AS Media Studies EvaluationQ6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Hardware

Camera: Model: Nikon D3100 – Digital SLRLens: Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-55mmSettings: Manual Aperture f11 Shutter Speed: 1/300th

What have I learnt?I have learned how to successfully take pictures, using the equipment such as soft boxes to create good-quality images that I could use later on in my magazine.I could use the zoom in and zoom out option, and I now know how to position the camera effectively so that it captures the person I’m taking photos of well.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Horseshoe Flash Trigger

Infra red signal sent to Strobe flash – triggers the flash in-sync with the camera shutter.(speed set to 1/300th of a second to match strobe speeds).

Hemisphere 300 – Strobe flash

Dial on back adjusts output – modelling light on. Auxiliary lights set to slave (triggered in-sync with by built in light sensor).

What have I learnt?I have learned how to use the strobe flash to my advantage – it helps make pictures look more professional as it provides good lighting, and doesn’t create any shadows (unless you deliberately want that sort of effect).

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Soft boxes

The model lights use soft boxes – they disperse the light and give a softer, rounder light on the subject.

What have I learnt?I’ve learnt how to use soft boxes efficiently. As I was basing my magazine strongly off of other magazines such as Q or Kerrang!, I noticed that their front cover photographs are usually well lit. Soft boxes helped me achieve the same effect.

BackdropIs lit with a further two strobes on full power to create a high exposure, white background.

What have I learnt?I’ve learned how to use the backdrop efficiently – it’s there to help you edit the images later, and to make it easier to remove the background whilst editing if you don’t want it.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Equipment

iMac

What have I learnt?I haven’t used an iMac before, so learning the shortcuts and how exactly the keyboard works was confusing at first. For example on a Windows PC, you could use the control + C keys to copy something, but I found that this doesn’t always work, so I had to use command + C.I also learned how to take screenshots:

+ +

+

SoftwareQ6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Mac OSX El Capitan (ver. 10.11.6) & Finder

Finder has helped me navigate round the system and to find my documents & applications more quickly and efficiently.

The iMac user interface has helped me organise my files into an easy to understand way, and to be able to access them quicker.

What have I learnt?I have learned how to navigate around the system, and how to organise my documents so that they can be easily accessible.

Adobe Photoshop (ver. 12.0 x64)

Adobe Photoshop is used to manipulate and edit images. It’s also used to create GIFs.

What have I learnt?I have learned how to put in guidelines so that my cover, contents and feature pages are organised and that the size of images/text are proportional to the size of the canvas.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Adobe InDesign (version 5.0.4)

InDesign can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, and books.

What have I learnt?I have learned how to use this software, including specific features like adding images and text boxes and importing and exporting files.

It took me some time and practice to remember to use this function – it allowed me to place text/an image onto my article page. To be able to add anything in your document, you needed to draw a box, much like drawing a text box in Microsoft Word or Photoshop.

These 4 functions can be found in the bar at the top of the page. It allowed me to change how the text would wrap around an image, instead of the image either covering the text or the text covering the image.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Wordpress

A website which allows you to create your own blog(s).

What have I learnt?I have learned how to navigate around my own blogs, and how to create and edit posts, as well as adding new pages and links to my posts.

This button allowed me to embed links into my posts so that it was much easier to show and explain some parts of my evaluation.I needed to highlight the word/phrase I wanted to add a link to, click the button and paste in the website link, which would direct the reader to website.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Slideshare is a slide-hosting service. Users can upload files privately or publicly in formats such as PowerPoint or PDF. Those slides can then be viewed on the site itself or embedded on other sites.

What have I learnt?I have learned how to upload my PowerPoints onto the website, and how to embed them into my blog posts. This was my first account on this website, so I also learned how to set it up, and where to find the code that’s specific for each file.

Slideshare

If you want to upload a file onto the website, you will be presented with this menu. Adding a good title, a description and some tags will make your presentation easier to find for other users.

When you’re done, you need to click the ‘publish’ button. You will then be given a unique code which you can use to embed the file into your website.