Practicing Aperture

Aimee at It's Overflowing is doing an online photography course every Friday 'cause she's like awesome and stuff.  

This weeks assignment was to use aperture priority only.  

Everything else on auto.  

Start at the lowest aperture the lens will allow, then take the same pic at every f-stop till we get to the highest aperture our lens will go.  

For my Rebel T3i kit lens that was 3.5 to 22. 

I won't post every ding dang stop, even though I'm sure you would all be like crazy wild to see this ball of hemp twine over and over.  

I mean, what's not to like?

As it is, I did it collage-like:

Here's where the rubber meets the road....a comparison of f/3.5 (lowest) to f/22 (highest)  

See how the the tail is out of focus in the first, but clear in the second (even though the whole pic is blurry cause after all those f/stops my arm was tired, ok?)  

That's what bumping aperture will do for ya.  

Hey-howdy-hey.  

And this is Bogart, the big black dog, who is so very patient with me whilst I wield this goofy looking black thing in his face all the time. 

 It doesn't even smell like beef.  

Thanks again to Aimee!

Next week we play with shutter speed.

You'll watch in amazement while my boys swing punches at each other while I turn the magic dial.

A quick shutter speed might just be the parenting tool I've longed for, as I've heard with practice you can actually 'stop action'.

Wonders never cease.

Soap in Shadow.

My fabulously talented daughter Maddie is working on her senior project.

She's getting a degree in graphic design, and using my handmade soap as the subject of her entire project.

Which meant I needed to make a bazillion bars of the stuff to be cut and stamped and packaged per her specifications.

Last night we got down to work slicing them up and using the custom stamp she had made.

This afternoon I decided to fiddle with my new camera, and while wandering aimlessly around the house looking for what to shoot, I saw the sun falling just so on my soap babies curing on their racks amidst the mess I hadn't yet cleaned up.  

There's beauty in chaos....at least that's what I tell myself.

I learned a lot about my camera while snapping off these shots.  

Lots about aperture, shutter speed and ISOs gone wonky.

And that sometimes luck just plays your hand and you say 'hey, thanks.'.

And that the art of photography is just that....art.  

Some will like what you like, see it like you do, appreciate it.

Some can't get past the 'technical difficulties' in each picture.  

That's ok.

I'm just a novice dSLR owner after all.

But me, I'm all about raw reality with a few wee tweaks in picasa.  

Mostly some crafty crops.

Don't take much to make me happy.

I was just fascinated with how the light fell on these simple, rustic bars of soap.  

I was challenged by how to capture what I saw into a digital image. 

How to use my camera to add some blur, snag some crisp, tight  focal points.

How to simply and artfully record the organic shapes and colors onto my memory card.

All these were shot with my Canon EOS Rebel T3i with the kit lens that came with the camera.

I love how the process of paring down newly cured soap with their raw, pure essence was captured.

And I'm glad I noticed the beauty of a stark, wintry afternoon sun kissing the chaos on my counter.

What 'beauty in the mundane' have you noticed recently that took you by surprise?

Taking Great Pics: Part 1

I've been researching camera options since we got our $150 canon earlier last year.  It takes horrible pictures in 'auto' mode, and though it's fine for the blog, I'd like better quality for family pictures.  I've read up on cameras from about $400 down to $200 as that's our budget.   Here's what I'm going to look at today:

Canon SX 130 is

Anyway, in doing so, I've also been reading photography blogs and forums, learning about the settings Canon offers.  One of the most helpful has been Ken Rockwell.  He gives easy to understand, common sense advice on using both dslr and p&s cameras.

Several of the things I fiddled with today were the Flash and Exposure settings.  I've read on most blogs to turn off your flash when taking indoor shots, and I've had reasonable success doing so except in my family room.  I got a cheapo tree lamp with two lamps, and one of them promptly fritzed out. It's useless now, but before I decide to go replace it, I was curious about whether just using different setting with my in-camera flash would produce the same kind of shots  for family photos (so I don't have to haul out a lamp tree everytime I want to take a picture for non-blogging!)


I used Ken's preferred default settings for my canon this morning....
Used a tripod. ISO and White Balance were set to 'auto', and I used the 'vivid' setting.
I did these in the darkest room of my house, with an overhead light and small side table lights on.  It's a cloudy winter morning out of the only north facing window in the room.  I didn't touch these in picasa or any other editing program...these babies are straight out of my camera.

First set:  Shot about 5 ft from subject in 'normal' mode.  Flash was set to 'slow synchro', Exposure at '0'.

Next I just moved the exposure to -1 which darkens the flash a bit:

Then I moved the exposure all the way to -2, which I think gives the best result.

This next set is without a flash.  First, exposure set to '0'....very similar to the above shot using the slow synchro, but cooler tones.  I like the warmth the flash gave better, but this is pretty good.

Then I moved the exposure up to +1...overexposed for sure.

For funsies (pull out yer sunglasses), here's no flash and +2 exposure:

Lastly, I set the camera flash to 'ON', to see the difference between the regular flash and the 'slow synchro' flash.  This is exposure set back to '0' again.  Compared to the first shot I took, this is much more harsh and greyed.

