*From Katie's mind

Can you believe it?! My mean Mommy is making me pick up ALL these Cheerios. BY MYSELF. There must be a million of them. I don't care if I spilled them, I should not have to pick them up. I should be allowed to draw on the walls again to make them pretty. Or I should be allowed to wash my baby dolls with the water that is found in those things in the bathrooms. At the very least I should be allowed to go wash my hands and wash my hair again. Why does mommy keep stopping me from these things. I'm only helping her out.

These cheerios are a warning system so that she doesn't step on her papers.

I clean my babies so she doesn't have to.

I wash my hair hourly so that it's ALWAYS clean. After all it is the only sink in the house I can reach with the step stool, that MUST be why it's there.

She wanted art and pictures on the walls, so I helped with that. I don't understand why she told me it was wrong for me to draw on them.

She didn't even appreciate my help with shaking the wrinkles out of the clothes. I found them folded on the table and thought that the folds were giving them wrinkles.

I think instead of me taking all the naps, Mommy should take them. Perhaps then she would appreciate my help more.

Sometimes they do love each other

Samuel and Katie have a love-hate relationship. It's a true sibling relationship these days, and a healthy one. You know, the kind where Samuel is with me downstairs, Katie cries out and comes downstairs because she "fell" or something. She comes up to me and says, "Sha-mule make me fall." You know...THAT kind of relationship?! LOL

The other night, when it was time for bedtime activities and she didn't want to sit with me. She wanted to sit with Sha-mule in his chair, and share his blanket. She happily sat there with him...and rocked. Sha-mule didn't want to be rocking. Katie probably knew this, she wanted to rock. But they did behave together.

Except I told Samuel to come sit next to me when it was obvious he did NOT want to rock anymore and Katie refused to stop, and Katie screamed out, "NO!!! My Mama." Then she climbed down, ran over to me and wanted in my lap. Once in my lap she started pushing at Samuel to get away, then started maneuvering to where she was going to sit between us. I stopped her and told her that BOTH of them were welcome to sit with me, that I loved them both equally. She MUST share with Samuel just like he MUST share with her.

I got the evil eye. But she complied.

Baby steps...it's all baby steps.

It's finally happened...

It took her about 13 months, but she has finally done something that I've been waiting on. Waiting for months and months and months for her to do. Why? Because I knew that until she did this one thing, I would wonder if she was anxiously attached. I would wonder how much she still carried with her from her time in China. I would wonder how much the first 16 months of minimal stimulating toys affected her.

Did I mention that she's just about 2.5 years old? I've been waiting on this for months.

MONTHS.









Do you see what I see? If you've adopted internationally, I'm sure you do. If you have not, I'm sure you only see the messy messy room. She is playing with toys. She is playing with toys ALONE in her room.

Do you see - the doctor's kit next to the open doors of the doll crib? She was doctoring the babies...and changing their clothes and diapers (hint to those out there, buy stock in baby doll diapers at the rate she's going through them). The Little People town was played with. The kitchen food was spread all around the room. The First dollhouse was pulled out of the closet and put in the middle of the room (she evidently could not find the pieces to it, so it was abandoned there). The tea cart? Oh she wheels that around the upstairs for multiple tea parties with babies that are sporadically placed around the house.

Imaginative play. Play with toys appropriately. INDEPENDENT play.

The evidence of this brought tears to my eyes...the first 5 times. I'm quickly developing the reaction most parents have when greeted with a bedroom that looks like this after just 15 minutes from when it was spotlessly clean. ;)

A momentuous event has occurred!

*point and shoot again - ignore the mess on the table behind them*

This is Samuel's NEW bicycle! It's 16 inches, he's 6 years old. Those who know our family will know when I say this was his reward. He has FINALLY done it!!!!!! *big grin*

For the others out there wanting to know, it's a Spiderman bicycle. In addition to the Spiderman bicycle we had to get a new helmet and pads as well (Spiderman of course). I asked why his Buzz Lightyear helmet needed to be replaced (wondering if I had missed a crash or something). Evidently, at 6 years old Buzz Lightyear is no longer "cool" with the other kids in the neighborhood. Which, BTW, there are 3 other 5-6 year olds on our street.

Random cute pics

Taken with the point and shoot camera - visiting a friend for New Year's Eve party. :)

Notice the "bling" she's sporting? Yes, she loves that jewelry.


One of her babies came with us. She doesn't seem to have a favorite, but she really plays with her 4-5 smallest ones the most. In fact, she's sleeping with the one she got from my Great Aunt for Christmas tonight.


"MY pwree sun Mama. No touch it."


