December's Training Schedule has been posted! - Photography Training

Are you looking for training on how to use all of those digital images stored on your computer?

Then check out Woodlands fStop this month! Our schedule has just been posted and we have even more archives of training.

This month, we are offering training in:

• All I want for Christmas is a New Camera - LIVE at 11/30 8pm
• Creative Camera Modes - LIVE at 12/8 8pm
• Archival Coffee Table Class - LIVE at 12/12 8pm
• Digital File Management - LIVE at 12/14 8pm

If you can't make these dates, the archive of these sessions will be posted the day after the live session. So just check back and download the archive for the low price of $4.99!

Holiday Portraits Archive is Live - Photography Training

Just in case you were interested....

The archive of the Holiday Portraits webcast is now published on the Learning Tab, under Archives. For the price of a Latte, you can learn how to take your families holiday portrait!

Enjoy and I will "see" you next week for the LIVE webcast on Holiday Cards. We will discuss all kinds of things like where to get them, sizes, paper, cost, etc. Fun! See you Monday at 8pm.

Kara

November's Training is Now Posted!- Online Photography Training

We have just posted our November training schedule out on the website. Go now to sign up for our one of our many FREE, LIVE webcasts or you can wait until they come out on archive and pay only $4.99 a piece to view the video. That is less than a large Starbucks and you learn something!

This month you can learn about the following:

• Holiday Portraits (LIVE on 11/17)
  
• Holiday Cards (design, development and printing) (LIVE on 11/22)
  
• All I want for Christmas is a new camera (camera suggestions for every budget)(LIVE on 11/30)

See the website for a description and more information on each of these webcasts.

Halloween Webcasts are Back! - Photography Training

Halloween is coming soon! Are you ready to take those story telling photos? Super cute up close photos or even just a photo that all of the kids are crying?

Come attend my LIVE webcast on So Scary, It’s Spooky Halloween informational session. It will give you all kinds of information on the upcoming holiday that you need. Topics to be discussed will be:

• -Tips and Tricks of Halloween photography
• -Jack O’Lantern photography
• -Ghosts, Goblins and Grownups
• -Trick and Treating
• -The Aftermath
• -Examples of Fall and Pumpkins

These webcasts will be very interactive sessions with a lot of discussion between attendees. These two LIVE sessions are free sessions. The archive session will be posted later for a small fee.

October 27th at 11:30am

October 28th 8pm

We will have a lot of fun, as we did this last year and a lot of my mom’s requested that we do this again. So here we go! So signup on this link. I will see you at one of these LIVE sessions or you can download the archive next week.

Happy Halloween!

50/50/50 is coming soon! - Woodlands TX Family Photographer

50/50/50 is coming in August!

The Fstop site will be transformed into all things 50! I'm taking on a huge project called 50x50x50.

Where I will be visiting 50 parks around the Woodlands in 50 days. So for 50 days on the blog you will get to "visit" 50 parks around the Woodlands without leaving your living room, you will find more information right here on the blog and website. This is a great way to "visit" all of the parks in the Woodlands without having to actually go to all of them yourself.

What will happen:
I choose the park, (a different location everyday). If you would like your family showcased in one of these park settings, I have started posting the schedule on the calendar and you can book your session for a much discounted fee ($50). I start these August 21st! You just have to be adventurous, as we will be exploring the park together. And the great part is, I will be posting an 8x10 image of that session on the blog for sale for $50 (you will get this 8x10 for FREE). Hence the 50/50/50. At the end of the 50x3, I will put together a Woodlands coffee table book with all 50 images and make that book available to all, for you guessed it! $50. Sounds exciting huh?

When?
So want to know the schedule, click here to go directly there. We start August 21st, so make sure you are in August! I will be at a different park everyday. Fridays are "You choose" days, where you can dictate which park I will explore. I can't wait to see all of the beautiful parks. Most of these sessions will be done at sunset, due to the heat.

So check back here often to see the fantastic park "Previews" so you can see which park to take your kiddos to next!

