Photography #1: Some basics

Let's just keep in mind that I'm not an expert, just trying to help make sense of all the buttons and gadgets on DSLR's for those that have them but aren't sure how to use them. If any visitors here are experts, feel free to chime in and comment.

That said, here we go...

DSLR vs. Point and Shoot

DSLR stands for digital single lens reflex. I'm going to assume you all know what digital means. Single lens reflex means that when you look through the viewfinder, you are actually looking through the lens, via a system of mirrors. Allowing you to look directly through the lens means you can see the effect of changing the lens. When you push the shutter button, the mirror flips up and out of the way, which is why the viewfinder goes black if you're looking through it when you push the button.

In a point and shoot camera, the viewfinder actually “sees” through a separate lens than the one that takes the picture, so what you see through the viewfinder may not actually line up exactly what you get in the picture. Which can be frustrating if you've carefully framed something (i.e. Lined it up carefully in your shot) Point and shoots don't typically (though some do) have interchangeable lenses. And many of them have the infuriating delay between when you push the button and when it actually takes the picture.

Focal length

In an attempt to figure out how to say what i wanted to say here, i looked up focal length on wikipedia. it had math in it. it made me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry, but for your sake i persevered. lets just say that focal length describes the "angle of view" or how much of whats in front of you is in the picture. its also used to describe the lens itself sometimes. as in, "where the hell did i put my 50mm?!"

there are fixed focal length lenses, such as a 50mm or 300mm lens; and zoom lenses, which means you can move it through a range of focal lengths, such as a 24-70mm or 70-200mm lens. the shorter the focal length, the wider the angle of view. the longer the focal length, the more magnified and closer things seem.

18mm: (notice how the waterline seems to arc)

70mm(ish... i don't have the exact settings documented)

one of the piers in the Outer Banks

Types of lenses

I've already mentioned fixed focal length and zoom lenses. But there are a few other descriptors of lenses that you may hear mentioned so we'll just define them (very basically) here.

• Macro (also called Micro by some companies): A macro or micro lens has a longer barrel that allows for you to focus the camera more closely to the subject than you could with a normal lens of the same focal length. A macro lens can be pretty much any focal length. It allows you to magnify your image as compared to what it would be with a non-macro lens of equivalent focal length.
  

in addition to being a type of lens, and a genre of photography, this is also a setting on a lot of point and shoot cameras. It is usually indicated by a little tulip icon. [Sidenote: There have probably been times when you have been trying to take a picture of something with the lens of the camera very close to the object and your camera wouldn't focus... probably made you want the throw the camera, no? Well, try changing your camera to macro mode... it may help]

• Telephoto: these are lenses with long focal lengths that let you get pictures of things that are far(ther) away. like a telescope.

• Wide-angle: these are lenses with very short focal lengths that allow for a very wide view. The wider the angle, the more distorted the image gets, like the curve of the waterline above.
  

• Fish-eye: this is a wide angle lens that distorts the image so that it appears to bulge very obviously, circularly.

How's that? Clear as mud?? just wait... we're just getting started. none of this really has anything to do with taking a good picture, but its good to know the terminology when you hear it.

Continue to Part 2: Exposure

class is in session

here's the deal... i've started writing up various parts of the photography tutorial, i think it will go something like this:

• some camera and lens basics
• exposure and how to control it
• breaking the components of exposure down
• how to manipulate the settings to get what you want
• lighting
• focusing and composure

at least, that seems like the best way to break it down into manageable components at the moment. if there's anything else you want me to address, or something you still don't get at the end, we can always add on. just let me know what you want to hear.



p.s. your homework assignment, if you actually have a big shiny camera (i'm talking to you anymommy... muahaha) is to figure out where your exposure meter is.

what wedding?

see the new title box up there? (its pretty, no?) it says that this blog is about knitting AND wedding planning. but i haven't blogged about the wedding stuff in quite some time, aside from the wraps which are more knitting than wedding really.

there was lots of wedding blogging over christmas break, when i had the luxury of spare time. but then school started up again and i kissed all my spare time goodbye. but never again!! yesterday i took my last college final EVER. nine years after graduating from high school, i finished up my last quarter of classes. i don't actually graduate until next spring, because our program consists a final year of full time internships for our last year. but no more classes! w00t!!

i've already gotten back to working on wedding goodies. Today i numbered all the RSVP cards and put stamps on them, then put together all the envelopes. we're still in the process of collecting all the addresses, and the invites aren't actually going out til mid-julyish but i'm neurotic so i couldn't stop myself.

must say, they are a bit bigger than expected.
its a good thing we went with the smallest size stamp!

we ordered the stamps from zazzle.com. there's a bit of a markup from just getting stamps at the post office, but there are no good $0.27 stamps. and i refuse to put a panther on my wedding rsvps. call me a bride-zilla if you must, its just not happening. so we got both stamps for the rsvp's and for the envelopes. the photo on the stamps is one of mine from highbanks park in the fall a few years ago.


this is a shot of everything getting ready to be stuffed in the envelopes. i love my invitations. i think i said this when i posted them before, but they ran us about a total of $250 for 110 invites (not counting the postage). we designed them and put them all together ourselves. they make me happy :)

other things on the agenda for my new school-free life...
1. paying it forward projects
2. sewing projects and mending that's piling up in the basement
3. knitting, knitting, and more knitting.

