family – Page 14 – melinda anderson photography

Another foggy day, alas! I’ve been out all day and got home to find that the Light Scoop I ordered had arrived in the mail! I don’t have an external flash, and, although I don’t use flash much, I have used the built-in flash inside at night with not very good results. I don’t know too much about flash yet, but have often wished I could bounce or diffuse my flash to avoid the harsh light and shadows often produced. Since speedlights are very expensive, I am postponing purchasing one for now (and maybe forever…). I read about the Light Scoop on Clickin Moms and elsewhere, and decided that for $30.00 I couldn’t go wrong! It fits over the built-in flash and slides into the hotshoe. It has a mirror that bounces the light from the flash onto the ceiling when the camera is held horizontally or from a wall if the camera is held vertically. They recommend a setting of ISO 800, a flash exposure compensation of +1, and a wide aperture. I had little time to play with it today, so took two photos of my very patient husband, one with regular flash, f 1.8, 1/125 at ISO 800. The second had the same settings, except I added the Light Scoop and adjusted the flash exposure to +1. I am sure I need to experiment a lot more in actual shooting situations, but I think the results are interesting.

BTW, he is wearing sunglasses and not looking into the camera, because he had an eye procedure done today (told you he was patient!).

Left photo is regular flash; right photo is with the Light Scoop. Both photos are SOOC.

It is so (insert your own expletive…) cold and foggy here today! After going to the gym, I drove down to the water hoping to catch a view of the bridge shrouded mysteriously in fog- you couldn’t even SEE the bridge! When I got home, I opened the fridge to get milk for my cereal and discovered the milk’s date had passed- YUCK! So I went to the grocery store and drove BACK down to the water just on the off chance a great photo op was waiting for me. Well, there were seagulls, so I got some pretty ordinary seagull shots. I have been experimenting with back button focus (at least I THINK that’s what I’m doing…), so I took a few shots of the railing near the water. I like this one.

I had no coat, and it was freezing- my hands were shaking and contributing to my focusing problems. So I got in the car and made the loop to turn around when I saw a tugboat! That means a ship- another photo opportunity! So, shivering, I got out and snapped a few of the ship through the fog. Interesting results- all shots today are straight out of camera.