Time and Location
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| Including people Looking for juxtapositions Shutter speeds to freeze motion |
We were somewhat constrained on time, and location choice was a convenience thing given that we both happened to be in or around Lancaster. Now if you have the timing right then the location probably won't matter so much, but we started way too late in the day, as the light was failing, in a very grey town (not grey in a bad way - there's just a lot of stone there), and it was raining. It's difficult to find suitably illustrative tricky lighting situations on a grey background (cameras love grey) in failing light, specially when you're trying to stay indoors so as not to get wet. We ended up doing some stuff about exposure lock and compensation using remnants of christmas lights in the shopping arcade, after a completely failed attempted demo of exposure compensation with some baubles, then we covered some stuff about metering modes using the brightly lit front of a frozen food retailer, then use of histograms by shooting across the street at the front of McDonalds, and finally we looked at flash exposure compensation using the crane thing that they'd brought in to take down said Christmas lights. We were limited to wide apertures, slow shutter speeds, or flash.
In good light we could have done all those things much more effectively, and could also have looked at contre-jour and backlighting, dynamic ranges, HDR modes, limits of shutter speeds and apertures, use of more of the ISO range, freezing movement, panning, deliberate motion blur, and the list goes on. Alternatively in the absence of good sunlight, we could have planned (with some extra preparation) a different location such as a much larger shopping centre, open at night, more people, more depth, more shapes and colours etc.
Planning of Content
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| Hyperfocal focusing Variations in aperture and depth of field |
We chatted in Starbucks (other coffee shops are available) about what was causing confusion and I based what I'm laughingly going to call a syllabus on that. As such, it was somewhat improvised and I just went wherever was convenient rather than giving any chance of having a shot to remember. Almost everything I took that day was entirely forgettable. For example, demonstrating depth of field on racks of DVDs while surreptitiously lurking in a shop is undoubtedly a very visually obvious way to do so, but it doesn't give you shots that you want to show anyone.
If I'd thought ahead as to where to go for different topics I could probably have built up a plan that would have left us with one or two memorable shots even in the failing light, and also been able to illustrate some of the concepts in question. If additionally I'd come prepared for weather (umbrellas etc) such that she could shoot while I talked, then we could have gone somewhere like Dalton Square which has street and building/bar lighting, statues, lead-in lines, people, cars etc, and some depth. The inside of shopping centres tend to be pretty flat. You're either looking at a wall, or along a wall.
Familiarity With Equipment
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| Tricky lighting Dynamic range issues |
I know my SLR inside out and can operate most of the controls without looking at them, with the camera to my eye, or in its rainproof jacket. If I press the wrong button (which I do sometimes) I know that straight away, and I can then move along and press the right one. Things like focus point selectors, exposure compensation, live view etc I don't even think about. My student is significantly less familiar with cameras in general, has only had her SLR for a short time, and it's not a brand I've ever used. As such, neither of us knew how to do even basic things like exposure lock, bracketing etc.
Five minutes on the internet could have furnished me with a crib sheet of how to do the basic things I was likely to talk about, and would have saved us probably 30 minutes of lost light on shoot, looking for controls. I also found myself demonstrating things on my camera then expecting her to follow on hers. I think it would have been better if I'd mostly left mine alone. The problem there is that I was making sure I was right on the concepts even as I was trying to put them into words.
Planning the kit would also have been helpful. I arrived with my standard 17-85mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. My student had a 50mm f/1.4 prime. Our lenses and thus the cameras attached to them therefore behaved somewhat differently.
If I'd foreseen that one, I could have primed my friend to bring along her zoom lens, as the aperture range would be similar to mine, and we'd both have wide angle capability to take the same sorts of shots.
Pacing
I've always talked too quickly. Anyone who knows me would likely include that in their "oh you know the one" description of me. ("Kev? Oh you know the one. Impossibly good looking. Tall, dark and handsome. Extremely charming. Talks REALLY quickly"). I've also never been particularly good at staying on one topic when talking. I get interested / engrossed and then my attention jumps around to whatever I think is most relevant to the point that's just been made or the question that's just been asked.
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| Selective focusing Depth of field Use of flash |
Whenever demonstrating one particular option or technique I imagine that it's best to stay on that until it's clear, even if the conversation leads in the direction of something else. As such I think I implanted as much confusion as understanding initially when it came to discussion of meter lock vs focus lock vs metering modes vs semi-automatic exposure modes vs exposure compensation vs focus and recompose. Again, if I'd planned the location / time / topic a little better then it might have been easier to stay on one topic for longer, but I think it would also need a conscious effort from me to shelve extraneous details that might confuse the main event until understanding of that main event reached its lightbulb moment, and it was safe to move on.
Conclusions
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| Selective focus Checking the corners for distractions Hyperfocal focusing |
I want to have another crack at most of the topics I attempted to cover in Lancaster and I can tell that my friend is also keen to do so, given that some of the advice I gave appears to have confused matters rather than clarified them. Next time however we'll hopefully be able to discuss it a little more beforehand, plan a better time and/or location (plus the days will naturally be longer as we get closer to spring) and I can have a read up on her camera, or persuade her to buy a Canon.
Please Note
All of the images on this post were taken in Lancaster. None of them were taken on this particular trip, but the page looked so dull without any pictures at all that I thought I'd include some older ones from a visit in 2010. None of these are images I think are particularly special, but each situation or scene could have been used to teach one or more concepts.
Maybe I just need to move somewhere sunnier.
