Welcome to July’s Wandering Camera linky party. Thank you so much for sharing your photos, and also for leaving such lovely comments.

The month of May ended with me caring for my post-surgery kitty Taffy, and that continued into June. The first couple of weeks I was home with him the whole time. We cuddled together;  he purred, while I worked or read. He healed exceptionally well and fast. Thank you so much for your well wishes!

We had some spectacular cloud formation in the early part of the month. It was wonderful to be outside working in the yard under the canopy of passing clouds. I also visited my beloved park to be a bit closer to the trees and plants. At first glance it looks like the summer dryness is all-consuming, but I keep on finding new plant life every time I look closer.

It was also a busy month for me, designing custom patterns and working on the events happening here. I mentioned them on my earlier Summer Events And Finishes post.

It was nice to take a break here and there with the camera in my hand.  So here they are – photos for the month of June in chronological order –

1. First flower of the season on my mini-rose plant

2. Glass lights on my neighbour’s patio, lit up by the afternoon sun

3. New mittens, I have been wearing them regularly

4. Eve’s Pudding – our new favourite!

5. Wonder what story the cloud-quill will write

6. My new paintbox, a gift from my husband

7. Taffy sticking his tongue out at the world (or at me) after his stitches were removed.

8. Blooming teasel. I have yet to find one that is completely covered with the white blossoms.

9. Even on overcast mornings, these flowers are bright blue

10. It’s always a pleasure to see Montague relaxing. He had a hard life before he joined our family.

11. Iridescent clouds

12. Found a new park with beautiful big trees

13. Moon and a jet

14. Violin watercolour sketch

15. Dry straw, new flowers

16. Dew-covered buds warming up in the early morning sun

17. My husband is off to go racing for the weekend

18. Bowl of cloud

19. A touch of cloud-softened sunlight on the rose

20. Charlie! ( I have no words to describe this )

21. Floating At Dawn, a June finish

22. Coming around the dark corner for some sunlight

23. Backlit grass ( I’m still playing with grass photo composition )

24. Yarrow everywhere

25. Afternoon walk

26. Growing roots on a cut Basil

27. Twin Suns of Tatooine

28. Charlie trying to cause trouble!

29. Above the clouds

30. Gently waving in the morning light

Since this is my first post in July, I thought I’d mention the two events that are coming up this month.  Sarah from Confessions of a fabric addict is hosting a Christmas in July Blog Hop.  It will be running from the 14th – 24th with lots of fun projects, big and small.  My day is on the 18th.

Then the Lego Harry Potter quilt along starts on July 28th.

Exposure Compensation

A lot of times I find myself taking photos when light isn’t perfect. That typically results in over-exposed or under-exposed photos. I am not very fond of being sloppy on the field and then covering up my mistakes during post-processing. I would rather at least try to take a good photo to begin with. For that reason I use the Exposure Compensation feature of the camera all the time.

I talked about ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed being the three pillars of a well-exposed photo. Your camera picks a combination of these three that should theoretically result in a good photo. That is often not the case.

It may pick a high ISO resulting in photos with too much grain/noise. Aperture may be too low, so parts of the image may be out of focus. If the shutter speed is too low, you get a blurry photo of moving objects or even a blurry photo of stationary objects, if you find yourself without a stand.

Sometimes, the camera simply gets it wrong and picks settings that result in either over- or under-exposed photos.

So I pick my own settings by using the exposure compensation as a guide.

This is a picture of exposure compensation on your camera.

Although the mark at 0 works most of the time, it is not always right.

If your photos are overexposed, then you probably want to take photos 1 or 2 notches under 0 to avoid that.  I find that to be true in broad daylight.

In low light, you would want to go a little over 0 to get all the detail.

Cameras with full manual setting

You will see something similar to the exposure compensation picture above, either through your viewfinder, or on your LCD screen. You can move the notch by changing your ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

If I am doing landscape photography where I don’t really care about the shutter speed, I typically set a low ISO value to avoid grain, a high aperture value to get a fully focused photo and then I set the shutter speed. Of course if that value is too low, I use a stand.

