Lots and lots of fun pictures

What a fun (and long) day! SDCC graduation was today, more on that later, but the greatest thing was that at Sonia's grad party, I learned 2 great, amazing, fantabulous things about my camera.

First, Mandy and JR helped me in my struggles to create upclose photos that have blurred out backgrounds. Between the two of them, I finally, finally, finally figured out which settings to change in the camera (I think I took the auto focus off), and then how to focus in and then set up the perspective how I like it. A-mazing! My two favorite examples from today, with Liz and Paulby as my models:

Then, completely by accident, I discovered that my camera has a way higher zoom than I ever knew. I was trying to take a picture of this kid who was playing with a remote control boat by the pool. I got one, but wasn't happy with it since it still seemed so far away, even though I had the zoom as high as it could go. So I went to take another, and I must have changed another setting when I turned off auto focus, because all of the sudden it was zooming way in! It was amazing how close up a picture I could get. I give you Example A and Example B:

Obviously, quite a difference. And now, with these 2 new tools, I can officially take some awesome pictures.

And, just for kicks, here's some fun pictures from Old Town tonight: