How do I Back Up My Pictures?

How do I Back Up My Pictures?

What was that I hear? “ I save them to CD…When I remember” or “ I print everything” hmmm or the best – “I don’t back up my pictures!”

Well, I’m not hear to judge you. I admit I’m not the world’s most organized person but I do try. I’m currently trying to gain control of my hard drive and it’s contents. Mostly my pictures. I couldn’t believe it when I opened Picasa last week and realized how much stuff is on there. I have so many photos on my hard drive! Especially since having my daughter. I’ve probably taken more photos this past year than I had in the previous 3 years. And they’re all just sitting there…waiting…until someday, I burn them onto DVDs and file them away, possibly even delete them to free up some space on the hard drive. Oh a girl can dream…

Now, I teach all my students the importance of a good “workflow”:

Take Pictures – transfer to computer (my choice – use Picasa) – delete Pictures off memory card – Edit –

Print or Share – BACK UP.

I’ve got to be honest. I’m great at the taking, uploading and could use a little improvement on the “share” but when it comes to remembering to Backup my pictures, I have failed miserably.

It’s constantly on my list of things do.

Or should I say it WAS constantly on my list of things to do. Now I don’t worry about it thanks to a cool online back up service called MOZY! For $4.95 a month they back up my entire hard drive . That’s unlimited storage. Pictures, documents – EVERYTHING! How awesome is that? It works away in the background, uploading any new files and storing them on their servers and I can honestly say I don’t even notice it doing it’s thing.

They’ve just recently redesigned their website and it’s super easy to use.

• Just sign up and give them your info. They even have a free service where you can get 2GB without paying a dime. I decided to go for the MozyHome Unlimited Plan though – for less than $5 a month for unlimited storage.  It walks you through the necessary steps but basically you just do the following:
• Download MozyHome
• Then select the files you want them to back up (they give you a suggested list.)
• Over the next few days or weeks, depending on the size of your files, they back up your entire hard drive. (it took me 2 weeks).
• After that they periodically backup when your computer is idle.

Cool or what? No more CDs no more external hard drives No more “long finger.”

So go check it out before you regret it!

Remember: It’s not IF your hard-drive fails, but WHEN it fails. Don’t loose all those memories. Check out Mozy here - Trust me – you’ll sleep better at night!

Use this link and the coupon code FEBRUARY to get 10% off annual and biennial Mozy Unlimited or MozyPro

Happy snapping!

Ingrid

Thinking of Buying a Digital Camera?

Stuck for Creative Photography Ideas?

Sometimes it’s hard to get creatively charged to get out and take some pictures.  I know I’ve felt it  – how many more photos can I take around the same environment!  I’ve completely exhausted all the possibilities  – right?  Creative photography ideas just are not jumping out at you right now?  It’s a bit like writer’s block, except its photographer’s block I guess!  Well, I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way – I’ve found a few ways to over come it!

First of all,  I’ve been participating in (and helping to present) an awesome telecourse with Sheila Finklestein.  You can check out her course info at Through and From the Lens.  Sheila teaches how to see your world through fresh eyes and hence rejuvinating your photography skills.  I’ve certainly found that I’m starting to look at things a little differently.  Check out the faces I found in the trees in our yard.  I’ve been inspired to create a whole series of them.  (these guys have been around forever!)

I’ve been reminded to look at everything from different angles, close-up and at a distance.  Looking at color, texture and thinking more about light.  In these pictures I was looking for faces in nature.

Then this morning I discovered this new site thanks to the ever cool Photojojo -  Noticin.gs (see what they’ve done there?)  It’s a game really, played on Flickr.com.  “Noticings are interesting things that you stumble upon when your out and about”  You post your pics on Flickr and tag them with “noticings” and Geotag them with where they were taken.

You get points for noticing things like noticing the first thing in a neighborhood or noticing the same thing for a week.  Seems like a great way to get into the habit of taking pictures on a regular basis – one of the key ways of improving your photography.

So I’m headed out to get creative and find some noticings before the snow hits Atlanta

Happy snapping!

PS If your not on Flickr you really should be!  Connect with me there by adding me as a contact.  My Flickr Stream.

White Balance – Learn a Mode Mode Monday

What is White Balance?

The White Balance setting (WB) on our digital camera controls the overall color cast of the image.  The reason why there may be a color cast on our pictures is because this is the way that digital cameras react to light temperature.

