Category Archives: general

real genuine smiles…

Precious, real laughing smiles. Love it.

And my manual settings for each of these shots:
ISO – 400 (shade in the early evening)
aperture – 3.2
shutter speed – 1/800 second
laughter – a result of the little guy attempting to eat the dirt, he just thought it was so hilarious. :)

real genuine smiles...

And my manual settings for this one:
ISO – 400 (shade in the early evening)
aperture – 3.5
shutter speed – 1/250 second
laughter – a result of the threat of more tickling  :)

real genuine smiles...

And my manual settings for this one:
ISO – 1600 (indoor near a window)
aperture – 3.5
shutter speed – 1/125 second
laughter – her mama helped to create this laughter…that and a little eye contact

real genuine smiles...

real genuine smiles...

photography challenges to help us learn & grow

We have photography challenges going on our facebook page. Have you done any yet? Or are you missing out? What are these photography challenges you might ask? Well, they are specific tasks or goals to try to accomplish with your camera on manual. We have a new challenge every Friday. The idea is that you would go out with your fancy camera, set it on Manual (M) and try to accomplish these specific things. In turn, getting better and better at taking pictures on manual. The key is that once you take those pictures you have to be willing to take a small risk. You have to post one of your pictures on our facebook page and post your manual settings. Come on. Everyone’s learning anyways, so just post some pics. :) How else will you get better, right? Then, take a few minutes to critique other people’s pictures. I will be critiquing the pictures as well. I’ll tell you how awesome you are or what you could do to make it a little more awesome. :)

This facebook page is a place to practice, get encouraged, get critiqued, and to ask questions. Come check it out!

This week’s challenge… Challenge #4 – A specific aperture (2.5)
Post a picture that you have taken at the aperture of 2.5 and please post your manual settings as well.

Are you wondering, “How do I find my manual settings on my computer?” Well, if you are on a PC, open windows explorer, click on the picture, then you should see the settings on the bottom of the windows explorer screen. If you are on a Mac, open iphoto, under the “photo” option on your toolbar, click “show photo info” and your settings are under the exposure tab.

Now, are you wondering, “How do I post a photo on the bruises and bandaids facebook page?” Go to www.facebook.com/bruisesandbandaids then write your manual settings on the wall (where it says “write something”) and then click the photo button under “write something” and upload your photo there.

My photo for challenge #4 (a specific aperture of 2.5) and my manual settings for the shot:
ISO  – 160
aperture – 2.5
shutter speed – 1/320 second

photography challenges to help us learn & grow

photography challenges to help us learn & grow

the LCD screen on my camera

Ok, so I’m careful and a bit particular. I’ll admit it. Especially with my pricey professional equipment. So I have a cover on the LCD screen of both of my camera bodies. The cover protects the screens from scratches and whatever could happen so that they don’t get damaged. Well, I’m glad that I have it. Check out my little screen protector now. Huh? Right? Good thing I had a $30 protector on there, right? Here’s a pic taken with my iphone of the damage that happened at some point during my wedding this past Friday. Hmmm…. so I guess I’m off to buy another $30 screen cover/protector. I’m grateful that’s all I’m buying in order to fix my problem. Tip to all y’all out there…. protect those LCD screens. Here’s the LCD screen protector that fits my camera on Amazon. Make sure you get the one that fits your particular camera though.

the LCD screen on my camera

 

the LCD screen on my camera

like this website? then “like” us on facebook

I’ve started up a facebook page for bruises and bandaids where I will be posting challenges from time to time. These challenges will be specific tasks that you should try to accomplish with your DSLR camera on manual settings. You can easily post your picture to the facebook page and from there we can encourage each other, critique each other, and grow together in photography. This would be a fantastic place also to ask questions and a place where it would be easy for me to answer your questions in a conversational style. Sounds pretty fantastic to me! Let’s try it on out.

Like the bruises and bandaids page on facebook. Check it out! And then after you check it out, don’t be shy! Try to do one of the photography challenges and then be bold enough to post your image on the facebook wall. You’ll learn more if you do… that’s for sure! :)

like this website? then like us on facebook

like this website? then like us on facebook

your aperture and changing your focus point

Remember aperture? If not, check out my definitions page. It’s the opening in your lens that allows you to do two things. One, it allows more light in and two, it controls your depth of field (how much is going to be sharply in focus in the background.

These two pictures below are taken at the aperture (also known as f stop) of 2.2. That means the hole in my lens is open up really wide, the hole is big. So, my depth of field behind my subject is shallow, creating a blurry background. The background is not sharply in focus. Right? So that’s a shallow depth of field. Make sense? These two pictures were taken with the same settings but a different focus point. When taking the picture on the left I focused on my little boy’s eyes. In the picture on the right I didn’t change any of my settings, but instead I focused on the donut. :)

My manual settings for this shot were:
ISO – 800 (inside the donut shop)
aperture – 2.2 (open pretty wide open for light and for a very shallow depth of field)
shutter speed – 1/250 second

your aperture and changing your focus point

your aperture and changing your focus point