I Fail At Blogging

Yes I know don't say it. I know I fail at blogging and I don't know why I even try. Don't worry though I haven't been doing anything worth wild that would give me a good excuse for not blogging so that I could come back and do a long post about it. I even fail at the photo challenge I was doing. I got to day two and stopped. Plus the new facebook page I started is still without a million pictures and only has three "likes". It's because it's not summer. I watch multiple kids over summer vacation, so my personal summer is the school year. Like everyone else I don't feel like doing anything on my personal summer, and the weather doesn't help any either. Today it's all rainy and thundering and a perfect day to hang out on the couch watching movies and drinking hot coco. While I'd love to do that today, I have my nephew to watch (he's only three, he'll start pre-k next year though) and unlike me all he sees is a day that's going to be spent coped up inside so he has to make as much noise as possible and annoy the crap out of me.

Here is a picture of the sunset yesterday.

It's just something to get you non existent readers to keep you happy until I dust off my camera and get bored.... I think I'll crack open my ancient photo album on facebook that was really where my first boredom photography started. That's what I'll do tomorrow. So watch out for it.

Day Two: Outside

I'm totally cheating on this day. I didn't happen to get any pictures because my camera had to charge. I was looking at the list to see if I would have any intentional cheat days (old pics, pics from the internet etc.) and I found four. Day 8, day 16 (but in all fairness it is supposed to be), day 22 and day 25. Also any unforeseen circumstances could make me use cheat pictures.

But here is today's. Outside. I took this picture during Tropical Storm Debby. I wasn't in an area that got hit with damage, just lots and lots and lots of rain. Because I was cooped up inside for three days I thought the only thing worth doing would be to take a picture of the rain.

The New Camera!! YAY!!

So here it is. My new and very much loved Canon. After about three months research I finally found this camera. I had a price range of less than $300. I knew I could get lots of good point and shoots and even a couple good compact systems. I had some major requirements though. They were as listed.

• Long optical zoom, at least 10x
• At least 12mp
• Had to have a child/pet mode. With half my pictures being of my nephew I knew it'd help having a special mode just for kids.
• Had to have image stabilization. 
• Had to be a reasonable size. I wanted something I could take everywhere with me, and it wouldn't be weighing me down.

Short list of wants but when you slap a price tag of less than $300 you get an even shorter list of good quality products. I also based my choice largely on reviews of other people that used the camera everyday and seemed to have some knowledge of what they were doing. I knew I wanted either a Nikon or Canon. While on the home stretch of camera hunting I had narrowed my choices to this, my sisters (a canon power shot s95) and one other, another canon. The other Canon, can't remember the name of, I had been looking at met all my expectations, except that it was bulky. My sisters camera was a compact system with 5x optical zoom and 10mp. I knew that it wasn't what I wanted but I still liked it and with the time frame of me needing to find a camera closing in I was just about to load that one into my cart until....

... I met it. It was like the church choir sang while rays of sun rained down around me. It was perfect. Perfect price tag (about $250 about tax) 14x optical zoom, 12 mp, optical image stabilizer, child/pet mode, even had quite a few different scene modes. Including miniature, toy camera effect, color accent, fish eye, poster, snow, firework, underwater, foliage, low light, beach... ok so I did name just about all of them but come on they're some pretty cool scene modes.

Here's a generic picture of it, I thought this best represented how the product was and with no other good cameras in the house I'd be taking a pretty crappy picture of it.

Day One: Name

This is the first day of the thirty day photo challenge. It just says name, so I assume it could be any name. I decided to use mine. I wanted to get creative so I did it in sign language.

I know Sam isn't technically my name, other than my grandma, nephew and mom (sometimes), everyone calls me Sam. It's just my name. I get confused when people call me Samantha and half the time don't even respond. Every one introduces me as Sam too so after time it just becomes natural to be called Sam but write Samantha on paper.

New Facebook Page

I've made a new facebook page where you can go and see other pictures I've taken. I also will be holding photo contest (only prize is satisfaction you won). You can also post your own photos on there, I may be disabling this feature soon as the page is really just about my photography. Heres the link, go check it out http://www.facebook.com/pages/SGF-Photography/225070374170572?ref=hl

Photo Challenge; Do You or Don't You??

I was on Pinterest the other day and found a bunch of photo day challenges. If you are unfamiliar with these challenges you have a set number of days ranging from thirty to three hundred sixty-five. Each day there is a new challenge for you to take a photo, most start and end with a photo of yourself. Because I'm not sure of what to blog about now I'm thinking of doing one of these challenges on here. I've never been able to get past day five. Here is the one I'm thinking of doing. It's really creative and actual photography.

