What a trip to *finally* find this ol’ WordPress log-in, folks!
Now, a LOT has changed in my life (and of course, we are all currently dealing as best we can with this COVID-19 pandemic), so things might not be entirely the same as they used to be here. But let’s give this blogging caper a crack again, eh Katy?
Category Archives: social media
6 tips for using the Olympus PEN E-PL8
This year, my splendid (and obviously very smart and attractive) husband surprised me with pretty much exactly what I wanted for my birthday, and I didn’t even drop any hints! I had been checking out small mirrorless cameras online for quite a few months (I’m the world’s best procrastinator when it comes to any purchase over $50) and had finally decided to say ‘Hey, I’d love to get a new camera’, but he beat me to the punch and asked me a few weeks before my birthday if I’d like to go camera shopping for my birthday.
After all my research, I pretty much knew what I wanted, and after I phoned around to see who had them in stock, we picked up a beautiful Olympus PEN E-PL8 in tan. After years of only using my phone to take snaps, it’s taken a little getting used to, but I’ve settled into it, and now absolutely love it! It’s a gorgeous bit of gear, and the tan leather detailing really goes well with my tan Kate Spade everyday cross body bag – and of course, that’s very important! With Wifi for exporting photos directly to my phone, remote shooting function, flip-down selfie screen, and compact but powerful lens, it was exactly what I was after – although I had no clue how to use it!
My big confession here is that none of the advice I’m about to share is my own, nor is it original. We bought my camera from Ted’s Cameras in Maroochydore, and the staff there let me know about a complimentary workshop offered instore by All About Photography with every camera purchase from Ted’s! This was SUCH a great incentive to buy the Olympus camera, because I knew that I’d actually get the chance to ask all the dumb questions which were rattling around my brain, and I would be able to really get the most out of my camera.
The three hour workshops are held on Saturdays, and the week after we purchased the camera, I trotted along to learn from Rich and Jay. They customised the workshop for each different participant’s camera type, and I felt super-comfortable asking questions about how to make my camera work for me (and for selfies)!
Here are my top tips for flicking your Olympus PEN E-PL8 off auto mode, along with a couple of handy-dandy cheat sheets:
Get used to touching the screen
If you haven’t already, turn your touch-screen on. To do this, check the little on-screen tap icon in the bottom lefthand corner. If this isn’t showing, press Menu and then go back to your active camera screen. If the ‘finger tapping a rectangle‘ icon is showing, then you can focus your shot by tapping once. If you want to tap the screen to take your photo, tap on that icon and it changes to ‘finger on two lines‘, or tap it again to turn off, the icon will go white.
Never crop again!
You can change your aspect ratio to square to take shots specifically for Instagram. I actually always have this set to square, because Instagram is of course my favourite place on the internet! To access your aspect options, press Menu, then scroll down through Shooting Menu 1 to get to Image Aspect, then select 1:1 for square.
Apertures and F-stops
So apertures and F-stops have always confused me, but attending the workshop really helped me understand what they do, and now I think of aperture as the controls for the pupil of an eye – the wider it gets, the more light it lets in.
Aperture is measured using something called the F-stop scale. Once you’re in Aperture mode (A on the big dial on the top), you’ll see F followed by a number on the bottom of your screen. The most important thing to know about these numbers is that, from each number to the next, the aperture decreases to half its size, allowing 50% less light through the lens.
With Rich and Jay running through a bunch of great settings for different types of shots, I made the following notes (and a handy cheat sheet below – save it to your phone for reference):
- f/2.8: Good for low light situations, but allows for more definition in facial features as it has a deeper depth of field.
- f/4: As autofocus can be temperamental, this is the minimum aperture you’d want to use when taking a portrait photo– you risk the face going out of focus with wider apertures.
- f/8: This is good for large groups as it will ensure that everyone in the frame remains in focus. Call it the party f-stop.
- f/11: This is often where your lens will be at its sharpest so it’s great for portraits.
- f/16: Shooting in the sun requires a small aperture (less light going into the iris, remember), making this is a good safe bet for most bright daylight conditions.
ISO
ISO is another manual setting that always terrified me, but it turns out that once you realise that it is the sensitivity of the film or sensor to light, it’s super-easy to manage! A higher number means higher sensitivity to light. If you’re in a dark place where you can’t or don’t want to use flash, increase the ISO. (Beware going too high however, as high ISO numbers increase the graininess in your images.)
Here’s another cheat sheet for you to save!
