A short lesson on switching to Manual shooting and why you would want to make all the decisions instead of leaving things to your camera's discretion.

MaMa is never far away.  This little group is only half the bunch.  They waddled away from the rest of the group of ducklings.  About16 in all.  A good idea to increase your iso (mine was 1600)  The reason?: Ok you have plenty of light, right?  Why would I chose to increase iso then?  Remember, these guys are constantly moving and I really wanted alot of feather detail.  That required a higher shutter speed to stop action and get good focus.  Sooooo, increasing the iso increases the camera's light sensitivity enabling me to use a higher Shutter speed without underexposing my shot.  My shutter speed was 400 and 500 respectively.

The f stop (lens opening) was 6.3 and 5.6.  Each little duckling needed to be in focus so I really could not open the lens to 2.8 (that would have only focused on one little portion of the group and left the others blurry).  Opening all that light really would have allowed me to use an even faster shutter speed getting an even sharper image but I would have dealt with the outer ducks being blurry due to the 2.8 opening. So, this then becomes a balancing act of Shutter speed and aperture (fstop) and iso.  Every shot you take is such a dilema.  But there is the fun and thrill of it when you succeed and get the shot!

 How does a tripod help? (did not use one here unfortunately). Well, without handholding the camera you are able to slow the shutter speed down a little and still get good focus. Slowing the shutter speed lets in more light obviously.  So, then you can increase the aperture (make the opening smaller but letting in a little less light though) thus allowing for more focal planes and more little duckies could be nice and sharp, all the while getting a nicely exposed shot, not too light and not too dark. Sweet!!!

 When shooting in manual thank goodness for the little exposure bar in the viewfinder telling me to raise or lower my shutter speed or/and aperture to balance this act.  Takes all the guess work out.  If shooting a group of subjects like this required an aperture so high (to get all focal planes sharp no matter where the subjects are in the viewfinder) that you lose the artsy soft background then, "no worries mate" simply go in photoshop and chose the blur tool and paint away areas of your choosing.

-and you thought I was just a pretty good photographer.  Now the secret is out.  It's all smoke and mirrors. LOL