Christmas is Coming...

There is a Holiday Bokeh Party going on...and I want to play.  Since I already posted this photo on my photo blog, I'm linking up here.

Merry Christmas! 

Once we get our tree up I plan to be swimming in Holiday Bokeh shots...that is after I finish editing the pictures from a party I attended Sunday.

Picture Perfect

This crazy (actually she says she's crazy, but I haven't witnessed it), and terrific (which I have witnessed), lady that I met on the adoption forum I love has started a new photo linky party--a once a month themed photo.  I've already entered with my photography blog, but since I met her because of our mutual interest in adopting from China and she said you can enter more than once, I thought I would also link from here.  If you want to join in the fun hop on over!




This month's theme is Your Muse--what inspires you to take pictures.  Yesterday and today that happens to by my friend's newborn (13 days old).  Isn't she precious?

 

Not Useless Photos

Yesterday I took the kids outside so I could take pictures. 

I thought it was a great day to try out my "kid's vibrant color" setting on my camera since Sunflower had chosen this outfit for the day.  (Her undies are blue and her socks are yellow).


If I was planning to hide my children's faces on my blog this is the picture I would have picked to share with you:

After I was done the kids stayed outside another hour to play.  Since they were outside I had to stay in the back of the house so I spent the time doing dishes and folding laundry.  Good deal all around.  We have now had two extra play times outside and a trip to the zoo all because we bought a camera.  Who would have thought a camera could improve your life and not just your memories?

Cedar's New Blog

Okay, I am now completely insane.  I decided that since I have a full 11 readers now I should expand and create another blog.  

It is Cedar's Photography Blog--yes, I have expanded into more creativity with naming things, also.  

Here is the real problem I am trying to solve.  According to The Life Cycle of the China Adoption Blog my blog should not morph into a photo blog until I am actually home from China.  However, that is a long way away...probably.  In the meantime I really want to prove (to myself) that our camera splurge was not a waste.  I do not want to dilute this blog with hundreds and hundreds of useless photos while improving my photo skills.  So...

I have created a new blog to dilute.  I will still use photos here, but only as they pertain to the story I am trying to tell and to document our life.  Over there I can explore and participate in photo challenges.  I did my first challenge today.  I don't really expect to win any challenges, but I like the idea of participating so I can learn from others and get ideas to try.  I seriously can only take so many pictures of Sunflower as cute as she is.

So feel free to visit me over there or not.  However, if you do, I think I'll count you as two readers--one here and one there.  Super exciting to my inflated and easily deceived ego!

My New Camera

I mentioned yesterday that I had a serious post about cameras, and I did.  We have been talking about getting a new camera for about a year and seriously researching it for the last 3 weeks.  I love my camera:

However, we bought it in 2004 and it is only 3MP.  We chose it because of its small shutter lag (for its time) and great lens.  It can usually capture the image I want but it has the same limitations of most point and shoots for indoors and I was starting to find 3MP limiting.  

So the question was, do we purchase another really nice point and shoot now or splurge and get a DSLR?

We could not decide because the point and shoot we liked the best because of its reputation for great indoor shots due to a better sensor only had 3x zoom and I LOVE my 12x optical zoom.

But if we bought a DSLR would we actually take advantage of its flexibility and use its different settings or would we be lugging around a large camera and continue to take basic shots?

So my husband started researching cameras and I started researching photography.  I found 31 Days to Better Photos at Life with My 3 Boybarians (can I just say I love that blog name) and started working my way through the lessons with my Panasonic.  I found the series about a year after she posted it, so I cannot get feed back from her, but I've been doing the lessons and I've learned a lot.

It took 5 different photo shoots and the help of my husband to get my camera to capture the differences changes in aperture can make:
F/2.8

F/8

My Panasonic only ranges from 2.8-8 which we have learned is not a very wide range.  We took pictures at all the options in between, but only by looking at first and last could we see a big change and learn what she meant by depth of field.

Anyway, this is what we were pondering and wondering what other people thought when our friend could not come over last night as we were hoping.  Because he wasn't coming we went to Costco and bought the Nikon D3100.  (We had researched many, many cameras and had the Nikon, Cannon T1i, and a Pentax on our wish list at our price point, but Costco had the D3100 kit for $200 off).

I feel a little ill about it and I blame our friend.  I am not a real photographer.  I only took like 3000 pictures last year, not over 10,000.  I really don't have a lot of time to adjust settings when taking pictures of my zing, zing two year old.  And honestly, I think I got a better shot of my Nikon with my Panasonic than of my Panasonic with my Nikon--though that probably has more to do with the color of the cameras, the lighting (same spot but time passed) and my familiarity with the Panasonic than the quality of the Nikon, but I worry.  I could sponsor a child in a third world country for 27 months for what we spent.

However, we bought it at Costco, so we have 90 days to return it, but I am cautiously optimistic we will keep it (unless the T2i kit drops by $300).

This picture from my Panasonic:

is more interesting than the same shot with my Nikon today:

But that has more to do with the weather than the camera (though I never would have taken the Nikon into the falling snow, so I never would have known what it was capable of capturing.)

But I am liking the vibrant colors that still look natural, the lack of any shutter lag, and all the math that goes into photography.  

And since we got the camera yesterday my husband and I have taken over 300 pictures so I'm thinking it won't go to waste.

Now if I could just remember that the smaller F-stop number means larger aperture and larger aperture means smaller depth of field (I think) because:

I wanted her feet to be crisp and the rest of the picture blurry.  Oops.  I guess I've figured out how to keep busy while waiting to go to China.