Phhotography lessons so far

I just finished my 5th photography class (how is this going by so quickly?) and so far I find it really good. It's definitely teaching me the basics, and I'm learning how to use my camera in different scenarios.

One of my ah-hah moments so far is using aperature for depth of field. I know this is "easy" for people who know what they are doing, but for me it was an exciting discovery (and something that completely highlights how much I can manipulate my DSLR vs. my point and shoot).

Next challenge is to be more conscious of composition and "filling the frame" rather than relying on touch ups and cropping after the fact. I'm looking forward to more and more practice!

My new toy {DSLR camera}

Christmas was good to me in many ways, and one of them was a hand-me-down DSLR camera from my dad!

Last year I made an effort to take better photos with my point and shoot camera. While I think it improved my photos a lot, point and shoots are just not as powerful (i.e. fancy) as full fledged DSLRs. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to get my hands on this fancy one.

But now...I have to learn how to use it! I've signed up for a course with Toronto's school board (Wednesday was my first class! I thought I might be in the wrong place when the instructor spent 10 minutes on how to get photos onto your computer, but then we were allowed to take out our cameras and "discover" them a little bit). 

There are many tips on Pinterest, but do you have any go to tips?  What's the best way to learn the basiscs?

Friday faves: PicMonkey

Do you use PicMonkey? It is an online photo editing software with a tagline of "Fearless photo embetterment".

Love it!

Basically it's free, dead easy to use, and has a great range of effects. I've used it mainly to do collages for the 'ol blog like these:

PicMonkey provides templates for collages and lets you overlay collages or photos with text, or labels like the crumpled paper below

PicMonkey is SO easy to use and I love the collage options it offers! Here is what the dashboard looks like:



There are also a range of photo editing tools that you can use to touch up your photos, or add instagram-ish effects to them. The options really are varied and broad.

I think it adds a lot to photos, so if you have some time to play around with it head on over! Otherwise, have a great July weekend everyone :)

*Full disclosure: I was not sponsored for this post, I just think it's a really good product and wanted to let people know about it!



Point and shoot

Today I'm talking photos. Earlier this month I took part in InspireMeHeather's blog-feedback "What I like about your blog" project, and I got positive and negative feedback on my blog. Once I removed myself and looked at it objectively, I agree with the feedback provided and think it's great to have a few things to work on.

One reviewer said "...I also noticed that some of the images were not taken properly, maybe they could work on getting the perfect shot before displaying the pictures."

I totally agree with this. To be honest, I'm often writing posts at night, after work with no daylight to speak of. Sometimes I am so "done" with the project that I just want to get a photo and get on with it. In terms of food pictures, I wish I could get better at taking them, but usually I just want to enjoy the yumminess right away and not worry about "staging" the photo to look its best.

Even before this feedback I was thinking about the images on my blog and how to improve them. The conclusion that I came to was that I need to upgrade my camera to a DSLR. They take SUCH great photos and make everything look good!  Then over the holidays, I was thinking - if I get a DSLR I'm going to have to learn how to use it. Why don't I just learn how to use my point and shoot properly and see what happens? I read some articles in blogland, and this one (Growing your Blog - Photography & Styling) stood out in particular - the common thread was that none of these featured bloggers EVER used a flash (and one of them used a point and shoot for years!). Note taken, tripod purchased.

I by no means know what I'm doing with photography, but I am going to try to play around a bit more and try to plan for posts so I have a chance to take photos on the weekend when light is good. Here are some examples of the differences in photos between auto and manual settings:

Auto setting (flash):

Manualsetting (no flash):

Isn't it amazing how much the flash takes away from the colours and detail in the auto photo? You can barely see the little droplets of juice near the knife under the auto settings., but with manual you get a much nicer photo.

These next two examples were taken without the advantage of natural daylight - just regular old lighting (and my now-trusty tripod).

Auto setting (flash):

Manual setting (no flash):

Look at how much more of the room throughthe doorway you can see with no flash and the proper manual light settings!

Auto setting (flash):

Manual setting (no flash):



And finally, a quick try of a food photo:

Auto setting (flash):

I have always had difficult with food shots since the flash LOVES my white dishes...

Manual setting (no flash):

(Yumm...this was dinner on Saturday while watching Hockey Night In Canada)

The next step is editing. I have been playing around in Picasa, and used it for a number of the photos in my home tour posts (here and here). I didn't touch any of the photos above, but just think what a few clicks could have done! If you have any tips or have come across any great artciles please let me know.