Wednesday Word of the day! - Photography Associations

In the photography field, there are a lot of acronyms to deal with. I call it alphabet soup. Sometimes I have no idea what people are talking about. So today I wanted to explain what a few of the Photo organizations acronyms you might see behind photographers names might mean. Kara Powell PPA, WPPI, NAPCP

These are a few that I am a part of, but there are a ton out there. I encourage all of you that are interested in photography to go out and look for yourself. You will learn so much. Learning is such a fantastic part of life. Of course, being a teacher by trade, you know that I enjoy being a lifelong learner, I will always be attending classes and conferences. But know that some of you might not enjoy that. Good news! It is not all about that. Some of these organizations have forums, events, magazines, etc. Some you just pay the annual fee and you are a member.

Professional Photographers Association (PPA) and local chapters - http://www.ppa.com/
PPA is one of the most well know Photography associations. It has so much information, and coverage in the annual fee you will be impressed. I highly suggest if you can only afford one, this is the one you get.

Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) - http://www.wppionline.com/Default.aspx
This is the conference I just went to, but it is also an association. I will be posting more on this soon, but wow! Very impressive. If you are at all interested in weddings or portraits. Check this out.

Texas Photo Forum - http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum/ - A good place to ask questions and it is free!

National Association of Professional Child Photographers (NAPCP) - http://napcp.com/photographers/
A great location for parents to look for a quality children’s photographer and for children’s photographers to advertise and learn. I am a member here, because of the discounts, blogroll and advertising.

Others
Texas Professional Photographers Association (TPPA) - http://www.tppa.org/pageone.htm
Professional Photographers Guild of Houston (PPGH) - http://www.ppgh.org/index.php

Upcoming classes!

Just a reminder that we have a class on Monday night! coming to you live from Vegas!

I will be in Vegas for WPPI, but I will still be holding the Photo Crafts webinar on Monday at 7pm. There is still plenty of time for you to go and register.

www.woodlandsfstop.com

I hope to see you guys online and I will give you an update on what I'm learning straight from Vegas too.

Also, I am in the process of adding so new fun classes to the site! Things like Photo ABC books, How to turn your Photos into Coloring Pages and Photo Jewelry.

So go check it out. March and April are going to be busy!
Kara

Wednesday Word of the day! - Filters

Let's talk filters.

If you don't have a filter on your lenses, drop everything you are doing right now and get one. These will save your lenses! For only the fact that they are protecting your lenses, that is huge. But there are also all kinds of cool filters that do really cool effects. So lets talk.

Filter Type	Primary Use	Common Subject Matter
Linear & Circular Polarizers	Reduce Glare Improve Saturation	Sky / Water / Foliage in Landscape Photography
Neutral Density (ND)	Extend Exposure Time	Waterfalls, Rivers under bright light
Graduated Neutral Density (GND)	Control Strong Light Gradients Reduce Vignetting	Dramatically Lit Landscapes
UV / Haze	Improve Clarity with Film Provide Lens Protection	Any
Warming / Cooling	Change White Balance	Landscapes, Underwater, Special Lighting

I currently have UV filters on all of my lenses for everyday use. It is mainly for protection from dirt, fingerprints, etc. When I purchase a new lens, I purchase the filter to go with it. In my opinion it is well worth the $15.

I buy screw-on filters, which you buy in the size of lens diameter. Just turn your lens to face you and there will be a # on the rim. Probably something like 50mm. With this option, the filter will only work for this specific lens. There is also an option of front filters, which you have to hold infront of the lens when you shoot. I do not find this as convenient.

I plan on buying some play filters for my bag in the future like warming, cooling and linear but just haven't gotten there yet.

If you would like more information on these. There is a great article online at this link.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lens-filters.htm

Click'n Moms

You have probably heard me speak of them before, but if you are interested in learning more about your camera and join a HUGE forum. This is the one to join.

