Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas gift came a little early this year and is also my birthday gift, anniversary gift, and Valentine's gift for at least the next two years.  ;) 
After many weeks of research and very helpful tips from a photographer friend (thank you Alea!), I finally could decide without any doubts to buy a used Canon 5D classic camera on E-bay.  Although the specs had at first seemed a little outdated to the 2Ti or 7D,  I learned that the full frame sensor still produces superior image quality for portraits compared to the newer EOS cameras I was looking at buying, and many professional photographers raved about this original model. 

Fortunately I found a 5D classic Canon in mint condition and barely used by the original owner.   Even better, it was within my budget and I still had money left over for a prime lens. All of it paid for from my Craigslist earnings! :D     E-Bay had sent Travis a 10% off coupon that we wish I could have used on the camera body, but cleverly they had set the coupon up to only work on those who were not bidding or watching items.  I figured that out after having several other family members receive the coupon, but not me.  Since I had already won the camera on my account, there was no way to use Travis's coupon.  We tried to talk the seller into relisting the camera as "buy it now" so Travis could purchase it on his account and redeem his coupon but the seller was nervous to try that.  (understandably)    I was at least able to buy my 85mm F/1.8 lens with the coupon once I knew to use Travis's account. 

I don't know much about this camera yet but I did buy the book "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson to help me get started, although I haven't opened the book yet.    With Christmas this month and Nutcracker rehearsals for the 3 kids, I haven't even had time to read the 5D manual, let alone a book, so it's been on auto mode the whole time.  But I am already in love with it!  Travis refers to it as "my precious" the way I baby it.  

I need to get Photoshop CS5 so I can start playing with the photos and downloading some "actions."
(I'm unhappy with Elements)   Picnick has been a quick way to do some edits, but it frequently crashes with the new file sizes and is pretty limited.   I've also had trouble with Picnick cutting off portions of the image when I print them at Costco and Shutterfly. 

Here are some of the first pictures I took on auto mode in the outdoors.  Unfortunately I didn't shoot them in RAW and mistakenly had the format on the lowest quality.  Oops!  I used "Velvia" on Picnick to fix some of the blah color in them, and also did some black and whites, but I need to make sure my computer screen color is accurate.      I only had about 15 minutes to do a photo session of Isabelle before picking up the kids from school and wish we could have taken more shots.     This is one of our favorite local spots to take pictures in the spring with all the flowering pear trees in bloom.  When my sister called to let me know how beautiful all the fallen leaves would be for portraits, I couldn't wait to take Isabelle! 

I used this one in half of our collage Christmas cards. 

used this one for the other half of our cards (I couldn't choose!)

wish I had those lashes!  I don't know where her and Luke get them from.

jump in!

I really need to edit out the purple paint on her shirt, but at least it matches her dress!

 

 

 

 

dandelion all gone  :(

with cousin Ashton

taken with Canon 5D and 85mm F/1.8