She has fully mastered the art of drinking out of a pouch or box. Very rarely do we have "squirts" happen these days. Makes life a little easier when we're running out the door and she calls out "Wan dwink! Wan dwink!"

for those wondering...that's a 2t she's wearing there!!! Sure the pants are safety pinned at the waist to stay up, but she's GROWING! I think we might even be around 23-24 pounds now.

"Uh-oh! Kay-dee in twa-bull"

I was cleaning the kitchen the other day and when I completed that chore, I went upstairs to be greeted by 5 different walls that looked similar to this:


*taken with the Canon SD600 point and shoot*

I yelled "Katie! What did you do?!" Yes, I knew full well what she did. I wanted to see if Katie knew.

She responded, "Uh-oh! Kay-dee in twa-bull" and she came running.

I pointed to the wall and asked, "what did you do?"

She responded, "Make pweety Mama."

Xin Nian Kuai Le， 新年快乐

In preparation for this holiday, I endeavored to embrace as many of the traditions as possible. I had great expectations.

Had being the operative word there.

I meant to get everyone's hair trimmed up and looking good so that we could enter this New Year with LOTS of luck. I didn't get a hair trimmed in the house. Dh...well, he definitely needs it too. I figure we'll make it through the 15 days of celebration though before we get their hair cut. Hopefully.

I meant to clean the house top to bottom and have it all sparkly and shiny. Dh ended up working 20 hours of overtime in the past 3 days. Do you realize what that does to a Mom with 3 kids at home when she is trying her best to clean the house top to bottom and sweep out all the bad luck?

Yeah. My eye started twitching about Saturday afternoon.

I meant to have everyone with their new shoes and new outfits to wear. Despite the overtime, I just could not see spending money on new clothes to wear right now when everyone has PLENTY of clothes (as evidenced by the piles of laundry I see each week without anyone screaming that they are out of clothes). New shoes? 3 of us have them. *shrug* Guess that will do.

I meant to decorate with all sorts of pretty lanterns, cut-outs, and red/gold door hangings. I'll make do with things the kids color tomorrow.

I meant to buy red envelopes. I printed some out from online...next year? Hopefully I'll remember next year in enough time to order them.

I did manage to purchase a Chinese meal for us to eat tomorrow night. It's a frozen family meal, but I'm counting it! :) One day perhaps I'll attempt to cook some of the delicious recipes I've read about online.

Oh...and Dh? He's going to work more overtime this week, this coming weekend, and next week. Fun times indeed.

Photography - Part 3 - Shutter Speeds

It's time for another "lesson" and this time, it's about shutter speeds. I will admit, I rarely am shooting on TV or SS priority modes. For me, I just don't have sessions that are geared for that as much. But, I can tell you where it's useful.

Sports. Taking those action photos of your kiddos out on the sports fields, in bright sunlight. ;)

I think the MOST important thing to know about Shutter Speeds involves camera shake in your photos. When your shutter speeds are too low, too slow, camera shake occurs. A good rule of thumb is to never use a shutter speed that is slower than the length of your lens. For example, if you have the 50mm lens, then you shutter speed should be above 1/50 of a second. In my case (I have a terrible case of the shakes) I need to keep my shutter speeds over "double the length of the lens" for the most part. With a telephoto lens of 70-200mm, you need to have your shutter speeds above 1/200 of a second.

However, if you can steady your camera (like on a tri-pod) you can create some FUN photos using really long shutter speeds (like 15 or 30 seconds).

(this was taken at our campsite last July, about 9pm or so, the purple/blue light and orange light in the center were created with glowing "necklace" things from 4th of July. The glowing light to the left, is the streetlight at the bathhouse. Look carefully and you can see the kids legs where the firelight from our campfire reflected off of them.) Canon5d camera, 24-105mm lens with focal length at 24mm, f/4.0, ISO 800, ss of 30 seconds


As you saw from earlier posts, shutter speeds double or halve according to changes in Aperture or ISO. All three are inter-related, and a change to one means a change to another. If you take a photo and think it's "slightly underexposed" you can move your shutter speed to a slightly slower one (next one down) and try it again.

But, I know many of you are thinking, when would or should I use the Shutter Speed priority mode? Well, think about taking photos out on the baseball field. It's a partly cloudy day with a brisk wind (bad for the lens with blowing dirt but we'll ignore that part of it for now). The sun is play "peek-a-boo" with the clouds, and if you are in AV mode and have your aperture set to 3.2 (fairly wide, but a little depth of field when shooting across the field). The SS will change according to lighting it sees each time. Well, you have ISO set to 100, with an aperture of 3.2 the shutter speed when it is sunny gives you 1/1000. Really fast, you breathe a sigh of relief...life is good. :)

Until the sun goes behind a cloud, and the shutter speed dropped to 1/250! Which, truthfully should be fairly good, but remember I shake a LOT! I needed it above 1/400. The image was of your son catching the baseball for an out!!! It's blurry due to slight camera shake, it's actually good enough for using in scrapbook, but it's not going to be 16x20 size!

