Using Aperture Priority to improve travel photos

Introduction

The quest to improve my travel photography skills continues. At the moment I am trying to use aperture priority for my landscape and architectural photos. The sense of urgency escalates with the Big Drive (4,000 km) to Cairns and back planned for next month.

So we’ve mounted several dawn raids to Mooloolaba Beach over the last six weeks to take some photos. I bribe my wife to accompany me with promises of breakfast and coffee out on the waterfront after the work (by me) is done. I am pleased to say that there is a little glimmer of hope, in addition to sunshine, on the horizon (and it’s not the “breaky+coffee”) with my pics slowly improving.

Sample photos using aperture priority

During the first couple of visits I was very disappointed with my efforts but things have slowly advanced to point where I am willing to share some photos – all of them taken in Aperture Mode.

Please CLICK on each photo to see an enlarged version and its description.

Lessons Learnt with Aperture Priority

So what have I learnt so far?

1. It is self-evident but bears repeating:  the more I read and practice the more I understand, improve and build confidence.
2. The photos I take using aperture priority still aren’t as good (getting close though) as those I shoot on automatic Mode.
3. I still don’t understand the exposure triangle properly for various situations. Question: When should I use a lower F/Stop and a higher ISO as opposed to a higher F/Stop and a lower ISO?
4. The monopod was virtually essential. Especially using higher F/Stop and low ISO.
5. A lower f-stop number is required as the sun is rising. I tried to take a photo in automatic mode followed by one in aperture priority. From what I had read I should use a high f/stop number (e.g. 11-18) to give better depth of field and that is what I did. Looking at these photos later in Photoshop Elements I noticed that the photos taken in Automatic consistently used a lower f/stop number (e.g. 5.6, 6.3, 7.1) and sometimes a higher ISO (e.g. between 200 and 400). Naturally these photos were brighter and required less work. However as the sun rose the photos taken using aperture priority with the higher f/stop improved.
6. You need to be aware of long shadows (of yourself) cast by the early rising sun.
7. Still plenty to learn about the various Focus Modes and this thing called Auto ISO.

Mooloolaba – Where it it?

For those of you who may not be aware Mooloolaba is on the Sunshine Coast in South East Queensland, Australia: