A Year With My Camera {DSLR ~ ISO & Black & White}

Continuing with no. 32 on my 40 things to do before 40 list - use my DSLR properly - today I have been following Emma's tutorials; exploring ISO and Black & White.

Building on the skills from previous weeks, which looked at aperture and shutter speed, I explored adding ISO into the mix to see how higher and lower settings effected the camera's sensitivity to light.

We headed out to Lacock and took a walk out of the village where I found plenty of things to snap with crucial time to fiddle with the settings on my camera. Walking past the ford I couldn't resist playing with the shutter speed but also thought about the ISO settings.

Shutter speed with ISO as backup:

1sec / ISO100

1/1250sec / ISO6400

These primroses for sale caught my eye for a quick aperture shot.

f4.5 / ISO100

The friendly horse was a good subject to work with too. With his head easily being able to fill the frame I wanted some background too but with a small depth of field; the aperture f stops have actually stuck in my head!

f5.6 / ISO100

I had a mental block for the next focus of the day - Black & White.
I knew my camera had a monochrome setting but couldn't find it so instead I took some pictures with the idea of black and white in my head, then, once home, I turned to the trusted PicMonkey.
I always like applying black and white to historical artefacts and brickwork so the old bicycle outside the village bakery was a perfect subject for me.

f4.5 / 1/160secs / ISO100

PicMonkey Black and White filter + an increase in contrast.

PicMonkey Black and White focal feature

 PicMonkey Black and White focal feature + an increase in contrast

One of my many dream houses in the area is currently undergoing renovation and walking past I quickly snapped it not thinking about the settings on the camera but visualising it as a black and white piece.

f16 / 1/400secs / ISO 6400

PicMonkey Black and White filter

PicMonkey Black and White filter + increase in contrast

I have since found the monochrome function on the camera so will venture out again and explore using it alongside the other elements that I have built up over the last few weeks.
My confidence in my DSLR is growing bit by bit and I'm starting to look at things differently rather than with an automatic setting point and shoot mentality.
However, I'm still finding it easier to just grab the mobile phone camera and an effort is needed to take the DSLR out in the first place - definitely not a bit of kit to just slip in the back pocket!

x x x

A message to you all!

On Sunday we had a lovely family day out at Tyntesfield near Bristol.

On our return the sun desperately tried to poke itself out from behind the clouds.

Look at what it produced!

So today I am spreading some Valentine's happiness and love to everybody that reads my blog.

"Thank you and I heart you all!"

I'm linking this to #snapslappers

Here's the original snap!

  x x x

Snap Slappers

It's a snap slappers of mixed emotions this week. If you haven't heard the news, Picnik are closing down in April! Arghhh - where am I going to slap my snaps now?

But, every cloud has a silver lining and all that and Picnik are letting everyone have free access to their premium features! Wahoo!

So this week I explored Picnik further and used nothing but the premium stuff. The big downside now is that I am going to love it even more before they whip it away from me - Grrrrrrr.

Anyway, here's my original snap - the kiddies ladybird hunting:

And here's what a bit of Premium Picniking gets you!

Go find some more slapping fun here:

Snap Slappers

Last Friday we had a lovely walk to school and you may have seen the eerie frosty pictures I managed to snap on my mobile. If you missed them have a look here!

This one was my favourite:

But a few minutes later on picnik.com and look what has happened:

Inspiration taken from the song...

5 elephants came out to play,

Upon a spider's web one day,

They had such enormous fun,

That they called for another elephant to come.

How many elephants can one spider's web take I wonder?!

Check out more Snap Slapping fun here:

Snap Slappers - Week 6

Yikes! I missed last week's Snap Slappers - apologies Mrs Five Go Blogging - but I'm back with lashings of silliness this week!

It's been a week of Christmas shows and parties so here's the boy enjoying his food at the toddler Christmas party:

But what on earth has caught his eye?

Come and join in here:

Snap Slappers - Week 4

Last week some of the contributors to this fab meme went all arty and serious. I thought I really should do the same to show how picnik.com can add artistic value and integrity to a photo. So, I did.

We're heading towards Christmas and last year it was very snowy so I thought what better image to play around with than a beautiful scenic snowy one.

Before...

And here it is after I picniked it....

Ha ha ha or really that should be ho ho ho! x x x

Join in with the other slappers of snaps here!

Snap Slappers - Week 3

Calling all photofiddlingaholics - you know who you are FiveGoBlogging lady - to join in this photofiddling meme!

Take a photo - post it. Fiddle with it - post it. Simples really.

My name is Melksham Mum and I am addicted to picnik.com. You can do some amazing stuff on it, or you can do something like this:

Before:

After:

Gorgeous isn't he??!!

Go on, link up below!

Snap Slappers - Week 1

I'm still not sure who the slappers are but FiveGoBlogging has set up a rather artistic and technical meme. All you need to do is take a photo, here's mine:

Me and my beautiful girl.

Then, using whichever photo editing package thingy that you desire, go and get a cup of tea and a slice of cake and play with it! You can go as crazy as you like or maybe go a little bit arty farty with it, like I have done here:

Then go and link up and enjoy some other fantastic photographic *ahem* delights!!!! Here's the linky button thing - you can grab it from FiveGoBlogging's blog if you like!!!



And here's the blog hop thing too!

The Most Ridiculously Over-Edited Photo Competition

I came across this unofficial meme today courtesy of Five Go Blogging who has apparently been having a chat on Twitter about the powers of Picnik - a fantastic (and free - to a point) photo editing tool. A number of bloggers, Mammasaurus, Motherventing & bluebirdsunshine to name but three, have gone a bit photo crazy today and I thought I would kill an hour fiddling on the laptop and gatecrash their fun. So make way ladies!

Here is what I have productively been achieving on the laptop tonight:

I turned A and his Gruffalo from this:

Into this!

Now go and have a play with Picnik and visit Five Go Blogging and tell her all about it!