pikopong

On the 5th of September 2008, I bought my first DSLR gears during my trip to Kuala Lumpur. The items are Canon 40D, Canon Speedlite 580EX II, Canon 50mm f/1.8 and some other things for about RM 5,000 which I don’t think is a really good bargain, but definitely better than what I’ll get if I bought them in Kelantan.

Ever since that purchase, I’ve been reading the manual whenever I got free time as I thought how am I supposed to be a better photographer if I don’t know the full potential of my camera ? I also managed to get some pirated book about the camera such as Canon EOS 40D Digital Field Guide. I was actually preparing myself for my uncle’s engagement event on the 3rd day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri. However, another event added to my list which is my cousin’s wedding event. I’m pretty happy that I finally had the chance to try whatever I learnt to the real world since using the chair in my room as a model is getting boring.

So, fast forward to my cousin’s wedding day. The main event that day was “Akad Nikah” which took place at a mosque near her house. Sadly, on my first try out as a photographer using my new camera, I made a lot of mistakes, lots of them. These are the mistakes that I knew (there are definitely more):

1. I didn’t identify the main characters for the event thus there are only a few photos of them.
2. Overuse of f/1.8 resulting a very bad group photos.
3. Always beware with the additional characters such as children playing around which spoiled my shot with their blur movement.
4. Wrong setting for shutter speed whenever I want to capture a candid moment such as hugging, shaking hands and so on.
5. I need to ask them to look at me whenever I want to take photos (yes, I forgot to ask them to do that every time there are other photographers around).
6. I need to know in advance the settings for the indoor and outdoor. Almost all of my outdoor shots after the event (which took place indoor) were overexposed as I didn’t have the time to test the correct settings.
7. Always test other flash exposures even though the initial setting is OK at the first try.
8. I should’ve known the limitation of my 50mm lens.
9. I should not feel shy whenever I want to get close the subject.

So, what about the mistakes that I’ve done during my uncle’s engagement day ? This is the list:

1. All the previous mistakes ;)

However, one thing for sure, I really need to start saving and buy a wide angle lens. 50mm is great for portrait shots, but not for group shots or even two people at some distance in a cramp room. *Sigh*, there’re still so many things to learn.