Deep Creek Lake - Day 4

I don't remember much about what we did this day, which means we probably just relaxed and hung out around the house.  My parents went for a walk with my sister, Kara, and Jake; we all slept in and enjoyed a nice relaxing breakfast with many coffee refills.  Absolute heaven.

The rest is about photography, so feel free to bail now if you don't care.  ;-)

Kara and my mom found this cool grasshopper thing on the back table, so I got my super-zoomer lens and tried to get a good picture.

Too dark, need to change some settings 

Still too dark, change some different settings 

Too bright and washed out, change some more settings 

There!  That is some good light.  Too bad it's a picture of his bottom.  Stay there, dude, so I can get you from your better side. 

Focus on the face, now, ta-da! 

I was very excited about this picture when Tony said, you should try my macro lens.  That's all I needed - I took a picture of everything I could find in the backyard.

Knot in the wood on the deck

Kara found a bucket on the side of the house with these things inside.  Sorry to be gross, but we think they're mosquito babies. 

Leaf 

Lichen growing on the side of a log 

I love those colors of this leaf 

My own thumb 

 Lichen on the side of a tree

Weeds 

Who knew ferns were fuzzy?  And I have no idea where that string came from. 

More of those same weeds

 Then Tony says, if you like that, you should see how nice this lens takes portraits.  It's so crisp.  I promised my mom I wouldn't post these, so pretend like it's not her - but these pictures are SO GREAT for my photography lesson of the day.

So crisp, but too dark

Still too dark and I don't like that I can't see the sunlight on the trees in the background anymore 

I used a flash to illuminate her and made sure to get the sunshine on the trees in the background.  Gorgeous. 

Then I took a picture of Tony next.  No flash, no nothing.  He thinks if he ruins every picture with a goofy face that I won't use it, but I will!  I totally love everything about the light in this picture.  The background, how crisp his face is, everything.

And, I'm SOLD on this lens.  I totally need one.  Why don't I have one yet?

After the hot tub (that's what everyone else was doing while I was taking these pictures), we skipped a fire and watched a movie.  Our rental house came with free movie rentals at the office, so we picked two.  One was in the wrong slot, so we couldn't watch that one, so we picked the other one.  It was a comedy called Dinner for the Schmucks or something like that.  It wasn't very good, but we sat through the whole thing anyway.  Thank goodness we didn't waste money on it!

Time for a good night's sleep!  Tomorrow we go white water rafting.  :-D