Camera setting differences

I thought I'd show you an example of what happens when I don't check my camera settings before taking a shot. Sometimes when I take photos in the house, I have to set it to let in more light, for obvious reasons, and I try to remember to set it back to something a little more normal afterwards in case I need to grab it for a for a quick shot elsewhere.

Sometimes I forget.

This first picture is an example of one of those times. It has way too much light, although it appears Blogger tried to adjust it for me (thanks, Blogger - NOT!), because my original really looked worse than this:

A bit of adjustment... still too much light:

Oops! A bit too dark:

There... this is about right:

Just for fun, let's zoom in to the pretty new growth for the contrast with the evergreen trees in the background:

There's always something new to learn or experiment with. That reminds me, I still haven't started that Advanced DSLR class I bought over a year ago! Good thing it never expires!

Moonshine

A few nights ago, we had a full moon. It was so pretty that I decided to run out and test to see what kind of a picture I could get with my iPad, since it seems to take some really great ones. Well, I'm not even going to show you that photo. I deleted it immediately, because it was very grainy. No surprise, really, as there's no way to control the lighting.

So back into the house I went for the trusty DSLR, just because the moon was so lovely. Here are the shots I got.

The moon ended up perfectly round in these, unlike some oval and otherwise-funny shots I've gotten previous times. Maybe I'm getting steadier in my old age? Doubtful - ha. It's probably because it wasn't terribly dark out yet.

Try as I might, though, I just can't capture the "face" in the moon. I guess I don't have the right kind of lens for that.

Here's a pretty view of it behind the birdbath, with a little extra lighting added via camera settings.

It was a most beautiful evening!

Yellow violet

I've been having more fun with my Easy-Macro lens. I just can't seem to stop! Anyway, because of it I learned something new yesterday. I'd taken this photo of a tiny flower with it the day before:

Here's just a regular iPad photo to show what plant it came from:

Then yesterday morning, I was going to post them to Instagram and ask if anybody knew what that plant was. I tried looking it up as a weed, but I didn't find anything that really matched. So back outside I went to get another look (because I hadn't really paid much attention to the plants when taking the pics). Here are a couple more iPad shots (I should've taken the DSLR but wanted the pics handy for Instagram):

They are under some evergreens in our backyard. It was pretty windy then, so the leaves are blowing a lot in the picture below, but I took it for size comparison with the dandelions that you can see in the foreground:

While I was out there, it dawned on me that the plants sure looked like the purple violets I have in front of the house (the ones the woodchuck likes). I didn't know if there was such a thing as a yellow violet, but googling it found me plenty of photo proof that there certainly is! So that was the new thing I learned yesterday.

Yellow violet. Is that an oxymoron? I certainly think so! And really, why weren't they just called "yellows", if the violet ones are called violets??? ;-Þ

Crafting with Courtney

Holding true to her word, Courtney gave me some time off from making teeny stuffed animals. :) A couple weeks ago when she was here, she came up with her own idea of something else to make.

It started with some cotton, with a cardboard base inside.

Then a cardboard handle was added, with more cotton hot-glued (by me) onto that.

So it became a basket! Then it needed an occupant.

What better to put in a basket than a kitty (drawn on felt).

The kitty, of course, needed a family. Here they are.

You can see with it all next to Courtney's hand that everything is VERY TINY!

But one more very, VERY tiny thing! Guess what it is!

If you guessed a cell phone, you are right! Every family needs a cell phone these days, right? (Even kitty families, apparently.)

Woodchuck

I almost forgot to show you the visitor I had a couple weeks ago. I glanced out the living room window and saw this:

I had to hurry with the camera, for fear it'd get away, so these shots aren't very good, but here it is a little closer:

Yep, it's a woodchuck. It was probably about to eat the blooms off the wild violets in front of the house, which they really seem to like a lot. Every year when those flowers disappear, I figure there's a woodchuck around somewhere.

Incidentally, I did manage to get an Easy-Macro shot of a violet before the woodchuck got to it!

Did you ever realize there's so much detail in those plain-looking little flowers?