Flower pictures, NEW

Lovely flowers........ Paj, does it only have two possibilities? Or is it a scale? (the balance) Anyway, good to know your options. I'm sure your camera and mine are totally different and on mine, I can only sometimes find the light scale thingoo, for some reason, so continuing to stumble along.

Actually, it is a scale. On these I used minus 1/3 and -2/3. You can go to the plus side as well. If I find the manual -- I will, I have seen it recently -- I will tell you for sure what it is called. I don't know if our cameras are so different if they are both Canons. My buttons have a whole different set of functions if you use the "shift" button -- at least that's what they call it on a keyboard. The normal set of functions is in tiny white print, the other set is in tiny blue print. The key was that after pushing the -/+ button, a scale popped up. That was yesterday or the day before. Today, I discovered that if you pushed the blue button you could move the cursor up and down the scale with the big round button pushing the left side for plus and the right side for minus. Each push moves the cursor 1/3 along the scale. I didn't remember the blue button the other day, but I think I have used it before for something else. Anyhow, I think we are talking about the same thing. Only now I can always find that function.

Yup. Sounds like the same thing all right. And I confess I don't know what it's called, just my photog friend said "too light" so I figured it was a scale of how much light was in there. But we are on the same page whatever it be called. ;-)

my pix today did not turn out well, trying to do some close ups that were too close. Plus missed my bird picture again, the beautiful thing was right there but my camera was IN THE HOUSE and of course, by the time I went and got it, bird gone.

I did hear its voice though, wow, how sweet.

Is that the light meter that tells about your exposure? I think White Balance has to do with the type of light, the light temperature. I forget which is what. "Too light" is over-exposed. If you shoot on automatic the camera is choosing your exposure for you. If you shoot on manual you can control the exposure through aperture and shutter speeds. If you go to the minus side of the scale it is under exposed. How you set it depends on what you see, how the light hits your subject. There is also I.S.O. which effects sensitivity to light. The lower settings being less sensitive. There is much to become confused about!

I have no idea if it is really white balance or light sensitivity, or aperture and shutter speeds. Perhaps if I mess around with it some more I will find out. I did learn that moving that scale to a slightly minus setting made my photo not so glaring. Moving it to the right made it brighter. At one point it flashed something on the screen saying f4.8 so I take that to mean it has something to do with shutter speed or aperture or something. See how much I know about all this? When I find my manual I will look it up and tell you what I am adjusting.

f4.8 is a aperature which is the size of the opening in the lens. Smaller f-stop numbers means bigger opening than larger f-stop numbers. Bigger opening means more light gets in.

ISO (a holdover from the sensitivity of film) is a setting that expresses the sensitivity of the light sensor of the camera. The lower the number, the more sensitive it is.

Then there's shutter speed. Fast shutter speed lets in less light than slow shutter speed.

White balance has to do with the color correction. Pure white should look white in the kind of light you have. If the white balance is set for incandescent light (yellowish) and you take a picture in daylight, the picture will have a green cast. If it's set for daylight and you take a picture under incandescent light, it will look yellowish. Other types of artificial light will have their own 'tint'. White balance is the way you correct for that.

If you're adjusting +1 or -1 while in automatic, you're adjusting the exposer in general which means you're adjusting how much light gets in. If things look washed out, you need less light, if things are dark and lacking in detail, you need more light.

My suggestion is to figure out how your camera 'meters'. Often you can half-depress the shutter button and the camera will focus and sense the settings. If you half-depress (if that's how your camera does it) on something for just a bit before pressing all the way to snap the pic, it may self adjust better.

Here is some beginner photography info: http://tinyurl.com/agtjex

Thanks, Jude! You sound like you know a bit about photography. I am familiar with the half-depressed mode for focusing, but on very white flowers, like datura and white hydrangea, even in the shade, the detail washed out. When I lowered that setting -- perhaps aperture -- the flowers were no longer washed out. The rose even benefitted from it. Thanks for that basic guide. I need it!
I never did much photography until I got a digital camera -- and I know little about photography so the guide will help. Also experimentation which is what I did over the last few days.
I learned something! Thanks for your help, also.