Click'n Moms is a fabulous forum that will help you not only learn your camera but also be comfortable taking photos and discussing your work. I highly recommend it. Click on the icon below to learn more information about it.

Enjoy!

Wednesday Word of the day! JPEG vs. RAW

Ok, a day late, I know, but I hope you will forgive me.

Since we talked a little about the different coloration you can do to photos last week, let's talk about image compression this week. As long as you haven't been living under a rock for the last couple of years you have probably heard of JPG or GIFs.

JPEGS - Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is the name of the committee that designed the standard image compression algorithm. JPEG was designed for compressing full color or grey scale digital images of natural scenes. It doesn't work so well with non-realistic images, such as cartoons however. JPEG does not handle the compression of black and white (1 bit-per-pixel) images or moving pictures.

The other choice often used is GIF. A graphic file format mainly used for Web graphic or small animated (GIF) files. Not good for photographs as it only contains a maximum of 256 colours.

Most cameras output directly to JPEG or RAW format. RAW files store the unprocessed image data at 12 bits per channel. Directly from the camera's imaging chip to its memory storage device. RAW image files must be processed with special software before they can be viewed or printed. These are normally in the form of a plug in for Photoshop or as a standalone product. . The advantage is that you have the ability to alter the white balance, exposure value, colour values, contrast, brightness and sharpness as you see fit before you convert this data into the standard JPEG or TIFF format. Professional digital photographers import RAW image data directly into photo-editing programs like Photoshop CS (which comes with a Camera Raw plug-in that works with most popular RAW formats.)

If you are serious about your photography, I would suggest shooting in RAW, it gives you so much more freedom and flexibility. Yes, it takes up more hard drive space, but hard drives are cheap! Especially when that perfect shot is just slightly off and you need to tweak something. RAW will save you most every time.

Wednesday Word of the day! - Sepia

I get this one a lot!

What is sepia?

Sepia. The (brownish) mono toned effect seen in images from the original 19th and early 20th Century cameras. This is now a special feature often found as a special image effect on some digicams and/or editing software. A lot of professional photographers offer tinted photographs, like sepia.

Sepia is similar to the black and white effect. Some of the higher end cameras can do this effect in camera. Look around in your menu.

Wednesday Word of the day! - Megapixels

How important are all those megapixels?

What are megapixels anyway? Digital cameras capture photographs on image sensors, rather than on film (ahh, the old days!).

The megapixel count is how many individual ‘dots’ are there on that image sensor, making up the photograph. 3 Megapixel cameras have 3 million dots on their sensors. 4 Megapixel cameras have 4 million dots . . . and so on.

You might assume then, that those extra million pixels will improve your digital photography. Not by much it won’t!I’ve shown the relative difference in size between image sensors below. The difference between a 3 and 4 megapixel camera isn’t all that much at all.

When you are making your digital camera comparison, don’t let the sales staff sell you on Megapixels alone! With a difference of only 1 million pixels you should look at what else the camera offers.

Other things to consider about the number of megapixels

Right, now we’ve got an understanding of pixels and sensor size, there are two things you should consider when making your digital camera comparison:

• How important is picture quality to you?
  
• How will you view your photographs, computer screen or print?

Picture quality:
This is determined by more than just the number of pixels. In fact, some cameras with a lot of megapixels produce worse pictures than cameras with fewer. The reason is twofold:

First, the more pixels crammed onto an image sensor, the smaller each individual pixel must be. The pixels are so small it’s difficult to accurately record the light hitting them. The results are what we call in digital photography ‘noise’ and ‘purple fringing’. (NB: Noise is a grainy effect to photographs, purple fringing is when light areas of the photograph bleed into the dark areas.)

Second, the quality of lenses. The best sensor in the world will be useless without a good lens to focus light onto it. At the same time, a lesser sensor, but with a good lens in front of it is capable of taking very good photographs.

How will you view your photographs?:

If you plan to use digital photography to take photographs that you will only ever view on screen, then you won’t need many pixels. A standard 15” monitor will be 1024 pixels wide, and 768 pixels high. The total is only 0.8 Megapixels. No point buying a 6 megapixel camera if you only need 0.8 of them!

