VBS Through My Lens

I got a chance to try out each of my lens this week for VBS.  I used my all purpose 18-200mm, 35mm/f1.8, and 50mm/f1.4 lens.  My favorite turned out to be the 50mm.  I was consistently getting great images and skin tones.  At any given hour, I would go from inside the church sanctuary activities, to an indoor market, to outside for games.  While the 18-200mm worked great for zooming in and out, it didn't do as well in the sanctuary.  Even with flash, it tended to produce grainy pictures.  I'm so spoiled with the 50mm/f1.4 lens.  

Here are a sampling from VBS.  I'll be back to post the picture specifics for each one:  

In the marketplace, painting coin boxes

Huddle time in the Sanctuary

Eunice and Martha at Martha's house

The Dye Shop - where everyone got a chance to create a tie-dye scarf

Huddle time in the Sanctuary

I tell them to "smile" and this is what I get...lol!

Even the adults got to have fun with at the Dye Shop

This is a work of art

Fun with the beach ball

Water balloon toss

A farmer giving a lecture on planting beans

The sanctuary with a wall of stone

Eunice in Mary's house

At the Dye Shop

The Magic Number...1427

That's the number of pictures I took on one battery charge...1427. As I was taking more and more pictures, I watched the battery display go down and down and down. I can also see the % status reading in the menu. It eventually went down to 1% and I was still able to take about a dozen or more shots. Incredible. This week will be a busy photog week for me. I've been asked to take pics of VBS at my church. Way cool as I need more practice with my camera settings. I'll be back later this week to give another update....

Surfing at the Beach

Hubby and I headed to Ocean City, Maryland for a short break. This morning was a dreary morning at the beach. Five blocks to the north or south of us, it looked like it was raining. It wasn't. It was just a hazy morning. I grabbed my camera and we headed down to the beach to check out the surfers.

This is my favorite shot...a wipe out:
















We came back to our room to pack and wouldn't you know it, the sun decided to appear:



I've noticed that I need to be more careful and check the camera settings before I start to fire away. I'm not used to the main camera setting dial being on the left side of the camera. When I pulled it out of my non-camera backpack, the dial moved from P to S or shutter-priority mode. So the above pics were taken in S mode and I know they would have been a bit better in P mode. Lesson learned.

I'll be back with more pictures later....Ciao!

Fireworks

98mm, f5.0, 4 sec, ISO 100

98mm, f10, 5 sec, ISO 100

98mm, f16, 4 sec, ISO 100

98mm, f4.5, 4 sec, ISO 110

90mm, f9, 6 sec, ISO 100

Outdoors and Overexposed

Early this morning, I grabbed my camera and headed into Old Town to check out the local farmer's market. Again, I had my 50mm lens attached and quickly realized I could have used my 35mm lens instead. The market was crowded and there were instances where I had to zoom out with my feet and avoid bumping into people.

One of the "cons" in several reviews I've read on the D7k mentioned how the camera tends to overexpose in bright light. I have to agree with them. I forgot to adjust my camera and here's the results:


















I think it's time I start using the U1 and U2 modes on the camera and configure the camera for outdoor/bright light settings. That's another dial on the camera that I haven't even experimented with...yet.

BTW...the D7k created a new folder after it reached 999 files on my SD card. Interesting.

Camera Stats: 721 shots at 51% charge

Back in the middle of June, I posted here that I took 718 shots on my first battery charge. I'm now using my 2nd battery (backup) and have taken 721 shots and the battery is showing 51% charge. My, oh, my. That's unheard of.

So what am I doing differently between the two battery charges? One, I'm using the menu system less. I've already tweaked the settings and I pretty much know my way around the menus. Two, I'm not "staring in awe" at the the LCD monitor as much. When I first got the camera I was just awe-struck going from a 2.7" to a 3" LCD screen. I kept zooming in and out to look at the pictures. Three, I'm just shooting pictures like crazy and not having to review each one after each shot. Sounds like "I'm becoming one with my camera". That's happened before with my beloved D40. That's a good thing!

It's been a month since I've purchased my fun-D7k camera. So far, I've taken 1439 pictures. At the rate I'm going, I will have taken 10,073 pictures at the end of this year. Now, that will be a first for me to turn over the camera back to 0001 in under a year or 7 months to be exact. I've already rolled over 3 other cameras, but it took a year to accomplish that.

I'll be back to post the results/stats of my 2nd battery charge. I'm anxious to see if I can get over 1000 pictures on a single charge. So far, it's looking good!

Friday Photos...50mm

When I get home from work, I'm anxious to go out and take pictures. Practice, practice, and more practice using my one month old camera. Here's more flower pics from our gardens. Continuing to use my fab 50mm/f1.4 lens.

Pink Phlox:

50mm, f5.6, 1/640, ISO 100


Butterfly bush and an upside down Swallow Tail:

50mm, f11, 1/125, ISO 250


White Phlox and a bee:

50mm, f8, 1/500, ISO 100


Heliopsis:

50mm, f9, 1/320, ISO 100


My hubby mentioned this year has been a great year for blueberries. We had a wet Winter and Spring season. More blueberries on our shrub:

50mm, f5.6, 1/125, ISO 900