VAPS Muster 2010 in Apollo Bay

VAPS: Victorian Association of Photographic Societies. On this weekend away, I stayed in a holiday house with some other members of our club. I got to improve my photographic skill just by going out and shoot pictures with the others. This is what I've learned:

1. Using colour matrix adjustment in the auto white balance. I have used this before but not really applied it the way I saw my fellow member did. It turned out to be very useful when shooting in very difficult light. For example, in the sunrise picture, boosting up the yellow helped to enrich the colour of the stones on the beach. Also, if you have ever tried to shoot in a rain forest, you'll know that the white balance is very difficult to set correctly. This method enabled me to set the rain forest white balance to a natural level. Using Auto WB or one of the WB presets will not produce a desirable result.

2. Setting the foreground of interest in the seascape scene. Again, this is something I have read about but never really applied. Watching my fellow club member produce a beautiful shot this way inspired me to apply the same.

3. Slowing down the shutter speed to shoot waterfall is a well known technique, but I have never tried it out before. This outing with fellow photographers enabled me to gain hands on experience to finally shoot my first "silky" waterfall. For this waterfall shot, I had to slow down the shutter speed to 1/4 sec, aperture set at F10. This is on top of reducing exposure by 1 stop, putting on a polarizer filter, plus the advantage of a heavy overcast sky.

In the following pictures, setting the camera in Auto or P modes would not have created the shots successfully. These shots have been good "learning shots" for me.