Photography: It depends

I remember posting about an experience I had in photography class where we'd get the answer, "It depends," from our teacher whenever we asked something along the lines of, "What setting should I have to do <insert whatever it is we wanted to do here>." It's so very true. The other day while shooting random things in the house to play with the sunlight coming in I got two very similar shots with two completely different settings that just illustrates this point.

Shutter 1/60 Aperture f/11.0 ISO 400

Shutter 1/60 Aperture f/5.6 ISO 100

Visually the only real difference I can see is that the background of the first picture is more defined than the background of the second picture and this is because of the aperture setting - the shallower depth of field blurs the background. Other than that, I find it difficult to spot any stand out differences. In the edit mode of iPhoto, there is slightly more noise in the first shot (that's due to the higher ISO setting) but it's only something I saw when I zoomed in to look specifically for it.

I was playing cars with Henry at the time and we had just built some residences* for the vehicles to park out out of his alphabet blocks. Not pictured was a SHOP where we identified the types of things - chicken, sunglasses, oranges, and flowers, to name a few - sold inside using the pictures on the blocks. But I digress. Following are photos taken playing with the ISO. I love the ISO. I try to stay away from 1600 and typically even 800 because of the additional noise but since I rarely blow up pictures beyond the standard 4x6 or 5x7 sizes, it's a great way to let in the light. Of course, now that I think of it, that setting, at least on my camera is buried in the menu and not easily accessible like the aperture and shutter speed settings so maybe I'm not supposed to be using it as much as I do. Hmmm...

Shutter 1/60 Aperture f/11.0 ISO 100

Shutter 1/60 Aperture f/11.0 ISO 200

Shutter 1/60 Aperture f/11.0 ISO 400

Shutter 1/60 Aperture f/11.0 ISO 800

Shutter 1/60 Aperture f/11.0 ISO 1600

Out of these photos, I think the third photo (with ISO 400) looks the best although it is a little dark on the left side. To compensate for that without going up to ISO 800 and getting the first bit of sunlight blowout on the right, I could have slowed down the shutter speed a touch. Or I also could have opened up the aperture a bit. Decisions, decisions...

*An apt., a casa, and a home, tyvm.