My First HDR

This is from Disneyland last week. This picture is actually three photos (taken at different exposures) merged into one, if you're not familiar with HDR. What do you think? I used Photomatix to do the merging, because I'm too lazy to figure out how to do it another way so far.

White Balance

For my next act, I will attempt to balance the whites! Do you ever have pictures that you take indoors that always come out yellow/orange/oddly colored? I hate that. I try and try and try but auto white balance is just not my friend. So, I learned how to play with white balance settings, and I figured out how to set the custom white balance on my camera. It was such a fun experiment, and my subject definitely helps with the quality of the photos. (Typical momtog, I know that's what you're thinking)

Auto white balance is not my friend... Yellow baby.

 And, custom white balance. It doesn't look like someone pissed all over the photo!

Edited: I changed the 2nd pic for a little better comparison (I think...)

I would like a macro lens, Christmas is coming ;)

Today was a pretty nice day, only 99 degrees! I decided to go outside to take some pics of the pretty flowers outside my house. Please note that I do not take care of these flowers; the HOA pays for landscapers to do it for me. If I took care of them, there would be no pretty flowers. Thanks for the green thumb, mom!

[68mm : ISO100 : f/2.8 : 1/325]

And just for good measure, a pic of the mighty Miss A

[40mm : ISO3200 : f/2.8 : 1/125]

Should Be Doing Homework Tuesday

I'm in school, taking a whole 2 classes. One of my classes has assignments due noon on Wednesday. So, Tuesday night is when I do them, since I'm at work at noon on Wednesday. And, I'm a major procrastinator. Instead of homework, I decided to play with my "fancy" camera some more. Hus recently bought a ukelele, which ended up being the subject of my poor camera's torture. I wanted to play with aperture a little, to get a better idea of how it affects depth of field. I know how it works, but I think it's fun to play with. Of course, it's night time, the lighting in my house blows, and I couldn't find our tripod. So, I made my own out of a text book, my laptop, and the lens hood. Really, it wasn't a tripod, it was just a stable surface at a decent-ish height for what I wanted to do. So here's one aperture "project"

You can only kind of tell my house is a cluttered disaster (ISO1600 : f/2.8 : 1/15)

"Hmm, perhaps you need a cleaning lady." (ISO1600 : f/8.0 : 1/2)

"Maybe you need a few cleaning ladies... or guys. I'm not sexist." (ISO1600 : f/22 : 4)

Weekend Shenanigans

So, this weekend I took some time to read up on aperture, ISO, shutter speed, etc. I know what all these things are, I used to sell cameras for the longest time. I had to explain these things to people. I've always been so against using high ISO, because I absolutely hate the noise it produces in pics. These "lessons" I've been reading are geared towards getting you to put the flash away. I'm a flash freak. My house has minimal decent lighting, so I almost always have the speedlite on, ready to help out with my crap lighting. Here are some examples of what I accomplished. I still have a long road ahead of me, and these are nowhere near perfect. They are also unedited, so please be kind ;) Editing will come later in my self-learning.

Body: Canon 40D
Lens: Canon 24-70mm 2.8L
Flash: none (yikes)
Filter: B&W UV Haze

24mm, ISO3200 [yikes], f/2.8, shutter 1/25.

40mm, ISO1600, f/5.6, shutter 1/80 (I also did this one in full manual, for the first time ever I felt comfortableish using manual instead of aperture priority)