Prime Lens Practice Time!

It figures that the weekend after I get a new lens, my little guy is sick. I didn't get much of an opportunity to have fun with the lens. Luke wasn't feeling all that smiley or energetic.

I'm glad I had what little chance I did, though, because this lens will take a little getting used to! Upon reviewing my shots later, I realized that the depth of field at a f/1.8 is really, really shallow! Obviously I was expecting this to an extent, but...wow. Just wow. Clearly (or not so clearly, haha) I cannot do a closeup of Luke's face at a 1.8. That is, unless I only want his right eye in focus or something. I guess I need to go back to a 2.8 or a 4, or back up a bit! Or make sure he stays absolutely still while I focus, lol. Good luck with that.

Otherwise I love the lens and the bokeh is really, really nice.











This weekend will be exciting. I'm going to be almost permanently glued to my camera! Yay!

Watermark?

I've decided I need a watermark for my photos. Apparently it is the thing to do. Makes sense, why would I want someone to be able to steal my images? I came up with three different ideas:

#1:


#2:


#3:


I like the font, I like the name. I just don't know which design I like the best. I made a poll - it's on the right above the playlist that everyone loves so much. Please let me know what you think!

Eeee!! New Lens!!

It came, hooray! I ordered the 50mm f/1.8 on Monday, and it has arrived. I cannot WAIT to try it out! I may have to wait until the weekend, though, to have the opportunity to use it in natural light. Stupid winter/no daylight.

Fall Leaves & Luke

Sunday the weather was really quite lovely, so Luke and I spent some time outside. I sat him in a giant pile of leaves and had fun snapping a bunch of pictures! He was a little unsure about the leaves as first, but eventually decided he liked to swish them around under his hands. It was so cute!

I decided to try shooting in RAW this time, and I have to say, I love it! The files take up much more space than regular JPGs, but I think its worth the difference in quality. It took me a little time to figure out how to bring the files into Photoshop as well.

I also discovered that shooting on shutter speed priority is kinda nice. I usually shoot on aperture priority, but Luke moves so fast that things often get a little blurry. So, I decided to try something a little different, and was quite pleased!
















(this one above is my favorite, btw)

Random Fall

The weather has been quite dissapointing. I've wanted to get outside to take photos of the beautiful fall colors, however we've had an extraordinary amount of rain. Thus my camera hasn't been seeing too much action lately. Here are a few random shots, taken at completely random times. I hope to get some cute stuff this weekend for Halloween.




This was actually sometime in September, when we still had some green!





I need to buy the 50mm f/1.8 lens. I'm dying to concentrate on some portrait photography.

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Over the weekend, Rob, Luke and I made a trip to Keller's farmstand in Oswego to pick out pumpkins! Keller's has a 30 acre pumpkin patch. We rolled a wheelbarrow out to the field and Rob scampered about, turning over pumpkins in search of what he considers to be the "perfect" specimen. I let him pick out my pumpkin: I was more interested in taking photos of Luke! It was a beautiful day, not too cold, clear skies, bright sun... Actually, the sun was rather aggravating. There are a lot of large circular lens flares smack dab in the middle of my shots. Plus it's not easy to get a proper exposure. But, I figure it is good experience! Thus, several of these I am sharing today are rather dissapointing to me. I am not going to put off the purchase of a lens hood any longer!


Luke had no idea what we were doing to him.




He warmed up after a few minutes, though.

When we wanted to explore a different part of the patch, we put Luke and our pumpkins in the wheelbarrow. It was too cute!




Watching Daddy




Ah, yes, I'd like to purchase these 7 pumpkins...

And for some general pumpkin-y pictures:









Happy fall!

New Items on Etsy!

I've somehow managed to get around to creating some holiday photo greeting cards. There are 7 total...for now! Check them out at prettyfishdesign.etsy.com! I hope to add more over the next week or so, depending on how productive I can be.