California...

Well we're back after an amazing, but wet, trip to California! We went on our honeymoon to Disneyland. Here are a few of my favourite shots...

Universal Studios: Small model of the Venture from King Kong, used in the new movie.

Universal Studios: Shaun infront of the House of Horrors.

Universal Studios: Waterbomber from the Waterworld show.

Universal Studios: Shaun infront of the Flintstones Rock Vegas games

Universal Studios: The iconic universal studios globe in the front of the park

Universal Studios: Statue at the entrance of the Universal Studios Park

California Adventure: Terrace Winery

California Adventure: The main lobby floor of the Tower of Tower.

Disneyland: Disneyland's famous fireworks are even more beautiful in person...

Disneyland: Stitch at the "Celebrate Street Party" Parade.

I fell in love with taking pictures of the Paradise Pier ferris wheel. Here are a few shots...

New laptop = fun and frustration

Well after much deliberation I broke down and we got a new laptop. The old one which has my jasc paint shop pro program on it is currently in the hands of a friend being repaired. So for now, I have no cute watermark. That will change as soon as possible!

This new laptop is exciting because now I will finally have enough space and a fast enough processor to play with my photos... Tonight I experimented with the trial version of nx2 provided with my d3000. It's a bare minimum photo editing program. Took me about 2-4 hours to get the hang of a couple of tricks on it.

As you can see, here are a few pictures from the hockey game, some much more edited than others. I found taking pictures at the rink very frustrating because every picture had to be shot through the protective glass and it was...well it's very used. :) As far as experiments go, overall it was okay. Attempt #2 will hopefully go better!

Light painting: Experimenting with slow shutter speed and light...

Happy New Year! Today we were lazy and hung around on the couch. I got deeper into my D3000 intro book and after getting overwhelmed I was wandering around online for tutorials or something new to distract my mind from melting all together.

I was experimenting with something I saw on dolcepics to distract myself.... I am starting (emphasis on the starting) to fiddle with ISOs, aperture and shutter speed. This is called light painting. It's hard to create specific shapes with the lights (hearts in the photo above) because the slightest shift is amplfied. Yes I tried stars, but it took about 60 tries and then I wasn't happy enough with the photo to post it online...even though no one sees this.

I am also fiddling with saturation and colours in my jasc psp... I find it difficult to find online tutorials since I don't use mac and definitely do not have adobe photoshop... I will have to invest in a photo editting course it seems. But in the mean time I will make lemonade! (It hardly seems fair to compare my programs to lemons are they are capable of amazing techniques.) For example, the picture to the direct left is the same picture as the first one, only the saturation and colours are different. Personally I perfer the 2nd one.

I have always loved the monochrome with dash of colour photos are have always wished I knew how to do it. Well as usual, all online tutorials seem to be for adobe photoshop but I sorted made a cheat way which I'm sure everyone already knows. I haven't taken any pictures lately that I like enough to try my cheat method out on but I couldn't resist tonight.

This last photo isn't light painting at all and I took it on a faster shutter speed. I'm currently reading about ISO settings in my dummie's guide, as I'm not smart enough for the idiot's guide yet, and have been learning a lot about the noise that comes with higher ISO levels. They mention that on your display screen a photo may seem noise free, but on your computer screen it can be a different story. I didn't tweak the contrast for fear of ruining the photo. I found the shadows in the picture actually accentuate the lights. I'm not sure if I like this photo yet or not.

Tomorrow I will go to Shaun's rec. hockey league game and experiment some more. I'm hoping to try out a few action blur shots and if I'm lucky I might get an action shot or two. Doubtful but I will keep my fingers crossed! I've got 18 or so games left in the season to get some. :D