*that's my criteria, a print MUST be able to go to 16x20 every time*

Okay, what should I have done? Or what did I do AFTER that shot?

I moved ISO to 200, set the SS priority to 1/500 (double what I needed) and the camera figures out the best aperture, which in this case would be 5.6. This aperture, across the baseball field, would still give us a good blurred background, but it also gives us room for that shot when the cloud obstructs the sun.


Canon 30d 70-200MM lens, 160 focal length, aperture 4.0, ss 1/1250sec (aperture priority actually...oops, but notice I have PLENTY of maneuver room in the shutter speed department) ISO200. Now, I did have exposure compensation at +0.33 meaning I made it overexpose by 1/3 of a stop (my 30d chronically underexposes). Notice here, I have aperture of 4.0 and all of JM is basically in focus (open it up in a new window to see larger), the fence and crowds in the stand are blurred with a nice bokeh. Crop leaves a lot to be desired doesn't it? Well, this is a 4x6 ratio, and a 16x20 would be a 4x5 ratio. I was looking for a good shot for a 16x20, as such I have to leave roughly 1 inch of room around the outside...this one worked out to be all at the top. JM moved within the area I had pre-framed.


So, in recap, you use aperture priority mode when you are most interested in controlling the aperture. You use the Shutter speed priority mode when you are most interested in controlling the shutter speeds so that they don't go slower than a specific amount.

Next post...next post is the illustration of how these 3 factors work together.

Assignment: Put the camera in shutter speed priority mode, set the shutter speed to be double your lens length. Go outside and play with different "lighting" areas - full sun, under your front porch (shade), beside a house on the north side (open shade), dappled lighting (my most hated lighting situation), and so forth. Watch what the apertures do. For best results of CLEAR photos, set the ISO for the shade on the front porch (I would suggest starting it off around 400).

Remember, ISO 1600 is NICE to get non-flash photos indoors. However, you trade it off in noise. If you underexpose the photo on any ISO level, you get noise in the photo as well.

"Clap hands Momma"

Tuesday was an incredibly busy day for me. Incredibly. We had speech therapy at 10am, dentist appointments at 12 and 12:30 and karate at 1:40. I left the house at 9:20 for the 10 am speech therapy appointment (we now live that far away). Then, we left there at 10:34 (I looked), and I turned on the radio to see if "Inauguration coverage" was on. It was. We started listening to it as I drove toward home. At 11:00, or near there, I was almost home and they were minutes from the swearing in of Obama. Do I stop at home? Or do I keep driving? 1 hour until we had to be at the dentist, which meant I had to leave the house in 15 minutes anyway. Hmmm. "Lunch OUT!" was my choice, we continued to listen to the inaugeration.

Every time someone would be announced and people would clap, Katie would insist, "clap hands Mommy." EVERY TIME. She even did so if it felt to her to be a place one should clap. She clapped. I should clap.

Samuel played a video game.

JM listened with me. He told me, "Why do we have to listen to this? It's just another man becoming president." It hit me then, to him, Obama becoming president was NOT a big deal. He didn't see him as African-American, biracial, or anything. To JM, Obama was just another man. I tried to explain it, but after I stumbled around a little bit I realized, I had just introduced my son to seeing the color of someone's skin. We talked a little bit more about what our history holds. JM thought it was stupid how people were treated 60 years ago. While we've studied the civil rights movement, and he knows who Rosa Parks is, I realized that he didn't UNDERSTAND it because he didn't see the skin color as being a big deal. I agreed with him that it was stupid how people were treated, and we needed to remember that so it NEVER EVER happens again.

That's when I teared up. Our country has really come a very long way!

Photography - Encouragement

I've heard from many both on the blog and through email that learning these new things on the camera is a bit overwhelming. Yes it can be. Yes it was for me too. I want to encourage you though and know that the more you practice, the more you MAKE yourself use these settings, the more you will learn. The faster you will be able to adjust things. The more you will "guess" the right settings right off the bat.

When I was first starting in manual modes and not comfortable with them, I would look at a situation to begin with and think "What ISO do I think this needs?" I would set that and take some test photos. Did I guess right? If not, why? What tricked my eye into thinking this placed needed that ISO.

