WAW #5 - Self Portrait

This week has been a little crazy which means that I am a little behind on posting my weekly assignment (bad teacher!). This week's assignment was "Self Portraits". I had all good intentions to do something other than a reflection shot, since I have done several reflection shots with my film cameras, and I wanted to push myself to try something new. I had all sorts of big plans, but then got sucked in by one of my silver necklaces and earrings lying on the table... I just couldn't resist the reflection! Well it turns out, I actually learned a whole lot about the different settings on my Canon Rebel XS DSLR in the process... and learning about my digital camera is one of the main reasons that I am doing the weekly assignments. So, mission accomplished!
Here is what I learned.
1) My Camera has different flash settings for different light sources (i.e. fluorescent, natural, etc.). I will need to remember this in the future when I actually need it.
2) That the ISO setting on my digital camera is my friend (and I need to get to know it much better!) This lesson learned is simply demonstrated by an example.

Taken with flash - ISO 100

Taken with flash - ISO 1600

Taken without flash - ISO 100

Taken without a flash - ISO 1600

A higher ISO can mean sacrificing quality of grain (or noise level) or colour, which you can see in the clarity of table in the photos with flash. The lower ISO has less noise. However, I couldn't get a self portrait with the flash on and didn't have enough light to get a clear shot at the lower ISO. In the photos with a flash, the higher ISO was definitely a better choice.

Jeffrey has also been participating in the weekly assignments intermittently. These are his Self-Portrait shots that he did with the automatic timer on the DSLR. I was his assistant and we had fun playing with the ISO and flash settings.

Auto-timed Self Portrait - With flash ISO 100

Auto-timed Self Portrait - Without flash ISO 100

~ M & JR