Day 16: Time to Figure a Few Things Out

Part of my decision to take on Project 365 involved the hope that it would motivate me to figure out my camera. I have a LOT to read up on when it comes to photography, and my friend Heather suggested a book to start with (Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson) which I plan to try to get at the library this weekend. But in the meantime, I need to figure out some simple basics. I don't know how to take black and white pictures. I don't know how to adjust the resolution. I don't know how to take a bunch of pictures in a row, or how to manually focus when the autofocus decides that it wants to focus on something that I don't want it to focus on. So tonight, I looked up the B&W feature, and I figured out how to change the format from RAW to TIFF to SHQ, HQ, and SQ. Even better, I learned that I can set the ratio to 3:2, so it will print to a 4x6 without having to crop. I tried playing with high speed and sequential shooting. But the pictures were all darker than when I took them at single frame shooting mode. BUT, they weren't blurry, even though the flash did not go off. When I take indoor pictures, they're almost always blurry if I don't use the flash. (Unless I use a tripod or prop the camera on something really steady.) Here are three shots that I took of my ever-patient husband:

Single frame mode, auto everything (including flash):

Here's one from high speed sequential mode, where it's really dark, but not blurry:

And here's no flash, single mode, slightly blurry:

It's a start, right?  Of course, now I'm more confused than ever. But hopefully if I can get the books this weekend, I can start to make some sense of it all.

Dinner:
Garlic lime chicken breasts, peas, pears, dinner rolls
The chicken marinade was tasty, but I let it marinate for too long (overnight), and the apple cider flavor dominated. I'll try it again, but maybe only let it sit for 2 or 3 hours. Regardless, William ate the chicken, so that was good. He did not eat the peas, however. Seth ate one bite of peas, but he spit the next bite out. He did not eat the chicken, but he ate half a pear and string cheese. William ate chicken and a fourth of a pear. Both boys ate some dinner roll (William ate half, Seth ate about two bites). William wanted dessert so they ate ice cream with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. I didn't give them very much. Seth polished his off. William left about a fourth of his in the bowl.