Well we got our chance for the outdoor session last night  and it was super super fun!!  My friend Jennie joined us and she was a huge help!  Thanks Jennie! 

Shane (far right)  is our pastor’s son and this is his band.  They won “battle of the bands” to win a spot on stage at the MN State Fair, so congratulations guys!!  They are playing TONIGHT at 7pm so check them out if you get a chance!!  It’s a great opportunity for them!  they were totally willing to do anything we asked!   They look like they are running from crazed teenage girls or something!    Sam the drummer Zach – lead vocals Shane – guitar & vocals  A shot of Jennie in action.  She was using a fisheye so can’t wait to see this image!  fun stuff! Here’s my shot!  (btw….used my 24-70 for the whole shoot)  I told them to pretend like they were fighting here…hehe! Once we started losing light a little bit (around 8pm) we worked w/ the strobes more.  I was using a vagabond II, alien bee 800 (set to 1/2 power), a 60″ shoot-through umbrella and pocket wizards to fire the light.  I like how it turned out!  yeah, this was before we lost the light obviously….but actually was only like 15 min before the shot above.  Just depends on how you do your camera settings.  used a strobe on this shot too. Love these two!  Oh, and jumping was their idea!  They got some major air!  (and landed pretty hard so we only did it twice!)Thanks guys for having Jennie & I be your official band photographers!  haha!  It was a fun change of pace for both of us!   

btw…………..I posted a lot more photos on my Facebook “Photos By Robin” page.  Click “like” and become one of my FANS! 

We drove to Moorhead and dropped the dog off with Scott’s parents, then drove to Sioux Falls & stayed at a hotel w/ a little waterpark.  Then we got up in the morning and drove to Mitchell to see the World’s Only Corn Palace!  Then we went to Wall Drug (of course!) and continued on to Hill City to the Crooked Creek Resort where we stayed the rest of the time.  I thought that it would be fun to do something other than just hotels w/ pools and since I was planning the trip, I rented us a cabin!  I honestly wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but everyone agreed it was a great choice! 

Anyway, here’s a collage of photos from our adventures – these are mostly taken w/ Scott’s iPhone (hipstamatic & shake-it apps).

 and another collage… (used the free action “lomo” here)  

I think my favorite thing was Bear Country.  I was totally thinking we’d maybe see like 1-2 bears WAY up far in the woods….but NO!  There were a TON of them up CLOSE!!  In fact, they said to not even roll down the windows…yeah, they were CLOSE so not a problem!  eek!  (oh, and the kids got some sex-ed since it’s apparently mating season!  haha!)  Anyway, when you are on vacation, don’t you just hate it when you want a family picture, but you are afraid to have someone handle your $4,500+ camera/lens?  Yeah….I am always nervous about that!  So I had my little point & shoot for a lot of the “family” shots – which was great until the rechargeable battery ran out!  Oops!  forgot the recharger!  But the photo in the middle I had someone take who I saw carrying around an SLR…and the far right is a self-portrait in the fun-mirrors at Reptile Gardens.Of course I wanted one last family shot outside our cabin right before we left, so I pulled out the handy dandy tri-pod!  btw for this photo (and almost all the other ones on our trip!) I just used “P” or program mode and a FLASH (GASP!)  Whatever, right?  I actually really like this one w/ the sun flare & all. 

That’s the short version of our fun-filled family vacation!   It feels good to be home!   :-)

2nd – I posted more photos of props & studio items in my folder – here is the link.  It’s no where NEAR what I have, but I’m chugging along – adding photos as I have time!  eta = I am only selling the stroller at this time! 

That’s it for now – have a good night!

OK, I want to start out this post by saying I’m the very FIRST to admit I do NOT know it all about photography!  I’m still learning as I go along here!  So if I have something WRONG, please let me know – but please no hate mail!  Just trying to help other photogs!  

But I will pass along some little tidbits that helped me wrap my mind around how to shoot in manual with natural light.  {keep in mind we are talking about natural light – i.e. no flash!  }  I know a TON of people recommend THIS BOOK by Bryan Peterson - haven’t read it personally because I’m not a big book person, but I’ve heard it’s excellent.  However, I’ve done the majority of my learning with trial and error…and observation.

