Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

This is my POTD for the Two Peas message board. I took my 6 year old to a roadside location with pretty cat tails. She was quite the model, full of personality and her own pose ideas.

I will go ahead and share some of the other shots, I’m curious if other people would choose the same favorite. I’ve taken creative license with the last one because it was way under exposed but my husband and I just loved her pose and expression. I was hoping to make the “washed out” look seem on purpose!

I was driving to MOPS today I noticed some beautiful cat tails on the side of the road. We drive by them every day and I always think they are pretty. But today it actually registered above my subconscious thoughts.

As we were heading back Raeleigh was in a good mood, and she was in a cute outfit, so I thought why not try. I told her we’d go get her some ice cream if she gave me some pretty smiles. She agreed so we went to get the camera and came back. I drove in front of the cat tails and set a little blanket on the hood of the car.

Raeleigh had to be reminded about the ice cream once or twice and then the smiles turned back on like a light bulb. She insisted on holding her puppy, if I wanted the shot (instead of a bunch like this second one) I had to agree to the puppy or the photo shoot would turn into a three year old tantrum on the side of a busy road. As it turns out she had a good idea because I really like the color combo of pink and aqua on the straw colored background.

I’m having some issues with focus. I’m sure it is user error. After I finish my 12 weeks to better photos exercise I’ll be able to hopefully evaluate if it is the lens or me. This is as sharp as I’ve been able to get in situations like this with my active three year old. Also, this was way under exposed, I’m thankful for being able to fix it in RAW. I’m hoping once I learn to control shutter speed AND aperture my focus issue will be resolved!

We were racing the sunset to Cadillac Ranch on a drive into Amarillo and the sun won. But we got there on the tail end of dusk. My new Nikon 50mm 1.4 G saved the day. I was able to get a few passable shots. When I say passable I mean for my scrapbooks and to play around with in Photoshop with artistic filters.

An expert will have to let me know if I’d had a tripod or played with my shutter speed settings a little more if I could have had a chance at sharper images.

This is the one of the first photos I took facing into the sun. The camera took it at 1/15^th of a second after I set the aperture at f/1.4 and the ISO at 800.

This photo was taken on Aperture priority with 800 ISO at f/1.4. The lens certainly did its job on letting in the light because you cannot tell by this picture that it was actually nearly dark. With an auto setting for shutter speed it took 1/8^th of a second. It is fuzzy, but it will still be fun to play with. Maybe around Mother’s day I’ll share it in a higher resolution after applying an artistic filter.

This next photo was taken when the sun was all but gone. I had to bump the ISO up to 3200 and the camera took it at 1/20^th of a second. But hey, we got the shot.

This last picture was taken as we were leaving. I couldn’t see well and didn’t realize I cut Uncle Eric’s feet off too tightly. I rather like the lighting of this photo, too bad it is noisy at 1/30^th of a second and 3200 ISO.

This photo was taken in Gladstone, NM on Hwy 412. I think the town of Gladstone is basically the little store we were in, which also served at the Post Office with all of three occupied post office boxes. I’m not sure if this is a good example of Bokeh for the lens, but that is what I was trying to accomplish!

Funny story, the race against the sun made quite an impression on my 6 year old as we flew through Amarillo talking between cars on walkie talkies about whether we’d make it in time. The next evening in Angel Fire I grabbed my daughter and told her I had the sun right where I wanted it and if she could hurry really fast I wanted to take a picture of her. She was in awe of her mom’s command of the sun that day, and said “Wow, mom, really, how did you do that? How did you get the sun to go where you wanted it?” Here is the sweet shot of Danielle.

And one I took about 30 minutes earlier of her Uncle and his girlfriend. It is a great example of what you can do with the lens portrait-wise, taken at 800 ISO at f/1.4 in the shade. But it also shows how two people in the portrait would have to be positioned equidistant from the lens to both be in focus! It is my favorite shot of the day.

