Ok.  Y'all know I got a new camera for Christmas.  Yes, I know it's not Christmas yet but my husband (giver of the camera) let me have it early.  Because he loves me.  And I love him too. (Happy birthday honey!)  ANYWAY, I have been getting books and practicing and watching videos.  AND, I signed up for an online photography class.  

I got a suggestion from a good friend and awesome photographer (hi Susan!) to sign up for a great class.  No, I didn't sign up for that.  It looks fantastic but it's $300 and it's Christmas and I just spent a boatload of cash on fixing appliances, tires, and of course Christmas presents.  Soooo, I happened upon another class, through another blog, that was only $69 and looked pretty cool.

So I signed up.  You can too at www.shootflyshoot.com.  They have a beginning photography class and a Photoshop Class.  The photography class is about 3 hours long and broken into 11 videos.  Very doable and not overwhelming.   I've watched the first 5.  And I loved them.  You know why?  'Cause even I can follow them.  They repeat themselves and show examples and it's just super perfect for me.  I hope by the end of the videos I'll be shooting mostly in manual!  For those of you who have a DSLR that you only use in automatic, this is your way out.  I'm very excited to, not only learn how to use my camera, but become a better photographer.

Today I learned what the heck the ISO setting is and why it makes a difference.  Here's the experiment:

I took 3 pictures of my beautiful kitty Gus.  I changed the ISO setting in each one to see which setting looked best.  Check it out.

ISO 100

ISO 800

ISO 1600

I'm sure you can see the difference.  Especially between the 1st one (100) and the 2nd two (800 & 1600).  The first one is much too dark (underexposed).  The 3rd one is too light.  It's also a lttle blurry, due to me not holding perfectly still I'm sure.  It's important to be super still or use a tripod, the higher the ISO setting.  The 2nd one (800) is just right.

So there you have your DSLR camera lesson for the day.  Thanks for checking out my experiment.  You can look forward to the Friday Funnies tomorrow!