I know, I’m so far behind, and I’m sorry. I’ve been sick, and it’s been, and is still, seriously kicking my butt! Here’s what went down in class 4.
When shooting for stopped action, you should use the fastest shutter speed that the lighting conditions and film will allow. If you don’t have the ideal lighting, here are a few ways to “tweak” and attempt to stop action:
- Direction – when the subject moves toward/away from you, the motion blurs less. Instead of a bicyclist moving across your photo, send them toward you.
- Distance – the farther away you are from the moving subject, the less pronounced the action.
- Peak of the action – take the shot as the action is at its uppermost point. If you were photographing a basketball player jumping to make a basket, you’d want to take the shot as he’s at the height of his jump and about to come back down. At that time, there’s the least amount of motion as his travel path moves down from up.
Two other thoughts of the day …
- Anticipate … the action! Be ready, and imagine what’s next!
- Composition … is important, such as the background and other surrounding objects.
That’s it! We spent the rest of class in lab, and learned to develop film – yay! From that, I learned that my camera has issues at f/22 (And later learned that it’s even down to f/16 and f/11.), so I had to re-shoot for next class. Argh. Developing for the first time was nerve-racking, but like everything else, it’s so much easier now! Thank goodness! 