Aperture, on the other hand, came about more from me wanting that blurry background. So, I always went for really wide open. It took a few months for me to realize that not everything I shot had to be fully wide open. Play with it. Have fun with it.

I've been trying to visit everyone's blogs who have posted to these posts, and those who are following. I have seen some great photos too!

I'm knee deep in my photography book that I'm studying, and just finished the "developing you own negatives and prints" chapters. I've got a post going on Shutter Speeds, but after these past two lessons on ISO and Aperture, I'm sure you are having an idea of what it is like. I will be talking about the Shutter Speed Priority mode though and WHY it's sometimes a good idea to use it.

I'm also working on "tips for taking portraits" of your own kids. Places I look for in houses, areas, etc. I'm working on a "composition" post, where I'll talk about what makes a great composition. I'm working on a post about "photo-journalism" and "lifestyle" photography. I could inundate you with TONS of posts, but I'm afraid I'll overwhelm you all with too much information.

So, my encouragement to you all - KEEP SHOOTING! Try to get to the point where if you make a mistake in taking a photo you can say "I know WHY that happened and this is what I need to do to correct it." If you have ANY questions, please feel free to email me.

Meme...againagain

Here's the rules as dear Kia laid out...if you read this, considered yourself TAGGED! You must fill this out or suffer the dire consequences. I'm predicting if you don't do this Meme, then you'll lose all those un-backed up photos you have on your computer. ;)

Five Names You Go By:
1. Carla
2. Ma-ah-m (yes, 3 syllables)
3. Samuel's Mom
4. JM's Mom
5. Katie's Mommy

Three Things You’re Wearing Right Now:
1. Long sleeve shirt
2. Jeans
3. socks


Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. for the kids to be in bed
2. a Wallaby Darned

Three People Who Will Probably Fill This Out:
1. Tongumomma because she so totally OWES me a Meme.
2. Cheri because I can guilt her into it over the phone.
3. Hot Tub Lizzie because I think her answers would be interesting...

Two Things You Ate Today:
1. French fries
2. Quesadilla

Two People You Last Talked To On The Phone:
1. Dh
2. Mom

(only because it was a Saturday or it would read, Cheri and Gina most likely)

Two Things You Are Going To Do Tomorrow:
1. Go to church
2. do some work, like finish up the wedding book

Two Longest Car Rides:
1. Nashville, TN to Tucson, AZ
2. Bank Hotel, Kunming China to Civil Affairs Office, Kunming China *well it felt like it*

Two of Your Favourite Beverages:
1. Dr. Pepper
2. Sha-weeeeet Tea (that's what Katie calls it)

Two Phrases You Said Today To Your Kid That You Wish You Could Take Back
1. Please just be QUIET for a few minutes. PLEEEEEASE.
2. Would you just hurry up and get out of the van?! *hey it's FREEZING here and I was waiting on them to get out of the van so we could go inside the warm store*

Remember, if you read this, you must do the Meme...or risk losing those photos! ;)

Photography lesson - backing up photos

This week I'm reshooting class photos for the kids school. Why? Because I didn't properly back up my photos. Well, honestly, I had 3 back ups which should have been plenty. What happened is I took a group to work on, then overwrote the class photos. Then I propagated the "erased" ones to the backups.

So, how is the best way to back up data, or rather those precious precious photos?

First off, nothing is permanent. NOTHING will last forever. One thing to know is that CDs or DVDs that are "normal" will only last a few years. If you write on them with sharpie, it will last much less than that (about half that time). If you put the stickers on it? It will deteriorate faster as well. If you purchase the gold something or others, I think those will last about 10 years.

What about hard drives? External drives you store in a lock box? well, if you don't spin them up at least once every 6 months, they will possibly "freeze" up.

What about flash drives? You know, I just don't know.

The "best" that I've heard of is online data storage, but it's very expensive, especially if you have a ton of photos.

What do I have set up?

Personal photos from years ago are on CD/DVD (must check the oldest). Yes, I wrote on them with sharpie and used stickers. One day I'll sit down and make sure the images are all still there.

Business photos and personal from the last year are stored on one drive, then backed up to 2 separate drives. I have over 1 terabyte of hard drive storage space. It's not enough. Organization is the key. For personal this is what I have:

Year
--Month
----Day or Event
------RAW
------PSD
------ORDER
------WEB

OR

Year
--ORDER
--Month
---Day or Event
-----RAW
-----PSD
-----WEB

Clients are this way

PHOTOGRAPHY
--Business Files
--Photos
----Clients
------Name
--------RAW
--------PSD
--------PROOF
--------ORDER
--------WEB
--------FILES (this is for their information files when I get them digitized)

I highly recommend having a folder just for the raw files, then when you edit save the psd files off to another folder. It just makes it easier to find them.

