Yes, I often stop down to 1 1/2 stopss too, depending on if I'm seeing a lot of light areas in the image. In fact, I don't have a whole lot of time and a big garden, so I have to be efficient. Not knowing what mood I'll be in re depth of field when I look at them later on, I'll take multiple pictures in multiple f stops and in each of those f stops, I'll usually take multiple bracketed exposures, if I explained that right. It's not unusual for me to take 200-300 pictures on a 30 minutes walk around the garden being really efficient! The problem I'm having now is that my lens is too slow and I'm getting lots of slightly blurred images. I need a faster lens, which is too expensive for the moment. Re the reds, if you use the magnetic lasso in photoshop you can isolate areas that you want to have a separate exposure. Also, there is now very exciting new technology by Nik software where you can just click on any area and change that area. I'll definitely be getting that at some point. In the meantime, if it's really a problem, I'll isolate the part of the image I need to change with the magnetic lasso or just manipulate the exposure with levels, but I don't like super saturated reds, so I'll underexpose the reds by a variety of settings to be sure that there is detail in the bloom later on. Working with the exposure should help with the color. If not, you can always manipulate the individual color tones.

What a great post! We moved into our house in March of 2012 and we love to entertain. It is much easier in the warmer months since we have a large covered patio and the kids can play outside. However, we hosted our first large indoor gathering this past Christmas and it was very stressful!! So what were the lessons learned from this last party?? 1) Make rules for the children. -We found food in toy bins and stickiness from spilled juice on the playroom floor. Next time we will tell kids that food and drink are only allowed in the kitchen and dining room. -Designate one bathroom for the kids and put kid friendly towels in them. We have a beautiful powder room which got torn apart...scuffs on our beautiful vanity, stains on the nice towels, etc. Next time we will tell the kids to use the kids bathroom only. -LOCK doors! We did this for this party and it worked out great! We locked the toy room closet and left out several toys that were easy to put away. We also locked bedroom doors that we didn't want kids to go into. Closing a door is not enough! Kids usually end up opening closed doors out of curiosity or open them if they decide to play hide and seek! In our case this forces kids to stay in the play room area only with the kids bathroom close by. 2) Make sure you get RSVP's. We made WAY too much food so we ended up sending guests home with food. Even still a lot of food was wasted. I think it is always better to have too much food rather than not enough, but it was excessive in our case! 3) Clean as you go! We have double dishwashers so I could have easily cleaned up while talking to the ladies after dinner. Instead we all sat around and relaxed. The kids then had meltdowns and many were not able to stay and help clean up. My hubby got called into work at the end of the night and I was left with a major kitchen disaster at the end of the night! Yikes!! I think in the future I may hire a pair of high school gals to help keep the kids in order, help serve, and help clean up at the end of the night! Now for things that DID work out: -Preparing as much as I could the night before (e.g., setting the table, setting up beverages, putting out platters with sticky notes labeling what will go in them the next day, empty dishwashers, clean bathrooms and check toilet paper, etc) -Asking guests to bring something. I provided the main dishes and some appetizers. But then guests brought salad, side dishes, and dessert. We had designated areas for the appetizers/salad, main/side dishes, and dessert. So when the guests arrived we had them place the food in the appropriate area. I have learned to not have guests bring main dishes. We've run into problems in the past where people brought small dishes and there wasn't enough food to go around. -Self-serve beverage station. We get drinks for guests when they first arrive, then we make it easy for them to serve themselves for the rest of the night. We usually do beer, wine, and sometimes margaritas. Then we have a large self serve beverage jar that has water and lemon slices in it. And then juice for the kids. Juice boxes are a no-no because inevitably the kids squeeze too hard and the juice gets everywhere. At dessert time, we turn on a huge hot water dispenser and leave out a tray of different teas and chai. For the kids we leave out plastic cups and a Sharpie pen for parents to write their kids' names on the cups. Then for the adults I leave out wine and/or margarita glasses with charms on them (the charms are all different so guests can easily identify their charm/glass). I also leave out crystal clear plastic cups for adults to use if they want water. Depending on the size of the party, for hot drinks I will leave out either mugs or disposable hot cups. BTW, I also have crystal water goblets at each adult place setting. And I leave a crystal pitcher of water on the table at dinner time. -Having an adult table and a kids table. We had the adult table in the dining room and the kids table in the breakfast nook. This allowed us to have nice adult conversation without the kids interrupting us. We also had the kids eat first so adults could assist if needed. Makes for a more peaceful adult dinner time since the kids mostly played while we ate. -We did a gift exchange for the kids only. It was fun to watch kids open up a gift. -We took family pictures. We pulled each family to the fireplace area and took a family picture for them. I still have yet to email them out :) I have to admit, I was not crazy about doing an indoor party for that many adults and kids. Clean up was MUCH harder indoors. We may have to do a Christmas in July party this year so we can have the party outdoors!! Or have an adult only party at Christmas time. This post was edited by janealexa on Sat, Jan 5, 13 at 17:52

Oyster shooters - that used to be my favorite drink. There was a sushi place in at the foothills of the Angeles Crest. We knew the senior sushi chef well enough that he never asked us what we wanted, and we never told him. Sit down, and unexpected, intensive, surprising things arrive. He liked having customers who would eat absolutely anything. Such as the shrimp tail, so fresh that the shrimp's legs and antennae were still moving on your plate, until it was whisked away, dipped in boiling oil, and returned to join its rear end in your tummy. Mmm. Anyway, we always ended the evening with a round of oyster shooters. I recall small sweet oysters, sake, tobiko, thin sliced scallions, a drop of chili sauce, and maybe a drop of sesame oil? I think I'd like to have one again, of course I'd like to be thirty in Southern California again too, but I can have the oyster shooter. Back to the water tasting idea. I think it would be a fun way to get everyone to hydrate well. But I'm really more of a tap water person myself, so I need guidance. If I asked you to participate in a water tasting, would you think "this guy is a total tool" or "not again, tasting water is so pass�"? Is there really enough difference between different brands of sparkling and still water to interest you?

It would be significantly less expensive and use significantly less energy to have one unit do the job. Ice makers are noisy energy hogs. They don't "keep" ice. They just make it. Continually. Which means that if you don't use the whatever 60 pounds of ice a day that it makes that it just melts away and has to be drained. You are paying for all of that energy to freeze all that water and paying for a pump to pump it all away unused. (Unless you plumb in a gravity drain.) And they aren't happy about being turned off and only turned on when there's a party and you need a bunch of ice. It's a bit less convenient to go and buy a bunch of bagged ice for parties, but you can buy a heck of a lot of ice fore $2500+ that is the startup costs. Running costs can be from $20-$50 a month depending on model. Most refrigerators, even if they aren't Energy Star, will only cost you around $55 a year to run. "Beverage fridges" aren't generally that energy efficient. Nor are they that cold. They don't have freezer sections either. They start at about $1200 and go up from there. So, you'd have a $3700 beginning expense if you went with a beverage fridge and ice maker and you'd still have no freezer to chill down the Jello shooters or keep Popsicles for the kids. Depending on how much traffic this bar area gets, you might even want to go for a 30" or 33" fridge rather than a 24" one. Choosing stainless would be less than choosing a paneled one, but that's an aesthetic decision as well as a monetary one.