Ones I've done in the past make you get over half the pictures from the internet. (i.e. day 2: picture of your favorite movie, day 14: Place you've always wanted to go, day 25: celeb crush) It shouldn't be allowed to be called a photo challenge if you're getting pictures off the internet. But I'm starting this today (9/13) on facebook so it'd be cool to kind of do two for this. Have one set of thirty pictures on facebook and another set on here. That way I can show off my photography style. I'll post both the photos on here so you can see them, making sure to put in the description if it's the fb picture or blog picture.

The Other 99% Of My Time Spent

I swear I have a life outside blogging. It involves being care taker to my nephew during the day while my sister works. Fresh out of high school and still not knowing what I want to do with my life, I've put college on hold for a year. This gives me time to decide what I want to do and also my nephew will be in pre-k and will no longer need me during the day. Until then we have loads of fun doing crafts. Well ok he paints and draws while I do some actual crafting.

Like these clay figurines. The dogs are made entirely out of air dry clay and the panda is made from polymer clay. I use sculpey lll for anyone who cares. It was cheap and I'm just starting out with that clay so I didn't want to get the expensive stuff. 

They're a bit dusty can ya tell?? I'm not must of a cleaner. I stake my claim in cleaning the kitchen (minus mopping) and that's about it. I only clean my room about once every two/three months. Pretty much when I can't see the floor or walk to my bed without tripping over something is when it gets clean.

I also made these pumpkins out of polymer clay. They're for a Halloween decoration for my sister's upcoming party.

I know they're gorgeous, lol, I'm happy with them and other than the fact the brown is like trying to shape baby poop they were easy to make.

Now I said my nephew and I craft. He's into painting these picture frames I get from IKEA (one of my favorite stores, just fun to go and look at the displays.) they come in packs of three for $2. Can't beat that, plus they are very customizable  because they are natural wood.

The bottom two are his and the top one is mine. Normally we'd be giving the ones he painted out as gifts to relatives but one has had a birthday or a special day (i.e. Mother's day) recently.... ok so there was grandparents day but who really knows about that "holiday" other than me?? Hallmark sure doesn't.  

This is just one of many things I do when not blogging. Of course I see the irony of blogging about things I do when not blogging. I have no explanation for it and I don't care. 

Photo Shoot With Ben

I had a little mini photo shoot with my nephew. I only got about three good photos out of our thirty minute shoot. He wouldn't stay still and was more into the idea of taking the photos himself instead of staying and posing for them. The few I got though are super cute.

 Here he is with some of his cars in half a heart shape. This will definitely be sent off to be printed and hung in the house. As well as being sent out to relatives.

I was conflicted on if I liked this one or not but the more I look at it the more I love it. He has such a look of innocence on his face. I was laying next to him trying to get more personal shots and I thought I was holding my fingers right above my camera when I told him to look at them but I guess I wasn't. Obviously you can tell by his eyes and also if you look closely you can see their shadow on his forehead.

I love how you see Ben's reflection on the table.... actually that's the only reason I put this one up.

Editing Of A Photo

I know this blog is supposed to be of the photos I've taken when bored. But I'm going to occasionally post things other than that. I just got done posting about my first two camcorders (I'll be posting about my new camera within the week) and now I'm going to do one on how and why I edit some of my photos.

I use Photo Explosion Deluxe. I used it in one of my photography classes in school and it's just what I'm used to. I only had to shell out $40 for this instead of $100 for adobe ps. Most the time when I go into pe it's to put my copyright mark on it or to fix red eye. If I'm not satisfied about a photo I usually delete it instead of editing it. I know shoot me now for deleting potentially good photos. I don't have much free time on my hands to sit down and edit it well.

First up we have my sisters dog Belle. While I was taking this photo on a sunny day, she was laying the shade. Since I have no flash on my camcorder I couldn't really compensate for the back light of the sun. So the background ended up getting washed out along with some color on Belle.

This is the original. Taken with my DXG 580-V camcorder. As you can see it's not the most flattering picture. I then went into PS on my iPod to edit it. I just did the auto fix and came out with the second photo.

While this isn't as bad a the first photo I much prefer the original. This one is much too dark for my taste. I love the color on Belle.

  This I just did real quick on my computer while making this post. I bumped up to emphases on highlights and nearly maxed out the saturation. If I was a really good photo shopper I'd mix this and the second photo together to get the perfect blend. You be the judge on which you like best.

 The above was also taken with my DXG 580-V camcorder. I really wanted to get a shot of the daisies with the beautiful sky behind it. Well I got what I wanted just not in the color.

Insert picture into my px and fix saturation and voila. Here you have this beautiful picture.

I would've added a photo from my new camera but I'm satisfied with the pictures that it produces that I don't see a need to edit them. If you have any editing tips that are helpful they're much appreciated.

The Newer Camcorder.

This is the camcorder I got for Christmas '09. I know what you must be thinking.