Part 2 - Aperture

What exactly is the Aperture of the camera?

It's the opening in the lens that allows light to come through. It can be REALLY wide or really small. Both work, but give different resulting images. If you see f/2.8, then the aperture setting was 2.8.

Here's the KEY to this setting:

The smaller the number, the larger the opening.

The larger the number, the smaller the opening.

Notice...it's OPPOSITES! :)

So, when a lens says f/1.8 on it, that means the largest aperture setting it has is 1.8. If it says f/4.0-5.6 then the largest aperture setting is 4.0-5.6 (it's variable and that's for another day). Some will have an "ending" aperture of f/16 or f/22.

What is the difference? Why do we care?

The larger opening gives a shallower depth of field. It is what creates that lovely blurred background that so many people love.

(f/1.8 ss 1/2500 ISO 200 85mm lens Canon 5D)

The smaller opening, the f/16, means that the depth of field is much larger and more of the image will be in focus.

Hmmm, why is this important to you?

Well, when I'm photographing Katie, I like to shoot around f/2.8 so that I can get her singled out in an image. She can be the focal point of the image. I can draw your eyes to her LOVELY eyes. :)

(f/4.0 SS1/200 ISO400 Canon 5D 24-105mm lens at 99mm)

However, if I'm shooting all 3 kids, then most likely they are NOT in the same focal plane (meaning side by side) and if I'm at a wide open aperture with a shallow depth of field and I focus on Katie who is sitting in front of JM...well, JM is going to be blurry! That's not good. If I make the aperture smaller, then I can get all 3 kids in focus (I usually start around f/4.0 or f/5.6 depending on how far away I am).


(f/7.1 SS 1/320 ISO 640 Canon5D 24-105mm at 73mm)

AND


(f/5.0 SS 1/250 ISO200 Canon5D 24-105mm at 105mm)
Notice on this one above, JM and Samuel are almost side by side, and I probably could have gone "wider open" than I did.

So, our lesson today, is to set your camera to a specific ISO (I'm going to suggest 1600 if you are indoors). ;) I would suggest finding a group of object, like 5 glasses sitting on a table at different lengths from you (front to back), or 5 toys, or flowers.

Then, move the Aperture to the widest opening (remember the smallest number) that you can (for some this is f/1.8 and other it might be f/4.0). If you have the ability to change the focal length (turn your lens to get closer or farther away), move it so that you are in as close as you can. Then back your body up to be able to see all of the items in one photo. Focus on the object closest to you, take the photo (write down the SS please). Do you NOTICE that blurred background?

Now, move the Aperture ONE up from where you were. Take the photo of the SAME object, and write down the SS. Repeat again and again, writing down the SS.

Do you see what the shutter speeds are doing every time you increase your aperture? Each time you make the aperture opening smaller, the Shutter speed HAS to decrease to compensate and make a properly exposed image.

I'm guessing that some of you are following me, some are not. It takes a few times doing this exercise and reading about aperture for things to sink in about the relationships. Don't worry, I'm going to go over this with a visual (or mental visual) soon.

What I want for you to have gotten out of this post, is that when you hold the ISO the same and change the Aperture...the Shutter Speeds change as well.

I also hope that at this point you are comfortable with changing the ISO and the Aperture settings on your camera.

PLEASE post your images to your own blog and let me know! I would love to see what you've done and how this is helping you. If you have questions, please let me know as well. If you post a comment here directing me to your blog with the images, I will be more than happy to comment on your blog with whatever help I can give you.


*note: to change aperture there should be a dial near the shutter button or near your thumb that has ridges. In AV mode you should be able to turn this to change the aperture. Check with the manual if this does not work. You should see numbers like 1.8, 2.0, 2.8, 3.2, 4.0, 5.6, 7.1, 8.0 etc.

What we will find online...

Some times I let the kids hunt for fun things online (with me there of course), and I remembered (with help from a friend) the Mentos experiment. Remember the EepyBird video online? No?

Well, I remembered it after watching a friend show photos from coke and mentos (although we've always used diet coke with mentos in the past). I went hunting for her the links.

http://eepybird.com/videos.html

They have a website now! Oh boy were my boys thrilled. It has re-newed an interest in blowing things up. Okay, so that interest is almost always there, but still.

