I got a new camera last week.  It’s a Canon PowerShot S5IS.  There is definitely a learning curve!  You can just pick it up, shoot on manual, and get some great photos.  It even tells you if you need the flash.   I really want to learn the camera though, all the settings, and the various things I can do with it.  So for now I’ve just been taking a lot of pictures at different settings and seeing what they do.  It’s just going to be trial and error for me on learning just what to do.

Here are some examples – all of these are straight out of the camera…I’m not Photoshopping until I get the camera straight. 

I want to be able to take photos where the background is blurred.  I hear this has to do with aperture.  LOL  I’m not getting it quite right..but I’ll get there.   You’ll see in the first one that the books in the background are clear and Samantha’s face is blurred.  In the second one, her face is clear and the books are blurred.  Now why did the camera focus on the books anyway!  It was so random.  I took about 10 and 1/2 were one way and 1/2 were the other.

Then I was looking at how pictures look with the flash and without the flash.  In the first picture, you can see the natural light coming in.  But  Matthew is kind of dull.  In the second picture, the light is even throughout the picture and Matthew is more clear, but I know the picture isn’t a true representation of what it looked like at that moment.

Next was at golf camp.  I had the camera set on the sport setting and just held the button down.  I took about 15 shots one right after the other.  It captured Matthew’s movements really well, I thought, but the pictures are grainy.  I forgot to try doing it with the flash on.

And here are two more with flash on and flash off..

And one more set of flash on and flash off…there must be a happy medium somewhere in there.