I Can Never Choose Just One

My bloggy friend who apparently lives in a Rubber Room is doing a fun photography project this week (head on over there if you'd like to join in).  She gave us the "assignment" to shoot stuff with COLOR, a shallow depth of field, and the proper white balance setting.  I also made it my personal challenge to do ZERO cropping after the shoot.  I've been relying too much on creative cropping after the fact - this time I wanted to get the shot right the first time.  In fact, I didn't want to do ANY post-shoot "production".  All I did to each of these was sharpen, add my watermark, and save to a smaller file for Blogger.  I had fun :)

I just got a new 50mm f1.4-22 lens, and absolutely LOVE it.  It's taking a bit of time to adjust to the no zoom thing, but I love the aperture flexibility.  Would you just listen to me talking about f stops?  Can I just take this opportunity to confess that it took me, oh, approximately 5.2 million YEARS to figure out the f-stop/shutter speed/ISO relationship?  And I have a friggin' degree in mechanical engineering, people.  You'd think it would have come a little easier than that for me.  See?  My brain is turning to mush in these mommy-hood years.  Not complaining - just a fact.

I also had fun playing with the white balance on my camera.  I don't like to sort through all the pre-set white balance adjustments.  I set mine to "custom", take a shot with something white in it, and select that white thing on my camera's screen.  The camera automatically says, "Okay, that thing is supposed to be white, so that means the white balance should be set at xyz".  Once I got used to it, it's actually faster to do it that way than guessing my way through all the other settings.

I like to keep my camera in "P" (Program) mode.  I can decide what my priority is, either shutter speed or aperture (in this case aperture), I set that thing to where I want it (in this case f 1.4), and the camera automatically sets the other function (in this case shutter speed).  Pretty cool.

Am I boring you with all my geek talk?  Yes?  Okay, well here are my shots for this assignment (all shots are at 50mm, f1.4, ISO 100, shutter speed in parentheses):

Apparently, no one told George and his buddies that the party is over (1/10):

Stellar Nutrition (1/20):

Some of my favorite colors ~ this little girl's eyes and cheeks (1/125):

Rebel (1/45):

The first quilt I made (1/45):

Puppet show wall hanging made my my very own mama.  It hung on my wall when I was a little girl, and now it hangs on my girls' (both 1/10):

PS.  This last shot is a great demonstration of depth of field.  The little girl in red is in focus, and everything in front of her and behind her is out of focus.  Lots in focus = high f number.  A little in focus (like this picture) = small f number.

Which one is your favorite shot?