Import your photos directly from camera to phone
With the free Olympus App, you can easily import your photos directly to your phone to upload on social media on the go. The App also has the great option to use your phone as a remote to take photos!
Use the Scene setting
Pretty much all digital cameras now come with a Scene (SCN) mode, which is actually more of a menu than a mode. On the Olympus PEN E-PL8, you’ll find Portrait, e-Portrait, Landscape, Sport, Hand-Held Starlight, Night Scene, Children, Candle, Sunset and many more presets which means you can quickly flick to what you need without having to go into your menu and change your aperture, white balance and the rest. I try not to use Scene mode too often, but when I’m out and about and trying to snap on the go (such as going to Aussie World or Australia Zoo and being in constantly changing lighting) and don’t want to constantly be fiddling with camera settings, it’s a great failsafe option.
Have you upgraded your camera lately? Got any great tips or suggestions for me? I’d love to learn more!
The Bachelor Recap, episode 2 and it’s all about Jennifer
After an elongated recap of the previous episode, we open to the ladies having already moved into the mansion and artfully lounging around the courtyard waiting… for what, we wonder? And here it comes, the first date card.
Ellora seems like a smart girl, but it is hard to trust the judgement of a girl wearing big ol’ chunky heels to walk along SAND. We’ll forgive her for that however, because she said she doesn’t mind if it rains on their first date – she seems pretty damn low-maintenance. Turns out Ellora is a teeny bit more exotic than we first thought, as she’s of French descent, was born and grew up in Tahiti, and has been living in Hawaii. (Not exactly a gold medal for diversity for the producers, but they tried.) The folks at Instax should be pretty happy with their product placement deal, as Matty snaps a sweet selfie of the two of them with the Instax Mini70 as a reminder of this moment (and I’m guessing to also sell to the Daily Mail about a week before the season finale, to really keep us guessing).
Meanwhile back at the mansion, Jennifer is calling Ellora a threat and warning both Leah and Sian that while she loves them (really?), she would walk all over them for Matty’s heart.
A group date card arrives at the mansion, and Jennifer delights in announcing that Cobie, Liz, one of her personal faves Sian, Laura, Florence, Tara, Simone, Natalie, Leah, and her good self are headed off to ‘remember the first time they fell in love’.
Ellora and Matty are gazing at each other, before playing an annoying high school game of ‘what are you thinking?’ and Ellora starts talking about the temperature in the room rising. I like you, girl; but what on earth. This is dullsville. She then passes along a prompted question from the producers about how Matty is feeling about Georgia, and he gave a well-scripted answer designed to keep the peace in the Channel Ten stable. Wait, is Georgia still in the stable?
Matty is obviously concerned about ever having to move from Sydney, so he checks with Ellora that she doesn’t plan on travelling or moving on anytime soon, ignoring the fact that she throws the word ‘adventure’ into her answer. They trade a rose and a chaste kiss, and Ellora heads back to the mansion hoping to hide the fact that she’s head over heels by calling it ‘really real’.
Jennifer slugs a red wine, and proves herself to be incredibly jealous. (Remember Jennifer? She was the one who says that she’s not a jealous person.)
The group date takes the girls far away to a special location (the pool patio) to dress-up and enjoy a competitive fashion shoot for Women’s Day, which sounds to me like a special kind of hell. Also, who reads Women’s Day anymore? Seriously, are they not just reprinting early 90’s issues to bulk up the rubbish on medical centre coffee tables?
Florence prepares for her 80’s photo shoot with a lot of eyeshadow and some chewing gum in case of a sneaky pash; and Jennifer prepares by giving the other girls a LOT of grief about their hideous dresses before donning Straya’s ultimate non-sexy outfit – the red and yellow cap and rashie of our sunshine superheroes, volunteer lifesavers. Flo and Matty enjoyed great chemistry, before Jen jumped in the pool and tried to take over the shoot while the girls all side-eyed her.
Laura, Elizabeth, Natalie and Sian – the 80’s school formal shoot was fun and dorky and contained NO sexual tension, but Matty seemed to enjoy rocking the daggy dance moves with Laura. When Sian pulls out the Worm in her fuchsia sequin bubble dress, Matty seemed confused and impressed. Sian is officially friendzoned.
When Tara, Simone and Cobie come out wearing remnants of Glee’s cheer wardrobe, Matty’s little eyeballs almost explode; and when Simone gets some one-on-one time chatting to the man of the moment, Cobie is delighted as she’s not had many opportunities to talk to Matty while Leah (our resident show-off) rants about how Simone just wants to be the centre of attention.
