2005. Puyallup Fair.
This was the first “outing” where I took my “big camera.”
I was really enamored with my “zoom lens.” I could be 25 yards off and shoot like I was right next to the subject.
This was really appealing to me (the eternal introvert).
I didn’t do much as far as settings with the camera. I pretty much just left it in “auto” mode.
I would say that about 25% of the shots I took were actually in focus without motion blur.
I still had a lot to learn about shooting in lower light.
You see, “auto settings” attempt to make the lightest part of your subject “true white.”
But the camera tended to do this by decreasing the shutter speed to let in more light. So, in some cases the shutter would open for 1/4-second.
Now, a quarter of a second may not seem like a very long time, but if my subject was moving, it would be blurry.
And as a matter of fact, even if the subject was STILL, most of my shots would turn out blurry, due to something called “camera-shake.” When you press the shutter down, you slightly jostle the camera.
This can be eliminated with the use of a tripod, but who has room to lug one of those around in these kinds of situations.
It would be several years before I had a good grasp on how to actually shoot in low light.
Out of the entire outing, these three shots are really the only ones that turned out decent.
The clowns are probably my favorite.