New friends and help/ Weekly Challenge #1

So I recently joined a couple of forums to help get more information about photography. I found one that has been a great resource and everyone there seems to be very willing to help and give great advice. Here is the link

http://photo.net/community/

I am very grateful to one of their members, Alan, who has offered to teach me and give me weekly challenges and critique my work (I will also post my pictures here on the blog and then post his critique the following week so you can see what I did wrong/right and learn along with me). He is also going to teach me many technical things as well which I will pass along to you. I will call them Alan's tip of the day :-)

This weeks challenge is White Egg on a White Plate-

I had two that I really liked so I am posting them both here.

Camera settings for picture 1- ISO 1600 50mm f/6.3 1/40sec

Camera setting for pic 2- ISO 1600
50mm f/3.2 1/400 sec (came out a little underdeveloped so I lightened with LR3)

-Alan's Technical Tip of the Day-

Lenses are made in different focal lengths. Every camera has a focal length that matches the human experience as to perspective. That value is the diagonal measure of the imaging chip inside your camera. Your Canon D30 features a chip size called APS-C (Advances Photo System Classic). The chip
measures about 16mm height by 24mm length. The diagonal measure of this chip is 30mm. That means, if you set your zoom at 30mm your images will match the human perspective. Wide-angle is considered 70% of "normal" or shorter. That works out to 30 x .7 = 21 rounded its 20mm. So for your camera wide-angle is
20mm or shorter. Now telephoto is 200% normal or longer. For your camera telephoto is 60mm or longer. For portraiture, best if you use a lens 250% of "normal" this value is only a suggestion. It forces the photographer to step back away from the subject when doing portraits. For your camera its 2.5 x
30 = 75mm. Using a setting of about 75mm delivers the same perspective as your subject sees in his/her make-up mirror. This is important because if the lens used is too short, the nose is slightly enlarged and the ears slightly rendered too small. This often causes the subject to say " I don't photograph well"  or " I never look good in a photograph" most of the time this outcry is due to the perspective of the finished print does not match their self image as seen in the make-up or shaving mirror.


Thanks for reading and see you next week!