More photos from Maine

Sometimes I think my superpower is being timely. Less than an hour after I posted that last post, where I mentioned how I was going to post some photos I took from the Canon workshop, I got the email from Canon giving me the link to my pictures.

Kari had asked me if the picture quality was any better between the Canon 7D I used in the workshop was any better than my Canon Rebel (and the one I have is only an 8mp version that isn’t even sold anymore – my iPhone has the same resolution). Honestly, I couldn’t see any remarked improvement in the photo quality. The 7D felt like a real camera; it had heft, and it filled my hand, whereas my camera seems much smaller in comparison. Anyway, I think it helps that I have a pretty good lens on my camera.

All in all, I took about 150 photos during the workshop. Most aren’t that interesting or artistic because I was either playing with, and testing out, the settings or I was doing the exercises given to us by our instructor. She had us do things like take ten photos of the same thing, but from different perspectives. I could post the ten versions of a sign that said, “Beach,” but that’d be silly.

I will say that I learned a lot from the workshop. I’ve owned a digital SLR camera for eight years now, and apart from some of the most basic of settings, I never knew how to use any of the buttons, dials, or screens on it. I even bought photography books and tried to learn, without any success, on what terms like aperture, f-stop, etc are. In this one course, I learned all of that, and more. I think my mind tends to blank out when faced with lots of fractiony numbers and when trying to learn the technical aspects of photography, my eyes glaze over and all I hear is static. All I needed was for someone to explain it in a down-to-earth way, and bingo, I got it! (Finally!)

Don’t eat the hemlock!

Completely unrelated to photography, I forgot to post a picture of our rental car while on the trip to Maine. It’s a wee Fiat! It may look tiny, but it was actually exceptionally roomy. I’m 6’2″ and fit in it just fine with plenty of room to spare. We really enjoyed this car so much that we’re thinking of (someday) getting one. It’s great on the gas mileage, has a USB plug for our iPod, and was just well-designed all around.

What I’m listening to: The Sheila Divine – Dramatica