All's Quiet on the Western Front

This week has been a quiet one. I am still working on sorting photos and files and trying to make sure I have everything backed up and categorized. It's not very exciting to talk about, but it is fun to go through and look at some of the photos from the last several years.

I also decided just for fun to do Fat Mumslim's February instagram photo challenge. Except since I don't have cell service, and therefore don't have internet on my phone, I can't do the Instagram part of it. So I am just taking the photos and I may post a few of them here...or I may not. I do have the first few days. Also, since I am not using Instagram, I am doing editing with pixlr, which has a lot of fun borders, textures and colors. I don't usually edit my photos at all. I kind of like the way they look without it. I kind of take photos with the idea that I want it right so I don't have to edit it. But with these, they will be edited to the max. I am having fun experimenting with all the different choices.

So grab a beer (inspired by Kim) and check out what I've been doing!

First, the Feb Photo Challenge. You can find the entire list HERE. 

 Day One: My View

Day Two: Words

Day Three: Hands

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"Mexican Fiesta Monday" or "Trying to eat foods of all colors"

I ran that race. They gave us an interesting medal.

I experimented with my Macro extension tubes. 

I still don't really know what I am doing. 

Help. 

Remember Papa P? Yep, he's still around. 

And now he is a victim of my macro extension tubes. Wooohhahahaa.

 I went on a really nice walk with the ladies. 

A just got her bangs cut for the first time. So cute!

The snow melted, so I am back on the trails again! 

This week it has been really hard to get motivated for running!

I don't know why. The weather couldn't be more perfect. 

Since today is also the Superbowl, let me leave you with this interesting calorie cost comparison. You can find the entire list HERE.

- Blimpie's Super Stacked Blimpie Best = 313 Mins of Chanting, Pointing, Waving a Foam-Hand

- Three Pigs in a Blanket = Playing Catch With a Football for 68 Minutes (NONSTOP)

- Six Bottles of Budweiser = Doing "the Wave" 4,280 Times 


Eat smart everyone! Or else you will be doing the wave a LOT of times! 

What is your go-to Superbowl snack food? Are you doing any challenges in February?

3:12 White Balance

Welcome to Week Three of 12 Weeks To Better Photos! This week our task was to learn about White Balance. Even with a point and shoot, this is a fun experiment to try! The button should look like this one on the left, the little plus and minus in a box. Don't forget to go to Kate's page where you can link up after you've tried this experiment! HERE is the pdf for week three. It's also not too late to try weeks one and two as well! The links will be up until the end of the 12 week course!

source

Here are the common WB settings (missing from this list is Auto and Custom, which is different for each camera). In case you were wondering, Florescent is office or warehouse type lighting. Tungsten is the normal yellow bulbs you use at home. I think the others are self explanatory. 

Our task this week was to try all the different settings to see what the differences were. We were also tasked to learn how to set and use our custom setting (which is not on the above menu) which you have to do using a white piece of paper (so your camera knows what "white" should look like in the current light).

The question to answer was: What can I do to combat color cast in indoor photos? 

The subject once again was, you guessed it, Papa P. But today for you penguin lovers out there, we have a surprise guest... MAMA P (I know you were wondering about Papa, but don't let the top hat and bow tie fool you)!! Here they are, in all their penguin glory, in 5 settings: Custom, Auto, Tungsten, Florescent and Sunny.

Notice they are each a little different in coloring. Some are more yellowish, some more bluish. Actually, since Papa and Mama are dark and the chair behind them is dark, this is not a great example. I just wanted to introduce you to Mama. Here is a better example. My white shirt has a better contrast.

So now you see. Sunny is a little too yellow; tungsten is more blue and florescent is more pink. Custom is supposed to balance out the white, but I may have set it wrong, becuase I still prefer Auto. I definitely need more practice. This is a good experiment though becuase even though I did not show my face, it too would be...yellowish, bluish or pinkish. And nobody wants that. It is important to have the right White Balance, or you may look jaundiced, sad or drunk.

Which one do you think is the "truest white"? Have you experimented with White Balance? Do you have a favorite photo you'd like to share? Put your answers and the link in the comments below!

Join us next Thursday for Week Four: Flash.

2:12 ISO and Shutter Speed

Hello everyone and welcome to Week Two of the 12 week photo course, which focuses on ISO and Shutter Speed.  Hopefully you have joined in this week. If not, it's not too late. You can find the assignment for  Week Two HERE. Also, if you want to catch up, the pdf for Week One is here and you can still link up for the assignment over at Twenty-Six To Life. <---- click there to get to the week one link up!  Click HERE to go to her site for this week's link up!

