Lots O' Pictures

I haven't posted a whole lot lately, so I apologize for that. But I have been having a lot of fun with the camera and a couple new trinkets I got for it. So here are loads of pics I took in the past two weeks.

First lots of baby love. Kolby is turning out to be my best model, he is cute and doesn't know to cover his face when I pull out my camera yet, unlike my other nephews and niece.






I got some extension tubes for my camera which let me take some macro shots, and I am having a lot of fun with them. Here are some close ups of flowers and our wedding rings I took this week.




I really like this one of Aidan and the edit I did on it.


That is all for this week, hope you like them!

The Speed of Shutter

In week two of the 2 Peas 12 Weeks to Better Photos coarse the lesson revolves around ISO and Shutter Speed.

ISO refers to the film speed, how fast the sensor will capture your image. The ISO you choose with depend a lot on what the light is like where you are shooting. Bright sunny day out? ISO 100 will do. Overcast? 200-400 might be better. Indoors you'll most likely need betweeon 800-1600 depending on hor much light you have availible.

Shutter Speed is how long the camera shutter remains open to expose your sensor. It is measured in fractions of seconds (I know I hate fractions too). The slowest you can usually go without a tri-pod is 1/60 of a second and you can go all the way up to 1/1000 of a second. The length of time your shutter is open determines how much of the action in your shot is blurred or frozem. To go more in-depth with wither ISO or Shutter Speed and how they work check out the link to the 2 peas lesson.

Ok so for this lesson they do what is called the kitchen sink test. You are supposed to take pics of the water running from your faucet in your kitchen sink at different shutter speeds. However, my kitchen is directly under three HUGE pine trees in my back yard, so it never gets enough light. Instead I did mine in the laundry room where there is more nautral light, but still not a ton (which ends up being a problem). So let's call this the washing machine test.



For this picture I had my Shutter Speed set to 1/80th of a second. As you can see the water is completely blurred. Slower Shutter Speed = blurred action.


For the second one I had the Shutter Speed set at 1/800th of a second. The fall of the water has been frozen, you can see the ripples and a few droplets. Higher Shutter Speed = action is frozen. You'll also notice the exposure in this one is also a lot darker than in the first. I couldn't take the shutter speed up any further than 1/800 or I would have had a VERY underexposed pic. Also, because of my lighting issues I had to set my ISO very to 1600, this makes the picture very grainy. That is the price you pay for higher ISOs.




Annnnnd my favorite pics of the week:

This is Watson's "I will tolerate you silly humans and that idiot of a beast you call a dog" face. (I was also having fun in photoshop)


A Sweet moment between Meg and Kolby


Speaking of sweet some Red Velvet Cupcake goodness


And the goof ball himself telling me to quit it with the camera already.

Playing with F-Stops

Welcome to my Photo Blog! I purchased my first Digital SLR camera last week, a Canon Rebel T1i. I am slowly but surely getting to know how to use it, and decided I would use a blog to keep track of my progress and share my stumblings through photography with my friends and family.

Part of my learning process is a 12 week course some wonderful ladies on a discussion forum suggested to me. You can find the course here if you are interested in photography too. I come into this with a little bit of knowledge about photography thanks to my college education in Film Production/Studies, but that was six - ten years ago (feeling old now), and the old trap isn't what she used to be, so I am basically just starting over from zero.

Here are the results of the first few days with my camera. The first assignment from the 12 week tutorial was to play with the appeture or f-stops on the camera. Check out the lesson for more details, but basically the appeture dictates how much light is let through to expose the sensor in the camera, and in turn how much of your frame is in focus. Here are the fruits of that experiment:


On this first picture I had my f-stop set to 3.5, the widest setting availible under my conditions. As you can see the background (fence, house, church, etc.) are all very blurry. Most of the beer bottles are pretty blurry too. The only one in crisp focus is the Wacko bottle (yea I picked that one on purpose).

In this picture I had my f-stop set to f/8. the background is a little more crisp here, and the Peg Leg and Terrapin bottles are pretty well in focus also.

In the last one I had an f/22. Everything in the frame is more or less in focus. See all those ugly telephone wires in the background, and the fire escape on the church? Not pretty. All of the bottles are crisp as well,


So this is a pretty decent demenstration of how the f-stop works. The lower the number = larger appeture opening = more light let in = less in the frame is in focus. The higher the f-stop number = smaller appeture opening = less light let in = more in the frame is in focus. Do I know why this happens? Heck no, but it does!

And now for your viewing pleasure, here are my four favorite pictures I took this week. Oh and get used to pics of my dogs, you'll most likely see A LOT of them.
(f/3.5, ISO1600, 1/100)

These two are pictures of Cicada Shells that are now hanging on our trees, plants, and fireplace in the backyard. They are weird looking little buggers, but make for interesting pictures. (f/5.6, focal length = 55mm, ISO400, 1/125)

(f/5.6, ISO400, Focal length = 55mm, 1/125)