Fancy camera!? Now what? My lessons learned with my DSLR...

When you upgrade from your point an shoot camera to your first DSLR camera, it can be a little intimidating for sure!  There are so many settings.  What do you do with them all!?  Luckily, they all come with an "Auto" mode, right?  But doesn't that defeat the purpose... at least just a little?  When my hubby bought our camera, I wasn't sold on the whole idea.... until I started playing with it.  Now I am addicted!  Now that we have several family and friends upgrading to, I wanted to share a few of my lessons learned along the way.... from a complete amateurs point of view!  Keep in mind, I am no professional :)

Don't be scared of Manual Mode!
I know it seems like a lot of confusing numbers, acronyms, and purposes, but I promise, learning how to shoot in Manual Mode is not all that hard!  Once you stat doing it, it becomes second nature... really!  Here are two guides that I found super helpful:

(1) The blog kevin & amanda has an amazing step by step guide on how to shoot in Manual called, Photography Tutorial: A Quick Guide to Understanding Your DSLR Camera
This guide is so easy to follow and will have you shooting manual in no time!

(2) Totally Rad has this phenomenal {very visual!} guide to help you understand the various manual settings!  Love this as a quick reference guide once you have already learned some of the basics! Get the full size version on their website here: http://www.gettotallyrad.com/blog/your-guide-to-m-mode/

 

Look for the Light- Love the Light!

Taking pictures is all about finding the right light... or the right shade, or the right lighted shade!  You want to try and avoid harsh shadows and once your subject is in the shade, the lighting is consistent.  However, you don't want it to be too dark, you want that sunlight to be close by to give you that great natural light (artificial light is no-bueno apparently?!) without having direct light hitting you.  Some examples of my experimentations with different lights...

In the shade:

 In overcast weather...

 In the "Golden Hour"... the last hour before sunset...

 

 Oops!!  Lighting bummers... notice the harsh lines left by being partially shaded with some direct light!

The Rule of Thirds... Maybe?!
So there is this rule of thirds... it is suppose to help you when composing a picture.  The idea being that you chop the picture into thirds making the focus of your picture at those third marks {which also in effect makes the picture off balance}.  At first I wasn't so sure... but as I started shooting more and looking at more professional shots, I started to like this concept more and more... take a look!

 I kind of like the empty space you get when moving the focus over to that "third" mark, but at the same time my OCD kicks in a little bit wanting to re-center it all!  Yikes!

Bokeh!?!?!  
When you take pictures with you aperture "wide open" you can get this dreamy bokeh effect... meaning lots of blurring before and after your main focus.  It is dreamy and gives your picture that professional feel BUT beware!  If you are shooting with your aperture at f1.8, wide open (for example) it means that it is more likely that what you want to be in focus could very well get blurred into that beautiful bokeh background!  I love shooting with a wide open f, while my hubby just shudders (making it kind of hard to share the camera, lol!).  He wants to make sure everything is sharp and focused which is more difficult to do the more "wide open" you shoot!  Here are some tips from photoble, How to: 7 Quick Tips to Create Bokeh with Your Digital Camera.

Here are some of my attempts on this one, but you may want to refer to some professional shots for this, lol!

Get Inspired!!
The more pictures I take, the more inspiration I want for new styles, compositions, and view points.  I follow many of my favorite professional photographers through facebook for their brilliant eye and ideas.  I am also a self proclaimed Pinterest Junkie!!  I made a board, Memory Making {& Everything Camera!}, so that I can save inspirations, tutorials and all the brilliant ideas I come across!  Get inspired and shoot from there!

Are you an amateur photographer with some great "aha" moments?  I'd love to hear them!

A Fun Baby & Belly Picture Idea

So yes, little sis is already one... and I still haven't shared this, but I do love how it turned out and wanted to get it up here eventually!  So, here it is, our fun belly and baby picture thanks to my sweet hubby :)

(Click on Picture to Enlarge)

Just a quick how we did it: The pictures were taken in front of our sliding glass door with sun coming in, sheer curtain pulled across.  With a little added light in the editing process, it completely whites out the background.  Once we had both shots, I used Picasa (google's free photo organizing and editing program) to create a collage joining both shots and adding the writing.

 Now my sis-in-law is pregnant and I am on the search for fun and creative belly pictures once again!  If you have any, I would love if you'd share the link below!

Christmas Pictures

I was a lucky girl this Christmas... my hubby got me a new lens for my camera... a 35mm f/1.8 lens that can help get that cool bokeh look in some of my pictures.  I begged the hubs to let me open my present a few hours early because I have been drooling over the Unskinny Boppy's photo from her post "Taking Glowing Pictures of the Tree."  Her cool picture of her son has been flying like crazy through Pinterest and I have been lusting over one of my own.

I started by using her settings: ISO 3200, f/1.8, ss 1/30th... but played a bit to try and get the lighting a bit brighter.  I am fairly new to using my camera in manual mode... but I am LOVING experimenting with it!

This was taken with all the lights off, ISO 6400, f/1.8, ss 1/30.

 

Little sis moves more... so getting a clearer picture of her in low light is a tad bit more tricky, but with the same settings I got this shot- kind of grainy, but I am still in love.

And after Santa stopped in, I snapped a few shots at ISO 1600, f/1.8, ss 1/30.

 The one of the whole tree I raised my f-stop up a bit... ISO 1600, f/2.2, ss 1/30.

It is so fun to experiment with having a DSLR!  I hope you and your families had a beautiful Christmas and thanks to Unskinny Boppy for the inspiration!

~Christy

The Girls' Focal Wall

So my sweet baby girl is now 4 months old and I am finally getting around to finishing her and big sissy's room.  When big sis was born, the room was custom designed just for her... but when sweet little sis came along, we made the big decision to have the girls share... which was great; less work for me to do to prepare for baby #2, but at the same time very sad, well, because there was less work that I got to do!  So... with a few furniture changes (big sis got a new bed!), I was left with a wall to decorate- woo hoo!

Of course, I started this whole process when I was 8 months pregnant... why not, right!?

I, the always frugal and thinking how can I make do with what I have, scrounged through a box of old frames and begged one very willing father in law for some ugly old black mirrors that once hung in my hubby's garage.  I came up with a general layout and knew I wanted to add in some sisterly quotes and other fun projects I have seen on Pinterest as well.  Yes... that belly was crawling around on our living room floor to do this!

After prepping all the frames, I begged the hubby to please, please, please spray paint this stack white, this stack blue, and this stack pink, and he obliged because that's just the kind of awesomeness he is.... and we turned that into this!

And the longer I thought about this wall piece, the more things I realized we already had that would work perfectly... like the random canvas picture of our first daughter, some clay handprints, and some other random frames gathered from around the house.  One of the mirrors I decided to leave a mirror while the second frames I used to create a much needed bow holder.

And then everything just sat.... baby girl came and everything just sat!  The world just seems to spin on without you when you have a newborn.  But now, four moths later, tadah!  The focal wall is up.