My baby is 18 months old today

Took the 50 outside today

I went to the park with my 50 mm lens in tow today. I have not shot outdoors since...ummm...October. I hate winter! I am well aware that the Nifty 50 is not the optimal lens for outdoor nature shots, and a good telephoto lens would be a wiser choice. I decided I wanted to take the 50 out and see what I could do with it. Imagine my surprise when I found this woodpecker pimping for the camera! I was after good bokeh more than anything today, but now after having a good look at these, I think I need to stop down to widen the area in focus. I see lots of soft focus where I would rather have sharp definition. Birds are so fast, and hard to capture a great shot in manual mode. I resisted temptation, and all of these shots are in manual. I edited to crop them. I must read up and learn more about the art of photographing birds. I CAN get better at this.

So, I give you my bird friends...

My little photography student

Brooks and Brenna

My girl!

Brooks

IMG_6441, originally uploaded by learning2snap.

This is Brooks, our boxer-hound mix. He is always a willing model, knowing that there is a dog treat waiting at the end of the shoot.

50mm f3.2 iso400 1/125s. Edited to crop, adjust exposure, sharpen.

Love my doggy!

Photos of how my night went

Yep, it's a glass of wine kind of night around here. I am trying to learn my new Speedlite, and decided to photograph my sidekick for the evening: my glass of wine. I played with the settings because I am struggling to get great pics in AV mode with the flash on. I am discovering that manual mode may be what I need to use when I plan to use flash. It was super easy and they just looked better SOOC. The pic I took without flash was plain garbage, so I love my flash. All of the Speedlite pics were taken with flash bounced at 90 degrees off the white ceiling. I think I need to watch myself when editing. Some are slightly overedited, but the pics were much better with the Speedlite. I must continue to play with it and get it mastered.