{"id":258,"date":"2014-04-27T12:43:29","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T17:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scorellis.com\/?p=258"},"modified":"2014-04-27T12:43:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T17:43:29","slug":"getting-it-right-every-time-f-qmaass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scorellis.com\/?p=258","title":{"rendered":"Getting it right, every time : F-QMAASS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I shoot in manual mode, and the only thing I ever float is my ISO. \u00a0However, sometimes while shooting, I diverge and start changing settings to accommodate for the conditions of the scene. Now, as an extreme hobbyist nature photographer. \u00a0I say ‘extreme’ because I make a small amount of money doing this, but mostly I do it as an altruistic pursuit, a vocation. \u00a0Ok, enough about me….sometimes when I am shooting I forget to check my settings and then I blow an entire set or even an entire location.<\/p>\n

I developed QMAASS as a way for me to always do a sanity check whenever I am shooting. I run through this checklist every time I change “sets”. \u00a0A “set” is a group of photos from a locational scene. So, when I am in a particular location, and am shooting a particular scene, I may take three or four sets. When I change scenes, the set needs to be checked, and that is where QMAASS comes into play.<\/p>\n

By “set”, I mean settings, which has everything to do with how I have my camera configured. It’s a paradigm that I use to help me make sure that my camera is properly configured for the scene I am shooting, which includes considerations for the lens I am using, for the lighting, the subject matter, and whatever effect I am trying to achieve.<\/p>\n

I shoot in manual mode almost always, and sometimes, between scenes, some time passes. As a nature photographer, I shoot in some very diverse conditions, and so my sets are wildly divergent at times.<\/p>\n

Camera settings during a particular grouping of photos \u00a0of a particular subject matter applied to a different set can destroy my photos.<\/p>\n

For example, last weekend I was shooting a Great Horned Owl sitting on her nest. I was shooting through lots of twigs and had the camera in manual focus mode. \u00a0I left the scene, and as we were driving into a new scene, a Harrier was playing around not 50 feet from us. I stopped my car, jumped out, started shooting, and blew the entire set except for one shot – I was in manual focus, and a coincidence of distance focused one shot out of the whole set. I learned that I need to have the camera in a neutral QMAASS, which is a balance of settings that will work in most situations. While I was shooting the Harrier, I was able to run through QMAASS and get the shutter speed up, but QMAASS has no “F” for focus.<\/p>\n

So now I’ve added the F, and it is F-QMAASS. below, I list what each setting is, and what I use for each when I am between sets. So, every set I ever do will start with these settings, which may ( will ) change during the set.<\/p>\n