day twenty six

Today I can happily state that I have tried not one, but two new things with my camera!

First, on recommendation of my favorite photographer, I read this page to take away some of my confusion on using auto focus.   Huge help, and I recommend it as reading for any newbie with a DSLR.

Second, I am back on track with week three of the two peas course (skipping over week two for now, since I play around with RAW files when it comes to white balance).  I'm playing around with my onboard flash - oh boy.  This has never worked out for me in the past, but we'll give it a try anyway.

Using kit lens 18-55mm at 55mm, manual mode, f/5.6, shutter speed 1/60 sec, ISO 800, using onboard flash.

Meiyu is one of the few non-sick and rather lazy beings in this house, so she had no problem waking up from her hourly nap to flash her pretty blue eyes for me.  As you can see on the wheel wells of the ride-on toy, the flash did indeed go off - however, I think it looks pretty good!  My focal length was at 55 in order to get this shot, since standing any closer would have resulted in the typical washed-out picture.  I'm rather proud, since taking pictures at this time, in this window, are usually disastrous.  Sure, I don't have pretty catchlights... but my picture required no tinkering whatsoever for exposure or color.

Also, auto-focus!  Granted, at f/5.6, I don't really get a great depth of field in this picture, but I am looking forward to testing it out tomorrow... hopefully on two gorgeous cakes!