Playing with ISO

The day was overcast and chilly...

Sounds like the beginning of a bad poem.

I took my queue from Blogography and used an ISO of 500. I wanted a blurrier background so I put the f-stop at 2. (Using a Canon 7D with a 15-85mm lens),

Then I got the treats out of the cupboard and made the dog work for it.

I took a few shots on the grass outside, fiddling with the ISO and bumping it up and down as the light changed.

Then I put the camera down and watered the plants, so the dog jumped on the table under the patio. She looked so cute, and I noticed the line of the slats on the table, so out came the treats again and I took some more shots.

There were two shots I was happy with out of about 50 in the end, and I think their quality is better than anything I’ve shot before.

The next step was to take them into Photoshop and play around. I wanted to put vignette on one, then experiment with making the grass in the other brighter.

Pilot Before:

Pilot After:
Putting a vignette on a photo in Photoshop is super simple. Drag the photo into Photoshop select Filter, Lens Correction. Click the Custom tab and look down until you see Vignette. Fiddle around with the settings and choose the weight that fits for you. I then cropped my photo.

Grass Before Shot:
Grass After Shot:

The steps to making the grass brighter are a little more involved, so I’ll step them out.


Drag in your photo then click Select, Colour Range. Use the eyedropper to select the colour in the photo you want to accentuate. (I bumped up the fuzziness to get access to more of the grass).


Copy and paste into a new layer.


Make sure that layer is selected, then click Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Brightness/ Contrast and play with the brightness and contrast until you have a look you want.


One more shot I love from the day: