Sunday, December 20, 2009

just a little bit of christmas cheer.

I'm not sure how our old camera knows, but somehow it figured out we got a newer better camera and has been very fickle about performing ever since.

Here's a blurry shot of Ike with Santa at the ward Christmas party last night.  It was a fabulous night.  We have yet to have any terrible Santa reactions from our children.  Is there an age when they fear him?  or does he look normal enough not to elicit a reaction?  Zeb has freaked out plenty of times with giant dog costumes and other strange creatures, but has always been pretty happy to be around Santa Claus.

To continue in the Christmas cheer we let Zeb unwrap a present tonight. Really, it's a family gift and since we wanted to have some family time we decided it was a good time to open it.   If you can't tell- Zeb is ecstatic.  Right now he LOVES playing games.  He kept calling it "don't break the beans" (because we usually play "don't break the ice") instead of "Don't spill the beans".  These little kid games are GREAT. They are super quick and really a lot of fun for the kiddos.
 
And finally here's a shot of what Zeb does when I ask him to hug Ike.   Ike can usually tolerate it once or twice- but no more.  It only took once this day.  He was crying a few seconds after I took the shot.


And really- the real reason I posted the last picture is to ask a question of all you photographers.  I feel like a lot of my pictures (the ones I take with my new camera) are grainy.  Does it have to do with the lighting?  I know I've read a lot about ISO and natural light and images losing sharpness. Or is it because I'm not shooting in raw? Or are they normal?  This actual picture isn't really all that bad- but I've had trouble with a bunch of my others.  Any suggestions? 

3 comments:

Cassidy said...

The grainy-ness is called "noise." It happens when you have to increase the ISO because there is low light. The higher the ISO number, the grainier it will be. See if you have "noise reduction" on your camera. Also, if you are shooting in low light open your aperture up instead of increasing the ISO. That will let in more light without having to increase the "Film sensitivity" so much.

brittani c. said...

I don't claim to know anything you don't; however, I know that I need to make sure my 'macro' setting is on so the images are sharper on my camera. Natural sunlight works tons better too. Your camera is fancy, so I'm sure you don't have to jump through so many hoops to fix the graininess.

April said...

Yep, reduce the ISO, is the first step. See if you can open the aperture. So far, the best indoor pictures I've seen with a DSLR are taken with 50mm/1.8f lenses. They just open up well enough to let in light indoors...

Good luck!