This week the question was: When should I use a faster shutter speed?

I often shoot in Shutter Priority (the little S) Mode, since it allows me to manipulate the light by changing the shutter speed and ISO. However, I always need extra tips and it was nice to go through step by step instead of just playing around with it when I am trying to take important photos! 

Our assignment was to put an object (I used a glass) in the sink under running water and try changing your shutter speed (and consequently your ISO) in order to see what happens. Here is what I ended up with. Excuse the quality, or lack of it.

For the first photo, I used a slow shutter, which gives the water a silky effect. However, the light was hard to control. If I upped the ISO, it was too bright, but as you can see, this one is not really light enough.

The second. Better light, not so silky water. You can start to see the bubbles, which means the higher shutter speed is stopping the motion a little.

Here we have a faster shutter speed, which means you have to put the ISO up even more or else you don't get enough light in that little bit of time. Notice the bubbles are more pronounced.

In this last one, you can see the individual water drops. However, the shutter speed is so fast, barely any light is getting in, so I had to bump the ISO WAY up, which causes the photo to be grainy.

After we were done playing in the sink, the assignment was to use your manual setting and your light meter to find a good light balance, becuase as you can see from the (bad) photos above, the light is the most important element. 

Below, once again, is Papa P. He will probably be a regular feature. He holds nice and still. (click over to Kate's site and see who HER regular feature is!)

After doing the assignment, I experimented indoors and out to find a good balance of light. 

Inside: Slow shutter, high ISO

Outside: Fast shutter / low ISO

So, what I have decided is that I need more practice, especially with moving objects, as the shutter speed will change a lot when the movement changes a lot.

Have you experimented with different shutter speeds? 

Have you used the manual setting on your camera?

Join us next week for Week Three: The Color of Light

1:12 Aperture

I think I mentioned before that Kate suggested linking up for a 12 week fun photo course online. And it's FREE. Since I am a gourmet hoarder of the first kind, I jumped on this. Free classes? An excuse to play with my camera? I am in! We will be linking up every Thursday with what we have learned for the previous week. This week's post will be about Week One: Aperture.

Instead of my repeating what she has already said, you can hop over to Kate's post where she has links to PDFs for all 12 weeks of the course. Or you can look at WEEK ONE here. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, it always helps to have focus (no pun intended). I, for example, already know a little about aperture. However, it never hurts to get in some extra practice AND having an assignment makes me more likely to get out and experiment!

So here’s the question that week one wants us to answer:

Just how much of your photo do you want to be in focus?

I started by playing around a little.

This is Papa P. He has been featured here in the past. 

Notice in photo ONE, the background is blurred. This is becuase I was using a wide open aperture, or a low f/stop.  In TWO, I used a higher f/stop. You can see the background is still blurred, but you have more of the photo in focus than in number one. In THREE, I used a very high f/stop (small aperture). This makes even more of the photo become in focus. Note not only the curtains, but the carpet. In one, its blurred; in two, only the edges are blurred; in three, none is blurred.

I am not going to go into all the camera mumbo jumbo (unless you want me to, you can email me or check out week one's PDF) but basically the lower the f/stop, the less of the photo will be in focus. The higher the f/stop, the more of the photo will be in focus. In a nutshell.

Here again, we have a low f/stop in the first frame (blurred background), going higher as we move to the right (more of the photo is in focus). 

And again, low to high f/stop. 

I take a ton of photos using LOW f/stop. I love macro shots and shots with a blurred background. Many of those photos look like this: 

So my goal for myself was to take some photos using a smaller aperture (a larger f/stop). 

So here are some of the results.

It was fun but I still need more practice! 

Lessons learned?

First, I had to re-remember that the bigger the aperture, the more light that gets into the lens. So, when you are shooting with your aperture wide open, you don't need your ISO to be as high or your shutter speed to be as low. The opposite goes for the small aperture. I had to bump up my ISO and lower my shutter speed for some of them. (they call this the "exposure triangle")

Also, I still need to practice more, as I tend to "set it and forget it" like Ron Popeil. I need to be conscious of what my settings are set on and remember to change them! Ansel Adams is well known for his landscape shots, which he used a very a very small aperture for. I strive to be more like him! (He used f/64!!)

Join us for next week's link up where we will be talking about: ISO and Shutter Speed.

Have you experimented with aperture? What f/stop do you like best? If not, just as an observer, which photos are more pleasing to your eye? Blurred or not blurred background?