Yesterday was a gorgeous autumn day, sky was blue, a gentle breeze in the air, and it was warm but not too warm. After doing my cleaning chores I decided we’d go for a drive in the Adelaide Hills - something I don’t normally do unless I’m visiting friends up there.

We ended up at Gumeracha which has a giant rocking horse, a toy factory and a small park with some animals.

It costs $2 to climb up the rocking horse and it wasn’t until I’d paid and climbed up a flight of stairs that I realised the rest of the way to the top meant climbing ladders. Naturally I was wearing a skirt! I was all right going up the ladder but going down freaked me out a bit more and as soon as we both got down to the bottom JJ wanted to go up again. Guess what, we didn’t.

The little animal park had an assortment of animals from swans, peacocks, one sheep, ducks, a couple of emus and a few wallabies. The animals are really tame because they’re used to being given food from strangers who walk through their park with bags or little buckets of pellets.

I did buy some things from the toy factory which I’ll show off in another post. I could have spent a whole lot more money in there as there was some great stuff.

JJ had been complaining of feeling sick and hadn’t eaten his lunch so we went straight home afterwards. I wonder if the windy roads made him feel a bit carsick and sitting in the back probably didn’t help him at all. He feel asleep on the way home as I negotiated my way down Gorge Road pulling over occasionally so the faster drivers could go past me.

And then he wouldn’t let me take his photo - talk to the hand mum.

My whole aim had been to take some photos of the gorgeous autumn colour but I think I was a bit too early for the majority of it. I saw some autumnal trees but not many and it’s hard to pull over sometimes, and to see when concentrating on staying on the road.

I’ll be doing the I like walks along the beach and quiet nights at home posts next!

I’m getting THIS close to buying myself a DSLR camera. I’m still loving using my sister’s Canon 350D and am 99% certain I’ll get the Canon 450D. I went and tried one out today and got a price for it. I’m sleeping on it! Update: I slept on it last night and I bought it - the Canon 450D twin lens kit, camera bag, extended warranty, another SD card. Am charging the battery as I type.

Anyway, yesterday morning, the birds were making lots of noise in a tree I’ve got out the back so I dashed inside, put the zoom lens on my sister’s camera and went outside to take photos.

Even though it’s blurry I love this photo. The zoom lens I was using doesn’t have an inbuilt image stabiliser and when (not if) when I get my camera I’ll be getting a lens with an image stabiliser function. Now I know when looking at camera websites what IS means

Firstly, I wish I could say that I was trying out a DSLR camera I could actually keep. I also want to say that it’s my sister’s camera that I’m borrowing and not one I’ve been given out to try by anyone.

I own an SLR camera that I bought years ago, so it’s not the digital type, and because every shot I used went onto film which I had to pay to process I never experimented like I can with a digital camera. Since that SLR camera my first digital camera was a cheap Kodak 3x optical zoom which was kind of okay for two minutes but I wanted something with more zoom and more features and on impulse one day I bought a Panasonic 12x zoom. This camera has served me really well but I notice the lag inbetween photos quite often and I’d like more options available with different lenses.

Because a decent DSLR camera is costly, I thought I’d see if I could try one out, hence borrowing the camera from my sister. So I’m borrowing her Canon 350D.

When I first got it out the bag I didn’t really know where to start so I got out the manual and had a bit of a read to gain some more understanding. I said a bit of a read - I haven’t devoured the manual.

Things I love about it:

• The way it instantly automatically focuses and how obvious that is through the viewfinder.
• The way I can keep clicking the shutter button and it takes photos (worth mentioning again).
• It doesn’t take long to turn on.
• Having more options to take the type of photo you want.

I thought I’d dash outside this morning and take some photos using a different aperture setting. I’m finally starting to understand what effect this has on photos.

The lower the aperture setting is, the less of the image is in focus. This is fantastic if you want that depth of field, blurry background, or bokeh, as it’s called. I only learned that word a few months ago.

So I did some experimenting.

I took two shots of the same thing with different aperture settings. And this is the other thing about digital cameras I love. Back in the days when I used my non digital SLR I’d write settings down so if I particularly liked a photo then I knew how I’d taken it. As you can imagine that was very laborious. After taking the photos below I looked up the file properties in Photoshop and got settings from there.

This is the next door neighbour’s Jasmine which always grows over the fence into my place and desperately needs a prune. With this photo you wouldn’t necessarily know that because I’ve used an aperture setting of 5.0.

The photo below has the same subject but you can see more of the background because the aperture is at a higher setting of 29 and it’s easier to see how much the Jasmine has grown into my backyard from the next door neighbour’s and how slack I am at getting round to doing chores like this. Hmmm.

I did one more example, this time of the clothes line. Aperture setting was 5.6 and focus is on the peg. It looks like I’ve applied a texture to the background but I didn’t.

Here’s pretty much the same photo with aperture of 25. I find it all a bit busy and I don’t know what to focus on.

Obviously you’d want a higher aperture setting if you want more of the photo to be in focus, like a group of people, but for a photo to have a single subject you want to focus on and pop out, a smaller aperture setting is the go.

