Last week, I might have jumped the gun. I followed my friend’s advice and pretty much stuck solely to the manual mode on my camera. As a result, many of my photos turned out quite poor. They were incredibly dark and contained no colour; they were solely black and white. I was frustrated but optimistic, the pictures I had shot on the auto setting turned out just fine so it had to be something that I was doing wrong, not the camera having a malfunction with colour. I had done some research on shutter speed and aperture but am still new to their use and how they look in a variety of situations. So in order to work on my understanding of these terms and how I could customize their use with my camera, I tried taking different styles of photos, specifically portrait photos. This week I was in Kimberley, which is just northwest of Fernie. I took close-up portrait photos using the S, A, and P modes of my camera. The S mode meant I could control shutter speed, the A mode meant I could control the aperture, and the P mode (which I just recently discovered) meant I could take photos using a tracking focus. The P mode will come in handy in the future in case I see any moving animals while biking or hiking.

While biking around the Kimberley nature park, I stumbled upon a small lake that I thought might have some opportunistic spots for close-up shots. As I rested my bike against a tree and pulled out my camera, a small turtle popped up onto a small log in the lake. Instantly, I knew they would be my model. I took a couple of photos of the turtle using the A mode as I had mistaken it for an auto setting at that time, probably due to my excitement of seeing the turtle so I did not alter the aperture settings for these photos, luckily they were perfect. They were set to F8.1 which means the aperture is very small (a small pupil).

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By accident, I switched over to P mode which is an auto setting that controls the aperture and shutter speed but allows me to turn on tracking focus. It ended up resulting in a fantastic photo that allowed me to see what the potentially proper settings looked like for this situation. I also apologize for how some of these photos look as I have to heavily condense them down for edusites to allow them.

Still yet when I tried to use the manual setting (M mode), all of my photos were black and white no matter what the setting was.

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In the midst of my frustration, I began pushing random buttons on my camera hoping that something would fix my problem. When the menu popped up on my camera’s screen, I noticed something that was called “Picture effects.” When you press the menu button on this camera, you can still see what the lens sees. Upon noticing “Picture effects,” I moved the dial one to the left and saw the screen change from black and white to colour. IT WAS STUCK IN THE BLACK AND WHITE SETTING. I moved the dial to the left until I saw the words “No effect” which meant that I was finally seeing exactly what I wanted to be seeing on my camera while using the M mode. These are the photos I took using the M mode which I would say turned out a lot better than any other photos I have taken.

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With these photos and having the ability to change the two major settings, I can see the red on the turtle’s underbelly a lot better than I could before. Now that I can alter shutter speed and aperture with confidence that they will contain colour, I can alter how I can take pictures of different settings with complete control of my camera and how the pictures will turn out. Next week I hope to find a larger model such as a deer, moose, or elk. Considering my location and what I see when I don’t have my camera with me, I think I will be able to do that.