OK, so even though I had the Nikon D90 practically the first week it was available and now bought the brand new Nikon 50mm 1.4S AF lens I just want you to know I won’t and can’t always be spending like this! This camera was a long-planned purchase, and I still hope to finish out my kit with a zoom lens and a flash. That will probably be another thousand dollars, so you won’t see me purchasing them for a while since I’m currently unemployed!

Thanks to advice from my friend and professional/photography mentor Stephen Trainor, I decided my first priority was a lens capable of natural light photography.

My kit lens’ aperture only goes down to f/3.5. This one goes down to f/1.4. The lower the number the more light the lens is capable of letting in. When taking indoor candids you are usually dealing with low light.

Here is an example taken with my new lens (sorry I was too lazy to change it out for the demo) but I purposely left the aperture at f/4.0, close to my kit lens’ limit. I did not use the flash. Even if I had tried to avoid the flash the other day, so that I wouldn’t miss that Nutcracker moment, it would have still been too dark as you can see with this shot.

Now, here is a shot taken moments later, properly exposed at f/2.8 aperture and 800 ISO (worked best with all the examples below). Also without the flash. Big difference.

Just to show you the lowest aperture, here it is at f/1.4. Now the highlights are blown out (over exposed/too light.) But, in some rooms of my house, with less available light, I could definitely go down to f/1.4. And, a funny aside, I took a shot of the back of my husband’s throat today at f/1.4 aperture and it turned out great! I won’t go into it, but suffice to say I figured he better get some immediate usage out of my latest purchase.

BTW, if you are seeing some yellow stuff on my children’s faces, it is evidence that this photo shoot was completely impromptu. KFC mac and cheese and an occasional runny nose. It wasn’t so obvious to me until I had it on screen, but I wasn’t about to go re-shoot everything! Besides my models were growing uncooperative!

I’ll close with a nice (please ignore the cheese I just noticed) headshot of Danielle taken at f/2.4. And one from today taken of Raeleigh (clean face, yay!) at f/1.6.

I hope to try out some snow pics with my new lens next. If I have any great lessons learned I’ll be sure to share! Things are going to get busy around here, so if you don’t see anything from me for a week or so “Merry Christmas!”

Last night my husband said, your readers are probably wanting you to get back to scrapbooking! So today I thought I’d use my photography to create a card.

I printed the photo on matte paper so it wouldn’t be shiny and compete with the embossed lettering. The edges of the photo and card are distressed with Dew Drop’s “Galaxy Gold.”

This verse is Psalms 46:10, one of my favorites when I’m in a contemplative mood and enjoying nature. It is typed in Alphalicious except for “and” which is word art from Storybook. The type was welded in Cricut Design Studio software. The new nudge up and down arrows made resizing my grouped letters for placement on the photo a breeze!

After cutting it out on a dark yellow card stock I laid it down on a scrap piece of paper and pressed a Versamark stamp pad on it several times until well covered. Then I embossed it with Stampendous “Jeweled Gold.”

Simple and elegant!

hOW did I NOT know that DRAGONflies EAT ladybugs?

I was playing with my camera today and witnessed this dragonfly eat a ladybug from start to finish.

Wildlife is pretty sparse at the Jenks Riverwalk, but I managed a few interesting pictures and made a Tabblo. My husband said he could tell by the pictures from today how much better of a camera my Nikon D90 SLR is compared to the Canon Powershot point and shoot!

Yesterday it was raining here in Oklahoma, like much of the country, thanks to Ike. So, I spent my free time playing with my new Copic Markers. I’m not finished with the card design, but I’m using the in-progress stamped images to show off my camera.

Now, it is important to be clear that I’ve re-sized these to 72 dpi which is WAY under the original resolution for either camera. But, that is what I normally do to process shots for my blog and I want to see what kind of improvement the camera adds to the workflow.

