Books…Candles…Pinecones…Action!
I was so late in taking down my Christmas decorations…and I finally decided that today I was going to de-Christmas my mantel as well. I’m still loving the wintery look, so I used some greenery, pinecones, candles and mercury votive holders but I added some books to the mix this time. Winter is a time when I read a lot more than I do the rest of the year, so the decoration fits my personality in the great room.
Putting my favorite $12 sunburst mirror in the center, I filled out the rest of the mantel with a collection of antique books and some “new” antique books, candles and evergreen sprigs from my backyard.
These are nighttime images, so the glow of the candles warmed up the shots a lot, which I do kind of like because it’s closer to what it actually looks like in the room. I had to also change the ISO setting (I had it 100, so I upped to 400). – the higher the ISO, the more sensitive the camera will be to low light situations. You don’t want to use a high ISO number because the picture will get too grainy then.
But I had so much trouble with the White Balance – I kept getting cooler “green” shots and that was so wrong. I realized I had to fiddle with (notice my grand photography lingo here!)…or rather “adjust” the colors on the White Balance setting. I had had it on auto – but that wasn’t working. I finally changed it to shooting in “incandescent” because I did have some lights on…and then there were the candles! I warmed up the shots by adjusting the temperature setting that comes up.
I have a long way to go but hopefully you will learn some things along with me. Let me know if some of my photography issues (and how I figure out what to do!) is useful to you. I know there are bloggers out there still using Iphones and point and shoot cameras…who do want to venture into the DSLR world. Let me hear from you – I will post what I learn!
