We have a Winner!

Two, actually!

First, thank you to everyone who participated in our contest!  We appreciate your help, spreading the good news of our blog – I’m having fun!  I hope that you’re learning more about your camera and how to use it – and more importantly, having fun in the process!

I’m sorry about the delay in posting – I had grand plans to photograph the huge bucket of entries and to video tape the draw, but we had a slight family emergency last night and those plans were hastily replaced with a decidedly unceremonious draw tonight just prior to writing this post!  But while I couldn’t share the process with you, the end result is the same!

The winner of our contest is…

Michelle K on January 27th, 2010  

added you to my blog… http://www.maybecreative.blogspot.com

Congratulations, Michelle K!  You have won the following prize from Just Cre8:

July Cre8ive Pack by Just Cre8

Please email your mailing info to sue (AT) canadianscrapbooker (DOT) com and we’ll get your prize sent out straightaway!

Now, for our January assignment winner!  Let me thank everyone for sending me their beautiful photos – it’s so fun to see everyone trying this technique and to see what subjects you chose!  And thanks to the same *high-tech* process as in the last draw, we have a winner!

Congratulations to Lee Anne Thorton, of AB and her photo:

Taken with Canon EOS 30D at f/4.5, 1/50 sec., ISO 800

Final round of January submissions

Wow!  We had some fabulous submissions this month!  Here is the last batch for the January assignment:

Barb Riley, of SK, sent me this yummy looking photo of cookies at the ByWard Market in Ottawa, ON.  She writes, “[The cookies] were in the same bakery where Obama bought his maple leaf cookies when he visited in February – you can see them just below the shelf of cookies I photographed. They’re still advertising them as “Obama cookies”. I focused on the yellow ones as yellow is my favourite colour and I wanted them to stand out.”:

Taken with Canon EOS 20D at f/4.5, 1/250 sec., ISO 400

I love the mix of bright colours here – thanks for submitting!

This next photo was submitted by Julie Ballah, of ON:

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XS at f/3.5, 1/60 sec., ISO 800

Great depth of field, Julie – and love your sunny, yellow scrap room!  Thanks for sending us your photo!

In keeping with the scrapbooking theme, Mindy Smith-Bernard, of ON, used the tutorial to photograph her American Craft ribbon collection:

Taken with Canon Rebel XTi at f/5.0, 1/30 sec., ISO 400

Love it – thanks for your submission!

Maxine Lozinski, of AB, submitted this photo:

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi at f/4.5, 1/80 sec., ISO 400

I love the contrast of the orange with the brown – after all, orange is my favourite colour!  Thanks for your submission, Maxine!

Carla Ganske, of AB, submitted this next photo, saying, “I had to photograph my ATC Trading Cards that I created for a swap.  I thought I would use what I learned for this photo shoot.”:

Taken with Canon Rebel XSi at f/5, 1/15 sec., ISO 400

Turned out great, Carla – thanks for submitting!

And last but not least, Jamie Harder, of SK, sent us this beautiful photo of her daughter, Sienna:

Taken with Canon Rebl XT, f/1.8, 1/2500 sec., ISO 400

I love the pop of colour from the lollipop!  Thanks for submitting!

Well, now I am inspired to go out and photograph something!  But first, I will compile all of the submissions for both the January assignment and the contest and will report the winners later this evening!  Thanks to all who played along and be sure to check back later this week when I will post the February tutorial and assignment!

Another round of submissions to share :)

I have some more great submissions to share with you!

Our first one today is by Kelsy Propp, of AB, of her daughter, taken in the summer at Emma Lake in SK:

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel T1i at f/5.6, 1/60 sec.

So sweet!  Thanks for sharing, Kelsy!

Michelle Kuijer, of ON, practiced her depth of field on her Glimmer Mist.  Focusing on the first bottle causes each bottle behind to appear slightly less in focus than the one before:

Taken with Canon Rebel EOS XS 1000D at f/5, 1/6 sec., ISO 800

I’m jealous of your colour selection, Michelle!  Thanks for your submission!

Nathalie Cormier, of QC, writes, “When I was at the university,  my collegues were surprised that I had a lot of highlighters and pencils.  Each color had a function – blue for theorem, pink for definition, etc.” Her photo makes me smile, because I have the same habit at work – green for receipts, orange for expenses, etc…

Taken with Canon XSi at f/5.6, 1/15 sec., ISO 400

Thanks for the submission, Nathalie – and the reminder to scrapbook one of my idiosyncrasies!

And lastly, I’d like to share this photo by Michelle La Grue, of Ireland:

Taken with Canon Rebel XSi at f/5.6, 1/160, ISO 200

Yum!  Can’t you just TASTE it?  Thanks, Michelle!

Only a few more days, readers - have you sent me YOURS yet?

Cheers,

More January submissions!

The submissions are rolling in!  And they are awesome – so glad you are enjoying this assignment!

Dawn Hueser, of SK, sent me this photo for January’s assignment:

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi at f/11, 1/160 sec., ISO 200

Love the gorgeous fall colours – Thanks, Dawn!

Carla Ganske, of AB, sent me this cute photo of her daughter’s Snow Buddies! 

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi at f/4.5, 1/6 sec., ISO 400

(Don’t you love the bling bling on the dog in the foreground?!)  Thanks for your submission, Carla!

Using her granddaughter’s Littlest Pet Shop Pets, Helen Reid-Beecroft, of AB, practiced her depth of field by lining them up and focusing on her granddaughter’s favourite pet – the frog!

