Since my “real” photography journey started last April, I wanted to sign up for a photography course. There are plenty of them on the Internet, but I couldn’t figure out which one would be best for a newbie like me.
Months ago, I came across r/photoclass on Reddit. It is an introduction to photography course that has been running for a while. It is completely free, and there is a great community on Reddit and Discord. Basically, you sign up when a new cohort opens and follow the materials they provide. On top of that, you have assignments to put into practice what you learn, and you are expected to contribute and provide feedback to fellow classmates. A few weeks ago, I noticed that a new cohort was open, so I decided to join.
Today, I have submitted my first assignment. We are just getting started, so the goal was pretty basic: take two pictures with two different cameras (or with one, but different lenses or distance) of the same scene. Then, reflect on what has stayed the same, what not, why do you think that, and what kind of feedback you would like to receive.
Here’s my submission:
Obviously, I had to use Carmela as the main star of this homework. The picture on the left was taken with my iPhone Air; the other one, with my Fujifilm X-T30 III SOOC and in manual mode.
Quoting my reflection:
I tried to keep the composition as similar as possible in both shots, hoping Carmela wouldn’t move (she didn’t). I also wanted to give some prominence to the money plant in the background.
In the iPhone photo, Carmela’s black face is brighter, and the whole scene is generally better lit. In the FUJIFILM photo, the shadows are much deeper and you can barely make out the features of her face. The highlights are also more overexposed. There is some background blur in the FUJIFILM shot because I opened the aperture to f/3.7 to draw more attention to Carmela. I didn’t make any comparable adjustments on the iPhone.
As for which photo better reflects the scene, I’d say it’s somewhere between the two. While the FUJIFILM image has shadows that are too dark and highlights that are too bright, the iPhone balanced both much better.
I’d really appreciate any feedback on how to achieve more natural-looking highlights and shadows when shooting in manual mode with the FUJIFILM. I understand that the iPhone performs a lot of computational processing to improve its images, so I assume it’s making what it thinks are the best adjustments based on the captured scene.
I think I’ll be sharing here how I am doing, since they also encourage you to journal on your progress.