Murder in Sin City was the theme for Rick's surprise birthday party. See more photos.
Lighting at a fast paced, indoor event is always difficult. I prefer to use an external flash so that the flash can be bounced off of the ceiling or nearby wall. The light isn't as harsh, there aren't any bright spots, and the shadows on the back wall are softened. I usually have to adjust the exposure compensation to prevent under exposure. I prefer to get the exposure correct when taking the photo so that I don't have to adjust the levels in Photoshop Elements. It saves time.
These are test shots to see what kind of camera equipment is needed to take non-blurry photos without a flash. I don't own such equipment and need to use a flash. The photo on the left is bouncing the flash off of the ceiling at the finish line. It made the starting line too dark. The middle photo used a flash to capture the speeding cars (not shown) in conjunction with a slow shutter speed to capture more ambient light. On the camera, the flash setting was set for REAR. I didn't like to colors. While the slow shutter speed brightens the entire photo including the starting line, it also meant there would be a ghost like blur of the cars. The boys, who were always moving, would be blurry too. It's better to have a picture in focus than it is to have ambient lighting. The photo on the right used a custom white balance. I took a piece of paper from the judging table, put it on the floor, set my camera for custom white balance, and took a photo of the piece of paper. The camera accepted the photo as the new definition of white. While I like the more natural color of the photo on the right, it looks a bit flat and the colors are muted as compared to the photo on the left. The black and white checked pattern looks like dark gray and light gray on the right hand photo. I wonder if a flash would make the colors pop out more. Since I was one of the two timing judges, I didn't have much time to experiment with cars on the track. To get the photo on the right with the cars in focus, I estimate the settings would be 1/125, f/2.8, ISO 1600, custom white balance, no flash. Talk about extremes. Canon SLR cameras have better image sensors than Nikon SLR cameras for low light photography. There is less noise ("grain") at ISO 800 and above. The f/2.8 aperture means you need a professional grade zoom lens (typically $1,000 or more) or a prime lens (non-zooming, typically under $400). Yes, there are less expensive zoom lenses, but the optics aren't as good. 
On January 21st, we had our first measurable snow accumulation. It started around noon and continued past bedtime. Snow and rain almost always shows up better if you use a flash.
The yellow colored street lights turned everything yellow (top photo). Of course, Photoshop can help get a better color balance, but I didn't like the results (bottom photo). Yes, winter is cold and a blue tint helps create that feeling. The yellow tint in the top photo is warmer and more inviting. I didn't have my tripod, so I took one of the kid's booster seat from the car, placed it in the middle of the ice covered road, and set the camera on top of that. I set the shutter to a 5 second delay to help minimize camera shake after pressing the shutter release button. I put the camera on "P" and let the camera choose the shutter speed and aperture. The original photo didn't quite grab me and no matter how I tried to crop it using the standard 2:3 or 3:4 ratio of height:width, I just didn't care for the photo. However, when I changed the ratio to 1:3 to make a wide panoramic, the picture looked much better. Digital SLR cameras have a 2:3 ratio of height:width. It matches 35mm film and enlarges to a 4x6 inch photo. Point and shoot cameras have a 3:4 ratio, which matches "square" computer monitors (non-widescreen).
All of the morning and afternoon Kindergarten classes performed a musical. This was a difficult undertaking since the morning and afternoon classes never rehearsed together. The kids and music teachers did a great job of making the performance enjoyable. Ainsley was proud of her choice of wardrobe even though we told her it didn't match. Watch a video of some of the songs (5.9MB, 1 min 20 sec). Here is a panoramic photo of all of the kids.
Saturday was ski day. Ryan and Ainsley were enrolled in an all day ski school (9:00am - 3:00pm) while Carter and Kendall were to day care. This gave the four of us time to ski without the kids and explore the some of the 30 different runs. The kids had fun riding the "magic carpet" moving sidewalk as they went up the bunny hill. 
On Sunday, we spent a few hours snow tubing and had a blast. Watch a video of a few runs (5.4MB, 1 min 11 sec). The weather kept changing every 20 minutes from snowing to sunshine. See more photos of the entire trip. The drive home was similar to the drive there; dark and blizzard conditions. We had a great time. Too bad we can't do this every weekend. |
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This photo isn't going to win any awards. I was
fumbling to find a tripod replacement since I didn't have one at
the time. Our van was parked in front, so I opened the side
door and used the chair armrest as a substitute tripod. In
the end, the composition was bad because I couldn't move to where
I wanted to be. The
front yard is empty and should have included the mailbox and/or car
in the driveway. The front door is open and inviting, but its
hard to tell from this angle. The
family standing on the front porch might have worked too. You
can't see the snow covered roof on the top floor, so it looks like
the house is missing a roof. The
TV is on downstairs, which gives a cold, blue color instead of a
warm, inviting yellow. All of the upstairs lights should have
been turned on too. Smoke out of the chimney would have added a touch
too, but this house has a gas fireplace. This is the first
time I've noticed the dark corners on this
lens. It's
subjective, but either you are constantly looking for it
and hate to see it or it helps draw you in to the center of the picture. Changing
from f/3.5 to f/8 would have removed almost all of the dark corners. Sometimes
it takes a little work and planning to get a great photo.
