snapshotsSo I blew 2 rolls of Fuji Prostock Chromes trying to get pictures of birds. None of them came out. I went out when I KNEW it would be a bad time (dusk) shot into the sun, without a tripod, with a telephoto. As the sun sank and I ran out of shutter speed (being down to 1/30, unsteadied, telephoto) I started jacking my F stop to make the shots work.
Needless to say, none of them came out.
Then I went over to Tyler and Ani's and hung out. This time I was still shooting in bad conditions, but I moved around, played with the light, and shot with my faster 50 instead of the 200. The shots arent great, but I think a few came out ok.
I'm still learning the camera, but I'm also learning to get away from snapshot mentality. I like capturing things in the instant, but somethings I'm not equiped to capture, so wasting film on them is just a waste of money and potential. I'm learning that when I load a roll, I need to chose right now what and how and when I'm going to be shooting. Because if I'm willing to push a roll, I can make these shots work, but that requires planning and foresight to start shooting the first ones under metered.
Basic lessons I suppose, but I'm enjoying myself.
I'm also pondering picking up something new with modern auto focus lenses for shooting birds in mid flight, cause DAMN, that's kinda tough on a manual focus, especialy while they're flying across the sky and your light meter's going nuts and you're adjusting shutter speed on the fly as well.
Anyway, enough ranting.
I'm starting to get a little better.
-- James
