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.