Maybe someday you'll want to print them out

One day you may well decide to print the results of your digital photography. Most people do at some point, and therefore you’ll need to think carefully about the number of pixels when making your digital camera comparison.

The holy grail for printing is a resolution of 300 dots per inch. You will still get a good print from around 240 dots per inch though.

What does this mean for you in terms of megapixels? Have a look at the table below which shows how big a print you can realistically make:

Megapixels: (MP)	Quality prints up to this size:
minimum of 2MP	6” x 4”
minimum of 3MP	7” x 5”
minimum of 6MP	10” x 8”
minimum of 8MP	12” x 10”

Excerpt from Digital Photography tips.net

Wednesday Word of the day! ISO

What is ISO? ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor, the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain and vice versa. Lower # = less noise.

Depending on your camera’s make and model will play a HUGE roll in how high you can go and still remain “safe”. When I started out with my Canon Digital Rebel, I couldn’t even think about going over 400ISO without grain. My 50D worked well up to about 800ISO.

Play with your camera and find your “max”.

There are of course instances when you will have no choice but to go above what you are happy with. Indoor sporting events, a wedding perhaps, maybe even a dim clients home.

Because ISO is part of the triangle of light, changing your ISO greatly effects the two other key points, as will adjusting any or all of the points Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.

Let’s setup a mental situation with poor light. Your local high school has asked you to shoot the Championship Basketball game Friday night. You know that the lighting is pretty poor and there is going to be a ton of quick moving action. Let’s determine which point of the triangle will be most important to us. I’m going to go with shutter speed. We are not going to want Jim Three Pointers to be blurry as he take that game winning shot. We want to capture that moment in time. Let’s bump the shutter speed to 1/500, maybe even 1/1000. You haven’t touched your aperture yet, it’s set at f/7 and your ISO is at 100 (haven’t touch that yet either). Shoot. WAY to underexposed. Remember that we want to leave ISO as our last ditch ever, so lets bump the Aperture down a whole lot. We can take that down to f/4 or even f/2.8 Wow! What a difference. MUCH more light coming in to the camera but still not perfectly exposed. Last resort, ISO…bump the ISO from 100 to 400. HUGE difference. Now shoot away!!

If you are in a low light situation that does not require a super fast shutter speed, get yourself a tripod! I know, its yet ANOTHER piece of equipment that you just don’t feel like lugging around, but you will be so thankful you did! Situation: Maternity session, clients home little light coming through the small itty bitty windows on a dark, stormy day. That small bit of light is hitting mom’s belly just right. Camera settings: Shutter Speed: 1/125 Aperture: f2.8 ISO: 200. You need just a bit more light coming into your camera. First thought, bump the ISO to 400 or higher, say a prayer and hope for no noise. IF you had your trusty tripod, you could easily break the hand held shutter speed rule (remember never put your shutter speed less than your aperture length or you risk some nasty shake blur). Hook that bad boy up to your tripod and you can drop the shutter speed down to 1/30 without any shake (as long as mom-to-be is a good listener and can sit still) ISO remains at a safe no-noise level.

The only way to get the hang of these tips and tricks is to get out the camera and play. Eat, Sleep, Breathe the triangle. When you get on location, take a big deep breath, review your surroundings, set your camera settings, check your settings, check ‘em again and start shooting, making adjustments as you go.

Aperture, Shutter Speed ISO. Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO. Just keep saying it, out loud if you have to. You’ll be shooting manual in no time…with PERFECT exposure!

Taken from PropInsanity

iPhone Contest! - Woodlands fStop

Alright, I just was playing with my iPhone and I had a great idea. Since we all are on these things all of the time, why not have a contest with a photo from here! I know you all have cameras on your phone. It doesn't have to be an iphone, so that doesn't get you off the hook. And we all know that the quality on these things are not great. But you will be amazed at the things that people can do.

