Getting To Know You

Getting to know all about you....Getting to like you.....

Ok I'll stop singing now.

Here's what I know about myself- I may have creative ADD meaning I may go from project to project or medium to medium but i NEVER do more than one thing at a time.  If I have a project or deadline looming overhead, I'm almost paralyzed to do anything else until that thing is done and off my shoulders.  It is the main reason I had stopped taking custom orders years ago, I would find myself procrastinating to get an order done and wouldn't be able to do anything else until it got done. See the dilemma?

It's my own personal order out of chaos.

My mind goes like this-

Get the taxes done then I can-

Get the fatbook pages done then I can-

Work on the trades and when they're finished i can-

Ok you get the idea.

Well, I have been trying in the background to learn my camera and lens and all the nuances of both.

I had signed up for a class which i never did one thing for, sooo I decided right now with everything off my plate at the moment to finish the books I was reading and spend some time getting to know my camera better.

Our weeping cherry tree is in full bloom and I was very happy to see today that it survived the awful weather we had for the past few days without getting beat to pieces.  With the sun shining and the blue skies, it made for the perfect subject to work with.

I knew I was a better photographer and the camera was more capable (or the camera was better and the photographer more capable) than what the evidence of pictures was showing me.  I feel the fault was with relying solely on Auto.

I know the best way to learn something is just to do it. Play with the settings and dials and buttons until it gets really familiar and then try to strike a balance between the aperture, the ISO and shutter speed until you get the results you are looking for. Refer to the manual. Again. And again.

Really look at something. Really see.  Then frame it up in the camera.

Change direction,  perspective,  capture the light in different ways.

I have decided that choosing the ISO and shooting in aperture priority mode is what works best for me to give me the feeling I used to have shooting 35mm.

These pictures are as shot, no post processing with photoshop, that is another whole subject. 

I think if you get the fundamentals down of good photography, then photoshop is a wonderful tool to use for creative embellishment, but one thing at a time, remember?

Equal Time, A Book Review And Some Bragging

It's a dreary, cold, rainy day here on Delmarva so I decided to pull some nice Springy, bright sunshiney day pictures out of the archives to lighten things up a bit and to give equal time to my point and shoot.

For the past 3 years I have been using a point and shoot, also known as a super zoom, the Panasonic Lumix FZ-18.  Now there's a lot to be said for this little workhorse. First off the pricetag, way under a DSLR at less than $300. makes it very appealing. I don't think twice about throwing it into my bag and heading out the door.   Next it has a 18x optical zoom lens which is the equivalent of 28-504 ! As you know, a camera is only as good as the glass you have on it (lens) and in this case Panasonic teamed up with Leica and it has a Leica lens which accepts filters and attachments as well.  I always shoot with a polarizer on it.  It's the closest i'll  EVER come to owning a Leica!

Of course by now it's already obsolete, they change models faster than I can keep up so I think the replacement for it is now the FZ-40 which has a 24x zoom 14.1 MP and video and a few new features.  If you are considering a camera in this category I can't recommend this one highly enough, it has served me well.

1/125       ISO100    f 4.2

1/500      ISO 200    f 5.6

Just look at the incredible detail on these dragonflies

1/320      ISO 200      f 4.2

Let's give the girl a hand

1/160      ISO 100      f 4.2

Can you see the butterfly within the dragonfly?

1/400     ISO 160  f 5

1/250      ISO100    f 5

1/250     ISO100    f 5.6

I love close-up nature shots

1/200    ISO 125     f 4

1/250    ISO 100  f 5

One last look

1/200    ISO 100    f 4.5

Can you see the lady wearing the sunhat?

1/40      ISO 400     f 3.6

Ferry arriving in Ocracoke, N.C.

And now on to the book review.  

My muse is all about photography right now, what with the new camera and all and taking the class at Big Picture Classes with Elisha Snow. So while I was in B&N the other day picking up the latest copy of Artful Blogging, this book jumped off the shelf and into my arms and boy am I ever glad it did!

It is one of the most well written, easy to comprehend books on photography and digital cameras I have come across in a long time.

It covers everything beginning with a breakdown of the camera and it's functions, improving picture taking, design, light, people, nature and post processing. It's also not so technical as to make me read and reread a paragraph , it is written with the average camera user in mind.  Great book. Great inspiration.

Last of all, I wish i could post the picture but alas it is copyrighted- but I invite all of you to jump on over here to see a picture my brother Andrew submitted into a photography contest at BetterPhoto.com and received the editor's choice award! WooHoo!

They also have a lot of cool looking classes i just may have to look into in the future.  Happy shooting!