Getting creative with the camera

I haven't blogged much in the past month,

but I have been learning more about my new camera.

My Canon EOS Rebel T3 has a setting called "Creative Auto."

You can change from the standard auto setting to options like

vivid, soft, warm, intense, cool, brighter, darker and monochrome.

I recently discovered that the "darker" setting was great

at preventing the bright stage lights from washing out faces

at my kids' pipe band concert in early March.
I always edit photos a bit in Photoshop Elements,

mostly minor cropping, sharpening and brightening,

but if I am able to do it in the camera, it saves me time later.

I like using the "brighter" option when outside in the shade.

Without it, I wouldn't have gotten the shot above.

The left version is straight out of the camera.

The right is after only minor editing, like mentioned above,

plus some extra sharpening of my boy's beautiful eyes and lips.
(Click the image for a larger view.)

I'm going to keep reading the manual and playing with the settings.

Who knows what I can come up with next.

A camera is only as good as the eyes (and brain) behind it.