Last night I was bored and antsy, so after I finally ate dinner at around 10:00, I went out and took some pictures. When it comes to low light, I kind of suck — my hands shake. Yet, last night, I took pictures at 1/8th, 1/6th, even 1/4th of a second, and they’re sharp. Really! I can hardly believe it myself, except I have evidence on my screen.
Today, I went on a bit of a walk. It was a sunny, cloudless day here in the Bay Area. A couple of planes and a bird passed above my head, and I looked up and tried to shoot them. As those damn kids on the internet say, EPIC FAIL. At 1/80 and 1/100, the only thing visible in the pictures is that I can’t hold still.
So, why the suckage this afternoon and the steadyness last night? There is a technical reason: today’s lens has almost four times the focal length, and I was holding the camera up vs. at eye level. Of course, being awash in afternoon sunlight, I should have just kicked up the shutter speed. I was overconfident from yesterday and unable to see that my images were blurry because the sun was washing out the LCD display. And maybe suffering from a touch of sunstroke.
When I first got a digital camera, there were two things I loved: being able to shoot at different ISO speeds with the twist of a knob, and instant feedback. Right away I was able to see if something turned out okay and I could tweak as necessary. I hated waiting for prints to come back or to get time in the darkroom. Of course that instant feedback meant instant critique as well.
Digital photography is great in so many ways, and awful in just about as many. On a $15 bit of silicon and metal, I can store 20 rolls worth of pictures, and I don’t have to pay anything to get them printed. Conversely, I have 20 times as many images to hate when I proof them.