Every light source- the sun, light filtered through clouds, a bulb inside or florescent all have a different light temperature.  And each temperature results in a different color hue.   Our eyes naturally filter out these color differences and in most cases all light appears the same.

Digital cameras however do see the differences in different light temperatures and hence different “colors” of light.  The White Balance setting adjusts to counteract these color casts.

Just use Auto White Balance?

In most cases our camera’s Auto White Balance does a pretty good job at setting this mode correctly, however in some scenarios we are going to have to adjust this setting manually.  This is especially true if we are shooting without flash and in a particularly unusual lighting situation.

Here are some pictures I took without flash to demonstrate.  My subject’s dress is supposed to be snowy white:

As you can see in the first picture, by leaving the camera’s White Balance setting to Auto, the light inside gives an overall yellow hue or cast to the picture.

In the second picture I changed my White Balance setting to compensate for this by changing the WB to Tungsten – Much better and definitely more realistic!

Experiment

You can experiment with the White Balance Setting on your camera.  Look for the WB symbol either on the back of your camera as a shortcut button or in the functions menu.

Most types of light are preset for you there

Daylight

Cloudy

Fluorescent

Tungsten (which just means a regular bulb)

Check your camera manual so that you can decipher the WB icons and play around with the settings to see the different effects that you get.  This works best if you take a series of the same shot, especially if your subject includes something white so that the effect is really obvious and shoot without flash.

You’ll see how by changing this one small setting on your camera you can achieve very different results.

Happy snapping!

A little late but none the less – Happy New Year!

So how many of you got a new digital camera for Christmas? Judging by my inbox  – a lot of you!  That’s my excuse for not being blogging as much lately.  I’ve been out helping my clients around Atlanta get to grips with their new DSLRs.  It’s been great fun but I just realized that I had gone a month without posting here and I’ve been neglecting my readers.  So from now on I promise to write more regularly, with more tutorials, recommendations, reviews and all round great photography advice for beginners and anyone else who wants to listen!

So for this post I’m just going to try to encourage you to get out and start shooting and make 2010 the year when you really learn how to move out of Auto mode, get creative and really master your camera.  I’m planning on learning a few new techniques myself and I’m challenging myself to improve my skill set to bring my photography to the next level.  So let’s learn together  – it’s always more fun that way, isn’t it?

If you are in the Atlanta area and would like to book a One-to-One private instruction lesson with me email me for my availability and more info at ingrid@camerashy.info

Happy snapping!

Christmas Time! How to Photograph Lights

This is  a really great time of the year to get  unique and magical pictures of your kids.  One of the things that adds to the magic, is all the sparkly lights everywhere.   From the lights on the trees, to the neighbor’s vibrantly decorated yard, there are excellent festive backdrops for holiday pictures everywhere.  So why is it that when we try to photograph lights at night they disappear into the darkness?

What Usually Happens (what not to do!):

1. We see a beautifully lit up scene and position our subject in front of this perfect Christmassy backdrop.
2. We use our camera’s auto setting, the Auto Flash fires and the lights disappears into the background.

Here’s a shot I took at the weekend which demonstrates what happens when we use flash:

It’s a perfectly exposed shot but we don’t really get a feeling of the atmosphere of the picture.  The background is beautifully lit by fairy lights but when the flash fires it throws the background into darkness.

How to Photograph Lights (do this instead)

So how to we accurately portray the scene as we see it?

1. Simply set your camera to Night Scene Mode (the icon looks like a little man beside a moon and stars)
2. Hold steady and shoot!

And here is the result:

What happens in Night Scene mode is the shutter stays open for longer than normal so the ambient lighting in the background is exposed.  Then, the flash fires in order to expose your subject in the foreground.

The result is a well exposed subject and a perfectly exposed background .  So we get the overall festive feeling of the picture.

Some things to remember when using this mode:

1. Only use when the background is lit up and the lights are to be part of the picture.
2. Hold your camera extra steady – that slow shutter speed will result in camera shake if you don’t
3. Only use for very still subjects.  My model was being unusually poised for this picture!
4. If you have no subject (person) in shot you could try turning flash off altogether and raising your ISO

So go and find some cool illuminated backgrounds and take some Holiday pictures using Night Scene Mode.

Happy snapping!

P.S. This is a great method to use to photograph your Christmas tree and your living room when taking your picture for Capture the Magic!  Be sure to read my post on this great way to catch Santa in the Act!

