Three

Dalene Christmas Card

First signs of spring.

Dalene Christmas Card?

Josh & Julie Family Picture

Julie....let me know what you think! :-) I can shove it off to where you want it!

Zac's Senior Pictures

Diana -

I can fix pictures if you want me too.....but I have fixed stuff. Let me know what you think. You can also show Woody....if you give me his e-mail or just want to tell him your e-mail address and password to get on here he can look at these.

Caristy

My Newest Toy

So I was VERY disappointed in myself. I had taken pictures of Nik eating raspberries outside and then once we got in the car I wanted to get his messy face and he decided to do a mini photo shoot for me! Sadly I had the camera on the wrong shutter speed for being inside the car! :-( So I thought oh well....chalk it up for a stupid mistake. But on the photography message board they were talking about this noiseware program that would save pictures that had TONS of noise. So I decided to try for a trial. I tried one picture and it save the picture so wonderful that I showed John and he decided that I could get the program! Woo hoo!! More cute pictures on the Olson blog!!

Fixed (Both in Raw and Noiseware Software)


Tried to fix with Raw....still kind of blah!!

Experimenting! Not sure if I like it or not!

All right I'm skipping my own challenge!

Instead I've been debating about going RAW. So I decided to do a test. I took pictures in both Raw and Jpeg (same shot) to see how it would work. Now you need to have a good post processing program to use Raw (I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 but it works on Adobe Photo Elements 3 and 4 too) you just need to make sure that you have ACR (Adobe Camera Raw- which if you don't have is an free download) When you first take a picture in Raw you'll be disappointed because it might be to dark or to light. But the neat thing is that you are able to edit you picture in ACR (make it dark lighter, adjust the colors all without compressing or ruining the picture) (Everytime you play with a picture in jpeg you are compressing and damaging the pixels so that the picture could turn out mucky) Well here are my three shots. The first picture was the Jpeg shot that the camera decided was the right colors and actually whited out the picture (I was very sad and I had I just shot in Jpeg that shot would have been thrown away) The second one is the picture is straight out of the camera Raw (well except that I had to convert to JPEG). The third picture was the one that I edited through Photshop and it was all in raw until at the very end I converted it to Jpeg (so that way I can put it online and also so I can print it) I absolutely love this picture! :-) (I totally am keeping it and posting it on the other blog too!!)

Picture # 1 (Jpeg - camera fixed)

Picture # 2 (Raw- no fixes just turn to jpeg)

Picture # 3 (Small adjustments on ACR)

Look at me, Caristy, I actually tried the challenge! :)

OK, so I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing with my camera on this challenge! :) Now, I don't have a tripod and my F-stop only goes to 8, so my best pictures are a little different than yours, Caristy. It took me forever to weed through the photos. (I took a couple hundred photos!) Oh, another thing - in addition to not having a tripod, I'm a little lazy when it comes to playing with my camera (especially when it's midnight), so these were taken with me sitting in a chair, not changing my position, with a light on in the "dining" room, which is a ways away so it's not completely dark. (Caristy, your tree is decorated so pretty - I had a little help from 4 munchkins, so there wasn't a particular ornament I really wanted to zoom in on!) So, here are my results:

Focal Length: 16.4 mm
F-Number: F/5.6
Exposure Time: 1.3 sec.
(I like the way the lights look like little stars.)
Focal Length: 12.9mm
F-Number: F/5.6
Exposure Time: 3/5 sec.
Focal Length: 8.4 mm
F-Number: F/8
Exposure Time: 1 sec.
(I know it's not completely in focus, but I kinda like the whole tree view with the "twinkling" lights.)And, just for fun:

Focal Length: 72 mm
F-Number: F/5
Exposure Time: 1/60 sec.
Focal Length: 72 mm
F-Number: F/3.5
Exposure Time: 1/20 sec.
Focal Length: 72 mm
F-Number: F/3.5
Exposure Time: 1/25 sec.
Focal Length: 18.6
F-Number: F/4.5
Exposure Time: 4/5 sec.
(Tried this one after reading how to do it on a thread specifically about my camera.)

Caristy Christmas Tree Challenge Pictures

Picture 1: ISO 400, Aperture: F/13, Shutter Speed: 1 sec. Picture 2: ISO 400, Aperture: F/11, Shutterspeed: 1 second
Picture 3: ISO 100, Aperture: F/8, Shutter Speed: 10 sec.
Picture 4: ISO 100, Aperture: F/8, Shutterspeed: 6 sec.
Picture 5: ISO 100, Aperture: F/8, Shutterspeed: 4 sec

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!

Caristy's Challenge Pictures ~ Shutter Speed

Picture # 1 - F/36, 1/40 Shutter Speed, 115 mm (ISO 400)

Picture # 2 - F/36, 1/8 Shutter Speed, 115 mm (ISO 400)

Picture # 3 - F/32, 1/3 Shutter Speed, 78 mm (ISO 400)

Picture # 4 - F/32, 1/2 Shutter Speed, 78 mm (ISO 400)

Picture # 5 - F/18, 1/10 Shutter Speed, 78 mm (ISO 400)

~* Caristy *~

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 Picture Post

Here are my pictures for Halloween! I love the first picture because it's all wavy and so neat! :-)

~ Love, Caristy ~