Homework Assignment No. 4 — Manual Mode. The fourth homework assignment I give students in my digital photography class at the Delaware Art Museum is to explore shooting in Manual Mode. Why Manual Mode? Many, perhaps most, professional photographers shoot in Manual Mode. While cameras in automatic and semi-automatic modes get better all the time, […]
How To Take Better Photos: Posts by Danny N. Schweers
Danny Schweers is a studio instructor at the Delaware Art Museum. Occasionally, he posts here what he teaches. Occasionally, when he is making his own photos, he remembers to do what he has taught.
Explore Your Camera’s Aperture Settings
Homework Assignment No. 3: Aperture, Out-of-Focus Backgrounds The third homework assignment I give students in my digital photography class at the Delaware Art Museum is to separate subject from background by using small aperture numbers; that is, apertures with little depth of field. The subject is in focus while the background is out of focus, […]
Explore Your Camera’s Shutter Speeds
Homework Assignment No. 2: Shutter Speeds, Diagonals to Corners My second homework assignment is to send me 2-5 photos in Shutter Priority Mode (“Tv” on Canon and Ricoh cameras, and “S” on Nikon and Sony cameras) and to include a line to a corner. Vary Shutter Speed Motion blur is controlled by changing the time […]
Explore Your Camera’s ISO Settings
Homework Assignment No. 1: Rule of Thirds and ISO Settings The first homework assignment I give students is to take a series of photos in Program Mode to explore ISO settings and to use the Rule of Thirds. I also ask them to tell me the name of a photographer whose work they admire. Rule […]
Photo Classes and Workshops, Delaware Art Museum
In the fall, winter, and spring, I teach introductory photo classes at the Delaware Art Museum. These 8-week-long classes happen on Tuesday evenings, 6:00 to 8:30 p.m., twenty hours of instruction in all, learning about camera mechanics such as shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings, plus an emphasis on artistic composition. The next series begins […]
Explore Light Painting
In-Class Exercise No. 6: Light Painting Having learned to shoot in Manual Mode (M) in my digital photography course at the Delaware Art Museum, we darken the room and use flashlights to paint light onto our subjects. Cameras are on tripods for these exposures, which are often 20 seconds long. When done correctly, objects seem […]
Explore Focal Lengths of Lenses!
Homework Assignment No. 4: Focal Lengths of Lenses, Pay Attention to Backgrounds. In my fourth class, we look at the focal lengths of lenses. Some have fixed focal lengths. Other lenses have variable focal lengths and are called zoom lenses because you can zoom in and zoom out: zoom in to photograph a narrow area, […]
Student Photos, 2012 on …
My students at the Delaware Art Museum have produced some wonderful images since I began teaching there. Here I have limited myself to 10 images from each class. Below are thumbnails of my student’s work from 2012 on, ten images from each class. Click on any thumbnail image to see it larger in a slide […]
Recommended: Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter
So far, I am happy with my new Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter. Above is the third scan attempted and below are details of that scan. Click on the images to see them at 100%. I did not overthink this. I screwed the adapter onto the front of a Nikon AF Micro Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 […]
Best Focal Length For Portraits
One of the most frequent questions I am asked is, “What focal length should I use for portraits?” I usually answer “50mm for Crop Sensor cameras, 75mm for Full-Frame Sensor cameras.” This is for a typical head shot. The homework assignment I give my students at the Delaware Art Museum is to take portraits at […]
Choosing More Lenses
In February, 2017, students asked me about buying Canon and Nikon fixed focal-length lenses and telephoto lenses. Canon Lenses I am thinking of getting the Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM lens and was wondering your opinion. I am also interested in getting a telephoto lens, but have no clue as to which one for my Canon […]
Ten Steps to Better Photographs
Here are ten ways you can make your photos better. Because I first presented these at a Parish Life Day workshop in the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware, each starts with a quote from scripture. I have taken some liberties with the translations into English. 1 – Let your light shine that all may see good […]
What Is Best Lens?
What focal length lens is your favorite for your camera – digital SLR? Fix-Length Lenses Are Best. I like any fixed lens for four reasons. (1) In general, fixed (a.k.a. prime) lenses have much simpler optics than zoom lenses. That means that images are generally sharper, with better contrast and fewer aberrations. (2) Simpler optics […]
Making Photos, Reading Poetry
People make photos and read poetry. That was my immediate conclusion the other evening in Barnes & Noble, as I went back and forth between the poetry and the digital photography sections. Such a difference in titles! The photo section was all about how to take better photos but there was very little in the […]