The week leading up to the end of the school holidays we still had snow on the ground here. I know a lot of people were the same. Beginning to wonder if spring was ever going to show up. The temperatures had hit a bit of the dizzy heights of 9degrees earlier in the week and we all breathed a sigh of relief as we thought that this was it, spring was finally on its way.
But then we were plunged into freezing temperatures and snow flurries all over again. I get so frustrated with the lack of flexibility snow affords me for getting outside, my kids can usually just about cope with the school run before they start saying how cold they are and begging to go in. But after school one afternoon after I had, had a lousy day (dont ask) we piled into the car and took the dog for a walk.
Surprisingly no-one moaned and we bowled around a little local park in about 15 minutes, just long enough to jumps off and on some logs, run after the dog a few times and leave smiling with red rosey cheeks. Then home for a quick hot chocolate to warm up and maybe a little bit of a pick me up for me!!! *cough*
Now then, come on spring, get your best clothes on we are more than ready for you!
When i first started getting interested in photography one of the things that really really confused me was the way that photographers talked about aperture. Small number means wider, faster aperture. Larger number means slower and narrower aperture. It just seemed back to front to me. I could never really make sense of it and basically the only way i did make sense was to accept it and learn it. Like a language.
So briefly.
In photography, the aperture refers to the opening in the lens where light is admitted. The aperture value is also commonly referred to as the f/stop. This is why you will see “f/5.6”. “F” simply refers to the focal length of the lens. Think of the lens as you would the human eye.
The larger the aperture, the more light will pass through, allowing the nice background blur in your images, or bokeh. This will allow the main subject to “pop” as it stands out against the background.
The blurred background is aesthetically appealing when doing portrait photography or close-up nature photography (i.e., flowers).
Remember, when using the Aperture Priority on your camera, the lower the Aperture value (i.e., f/1.8, f/4.5; f/5.6), the larger the opening at the fron of your lens. Much like an eye. Well..a lot like an eye!
When shooting a landscape where you want everything to be in focus, you would want to use a smaller aperture, or higher f-stop. Or when you are shooting somewhere with a LOT of light. Like when you are trying to take pictures of the sun (sunrise, sunset). There is a well known rule in photography called the “sunny 16”. When you are taking a shot and want to include the sun in it, without blowing it out, then your aperture should be around about f16.0 or slower.
Now if you suddenly think ‘great i can take a great shot of my kids playing in the sun on the beach’ and you crank in you f stop to 16 you will end up with lovely shot of the sun and dark kids…Remember the amount of light coming into the camera is governed by the size of the hole and the hole at f16.0 is small so unless your kids are as bright as the sun…
and yes i know that some parents think their kids are 😉
anyway unless they are then they will be dark. BUT that is another issue i can talk about some other time.
Lost yet?
OKay well here is some examples i shot of the same image on different apertures…
so this first one is on a FAST aperture of 2.8
the amount of things in focus in this image is small right? the doll at the front is and then it blurs off pretty quickly. A fast aperture means a shallow depth of field.
then the same image at f6.3
so depth of field increasing and so more in focus and yes the toys have all changed positions! thats what happens when you try and work out shots with small people about!!
then at f22.0 which is super slow and only really going to work if your light is reasonable. (again something we can talk about another time) But check it out even this time even Daddy Pig is in focus!! 😉
So has that helped at all?
If you shoot on AV or aperture setting on your camera and play. You can obviously do all this in your manual settings.
Which some folk think that if you aren’t using manual then you aren’t a proper photographer. Well my opinion is that cameras these days are clever little things and why fumble around trying to work of your shutter and ISO if your camera can take the strain for you. Yes in manual you are a LOT more in control but you have to know what to control and how.
In the priority settings on your camera you can focus on and understand one part of the process, one bit at a time. 🙂
Try to think light first though if you are in a really dimly lit room then you are unlikely to be able to achieve and aperture of f22.0 but then why would you want to anyway? Probably the nicest look for inside is the buttery bokeh of a fast aperture.
