Today, a little ‘mouse asked a favor, and I am (nothing if not) obliging. He wanted – of all things – photos of lit jack-o-lanterns, taken with my new camera… the camera that I haven’t really learned to use yet. There is method to his madness, really, but I’m not going to go into it here. Perhaps he’ll say something about his reasons.
As we had no jack-o-lanterns chez McKitten, I stalked the ones across the street, standing on the sidewalk 20 or so feet from the front porch. When it’s set to full autofocus, my camera determines whether or not to engage its flash. I took these photos well after dark, so the camera opted for the flash. (See photo on left.) After a couple of shots with flash, I turned the knob on top of the camera until I got some shots without the flash going off. (Hey, it was dark out! I don’t know which setting it was on!) Of course, no flash meant a v e r y s l o w e x p o s u r e. On the order of two seconds. (See photo on right.) When I look at the second photo, I have two thoughts: “pumpkin possessed by a demon” and “damn, I need a tripod.”
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Okay, this is a call for help on behalf of Kimberly, so she doesn’t have to read the manual, on behalf of pumpkin lovers everywhere, and on behalf of my secret, scheming self, who is trying to rationalize purchasing a Rebel XT — anyone know the settings to force the Rebel, or any other digital camera, to take a good lit-pumpkin picture without overcompensating with long exposure — I really don’t want a 2-second exposure and a picture where you can see the green and white paint of the porch — I want what your eye sees.
Help!
You could always take the pictures and use Google’s free Picasa photo edit program and add the shadows. I saved the picture on the left and tried it. Could e-mail it to you.
Tripod? How come the railing isn’t blurry?
Go to page 86 of the RebelXT manual [English version]: Before you step outside [while you can see the top dial] set it to M [manual]…then instead of a long exposure, you can set a large aperture [the other variable] using the ‘braille’ wheel your finger can find and turn…try it and let me know [haven’t done it myself yet…and remember: check out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ophirned/
I don’t have a clue how to do it. I have not taken a photograph since we returned from Greece 8 years ago and the processing shop processed my print film as slide film (and I got lots of big blank , black photos.) And give a message to “Mouse” that your reluctance to read manuals is genetic at least on the maternal side. Love you B
I guess Norman’s observation about the railing proves that the second pumpkin really IS possessed.
Love it!
Jack-o-lanterns and cats!
Humor and photography!
What a great BLOG!
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