Pretty In Pink

This picture looked great (to me) right out of the camera!

But I played with it anyway, because how else will I learn anything? First, a little obligatory cropping. There was a pale pink smudge on one side that had to go, and I wanted the flowers to be just a bit more off-center than they were. I also used the feature to adjust depth of field, so the flowers stayed brilliant, but the background was pushed even further back than it already was.

White Amaryllis

I took this picture early in the day, before I decided the flash was just screwing everything up.

Viewed on the camera screen, I thought this was awful. There was no context! The flash had brightened the white flowers and killed the entire background! When I saw it on my computer screen, however, I liked it a lot more. I think it looks neat the way the flowers almost seem to be floating in nothingness.

I did clone out a little bit of stem at the bottom and played a little with the brightness and sharpness. But nothing too severe. I like the droplets of water on the petals, too. :)

Blue Poinsettias

This is not as sharp as I would like, but it's still a fun and pretty picture.

I should maybe have darkened this one a bit. Hmm... Anyway, I did change the horizon so that I could get a nicer crop, cropped it heavily, and tried to sharpen it a little bit. It's hard to see, but the blue leaves also have sparkles on them! :) (Yes, the snow is very fake. This was an indoor display.)

Christmas: Poinsettia

Ho ho ho! Time to get in the spirit of the season and enjoy some holiday themed pictures!

I was really quite impressed with how well this came out - because it's a cell phone picture! This is a very pretty Poinsettia. I contemplated stealing it.

Flower Stairs

I guess they must use the backdoor now.

(Taken in Miradoux, France)

Roses are pink, in Alberta

This was taken on the same day as Just buzzzzing along.

Our provincial flower is one of my favourites. There's just something about it that hits a chord with me. In this shot, I love how it's peeking between two fuzzy, out of focus leaves. It looks kind of shy. I also really like the way the pink pops out from among the greens and browns. It really stands out!

0.01 sec exposure, 5.7 aperture, 100mm focal length, 200 ISO

Just buzzzzing along

I am thrilled with how this picture turned out! I stopped to take some pictures of these beautiful Alberta Wildroses at the same time as a couple of bees were visiting. Normally I hate bees, but I decided to gather my courage and take this fabulous opportunity. And my efforts were rewarded! The bee is perfectly in focus, you can even see the detail in her wings. The flowers are sharp, but the background quickly drops away to a soft, fuzzy green. I'm thrilled!

Raindrops on Flower buds

Macro shot that I think turned out beautifully.

Focus Control

On this particular day, I was working on controlling my focus - my camera has a great ability to put everything in focus, but I want to be able to be more selective.

A brilliantly sunny day, an aperture of f/2.8, and a 5mm focal length (macro) gave me these bright pink flowers in lovely focus, with the conference centre in the back a recognizable but out-of-focus object. I think the shape of the building adds to the picture, without taking the shine away from those beautiful flowers.

On the flip side, here I had fun looking through a tall, grassy plant that is blurred, while the hillside on the opposite side of the river is clear and sharp. Aperture f/4.0, 15.5mm focal length. (Note the horizon isn't actually crooked, the hill just isn't straight. I should have pretended it was and tilted the camera slightly to compensate.)

In both cases I tended to focus on what I wanted to have clear, and then recompose the image to get the shot just how I wanted it. This is a neat trick I learned from my last instructor, and I really like it.

Focus just where I want

My camera is not a DSLR. I only have a very awkward and imprecise manual focus. So things that are easy with a spin of the lens on a DSLR are a real challenge with my lovely SX10.

This is the first time I was able to get both the foreground AND background out of focus, with something in the middle clear and sharp! I'm thrilled with the results of these beautiful bleeding hearts.

1/60 sec exposure, f/5.0 aperture, 63.6mm focal length, ISO 200, Flash on (it was later evening), non-macro

Bribe you with pretty

I will bribe you with the pretty, so you'll forget how long I've been MIA!

I was thrilled to discover that our new house has a small army of giant irises in the front flower bed! Here's a beautiful macro shot of one of those flowers.

1/100 exposure, f/4.0 aperture, focal length 5mm, ISO 80

Spring has sprung!

Please Note: We are preparing to move, so posts will likely be a little spotty for the next 4 weeks or so.

Okay, I admit it, I took this picture on March 31st. So it would have been cooler to post it then, when it felt like we were still in the grips of winter around here, but I didn't.

My irises came back! I planted several last year, but really didn't look after them well or do any of the things that I think you are supposed to do to keep them happy and coming back for a second year. But the hardy little things did it anyway. It was a great pleasure to see them as an early sign of spring.

I took this very quickly in passing, so no great attention was paid to camera settings. Please also ignore the dead plants from last year - those have not all been cleaned out, although some of the annuals appear intent on returning as well!

