Understanding My Camera

Over the last week or so, I have been learning a lot more about my camera. I've read the book that came with my camera at least 20-25 times [no joke], but reading can only get you so far. Lately, I've been using different modes on my camera that I wasn't comfortable using before. I made myself use those modes and nothing else for a short, yet decent, amount of time. Now, I am very comfortable shooting in A [Aperture Priority] and M [Manual]. So I can add those two modes to the list of modes I am comfortable using. [Next mode I need to work on/get comfortable using is P [Portrait]. Sounds pretty easy, but I'd like to just get the chance to use it more often.] I'm very happy now that I know how to use those modes, and what to use them for. Honestly, I find it very exciting to be able to know how to use multiple shooting modes on my camera and know what mode is best for different situations.

I think it's so funny to think back a month or two ago, and think about how little I knew about my camera. I know so much about it now, and I love learning more!! [Good thing I want to go to school for photography, huh? HA.] I know I have a lot more to learn, but that's a good great thing!! I hate when I've learned so much about something that it gets boring and I have to move on to the next thing. [And I can get bored with things pretty easily, too.]

Well, it's a beautiful day here and Mark's outside with the boys - so I am going to join them and, of course, take lots and lots of photos of them playing around. And I can't wait till tonight because Mark and I are going to the Indians vs. Red Sox game!! YAY! I don't know when I'll get more photos up though because our laptop is messed up with viruses and spyware, so it all needs to be wiped out before we can use it again. [Thank God we're visiting family in Ohio and can use my parents' computer/Internet. But it's so slow that I don't even want to attempt uploading photos.]

Enjoy your day, people!!

Two photos I love.

At the beginning of the month, we went to the Family Day thing for the MEU at Camp Lejeune. I had an okay time. I took lots of pictures while we were there, but with all of the people around, I just didn't get any good shots of all the aircraft and whatnot alone. Oh well. I guess I'll just stick to the fly-by shots when they're flying over our house. HA.

One shot I got that I really like was on our way back to the car. Mark was pushing the boys in the jogging stroller, and I was behind them by 2-3 steps because, of course, I was photographing a bunch of stuff while we were walking to the car. So here's the picture:

That blue thing is Michael's balloon fishing rod that the clown there made for him. It was such a cute little thing, and Michael loved it!! But there's just something about this photo that I really love, and I can't really put my finger on it. I just love it!! I guess that's something I like about photography though, you love a picture but can't always figure out why.

Another shot I got that day was while we were at home. I was messing around with the shutter speed on my camera while Mark and I were outside with the boys, and just taking photos while Mark and the boys played. At one point, the boys were just sitting down, and Mark was bouncing Michael's Spiderman ball, so I started taking photos. I got your usual photos with the ball up in the air, but I got this one, as well:

If you enlarge it, you'll get to see the ball a lot better. The ball just looks so funny and weird!! HA. I love it! It's almost flattened - kind of!! HA. I guess I was just quick with the camera.

I love using shutter speeds!! It took me so long to understand it and what ISO sensitivity had to do with it. While I'm no mastermind still, I can honestly say that I am pretty good with it. I now love shooting in S mode, and I use 95% of the time. I still shoot in AUTO once in a while, but I'm just trying to get away from using it and learning and focusing on other modes to shoot in. The next two modes I really want to focus on are M [manual] and A [aperture priority]. I think I could benefit greatly from those two modes. I'm also thinking about buying an external hard drive with a lot of memory so I can just go ahead and shoot in RAW. I've shot photos in RAW before and was very pleased with how the photos turned out, I just wasn't thrilled with how much memory is used when shooting in RAW. So I figure if I have an external hard drive with lots of memory, I won't be too worried about how much memory gets used.