I do want to give some shout outs to two of my friends – Shelley and Melissa!  They were both very helpful – Shelley for pushing me to shoot more in manual with natural light, and Melissa for a little trick she taught me (and I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing!)  Thanks ladies! 

So here is how I now look at things in very simple terms = WWMED = What Would My Eye Do? 

I’m talking about your EYES here.  Clueless about where to even START with shooting in manual?  Think WWMED!   Your eye is the most sophisticated lens there is, and you understand how that works, right??  So think of it in terms of What Would My Eye Do?  And to simplify things, think:

• PUPIL = aperture/f-stop
• EYELIDS = shutter speed

Let’s start with your pupil.  Think of it in terms of size and how BIG your pupil is as the APERTURE/f-stop.

• Is it really BRIGHT outside?  Your pupils would do what?  Constrict! 
• If it’s really DARK in the room, your pupils would do what?  Dilate! 

Make sense?  That is exactly what your camera lens does when reacting to light…and it’s what it does automatically when you are in “program” mode! 

• The SMALLER the opening (f-stop/aperture/ your PUPIL), the LESS light is allowed into the camera
• The LARGER the opening (f-stop/aperture/your PUPIL), the MORE light is allowed into the camera. 

F-stop/aperture is hard to understand at first – but the SMALLER the number, the MORE light; the LARGER the number, the LESS light.  It’s an inverse thing.  So an f-stop of 2.8 would let in MORE light than an f-stop of 4.  If you are in the medical field as I am, think of it in terms of needle gauge!  What would you rather be stuck with, a 16 gauge or a 31 gauge?  That’s right - a 31! (which is what the ultra-fine insulin needles are).  The larger the number, the smaller the bore/hole.

 {There is obviously a LOT more aperture & f-stop and it gets VERY complicated.  It’s not my intent to go into that here…}

I’ll say IN GENERAL when I’m shooting with natural light, I stay right in a range of 2.0 and 4.0 for the f-stop.  If it’s SUPER bright out or if I’m shooting a large group of people, obviously I’d go up to like 5.6 or 6.3 or 7.1, etc. but then I don’t get the nice bokeh or “blur” in the background, so I try to stay right around 2.8-3.2 or so. 

So now let’s think of your eyelids as the SHUTTER SPEED. 

• The longer your eyelids are OPEN, the MORE light comes in, right?  So that would be a SLOW shutter speed. 
• If you blink a lot or squint, you are letting LESS light in – so that would be a FAST shutter speed.

Shutter speed is how LONG the shutter stays open and it’s usually shown in fractions of a second – because that’s how fast the shutter shuts!  Of course you can set your shutter speed to be actual SECONDS too – especially useful for things like night-time shooting of fireworks and time-lapse photography. 

Anyway….something you have keep in mind with shutter speed is what lens you are using.  If I’m using my trusty old 24-70mm f/2.8 lens and if I am hand-holding (no tri-pod), I really should NOT shoot below 1/70th of a second – or 1 over the longest length of your lens.  Otherwise my photo will probably be BLURRY!  Also, the f/2.8 refers to the WIDEST APERTURE my lens can possibly go – so with this lens it would be f/2.8.  If I use my other favorite lens – the 50mm f/1.4 – that means I can hand-hold as low as 1/50th of a second – and I can go all the way down to an aperture/f-stop of 1.4.

I really hope I’m making sense! 

OK, so I was shooting a wedding with Melissa in 2007 and I noticed how she kept going right up to people and putting her camera just inches from their faces.  I asked what she was doing and she said “metering the light”.  What she was doing was metering the light directly off someone’s FACE.  This is the best way to meter your light unless you want to carry around a light meter all the time (see this post for that!)  So put your camera in “pattern” or “evaluative” metering mode and get right up to your subject so their face fills the frame.

Of course BEFORE you get into someone’s face, you should have your camera in manual and you should have already decided what you want your APERTURE/f-stop to be.  What you are trying to find out is what your SHUTTER speed and possibly ISO should be.  If you go and fill your camera frame with someone’s face, then push the shutter down 1/2 way and it will meter the light with your in-camera light meter.  You should see some numbers inside your viewfinder – your goal is to get right in the middle — to the 0!  If you are over-exposed, you need to increase your shutter speed or increase your aperture number to let in less light, if you are under-exposed, you need to decrease your shutter speed or decrease your aperture number to let in more light. 