Flowers in Winter

As I've mentioned before, this winter is leaving me uninspired. The best way to deal with it? Ignore it! (Okay, probably not, but it did make for a nice picture in this case.)

What I like: The way the flowers and leaves fill the frame. The bold purple and green that say HERE!

What I don't like: The background is way too over-exposed. Dealing with a dark subject against a bright window with snow reflecting the light like crazy led to a lot of trickiness. Either the flowers were too dark or the background was too bright. Obviously, I preferred the latter outcome to the former, since this is the picture you are seeing.

1/60 sec Exposure, aperture 4.0, 800 ISO, 0 exposure bias, auto white balance. (Yes, I've changed the order of these to reflect the order they show up in Flickr. It's just easier that way.)

Shoe planters

The picture itself is... okay, not spectacular, but the circumstances make it great.

First of all, this was taken on Dec 27, and I just don't usually get to see living greenery outside at that time of year! Lovely! I love the splash of red against the otherwise grey-brown surroundings - in fact, it was a drizzly, rainy day, so everything was rather grey, and then there were these bright red shoes! I love that they are a matched pair, but are on the wrong sides of each other for putting them on.

What's your most creative recycling of an item?

Snow Cap

I took this one because of the perfect little snow cap on the solar light.

I love it because of the little spec of pink at the back - some freeze-dried flowers that weren't completely hidden by the snow. It's the only real colour in this image, as all the rest is white, greys, or browns. I can't really pin what I like, but I do. Click on it to see it larger, and let me know if you like it too!

Standing Tall

Day 3 from this view of last summer. I should have new material for tomorrow!

Once again, a macro with a lovely blurred background. This time the background is much further back. This little cluster of buds just seems to exist all on it's own!

It's also occurred to me that maybe I should tell you a bit about the cameras I'm using! My primary camera was purchased just before the outing that resulted in the last 3 days' pictures. It's a Canon PowerShot SX10. 10 mega pixel, 20X zoom. At the time when it came out, it was essentially the most powerful non-DSLR Canon made - there are 2 more in the same line now, which have even more ridiculous zooms, but when it comes time to replace this, I will be moving up to a real DSLR. The SX10 is a great camera. The menus allow you a huge amount of control, very similar to what you would find on a DSLR. The biggest difference is that you can't change the lens. I bought it second hand from a lady who had hardly used it, and I can't figure out why! It's a wonderful camera.

My smaller run around pretty much comes with me everywhere now, unless I'm bringing the SX10. It's a Canon PowerShot A590. 8 mega pixel, 4X zoom. One thing I LOVE about this camera over most small point and shoot cameras is that it still has a real viewfinder, in addition to the screen - in bright light, this is priceless. This camera has been a great little work horse, and I've taken it to the mountains, France, Hawaii, Washington DC and Denver, among other places. It's a well travelled little camera, and I've never been disappointed with the pictures.

Other features about these 2 cameras that I love - both take AA batteries and regular SD cards. The batteries in particular is a life saver on a vacation, because you don't want to get stuck somewhere and have your specialty battery run out of juice. Always easy to find AA, easy to buy extras (for not too expensive) before you head out and keep them on you. For my big trips, I always get the Energizer Lithium batteries. They really do last forever, and I never had to think about battery life.

So there we go! Enough about those for today. Have a great day!

Memories of the past

I haven't taken anything interesting in the last few days, so here's one from this past summer.

I was so pleased with how this one came out. The flower is sharp and clear and the background is soft and fuzzy. Perfect, to me!

In between time

Tomorrow I plan to start a new theme of pictures, but in the mean time, here's a "blast from the past" - a photo I took in Spring 2008.

This was taken in May, and look how extensive the flowers were already! This sight was everywhere, these beautiful flowers climbing up old walls, snaking around windows and doors. Gorgeous.

Fall? Really?

Honestly, this IS a fall picture! I took it on the same day as all the leaves, and even as yesterday's pictures of the scarecrow and pumpkins.

I'm not bothered in the least that this lovely rose didn't quite get the message that fall is here and it's time to stop blooming. Unfortunately, the petals are so pale and it was so bright out, that if I didn't use my body to cast shade on the rose, it was completely whited out. There was a lovely bush in behind it that had turned completely red, that I wanted to contrast it with. However, it wasn't to be!

Fall flower

The picture is a little dark, but it was pretty early in the day, and overcast. A longer exposure time would have helped, I think, but since I was doing this handheld the risk is that the picture will be blurry. Always a tradeoff!

You can't tell from the picture itself, but what caught my eye with this flower is that it's still so perfect and alive - when fall is encroaching all around it. Everywhere the flowers are fading, the leaves are turning colours... and here was this beautiful little flower against a (nearly) completely green background. One last hurrah!