Playing

I am trying so hard to take better photos and learn how to use my new(ish) camera. I had my old one for five years, and I had that bad boy figured out! The new one is similar, but five years of new technology and tricks is still a lot to learn. 

An example? White balance. On my last camera, you did the old point it at something white and push a button deal. Simple. Here, camera. This is white. Go! Call me crazy, but I really liked it that way. And when I forgot to set it myself, auto turned out pretty well.

On the new camera, you choose what kind of light you're shooting in - sunlight, incandescent, fluorescent, etc. That's all well and good, unless you're not in a habit of changing it...which I'm not, see? Exhibit 1:  Yellowish photo of clippies. The last time I shot in manual - which I don't always do, because most of the time, the kids are just moving too fast - I left it set to fluorescent light. 

Good thing I noticed how yucky that looked before I put everything away and loaded the photos onto the computer. Because look! I switched it over to incandescent, and ta-da! Beautiful. The colors actually look right. 

I was also playing around with a new lens that I got for Christmas. It's a 50mm, and it has much better depth of field to work with than the zoom lens that came on the camera. Of course, taking these pictures at night was probably a bad idea. The next time, I'll try to be patient and wait for daylight. I had to have the aperture so far open that I couldn't even get all four clips in focus. Whoops! 

Anyway, I know that's all pretty boring, and from reading the title of the post, you probably expected something about my kids playing, not me playing with my camera, but that's all I've got. It's been dreary and rainy for several days, and we haven't been up to much other than watching movies and playing with Play Doh. 

Oh, and for anyone interested in buying some of the cute little clippies featured in all my photos, please visit my Etsy shop, Neely Bug Boutique.