Wow what a difference 8 months makes

Ok I am now going to try and really use my blog or at least occasionally

First a confession I am a recovering Point and Shoot guy.  I have alway loved taking pictures, but have never owned my own SLR/DSLR.  We always had point and shoots and I filled the memory cards with shots all the time. My wife has had film SLRs and DSLRs and she was alway pretty good at composition, but I sucked and I always left it on the green fully auto square.  She occasionally ventured to Aperture or Shutter Priority but also mostly fully auto or fully auto no flash (the black square).

What I really started to notice is that many times the DSLR images looked dull and flat and the point of shoots of the same thing were better.  Then I downloaded the Stuck in Customs iPhone app and it caused me to look at the Stuck In Customs website and I saw HDR and thought wow that is unreal.  So March of this year (2011) I literally decided to take the plunge and really learn our (sorry my wife's Canon T1i) DSLR and leave the all auto world and start shooting exclusively in RAW.  I had zero idea of what I was doing and reading the basic manual was pretty much useless as it had zero real explanation just simple this does this but not why or how or context and my pictures got worse, but nonetheless I was all the more intrigued.  I then bought DSLR for Dummies and yes I was a dummy so needed it.  I read it cover to cover and started to slowly figure out a lot.

I took the camera and the DSLR for Dummies book with me on a trip to Spain and finally things started to make sense and I was starting to understand why my shots really were not very good at all.  Then I started to get a wee bit better and then when I started to use Aperture to post process, I finally saw my DSLR pictures beat out my Point and Shoot efforts.

So today, my wife wants her camera back and I really want to get a full frame body of my own so that is on the horizon.  The net of the journey so far is I still am very very average at best, but much better than I was.  I also now at least can see what I like and some ways to produce that plus I now see how much more exciting stuff there is to learn.

The shot above is of my son sticking his feet int he rushing water at Ragged Falls near Huntsville, Ontario Canada.  I just love the colors from his shirt to the rocks to even the black of the water.