Caristy's Christmas Tree Challenge

Let's see those lit up trees! Doing this is a little harder than you think. If you want your pictures to "look right" and really want to show off your lights, it's going to take a little work. My understanding is that in order for you to have a "good" pix of your lit up tree, you have to shoot wide open and use a slow SS to capture the lights. If you have a tripod, this is probably going to be easy for you or something that you can rest your camera on so that it will take the picture. You might also want to try using your timer so that you don't worry about camera shake from pushing the shutter. SO, if you have your Christmas tree up and ready for pix, light 'em up and let's see them. I want to see your tree lit up in the dark, so we want the light source to come from the beauty of your tree. Try to have your f stop between 4.0 and 8.0 (play around with that to see what happens at the different stops - F stop is your aperture....which will help with the how much of a picture in in focus.) and try to have your shutter speed between 1 second and 10 seconds.....which is why it would be helpful to have your camera on timer and on a tripod....because it's hard to have your body still for that long.

No example because I don't have a Christmas tree yet! Hopefully I can find one when we got shopping hopefully soon!! (I hope that it's not a bad storm this weekend!!) You have until December 25th to finish this challenge! (That way if I can't get a Christmas tree at least I can steal my mother-in-laws tree to take pictures of!

Shutter Speed Challenge

You can get a neat blurred effect when taking pics of fast moving objects with a slow ss. An example would be running water, smoke, people on bikes, cars, etc. You can do this with a p&s too! Here's my rundown of what to do with a DSLR:

-Your subject(s) should be in medium to low light because with your shutter open you will be at risk to overexpose the picture easily. A creek in the shade, fire at night, or a glow stick at dusk are all good possibilities.

-Either go into your shutter mode (TV for cannon, not sure for other brands) or full manual. I would suggest using a ss somewhere in the range of 1/15-1/4 but messing with all different speeds is always fun. If the picture is too blurred, go faster, if it is in focus more than you would like, go slower. -If you're in full manual you'll probably have to adjust your aperture (maybe f/8 or so).

-A tripod can be helpful if you only want certain parts of the picture blurred. You can go even more artsy by actually moving the camera while the shutter is open to blur the entire photograph.

Alright, now if you have a P&S you can still do this! What you will have to do is to take your picture in low light when your camera automatically slows down its shutter speed. Then your subject will have to have some sort of light to it. Fire, glow stick, car headlights, etc. You can't adjust the ss but you can try different subjects and angles, and such. I have seen some great p&s pics like this!

All Right Now.....I'm off to try and I'm hoping that you all will too!! I give you until next Wednesday to post them up!

Love ya ~

Caristy

Halloween

So its the time of year where little goblins and ghouls are running around town hyped up on treats.
Let's try and capture the spirit of Halloween. This can be done in many ways. Think outside the box about what Halloween means to you or to the people around you. The challenge is for this weekend. Try and post results by Wednesday November 5th.

Happy Halloween!! ohhh hahaha

~Alexi~