So get out there and shoot! You have until Feb 1. I will come up with some small gift for the winner. But in the mean time, I want to see some new participants. Get your friends involved, or maybe even your hubby. When you have your favorite one or two, send them to me. Hey, if you get two friends to send them in, let me know and I will give you your next webinar FREE.

And please, no shooting while driving. That is just bad safety.

Here is a funny one from Caden. That is a cereal puff in his nose. :)

Wednesday Word of the day! - Shutter Speed

Let's discuss shutter speed today.

Most think of needing to know about shutter speed when taking photos of action. If you are just starting out, the mode with the man running is tweaking your shutter speed, it is called the Action Mode. When taking a photo of a moving subject, changing the shutter speed can change the look of an image and help the look of the photo.

Using a fast shutter speed, tiny fraction, will freeze the action (1/1000). If a slow shutter speed, big fraction, is selected, movement is captured (1/2).

Here are suggested shutter speeds for photographing a variety of subjects.

SUGGESTED SHUTTER SPEEDS
TO FREEZE ACTION*	TO CAPTURE MOTION**
Children - 1/250 - 1/1000 seconds	Amusement park rides: +/- one second
Moving water/waterfalls: 1/1000 seconds or more	Moving water/waterfalls: 4 or more seconds
Sporting event: 1/500 - 1/2000 seconds	Fireworks: 1/2 - 4 seconds
Birds in flight: 1/1000th a second and above	Moving cars at night: 8-10 seconds
	Night photography - one or more seconds

* The closer action is to your digital camera, the faster the shutter speed is needed.

To help prevent images from becoming blurred, set the shutter speed faster than the focal length. For example, a zoom lens set at 200mm requires a shutter speed of at least 1/200 second to avoid a blurred image.

** Tripod or other camera support is recommended whenever using slow shutter speeds. Also use the self-timer or remote to trigger the shutter to prevent camera movement.

Holiday Contest Winner - Woodlands fStop Contest

After 76 votes... We officially have a winner!

With 33 of the 76 votes the fStop Fan Favorite is #1 by Jill T. Congrats Jill. I have your gift certificate and will contact you soon.

And since I'm the judge, I'm going to allow 2 Judge's Pick's. #5 and #10. #5 is by Liz A. I choose this one for it's simplicity. Sometimes less is more. And #10 is by Michele B. I choose this for the purity of the moment. The lighting is perfect, the pose, and you know I'm a sucker for newborns. Congrats Michele and Liz.

Ok and a final congrats to all of the ladies that participated in the contest. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there and do this. So thank you ladies for participating. And I hope it encourages all of you ladies out there to get out there, shoot and participate in these contests! They are fun!

Wednesday Word of the day! Aperture

Aperture is measured and set in F-stops. When you purchased a lens you probably thought what the heck does the 1.8 in the Canon EF 50mm 1.8 description mean? That is your MAX aperture. Now I told you this was confusing, and you might be saying MAX aperture, MAX means BIG, that doesn’t sound like the MAX, that's like the lowest number ever! Remember all of the fStop stuff from last week?

Now there are a couple of factors to keep in mind, when playing with your Aperture.

1. Keep your subjects on the same plane. Your Depth Of Field will vary greatly based on how close or far your subject is to the background and/or other subjects in the photo. Keeping your subjects on the same plane, gives you a better chance of getting multiple subjects in your focus area with little numbers. Especially with a MAX aperture, you are more likely to get someone out of focus unless everyone is sitting next to each other.

You can see that the by moving the subjects backward and away from your main point of focus, even at the same aperture, changes your DOF. Imagine you have your subject sitting in a garden. The surrounding flowers would become more and more blurred as you move your subject closer to you and further from the garden. Get closer to your subject and your subject further from the background for optimal blur.

Helpful Tip: Change your Aperture number to match the number of subjects in your photo. 1 person, have at it and play with everything you’ve got. 3 people (try to keep them on the same plane!), start out at f/3.2, 5 people, f/5.0 and so on. This little tip can help you keep all your subjects in focus while still playing with your DOF.