"You got your first camcorder in (the summer, I forgot to mention that) of '09 and you knew five months later that videopraghy/photography was a hobby you wanted to take up? Good-bye I'm not following your blog, you're just another one of those teenagers who thinks that since they have a camera and instagram you can call yourself a photographer."

Yes I knew in that short time I wanted to do this as a hobby. I never said I was perusing it though, so if down the line I decide I don't want to do this anymore I won't have invested more than a $1K in it. And no I'm not one of those teenagers, I refuse to use instagram. I have a photo editing software on my computer that I use often but half the time it's only to add my copyright or remove red eye (something I've noticed my camera edit red eye won't do) If you take a good photo in the first place you shouldn't want to use an old time effect one it.

Okay enough of that. Like I was saying, I got this camcorder in '09 and actively used it until November of '11. That when the new camera came into the picture (no pun intended) I'm getting slightly ahead of myself. The reason I'm posting my old camcorders is to show how far I've come in terms of technology and what I take pictures of. Most of these first pictures, with the exception of the moon and sunset, were taken with this camcorder. Without further ado, here is the old camcorder.

 Front view. As you can see it is the DXG-580V full hd 1080p video and is 5mp. It can go as low as 3mp and up to 8mp, which is what I took most my photos with.

 Inside/side view. Some basic controls here, the power, access to sd slot, menu, and display buttons. Plus the speakers for video playback.

Back view. I also turned it on so you could see the screen. It has some internal memory, but is is currently being used to hold photos of I believe my nephew. I keep it on video mode because I can press the shutter (on top. I was stupid and didn't get a picture of the top.) while in video mode, not actual taking a video though I found out, and BAM! there was a picture. It made it easier just so I'd always be ready to take either a video or picture. On the top is also the lousy 5x (I think don't take my word) digital zoom.

On the back however we have the play button to view photos and pictures, the scroll to adjust how much light the photo is getting (I'm actually not sure what the technical term is. But it's the scale of -2 to 2 and the lower you go to darker your photo and vise versa) it's also used to turn on the light for is you're shooting at night, scroll through pictures. There are also various cable plugs back here. The record/stop record, and the scroll for settings, pictures or video.


All in all I really like this camcorder. It gets the job done and unless you're shooting at night or under some very low light this is a great starter camcorder for $150. I'll hand on to it and hopefully one day pass it down to my nephew, of course by the time he will be interested in using one they'll probably be out dated and a thing of the past. Oh well I can keep it for my future kids and tell them stories of how I took videos and pictures with it and they'll laugh at my "ancient" camcorder when all they have to do is whip out their phones and take a better quality video than with this "dinosaur". LOL!! I dream of those days. I love when my dad tells me all about when he was my age and all the things he didn't have and just how much life really has changed from the 50's-70's... possibly even the 80's/90's.  I've always thought about living back in the 50's, read my other blog Ramblings of Samantha for my whole ramble on wanting to live in the 50's.

The Days Before My New Camcorder

So back in 2009 I took a video editing class at school. The one fine print detail I didn't read was that you either had to provide your own camcorder/camera with video capability or you could rent one from the school for $150. I was broke and knew I wasn't going to rent one from the school. I asked my dad is he could help out with this. He came home one day with a $50 kids camcorder. It's a Digital Concepts 1.5mp camcorder. Here's the glorious gender defining pink camcorder I have. There is also one for "boys" it comes in *shocker* blue.

 The first ever camera type device I could call my own. This thing came with me everywhere.

 Heres the back/top view. The black button on top was how you took pictures and started/stopped a video recording. And also how you turned it on

The four button controls. I'd explain what each one does but it tells you right there.


  Here are some photos I took to give you an idea of how (awful) the picture quality was.

Ok forget what I ever said about uploading pictures of trees.... I didn't realize how many photos I actually took of them. Anyway this is of course the apple tree at my dads. I'm thinking now after I write this I should've done a side by side comparison of the other picture of the apple tree like this one. Thought there isn't much of a comparison you can see just by looking at them separately that the quality is much higher.
This is one of my favorite photos I took with this camcorder. Other than the ones of my nephew, this one, one of me and one of another tree (be glad I didn't post it, lol) are my top three. I like this one mostly because of the shadow. It speaks to me that she's trapped (even though if I left the gate open she'd be gone in a millisecond and I'd never see her again).

I love my dad to death for getting it for me and it was in a way my first camera... err camcorder. My mom had a Kodak (or Cannon, or Nikon I'm not sure it was sooo long ago.) but it was hers not mine, even if I took the most pictures with it. My camcorder however was what started my whole craze of photography. I used it to document my nephews life from the time he was four and a half months. As luck would happen my sisters took notice to my new found hobby and for Christmas "surprised" me with a new camcorder. I'd been making a lot more videos than pictures and hadn't really thought of the potential for a regular point and shoot. I figured that if I found a camcorder with picture taking capabilities that'd be ok. So next post you will see how my 'new' camcorder was and everything about it.