above, you will notice the last photos show nearly identical shots taken within a two or three minute period of time. But because of the various methods used, all had a very different outcome. The last photo is the one taken by tricking the meter. Debi's tutorial can be accessed as follows: Metering the Shot Sounds Complicated But it Isn't. I ordered a Nikon D90 SLR over the weekend. UPS tracking tells me it is "Out For Delivery." I can't wait for the door bell to ring! La Selva 11/28/09 Written by: Myrl Jeffcoat Posted to ActiveRain Blog 12/9/09 - http://activerain.com/blogsview/1377189/ode-to-trees |