Proud Parent Report

While in Colorado Springs at Colorado College, we also attended a senior student art show consisting of nine monotypes. These remarkable, colorful creations from paper, fabric, string, and ink stirred our imaginations. One looked liked seahorses, another like Christmas wrapping paper, while others inspired visions of the creation of the universe. All of them brought joy and wonder to the viewers.

Oh, and did I mention, the artist was Kate Aitchison, our daughter?

Baby, It's Dark in Here

We attended a dance performance at Colorado College, where photography was allowed but not flash. Most of the dancing was done under fairly dim, colored lights, which were constantly changing hue and intensity. I needed a long lens to fill my frame, but I only had a slow 18-200mm zoom with a maximum aperature of 5.6 when zoomed all the out to 200mm. So I cranked up my ISO to 6400, hoped for the best, and shot away.

I was pleasantly surprised. Try getting shots like this with a film camera and no flash.

More P&S Versus DSLR Comparisons

Here are a couple more image pairs. In each case "A" was taken with a point & shoot camera and "B" with a Nikon DSLR. The "A" shots are JPEGs straight out of the camera. The "B" shots were shot in RAW and then worked slightly in Adobe Lightroom (my favorite software for cataloging and doing minor work on images).

So what is the advantage of having a DSLR? One is if you plan to make large prints (over 8" X 10"), the greater resolution of the DSLR becomes apparent. Another advantage is that the DSLR has essentially no shutter lag between the pushing of the shutter release and the capture of the image. The long lag in most point & shoots can be frustrating when trying to capture fast action like sports, flying birds, and small children. Also, DSLRs can make remarkably good images in dim light without flash, an aspect we will explore in the next blog.

Which is the "Real" Camera?

Many times I have folks come up to me, look at my expensive Nikon DSLR camera with an expensive lens attached, and then apologize for having "just a point & shoot". Well, let's take a look at what a $200 camera can do compared to a one costing ten times that amount.

Here is a basic sunset picture, one taken with an Olympus point & shoot, the other with a Nikon D300. Can you tell which is which? Do you like one over the other?

Over the next week, I'll make some more shots with both cameras, and then discuss the similarities and differences between the two.

Bottle Caps Become Art

Ann has been experimenting with various discarded materials to give them a second life as works of art. She makes delightful tote bags and wallets from aluminized juice pouches and coffee bags, gorgeous zippered bags of felted wool obtained from old sweaters bought at Goodwill, and lately has been crafting pins from bottle caps. I have been trying to do my part by consuming plenty of bottled beers to produce a supply of caps. Sometimes a husband just has to make these sacrifices.

Today, we photographed some of Ann's pins so that the pictures could be posted on her brand new site (www.etsy.com/shop/2ndGoRound ). We tried a couple of different studio set-ups including light-colored backgrounds, lit backgrounds with a frontal studio light, ambient light but finally settled on diffused natural light with the pins sitting on black fabric. A little post processing in Lightroom; and voila, nice shots for the web.