Day 5 Picture-A-Day Challenge

As you can see, the F8PJ blog has a brand new look. I spent several hours working on it today. What do you think? It's also day 5 of the Picture-A-Day challenge.

I took a little walk around the block and found this beautiful iron fence and lamp post. The sun has been setting early, so I managed to get a low setting sun shadow. I took this picture with my Nikon D3 and 70-200mm lens. I had my camera set on manual and used the spot meter mode to determine the highlight exposure. I wanted to get as much detail in the foreground and background as possible, but I also didn't want to sacrifice quality. So, I had my ISO set on 100 with F-19 and 1/250 shutter speed.

Okay, so you are probably wondering why F-19 and not F-22 if I wanted maximum depth of field. I didn't want my shutter speed to fall below 1/250 because I was using a 200mm lens. I didn't want to run the risk of my lens movement being picked up in my frame. A good rule of thumb is to try and keep your shutter speed the same (or faster) as the length of your lens. So, if you are shooting a 400mm lens, then set your shutter speed to 1/400 or faster and if you are shooting an 800 mm lens, then set your shutter speed to 1/800 or faster.

We are joined by a photographer who lives in Brisbane Queensland Australia, Phil Norrish! I'm thrilled to have him take us up on our challenge. Phil took this picture with a Panasonic Lumix fs3 with an exposure setting of ISO 250, F-2.8 and 1/30 shutter speed.

"My pic of the day," said Phil. "At home after days of going to work and the office supply company. I thought my paper clips might make an interesting photo."

Kate Robinson has created her own photo-a-day-blog in honor of our challenge. Please check it out if you have time. Here is Kate's day 4 pictures.

"Today I braved the cold to take some shots of buildings," said Kate. "I soon tired of that and retreated to my urban oasis. Once inside, I turned to my menagerie for subject matter. Today Nacho, the cockatiel, posed for me."

Here are the outdoor pictures Kate referred to above. They came out nice I thought. But, I can appreciate her fondness for warmer working environments.

ISO 1600 F-4 Shutter 1/125

ISO 400 F-4 Shutter 1/4

The two above photographs are Andy's Day 4 pictures. The interior of the vehicle photograph was quite cleverly captured. He mounted his Nikon D3 to the hand brace near the passenger door and used his shutter release cable to trigger the exposure.

Maris Stanley has created a picture-a-day folder on her Facebook page. If you like, you should check her page out too. She took this detailed photograph of a set of dice for her Day 5 picture and the window-scape in Charleston for her Day 3 picture. They are both very nice.

-Stacy