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Life is too short to eat bad food! Sharing great recipes, farm life, stories and photography from our Northern California dairy farm.

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Showing posts with label canon rebel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label canon rebel. Show all posts

December 29, 2010

Know Your Camera? Flash or No Flash? Manual or Auto?

It's a stormy day, kids still on Christmas break, Legos, play ponies, swimming Barbies scattered all throughout the house.  I could clean and organize.....nah, I'll practice some photography skills instead.  Much more fun.

In the past six months, I've learned that it's best to take photos, most all photos, without flash.  Especially when your subject is food.  The flash just washes the food out and makes things look harsh and ugly.  So, I wanted to get to know my Rebel digital camera a little better and yesterday was the day.

This first photo was taken in my kitchen with a flash and a bright window behind the subject.  A little washed out.














I normally take all my photos on the manual setting of "P" - no flash but with the bright window behind and on a stormy, dark day, the subject also came out very dark.  Normally I would have a "daylight" fluorescent light bulb pointed at the subject for more lighting, but I wanted to show the true lighting of the room in these photos.....













Still on manual, but this time on the "Tv" setting, I set my shutter speed to 15" and adjusted my "white balance" to "daylight"  and my camera is on a tripod.  Much better.













Here's another example without the bright window behind.  With flash......













On manual "P" setting, no flash.............













On manual "Tv" setting, no flash, with shutter speed at 6", on a tripod,  much better.......













Here's one that's a little over exposed on the "Tv" setting with shutter speed of 10" on a tripod ........













When all else fails, I have my camera on the manual "P" setting so I don't have to think about exposure. And I'll do anything to get away from using a flash.

I'm just beginning to really learn how to use my camera properly, it only took me 4 years, there's a lot to learn! 


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August 19, 2010

It's All About the Lens

As most of you know, it was my birthday in July, but what you don't know {until now} is that I bought myself a teensy weensy little birthday present.........called a macro lens {for my Canon Rebel}. 

And OH.

How.

I.

LOVE.

It! 

It is amazing what a difference a lens can make!  Who knew? Not me......until now. 

When we were at the beach the other day, I tried it out.  Of course I still need lots of practice, but wow,  what detail this lens captures.  I think I'm going to have a lot of fun using it and can't wait to try it out on food shots.

So, bear with me while I share with you some of the shots I took around our friends, the Taylor's, beach cabin.  These shots were taken right before we left at about 5 p.m. after I loaded up the car and realized I had not yet taken any flower or vegetation shots.


Next time I'll get a little closer but I was afraid of being stung by a bee.





















Mint grows wild around the beach cabin.



Thanks for hanging in there with me while I learn to use the macro lens hopefully my photos will become better and better!

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