Quiet subjects

I was taking photographs at a church event last Sunday morning when the need to plough through the instruction manuals that came with my digital camera was driven home. The event was held in a well-lit “fellowship” room. Even so, I used flash to ensure that shutter speeds were fast enough to freeze movement. I also used a 31mm f/1.7 prime lens. On the K10D that lens provides coverage very close a standard 50mm lens in a 35mm film camera. It is wide enough to capture good groups and long enough so that the camera is not stuck under the subject’s nose. J gave me this lens as a Christmas present and it is wonderful. It is legendary within the Pentax fold for sharpness at wide apertures. Even so, I decided to “stop-down” to make sure I had sufficient depth of field to keep everyone in a group in focus. With flash working I started to the first batch of photographs. Horrors – when I checked the results some time later they were all taken at f/1.7. The point of focus was sharp as expected from this lens but people standing near by were blurry. It was then that I noticed the camera was set to “Program” mode. Instead of following my careful settings it was following another set of instructions buried deep in the set-up menus. A turn of the dial imposed human control and I took the final images the way I planned.

I appreciate the assistance that modern cameras provide. I don’t want to give up my integrated light meter or auto focus. But as Sunday proves, these aids can be subversive especially with subjects that only offer one chance to take the shot. For me, those are usually people. Maybe that is why I love photographing flowers. They don’t move. They don’t get bored waiting while I compose the shot and they patiently continue to look beautiful if I want to repeat the shots from a slightly different viewpoint. Most of my human subjects loudly complain if the picture is not taken when they say “cheese”. The dragonfly above was in my back yard. The orchid below is growing in my son’s new greenhouse in North Carolina. Both were very, very patient.