Taken with Canon Rebel TSi at f/5.0, 1/160 sec.

Great job, Helen – thank you!

And our last submissions for today come from Rhonda Steed, of AB:

Taken with Nikon D80 at f/2.8, 1/25 sec., ISO 400

Taken with Nikon D80 at f/2.8, 1/125 sec., ISO 400

Taken with Nikon D80 at f/1.8, 1/250 sec., ISO 400

Wonderful images – thank you, Rhonda!

We’re nearing the deadline for this month – send me your submissions by using the submission form found here by 11:59pm EST, January 31st, 2010 and you will be entered into a random draw for this great prize pack!

And don’t forget to spread the word of our blog and then leave a comment to be entered into our contest!!  Only FIVE more sleeps!   More details here…

Cheers,

More DoF submissions!

I have some more submissions to share with you!

Bethany Hoskin, of AB, wrote, “I’m scrapbooking a favorite toy page for my 6 yr old, so decided to practice on his Bakugans. He was happy to be my photo designer, setting them all up for me to photograph.”   What a great way to include your child in your assignment – Great job, Logan!  And you too, Bethany!

Taken with Canon REbel T1i at f/4.5, 1/160 sec., ISO 400

Karen Aldrin, of the U.K., sent me a couple of photos for this assignment, as well.  She used her 50mm f/1.8 lens and as you can see in this first photo, the prime lens opened at the widest aperture gives Karen an incredibly narrow depth of field:

Taken with Canon EOS 400D at f/1.8, 1/50 sec., ISO 400

In her second submission, she used a wider aperture of f/3.2, which increases the depth of field but still blurs the background nicely:

Taken with Canon EOS 400D at f/3.2, 1/125, ISO 400

Mmmmm, garlic!  Being Italian, this photo “speaks” to me! LOL!  Thanks for your beautiful submissions, Karen!

Sonia Rodriguez, of QC, also sent me a submission this month – I love the colour in this photo – and what great focus!

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi at f/5.6, 1/125 sec., ISO 800

This reminds me of Grade 9 Home Economics class…   Thanks for submitting, Sonia!

I love seeing everyone’s work, and sharing it with our blog followers - please keep on submitting!

Cheers!

January Submissions

How is everyone doing with their January assignment?!  Some of you may be stuck on finding a suitable subject for your photo, but as you can see from this next submission, it’s not the subject matter, but the technique that we want you to show us!

Lee-Anne Thornton, of AB, sent me this photo for the January assignment:

Taken with Canon EOS 30D at f/4.5, 1/50 sec., ISO 800

Now you may just see canned goods, but I see some great depth of field!  Notice how her cans in the fore- and backgrounds are out of focus, while her 2nd can is in sharp focus?  Great job, Lee-Anne!

I also received this submission from Melanie Smith, of NL:

Taken with Canon Digital Rebel XT at f/2, 1/160 sec., ISO 400

Her focus on this photo is on Baby Jesus, with Mary & Joseph slightly out of focus (see Mary’s hand?), and the angel even more so.  Lovely! 

Thank you both for your submissions!  There’s still just over a week left to submit photos to be entered into the random draw for our January prize so be sure to send me YOUR submission!  And there’s still time to enter our contest too!

Cheers,

Revealed!

Here’s the January prize pack from Me and My Big Ideas that is up for grabs!

How’s that for incentive to get up and start playing with your camera?  *wink*  You can find the January tutorial and assignment here.

Cheers,

January Prize Pack…

is from Me and My Big Ideas!!

Photo to follow tomorrow night sometime!!

Cheers,

January assignment: Depth of Field

Ever notice how some photos have subjects that just seem to POP off the background?  More than likely, they are photos with a very shallow depth of field.  The term, depth of field (DoF), is ”the portion of a scene that appears acceptably sharp in the image”¹.

DoF is a relatively straight-forward technique and is determined by a number of factors, such as subject distance, focal length, aperture and format size¹.  However, for this tutorial, we are going to concentrate on using aperture to control our DoF.

 The premise of the technique is that the smaller your aperture, the larger your DoF.  To understand DoF, you must understand aperture, shutter speed and the correlation between the two.  You may recall this discussion in my article in the Spring 2008 issue of Canadian Scrapbooker, Capturing the Light: Aperture & Exposure.  Aperture is the measure of the shutter’s opening which allows light to enter the lens.   I have found that the part that sometimes confuses people is that a higher (or smaller) aperture is represented by a larger number (e.g.: f/22).  Conversely, a lower (or larger) aperture is denoted by a smaller number, such as f/1.8.  Once you can remember this, it will become easier!

I have taken a series of photographs to demonstrate the effects of changing your aperture to control your DoF.  I lined up our personalized mugs and using various apertures, snapped these photos.  In all photos, I was focused on my name on the red mug.    In the first photo, the small aperture of f/22 allowed for a large enough DoF to allow all four mugs to be in focus, relatively.  The mugs on the outer edges are a bit softer but this is due to my close proximity to the subjects.

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/22, 1/2.5 sec., ISO 800

 Next, I increased my aperture by half, to f/11.  Note how the DoF is changing and becoming smaller.

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/11, 1/10 sec., ISO 800

Taken with Nikon D70 at f/8, 1/15 sec., ISO 800

Decreasing my aperture by half again, to f/4, the outer cups are completely out of focus and the third cup is on its’ way:

¹ www.wikipedia.com