Depth of Field and Shutter Speed - January 20, 2020

This week, I needed to take some photos showing mastery over the aperture and shutter speed functions of a DSLR for a class I am taking. My friend Desiree joined me as I showed her some more functions of a DSLR and mirrorless camera, in addition to being a model for my assignment.

We first drove to Reeds Beach, where I was hoping to get some moving subjects to showcase shutter. While the seagulls stayed still, the water was rough, providing good shots to show the water both frozen by a high shutter speed and then turned silky by a slow shutter speed.

As it was windy and cold by the bay, we drove to Belleplain State Forest, where I took photos that would show the difference between a wide-open aperture (in this case, f/1.4) and a stopped-down aperture (being f/16). Now, I would not recommend shooting at the smallest aperture on a lens, as this can introduce diffraction, in which the details of the photo begin to blur, due to physics and light. For the sake of this assignment, however, I shot at f/16.

After these photos, we drove to the opposite side of the lake, and took a few more portraits for fun. We also met a fellow photographer who was walking the trails.

Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of the photos. I think that this class has allowed me to approach photography in simplistic terms, while simultaneously allowing me to incorporate my knowledge of photography to challenge myself.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

Soli Deo Gloria