Author Archives: Jenna

The external flash: how I love it, count the ways

Do you want to improve your relationship with your DSLR camera? Take amazing pictures when there is practically no light in the room? Do you find yourself at parties or family events in the evenings, and every picture is turning out fuzzy because people just can’t sit still enough for your “candid” shots? I could fill up 50 million hard drives with the hideous fuzzy, dark pictures I’ve taken—or the pictures I’ve taken with a direct flash: washed out, red-eyed vamipiric looking people, with an end product that looks like I used a disposable camera (no offense to disposable camera users!). And then I wail: “but that was the amazing diiiiiiiiner with all our extended faaaaamily, and there’s not a single shot in fooooocus!” At which point I realize that whining is a very unappealing thing to do, and I promptly stop for the benefit of my long-suffering husband.

Let’s talk about light for a minute. Yes, natural light is best. Whether it’s faces or shots of delicious food concoctions, natural light just makes it all look good. This causes me much dismay since our apartment’s windows face east and only receive sunlight for a few hours during the morning while I am usually at work. By the time I get home, the apartment is shrouded in shadows. Our kitchen has a window facing west, and it only gets sunlight for about 10 minutes in the evening due to the constraints of the narrow alley out back (otherwise known as “dumpster trashland”). Normally I take my food over to the window ledge to get some pictures—but at some point the winter will come again, which means darkness descends before I even leave the office. Have I painted a grim enough picture for you?

Getting to the heart of it—the external flash will enable you to take amazing pictures in low-light situations. Like parties. Like my sister Heidi’s wedding rehearsal dinner last December. BEFORE THE EXTERNAL FLASH MY LIFE WAS AN EMPTY WASTELAND!

OK, well maybe not an empty wasteland—but I missed some wicked photo-ops. Am I sounding like an advertisement yet? Because this isn’t, really! These are my true emotions shining through.

At this point I would like to introduce you to the brilliant little piece of machinery called the Nikon Speedlight SB-600. I use it on my Nikon D5000. I’m not sure what the Canon external flash is called, but I guarantee they have something similar.

The Nikon Speedlight SB-600

Have you been told not to use a flash in your photography? I certainly have. But that only applies to a flash which fires directly at your subject! Your in-camera flash will tend to create the undesirable, washed-out lighting. Once I tried to take a picture of some delicious Pasta all Carbonara with my flash. It’s already a cream-colored dish, and the flash just made it look like a disgusting pile of pasty and slimy alien-innards. However, an external flash such as this one mounts on top of the camera and swivels. Which means you can point the flash upwards, where it bounces off the ceiling, creating enough light to get a great picture without washing out your subject.

Now I am going to illustrate the magic with two sets of three pictures—the first with no flash, the second with the camera’s built-in flash, and the third with my buddy the Nikon Speedlight SB-600.

Here is the first set:

No flash: fuzzy and not-quite-focused

Direct flash: ugly reflections, washed out colors

External flash. Aaaaaah.

Not yet convinced? Here is set two:

No flash: fuzzy, unfocused

Direct flash: washed out, ugly reflection

External flash: yes, please

Here is a picture of some friends taken with the external flash to just drive the point home. Pure magic!

Aaaah! The external flash is greeeeaaat!

 

The Bun

Heidi is pregnant. My little sister! She and her husband were the cutest babies on record, so it stands to reason that their offspring will pretty much cause everyone in sight to pass out from cuteness overload. Observe the cuteness, and fear for my future as the aunt of this baby–please look closely at the upper righthand picture of baby Mike (have some smelling salts handy):

Baby Mike

Baby Heidi

 

Heidi is in the middle ... Erica to the left, and me to the right

We all had names in the womb. I was always angry about mine:

Jenna=Spud

Erica=Muffin

Heidi=Biscuit (also the name of our 3rd cat)

It’s so convenient to name the little creatures. That way you’re not referring to “it” all the time, especially if you don’t know its gender or don’t want to know. Heidi and Mike have chosen wisely: they call it “the bun”. HOW ADORABLE IS THAT? Picture this:

“Good morning honey! How did you and the bun sleep?”

Or “Is the little bun taking a nap after that kickboxing tournament?”

Anyway, this has prompted discussions between my husband and me. What will we call our future baby-in-the-womb? The very first thing that popped into my brain was “the alien”. Or to be more cute “the little alien”. Because … isn’t that what it looks like? Anyone? Anyone? Yes, I know pregnancy is going to be beautiful and magical, in fact one day I want to experience it myself, but I can’t shake the idea of an extraterrestrial floating in some kind of organic space ship that’s in my belly. With weird feeding tubes all about. And I have to ask myself—do I want to be a space ship? With weird feeding tubes?

I’ll update you on all my conflicting emotions once I have one in the oven.

One day, when my future child is playing with Heidi’s child, just think of the discussions those two little cousins can have :

(Situation 1=alien is a boy)

Heidi’s little one: “Hey guess what, before I was born I was called ‘the bun’!”

My little one: “Oh yeah? Well I was ‘the alien’! Isn’t that awesome! My alien smashes your bun!”

Heidi’s little one: “Cool!”

(Situation 2=alien is a girl)

Heidi’s little one: “Hey guess what, before I was born I was called ‘the bun’! What were you called?”

My little one: [starts weeping uncontrollably] [beats chest] [tears out hair] “I was called . . . I was called the ALIEN!!! I think I’m going to go run away and join a band of anarchist pirate thieves [where a tragic love story and an untimely death will occur] because my parents don’t love me!! I’m a freak and I’m sorry for everything!”

Wow. I didn’t realize that my future little girl would be so scarred and that her pre-birth name would lead to her ultimate demise. I’d better come up with a cuter name. Pronto.

What did you name your pre-birth child? Was it “sweet pea” or “little dahlin”? For those of you who—like myself—have not yet reproduced, what do you plan on naming it? “Pea in the pod”? “Homunculus” or “hotcake”? Maybe I’ll name mine “pancake”—or even better “pamcake” as in “a wagon fulla pamcakes”.

On a side note, did you know that the baby in the womb has little fingernails at 4-5 weeks? These are the thoughts that make me swing between “ew, gross, my body becomes a sci-fi vessel for another being!” and “can I please have 5 babies immediately and name them Cutie, Patootie, Puddin’, Lovecakes, and Fred?”