[ About giving and receiving a sunshine award ]

I am happy. I am delighted. I am grateful.

At last I can use my blog’s name as the title of one of my posts. At least now I can apply more concretely what I have been preaching all this while. Giving and receiving.

Special immeasurable thanks to http://markohajdarovicphoto.wordpress.com for nominating such a humble blogger like me, who in the midst of it all still have the gut to boast about her humility.

Thank you for letting me attach this orange flower to brighten my post since it’s meant to be a Sunshine Award, by the way.

Without further ado, here are the rules.

• Answer 10 questions of your own choosing. ——— (in progress of copying the questions, too lazy to think)
• Include the Sunshine award image in your blog post. ——— (checked!)
• Nominate 10 other bloggers. ——— (browsing through the posts under the ‘Reader’ tab)
• Notify your nominees on their blog. ——— (later)

My The 10 questions:

1. Favorite color:

It is a cliche topic for a small talk and my answer is always the same. I think I adore all colors that God has let me see through the perfect eyesight of mine (no offense to those wearing glasses or contact lenses). Yay to rainbow colors!

2. Favorite animal:

I have never been allowed to keep a dog, which always grabs my attention when one passes by, of my own since I was young. I had two tortoises before but they were too smelly. I kept fish before but their life spans were too short. Nevertheless, I love fish! Especially, when it’s grilled or baked.

3. Passions:

Photography and blogging are parts of my life now. I am passionate about keeping fit and healthy, too!

4. Favorite city:

Tough one, I wanted to say the city I was born in (although small, it holds years of memories) but I guess since I love to explore, I would say: give me any new cities and I will love them. But Paris seems like a romantic city, hmm..

5. Favorite drink:

Water, the essence of life. Also, secretly in love with black tea and any but black coffee.

6. Favorite number:

Thirteen. They say it is an unlucky number but whatever I just like it.

7. Are you happy?

It depends on the definition of ‘happy’. If it means being allowed to make mistakes in life and not regret them because it is a part of life’s learning process, then yes I am a happy woman.

8. Favorite TV show:

I like TV shows that invoke my inner feelings and thoughts. But something like ‘How I Met Your Mother’ seems enjoyable as well.

9. Favorite book:

Jodi Picoult’s. But I am intrigued by ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, too.

10. Giving or receiving gifts?

What an apt question! I like to give because I believe when you give, you’ll receive someday. Oh, so I like to receive as well. It is basically the foundation of this blog, yo! The joy of seeing somebody deprived of certain things has them fulfilled is precious!

Now, the nominees whom I consider worthy of a Sunshine Award since they brighten up my mind and heart in the midst of my dark moments:

http://rarasaur.wordpress.com/

http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com

http://thisawesomelife0918.wordpress.com

http://lezoemusings.wordpress.com

http://adammcateer.wordpress.com

http://wronghands1.wordpress.com

http://theofficialhowtoblog.wordpress.com

http://bringmetheheadofdaviddixon.com

http://coffeeaddictgreta.wordpress.com

http://thegoodgreatsby.com/

Cheers,

Tania

Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

There are so many ways to escape.

Escape from the stress and burdens of life.

Escape from the emotional bondage and crisis.

Escape from fear and disappointment.

Some choose to give up and pick the wrong ways of escape.

Some choose to ignore and be trapped in the abyss of uncertainties.

Some choose to let go and cherish the opportunities life offers.

I choose to contemplate and reflect on the mystery of life through the windows.

The windows that connect the heart inside and the world outside.

The windows that allow me to pour out the contents of my heart with no worries.

The windows that let me see through the bigger world’s perspective.

The windows for my sweet escape.

 

 

Cheers,

Tania

[ Photography tips (II) ]

Read my previous post on photography tips here.

I know it’s been sometimes since the last post. Now it’s time for some technical terms we need to know about photography. Disclaimer: these are by no means words from a professional. I’m still learning as I post this, too. :)

Familiarize yourself with the applications of these jargon words and you are on your way to possessing the knowledge for flexibility and creativity in capturing different moments. The actual flexibility and creativity itself must come from practice and practice!

It’s a lifelong process and that’s what makes photography an amazing long-term hobby to commit to! When you think you’ve got all the skills needed, you’ll always find something that opens up your eyes and amuses you. (Although I haven’t reached that stage yet, that’s what I heard from some professional freelancers.)

Today’s objective: to understand what aperture, shutter speed and ISO do to your captures.

Aperture

Aperture, which measures the lens opening, is indicated as f-stop in your camera. I’m sure you have seen something like F5.0 or F8.0. By adjusting the number, you can see the difference in the depth of field as in how blur or how clear you want your background or your object in focus to be.

The smaller the f-stop number, the bigger the lens opening. The bigger the f-stop number, the smaller the lens opening.

For easy understanding, let’s imagine f-stop number as your eyes. The smaller your eyes are, the more focused an object will be in your sight. In other words, smaller f-stop number will give a greater zone of sharpness to our foreground image and blurriness to the background. The bigger you open your eyes, the more you see the bigger picture. Or, simply to say, bigger f-stop number will result in all images, foreground and background, to be in focus.

f/4

f/11

Notice how the blue pencil case in the background comes into focus also as you increase the f-stop number?

Try it out!

 

Shutter speed

Do you see some forms of fractions like 1/8 or 1/125 on your camera’s screen display? Yes, that’s where you adjust how fast or slow you want to capture your image. Special attention needs to be paid to this key factor if you want to photograph moving objects. Depending on your camera, shutter speed can range from a few seconds to a fraction of seconds e.g. 1/4000.

The smaller the fraction (and by “small” I mean 1/125 and not 1/8 if you’ve forgotten your maths lesson), the less time you give your camera exposure to light. The bigger the fraction (e.g. 1/8), the more slowly the camera’s shutter closes and thus the more light is exposed to your camera. Therefore, shutter speed often comes hand in hand with aperture setting.

Anyway, the smaller the fraction, the faster you are able to freeze the motion. The bigger the fraction, the slower you capture the motion and hence the more tendency you’ll blur the images. If you’re still confused, I find this cheat sheet helpful!

Source: digitalcameraworld.com

 

ISO

It is basically the sensitivity of camera’s sensor to light. The higher the ISO number, the more sensitive the sensor is to light and hence the more noise the images will have. Therefore, as much as possible, aim to use the lowest ISO number to produce sharp images; although high ISO is necessary in a low light condition.

Another helpful cheat sheet..

Source: twenty-six-to-life.com

and another one! ;)

Source: jostensyearbooksalberta.blogspot.com

If you didn’t catch anything until this point, the rule of thumb for a good capture is to use cheat sheets set the aperture to get the desired depth of field, use sufficiently fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur unless intended, and to use the lowest ISO number possible.

By now, I hope you get the big picture of what these three keys do to your images and how they are all interrelated to produce great images. As for figures and settings that can be used for certain lighting conditions and movements, I believe it’s more convincing if you try to explore them by yourself (despite the prospect of using many available cheat sheets being so tempting!). Besides, you can have more chances to be deeply engrossed in capturing moments around you and have fun!

Hope these quotes inspire you! ;)

Source: tumblr.com

Source: plus.google.com

Source: petapixel.com

Cheers,

Tania