Totally Unprepared

Texas State Capitol Dome. 2/365

I’m still a little dubious about the rules about today, so I’m going to start with a little bit of house keeping.

I’m on Day 13 of my writing streak on this blog. Which, frankly, I’m a little impressed by. So maybe this isn’t a fad.

Then, the other day, I started a 365 day project, of which I’m on Day 2 of.

Now, what’d I do, is write two separate posts: one of my daily journal and another for my picture of the day.

Thing is, I need to make this easy. I’d hate to miss the day, because I’ve overcomplicated this process.

So what if I merged the two and just make one post for both.

We’ll see if that works.

Like I said the other day, people think I’m a good photographer mainly because I’ve got a really nice camera: the Sony A7 IV.

And don’t get me wrong, Sony’s A7 IV is a powerhouse camera. Couple that with my 200mm Tameron 70-200mm lens and well, its hard to miss a a shot.

So I was asked to shoot a very important event today. A once in a lifetime, memory defining event. I said okay.

And I thought I was prepared, but boy was I wrong.

I had thought I was prepared, by making sure my batteries were all charged, but when I got to the location where I was going to do a majority of the shooting, I found out my battery was at only four percent.

Crap.

Then, we were shooting inside. Now, I usually shoot outdoors, and I’m good at shooting sports. Inside a very dim building, isn’t my forte.

Double crap.

So I threw on my 70-200mm lens and hoped and prayed.

One thing that gets me is that my pictures were coming out dark and I couldn’t’ figure out why. I was on Auto ISO and my camera kept on wanting to set my shutter speed low, which meant I was getting a slight blur on my images.

I tried to Program Mode and that worked for awhile, but the light kept changing and in some places in the capital were darker than others.

I finally gave up and decided to put the damn thing on Auto to see if that works.

It wasn’t until my battery finally died that I checked my lens only to realize that I had a ND filter that was messing with my exposer. Again, I only use this lens, when I use it, to shoot sports. I hadn’t use that lens in so long I had to dust it off.

Damn.

Luckily, I still had my M7 with a charged battery and used that, but I just got it this week, and haven’t re-acclimated to using it.

I see a lot of pictures that people use with the M7 and their pictures seem to have a lot more depth in color. My pictures on my M7 seem garish.

So what did I learn today.

One, I need to get to know my equipment inside and out.

How am I correcting this problem?

Well, one, this is why I’m doing this challenge. If I’m taking more photos with both the M7 and A7 IV, then I’m learning their limits and how to use them.

The other thing is to learn to say, “No.”

Look, I was very much a part of the event to some extent. So, I didn’t get to relax and enjoy it, because I was worried about the pictures.

Hindsight being 20/20, I should’ve just hired a photographer to document the moment, and sat back, took a few shots, and let someone else take care of it.

Plus, I need to acknowledge my own limitations in video and photography.

That’s not to say, that I didn’t get any good pics. When I got home I downloaded the images and at least got some technically good shots. I credit the engineers at Sony with that, because they made these machines with the expectation that some yahoo that doesn’t know what he’s going can get -- something.

Still, it burns me, that I missed some shots.

Oh, and I need to make it habit of making sure my batteries are charged and ready to go.

I also need to come up with a system of making sure my cameras are ready for whatever I’m going to shoot.

This is one of the first shots I took at the Texas State Capitol today. We have a gorgeous capital building and I wish I’d had the battery power to take more shots.

Oh and if you’re going to shoot, don’t wear cowboy boots, cause that just going to hurt your feet.