When the photo shoot groups were announced, Leah terrified Matty by announcing that yes, THIS is happening; and then terrified the girls by wearing a Bad-Sandy outfit – leather leggings and jacket and all. the. blonde. curls. Matty delights everyone by pulling away from Leah as she moves in for a kiss, although she doesn’t seem self-aware enough to know he was REALLY off it.
The next day, Matty arrives at the mansion unexpectedly in a spunky little vintage sports car (which is much too small for two tall people) to take Lisa for a game of tennis; and she certainly dresses to impress in a country-club worthy white outfit. After about eleventy million lost serves, Matty listens to 12 seconds of Lisa’s coaching suggestions and aces it. A friendly game with a kiss and some Pimms at stake ends with Lisa giving a pity cheek kiss, and Matty looking around for some medical assistance and a solution to his clicking elbow (not a sound you ever need to hear on a dating show, BTW).
Lisa should feel robbed by the strawberries and Pimms promise, as there were obviously bikini strings attached – feeding each other whipped cream in the pool looked WAY less romantic than I think Matty had hope for. To remind us that we’re all here to find love, the traditional ‘What are you looking for in a partner’ conversation ensued, with the date rose given to Lisa, so she’s still a frontrunner.
And to the cocktail party… Jennifer starts by eating her feelings again and stating that Matty isn’t just there for the taking (has she seen this show before?), Florence reveals ALL THE LEG, and Leah turns as green as her dress as Ellora swoops in to take Matty for a chat and a kiss, even though she’s safe and holding a rose. Ellora keeps it clean, and says to Jennifer ‘I don’t think you’re very nice’, and somehow Jen manages to sound like she believes herself when she claims to be a bright and vibrant person. What?
Who receives roses:
Cobie, Alix (who is even taller than Lisa), Simone, Laura, Akoulina, Elise, Michelle, Sian, Elizabeth, Florence, Stephanie, Tara, Jennifer, Sharlene, Belinda, Natalie, Leah.
Who goes home:
Sweet Laura-Ann. I’m disappointed because she seemed like a closet party animal and that Italian fire just never got lit.
My style picks of the evening:
Lisa again, in this bombshell Wheels and Dollbaby rose gold sequin dress
Simone in this J’adore two piece was stunning, and hello abs! She could give Matty a run for his money with the whole washboard stomach situation.
I feel like I’m already choosing favourites, even though I know I should wait a little longer to commit my heart to one contestant. (Hang on, I feel like Matty should do the same!) And is it just me, or is Jennifer’s jealousy too painful already?
Showcasing Small Biz in 2017
I know that Christmas is behind us, and all that most of us are thinking about is spending less, eating less and exercising more. (No… just me? Righto then.) But we’d be lying if we said we were going to stop spending altogether, right? Why not make that spending as pleasurable for the store as it is for you?!
This year, I’d love to introduce you all to some of my favorite shops, both online and locally on the Sunshine Coast. Supporting local and small business is supporting continued growth, prosperity and healthy competition, as well as providing local entrepreneurs and business owners (real people, not giant companies) with continued cashflow. Not only are you more likely to find something unique but it really does feel awesome to to shop small and support these people who are trying to make a living doing what they love!
This month, my blog will be getting a long-overdue facelift (yes, from a local small graphic design business), and I’ll enjoy hanging out here and writing so much more when it’s all pretty and tidy. Along with sorting the the aesthetic side of the blog, and my irregular random thoughts (blogger/oversharer = same/same), I’m hoping to showcase fabulous stores and businesses each week, so if you know of a small Australian-owned business which you think I’d love, let me know!
Now, to my first little round-up of small biz awesomeness.
Test driving the new Hyundai Tucson
As an already happy Hyundai customer, I was thrilled when the sales team from Sunco Hyundai gave me the chance to test drive the new Tucson recently – how lucky am I? I promise I told them that I’m not a revhead car buff, and any review I shared wouldn’t be as comprehensive or informative as a CarsGuide article!
The 60/40 split-fold back seats can give even more room than the spacious boot provides, and I know from personal experience with my ix35, the removable roller blind over the cargo bay keeps everything right where you put it, and shields shopping and luggage from prying eyes.
For more on the new Hyundai Tucson, visit Sunco Hyundai’s website. Thanks to Ky, Collin, Leah and the Sunco team for the opportunity to take it for a spin!
