Photography Tips from a mom with a camera

***Photography talk, scroll down for cute pics of the kiddos***

Now I am certainly NO expert, but I have found some tricks that seem to improve photography which I thought I would share.  I never use flash unless indoors & always stick with natural light.

1st for me was learning to shoot in manual mode with my camera.  Here are some basic things that I determined from reading & playing with my camera:

1) ISO--I think of it as a sensor inside my camera that detects light, the lower the ISO the richer & prettier the colors will be & the lower the noise (you know that grainy look)
--For outdoors: ISO 100 or 200
--For indoors: ISO 400 or 800--I try never to go above 800 as graininess increases

2) Aperture--I think of this like a pupil in your eye.  It's the opening of the camera lens & it determines how much light you let in.  It also controls how much is in focus.  Lower # equals higher aperture so an aperture of 2 is larger than an aperture of 5.  Meaning the opening to your lens is bigger with smaller numbers
--For me, I'm in love with my prime lenses.  I love the creamy bokeh you get when you blur out the background by using the lower numbers
--My favorite settings for portraits are f 3.2 or 2.8 (if I haven't' had too much coffee)
--Beware of these lower settings though, this means less of your pic will be in focus--so your focus has to be spot on & your hands must be steady
--If you want to get more than 1 person in focus I go up to f 4 at least & for groups I go 4.5 or 5

3) Shutter speed--It's how fast your camera's shutter opens & closes.  Like an eyelid opening & closing.
--For me b/c I'm using prime lenses mostly with no IS (you find this on most zoom lenses) I always go 1/125 or higher
--Shutter speed, aperture, & ISO make up the exposure triangle--when you change one thing it relates to them all

For example:
Typical scenario for me, I want to take a pic of my fast moving toddlers modeling some new dress or hair bow I've made them & I head outside--why do I prefer outdoors, well, 1st it is prettier, but 2nd you can take pics at faster shutter speed b/c you have more available light to expose your subject.

1st thing I always set is ISO 100 or 200 depending on the time of day & the tree cover in the yard (P.S. always shoot in shade, kids can keep their eyes open much better when they are in shade--that's a whole blog in itself is about finding good light, but we will say shade here)

2nd thing I set is my Aperture depending on how blurred out I want the background or how much coffee I've had & also how willing my subject is for that day.  Lower aperture allows more light in & allows fewer things to be in focus in the pic, but you must be very steady to get this effect.  I've blurred hundreds of cute pics trying to shoot at lower than a 2.8.  Can it be done, yes, I've taken numerous pics at a 1.8 where just one eye was in focus, but you must be steady!!

3rd thing I set is Shutter Speed:  For me I've taken so many pics in my yard I almost know by heart what my shutter speed setting will be depending on where I am.  I always have mine around 1/125 to begin & then confirm that my exposure is correct with my light meter inside the camera.  That's the green bars you see when you look through the camera itself.  You'll see a little solid green bar that moves depending on what the exposure looks like.  You want it around 0, for me, I always overexpose by 2-3 bars on the positive side.  It is easier for me to decrease brightness when I edit than to add...but whatever works for you is great!  Exposure compensation is really important also & something that you can read articles on--it really just takes practice & learning to look at histograms to figure this out.

The other most important thing I learned about taking pictures of my kids was learning to shoot in RAW.  If you turn the dial on your camera to M or Manual mode and then hit the menu button you can change the quality of your pics--I think mine came from the factory set to large--meaning it would shoot in the largest jpeg quality possibly.  If your camera is 10 mega pixels it will shoot somewhere around there.  If you go to RAW then you max out the amount of data captured.  What is RAW--it's a digital negative of your images.  These suckers are huge, but you can manipulate them in ways that can not be matched with jpeg.  Most importantly you can adjust your white balance once the pic is on your computer screen.  I always shoot mine with auto white balance & then adjust mine using the program that came with my camera called Digital Photo Professional.  I usually start by adjusting the white balance, increasing saturation, adding contrast, & increasing sharpness.  The RAW files are really washed out so go ahead & give them 2 or 3 on the saturation if you want full color.  I like a really sharp image & if you can zoom all the way in on your original & it's in focus then you go ahead and sharpen it up---if it's not sharp straight out of your camera no amount of sharpening will fix it...trust me, been there done that---it ain't pretty!  Once you've got your RAW file edited you must convert it to jpeg--always go with highest quality jpeg.  Also, when you convert from RAW to jpeg sharpness decreases..so be advised.  It may look awesome as a RAW, but soft as a jpeg.  That's where a little more sharpening in photo editing comes in to play.  Displaying images on the web or printing them softens them, so give them a little more sharpening in your photo editing software..not too much, b/c that's not pretty either & if using a commercial lab like snapfish or shutterfly to print pics ask if they sharpen before they print.  I use Mpix & they do sharpen a small amount before printing, they also calibrate their printers so I've had better luck with them.  Those are just some of the tricks & tips I have learned, I hope for those of you photo enthusiasts out there that it was interesting.  Just for those of you thinking how do I find time to do all of this, I never watch tv & I do all of my editing at night after the girls are in bed.  Once you get the hang of it you can edit in RAW--which is the most powerful editing--about 1 photo per minute.

Enjoy some pics of my little Ella in her new dress that I got her from Brazil.  I used all the techniques I talked about above to take these pics.  Pretty cute if you ask me, although it helps when you have such a cute subject!  Have a wonderful day ;)