Post-Holiday slump

I think I'm in that dreaded Post-Holiday slump. Or it's that life finally slowed down some and my mind and body are saying "HEY let's just sit around and do nothing all day." Or rather, "let's fall asleep just about every chance you can get to sit down."

Except at Mid-night when the insomnia kicks in.

Yeah. Which is sort of helping as I'm buried neck deep in business related stuff, homeschooling related stuff, cleaning related stuff, unpacking (yes still) the various things in the house, and general life. I'm so buried that I'm just not wanting to take photos of the kids. I even failed at the 52 week challenge. 2nd week and I failed at it.

Or, you know, this whole slump could be caused by drastically cutting back on the whole caffeine thing.

Starting at the beginning or Part 1 - ISO

I shoot Canon, so most of the controls might be in Canon-speak. ;) I'm also still learning, but I'm about to take that darn test that says I know what I'm talking about. So, I hope this will help you as it's helping ME clarify everything so I can score really well on that test.

A or AV is aperture priority
S or TV is shutter priority
M is Manual
P is photo priority (basically auto without the camera choosing ISO or flash)

Before we go too far, I want to make sure EVERYONE understands the relationship between aperture, shutter speeds, and ISO. They all 3 affect the light that is coming into the camera and being captured on the film/digital sensor, and understanding how they work is crucial to properly exposing your images manually. Before I get into why I choose which one, what I'm thinking when taking a photo, etc. I want to go over these basics.

We all know that ISO 100 needs a brighter light than ISO 1600. ISO numbers show a sensitivity to light, and the lower the number the finer the grain in the film. For digital cameras, we see "ISO equivalents" and it measures how sensitive the sensor is to light, and it works the same way as the film - it's a measurement of the "grain" which produces noise in the final image. While it's nice to be able to shoot indoors without a flash and keep good shutter sppeds with ISO 1600, it comes at a cost. ISO 1600 has a LOT of noise in it, lets not even discuss what ISO 3200 has in terms of noise.

I'll go back and tell a quick story from this past May. Airing my dirty laundry so to speak, and why I'm still "growing" as a photographer. I was shooting a wedding with a friend, and we were down in a "hollow" in Middle Tennessee in the deep dark of the woods. Bright sunny day, but down in the "hollow" I needed 1600 ISO to get my shutter speeds fast enough for the aperture of 4.0-8.0 that I was varying between. As expected those photos are really nice, but have a lot noise. Well, we get to the top of the hill, in a more open area. I start to shoot the little kids, and I had put the camera in AV mode (do this sometimes in a fast moving situation with kids). I was not paying attention to my in camera meter OR shutter speeds. I was tired (it was about 4 hours into the wedding shooting). I finally chimped (which is looked at the back) and saw WAY OVERBLOWN! I could not figure it out! My shutter speeds were maxed out. I looked at the camera for a good minute or so, then DUH!!! I still had ISO 1600 set! I moved the ISO down to 200 and immediately my images were better exposed.

Luckily, my friend was also capturing images at this point. We did not have to rely solely on MY images alone. This is why I do not like shooting a wedding alone.

Okay, so that little story should tell you why you need to know these relationships, because at some point you will see an image on your camera during an important moment and need to know what to do to make it come out properly.

GO FIND YOUR CAMERA MANUAL!!!! :) I'll wait for you. If you can't find it, look it up online. Put this somewhere that you can reference in case I ask you to adjust something, and you don't know where it is!

Got it? Good...

Move the dial to what on Canon cameras is A or AV mode, and on Nikon it's A mode. Those of you with other brands, if you have trouble please let me know. AV or A mode allows you to set the aperture setting and choose your ISO, and the camera will figure out the best shutter speed for you based on it's "metering" and such.

Figure out how to change the ISO manually. (Look at the manual, if you have trouble contact me and I'll help you figure it out) Usually there is a menu setting to change it, or a button that says "ISO" on it that you have to push (and sometimes in combination with another button/dial to change it).

The in camera meter is located in 2 places - when you look through the Viewfinder it's the bar that has -2...-1...0...1...2 in some fashion. In Canon it's across the bottom, and I think in Nikon it's along the right side. The 2nd place is on the top (well, okay, from looking at online views of Rebel XS and the Nikon D60...it's not viewable there...if it has live viewing on the back, it might show it there). Really, you only really care about it through the viewfinder.

Also in the viewfinder (and sometimes on the top or on the back) you will see the corresponding numbers to SS and Aperture.

So, in A or AV mode, I want you to set the Aperture to the smallest number you can (for some this will be f/1.8 for other it might be f/3.5 or f/4.0 or f/5.6).