*Sunco Hyundai kindly loaned me this vehicle. Like everything you’ll find on Katy Potaty, thoughts and opinions are all my own. For more info, check out my disclosure policy. Please check the suppliers’ website for car specs.
Instagram ate my photos
Instagram is my favourite social media channel, for two solid reasons.
flowerbomb – Valentine’s Day gift inspiration
I’m sure you’re all well aware that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner – the high volume of Michael Hill Jewellers ads on TV are certainly announcing it loud and proud.
What do you do? What do you make?
Owner/Florist at flower bomb
Why and how did you make your first product?
I saw a gap here on the Sunshine Coast for fresh flowers delivered. I wanted to make it simple and affordable! Our flowers are a small, thoughtful gesture 🙂
Who was your key support during the fledgling stage of flowerbomb?
How do you manage your time well?
I do everything at night when the kids are asleep. It’s amazing how much you can get done without distractions 🙂
How did you distinguish yourself from your competitors?
(Note from Katy: I can vouch for this, I have been so impressed with just how long the glorious flowerbomb arrangements last. And check out all the reviews on their Facebook page too!)
How do you conquer any moments of doubt that threaten to stop your great ideas? What pushes you through?
Righto, time for some fun stuff.
What is your ‘uniform’? What do you wear more often than anything else?
What is your favourite thing to wear to make you happy?
Where do you deliver to?
Do you love to send fresh flowers as gifts? (Note – you should, especially if you love receiving them!) What do you plan on gifting for Valentine’s Day? Let me know in the comments!
Note: not an ad or sponsored post – just sharing in the hope that locals will flowerbomb everyone they love!
Christmas 2015 – time to celebrate!
It’s that time again. Time for booze at breakfast (mimosas if you’re classy, beer if you’re not), and lazing around eating way too much, and most importantly… feeling loved.
Enjoy a day doing what you love, whether that’s with many folk or few. Take time to do something nice for others (leaving a few beers out for the garbage man is popular in my street), and take time out to be by yourself or with the very special ones – your partner, your mum, your kids, your pets.
I wish you all the most wonderful Christmas, and thank you for stopping by. I love having you here.
Now for a little festive fun that I hope you get the chance to enjoy over the Christmas weekend…
“The Late Late Show” host James Corden created a little Christmas treat by delivering a Christmas version of his carpool karaoke segment featuring artists Carrie Underwood, Justin Bieber, One Direction, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart, Reggie Watts, Jason Derulo and Iggy Azalea.
The slew of talented singers belt out their version of “Joy to the World” while driving down the sunny streets of LA and it’s awesome. Iggy Azalea even offers up a free-style rap for the tune, but only makes it one line in before bursting out into laughter.
Enjoy, chuckle and sing!
Celebrating two years of #everydaystyle with Styling You
Last weekend, Peta and I headed to Brisbane to attend a beautiful lunch hosted by Nikki of Styling You to celebrate two whole years of the #everydaystyle hashtag she created. Yep, hashtags have birthdays, and they know how to party!
When I received the invitation from Nikki, the very first thing I did was text Peta and hit her up. I was all ‘Did you get invited? Are you going? Are we going? What are we wearing?’ and she was very casual and ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I dunno’. This is because my bestie is now what I like to call a big deal. She was Nikki’s gorgeous model for the last two Styling You shop seasons, and hence had her face plastered all over the Australian style interwebs. I bask in her reflected glory.
*I don’t want to single people out, but there were some key kids that I was stoked to see at the #everydaystyle party. @traineemama (duh), @what_brooke_wore, @mrs.lauren.roney, @ilovethatskirt, @sisterinstyle, @retailgenie, @kirstyashestyle in the most amazing Mister Zimi set, @style_scouting_, @istyl, @styleloving2, @loveface_beauty, and of course @stylingyou (obvs).
Getting the ol’ blood pumping
Well, here we go again. Another ranty post brought on by reading Woogsworld.
Now before you carry on, please know that Mrs Woog is a good and excellent person, and the ranting that will shortly ensue is not directed at her, but aimed at the disgusting twerps she wrote about the other day in her blog post called Keep walking, you fat mole. Ugh.
If you haven’t yet done so, head over and read it here, or let me give you a simple run down:
- A woman puts on clothes.
- A woman walks along a footpath in an effort to get the ol’ blood pumping.
- A carload of teenage boys yell abuse at her.
*** In more pleasant news, I have a pretty fabulous giveaway next week, so pap back soon for a chance to win something special.