Joyce and Jed: My Camera Learning Skills

So I REALLY want this camera:

It's the Canon 60D with the 18-200 mm lens. It's a step up from the Rebel Ti-3 only in body. They're pretty much the same camera just the 60D is more durable, but they have the same picture quality. The main thing that sold me on this one is with the lens, which I'm dying for, it's cheaper to buy in a package with the 60D then have to buy it individually with the Rebel Ti-3.

My sister in law, Kayla (Kaylaann Photography), has it and let me use it while we were visiting in California. I have super camera envy right now. I really wanted to buy the new camera for Jed's officer graduation. The pictures I got from his college graduation turned out...well, not so good. Jed said I can buy it, but with all of the things (furniture) we're going to have to buy when we move at the end of the month, I couldn't justify spending $1500 on my dream camera. At least not right now. That might sound like too much money to spend on a camera (and it might be) but I love photography and while I'm really only going to use it for personal photos I think it's important to be able to capture the moments, small and big, in my kids' lives and not be upset later that they turned out horrible or grainy (like Chloe's first pics after she was born).

Jed made a good point, he said I should learn my camera better before buying the new one. So that's what I've been trying to do. Right now I have the Canon G11. It's a point and shoot camera but has manual settings, it's the camera right before a DSLR. I am so happy that I decided to learn my camera, because I figured out so many functions that I didn't even know my camera could do. I'm still having trouble learning my aperture settings (the f stop) but hopefully I will soon. But my picture quality has gotten loads better! I am really happy with the detail of the pictures that I've been able to get using the different functions. I also bought picture editing software, Photoshop Lightroom 3, that my other sister in law, Annie, recommended. I LOVE this program! My pictures have been turning out a lot brighter and turning out how I like them now. Anyways, I thought I would share a few of the pictures that I took trying to learn my camera.

I should mention that I'm only on Chapter 3 of my camera book, so I still have A LOT to learn.

I didn't even know that my camera had a setting to get detail of objects when up close. I would have had a lot less frustrating moments if I had known this earlier.

I also love how vivid the colors are because of the editing software but still able to keep the details.

Look, you can even see the pattern of my jeans! (I know I'm way too excited about that)

the view from our balcony

You might not be able to tell with this picture, but my niece, Avery, was actually swinging back and forth and I was able to capture a still shot. Yea, me!