Also, i think i will work on writing up the photography bit. i'm not sure when it will be posted, but i will probably break it up into a series of posts to make it a little more manageable. so stay tuned.

An informal poll

I have been musing over a comment from anymommy about my photography lighting on yesterday's post, and the fact that I have had a surprising (to me at least) number of compliments on some of my photos, both here and in Mr. Z's blog for which I do the pictures. After some pondering, I have come up with an idea. This idea was further cemented by anymommy's post today in which she claims to have no idea how to use her D50. I'm not sure I buy that entirely, but am willing admit that there are probably many people out there that don't know how to take full advantage of their camera's features.

So I was thinking about maybe writing up a tutorial. I answered some questions on craftster once that ended up turning into more or less an explanation of photography basics that seemed to be somewhat helpful to some beginners on there. And I remember being completely stumped by aperture and shutter speed and depth of field when I started, so I know how frustrating it can be. My thoughts were to perhaps break photography and DSLR basics down into managable chunks to try to explain what all the buttons and features mean and what they do.

This is baby dave. baby dave (whose name is actually carson)
has nothing to do with this post.
But baby dave is super adorable and i had sort of forgotten
about these picturesuntil going through my portfolio (if you will)
and thought the world should know just how cute baby dave is.
and that he might convince you that i really do know a bit about photography.

Now, I in no way make any claims of being a professional photographer, or even a good one for that matter. I took a class in high school (from an excellent teacher... many thanks, mrs. case) and one far less useful one in undergrad, but the majority of my understanding came from experimentation. Now, this was helped largely in part by the fact that, for some time, I dated a guy who had more money wrapped up in photography equipment than I did in my car (which at the time was a brand new Ford Focus... not exactly a Cadillac, but you get my point). Either way, I got to play with many a fine camera body and lens, and the more you get to play with them, the more you learn to understand them.

I have now downgraded to a Canon Rebel (which is fine, but is no 5D or whatever the hell we had) and one lowly 50mm lens. And while I sometimes wish for the glass I used to have access to, I make do with what I have, and come out with what I think are some pretty decent pictures (at least for blogging purposes).

So what do you think? I get like, fifteen readers a day... is anybody interested?

some housekeeping notes:

• a note on my work rant from the other day... i did not mean to traumatize anyone into avoiding their local pharmacy. we're actually pretty nice people behind the counter, honest. but some days people just push the right buttons, ya know?

• if you have happened over here from allmediocre.com thanks for visiting. if you have a moment, i'm going to shamelessly plug Mr. Z's blog as well. its about all the tasty food he makes for me. you can find it here --> Ken Cooks

• i've also started using this blog, in addition to the knitting and wedding rambling, to force myself to start taking pictures again. my OCD is actually quite bothered by the lack of photo in the pharmacy rant. if i had a decent macro lens, there'd probably be a picture of some pills or something. maybe i should have posted a picture of all my textbooks, then maybe i would feel like i at least got some use out of them.

• therefore, in the interest of my sanity, i shall leave you with this parting shot

because a) i think the lighting turned out kinda cool, and b) i can use it to further plug Mr. Z's blog where you can read about my new most favorite beverage staring Guinness and Framboise (mmm... must. go. make. drink.)

Singin' in the rain...

... or not.

for months, I have been insanely jealous of all the ladies around town with uber cute rainboots. so a couple days ago, when I found a few leftover pairs at Target I was ecstatic to see a pair in my size. (which is size womens' HUGE for those that don't know me)


I also recently got an umbrella from H&M after three or four years of trekking around campus without one. Are we seeing a theme here? it was not intentional, I swear.

apparently i can't resist polka dots...

But the real kicker is, did I take either of them when I left the house this morning, knowing there was an 80% chance of thunderstorms? Of course not.

pharmacy rant

... or how to ensure your pharmacist* hates you.

the most surefire way to make your pharmacist hate you is to show up on the morning of a tuesday following a three day weekend, when the pharmacy is understaffed and insanely busy, and say something like "did you have to manufacture those pills yourself, or did they just come in a bottle and all you had to do was count them?" this is akin to "its just a tube of cream, how long can it take?" but made worse by the fact that your snide sarcasm can't possibly be mistaken for simple ignorance of how a pharmacy works.

now hopefully those of you reading this have never made such nasty remarks, but trust me it happens far more than often than you might like to think. especially considering that i work in an "affluent" neighborhood... no, its not just ghetto drug seekers that are rude and inconsiderate.

in case you have never thought about what happens when you drop off a prescription, let me break it down for you. in theory, its not complicated; and quite often, if its not busy we can actually get your prescription ready in just a few minutes. BUT that is baring any complications and assuming you are the only customer around. which is unlikely.

