Today's photos

Took a variety of photos today, some on auto, some on aperture priority, some completely manual.  Looked through them all and kept only the best.  I was a bit frustrated to find that of the keepers, only 4 were "non-auto".  Oh well, for now I'm happy to have some nice photos, practice makes better.

1/100 sec f/5.6 ISO 800

1/30 sec f/5.6 ISO 1500

1/250 sec f/5.6 ISO 100

1/2500 sec f/13 ISO 3200

1/100 sec f/11 ISO 100

1/125 sec f/6.3 ISO 100

1/160 sec f/7.1 ISO 100

1/125 sec f/10 ISO 100

Feet off the ground

1/100 sec f/5.6, ISO 1600

Recent Photos

f/5 ISO 100 1/200 sec

f/4.5 ISO 100 1/160 sec

f/5.6 ISO 400 1/1250 sec

f/5.6 ISO 400 1/2000 sec

f/5.6 ISO 100 1/125 sec

That's me!

f/6.3 ISO 100 1/160 sec

f/6.3 ISO 100 1/160 sec

f/5.6 ISO 100 1/60 sec

f/5.6 ISO 100 1/60 sec

Allison enjoys the beach in Atlantic City while Mom tries out the camera

First attempt at fireworks

I'll admit, none of these are very good.  I was overall disappointed that I tried to follow the "directions" I'd read and manually set the f stop, shutter speed, but did much better at that automatic settings. Once I got the images on a computer I realized, even the auto shots are not very good.  I did not use a tripod. Oh well, I am learning!


1st shot, F/8 ISO 100, shutter speed 2 seconds.  (I had the camera in "burst" mode.)

Same settings as above, but shutter speed 1/10 of a second.  I think I had turned burst off.

 

I've now switched to full auto mode, f4.5 ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/2 sec.  I wonder if this had been focused if it might have been ok.



Still in auto mode f4.5 ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/4 sec.



F4.5, ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/6 sec.

I have a lot more pictures like this, but nothing of striking improvement.  I decided it was time to put the camera down and enjoy the fireworks with my family!

First pictures!



Last picture of the first day.  Very happy with this one (still on auto) but need to watch details.  Lack of dead flowers would have been nice!

Back to auto settings.  I like the colors, maybe too much sun, need to work on composition - see the umbrella peeking into the picture?



Used the feature where it takes 6 quick shots and combines them to stop the action.



First picture, ever.  All automatic, I didn't change a single setting from default.



CHARGE!

It is here and charging!  Great day for it, have been forced to work at home due to lack of AC at the office, and my hibiscus has 6 new blooms!!! 


C'mon electricity, faster faster!

Lets get this blog started

I've wanted to try to learn to take better photos for quite a while.  Notice that I say try to learn - I currently take a few great photos, and a whole lot of bad ones. All by luck with a canon point and shoot or more frequently my iphone.  Some friends capture amazing shots with DSLRs, and I'm not sure I'll ever quite get there, but I'm really interested in trying to learn a little something.  Having an almost 4 year old, I'm eager to improve my ability to capture her more fully in pictures.

Step 1, the camera has been ordered.  I'm trying a SONY NEX 7, which is a mirrorless camera. Smaller and possibly less complicated than a DSLR, it has interchangeable lenses and advanced features I've never even contemplated. 

Check back to see my progress, hopefully we'll see some improvement over time!

Jen