Okay okay...I was slacking today. But in my defense I was hanging out with a great friend and sewing some new cushions for the rocking chair in Eva's room. But anyways, here's this weeks photo challenge.

This week focuses on the proper way to use a flash...ways that won't wash out your subject but actually work to your advantage to give you better pictures. The challenge requires going outside in both cloudy and sunny weather, so I have no pictures to show for myself yet. I'll be getting outside this week and posting my pics later on.

...which by the way, my dear hubby is 3 weeks behind already! I've been begging him to do his shutter speed "sink test". We don't have a window in our kitchen or any of our bathrooms, so he is going to have to do it outside. I want him to take pictures of me chucking buckets of water. But he's a busy guy and can't seem to get his butt in gear.

That's all I got folks.

Photo Friday is here again. I really love how this course is helping me to learn the ins and outs of taking good pictures and how to operate the settings of this thing. If you haven't downloaded the PDF files and aren't reading the material before you do the challenges...do it! It's so beneficial. Go here and do it. Last week after doing the shutter speed challenge, there was further reading for peeps with DSLR's, and it was all about how to operate in Manual mode. Go figure I can do that now!

Okay so onto this weeks challenge...it's all about White Balance. I really liked the knowledge gained from this challenge, because we don't have that much natural light in this house (sometimes I feel claustrophobic because of it!), so lots of times I get really yellow pictures unless I use the flash which makes everything look weird.

Okay, onto the results. I really wanted to know how to change my White Balance settings in a variety of different lights, so I have 3 different scenarios.

Scenario #1: Super Yellow Phosphorescent Lights

Auto White Balance

Tungsten

Custom White Balance

Auto White Balance

Tungsten

Custom White Balance

Auto White Balance

Tungsten

Custom White Balance

This week's photo challenge focus is ISO and Shutter Speed. This required a lot of playing around with my settings to achieve a proper picture. I still don't fully understand what I'm doing, but I'm getting there.

The Sink Test:

Even though I had great light coming in through the kitchen window, I had to bump my ISO way up to 1600.

1/60 sec exposure time

1/500 sec exposure time

For this one, there just wasn't enough light coming in once I bumped up the shutter speed. My ISO was up all the way, so the only way I found to remedy it was to over-expose my photo to +2 step. This is the part I don't understand...why did this work? Meh, the photo looks cool. The other thing I had to do, was adjust the brightness in a photo editing program. It was just too dark otherwise.

1/1600 sec exposure time

This one I just wanted to see how different bumping up the shutter speed all the way would be. It really isn't that much different than 1/1600, but you can definitely tell that there was a lot more "camera noise" since the picture is so grainy.

1/4000 sec exposure time

I was curious to know what would happen if I had a really slow shutter speed, so even though it wasn't part of the challenge, I did it anyway.

I set my camera right on the edge of the sink, so there was no movement on my part. I didn't have to overexpose these; because my shutter speed was so low, there was enough light coming in and I could just have the exposure balanced.

1/3 sec exposure time

For this guy, I did a much slower shutter speed. I was getting SO much light coming in that I turned down my ISO to 100 and underexposed the photo to -2 step.

5 sec exposure time

Yep, this is a fun challenge. I'm starting to understand about light and speed and aperture....I'm definitely going to have to keep playing around. Try this challenge this week and tell me what you thought of it. Was it fun? OH...and what did you think of the last challenge?

Next challenge is all about White Balance. Should be good.

Here's a heads up on next weeks photo challenge, in case you are following along and want to think about it or get started on it.

I'm actually at my Dad's visiting my family right now. Eva and I decided to take a little trip since a friend of mine was heading this way. We've enjoyed some DELICIOUS homemade Chinese food, complete with Egg Rolls and Firecracker Shrimp. Seriously incredible.

Eva and I have also been able to spend some quality time with my brother Kris and his girlfriend Ashley. Eva is getting spoiled with attention and squishy baby hugs. Kris and Ashley don't have very many pictures of themselves as a couple, so I offered to take some to practice getting to know my camera. Oh how I love experimenting with this thing! It's also fun being in rural Saskatchewan since there's a great photo backdrop lurking around every corner...old school brick post office, rusty train cars with graffiti, dirt roads, buildings that look like they are about to fall down...I love it. Here are some of our photo shoot pics:

My brother is obsessed with his car. We couldn't do a photo shoot without it.

If you are looking for a post on our Vancouver trip just scroll down a bit. This is gonna be all about Photography.

I LOVE my new Digital SLR camera. Love, love, LOVE it. But the problem is, I actually don't know much about it. ISO, aperture, shutter speed...I get the gist of it, but not how to properly use them or set them. So, I'm taking a "12 Weeks to Better Photo's" Challenge. I have 3 friends, plus my husband who are going to join along with me. I learned about it from Dallas, and Jules and they've already started the challenge weeks ago. So here I am to catch up.

The challenges are geared towards DSLR camera's, but you can join along if you have a point and shoot digital camera. I think there are only a couple of weeks that you might not be able to try. So won't you come along for the ride with me?

The first week of the Photo Challenge is all about Basic Aperture....read about Week 1 here. It's worth it to download the PDF files and read through them. The reading is short but informative.

I loved this challenge. Aperture is such a great way to make your photo interesting. Here are my photo's for this week:

f/5.6

f/5.6

f/10

f/20

f/36

What, you don't like my subject? Doesn't everybody have daisies sitting around in a wineglass on their driveway?

f/4.5

f/10

f/20

f/29