Practicing Manual Mode In the Garden

Top B&W & color photo:
6.3 Ap & 1/100 speed
Hand cupping chin: 3.5 Ap & 1/80 speed
Arm reaching: 7.1 Ap & 1/100 speed
Spaghetti Sauce face Bottom: 5.6 Ap & 1/100 speed
I usually shoot in AV: Aperture Priority, but this time as I did that I saw my shutter speed go crazy to 1/1000 super fast & I was not getting enough light. I was confused because before my speed was usually 1/60 and would adjust fine. So I decided to go MANUAL. I have shot manual film 35mm for many years, but feel a little rusty. All of these images needed more light in post editing. I still need to learn how I can correct the white balance on my camera as I am shooting. I would prefer to get all lighting right as I am shooting rather then depend on Photo Shop to make even minor adjustments.

Spence's Farm, Chapel Hill N.C: Manual Mode

The B&W:
4.0 Ap. &
1/40 speed.

The color
headshot:
3.5 Ap.
1/15 speed.

Yesterday we went to the Harvest Fest at Spence's farm. I had great plans of getting beautiful Autumn photographs of Amelya. She was having a
blast running around as I volunteered. She came back to me with her face painted white with blood red lips. She said, "I'm a vampire mom!" so proud of herself. I realized that my dream photos will have to be more "realistic" photos. Later she saw her vampire face & hated it so she washed it off the best she could & later asked to get a rainbow & clouds, she is truly a natural hippy child. The day was overcast so it was perfect for evenly lit shots. I was using manual mode and had to slow down my shutter speed to 1/15 for all of these photos. Since I only have the kit lens that my Canon Rebel came with that seems to be my only option since my aperture only goes to 3.5 for this setting. The big problem is that Amelya needs to be perfectly still for the photo not to blur. Taking photos of kids & telling them to freeze just seems cruel! Ha!