Woman in Real Life

My husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary in July. Back when we were just youngsters, we loved to travel to big cities like London, Rome, Florence, Vancouver and New York. We simply weren't the lounge-at-the-beach types.

Two kids and a couple of decades later, I have to say long days at the beach sound pretty inviting. For our 15th anniversary, however, we thought it was only fitting that we once again hit the big city of New York for sightseeing, food and good fun. We briefly debated leaving the kids with grandparents, but those little beings are truly the best thing to come out of our marriage, so it's only fitting that they came along.

As I do on any trip, I captured our special anniversary/New York City memories with hundreds of photos. Believe me, I'm not exaggerating! Recently, I was honoured to be selected as a member of the Nikon MOMents team. I was assigned the task of documenting our lives with the Nikon D3300 camera. Hardly work for me - I'm a dedicated Nikon user already.

In my communications career, I was required to take pictures at corporate events. At one point in time, we switched from a different camera brand to a Nikon, and it made a world of difference to me and my job duties. Most notably, our new Nikon worked beautifully in low light conditions, and also captured fast-paced events. So, when it came to choosing a new camera for our household a couple of years ago, I immediately picked a Nikon.

At Chelsea Market, where the indoor light is quite fascinating. The D3300 is able to capture the range of lighting.

As I write my five posts for Nikon, beginning with this post, I hope to share with you some useful tips for using your DSLR camera more effectively. While a cell phone may work for a quick photo on the run, I'm a big believer in capturing your special moments with an effective camera. If you're a beginner photographer, don't fear the DSLR. The Nikon D3300 works beautifully even on auto. No thought required. I prefer to use the no flash auto setting in most cases because I like natural light.

Getting to Know Your Camera - Aperture

When you have some time, if you haven't already, play around with the manual settings of your camera. Start by experimenting with aperture. When you take a picture, the lens opens up to let in light. The size of that opening depends on the aperture setting. Aperture is marked in f/stops and is written as numbers, such as 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11 and 16. Lower f/stops mean larger openings and more light. It can be a bit confusing at first, but you just have to remind yourself it's the opposite of what you would expect. Smaller number, more light. Larger number, less light. On the D3300, you can set your camera to aperture priority and then play around with changing the aperture to see what happens.

Aperture & Depth of Field

By changing the aperture, you aren't just changing the exposure of your pictures. You are also affecting the depth of field, or the area of the photo that is in sharp focus. In other words how sharp or blurry is the area behind the subject you are focusing on. The lower the f/stop—the larger the opening in the lens—the less depth of field—the blurrier the background. The higher the f/stop—the smaller the opening in the lens—the greater the depth of field—the sharper the background. In the picture above, I used an aperture of f/5.6 and focused on my son. The background is then gently blurred.