Day 48: Waltz of the Flowers (from the wings)

Yes, I'm back with more from the Nutcracker. I'm actually in the middle of what I call Yearbook Hell every year. The first half of the yearbook is due tomorrow and when the weekend started I had 5 pages out of 32 completed - yikes! Anyway, I'm working on my last 6 pages now so I should make the deadline. Yeah! Of course then I have to start working on the second half. Anyway, because all of my time has been devoted to the yearbook here's another from the Nutcracker.

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 47: Worn out

Every year the middle schoolers go to Catalina to a camp for a week. This was taken the night they got back. My daughter insisted that she wasn't tired and just wanted to watch TV for awhile and this was the result!

Date Taken: February 15, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 46: Nemo

Yes, our cat's name is Nemo. I took a few photos of him the other night on my way out the door because my oldest daughter insisted. High ISO and kind of noisy but at least he's looking at the camera. Like my girls, Nemo tends to run the other way when the camera is out.

Date Taken: February 15, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 45: Happy Valentine's Day!

I took a bunch of pictures at school today at the Valentine's parties but can't share the ones with the kids in them so here's a collection of photos showing some of what was happening around the school:

• Some yummy cupcakes at one of the class parties
• A balloon sent by one of the parents to the staff
• What do you do with conversation hearts since according to this class they taste like chalk? Why you use them to build something of course!

Date Taken: February 14, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 28-135mm IS
Various exposures

Day 44: Basketball

I do the yearbook for my youngest daughter's school each year so I take a lot of photos at school of all of the events and just every day things. Today I took some portraits for new preschoolers and I took photos at the elementary boys basketball game. I've cropped this one to not show faces of the players so I'd have something to share here. I took this in Aperture Priority mode since the players were going in and out of sun and shade and I just couldn't adjust manually quick enough to get the shot.

Date Taken: February 13, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 28-135mm IS
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 135 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 43: High School Ring Ceremony

Tonight I attended a ring ceremony for my oldest daughter's class so how could I not feature that? The ceremony is a very lovely event with the presentation of the rings and a flower to each member of the class and ending with a Ring of Light at the end of the night. As you can tell this is a combination of two photos: one of my daughter's hand with her new ring and the other taken during the Ring of Light.

Date Taken: February 12, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30) & (1/40)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 59 mm & 75mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 42: Ballet Class

Yes, it's another favorite things interruption - this time I'm featuring another photo I took at my daughter's ballet class through the observation window.

Date Taken: January 29, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 41: My Favorite Things #5

Don't you just love technology? I know I do. When I first started working with computers, I worked on mini-computers for business that were the size of a washing machine or bigger and had 40 MB (yes megabyte) drives and main frames that took up entire rooms that needed their own air conditioners! It simply amazes me how small storage devices have gotten. Today's picture is of one of the flash drives I use to take data back and forth to school or between machines that we don't have networked (yet) here at home. Before flash drives I would have to burn a CD to transfer files - this is much faster and holds a ton more. I love it! This photo was taken outside using a piece of purple paper as a backdrop.

Date Taken: February 10, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 63 mm
ISO Speed: 125
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 40: Another Interruption

Yes, I will get back to My Favorite Things, but at the moment I'm in OMG the yearbook is due in 8 days and nothing is done mode so it's more from my Nutcracker photos. This one is of my younger daughter (the shorter but older one in this photo) and a friend before a performance. They were both dressed in their skater costumes ready for the Saturday matinee to begin. This one is clearly taken with flash. I need to work on the best way to take photos in situations like this where there is nothing to bounce the flash off of and the photo needs to be taken in a hurry. I'm not sure what to do in these types of situations and taking photos at dance performances and at school I often run in to them. What do you do? At this point, in order to capture the shot, I just use my flash and take the photo anyway. I did have the flash exposure compensation dialed down on my flash unit but I'm not sure what the setting was since the camera doesn't capture that.

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 2/3 EV
Flash: Flash fired

Day 39: Interrupting My Favorite Things

...for more from The Nutcracker. I had plans for a favorite for this day but fell asleep early last night so I'm using a Nutcracker photo instead. This was taken during posed shots and it shows Clara & Fritz during the nightmare scene near the end of Act I.

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 4/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 38: My Favorite Things #4

Chocolate!! I've always loved SnoCaps for some reason; they're not too sweet and I the nonpareils add a little something. I took this in my kitchen with just the kitchen lights on. I set the SnoCaps on one of our kitchen chairs and put some scrapbooking paper on the back of the chair to act as a backdrop and this is what I got.

Date Taken: February 7, 2008 (okay really a few minutes after midnight so on the 8th but I still count it as the 7th since I was still up for the day!)
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 37: My Favorite Things #3

Okay I couldn't let my favorite things go by without a photo of my camera (the Canon 40d) and my favorite lenses (Tamron 28-75mm 2.8, Canon 50mm 1.4 & Canon 85mm 1.8)! I set this up on my bed on top of a comforter (which isn't the best backdrop but it was what I had) and bounced my flash to get this one. Oh and I took this with my Digital Rebel - the camera which was replaced by my 40d.

Date Taken: February 6, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV
Flash: Flash fired

Day 36: My Favorite Things #2

As I say in my profile, I'm a Diet Coke addict so I had to take a picture of Diet Coke for my favorite things. This shot was taken on my kitchen table just after I had poured myself a glass of Diet Coke. There was window light behind me from a small window in a door and to the left of the Diet Coke bottle.

Date Taken: February 5, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 640
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 35: My Favorite Things #1

This week, as the song goes, you'll be seeing pictures of a few of my favorite things. First up is my iPod nano. For this shot, I took a piece of lime green paper outside and set my iPod and headphones on it and snapped this shot.

Date Taken: February 4, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 34: Nutcracker continues

This is part of the Sugar Plum Pas de Deux with the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince.

Date Taken: December 1, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/2
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 33: Yes I'm still processing Nutcracker pictures

Are you sick of them yet? This one is from Act II and was taken at the end of the Chinese dance from the balcony on the opening weekend Saturday matinee.

Date Taken: December 1, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 32: Our ballerina waiting at the barre

Here's another I took at my daughter's ballet class - again taken looking through an observation window into the studio.

Date Taken: January 29, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire