Remember when I started this blog, I had grandiose ideas of things to talk about.

I wanted to teach you how to take better photos, what kind of cameras to get, what to wear in sessions, etc etc.

I also wanted to explain all those buttons and bells and whistles on your DSLR. Even why you should get one.

Then I sold my house, moved into a rental, moved out of the rental, moved into a camping trailer and got really stressed.

I still have all those ideas rolling around in my head and have moved my office into a local building in town with lights and heat ....... I am finally feeling inspired enough to begin the above list. 

Lets get on with it! Sheesh. What took you so long? 

I think you should take your camera (either fancy point and shoot, or DSLR) off AUTO for MANY reasons. I plan to shove all of them down your throat, but lets start with one today, shall we? 

If for no other reason, I think you should switch your camrea off AUTO and take control of how it works because it allows you to change your focal points.

Are you confused yet? Stay with me. 

AUTO decides what you want in your photo and what you think is important enough to focus on. This can really affect the final image. 

I want to choose what I want in focus, what I want to draw attention to, I want to have control........

Here, I will show you.

I shot both sets of these photos seated in the same place. I didn't change any settings. I just told the camera to focus on different places in the frame. 

How, do you ask?

When you look through your view finder, do you see little boxes, or X's or circles placed around the screen? Sometimes you will have 4 or 6 or 11 or 59.

If you have a DSLR, often times you can search your manual and find that you have options of how many of these awesome points you can see in your viewfinder. Some like more choices than others. Gasp. A manual? Yep, you have to grab it and look up focus points. Even my point and shoot has some of these options. Get your manual out and come back. 

Here is another example. All I did was toggle from one of those poitns in my viewfinder to another one. I told the camera to focus on another part of the photo. 

Now, there are other factors to this fous point lesson. Because I am shooting with a longer lens and an open apetrure, the difference is much more drastic.

Don't know what lens length and apeture are? Don't worry, we will cover all that in the weeks to come. I had to start somewhere. And since I shot these images a few weeks ago while sitting on my backside in the sand with the kids, I thought it was a great place to start. 

Even if you just see the difference and look up focus points in your manual, thats a good start. 

Learn something new today? Hope so

p.s.- for those who want to know the geeky details... I shot these on my Nikon D700 with a 24-70 2.8 lens. ISO 200. F3.2. 1/4000. 70mm