A Slightly Wrong Shot You Took Beats the Perfect One You Missed
Okay. Last lesson was turning the LCD review off for a while, and I hope some of you actually tried it instead of just nodding at me. If you didn't, no judgment, but try it this week for real.
This lesson is short on new settings and long on something I think matters more than settings, so bear with me.
Here's the thing. I have a lot of students who get so locked into finding the exact right shutter speed, the exact right aperture, that the light changes and the moment's gone and they missed the shot entirely chasing perfect. I want to talk you out of that habit before it sets in, because once it sets in it's hard to shake.
The moose
I've told a few of you this one in passing but I'll tell it properly here.
I was up Provo Canyon a few years back, early morning, and a moose came out into a meadow off the side of the road. Just walked out into open ground, good light, no obstruction, the kind of thing you don't see twice in a season. I had my camera up in about four seconds. And then I did something dumb. I started adjusting. ISO was a little high from the last shot, I wanted to bring my shutter speed up because the moose was moving, I was turning dials instead of shooting.
By the time I had my settings where I wanted them, the moose had walked back into the trees. I got nothing. Not one frame. I had a perfectly dialed in exposure setting and absolutely nothing to point it at.
I drove home irritated at myself the whole way, and that's really where this opinion of mine comes from. A photo that's a stop overexposed, that you actually took, beats a technically perfect exposure of a moose that already left. You can fix exposure later. You can't fix "I didn't take the picture."
What this means practically
When something's happening in front of you and the light's doing something good, or a moment's unfolding that won't wait, here's what I want you to do instead of fiddling:
- Get your camera up and take a shot immediately, even on whatever settings you're currently on. Even if you know they're not perfect. This is your insurance shot.
- Then adjust, if you have time. Bump your ISO down, tighten your shutter speed, whatever the meter's telling you needs fixing. Take another frame.
- Keep shooting as you adjust, don't wait to have it perfect before you fire again. You're layering your odds, not gambling everything on one setting.
This runs a little against everything I've taught you so far in this module, where I've had you slowing down and dialing things in carefully before you shoot. That's still the right way to learn and the right way to work when you have time. But when you don't have time, when the moment is moving faster than your dials, the rule changes. Get the shot. Fix the craft later.
The walnut box
I want to give you the flip side too, because this idea isn't just for wildlife and fast moments.
I spent about a month building a walnut box in the shop a while back, real proud of it, wanted good photographs of it for myself and honestly a little bit to show off. I set it up under my shop light and started shooting and the pictures were bad. Not slightly bad. Genuinely bad. Hard black shadows cutting across the grain, blown out highlights on one side, the walnut looking almost gray instead of the warm brown it actually is.
I almost didn't fix it. I almost just accepted the bad photos because the box itself was sitting right there, done, and I didn't want to mess with lighting equipment I didn't have.
Instead I took a bedsheet, built a simple frame out of some scrap wood, and made a diffuser to soften that shop light. Took me maybe twenty minutes. The next set of photos were completely different, soft even light, the grain actually showing up the way it does in person.
The point of that one isn't really about diffusers, though I'd tell anybody with a hard light source at home to try it, an old white sheet does more work than people expect. The point is that sometimes the "good enough, get the shot" instinct is right, and sometimes it's worth the twenty minutes to actually fix the problem. You have to be able to tell the difference. Moving wildlife, you shoot what you've got. A box sitting still on your workbench that isn't going anywhere, you've got time to fix your light.
A caution here
If you're outside chasing a shot of wildlife, keep your distance. Moose in particular are not the gentle giants people think they are, they can move fast and they do not want you close, camera or no camera. Zoom with your lens, not your feet.
Before next time
Go shoot something that's moving, a dog, a kid, traffic, anything that won't hold still and wait for you. Take your insurance shot first, then adjust. Bring both to next class and we'll look at what changed between the first frame and the fixed one.