my new camera

Ive always loved photography and dabbled it in with an old canon EOS SLR several years ago, but when the world went digital i guess i fell off the technology train.

So last week i bought myself a lovely new canon digital EOS 40D, and a few new lenses. I am definitely a bit rusty, and probably have a very different view of the world these days and so i thought i would blog my photographic journey.

So far i am rediscovering the meaning of aperture and exposure and shutter speed and wow, when did they invent lens stabilisers, and huh?! what the hell is raw.

So anyway, no point waiting until i improve, heres my pics from week 1. This was a tree in a creekbed in Newman. I was just playing with the automatic settings and this was on the close up nature setting. Pic is pretty boring, is too centred, and in desperate need of a bug.

Then i started to play with the manual settings and so i was tinkering with a shallow depth of field, ie large aperture f/5.6 ish. And there was a dog handy, so meet Ollie.


And once he fell asleep, i started practising with random pieces of fruit. The composition of this shot is pretty ordinary, i like the table as the background, but the banana looks stupid. But that wasnt the aim anyhow, i was just trying different settings. So, again, as with Ollie, shallow depth of field (shallower than Ollie) and trying to focus on the bruised part of the banana.

Shortly after the banana shot i came up with the idea for the blog and so have been playing with the banner shot ever since. For the banner i wanted mood, warmth, and a touch of nostalgia. I initially tried a cup of tea in the shot as well but it added too much harshness and so i went back to just the camera and my journal. I used the manual setting but widened the field of view (f/16) to give added depth, i liked the lines the table created and the glow off the wood. I played a little in the editing software with contrast and sharpness, but i am so out of my depth with editing! best i just stick to tinkering with the camera first. I like the shot for now, Im sure as i improve i will pick it to pieces but for now i think its a good end to my first week with me new camera.