Happy shooting and pop back and let me know how you get on!!
One of my favourite books when i was growing up was The Lorax, used to love the line ‘I am the Lorax and i speak for the trees’ It was one of those books that i can still remember reading as a kid. Recently the kids got the DVD version of the film that came out last year. They totally love it., it has big numbers in it and some big hollywood names voicing the characters. But what i love is that the message is still the same. Unless. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, its not – Dr. Seuss.
Now speaking of trees….As we live in a city sometimes trees can be a bit scarce. Well to be fair this city in itself isnt too bad. There are quite a lot of green areas. But in our own back yard its a bit different.
We don’t have a huge garden, when we moved in it had been fairly well landscaped with a family in mind and the only tree in the garden was a small, shocked, apple tree that had been hacked and trimmed within an inch of its life and its pretty much still trying to recover.
But the house that backed onto our neighbour was owned by an elderly lady and it had two beautiful, rambling and stunning pink blossom trees. Im sure there is a proper name for them but all i know that every spring we would all look forward to the bottom of the garden being accented with pink. The branches leaned over into our garden in such a generous way. Like the tree knew i would appreciate it. 🙂
I cannot count how many pictures i have of this tree. It was so pretty i used to go out and photograph it a lot….playing with settings, lenses and filters.
The girls would bounce up and down on the trampoline which was under the tree and grab the blooms, giggling and threading the pretty green leaves through their hair.
At the end of spring it would slowly loose all its blooms onto the tramp and the deck and we would have a pretty pink blanket.
Truly such a lovely tree, it bought us pleasure every year. We watched it, enjoyed it, interacted with it. It was part of our seasons.
Sadly the lady who lived in the house passed away and the house was sold and a few weeks ago we heard that high pitched squeal of a chainsaw and our beautiful neighbour tree was gone. 🙁
Just like that…
and being honest with you, and i do understand the reasons why the new owners have got rid of the tree, but i really miss it. Now its like looking at a picture and constantly wondering whats missing and then going ”oh yes…”
Even the kids have missed it. We miss our adopted pink tree. It had been largely uncared for by its owner but for years we loved it. It was part of our story and history in our garden.
thanks pink tree 🙂
Im going to finish with a clip from the movie, we all love this song. Watch out for ‘you greedy dirtbag!’ My giveaway this week is a copy of The Lorax on DVD. It really is a lovely family movie. So to be in with a chance head over to rafflecopter below and follow the instructions and be sure to check back next week to find out if its coming your way!!
Last weeks winner of the Captain Calamari developmental toy was Helen Dickenson Anette! Congratulations. Please get in touch to claim your prize 🙂
Easter Saturday we decided to go out and hunt for eggs! The National Trust and Cadbury have been running the great easter egg trail throughout Easter and so we decided to hit one of these at one of our local National Trust properties. We went to the beautiful Lyme Park which is where the BBC filmed a large part of their classic version of Pride and Prejudice with a certain Mr. Darcy *cough*
It is a really beautiful house and there is lots to do for the kids without adding the extra excitement of a easter egg hunt. We set off on our hunt, the kids answering questions and running round to count things, look for flowers, get faces painted and draw their own version of easter egg heads!
We walked around the Lake, you know….that lake…from that scene *fans face* 😉
Im pretty sure just a few 100 yards down from him was the path on which we walked round the lake *sigh*
It has such beautiful gardens, we are planning on coming back in the summer so that we can see the benefit of the gardens without the snow!
heading off round the lake
think this was the point that *he* threw himself in the water! 😉 the beautiful house
one happy hunter outside the orangery
This is the staircase that they were walking up in the first picture just the other way round….
After the house and gardens we headed over to the woodland play area. Which is massive with a big rope walk, slides and tunnels to crawl through. We finished it off with a little stroll through a woodland where one of my daughters discovered that putting your foot in the space between a flooded cattle grid is not a good idea! 😉
