Oh fun :)! I almost always use Aperture Priority mode. To really see what that lens can do, it's fun to open it up all the way to 1.8 and just shoot whatever, and it's just so cool :D! Like, if you have a necklace, with a pendant - spread it out, focus on the pendant. Take a pic of the rim of a glass, but focus on just one part of the rim. Who knew the rim of a glass could be so fun? Anyway, just gets you started. Oh, or put a bunch of votive candles in a row, one behind the other - and try focusing on first candle 1, then the 2nd etcetera - that's a neat practice too :).

HaHa...I am from the 60's and I cracked up at the "stare at the chalk" comment...many people did...:p

Oooh, I like these suggestions. That'll be great practice. :thumbup: I kept playing with the 50mm for while last night and I know need to work on distance from the subject.

Usually the site won't let you upload pics because they're too big and need to be resized. In the My Pictures forum, I think it's the third sticky down, are the guidelines for sizes and tips for resizing. I hope this helps - I would love to see pics of your baby! :)

Ashley at 15
 

This is a picture I took of Ashley last year. I will post a couple more. I usually bounce the flash off of a wall or a ceiling, or I use natural light. It still doesn't matter, because she's not crazy about the camera. It's difficult to get in a picture how animated she is. This was the first one that I was able to upload. Thanks very much for your help.

Lisa

I am hoping this works this time. The last picture was taken last week, but the first two were taken when she was 15.

Here are a few more pictures of Ashley. All of these were taken when she was 15 or 16 years old.

OMG!!! Ashley is absolutely precious! Her eyes are gorgeous, and that little face....so cute!! These are all great pics, I can't pic a favorite. Is that you with her in the one pic - I feel so much love in that one that it has to be you. I really hope you're going to be sharing many more pics of this little darling. :)

I will try to scan a few pictures of Ashley when she was younger. Since I only went digital two years ago, I only have pictures from when she was older as digital files. Thanks for looking at my pictures of my little baby girl.

It is me holding her so closely. It's awful of me, but I still like it because you can see how much I love her. I will try to have someone at work help me scan some of her puppy pictures. She was so beautiful and cute, but I still think she is. I had three, all with the same father, and not many people could tell them apart. Gracie was very tiny and Kiwi was a little bigger than Ashley, and they looked so different to me. Thank you so much for what you wrote.

I have to say Ashley looks terrific, no matter what her age!

I lost the light of my life, Becca, to a very aggressive cancer last year (she was 11). Alexander, my oldest, turned 14 just last week and I don't think I'll have much longer with him. He was attacked in my front yard by 3 large dogs when he was less than 2 years old. They did horrible damage to both knees and a hip before I could get him away from them. As a result, he's had severe arthritis most of his life, and the arthritis medicines aren't easy on their body. This winter has been very hard on him, and I'm not sure how much longer.....well, I can't talk about that right now.

I love how much you obviously love Ashley. I would tell you to treasure every single day with her, but I get the feeling you're already doing that. She is a very, very lucky little girl.

I really am so glad you found YT. You're the type of yorkie lover we need more of here.

I have to give credit to Lenora, too. She also been a HUGE help to us beginners and is so patient with us asking the same questions over and over...and over. Thanks Lenora!!!

She's taken some pics lately and I really want to learn how to achieve those same affects.

Is there ever a point you reach where you feel like you know all you want, that you don't need to learn anymore? I'm having so much fun now, I almost hope not. But, here I am playing on YT and not practicing with my camera and lenses....by all!! :D

I am so sorry to hear about Becca and also how Alexander is doing. It is truly heartbreaking, and I know the pain you are experiencing. I can tell how much you love your babies. I only saw pictures of Murphy and Chelsea, and they are gorgeous.

I know what you say about cherishing each day. That's what we do. I am a teacher, and I was trying to explain how much I related to The Little Prince when he realized how special his rose was. Ashley has some medical issues, but her doctor is wonderful and we are trying to keep her healthy. She has canine cognitive disorder. It only started a little over a year ago, but it has gotten worse since October. We started her on Anipryl, and it helps her a great deal. She requires a great deal of care, but we love her and will do anything for her. She is very responsive with us, and she is very affectionate too. She gets confused, but she goes in and out and is very alert too some of the time. Our biggest worry is the anxiety it is causing her and we are watching that very closely. Her doctor feels that we are doing the right thing by keeping her alive, and that of course is what we want, but we know we must do what is ultimately going to be best for Ashley. Right now she is happy most of the time. Ashley still loves going for walks, and even though she has some arthritis, she walks a couple of miles a day when the weather permits us to. It really helps her a lot. If you ever need anyone to talk to about Alexander or Becca, you can pm me. I know how difficult it is, especially when you love them as much as I can tell you do.
Lisa

there are so many ways to improve photography i learn something new everyday just by googleing & looking up how i want things to look I hope i don't run out of things to learn. :p:)

Playing with depth of field
 

It's great to experiment by using different apertures and lenses to see how images of ordinary things can be so different. I took the picture of the water bottle when I first got my Nikkor 50 1.4g. It was taken wide open at night with no flash, and I was testing out the bokeh. There's nothing special about it, but it was fun to take. I like the pictures of the tiny daffodils more, because of the natural light coming into the room. The one with two daffodils was taken with my 50mm lens, too, and the other two images were taken with my Nikkor 105mm macro. I played around with the depth of field on all of the flowers, and I like how abstract the one daffodil with little depth of field was. Flowers are fruit are great to use when you are playing with depth of field. There is a much faster learning curve with digital, because you get such instant feedback. Just keep practicing and have fun!