#1: you drop off your prescription. in most cases, it goes at the bottom of the stack of prescriptions already waiting to be entered that were dropped of by others before you. just because you don't see anyone standing around doesn't mean you are the only customer. there are the drive through customers, the ones shopping around, and the ones that have left teh building with the assurance that they will be back in ten minutes because they need it AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. then when we do get to it, it must be entered into the computer based on what the doctor wrote.

the potential sources of delay at this step are ENDLESS... for instance, we ask if you've been here before and you say yes and then wander off to go next door to barnes and noble. only when we go to put it in, turns out you thought "here" meant the competitor across the street, and you are not, in fact, in the system at all. or your husband/kid/dog had one filled here, but your last name is smith, so there is no way i can guess, out of the 600 Smith families in the database, which one you belong to.

or your doctor did something that slows things down, like forgot to put directions, or wrote for a drug that doesn't exist, or wrote for an antibiotic that when taken with your heart medicine will prolong your QT interval (don't know what that means?? me neither... remember, i'm just a pill counting monkey) and we have to call them to figure out exactly what it was they meant, or to suggest they change it to a medication that won't send you into a fatal cardiac arrhythmia.

or better yet, your insurance has done something ridiculous like change your ID number or group number or send you a new card that you claim to know nothing about. or maybe they changed their coverage so that they no longer cover your medication unless your doctor gets authorization prior to filling it.

now imagine that this happens with at least half of the prescriptions that were ahead of yours... see where i'm going with this??

#2 your prescription goes into a queue with all the other prescriptions that have been called in, dropped off, etc. etc. we fill them depending on what order we got them and how soon they are to be picked up, honest. we're not out to make it take longer than we need to. and we know that of the ten waiters that dropped off before you, most of them won't bother coming back for an hour. but we have to treat them all like they will be back immediately, because if they do come back and their rx isn't ready, its our ass that gets reamed.

#3 now prior to this step, most likely everything has been done by technicians, the backbone of pharmacy. but technicians aren't pharmacists. and no matter how good they are, everything they did must be checked by a pharmacist. this is where our education comes in... the pharmacist not only makes sure that everything has been filled according to the way the doctor wrote it, but they also have to watch out for things like crazy doses and drug interactions.

#4 we call your name and you can pick up your med.


see, that doesn't sound too complicated right?? now keep in mind that there is typically only one pharmacist at a time. so no matter how fast the techs move, only one prescription can be verified at a time. so if there are fifteen people waiting ahead of you... its going to take longer than fifteen minutes. and this process i just described does not take into account all the other people who have stopped in to pick up medications that were previously filled, people coming through the drive through asking for cigarettes like we are their personal shopping service, the fact that the phone is ringing off the hook and that there is a line three people deep to ask questions like which is better motrin or advil?...

so how can you make sure that when your pharmacy staff talks about you, its in a good way? (because trust me, we talk about ALL our customers)

1. for the love of whatever deity you find holy, BE NICE. believe it or not, those are real people behind the counter and when things are crazy and we're having a shitty day, a little niceness goes a looooong way. i can't vouch for my coworkers, but i am far more likely to go out of my way to help you work out whatever complications you have if you asked what your options were than if you just demanded that i "figure it out." We get chewed out anytime something goes wrong, but its a rare day when we hear a "thanks" for spending ten minutes on the phone trying to figure out your new insurance coverage for you. oh, and btw, it is YOUR insurance... we have no control over your copays, nor do we know why they changed. that's why the insurance company puts that customer service number on the back of the card.

2. call ahead of time. most stores have a refill line, you should take advantage of it, after all that's what its for. i mean, its no skin off my back if you make an extra trip in just to drop off your empty bottle. i'm just saying it can save you some gas... and some frustration when you bring in seven empty bottle and we have to tell you its going to be at least 40 minutes until its ready.

3. be considerate of the pharmacist's time. don't get me wrong, we are generally happy to answer your questions. after all, we went through an awful lot of school (did you know that starting in 2005-ish all pharmacy programs are doctoral degrees?? so much for the pill counting monkey theory) and its nice to get to use what we learned. but keeping the pharmacist out in the aisle for half an hour talking about vitamins or bunions or your grandson's trip to florida is not cool. remember how i said there is only one pharmacist and a whole lotta scripts to check?? and not all questions require the pharmacist to answer, so don't just automatically ask to talk to the pharmacist. see if the technician that answered can help, if not, they'll let you know.

4. and the biggest pet peeve of them all. GET OFF THE CELL PHONE. technically we have to ask you personal information to ensure that you are getting the right prescription. that means asking for your address or your birthday. HIPPAA laws actually dictate that we aren't supposed to ask you personal information while you are on the phone, but more importantly its just plain rude. if the call is so important that it can't wait, you shouldn't have gotten in line in the first place.

now i actually rather enjoy my job, in spite of its moments of insanity. but there are definitely some patients that make it easier than others... so please, for the sake of a pharmacist near you, just keep that in mind the next time you head to the pharmacy.


*disclaimer: i'm not actually a pharmacist... yet. i'm currently an intern, which means when the shit hits the fan, i still have the luxury of being able to pass the mess off to the pharmacist in charge. at least until next year.