Gaming pics

Sometimes I like to hang out with Jeff's gaming group. They're the sweetest guys and always welcome me even though I usually end up asleep on the couch partway through the evening. They even let me take pics with my new camera recently, as you can see on this page. :-)



I rarely play games with them; I start fading around 9 or 9:30 pm, and that's often when their games are just beginning, going through until the wee hours of the morning.



Instead, I like to sit on the couch with my laptop or a book, writing or reading or drawing, taking frequent breaks to check on the progress of the games or to chat a bit.



Yesterday was John's birthday (see above), and he brought by some leftover birthday cake from a gathering he had with his family.



Anyway, the occasion was great for getting more practice with my people photography skills since the guys were trapped in an enclosed space and too distracted by gaming to get nervous about my camera (BWAH ha ha!).



I attempted some photos with my Canon 17-85, but found that the images just weren't sharp enough in the low light setting. It was good for taking a wide angle shot of the room, however, like the one at the top of this page.



In contrast, my Sigma 30/1.4 (yes, I'm raving about that lens again) gave sharper images, with better lighting.



I did a lot of experimenting with settings. For the shot of Iain (in the Apple baseball cap near the top of the page), for instance, I pumped up the ISO to 1600. There's some graininess evident, especially when looking at the enlarged photo, but nothing like the graininess in my PowerShot at ISO 400 in similar light conditions.



Another thing I'm loving about my DSLR: how FAST I can take pictures, especially when in "burst" mode, when I can take multiple photos in a row (click click click click) by pressing the button once and holding it down.



Many thanks to Scott for the drive home while Jeff's game was still going strong! That way I got to bed around 1 am instead of 3. :-)


Two reasons to celebrate today: It's my friend Alison's birthday (photo to the right taken on a camping trip), and I also get to see my friend Parki for the first time in a few months! Parki's been on a cross-country motorcycle trip and got home yesterday.



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Robotic Squirrels Are Coming! RUN!

Happy birthday to Erin! Erin, by the way, has been contributing to a site called Daily Writing Tips; you can see some of her posts here.

The photo above was taken on my point-and-shoot during our canoe trip last week, after Jeff made this pancake squirrel. Thomas pointed out in Flickr: "If you look closely, isn't that the face of Elvis on the tail?" Click on the photo above see the Flickr post, then move your mouse over the tail (while in Flickr) to see Thomas's note. :-D

A couple more photos I took during our trip up north (the first with my point-and-shoot, the second with the Canon 70-300 lens):





Recently posted in blogTO:


Photo courtesy Andie Rosenbaum.

My profile of editor-turned-writer: Bev Katz Rosenbaum. I had fun interviewing Bev, plus it was interesting to find out how she transitioned from her editor position at Harlequin to writing books for young people. Do check out the interview on blogTO.

LINKS O' THE DAY:

My friends John and Bruce pointed me to this article and this article about a newly discovered squirrel weapon: apparently the Californian ground squirrel can heat up its tail to confuse rattlesnakes.

But as John pointed out, what's truly disturbing about the first article is the following paragraph:

"Tests with robotic squirrels confirmed that a warmed squirrel tail made rattlesnakes more likely to act defensively, say Rundus and Owings."

!!!

UC Davis has hordes of armed robotic squirrels! It's only a matter of time, I'm sure, before their hapless scientist creators lose control and these man-made fiends break out of the laboratory, surging over the planet in a merciless feeding frenzy, leaving behind a wake of destruction in their mindless drive for peanuts and global domination.

Run, my friends! Run while you can!





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New camera update

I've had my new Canon Rebel XTi for a month now and am thoroughly enjoying it. As helpful as I have found online and print references about SLRs and DSLRs, I've found that I'm learning the most by just taking lots and lots of photos. By lots, I mean an average of 50-100 photos a day. I end up trashing most of them, but am learning a great deal in the process.

What I do:

- Pick a subject. I try to pick subjects that are somewhat challenging in some way. People are the best for me, but not always available. So I photograph the sky, buildings, objects around the house, a leaf on our front walk. I try for different light conditions.

- Choose a general setting on the camera, like Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or Manual. I've only opted for Automatic a few times but don't tend to use it because I find I get better results if I can twiddle some settings myself.

- Take a photo.

- Check the photo on the viewfinder. I take my friend Beckett's advice and am also starting to regularly use the histogram to check my light balance; it's sometimes hard to properly judge the success of a photo by just looking at the viewfinder, especially in bright light conditions.

- Tweak a more specific setting, like focal length or shutter speed. Or I experiment with different angles, composition, unusual effects.

- Take another photo and check it again.

- Repeat the previous two steps ad nauseum or until the subject (if I've chosen a live person, for instance) gets bored and walks away.



All of the photos in today's Blathering except for the dinner table shot were taken with my Sigma 30/1.4 lens, in natural light conditions at my mom-in-law's 70th birthday party. These real-life people situations are far more of a challenge, I find, because I don't have the luxury of time to do much tweaking and light testing, and I'm not expert enough to just whip up the camera and take a photo with only a few seconds prep (like I am on my point-and-shoot).



As a result, many of my photos didn't turn out -- they were either too bright, too dark, or not in focus. However, I did get a few decent people shots as well as learning lots in the process. The photo above, for example, is slightly out of focus but I find that I still like it.

My favourite lens so far is still the Sigma. It's amazing in low light conditions, and I like being able to have finer control over depth-of-field for close-ups. It's a bit trickier to focus than my other lenses, but the results are well worth it.

I would have never have been able to take the photo below with my old point-and-shoot, simply because the light levels were so low:



On the other hand, I'm still using my point-and-shoot in situations where my Rebel would be more of a pain to carry around. Like on our canoe trip last week, for example, or in situations where I don't necessarily want to stand out as a photographer so much.

As some of you warned in my LJ comments a while back, carrying around a DSLR/SLR is far different than carrying a point-and-shoot when it comes to being noticed. Everyone these days seems to have a point-and-shoot, so no one really pays attention when someone takes a photo.



My DSLR, however, looks like a Real Camera and also makes Real Camera sounds, so people tend to get more nervous and self-conscious and I find myself more on the outside of a scene looking in, rather than being an active participant.

When I realized this at my mom-in-law's party, I found myself putting my camera aside (in its case or on a nearby table) more often. I missed a lot of photo ops that way but in the end, I wanted to be part of the fun much more than I needed to photograph it.

LINK O' THE DAY

Squirrel Obstacle Course For Peanuts: courtesy my friend Ray. :-)




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How I'm feeling right now

In case you were wondering why I haven't been Blathering this week...



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First National Post colour photo credit!

Check out the photo credit above; I had two colour photos in the National Post on the weekend, accompanying Gina Mallet's three-star review of Amaya the Indian Room (Toronto supplement, p16 & 17). This is my first colour photo credit in the National Post, and the first time I've had photos accompany a feature piece in a national publication. Woohoo!



Both photos were taken with my little Canon PowerShot, before I bought my Canon Rebel XTi.

Unfortunately I didn't find out about the photos being in NP until this morning, else I would have bought more copies. :-) If anyone out there has an extra copy, please do let me know!

In case you were wondering, I did submit these photos to the National Post for possible use with my own review (which appeared in the paper a few weeks ago). I don't mind that they used them elsewhere since they included a photo credit; at this point in my photojournalism experience, I welcome all the professional credits I can get.

For those who missed it, here's the review of Amaya the Indian Room that I wrote for blogTO.



Sick today, ugh. Going back to bed now, but before I leave I had to post a Ratatouille video about food, found through Megnut. If you'd like to watch more Ratatouille videos, here's the YouTube page.





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