Photography: focusing
On digital cameras, you press the shutter release button part way down, until the camera has focused. Many cameras will bleep to tell you it’s focused. Most bridge cameras and DSLRs have focus points to help you focus. My D3200 has 11 focus points. They show up as red dots through the viewfinder.
In my first picture today, most of the picture is in focus, not sharp focus, it is a compromise, but I tried to get all the red dots to light up.
When I took this photo, I used spot focusing, just one red dot lit up and that was on the bust giving me a sharper image, but with the background more out of focus.
I nearly forgot, the weather was grey and miserable on Sunday and so I went to grey and miserable Walsall and took photos in the art gallery. I took this shot of of the window of St Matthews. That was full zoom and then I cropped it. I used a narrow aperture for depth of field, but that also means less light. You can compensate for that by increasing the ISO or using a slower shutter speed.
I took the picture on the left (in colour) and then changed it to grey scale and joined the two images together. I wasn’t kidding about Walsall being grey and miserable. What are those people doing wearing brightly coloured coats?
The art gallery is on the waterfront and so I took a photo a bit farther down the canal. I was using my 18 – 105 lens and zoomed in as much as I could to get the bridge in the distance. I think that is the Rolling Mill Street Bridge. It has a high wall, so it’s hard to take photos off that bridge.
I thought I’d photograph this old building before the council see it and paint it grey! Again the focus for this shot is landscape and so either set the camera on landscape or if you’re using one of the manual settings, a narrow aperture and a slower speed.
I tried to be creative with this shot. I focused on a picture on the other side of the glass partition. It adds a little interest to the picture.
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Mike10613's Blog 
Hi Mike, What interesting photos this week! That museum is beautiful, is that the one with the sheep in formaldehyde?
You’re making my choice very difficult, but I pick the black and white vs. colour photo today. It’s so cool, I had to look back and forth several times to see whether you just let the coats have colour (you didn’t) or that the rest of the picture was just that grey (it was).
29, October 2014 at 5:27 pm
Hi Carolyn,
The art gallery is good inside, but a bit of a maze! I did the colour v grey scale picture just to show the problem! Maybe the planners will see it. Some of my posts get re-blogged on the local newspaper site now. The exhibition with the sheep has moved on, I think it was replaced with suitcases hanging from the ceiling!
29, October 2014 at 11:42 pm
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