Flying in for Lunch

Ohhh my...A sweet house finch coming to dine with Mr. Cardinal.

F/5.6, 1/500s, ISO 400, focal length 270mm

White Balance

Another week has gone by and Aimee and Stud from It's Overflowing have taught us another photography lesson. This lesson is about using white balance to let the camera adjust for various lighting conditions. Since my practice shots are all taken inside under the same lighting conditions, I can see the effects of using the different white balance settings. This lesson will come in handy when I venture out of the comfy confines inside the house and take pictures outside of my flowers this Spring.

This is my pinapple that originally was gold. I shabbied it up with some white and now it is perfect.

I think it looks beautiful in white.

Thanks for another great lesson Aimee! As usual, I can't wait for Friday for another lesson. 

Metering

Today's post is about my metering practice. Thanks to the lovely Aimee and Stud from It's Overflowing, I have learned so much about how to use my new camera. My generous daughter, Brittany gave me a Nikon D3100 for Christmas and I LOVE it and I LOVE taking pictures and learning how to take better pictures. In Aimee's photo class, we have studied metering using manual mode for the last 2 weeks. I'm sharing a few of my hundreds of pics today. Please comment and let me know your thoughts about my practice shots.

First up, we have Ms. Chicken.

Photo Properties: ISO:100, f/1.8, 1/100s

Photo Properties: ISO:100, f/4.5, 1/25s

Photo Properties: ISO:100, f/9.0, 1/5s

Now for some grapes!

Photo Properties: ISO:100, f/1.8, 1/20s

Photo Properties: ISO:100, f/4.5, 1/3s

Photo Properties: ISO:100, f/11, 2.0s

Thanks to Aimee and Stud! I can't wait for my next lesson. Now go over to Aimee's and join the class (you can start at the beginning and proceed as you can find the time). Have a lovely day. I am off to work now...booo

ISO Lesson

This week I am learning about ISO with my beautiful photography teachers, Aimee and Stud from It's Overflowing. I am participating in a FREE photography course and I'm learning all about my new Nikon D3100 :-)). Go on over to Aimee's and be delighted with her decorating and photography talent. You can even join in on the learning if you want to improve your photos.

Now on to this week's assignment. ISO is the third part of the exposure triangle. We've already studied about aperture and shutter speed. ISO is the camera's sensitivity to light. A higher ISO lets in more light and the result is a brighter picture but the downside is a picture that is less sharp and the picture has noise (grain.) ISO changes how quickly the sensor absorbs light. Lower numbers mean less quickly and higher numbers mean more quickly. In Program mode, as I increase the ISO, the camera automatically adjusts the aperture and shutter speed. As I increased the ISO, the shutter speed was icreased by the camera.

 

 

Now a lot of blog ladies have a nice Mister around the house to help them out with projects or moving this and that around. As a single woman, I've wanted a Mister at times but haven't found the perfect one yet. I did find a temporary Mister. He's very helpful as he participated in this assignment without a single complaint. He also graciously holds the speakers to my laptop without fussing and he nevers asks me WHY I am doing something like buying more stuff at the thrift store. I can move him and even put him up and bring him back out without question. My Mister does lack communication skills but he tries so hard to make up for that with his BEAUTY. I know...I'm a cougar. But I can't help myself when it comes to my Mister.

I know I'm showing off my Mister...but for this assignment, I see the effects of higher ISO. The Abercrombie text is less sharp and the grain is noticible.

This is where my Mister is residing (temporarily,  as he is so versatile.)

Now...Go on over to Aimee's and join in on the fun!

Shutter Time

I hope everyone is having a beautiful Saturday! I sure am because I just had another lesson from my photography teachers Aimee and Stud from It's Overflowing! This week, we learned about Shutter Priority mode. I must confess: I did not completely follow my assignment guidelines. I forgot to put my ISO setting on auto, so all of my pics are ISO 100. Oops...

There is a nice little waterfall down the street from my house that I can walk to in one minute. I am blessed with such beauty. Today is cloudy so my pics are dark but I captured the effects of faster vs slower shutter speed. I took about 100 pictures today at the waterfall and I put a few collages together to demonstrate the use of different shutter speeds.

Photography Practice

I'm Baaack! I stopped working on my blog last summer. I lost my job and was worried about being unemployed. I'm glad to report that I found a job and have been working full-time since September and so far I am enjoying my work.

Now for the subject of today's post: My sweet daughter bought me a Nikon D3100 SLR camera for Christmas! Lucky me. I am working on my photography skills lack of photography skills and found my new teacher, Aimee, from It's Overflowing. She has started a photography learning series. She breaks it down so that the info is easily understood.

This is week two and we learned about aperture and how it affects depth of field and shutter speed. Our assignment was to take a sequence of pictures that show the effects of increasing the aperture (increasing the f-stop/decreases the light) WOW...I think I understand my assignment and the results! It's my pleasure to post my assignment. Thank you Aimee and Stud.

This collage shows the f/3.5 and the f/14 side by side. Notice that more of the pic is focused with the aperture decreased (f stop increased).

Ok...I will play around with aperture this week. I can't wait for my next assignment!

Edit: I think it will be easier for me to refer to aperture as wide and narrow with wide referring to lower f# (more light) and narrow referring to higher f# (less light), so I do not confuse increasing/decreasing/higher/lower aperture and increasing/decreasing f#.

Edit #2: Upon further study, Increasing aperture=lowering F# (allowing more light), Decreasing Aperture=raising F# (allowing less light).

Before and After Garden

Hello Ladies...I have a before and after to show you. Last February, a big storm blew down a HUGE pine tree in our front yard. The tree barely missed the house and fell directly on top of my garden. Since none of the plants were up yet, I didn't lose any. But man oh man was it a big mess to clean up. This picture was taken while it was still raining.

You can see how it fell between the house and another group of trees. 

This is the side of the house and under the tree is my white gargen.

We had a very close call and I am thankful we were safe and didn't suffer any damage except a little bent gutter on the porch.

The top of the tree extended about 25 feet beyond this picture. It was massive.

And here is the yard and garden now. It sure has changed!

I think I like the after much better.

You can see the huge metamorphosis my garden and yard went through this year.

And since I am so proud of my birds, I wanted to share some of my regulars with you. The pics are taken through the window so some of them are a little blurry but look at the sweet male and female goldfinch.

This is one of my sweet baby wrens that was born on my porch this spring.

I'm new at birding (my new hobby started by the wrens) but I think this is a female cardinal. Let me know if I am wrong.

A sweet little chickadee. These little ones come all day long. They splash around in the water and bathe while I drool.

My guess is the male cardinal.

Another one of my sweet wrens. I fell in love with the wrens. You can read all about them here.

I haven't identified this little lady yet. Anybody know? Maybe a female baby cardinal?

Another shot of daddy cardinal.

They flock to the feeders all day long. If I have identified any of the birds wrong let me know. I have really been enjoying watching them come and go.

Another goldfinch. Vibrant lemon yellow sweetness.

If you didn't read my post last weekend, I am spending a lot of time job hunting as I lost my job a few weeks ago. If anyone knows of any online opportunities such as a virtual assistant, PLEASE let me know. I can do any type of office work. I am not at a panic state yet but I am a single Mother and my children, dogs, birds and flowers depend on me!

I hope you enjoyed the yard before and after and meeting my birds.

KK

I'm linking up to these fun parties.