Now, set your camera to ISO 100 and focus on something in the room. Find that meter and settings...you don't have to take a photo, but you have to focus and get the exposure readings. Write down them down with a notation that it was for ISO 100.

If you are in a dimly lit room, I would expect the photo to be a little blurry due to camera shake of a very slow shutter speed! Is that what happened to your photo? It would for me at ISO 100 (see post below this one).

Now, change the ISO to 200 - retake the photo and write down the SS it gave you. Repeat for ISO 400, ISO 800, and ISO 1600. What did you see happen?

The Shutter Speeds should have increased. Not only that, but they should have at least doubled. Did they "double" or close to it?

Thus, a LOW ISO number means "slower" shutter speeds than a HIGH ISO number would give you in the same light. Lower number film speeds (or ISO) are considered "slow films" while higher numbered ones are considered "fast" films because of this.

If you are out, say in the botanical gardens and you took a photo of you child in the bright sunlight. It would need a lower ISO number. If you then stepped into a really shady area, then you would need to bump up your ISO number to a higher one so that you can keep faster shutter speeds. If you are outside taking photos, getting nice crisp exposures, then move indoors with the same ISO and get blurred images remember to check to see if your ISO is appropriate for INDOORS. Back in my "old" days when I shot film for the yearbook, we had to finish out an entire ROLL of film before changing the ISO to one more suited for indoors (or heavy shade). Now aren't you glad you have a digital camera?

I couldn't find any good photos of this to share in this post, but rest assured I will share some soon (even if I have to take them with the purpose of showing you all the differences).

Any questions? (next up is Aperture)

Photo Friday

***This is NOT part of the series I'm working on, but for the few that actually know what I'm talking about, I added in the steps and the explanations. :)


This was taken with the 30d and 50mm lens open to 1.8 aperture. SS was 1/125. ISO 1600. I shot this in Manual mode. If you are coming from reading the ISO post above, notice the SS was 125 at ISO 1600. ISO 100 (which is where I told you to start) would have given me a SS of roughly 1/8th of a second. There is NO way I could ever hand hold that.

Here is the unedited, SOOC shot. *Oh this is hard*


WHY did I choose the settings I did?

1 - Why ISO 1600? I did not want to use flash. In fact, I rarely ever use flash indoors*. If I do use flash, I try to use it in such a way that you don't see it, which means NO shadows outlining people. I knew, given the time of day (evening around 6:30pm) and the fact that we only had the overhead lights on, I would need a fairly high ISO. *Exceptions are when I use the P&S camera

2 - Why the 50mm lens? I wanted to get close and I knew I would need to "open" up the aperture.

3 - Why f/1.8? I needed the camera as wide open as it would go (yes, I only invested in the $75 version of this lens. Why I did that is for a whole other post). I also wanted the bokeh (Japanese for blurry I believe) this lens provides at such wide open apertures. I knew, standing across the table from the kids painting that I could focus in on the hand and the body behind it would be out of focus, thus drawing attention to the hand painting.

4 - Why SS 1/125? The "duh" answer is that is the SS that gave me the proper exposure. But really, I need to elaborate on this for you. In all honesty, I could have gone with a SS of 1/60 and been fine hand holding as the lens is a 50mm. If I had done that I could have lowered the ISO to 800 and had less grain, or left it at 1600 and had an image that was over-exposed according to the meter by 1 full stop (and looking above 1 full stop would have been a wee bit too much, but not terribly too much).

Using a 50mm lens, I know that I need to keep my shutter speeds at LEAST longer than the lens length. In this case, I knew to combat my "shakiness" I needed to have a shutter speed of at least 1/50. However, for me, this night I had had too little or too much caffeine and knew I was a little shaky as I normally am. So a SS of 1/125 was close enough to double the lens length I strive for when I'm shaky, and it matched what I needed for the aperture.

Okay, had the proper exposure said I needed a SS of 1/30, I would have known I would probably see camera shake in the final image. It's just too slow to hand hold (especially for me). How could I have changed that SS? There are 2 ways. I could have "opened the aperture wider" and gone to f/1.4 and then my SS would have increased (the question is "to what?"). OR I could have bumped my ISO up to 3200 and increased the SS. There is a relationship between all 3, and you have to understand this to know how you can move the settings for proper exposure.

That's the "technical" behind the photo. Now, you notice, it's nice and pretty YELLOW tinted huh? I did not color balance this image at all prior to shooting. I shoot in RAW format, and this allows me to color correct after the fact (which is honestly a bad habit for me).