Exposure -1. Ick.

Exposure -2:  More ick.

So, bottom line for shooting in low light without a lamp tree:  Try the slow synchro setting.  Ken says the slow synchro is best for getting background brightness indoors (slower shutter speed).  I agree.  He also says the trick is to get the flash to match the ambient light already available, and using the -2 exposure setting with the slow synchro gave me the best match (this is what Ken uses as well).  I could actually see this on my LCD screen.  Different times of the day, or changing the lighting in the room would necessitate using different exposures.  One note:  Ken also uses gel filters, which I may experiment with as well, even on my wee in-camera flash.

Next up I used my Macro setting.  I did the same grouping of shots as above: First used the slow synchro and  fiddled with the exposures. Here's '0' exposure: Nice shot, but too 'flashy' for my taste I think.  Would prolly depend on the subject (ie: less glitter and gold might respond well to the warmer tones of slow synchro).

At -1:

-2:

Next I shut the flash OFF.  Exposure back to '0'.  This is the best setting for Macro IMO, as you'll soon see:

I upped the exposure +1: Not bad....kinda a pretty, artsy shot:

Exposure +2: Ick.

Then I turned the flash on, started back at '0' exposure...pretty standard type of shot seen on many blogs.

Exposure -1:

Exposure -2: Um, no.

So for macro shots, no flash, exposure '0'.  Maybe a +1 for an artsy shot.  For cooler toned subjects, the slow synchro might work as well.

Ok last round of shots is at my camera's wide angle and about 15 ft from the subject matter.  Again, starting with the slow synchro flash and '0' exposure:

Darkened the exposure to -1:

Then darkened to -2: Again, as in the first grouping with the beadboard doors, this setting is my favorite.

Next, flash OFF, exposure back to '0': And again, like the door pics, this is a decent shot, but I prefer the warmness the slow synchro addes to the pic above.

Exposure upped to +1:

Get out those sunglasses again +2:

Finally, set flash to regular ON.  Start back with exposure '0': Harsh and greyed.  Also too dark.

Darkened to -1:

And a yukky -2:

So what did I learn with these experiments?
That I'll be using the SLOW SYNCHRO flash option and a -2 exposure for low light, indoor shots of family in NORMAL mode.  Regular flash=bad pictures.  0 flash=iffy shots unless you're in macro mode and your subject is warm-toned.

My next experiments will be playing with White Balance.  Do you find this helpful?  Of course everyone's camera is different, but this gives you an idea of what to start fiddling with first to get better pics for your family and blog.

Celebrating my 1 year blogiversary!

Tomorrow, actually.  I can't even believe it.  To celebrate, I bought you all a big bouquet of flowers.

Then I started playing in Picasa....you know, with all my spare time.  I think playing on the 'puter (blogging and editing pictures) is my new zone-out time.  Used to be decorating mags...still is at times...but with the 'puter I can actually get creative instead of passively scanning. Anyway....

I picked up some pretty milk glass at a thrift last week and created some rosy vignettes.  I need to tell you straight up, I use a $150 point and shoot.  Nothing fancy.  I use the 'macro' setting a lot, never use flash, and I'm still learning how to hold the ding dang thing still when I actually click the picture.  Picasa then adds the fun effects.  I'll tell you what I did with each one.

Here's what I started with.  I just cropped and brightened this a bit.  It was taken in my kitchen under (hideous, soon-to-be-changed-out) florescent lights.

I used the macro setting for this one.  I also clicked 'I'm feeling lucky' option in picasa under 'basic fixes' which adjusts colors and contrast.  Sometimes it turns out pretty like this.  Other times, well, not so much. 

Macro setting, just cropped it and used the tuning tab to warm it up a bit on the color temperature slide.

I moved this into the sunlight, snapped in macro setting.  In picasa, I warmed it in tuning, then used 'soft focus' and 'glow' under the effects tab.

Again, macro then edited with a slight crop and a touch of warmth. I LURVE the creamy pale yellow and pink!

This shot I adjusted the 'fill light' in the tuning tab.  Cool effect....

Yellow lilies and mums...you know the routine: macro, crop and warm. I added some 'glow' to the mum.

Some more pretties.  Like my beloved bird's eggs, I think roses are sublime.

In this shot I didn't warm it.  See how the pinks have a blue undertone?  I like some of my pictures to have the cooler tones, but generally I warm them up at least a smidge.

This one I played with 'saturation'....isn't it awesome?  (I see that nodding head....)

If you happened to pop over this weekend, you might have seen this collage already.  I made it just before the lightning struck and I realized that as much as I LOVE roses, my robin's nest fits better with what I'm trying to do here on the old blogger-roo.  Kinda funny I went full circle almost to the day with the blog, eh?  Still....I'm smitten with this header, and collages are so fun to do.

So that's it....a bouquet of pink picasa roses with a touch of yellow to celebrate ::cottage instincts:: 1 year anniversary~from me to you. Thanks ever-so-much for joining me on this wee spot on the web.