Picture Gift Ideas for Mom

So I’ve eventually started my Christmas shopping this year and I’ve been scouring the internet for pressies. One of my sticking points every year is gift ideas for Mom. Being a photographer one of my “go-to” gifts for her is always of course Pictures!  She is usually inundated with photos of recent times and loves to look at them on her laptop, but we have heaps of old pictures that just sit upstairs in boxes and albums gathering dust.  It’s a shame that these pictures are now mostly forgotten. So when I found this idea by ScanDigital I was impressed.

How about getting them all together on a brand new digital photoframe?  All you have to do is ship off your old pics, negatives, slides, whatever you have to ScanDigital and they upload everything to a digital frame and send you everything back plus the preloaded frame and a DVD of all the images.

Perfect gift idea for Mom who has it all and it saves you from having to show her how to put stuff on the frame herself.  I also love the idea of putting old pics on display.  In this digital age they are  always forgotten about.

So get together some of your old pics and visit the ScanDigital website for more information.

But don’t delay! Deadline is December 14th!

Happy Snapping

Get your free Ebook on Choosing a Digital Camera

At last, I am happy to report that my free guide on “Choosing the Best Digital Camera for You“ is complete.

Hurrah!

I’ve been asked to create this mini eBook for some time now as I am constantly getting asked which digital camera I would recommend.

My aim is to guide you through the process of defining what exactly it is that you are looking for in a camera and how to go about making your choice.

It covers  -

• what features you really need
• where are the best places to buy
• and I also include some of my favorite recommendations.

So if your thinking about buying a digital camera this holiday season, either for yourself or as a gift be sure to sign up for this guide!

Click here to sign up for your Free Ebook on

“Choosing the Best Digital Camera for You”

Happy snapping!

P.S. I plan on doing lots more of this type of information ebook so please let me know if there is anything you would specifically like to see!

Continuous Shooting Mode – Learn a Mode Monday

Hi Guys,

For today’s Learn a Mode Monday I thought I’d try something a little different and post a video of how to use your continuous shooting mode.  This mode is perfect for capturing fast moving subjects like wildlife, athletes and 11 month old babies!

Check it out and let me know your thoughts!

• So remember, for shooting fast moving objects look for your camera’s Continuous Shooting Mode button

• Keep your finger fully depressed on the shutter button and capture all that action!

A great way to use up an entire memory card

Keep snapping!

Ingrid

Say Cheese Jack O’Lantern! – Using Exposure Compensation

There was great excitement in the Owens house last night when we carved out the pumpkins which have been sitting on the porch since last weekend’s visit to the pumpkin patch. I have to say that I love this American tradition! In Ireland, Halloween is more about fireworks and bonfires than pumpkin carving. Anyways, when we were finished making our jack-o’-lanterns we had, of course, to take photos and I thought that it would be a great opportunity to show you how sometimes, even when shooting at night, it’s better NOT to use flash.

This first shot was taken with automatic flash. I just set my camera to automatic and this was the result:

Pretty bad huh? And not at all spooky! The flash totally overwhelms the subject, throws the background into darkness, and we don’t get to experience any of the lights inside the pumpkins.

For the second photo I turned off the flash altogether.

• I did this by selecting “Flash off” in the flash modes setting.

The problem with this method is that although we do experience some of the ambient light coming from inside the pumpkin, it’s way too underexposed, i.e.too dark!!

In photography exposure is everything.  Most people don’t even realize that their compact digital cameras have the ability to change the exposure and we rarely change the ISO but that’s exactly what I did to achieve my final result.

To do this on my camera (Canon Powersot SD 1200IS) I had to

• select M for Manual in the Functions  settings

• Then, I raised my ISO to 400 by pressing the ISO shortcut button on the back of the camera.
  

  ISO Button

  If I only raised the ISO setting I would still have gotten quiet a good shoot so this is worth remembering when shooting in low light conditions.

• Finally I increased my EV or Exposure Compensation to .33 (or 1/3 of an f stop for all the techies out there) in order to allow more light into the camera and hence a longer shutter speed.
  

  Exposure Compensation

It’s important when you are shooting in low light conditions to hold your camera very steady because the long exposure will magnify even the slightest camera shake. In order to counteract this I used two of my favorite tricks – I used my best pal the Gorrillapod and I used the self-timer instead of pressing the shutter button. This will eliminate any camera shake from the action of your pressing the shutter button.

Pretty scary huh?

Now, what do I do with all this pumpkin?

Happy Halloween!!!

Ingrid

P.S.  Please let me know if you try this technique – it can be used for any subject which is self- illuminated!