Pajarito, I'd bet anything you underexposed it, rather than overexposing it and it looked better. The white flower didn't need as much light and it lost detail in the glare. Many flowers , I think, look a little better slightly under exposed. Our sun light tends to be so bright and our shadows are very dark. If you are shooting RAW photos, which the G-9 Canon can do; then you also have the option to correct the exposure in editing. It isn't as satisfying as getting a correct exposure in camera but it can save a shot. The "correct" exposure is whatever one you think is best! Congratulations anyway! Nice picture.

If you're photographing mostly white, you may need to slightly underexpose to get textural detail to pop. The opposite is true if most of your composition is black. The ideal exposure will show all the detail in both the lightest areas of your image and in the darkest areas. That is tricky to get.

Oh, and I forgot to say that one often changes the exposure by changing aperture or shutter speed! There is also fun with depth of field. I'm kind of scattered today because D.H. is using this computer for his video project which is due Monday. He is doing color correction now and wants me to get off! Humph. Think I'll go feed my fishies! Here is a picture of Tut. He was re-potted today and I had to cut him free with tin shears. Ai Yi Yi!

Oh, Tut is magnificent! I think that photo is worthy of the DG photo contest. It could be called bad hair day!

I spent the afternoon dividing iris and planting a red phlox -- the tall kind. It will clash magnificently with the darkish purple phlox already growing next to it. The new phlox is slightly on the orange side of red and the purple phlox is purple. Just a little bit of challenge in the color.

I had to use the pick ax to make a hole for the phlox. And I was able to plant two irises in the area, a dwarf and a tall. Hopefully they will be lovely in the spring. Or maybe a year from this coming spring.

Anyhow, I used a huge amount of compost and alfalfa pellets and bone meal to enrich the poor miserable soil that I have very little of. Hopefully, I will have a nice display of flowers next year and the year after to show for my efforts.

I'm sure you will!

PJ, my favorite color combo is fuchsia purple with orangey-red. Or any shade of purple with salmon.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/186/

One of today's articles. Absolutely hilarious.

Glad you like my edgy color combos, picante. I really like color combos to be surprising.

I did enjoy the gardening fashion faux-pas article, too.

picante: I too love purplish shades w/ salmon-y shades

Fuchsia and red-orange and purple are lovely together. Throw in purple and lime green! I consider purple a good neutral color. This is from a series I call, "The Tipsy Table".

I like your philosophy, roybird -- purple as a good neutral color. I like it with lime green and red orange and fuchsia as well. Actually don't some agastache's come in orange and fuchsia? Something like that anyhow, which is why everybody adores them.

I LOVE purple and orange together in the garden!

nice glass.

I too adore purple and orange.

And orange and pink and purple are even better.

Vivid colors always appeal to me too.

Here is an example of extreme floppage from rain, hail and wind occurring repeatedly lately. The amazing thing is that I actually have poppies still blooming in August, which generally does not happen.

Things are better in the hoophouse, although rather jungle like.

One stargazer lily has gone nuts this year in the hoophouse with nearly three dozen blooms or buds.

Wow, mulch! It must be wonderful to hang out in your hoop house jungle. I tried many times to go oriental lilies -- stargazers and others and they just don't seem to like it here. I need a hoop house, too.

Really nice, Mulch! wowie.

Here are four decent pix from today. The first is not a flower but some of it used to be.

Mom and the kids:

From where I sit, I see faces......

like these:

and these, and a hummingbird or two......

This message was edited Aug 17, 2009 8:32 PM

Healthy grasshopper you got there, Kyla. Beautiful glads with zennias, too. You have a real rainbow of color there. And your sunflowers make me regret not having planted some at the beginning of the summer. Yours are stunning.

Here are some balloon flowers

and a coneflower

more coneflowers, and some other stuff

Gaillardia, with a very industrious bee

color, color, color

My most hated plant - too bad the flowers are so pretty!

another mystery hybrid sunflower

Oops, the radishes bolted.

All my gardens seem to look so much better if I crouch down in them & make like a flower.