Ellen DeGeneres Visits KU

October 27, 2015 by Debra 2 Comments

Hi, October and November are busy months- sorry for the delay in posts! This time of year is family portrait session with the beautiful autumn leaves. I took a much needed break. Did you hear…….

Ellen DeGeneres visits KU

What an unexpected fun experience! Working most of the weekend on gallery edits- I took a moment to troll my Facebook account. Yes I call it trolling to keep up with family and friends near and far. I stumbled onto the above notice of Ellen coming to KU- Kansas University. That’s only 20 minutes from my house. Ellen is one of my favorites to watch on TV. Off I went!

Many people with lots of energy and excitement. I just added the 200-500mm lens to my camera gear which provided a fun outing to test the lens. The Ellen DeGeneres event took place between the football stadium and the hill in front of the Campanile Memorial. Ellen was not physically at KU. Her camera crew set up the satellite stage for Ellen to video conference with the crowd on the KU campus. She asked that everyone dress up as a Royal Baseball player. Several did and others like me did not. I had fun people watching! The gallery is featured below.

[visuallightbox id=”3″]

This segment was taped live to be aired today- the first day of the World Series. Be sure to watch Ellen. I’m wearing a pink sweatshirt in the distant crowd to the right. I was told the camera could pano the whole audience.

Go Royals!

Best Wishes,

Lunar Eclipse

September 28, 2015 by Debra 2 Comments

Hi, did you see the Lunar Eclipse last evening? I grabbed my grandma camera, tripod, a chair and made myself comfortable in the backyard. The evening was nice, cool and entertaining.

My husband mentioned the lunar eclipse to me earlier in the evening. I Googled moon camera settings. One website recommended a 500mm lens, which I do not have- using manual mode 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO200 with a tripod. The longest lens I currently have is the 200mm. Below are three images taken with my gmaCamera!

Lunar Eclipse

This image was taken at approx. 9:00 pm Central time.

Approx. 9:10 pm Central time.

Approx. 9:15 pm Central time.

At approx 9:20 pm the moon was totally in shadow. My image was black. Nothing to show. What a fun evening I shared with family afar on Facebook. Three of my sister-in-law’s were sitting in their yards looking at the same moon as me from different parts of the country. It’s amazing how we can be so far apart, yet share a moment like this via the world wide web!

Who did you share the lunar eclipse with? Please do tell- I enjoy reading the comments!

During my time in the yard, gazing up at the moon- I thought of the movie, Ladyhawke. I’m going to have to see if it’s playing on Netflix. Good movie!

Best Wishes,

Huff n Puff

September 19, 2015 by Debra 9 Comments

Huff n Puff

Hi, last Saturday I had a great time at Lake Shawnee’s, Huff n Puff. This is an annual event and each year I say I’m going to go and never seem to make it. Well this year I did go and it was fun.

There were 29 balloons total at this year’s huff n puff. Not all of them launched into flight. Upon my arrival several of the baskets and balloons were being laid out for the inflation process. The collage below shows how the basket is laid on its side and the balloon stretched out straight. Several crew members will hold the balloon open for the air to enter into the balloon.

The balloons were huge. As I said they were fun to see. People watching was just as fun. Everyone was taking pictures. Cameras ranged from cell phone to professional setups. Most of the photographers were friendly and engaged in photography talk. Which I enjoy ever so much. My camera of choice for this evening was my grandma camera the Sony Nex series- leaving my professional camera at home. I am a firm believer that it’s just not the “camera” that creates the great pictures. A person needs to know what their camera can do; know what all the buttons are used for and always have the instruction manual close at hand. Yes- entry level cameras will have more limitations than professional lens and cameras, but great images can still be achieved.

Depth of Field

Get comfortable with depth of field. I knew this event I would be shooting more landscape photography. Be sure that as much of your scene is in focus as possible. The simplest way to do this is to choose a small Aperture setting (a large number) as the smaller your aperture the greater the depth of field in your shots.

Do keep in mind that smaller apertures mean less light is hitting your image sensor at any point in time so they will mean you need to compensate either by increasing your ISO or lengthening your shutter speed (or both). It is suggested a tripod is used for clear images.

White Balance

White balance in my opinion is the easiest and most overlooked setting a lot of photographers make. Your camera will try and set white balance automatically based on the type of light in which you’re shooting. Different light casts different types of color—sunlight is very blue, tungsten lighting is yellow, and fluorescent is a bit green. In many cases, the camera will automatically detect what type of lighting you’re under and adjust the color in photos so that they look natural. You can correct color in Photoshop or similar editing program later on, but you’ll get better-looking photos if you get the white balance right in the first place.

Click here to view the Huff n Puff image gallery.

Best Wishes,

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