Experimenting with the Camera

Thanks to 31 Days of Autumn Bliss (see sidebar button) and Life With My 3 Boybarians, I now have an entire folder labeled "Experiment" where each picture is labeled with information to include aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. I've learned a few things; whether the photography improves remains to be seen.

If you've ever wondered about such things, visit Darcy and see what a good teacher she is! Although she puts the instruction booklet to shame, she does want you to read your instruction booklet. She's doing a daily post on photography for the month of October so check it out. *Here's* where she began.

Here are a few of my experiments... (I'm not going to bore you with the strange names.)

But I will tell you what I did with this shot — it's on an aperture of F8, which makes the front cactus leaves out of focus while making the picture of the little house in focus. I'll leave it to Darcy to tell you why with her excellent Depth of Field lesson.

This photo was taken on an F 2.7 setting. (One thing I quickly learned was that I have a middle of the road camera. Not the best and not the worst. It doesn't have all the settings that Darcy's does. Noooo, I am not one bit jealous. Noooo, not at all. :D ) And, while I didn't get that bokeh effect, I do like the way the nearer objects are in focus and the forest (seen through the deck spindles) is somewhat out of focus. Bokeh is a delightful thing and I want to achieve it more often. I find it entirely magical.

Still working on bokeh with this shot of the fuschias and getting a bit...I love that one drop of water on the bud and the little sparkle of green in the out-of-focus left bottom corner. So, if this shows the nearer objects in focus, I was using F2.7. And if I crop this, I can use it for a header next summer!

Here's another taken from my chair and out the window (and screen) taken at the opposite end of aperture — F8. This is where the nearer objects are out of focus and the farther away ones are in focus. In this case, kinda. (John tells me that the barn to the right and above the fence is about 650 feet away. The fence is about 22 feet away.)

One more because it is so autumnal with its coppers... This is also on an F2.7 for a close-up shot. I almost feel as if I could read that newspaper scrap.

Thank you for visiting today. I want to wish all my Canadian readers a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends!

(I'm really away today, but more about that later.)