Assignment 2 - Shutter Speed

So, I am loving all the things learned from this class so far.  Thanks Brooke.  I end up playing around a lot with the techniques and then when it's time to take some actual pictures for the assignment, I get outside too late and have problems with lighting.......or like tonight, the bugs were out and making me crazy.  Aaaggh!  We live in GA and my gosh, has anyone heard of sand gnats?  They're awful little buggers that swarm you and bite anywhere they can.  Good 'ol South.  Okay, off topic.

But, thanks Brooke, for explaining things so well.  And I really have had no real understanding of how cameras work......so all of this information is starting to come together (even if I have to listen to the tutorial a couple of times so that my brain can process this new stuff).


And yes Brooke, I have actually been shooting more and more with manual for my normal every day pictures.  It's fantastic.  And freeing.  Wahoo!  So  hopefully with time, I will get quicker and adjusting the settings won't take so long and I won't lose as many moments with the little ones.

Anyway, here's the assignment for week 2.


Frozen Action Image:
1/250s
f/4.5
ISO 400

For this image, my little girl was running towards me and then veered off to the right but she was mostly clear in the picture.  Her left hand is blurry but the rest is pretty clear.  So Brooke, if I would have had my camera set to 1/500s or 1/1000s, would her hand have come out clear?  Just trying to talk myself through that.



Implied Motion Image:
1/10s
f/16
ISO 400

I wanted the water to look even more liquid but if I slowed down the shutter speed, it blurred the rest of the photo.  Would it help if there was more light?  Or do I just need a tripod if slowing down the shutter speed below 1/10s?  Just curious.



Panning Image:
1/20s
f/13
ISO 400

 Ack, panning images was pretty hard.  I had a lot of blurry images but this one I at least stayed at the same speed as her face.  The rest of her body was too wiggly.  But I think I metered too light.  Hmmmm....
I can tell it will just take some practice.  I think I would pan too quickly, then too slowly.  Is there certain light that is best for panning?  I'm excited to keep working with this technique though.

Anyway, one big issue I had with this weeks lesson was adjusting the aperture.  If I would set my shutter speed to 1/500 or 1/1000 or higher, then my aperture wouldn't budge.  For example, I would set my shutter speed to 1/500 and then spin the dial to adjust aperture over and over and over and nothing would change.  Is this because it was too dark outside?  But I had plenty of light.  It was about 5:30 with plenty of sunshine.  Or maybe I wasn't metering correctly?  I'm confused with this.  But I just could not meter with the aperture if my shutter speed was faster than 1/500.  Weird.  Any thoughts?

Anyway, hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!
Ashley