Let’s say you are in a LOW LIGHT situation and you are using your 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.  You’re probably at f/2.8 and let’s say you are STILL under-exposed at a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second.  That’s when you would want to INCREASE your ISO (think of it as film speed).  But keep in mind the HIGHER the ISO – the more GRAIN you introduce to your image.  

Another thing you could do in a LOW LIGHT situation is switch to a 50mm f/1.4 lens, then you can go all the way down to an aperture of 1.4 and a shutter speed of 1/50th – and adjust your ISO if needed.  That’s why this particular lens is an excellent lens for low light situations!  And that’s why if you have a “kit lens”, you will probably be very, very frustrated since the lowest you can probably go is f/3.5 or so, of course depending on the lens and focal distance you choose.

If you are totally overwhelmed and I’ve totally confused you, an easy way to learn is to go into aperture mode.  Pick your lowest aperture number your lens will go – let’s say f/2.8.  Set your ISO to oh, 400…less like 200 or even 100 if you are in a good lighting situation.  Take a shot.  Then look at the data on the photo you took and see what the CAMERA set as the shutter speed.  If you are happy with how the shot looks on your screen, then simply go into manual and put those SAME SETTINGS in there and start shooting!  If you don’t like what you see, then make the necessary adjustments once you flip into manual. 

Anyway, that a lot of information I know.  There are TONS of online tutorials and info too so feel free to look those up!  And most of all, have fun practicing!    Hope that helps someone out there!

p.s. for all the photogs out there that are interested, here are my camera settings & info for Grace’s photos =

Nikon D700, Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens, Manual, f-stop 2.2, ISO 250, shutter 1/160, auto white-balance.  I shoot in sRGB and do pattern metering.  Did a slight curves adjustment, cloned out her scratch & around nose, smoothed slightly, sharpened, then warmed it up slightly, then used Pioneer Woman’s “Fresh and Colorful” from set 1…tweaked down quite a bit.

Oh, and I must give a shout out to my wonderful husband!  He was SO great throughout this whole project!   He is the best husband ever! 

 The big circles on here are because I used a DX lens on my FX camera!  ha!  I think it looks kinda cool.    I wanted it really wide angle so I put my 17-55 f/2.8 lens on my D700.  I guess they are techinically not compatible.   

I want to tell you about the flooring we put in!  I was totally going to do Pergo, then I spotted this stuff  = Trafficmaster Allure.  It’s actually a vinyl product.  And it’s a floating floor system, but here are the advantages:

• EASY to put in!  I mean, if I can do it, anyone can!  It only took us a little over 2 hours to put the whole floor in!  (approx 11×14′)
• The pieces are 6″ x 36″ and they are pieced together on glue strips – kinda hard to explain, but it’s pretty slick how it goes together.
• The texture is very “wood” like – and I personally think it looks and feels more realistic than laminate.  Not to offend….just saying… 
• No padding needed!  Just put it over the existing flooring!  (and we laid it right over our sump pump hole and sewer clean out thing).
• No saw needed!  You only need a box-cutter and a metal “L” thingy.  Score, then snap it off.

The pain in the BUTT thing was the trim…but I’ll spare you the details.  Total for what you’re looking at here was just under $1700….

But anyway, I hope to play around soon w/ different lighting – shooting on the wood and trying a couple different things. 

Supplies =

• backdrop stand (National Camera Exchange)
• white fleece (JoAnn fabrics – 4-1/2yds?)
• white down-alternate comforter (TJ Maxx)
• white bathroom rug (Target)
• North-facing window
• cute baby!

I used my 50mm f/1.4 lens on my Nikon D700 – all shot in manual – most of the shots were like f-stop of 2-ish, ISO around 400, shutter speed around 1/200 or so.  It was a sunny day so that helped too!

Here’s my post from last year.  It goes a lot more in-depth about using a light meter and shows some before/after editing examples. 

I hope that’s able to help those that are interested in learning more about photography! 

I even had some guy offer to trade it for an autographed baseball (seriously?) And some lady today wanting me to ship it to Africa. uggh!

But I’ll try again…so if you know someone that is looking for a great camera, send them my way!