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Today's Photo Minute

Adjusting your white balance for subjects in the shade

The Concept:

In Today’s Photo Minute, Brian introduces the concept of white balance on the camera and suggests that you can warm up the color cast of subjects in the shade by using the Cloudy/Overcast and sometimes the Shade white balance presets on your camera. In the video, he actually demonstrates this adjustment from Auto WB to one of the presets so you can see it on the screen.

The Assignment:

Find a variety of subjects both in the sun and in the shade and see how both Auto WB and Cloudy/Overcast WB does. I think you will find that Cloudy/Overcast is a great starting place in terms of the color when you are in the shade, photographing on an overcast day or in the dawn or dusk hours. Here are a few actual photo examples below:

Auto WB
Cloudy/Overcast WB
Shade WB
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Today's Photo Minute

Using a polarizer for flower images

The Concept:

In Today’s Photo Minute Brian Osborne introduces viewers to the use of a polarizer filter but in a situation that many photographers may not think about trying one. While often polarizers are used in landscape photos with blue skies and reflective water, the same concept can be applied to flowers and foliage where the reflection off of the leaves keep the detail and color saturation of the subject from showing up in the final image. Check out the video to see the effect and check out our blog post for today for some additional photo samples.

The Assignment:

The more you use a polarizer the better you will become at seeing the effect in your photos, especially in various situations. Having the polarizing filter on the front of your lens does not guarantee you are getting any benefits from it. It has to be adjusted by rotating the front ring to get the desired effect in the viewfinder before taking your shot. Remember that this effect, while so dramatic and helpful, cannot be duplicated later in the editing process so it is important to do it when you are capturing the images. Find various flowers or plants in different lighting situations and take a number of shots with and without the polarizer rotated correctly so you can see the impact it can have.

Without Polarizer
With Polarizer
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Today's Photo Minute

Shoot and Share – Water and Birds

photo of camera in the hand taking a picture

The Concept:

Our weekend edition of Today’s Photo Minute is back this weekend with Shoot and Share. It is a great opportunity to encourage photographers to get out with their cameras, to capture images and to be creative.

The Assignment:

Challenge 1: Water For this challenge, have fun finding anything water-related. It can be playing with water drops on flowers like we talked about earlier this week or can be bodies of water, etc.

Challenge 2: Birds Many of us have been setting up bird feeders, watching for our winged friends on tree branches, etc. This can be any type of bird including songbirds, waterfowl, raptors, or more. Find your favorite bird photo that you shot this weekend and show us your work.

When you get your images ready by late this weekend, please share those with the rest of us who are participating as well. If you are on Facebook, please post them as a comment to this particular post. If you are not on Facebook, feel free to email your entries to brian@thephotoclassroom.com and I will be glad to post them

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Today's Photo Minute

Using and setting up Auto ISO: Part 2

The Concept:

In Part 2 of our series on Auto ISO, Brian Osborne teaches how to enable and disable the feature without going under the menu. In addition, he addresses in what situations it might not be recommended to use Auto ISO.

The Assignment:

Practice on your own camera how you can turn off and on Auto ISO without having to go under the menu of the camera. Ideally with some experience, you could do this without even taking your eye away from the viewfinder. It would also be a great opportunity to make sure you are comfortable changing your manual ISO with the viewfinder information as well.

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Today's Photo Minute

Using and setting up Auto ISO: Part 1

The Concept:

In Part 1 of this two part series, Brian Osborne introduces the feature on our cameras called Auto ISO and demonstrates some of the basics of setting up the parameters for how it works.

The Assignment:

If you are not already familiar with the Auto ISO feature on your camera, check it out under the menu and see if you can set it up similar to what we showed in the video. If you are, start reviewing when you might want to use the feature and when not and even practice going back and forth between manual ISO and Auto ISO.