2. Changing your Aperture effects light.

When you make changes to your aperture, you will need to compensate with changes to your shutter speed and or ISO. You will hear many people say, “I love that lens for low-light situations”. Those lenses have little numbers as their MAX aperture, which means…all together now, more light gets in there and these lenses let you keep lower ISO’s and faster shutter speeds in low conditions because the MAX aperture compensates for some additional light.

3. Every lens has a sweet spot. Although I like small #s for creamy backgrounds, I found that each of my lenses has an aperture setting that just, well ROCKS! Example…my 50mm 1.4 stops down to a MAX aperture of 1.4. When I put that bad boy on my camera I thought, I will never shoot with a “bigger” number, I am sticking with 1.4 all the way. We’ll I prefer my eyes sharp as tacks! So I practiced and played and then it happened. I shot a session at f/2.8 and I haven’t gone back since!

Go play! Share some tips an tricks!

Information taken from Prop Insanity

What the Holiday's Mean to Me Contest - Vote!

You know you missed them! Here is the first contest of 2010!

Theme: What the Holiday's Mean to Me

Prize: $50 gift certificate to Olive Garden

Good luck ladies, you all did a great job, your holidays looked fabulous and congrats to the new mommies in the bunch, I can't wait to see those babies grow up.

Voting ends on 1/18 at midnight.

Making memories and creating new ones!

Passing on our faith and traditions

Serious Santa

Santa's Little Helper

Simply, Christmas.

Making Memories on the Family Holiday Hike

Magic of Christmas Eve

Anticipation of Good Things to Come

Christmas in the South

The best presents can't be bought.

Caden turns 1!

I can not believe that is has been a year, since I met my little miracle for the first time. I remember that first day so vividly. Waking up in the middle of the night in labor, welcoming him after 5 hours, waiting 6 hours before I could hold him due to him being in the NICU. Oh it was a long day, and a long night, as I just held him close to me, once I did finally get my hands on him.

And now, a full year later, we have gone through and learned so much. Being a first time mom, I was so green at so much. But we made it through and we are still standing!

For all of you moms that are still in the middle of those sleepless nights, hang in there. They will end. You are headed for some fun times ahead. Today was a great example of that. We had many moments of laughter this weekend. He is getting so smart and fun to be around. Here is a few photos from his first birthday today.

Enjoy those little ones, they grow up way too fast!

Kara

Wednesday Word of the day!

A new year, brings new things. And one new thing at fStop is the Wednesday Word of the day.

So what better word to start with, than the word that started it all.

fStop.

Aperture or what is sometimes called fStop is one of the more confusing parts of how cameras work, so let's make it easy.

Aperture settings are expressed as decimal numbers, and works opposite to the way you’d think – a higher number lets in less light than a lower number. In between it is what is known as the f-stops, or aperture settings – numbers like f1.6, f2.2, f8.0, f16.0, with many in between. Different lenses can

have different apertures – for example, a cheaper lens may only open to f4.0, not letting in as much light as a more expensive lens that will open to f1.4.

Changes to aperture will effect depth of field, which is why most people want to learn it first. Do you want your background to be blurry and the person to be in focus? This is depth of field. The smaller the fStop, the more blurry the background.

So if you have a really expensive lens (f/1.4) and you shoot your child in front of some trees, he or she will be in focus and the trees will be really blurry. Most likely some of their face will be out of focus as well, since it is such a high aperture.

Happy 2010!

Happy New Year everyone!

I can not believe that 2009 is over and we are starting a new decade. So with a new start, comes a lot of new things. We are officially launching around mid-Jan. So stay tuned. We are just waiting for the website to be done. There are some great things happening here in 2010.

Remember, that you have until 1/8 for the holiday contest and we have all kinds of webinars in Jan. The website will be up soon, so you can sign up!

So from our family to yours, happy new year and we hope that you keep all of your resolutions for a least a month or two.