Here are my steps for Photoshop and processing my images, well the "basic" processing:

Open in Lightroom/Bridge/Camera Raw and adjust the color. I also adjust any exposure issues I see as well. This one was fairly good to start with, but I think I bumped the shadows slightly. I bumped the saturation levels a tad. Added a tiny bit of "fill light" or "brightness" as I probably should have slightly overexposed according to the in camera meter.

Then, I open in photoshop. I run an unsharp mask filter I have nicknamed "defog" and it basically takes the "fogginess" out of the original image. It slightly sharpens it.

Because I shot it at ISO 1600, I run a filter that takes out the excess noise caused by shooting at such a high ISO.

Then I run a curves action and levels action (boosting both of those). Curves boosts the highlights and colors while the levels boosts the shadows. I then adjust each of those layers to 50%.

For this image, I then cropped according to the rule of thirds - the paint tip is the "interesting" part so I put it on the bottom right 1/3. Think of your image, draw imaginary lines at the 1/3 intervals going both horizontal and vertical. Where they "intersect" are your "best points of interest" to make a photo more interesting.

We ended up with this:


Okay, open that edited version up in a new tab/window by right clicking on it and selecting "open in new". In cropping this one I actually sort of "failed" to get it into the rule of thirds. Why? If you notice, the paint tip brush is NOT in focus. The fingers holding it are in focus. More importantly the knuckles are in focus. Can you see where it falls "out of focus" at all? THAT is how shallow this depth of field is. I was standing about 3 feet away from the hand. If you are going to be standing that close to a child to shoot a photo of their face, then you have to be aware at how easily focus can fall off in the wrong spot. But in the small version, you just don't see the details enough to tell that the tip of the paint brush is so out of focus! ;)

I'll talk about Depth of Field in another post. :) It deserves it's own post.

*Yes, I know the edited version is showing a tad red....LOL yeah, a lot red. I have not gotten the CS4 set to the right colorspace, and this shows it! Off to fix that now.

Enjoying the little things

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. ~Robert Brault

How true this is.

Holding JM in the first few weeks, snuggled up under my chin and resting on my chest. That perfection of newborn.

The first kiss with your husband.

The first time your child says, "I wuff ooo Mommy."

A nightly hug from your 6 year before he can fall asleep.

A kiss in the morning before your husband leaves for work.



I could go on and on. I did a search on HAPPINESS quotes, looking for something to turn into wall words. Found this, and had a blog post. :) Neat how that works out huh?

BTW, I'm working on the Camera settings posts. I'm going to the very beginning of basic controls on the manual side of your camera. A few might be VERY bored, and a few might still not get it just reading through the post. I'm going to greatly encourage you to read those posts with a camera IN HAND. Then practice and practice and practice! :) I have the words written for the first 2, just needing to get the photos to go along with them.

Would you be interested?

As I know many of you out there in bloggy land got a new camera recently, with new lenses...and are attempting the Manual settings, would you be interested in a series of posts with photos showing the relationships between Aperture/SS/ISO in equivalent exposures? How they affect things.

A post or so on shooting wide open, on which lenses are good for what, etc.?

See, I'm studying right now for my CPP exam and I'm having to make sure I know this stuff forward and backward. REALLY FORWARD AND BACKWARD.

I can also run over some Photoshop techniques if you like as well, I do not know anything about Elements anymore, so I would need someone familiar with it and photoshop to help me out if you needed specific help with Elements. But I can explain/show why Unsharp Mask filters are good, why you should not just rely on one method for turning a photo to black and white, what a good curves and levels adjustment layers will do for you, and using MASKS.

I will need to go over all this soon for myself, and redo actions and redo workflows as I just upgraded to CS4 from CS2 and I know not all my plug-ins, actions, etc. will work.

What is the CPP exam? Click that and find out! :) It's TOUGH. Very tough. If I pass the written test, then I have to pass the image submission part.

I could not do any client photos here, but I can do the kids. :) Everyday life things, to portraits...

It's day 4 and I've already failed.

At the 365 Photo Challenge that is. I figured I would, so my back up was a 52 week challenge. 1 photo a week taken and posted. 52 times. It's my goal, and I'm posting it here, that I do this in an effort to become better at my craft. To develop more. Personally, I'm going to to try for the photojournalistic viewpoint. TRY being the operative word there.

Someone once told me that I should attempt to capture the moment in 1 photograph, and to concentrate on it by ONLY allowing yourself to take 3 images of the "event/moment" total. For an overshooter that is going to be tough. I think I went over tonight, but honestly, I did my 3 "shots" and then played with my normal shooting style to get Katie's "CHEESE" yet again. It's just too cute.

Here is Week 1 -



Only thing is I feel like it needs a title, any suggestions?