Rainbows

I was going to write about taking pictures of rainbows in the sprinkler but I came across this video and just had to share it. Please excuse the coarse language, but it is just too funny.

Watch Crazy Sprinkler Lady and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

Baseball

As you can see here. This would of been a great shot of the runner coming home. But the fence took all of the focus. I took the shot of course, not thinking about things like that. The simplest fix, my wife tells me would of been to get closer and get the lens past the links. Duhh! Well there will be more games to come and more picture ops. But I will leave those to her.

Sunshine

Well if you had the chance yesterday, the sun was shining and it was beautiful for picture taking. We were unfortunately to busy to try and take some better pictures. Today of course we have time but the clouds have rolled in and the wind has picked up. Although there is no reason you can't grab a couple of kites and some kids and head out with your digital camera. The trick is to be able to have the kids handle the kites themselves so that you can take the pictures. Unless one of them can handle the camera better. Pictures today can turn out really neat even with some of the youngest photographers. I was able to get some great ones of some flowers in bloom though I will have those posted soon.

Bad example of spring pictures

Great example of spring pictures

Pretty little ladybug on a warm spring day

Notice the brighter pictures here. You can see a little more detail just by moving a little ways so the sun is not directly behind them. It's actually so off the left shoulder. Course I realize it's cloudy but can still make a difference. And of course with your own pictures you will want to see those smiling faces.

More picture ideas, from the beach

You know spring is here when the schools say so, and then release the kids on unsuspecting parents. What do you do with them for an entire week. Go to the coast, and of course find some excellent photo ops. I thought you went there to relax and listen to ocean waves... Nope you go there to force kids and husbands to "strike a pose" in front of anything and everything. The key here is to take pictures at time of day where the sun is not actually over the ocean because it will wash you out if you take pics of the kids and the water. So the earlier the better on the west coast unless you want some awesome sunset pictures.

Notice how dark this picture is... you can't really see any detail because of the shadow made when the sun is behind the subjects.

Cameras

So ya wanna go out and buy the camera and get started on your newly found obsession. You head to the camera department and suddenly there's hundreds of camera's and options. Where do you even start? Well I don't know either, so I asked my wife over lunch today. The first two options she talked about were megapixels and zoom. Mega what? Basically the mega pixels decide how clear your picture will be and also how large a picture you can print without losing quality. With low megapixels say around 5 you can print out a decent 3x5 pic, but any bigger you start seeing little squares in the picture. So we go to a 10mp you can print bigger pictures and still have quality. Course more megapixel, more money.
Now when you look at the zoom it will say something like 2X optical zoom or 10X optical zoom. Basically its just like binoculars, the higher the number the closer you can zoom in on the subject. Optical means the lens actually zooms in and out of the camera and thats a good thing. Now some camera's do come with a digital zoom, which more or less means its magnifying the picture, this isn't as good as optical because its taking the picture and blowing it up instead of getting closer. This means that when it comes time to print the pic it will have already been blown up once and have less quality, especially noticable if you try to make the picture even bigger.
Wow! Who knew all that could make a difference, I'm used to just point and click, then wait for the polaroid to develop.

Steve

So it's finally here. SPRING. Of course the first thing we all think of is warm sunny days, light jackets, and beautiful flowers. But don't get too carried away there's also the showers of rain. I asked my picture taking fool of a wife last night just what would she suggest for those other camera lovers out there. Why the rain of course. She wanted me to go to the local 2ndhand store and get accesories for lots of spring pictures. I said "huh".

1. Rainboots
2. Raincoats
3. Umbrellas

Then she said go out and take pictures in the rain, water dripping off the umbrella's, kids jumping in the puddles. Just having fun

So hopefully that gives you some ideas for your first spring pictures of the year. I have to go now, (I haven't got to the 2ndhand store yet)

Married to a picture nut

Hello, my name is Steve and yes as the title suggest I am married to someone who believes she is the foremost expert on taking pictures. Judging by her photo's I'd have to agree, of course having no skill of my own, who am I to argue. I try to take pictures like she does but they never seem to quite get the spirit that hers do. Mine seem to be a picture of a kid by a swing. Hers can capture the excitement of a child getting ready to soar throught the air as he takes flight on a rocketship in the swingset his dad just put together. Follow me as I try to follow in her footsteps.