Venturing into White Balance

Whew. Photography is hard stuff. This month's assignment for Plum and June's Quilt Photography Workshop is all about white balance. And two days ago, that was something I knew absolutely nothing about. Of course I read through what Beth had to say on the subject, appreciated an informative post by Erica/kitchen table quilting, and to top that off, got the excellent advice from friend Katy/The Littlest Thistle to, ahem, consult my camera's manual. And after son-in-law shared a helpful {read: basic} summary of the topic at a family gathering last night, it all began to sound more and more interesting.

So today I felt brave enough to do some experimenting, beginning with setting my camera's custom white balance by taking a photo of some white copy paper. From there, it was challenge enough for me to run though the available white balance options, both indoors and out, the results of which you'll see in the mosaic below.

After comparing all the photos, here's the results. The photos on the left were taken using the auto white balance; both on the right taken with custom. In both cases, the ones taken with the custom white balance settings were truest to what I actually saw in each setting. The indoor photos (top row) were taken in natural light on a pale green surface; the outdoor photos (bottom row) were taken about 2pm on a cloudy day.

So what do I know about white balance now? At the very least, I know that it exists, that it has to do with adjusting color tone, and how to tweak those settings on my camera (a Canon EOS Rebel T3i). I also know that those settings are situation-specific, ie. affected by the time of day, location, lighting etc., and custom will need to be re-tweaked each time I want to use it. I'm glad to know all that, though I think that's enough for me to mull over for now.

Linking up with The Quilt Photography Workshop. And I'll be reading all the other link-ups with interest!

Subject and Composition

Looking back, I totally missed both the assignment and the link up for the September Quilt Photography workshop at Plum and June. But since I enjoyed August's session so much, I thought I'd at least focus on the topic momentarily.

We were given a list of words and phrases, and while keeping in mind the elements of subject and composition, were to share photos illustrating our interpretation of them. Each photo was to tell its story without needing any written explanation. So without further ado . . .

A Typical Day

Makes Me Smile

Favorites

Relaxing

Peaceful

Frustration

Color Palette Inspiration

Quilt Design Inspiration

Appreciation

Imagine

My Style

Previous assignments:

Learning Another Language

Learning Another Language

It's Greek to me. Photography that is. I have a decent advanced beginner's dslr, a Canon EOS Rebel T3i that hubby bought me for my birthday about 18 months ago. In that time, I've learned some very basics about my camera and photography in general:

• how to shoot in Program mode rather than Automatic, so I at least have more control over the flash
• how to switch to Macro mode to shoot up close
• how to change between the standard and telephoto lenses
• that natural light is always best
• how to get the photos off the camera and do some basic editing using Picmonkey
• and as of today I know that I can right-click on my uploaded photos to see what settings they were shot in

Ie. not a whole lot. I know very little about shutter speeds, apertures, and ISOs. I read about them. Hubby tells me all sorts of things about them. But my retention in day-to-day use is near zilch. Which is why when Plum and June announced The Quilt Photography Workshop, I was all ears.

The first assignment was to take photos of fabric. So I just spent an hour or so doing just that. For smallish quilting "subjects" I usually use a light-colored table in my sewing room, right next to a large window. It's pretty much the best naturally lit spot in the house. For this assignment, I have done no photo-editing, other than some minor cropping and resizing to fit my blog space. I also am making some notes here for safe-keeping, so as I share what mode and settings I used for each shot, I'll remember that (for example) 1/50 stands for shutter speed, 5.0 is the f-stop or aperture (size of opening for the light), and ISO is a sensitivity setting. I began in my normal Program mode with the pre-set settings.

P mode: 1/50, f/5.0, ISO 250

For this second shot, I forced the ISO to 800 and it was quite an improvement.

P mode: 1/125, f/7.1, ISO 800

I braved it out of Program mode and into Av (aperture) for the next 3 shots, and obviously, the mid-range aperture was best.

 Av mode: 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 800

  Av mode: 1/125, f/18, ISO 800

 Av mode: 1/125, f/36, ISO 800

Then on to Tv (shutter priority).

Tv mode: 1/100, f/7.1, ISO 800

Lastly, I went to Manual mode, which I know is where I need to head in general.

 M mode: 1/100, f/5.6, ISO 800

 M mode: 1/40, f/5.6, ISO 800

M mode: 1/100, f/6.3, ISO 800

So there you go. The best news is, I've played around with my camera in ways I usually don't. My goal for the very near future? Remember what I've learned today, or at least keep working with my camera so these modes and settings become more familiar. And I want to go through the workshop links to see what other tips I can glean. My long-term goal would be to discover my own style using settings I'm really comfortable with. But I'll face that one step at a time.