Photography

For some reason I bought a Macbook and didn't think about having an SD card reader added. So, for my camera, getting pictures off of it requires a separate little device, a card reader attached to the USB port. Luckily, I've had one of those for about 8 years. It reads many cards. I've used it approximately 5 times before I got the Macbook. Now I have to use it all the time, which is okay. But sometimes I don't remember where it is, or I'm sitting all warm and snugly in bed and it's out in the Element in some piece of luggage while I'm thinking about my blog.

Well, I finally uploaded all the pictures I've taken so far onto the Mac. I take pictures all the time, even if it's not terribly interesting, just to remind me of where I've been and what I've been doing. Or what Will's been doing, seeing, experiencing. This is why I take pictures of Charlie and Sadie when they're at my house; because I can't remember the crazy bread-stealing that Charlie did so I can share the funny story with Heather unless I take a picture!

There were days worth of pictures on the card. A few different events. My Blackberry has a camera on it, so I've been using that for some events (Yankees game), because it's just easier to carry one device and I doubt I'll be printing any pictures I take at a baseball game. So, the small megapixels of my BB are fine for the blog.

Sometimes I like to take extreme close-ups of interesting things. I did this last year in Maine, and I ended up printing a lot of those and putting them up on the wall in the dining room. I really liked the pictures I took. Even though I've taken a few years of photography, and I've been interested in it, I've never really found an "eye" for it. This little technique kind of boils it down for me, and I like the pictures. I don't really care if anyone else does--except maybe Charles, since it's his house, too. He hasn't objected, yet! I don't have to hang them up, though. I can just look at them.

I figured out yesterday when I was trying to take some close ups of apples on a tree, that I want a digital SLR camera. It was a farm, with an apple orchard to the east of the stables, right on the road. The orchard had an electric fence around it! A guy was mowing it. I knew they didn't want people picking apples, and I didn't want to be accused of it, but I wanted pictures of those apples! Fortunately, the yard in front of the stables was also covered up in trees that were covered up in apples! No fence.

I parked my bike and took out the camera and got as close as I could without crossing the property line. I still didn't want to be accused of picking an apple. The thing is, the only way this extreme close up works on a point and shoot digital camera is to get within focusing distance, and then use the zoom to zoom way in. I was too far away from the trees for that. I got as close as I could. But still not good enough. Here's a picture:



After I adjusted the color and cropped it in IPhoto, I think it looks pretty good. But I really just wanted one or two apples in the frame. The other thing about point and shoot cameras is the screen is hard to see in the daylight, so I'm never really sure if I'm getting the whole frame I want.




Here's an example. There is supposed to be a beautiful purple bush to the right of this picture in the foreground, but I couldn't see it in the view finder, so I missed it. If I were looking through an SLR (single lens reflex) lens, I would be able to see exactly what I was getting, whether it was dark or light outside.


You'd think I'd just use the Minolta film camera I have at home. But that's expensive in the long run, and I'm known for never developing film! I really like my digital camera. I think it's time to graduate to a big girl camera.