When I say smaller aperture setting, I mean the number. The smaller the aperture number, the larger the lens (aperture’s) opening is. I know - confusing. The way I see it is that the smaller the aperture number you use on the camera, the less you will be able to focus on in the shot and the larger the aperture number on your camera, more will be in focus on your photograph.

Below are some links to more explanations about aperture settings as I’ve explained it in really simple terms above without mentioning shutter speeds or focal length. I did, however, note that the smaller my aperture (or f-stop) setting, the quicker the shutter speed was. It’s something to do with letting the right amount of light in.

• Video explaining depth of field
• Depth of field explanation

I’m enjoying using the Canon but before I fork out the money for one of these babies I want to try out other brands. When I bought my first SLR camera I spent two hours in the camera shop before I left it with my purchase. I’d say that’s what I’ll do when buying a DSLR too. Although winning one would be ideal.

The other morning when I took the photo of the morning sun reflected off the gum tree I also took some other photos to try and capture a word - Action. This is for my go at the Shutter Sisters One Word Project.

The subject of this photo - my son - is nearly always active. Even if he stands still his mouth is still very active. I’ve learned to switch off sometimes otherwise my head will explode.

I drag him out on my morning walks and he starts off with great reluctance but it’s the only time that I can walk my dog, or that I will walk my dog. And in this hot weather it’s the best time of day to do so.

I chose the word action, not to take photos of my son in action, but to remind myself that I need to take action with my life too.

I did this in part today when a friend came over to discuss me doing her website. She left with a list of tasks and now the ball’s really in her court. The action I’ll have to take will happen once she gets her content together but we gave her a deadline. We looked at similar websites (where we could find them) of her field and they were mostly shite and/or had hardly any information on them. She’s a health practitioner and obviously these people rely more heavily on other forms of advertising themself. So it will be interesting once her site is up and running to make sure her search engine optimisation is up to scratch and to see how many new clients she gets from her website. That will be a good tick for me anyway.

I know when I’m looking for a service, the first place I go to is the web. What about you?

If I was to participate in something like taking a photo a day every day for a year, this photo would be today’s.

I was reading about participating in the project, and also on BlogHer, and immediately knew what I wanted to take a photo of, even though I’m not participating in the 365 Flickr group or anything similar.

I might do it one day, or maybe I’ll just give it a bit of a whirl and see what transpires.

I’ve just hung the clothes out on the line and it’s quite warm here today so they won’t take long to dry. Then I’ll be able to fold up and put away this lot and the other two to three loads I’ve done over the last couple of days that I haven’t yet put away. I don’t mind washing and hanging clothes out, but I always procrastinate the folding up and putting away bit.

For the last couple of years I’ve had this time of year off and taken JJ to VacSwim - a government funded swimming program. It gives him the chance to spend a concentrated amount of time learning how to do swimming strokes and he also learns some water safety.

Last year he couldn’t really touch the bottom of the pool at the shallow end, 1.2m, and this year he has no problem touching the bottom. As if I needed this confirmation that he’s grown - the clothes and shoes that no longer fit can attest to that.

This year it’s also a bit of a struggle to get him changed. He’s just that bit too young to go and do it all by himself in the boys changerooms - showering, getting wet things off, and just being by himself in there. And he’s too embarrassed to come into the girls changerooms with me because he doesn’t want girls seeing his bits. We compromised. I took him into the girls changerooms and we went into a cubicle with a door.

Today was a bit cooler so even though I had my bathers on I didn’t go for a swim with him afterwards.

JJ is pretty confident in the pool and water and I wish he’d listen more to the teacher as I wonder if he’s not a bit over-confident, but some things sink in and he really enjoys it and I know he benefits.

The day after New Year’s Day JJ and I packed up the car yet again, harnessed Monty and off we drove to Victor Harbor. We managed to get the one way joke (the Southern Expressway) which makes the trip a bit quicker but the bit after that’s usually a pain in the ass because of crappy drivers. There’s also a really high incidence of fatal car crashes which always makes me a bit nervous about impatient drivers. We were lucky this time.

A part of the drive is a really long and reasonably steep hill. My little car starts off at the speed limit (100kph) at the bottom of the hill and three quarters of the way up it’s down to 80kph. This meant that I saw the turnoff to a lookout which I spontaneously took.

I’ve never stopped at this lookout before but I was obviously fairly relaxed and in holiday mode and not in a real hurry to get to our destination, hence the stop.

I had my camera with me too and as I haven’t been taking many photos lately I thought it was time to remedy this.

The photo below shows the coast on the horizon, around Port Willunga way.

JJ loves collecting the seeds off the weeds you can see in the foreground. I got him to throw them up in the air.

Can you spot JJ?

Today I was reminded of being a tourist again when we popped down to Glenelg to purchase a few things. I used to live at Glenelg and hated Jetty Road being so crowded on a Saturday morning when all I wanted to do was buy the paper and an iced coffee. I’m very glad I don’t live there any more. Visiting a touristy place like this is fine but not living there is good too.