A Year With My Camera {DSLR ~ ISO & Black & White}

Continuing with no. 32 on my 40 things to do before 40 list - use my DSLR properly - today I have been following Emma's tutorials; exploring ISO and Black & White.

Building on the skills from previous weeks, which looked at aperture and shutter speed, I explored adding ISO into the mix to see how higher and lower settings effected the camera's sensitivity to light.

We headed out to Lacock and took a walk out of the village where I found plenty of things to snap with crucial time to fiddle with the settings on my camera. Walking past the ford I couldn't resist playing with the shutter speed but also thought about the ISO settings.

Shutter speed with ISO as backup:

1sec / ISO100

1/1250sec / ISO6400

These primroses for sale caught my eye for a quick aperture shot.

f4.5 / ISO100

The friendly horse was a good subject to work with too. With his head easily being able to fill the frame I wanted some background too but with a small depth of field; the aperture f stops have actually stuck in my head!

f5.6 / ISO100

I had a mental block for the next focus of the day - Black & White.
I knew my camera had a monochrome setting but couldn't find it so instead I took some pictures with the idea of black and white in my head, then, once home, I turned to the trusted PicMonkey.
I always like applying black and white to historical artefacts and brickwork so the old bicycle outside the village bakery was a perfect subject for me.

f4.5 / 1/160secs / ISO100

PicMonkey Black and White filter + an increase in contrast.

PicMonkey Black and White focal feature

 PicMonkey Black and White focal feature + an increase in contrast

One of my many dream houses in the area is currently undergoing renovation and walking past I quickly snapped it not thinking about the settings on the camera but visualising it as a black and white piece.

f16 / 1/400secs / ISO 6400

PicMonkey Black and White filter

PicMonkey Black and White filter + increase in contrast

I have since found the monochrome function on the camera so will venture out again and explore using it alongside the other elements that I have built up over the last few weeks.
My confidence in my DSLR is growing bit by bit and I'm starting to look at things differently rather than with an automatic setting point and shoot mentality.
However, I'm still finding it easier to just grab the mobile phone camera and an effort is needed to take the DSLR out in the first place - definitely not a bit of kit to just slip in the back pocket!

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