5 Take Aways from Week 2

First of all there are way too many to list.  And to compare them all?  Crazy!  So here it goes:

1. "Shoot to the right": You'll hear this term a ton.  Basically as you shoot in the Manual mode you'll want your histogram to lean to the right if possible.  Which means more WHITE or OVER EXPOSED.  But "why" I hear you say?  There are a few reasons.  
• There is actually more data in the right.  Even though it looks all white, there is more data in there than if you were to shoot it dark or under exposed. 
• When you go to edit your photos, it's easier to add in the blacks, but if you shoot it dark and then you try to brighten your picture, you end up with NOISE.  Noise is all that grain in the shadow areas.
• For class I had to shoot in manual changing it one full stop at a time under exposed and over exposed, and the images that were over exposed were significantly bigger in megabytes.
2. Understanding Dynamic Range: very very helpful!  Oh my gosh! Check this article out. Warning very technical, but can really help you in understanding how to shoot when you know your range.
3. Camera LCD Lies to You: Bottom-line, when you shoot in RAW you are shooting 16 bit, but in the view finder it's a jpeg representation of what is going on in your camera.  Meaning it's 8 bit.  So if you turn on your blinkies in your camera and see that your highlights are being clipped, it's because it's giving you info on the 8bit.  
4. When Editing a Photo and you are stuck, walk away, then come back to it.
5. After copying your pictures to your drive and you make a backup, then don't delete the files on your card, use the CAMERA to FORMAT the card for next time.  I knew this already but it was reinforced how important it is.  You can be shooting on a card that already has data on it and it could be unstable.  So PLEASE use the format feature in your camera after you've transfered all your data.