I really am thrilled with the camera, and I wish I had more time to devote to my photography. Really, the D90 is just as nice as my camera, though, and each of them is capable of taking wonderful pictures. It wasn't out when I got mine, and it definitely is better for someone who doesn't want to spend a lot of time editing their photos. The jpeg engine is more optimized to getting pictures right straight out of camera. With the D300, it was geared more for professionals, and Nikon felt that the professionals would more like to tweak the pictures the way they wanted them. I like the fact that the D300 is very rugged and can handle inclement weather, but the D90 also will do fine. I helped my friend pick out a camera, and she got the D3000. It takes beautiful pictures! The lenses run a little more, because it doesn't have the motor, but Nikon just released the 35 1.8 with a motor and also the new 85mm macro that I hear is great. They are slow in coming out with the new primes, but the ones that do are excellent.

Thank you so much for all of your warm wishes. I'd like to be able to contribute to this community, so feel free to ask questions. Again, I don't completely understand how the color channels work on the histograms, but I'd be happy to check into it, so if someone starts a thread, I'll do my homework and join in. It's something I have to do all the time with my job. I am a teacher, and I mostly teach 9th and 10th graders in resource room. I help my students with all of their work. To be able to do that, I must learn the material myself and be able to break it down so that I can make it understandable to my students. I think having a histogram is a valuable, useful tool.

Hmmm...Bonny, are you having trouble w/ the lens "hunting" around too much? Were you in reallllly low light? This lens does well in low light, but will have some limitations (you can also increase your ISO if in low light).

Also, the closest you can get w/ this lens is 1.5ft - you might already know that, but I had to refresh my memory too, so there ya go :).

Lisa, Ashley is just *ADORABLE* :)! I love seeing the love between you two! Just beautiful. She seriously "smiles" in many of her pics, it's so cute. Thanks for posting pictures - she is so lucky to have you as her Mama, it's clear you're so devoted to her care. (well, and of course, you're lucky to have her too :D)

Hunting around...yes, that's a good way to describe it. I figured that's what it was so I lowered the ISO. My instructor hates flash and wants us to learn to do without it - but of course I HAD to play around with my SB-400. I LOVE it!! :D I just can't believe how much better it is than the built in flash. And, I didn't realize that it tilted to different angles like it does. I've loved everything so much, I'm having a hard time deciding what my favorite piece of equipment is. :p

I didn't know that about the closest distance being 1.5 feet, but after playing with it I figured it must be something like that. I think my problem was being too far away from objects because the background wasn't blurring like I wanted. When I moved in a little closer the background blurred beautifully. I've mostly left the lens set on 1.8 but I did move it a few notches a couple of times so I can try to learn the different effects.

Also, I put the 70-300mm lens on for the first time last night. It was late and I was tired so I didn't play with it very much. But, I think this is another lens I'm going to have a lot of fun with. I'd really thought I would be leaving the 18-105mm kit lens on most of the time but now I'm not so sure. :rolleyes:

You know, while I waited all these months to be able to buy this camera, I kept thinking to myself "Do I really want to spend that much on a CAMERA?" Now, I could just kick myself for not doing it sooner. :p

When you get a chance, use your SB-400 outside for portraits when it is sunny out in the middle of the day. It helps a lot to fill in the shadows. You can use a foam core board instead if you have someone to hold it for you, since the sun hitting the white board will bounce the light back into the subject's face. I try to avoid midday sun, but if I can't, I mostly use my flash and it makes a big difference. The tilt on the flash also makes a big difference, especially if you are taking a picture of animals. You will be able to maintain the dark eyes if the flash is bounced, and the light is also softer and more diffused. If you are doing close portraits, you may need to keep the aperture on 2.8 with the 50mm to be able to get both eyes in focus. This may be too much information, so filter and use what interests you.

Your 70-300 lens will also achieve wonderful results, and it will get the kind of bokeh you are looking for. With the longer focal length, you are compressing the field of view and you can get great backgrounds.

Some people say you should take your 18-105 lens and set it at one focal length, possibly 35 mm for a little while just to learn. If you learn to use it at the one focal length and zoom with your feet, you will be more careful with composition. I started off with only a 50mm lens many years ago, so I had to do that. On a full frame camera, the 50 mm has approximately the same field of view as a 35mm on a crop. You could do this with your 50mm, but it may not be wide enough. You have so many great tools to use, and they each serve a purpose for different things, so you will definitely use them all. You made some excellent choices. I can see you have done your research and gotten a lot of great advice. Playing with one focal length might be something to try at one time. I am happy you are enjoying your camera so much. It is a wonderful hobby, and photographs also document so many important events in one's life.

Great book
 

I bought a book recently that I think is wonderful for people at all levels of photography. It's Bryan Peterson's latest one. I have Understanding Exposure, and I would recommend that one first, but this one seems to be a compilation of parts of all of his books. I haven't had a chance to read it, but I have looked through it and can tell that it is going to be another book I love. This is the link at Amazon: Amazon.com: Bryan Peterson's Understanding...

Lisa, Ashley is just *ADORABLE* :)! I love seeing the love between you two! Just beautiful. She seriously "smiles" in many of her pics, it's so cute. Thanks for posting pictures - she is so lucky to have you as her Mama, it's clear you're so devoted to her care. (well, and of course, you're lucky to have her too :D)[/QUOTE]

Thank you for your kindness. Ashley never fails to make me laugh every day. She brings such love and happiness into our lives. It is so refreshing coming to YT and meeting people who love their babies and are so willing to help others. I stumbled across this site when I was looking for information about yorkies and IBD a few months ago. In that time, I grew to care about the people who were posting about their sick yorkies and the babies themselves. Our lives completely revolve around our little girl, but she is worth it and we wouldn't want to have it any other way. I know that many people here feel the same as us.