For moving objects such as wildflowers, I start with a high shutter speed, then set the aperture and lastly move the ISO to get a well-exposed and focused photo.

The order of settings changes depending on your subject matter.

Point and shoot cameras

Most cameras nowadays have a setting for exposure compensation. On Canon cameras it is typically denoted by a +/- switch.  Check the manual of your camera to find the specific setting.  Use that to change the exposure.  That will make a huge difference, believe me!

Couple of extra tips

If you are not getting enough shutter speed even after setting high ISO and low aperture values, you can set the exposure compensation to 1 or 2 notches under 0. That will increase the shutter speed.  Although you will get a slightly under-exposed photo, you can increase the brightness and contrast using a basic photo-editing software.

For snow photos, over-expose a little.  That will result in photos with dazzling white snow.

On cloudy days, over-expose a little to avoid dull photos.

In bright sunlight during midday outside, under-expose a little to avoid bright spots.

Take multiple exposures if needed.  You can always delete the extra photos.

I hope you find this helpful.  As I have been saying, play with the settings to see the difference.  Once you get used to it, you are going to love it!!

Now it’s your turn to share your photo posts. I always look forward to seeing them.

Badge to share on your post and website

You can add any number of links to your posts from the previous month. The posts should have photos in them, with a story or anecdote. Your project photos (quilting, sewing, painting, knitting, etc.) are most welcome. You can also write a new post to link up. Please do not link up posts that are older than the previous month, they will be removed.

Please make sure to include the badge or a text link back to this site on each post that you link up. You can also add the badge to your blog. I am happy either way as long as you link back :-)

Spread a little encouragement amongst each other.

I will leave the link-up open for two weeks.

Wandering Camera is a monthly event that will run on the first Thursday of every month. The next post and link-up will be on the 4th of August. If you follow me via email, bloglovin or facebook, you will get a reminder.

Have fun!!

I am also linking up on Photo Friday, Life Thur Lens, Through My Lens, Our World Tuesday and Friday Photo Journal along with with other linky parties on my sidebar.

Welcome to June’s Wandering Camera linky party. Thank you so much for linking up and sharing your photos.  I love photography, so it’s a lot of fun to see and read about what everyone sees through the lens.

In my attempt to be outside and continue to take photos, I had to make a change in May.  I am not a morning person, so asking me to get up at 5:15 AM regularly will likely result in a disaster of some sort.  However, with the approaching summer it is getting too hot for me to be outside in the afternoon.  So I am up before dawn to go to the park for running at daybreak.  I may moan and groan to get out of the bed, but one look at the misty landscape around me with the Sun trying to break through the night’s cloud layer brings a big smile on my face.  Every time!!

However, just as I was starting to get used to going out in the mornings, I had to put a skidding halt to it during the last week of May.  I am taking care of a kitty post-surgery (not Montague).  So, photos had to be taken mostly around the house during those days.

Hope you enjoy this month’s collection of photos.  They are, as usual, in chronological order.

1. Mustard flowers

2. Peacock stationery from Florence, collected during my first-ever overseas trip

3. I love Magnolia flowers, the petals are so fragrant

4. Balloons overhead

5. Sunrise through dark clouds

6. The only glimpse of the pink setting Sun during the whole day

7. Raindrops on grass – looks more like an alien sea-creature

8. Star Thistle is not nearly as pretty as Cotton Thistle, but I still love the colour

9. A glimpse of red

10. Kitty paws are cute, huge tufted Maine Coon paws are even cuter

11. It’s starting to turn yellow and brown around here

12. Misty morning

13. 18-year-old whisky, may all Friday the13ths be this good

14. Red-winged blackbirds by the river

15. River trail, lined with mustard blooms

16. Green Teasel, I had only spotted the dried ones until now

17. Knitted sweaters doubling as kitty bed for Charlie

18. Hot air balloon catching the first ray of sunlight

19. Rising sun lighting up the misty grounds

20. Homemade soap at last

21. Blissfully sunbathing, unaware of the upcoming surgery

22. I love red in nature

23. And yellow flowers

24. Lovely jasmines

25. Time for travel planning

26. New Zinnia

27. Comforting – warm colours and they remind me of my grandmother

28. One of these is unlike the others

29. “Are you done yet? I would like to close my eyes!!”  I love those blue eyes!

