Cyrano Loves Roxanne

Ailís Henry as Roxanne

Taking a picture during a play is difficult especially when you are in a room with limited lighting and people are always moving around.

Recently we had a school play titled Cyrano Loves Roxanne, it was a two-act comedy parody of the play Cyrano de Bergerac. I took the opportunity to go see the play twice and took pictures throughout the play.

What I used:
- 55-250mm lens
- Continuous mode, instead of single shot
- Shutter Speed: 1/250
- Aperture: f4.5
- ISO: 800

Tips:
- make sure that you have a zoom lens, it is a must. Even if you are seating close to the stage, it will capture every detail and facial expressions of the characters.
- use a high shutter speed, to avoid blurriness when they are moving.
- your finger should never leave the shutter and put your camera in continuous mode because you don't want to miss those funny moments.
- use ISO 800, because you don't want your picture to look dark and very bright. 800 is perfect.
- play with the settings to get different effects.

Photo Shoot

Vanessa Kolthof 

This is my friend Vanessa. My mentor Hannah and I did a photo shoot of her yesterday. We went to the bike trail, train tracks, and the lake by our houses to take pictures.

Settings I used:
- 50mm macro lens
- 1/1000 (shutter speed)
- f2.2
- ISO 100

I really like this picture, most especially because I have not done any touch up to the picture. I had a total of 293 pictures on my camera by the end of the photo shoot. I did a lot of test shots, and some of them turned out really good but some didn't.

Hannah taught me some shortcuts that she learnt from her friend with the DSLR camera. Sometimes adjusting your camera settings takes time because there are too many buttons that you have to press. We take our eyes away from the view finder and look at the screen when we adjust the settings, and we miss special moments because we were not ready. So I am going to share some shortcuts that Hannah taught me.

 1. Shutter Speed: scroll main dial. While you are scrolling the main dial and looking at the view finder, you will notice that the shutter speed in your view finder, which is found at the bottom left, changes.







2. Aperture: press the AV button and scroll main dial (do not let go of the AV button while scrolling). The aperture number is found right beside the shutter speed.

 3. Focal Point: press the zoom button and scroll main dial (do not let go of the zoom button while scrolling). While you are doing this, you will notice a red dot in your view finder. That red dot is your focal point, it is like a target. Wherever you decide to put your focal point, that is where your camera will focus on. If all the red dots are blinking that means you are on auto focus.






4. ISO: press ISO button and scroll main dial (do not let go of the ISO button while scrolling). The ISO number is located on the bottom right corner.









Tips:
- Play with the shutter speed
- If it is really sunny out, use a very low ISO
- If you want to do a photo shoot, plan ahead (including outfits and poses)
- Take as much pictures as you can