Digital Camera 1: Assignment 7

In our second to last lecture, we learned about a tid bit about enhancing our photos with programs such as Lightroom and Photoshop.

For our last assignment, we we asked to take everything we had learned and put it together. In other words, take a photo that is well composed and has good exposure. Sounds easy right? But remember, we have multiple knobs to play with such as ISO, aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation, and white balance.

I wasn't able to find the time, so I pulled a photo from my archives. I took this one not too long after I started the class. Some friends and I decided to troll through Photographica (it's a flea market for photographers). I thought this photo was pretty fitting and a great way to end the course.



Originl photo straight out of camera.

 

Post Photoshop touch up.



Dressing the Men Folk: Groomsmen

Oh my god, it is beyond ridiculous how excited I am about giving you the low down on what the men are wearing!!!

First, let me back up and start from the beginning...the very, very beginning. I hate rented tuxedos. They just scream "Hi! I was rented!" It's not so bad if you are going for the super formal tux look with the bow tie. But tuxes with the vests? During this process I have learned that I hate the vest options. YUCK! If they had vests plain black vests made from the same fabric as the pants and coat, this would probably be a non-issue. 

I have wanted the guys in black suits since we have been engaged. Little did I know that renting a suit is nearly impossible. After an exhaustive search and stress from another corner of the wedding planning world, Jake and I threw our hands up and called uncle. We will just keep it easy and rent tuxes from the big tux renting company.

We went to said place. I made Jake give me a fashion show and took crappy photos with my phone. We were in complete agreement on what the gents would wear. But something gnawed at me internally...for days...weeks actually. I tried to ignore it. I wanted to be a good bride and just go with the flow. I wanted it to be one last thing we had to deal with. I nagged Jake all last week to make a final decision so that we could let the guys know and thus be fitted. Jake went back and even had the sales rep help him take more photos in hopes to appease me.

Jake modeling the ensemble we had picked out for rental: 2-button tux, black satin vest, black diagonal striped tie.
The pants would be flat font (pleated is pictured). By the way, I also hate pleated pants and shiny, plastic rental shoes. 

Unfortunately for him, the stress mounted and the camel's back finally broke. I put my foot down. I wanted the men in suits. Simple black suits. And off we went to the department store in search of something that would make me happy.

We thought we struck it rich on the first try with Tommy Hilfiger's Slim Fit suits. The jacket fit Jake really well and would need minimal tailoring at the waist. On to the pants we went. Let's just say slim fit pants were too slim. And if they are too slim for Jake, they definitely are NOT going to work for the rest of the dudes. We moved our focus from Jake to the guys. Success! We found simple, 2-button, 2-piece, black suits (on SALE, too). Jake modeling the suit was one thing, we needed at least one of the guys to try it on. Somehow, we managed to get two of boys in the dressing room the next day. Perhaps it was the promise of food that helped? Either way, I'll take it.  



 Calvin Klein (Image via Macy's)



Pretty much looks just like the tux minus the satin lapel, right? Winning! Once we have everyone's sizes. I will do the dirty work of tracking then down and hopefully scoring them not only on sale but also with the additional discount by opening the charge card. I love me a good deal. Now onto ties, pocket squares, and socks. Oh and Jake's suit, too.

3 months

91 days until W-Day today (if the world does not end tomorrow)!

Let's see what we have been up to for the last month shall we?

• Jake peeled and grated his first carrot ever!

  
• I have been sinking my hard earned dollars into my photography hobby.
• I closed the kitchen to my bakeshop.
• The big white gown, you know THE wedding gown, is no longer resides under our bed. It now is in the hands of a seamstress for alterations. I'll see her next month for fitting #2.
• My Chinese dress is almost ready for fitting #1. There has been so much drama surrounding the materials for this dress that it deserves its own post.
• Jake tried on tuxes. He went back today to finalize the picks after hemming and hawing over the choices we had entertained.
• Invitations are ALMOST, almost completed!! They will be finished tonight! I've been busy printing, cutting, gluing, stamping, and embossing. All that is left is the finishing touch.
• RSVP cards has been re-designed! I had originally designed it way back when. But things change and I don't like it anymore. Instead of sleeping last Saturday night, I got a second wind and proceeded to design them. Done and done.
• The information card were also designed originally with when I designed the invites. Thank God! Now we just need the welcome dinner and brunch information and they are ready to rock their way through the printer and paper cutter. Along with the RSVP cards, I am hoping to have them done at the end of the month.
• Guestbook - Half way done, but I kept it easy ;)
• Flower girls dress - O.M.G. I will have to do a separate post on this. Can you tell I an excited? We ordered it from Etsy. A friend of mine asked me if there was anything I was purchasing for this wedding. Yup, the flower girl's outfit. Haha. I will confess that I considered making it for a split second.
• And lastly, I joined the 30's club.

