These Four No More: Outside Pictures

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Outside Pictures

I took Audrey in for her 6 week helmet appointment. The doctor is amazed at her results, and says that she is doing exceptionally well. When she first started wearing her helmet, there was only a 5mm difference between the length from front to back, and the width from side to side. Most people have a 20-30mm difference (your head is longer from front to back than side to side). He had said she would be lucky to get to 10mm – and today she is at 12mm!!! We go back in three weeks to have another scan and see how she is doing. I’m crossing my fingers she’ll have her helmet off soon after July 4th – before it gets unberably hot here.

I took the girls outside for a few minutes. I really need to practice taking pictures outside because, quite frankly, I suck. I can’t figure out the exposure and whatnot and most of my pics end up being waaaay too washed out. We were only outside for less than 5 minutes before both girls felt the effects of their prunes from yesterday – and right as Audrey decided she wanted to eat grass. I got a few good shots of Natalie, and washed out ones of Audrey. If anyone knows what settings I should use for the Canon Rebel, let me know.

Audrey without her helmet on:

Natalie wanting a "baba"

2 comments:

SarahJune 14, 2009 9:47 AM
I have a Canon rebel and one of my favorite settings is the portrait setting. It gives the background kind of a blurry look but focuses in on the faces. I hope this helps! I am still trying to get good with mine and take a lot of pictures!
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BrandiJune 16, 2009 5:52 PM
The blurry background (bokeh) is caused by shooting wide open. That means you shoot with a small aperture number. I have a 50mm f/1.8 lens I LOVE (and it's only about $100). The 1.8 is the largest aperture I can shoot with (smallest number). That's very wide open so I can get great bokeh! I love the blurry background, so I almost always shoot this way.

As for getting good exposure, when you look through your viewfinder, you'll see a little ruler thing with a 0 in the middle, and 1 and 2 on the sides. Your goal is to get the little dot thing in the middle. If you're too far to the right, you'll be overexposed (washed out). Too far to the left and you'll be underexposed. I have a Rebel XTi and I've found if I get it right in the middle, they come out a little dark for my taste, so I typically try to get it one or two notches to the right. Play with your settings until you find your sweet spot. I usually leave my aperture around 1.8-2.2 and just adjust my shutter speed, or ISO if I have to. Feel free to email me if you have more questions or if this doesn't make sense! I don't want to take over your comments section.

One last thing, there's a book called Understanding Exposure that explains it in better detail, but in terms everyone can understand.
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