30. Too hot to be outside, so playing with paint inside

31.  Addicted to thyme, it’s human catnip for me!

Apparently all the yellows and reds from this month’s photos seeped into other things.  I had wanted to make this quilt in a completely different colourway.  However, the urge of using red and yellow was too strong, so I gave in at the end.  Funny how sometimes your surroundings affect your creative mood so much!

Shutter Speed

I had mentioned in last month’s post that a well-exposed photo is a combination of three settings – ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed. I covered the topic of ISO in March and Aperture in May.  Lets talk about the last factor – Shutter Speed.

Setting Shutter Speed

You will need a camera with either M (Completely Manual) or Tv (Time Value Priority) mode to set the Shutter Speed manually. In M mode you can set both Aperture and Shutter speed yourself. In Tv mode you only get to set the shutter speed. Based on your setting, the camera sets the Aperture to get a well-exposed photo.

Amount Of Light

You probably already know this – More light equals faster shutter speed, much more conducive to taking any photo.  When there is less ambient light, you will have to keep the shutter open longer.  Taking a photo with longer shutter speed is usually much harder to do without a stand.

Still Vs. Moving Objects

Shutter speed becomes less important with still objects.  If you are taking a photo of a building or a mountain, you can leave the shutter open for a long time on a stand and not worry about blurring since neither object is moving.

With moving objects shutter speed becomes a bit more important.  The longer the shutter stays open, more blurry the moving object is going to be.  For example, when I was taking wildflower photos during windy days, I had to keep my shutter speed at least at 1/250 sec.   The moving flowers became too blurry otherwise.   You will notice that when you take photos of indoor events, people always end up being blurry.

Aperture, ISO And Shutter Speed

If you remember from my post about aperture, it determines the sharpness of the photos as well as the brightness.  Higher aperture gives you sharper photos but reduces light and vice versa.

In situations where you want sharp pictures AND your shutter speed is not fast enough, you will need to set your ISO to a higher number. That will enable you to set the aperture to a higher number while keeping a fast enough shutter speed to obtain a well-exposed photo.

A Little Trick

This one requires you to relax and needs a bit of practice.  if your shutter speed is still low even after setting the ISO and aperture, you can do this to take a halfway decent photo –

Relax your shoulder and arms and as you are breathing out slowly, press the shutter release button to take the picture.  I find myself being much more stable as I am breathing out. I sway too much when I try to hold my breath.   Of course this doesn’t work when the shutter speed is closer to a full second, but most times I can still manage to take a photo without a stand.

Image Stabilizer

A lot of point-and-shoot cameras and lenses come with image stabilization now-a-days.  This helps a lot with taking photos in low-light situations.  So if you are shopping for a camera or lens, you may want to keep that in mind.

Keep playing with your camera settings and you will see the difference.  Change the shutter speed around and take photos, note how the photos get darker and lighter.  As I said before, photography is very hands-on.  I hope this encourages you to experiment with the manual settings on your camera a little more.

Now it’s your turn to share your photo posts. I always look forward to seeing them. Every photo is special because it suspends a moment and everyone sees the world around us differently! So don’t compare and contrast, just have fun and see the world that only your eyes can see!

Badge to share on your post and website

You can add any number of links to your posts from the previous month. The posts should have photos in them, with a story or anecdote. Your project photos (quilting, sewing, painting, knitting, etc.) are most welcome. You can also write a new post to link up. Please do not link up posts that are older than the previous month, they will be removed.

Please make sure to include the badge or a text link back to this site on each post that you link up. You can also add the badge to your blog. I am happy either way as long as you link back :-)

Spread a little encouragement amongst each other.

I will leave the link-up open for two weeks.

Wandering Camera is a monthly event that will run on the first Thursday of every month. The next post and link-up will be on the 7th of July. If you follow me via email, bloglovin or facebook, you will get a reminder.

Have fun!!

I am also linking up on Photo Friday, Our World Tuesday, Life Through Lens and Through My Lens along with other linky parties on my sidebar.