This first shot was taken with my old Canon. The stamp is “Party Animals” by Penny Black. My daughter’s Kindergarten class is called the “Giraffes”, and I thought I’d make a batch of birthday cards. First of all, on my Copics, I am loving having 72 colors to choose from! And they are a dream to work with. You will be hearing a lot more from me as I learn to work with the Copics. In fact, I’m taking a certification class from the famous Product Manager “Marianne” in a few weeks. I’m showing six sets of colors here. I colored the dog in warm yellows, the giraffe in cool yellows and browns, the turtle in a wide variety of greens, the present and ladybug in pinks and reds, the balloon in blues and purples, and the cat in blues and greys.

This second shot was taken with my new Nikon DSLR. In the full resolution images the noise factor in the Canon was very obvious. And the level of sharpness improvement with the Nikon was easy to see. Now that they are both downsized to 72 dpi a discerning eye can still tell which photo is better.  Look at the focus especially on the eyes of the giraffes and look at the noise in the wall on either side of the illustrations.

In the close up images it is very apparent which is taken with the Nikon. Now, the Nikon does have manual focus capability and I thought I’d have to use it. But, it turns out that both of these shots were taken with auto-focus, and I didn’t even have to coax the Nikon along!

See the clarity difference?! And the color difference?! I’ll be doing a ton less tweaking of the color and contrast in Photoshop! The only problem is that now you can see where I colored outside the line! I didn’t even realize I’d done that on the giraffe or I would have cleaned it up with a white gel pen. That will teach me to start wearing my glasses. I only need them to read medicine bottles, well and color I suppose.

The reason for the improvement is not the pixel ratio of the camera. The biggest difference is the sensor size of the cameras. Any DSLR would make this impact in low light situations where a flash would blow out your highlights. But, I’m quite happy with my Nikon choice!

Yesterday was a big day for me. I got my new Nikon D90 camera AND my new Copic markers all in the same day! It was tough deciding which one to play with first. So, I played with the one that cost me more money! Besides, today was beautifully overcast for photography and tomorrow will be a perfect rainy inside day. I already have a stamping project planned.

So, I’m sharing my favorite two photos of the day, you can see some of my other favorites in a Tabblo I created.

And here are links to two videos that I filmed with the Nikon D90 DSLR and edited (ever so slightly) in Adobe Premiere:

1. The bird exhibit, “Feather Fest” is only open until October 1st at the Tulsa Zoo, it is a must see!
2. You get to feed the birds, here is a close up of “Pretty Bird” eating!

I’ve been in the market for a DSLR camera for about a year and a half. My friend Stephen will be glad I finally committed to a purchase and will stop asking him about his camera. My first digital camera was a Cannon PowerShot S3IS, about 1/3 of the cost of my new DSLR to be. I’ve really enjoyed it but have missed some shots and have not been willing to go back to film. Digital is just too convenient.

I’m tired of soft focus, inability to control focus (especially in macro shots), and less than stellar results in lower light indoor situations. When my dh sees the results I’ll get with my new camera he’ll get the picture! Special thanks to him for letting me make one last big purchase before I’m unemployed!

This video is about the new Nikon D90, the world’s first DSLR with video capability, 720p HD no less! As I understand it the camera can only do about 5 minutes of HD video. I have not read yet what the time limit is on web video quality, there are three resolution choices. Digital video is a capability I had on my Canon and I’m very excited that I will not have to give up that convenience.

After reviewing Chase Jarvis and Nikon’s microsites for the D90 I’m afraid my “wants” will not be forever satisfied by this camera and I’ll be “needing” a new lens or two! If you roll your mouse over the pictures on Chase Jarvis’ site it will show you what lens was used for each. I do believe though that this kit lens will keep me happy for quite some time. I hope that the 18-105mm lense gets as good of reviews as the 16-85mm lense. I’ll take a gamble because that little extra umph in the zoom will help me delay my next lens purchase. The 16 to 85mm lens gets rave reviews for tightness of focus ring and lack of slippage on the zoom when pointed downward, and more importantly focus on outer edges of the frame.

Circuit City shows the camera will be available on September 7th. I assume Amazon will have the same timeline and I hope to start posting some pictures by mid-September.