  

  Age 1: First birthday.

   

  

  Age (a few weeks before) 30: Being goofy at a friend's wedding. I blame the champange.

  

Now onto the to-do list:

• We need to find a tent company - Paula and Caitlyn have this under control. Unfortunately, we will no longer be sharing our tent as the other couple decided to go a different route. Shucks!
• Welcome dinner venue and caterer - I was emailing places this week. Hopefully, we'll have something soon.
• Morning after brunch venue and menu - Going to call this easy and just do it at the hotel. Done and Done.
• Finalize the centerpieces - I think I need to stop giving our florist our opposing opinions and just let her creativity fly. I love everything she's done for other couples.
• Finalize the dinner menu - In the works...but for some reason we still have not signed a contract.
• The maid of honor still needs a dress - I am going to play dumb and pretend she has one.
• The mother of the bride still needs a dress - Whooo! My mother ordered cheongsam dresses (yes, that's right, plural) from China and they finally came in. Now she just needs to find someone to help her with alterations. The crazy woman thinks that she can do it herself. Somehow I do not think that is going to work with her rheumatoid.
• Menus need to be designed, printed, and assembled - I think I'm going to keep these simple. Not like anyone really cares about them, right?
• Cardbox - Plan on tackling it as soon as I finish with the invitations. Goal is to have it done by the end of the month. I. Can. Do. This.
• Chair signage - do we even need signage? seriously?
• Transportation - We have transportation for us and the wedding party covered, just need to figure out something for our guests so that everyone can take advantage of the open bar. Dang, think I just gave away too much info ;)
• Welcome packages for out of town guests -I mean what welcome packages? No one is getting anything. - Plan is to attack it next month after I get back from VEGAS.

Countdown:
4 months

5 months

Meltdown at 5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

11 months

12 months

13 months

Digital Camera 1: Assignment 6

Lenses and white balance. Both topics are pretty self explanatory. OK maybe lenses are not really self explanatory. There are different types. Some work with most camera bodies, some will only partially work, and some not at all. Lens focal distances work differently depending if you have a pro or an entry level camera body. Lenses are for the most part interchangeable between bodies (research will tell you that it is not the camera body that is important, but rather one should sink money into the lenses). One difference when using a pro lens on an entry consumer body, is that there is a crop factor to contend with (in addition to potentially not being able to auto focus). I'm not going to go into the nitty-gritty. But the photo below gives you a general idea of what I am trying to convey. The red box shows what a full frame lens/body would see. The blue box shows what happens when you take a pro lens and put it on a camera that does not have a full sensor frame (full being the equivalent of a 35mm camera).

via Wikipedia.

For white balance, we went over the different settings that are available in addition to AUTO. Just a handful of choices include: cloudy, shade, tungsten, and fluorescent compensation. Auto does a fantastic job with natural light (in and outdoors in my experience). However, mixed lighting conditions are tricky. In each case, your camera will add the complementary color in order to achieve true white.

For this assignment we were to do our best to shoot on manual mode and to also play with the white balance options. I didn't have a chance to get out and shoot. I don't think we've had an uneventful weekend to ourselves in a long while. Anyways, instead, I picked through my old photos since I used to shoot on manual mode. Ha, yeah, I didn't really know what I was doing back then. I would do a test shot and then change my ISO, aperature, and/or shutter speed to get the photo I wanted. I would also say to myself, "that's close enough, I can Photoshop it later." Unfortunately, when I shot in manual mode, I left the white balance option on auto.

You may recognize these photos from our February 2011 trip to Oregon.

Digital Camera 1: Assignment 5

Exposure compensation. Most camera's have an option that allows you to either over expose or under expose a photo. In other words, it will automatically adjust either your aperature or your shutter speed to control the amount of light.

I had figured this option out just before shooting the rehearsal dinner, well kinda. I knew that I would have to use a flash, but I didn't want people's faces to be all blown out (super bright) and have the background super dark. At the time, I thought I was fiddling with the strength of the flash (that's another button), but in actuality, I was playing with the exposure. It might have been a fluke, but it worked.

I didn't execute the assignment properly. We were supposed to play with the exposure compensation to get a good photo. I took these during the day with natural light and my camera is pretty solid in determining what it needs, so I didn't have to play with the exposure.

Cherry blossoms! I could have played with the expposure here...but I like
the way the sun highlights the flowers, almost blowing out the details.

 

I shouldn't have blurred out the background so much.
My instructor asked me what the white stuff was...
it's a bowl of creamer.

Both taken with my "new" used lens Nikkor 24-85mm f/2.8-4.0. It's currently being repaired, hopefully I get it back soon.