Me in Action

My friend, Jayna, shared with me some of the pictures she candidly took of me while we were on our photo shoot at Thanksgiving Point last week. Usually since I am the one behind the camera, I am very seldom in the pictures. I had a fun time putting together a collage and showcasing myself with my new hobby.

Thanks, Jayna, for taking the pictures and sharing them with me!

Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival 2008

Today, my friend and co-worker, Jayna Rice and I took off an hour early at work so that we could go to the annual tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. The festival this year began on April 11 and ends tomorrow, April 26. To show several of the pictures that I took, I created an account at PhotoBucket, then uploaded a few of my favorite pictures and turned them into the following slideshow:

Due to the unusually cold and wet spring that we have had this year, only about 40% of the tulips were in bloom, but as you can see, I still found several photo opportunities.

In taking these pictures, one of the things I tried to focus on was changing the depth of field (DOF). Depth of field means "the distance that objects are in focus." A shallow depth of field will make some objects in the picture appear to be out of focus while a large depth of field will show everything in focus. Some of the ways I changed the depth of field are:

• used the portrait and landscape automatic settings on my camera


• changed the distance from my camera to the flower by either moving in closer or by setting my camera on Macro mode


• manually changed the focal length of the lenses on my camera (18mm-55mm lens and 55mm-200mm lens)

I really found that I liked using the 55mm-200mm lens and felt that I got some great results. The following pictures show the difference between using two different focal lengths. The first picture is taken at a focal length of 66mm and the second picture is taken at a focal length of 105mm. Notice how much more the background is blurred on the picture that has a deeper focal depth.

One of the next things I want to try is to keep the focal distance the same, but manually change the aperature settings to achieve the same blurred background effect. The larger the aperature, the more blur there should be in the background.

Sunset over Willard Bay

Tonight as I left Logan (Cache Valley) to return to my home in Farmington, I came out of Sardine Canyon and noticed that the sun was just beginning its descent in the sky and would probably be setting within the next half hour. Lucky for me I had my camera with me in the car and I just couldn't resist making a quick detour to Willard Bay (one of my most favorite places) to get some pictures of the sunset. With all of the clouds in the sky, I just knew the sunset was going to be spectacular especially with the water in the foreground.

For the first three pictures, I used the landscape setting on my camera with an 18mm zoom. The last picture was on the automatic settings with a 26mm zoom. I love the reflection of the clouds in the water.

Easter Fun

Last week I went to my parents house for Spring Break/Easter weekend. While I was there, I got to spend a lot of time with my nephew, Zachary. He and I are buddies. While the kids hunted Easter eggs and blew bubbles, I got to practice taking more pictures with my camera. Here is a page I put together with the pictures I took. All of these pictures were taken on my camera's automatic settings and then later slightly enhanced or cropped in Photoshop Elements. I was surprised that most of the pictures required very little enhancement. What a nice camera!!!

First Pics!

I've been anxious to try out my new camera so tonight I decided I would try taking some pictures of the sunset. I thought it would look really cool to take the pictures with the Great Salt Lake in the foreground, so I headed on out to Tooele to the boat Marina. I tried playing with some of the settings on my camera, but eventually just decided to stick with the automatic settings for now. Out of all the pictures that I took, I think this one was my favorite. I love the way the light of the sun refects off the water and also the tips of the clouds.

First class at Inkley's

Today I took my first class at Inkleys. It was the "Introduction to Digital" class. Going in to the class, I kind of thought that I might already know a lot about the content and might not learn very much, but since I teach Beginning Digital Camera classes for teachers, I still wanted to take the class to see how the instructor taught the class and also to see if I could still pick up a tip or two that I could implement into my own classes. I was pleasantly surprised with the class, the way it was taught and also with the things I learned.

First of all, the class was taught primarily through a PowerPoint slideshow and it was arranged in a very logical and easy to understand format. I liked the color scheme of the slideshow, black background with white and yellow text, and also the way different concepts were demonstrated through the use of pictures, shapes, etc. I definitely picked up a few ideas that I think I will implement into my own classes. The instructor, Dave, has been teaching these classes for a couple of years and he also seemed to be very knowlegeable about the subject matter.

A new tip I picked up pertained to the aspect ratio of the pictures taken with digital cameras in relation to the aspect ratio of printed pictures. Most point and shoot digital cameras take pictures in a 4:3 ratio and digital SLR cameras take pictures in a 3:2 ratio. This aspect ratio is different from the aspect ratio for printed pictures. What this ultimately means, is that pictures that are sent to a photo lab to be printed will usually come back with part of the picture cut off. In the Photo Editing classes that I teach, I teach teachers how to make compensations for their printed pictures by cropping them first to the desired printed size before sending them off to be printed, so that the pictures that come back are what they want. It was nice to learn a little about aspect ratio so that I can explain this concept better to the teachers in my classes.

Designer Camera Bags

Today I spent some time searching the Internet for a "stylish" camera bag. Even though my camera came with a basic Nikon bag, I really wanted a bag that looked more like a "purse" and one that would be big enough to hold not only my camera and lenses, but also some of the essential items like my wallet, iPod, and cell phone. That way, when I go on photo shoots, or vacations, I can carry one bag with me instead of two. I came across a website called jill-e bags and immediately fell in love with the different designs. All in all, I ended up ordering one of the small leather bags. It should be here by the end of the week!

Nikon D40x

This blog has been designated as my Photo Blog and it is a place where I intend to post pictures that I am taking with my new digital SLR camera as well as information about the things I am learning or trying as I experiment with taking pictures on different settings.

I have been using point and shoot digital cameras for the past 6 years and today, I finally upgraded to my first digital SLR camera. I debated between getting the Canon Rebel xti or xsi and the Nikon D40 or D40x. I finally ended up with the Nikon D40x. I wanted an SLR that would be easy to learn and easy to use. I also didn't want to spend over $1000.

Prior to buying the Nikon D40x I did quite a bit of research on both the Canon and Nikon cameras and I was actually leaning towards the Canon Rebel xsi, but unfortunately the camera is not set to be released for another month or two. All of my previous point and shoot digital cameras have been Canons and I have loved how the Canon cameras operate and I have also been very pleased with the pictures I have taken with these cameras. Today when I went shopping, though, Inkleys was having a sale on the Nikon D40x and with the sale, I found I could get the D40x, 2 lenses, a camera bag and training videos all for about $850. Also, Inkleys offers classes to anyone who purchases digital cameras, which I thought was a nice added benefit and something that would come in useful.