Frog+Baby

I chose to take multiple pictures of one object that is highly recognizable to anyone that ever went to Ball State...Frog Baby! I wanted to try out all of the settings on my camera and explore my options for taking photographs because I have a die-hard tendency to reach for my disposable cameras over my Kodak EasyShare C340 Digital Camera. Why? It is not only to frustrate my fiancee who bought the camera for me two Christmases ago, it is because it always takes me too long to figure out HOW to take the picture. All of my digital pictures look blurry or dark, so I just pretty much gave up on it. This was the perfect opportunity for me to take a LOT of pictures of a subject that was not likely to change position!
 * Frog Baby: Photos by Kathleen Pickens**

Here is Frog Baby au natural!



Above is Frog Baby using the B & W Menu Setting.

I love the look of Sepia photographs, so I also tried changing the menu to Sepia.

In the "White Balance" menu, I changed the setting from "Auto" to "Tungsten". I'm not sure when you would want to use this option, but I thought I'd include it because it looks kind of neat.

My greatest accomplishment--Frog Baby at night! This was definately the most frustrating part of the exploration because I could not get the flash to do what I wanted it too--the picture just looked dark and blurry. I FINALLY found the "Night Portrait" setting on the "Scene" dial of the camera (I had been looking in the Menu options) and Viola! It came out exactly the way I wanted it! Some other Scene Options worth exploring include: Fireworks, Children, Self Portrait, Beach, and Snow. I can hardly wait to go out on a bright, sunny day this January and see if the "Snow" Option really works!

I also really enjoyed changing to B & W and Sepia directly from my camera. Whenever I actually use the digital, I tend to print directly to my Kodak EasyShare print dock, so this is a great feature for me. Some other manipulations I tried from my camera were changing the pixels to see if it really made a difference (besides in memory card storage!), cropping directly from my camera, and seeing how far I could get it to Zoom without looking terrible.

While it was frustrating spending so much time outside trying to get the Night Picture correct, it was also incredibly rewarding. I am now looking forward to practicing the locations of all of the settings so that I can maybe take some great picture before "the moment" is gone. Even more frustrating than learning my camera was figuring out this Wiki...I'm hoping this time I do it right!