Look out, diaper bag seekers - Happy Snail has slithered into the land of diapers, wipes, and sippy cups!

This larger version of the original Happy Snail Trails was so kindly commissioned by Connie, who was looking for something lightweight yet roomy and with just enough pockets for a couple diapers, a pack of wipes, and of course, the ol’ sippy cup (sippy cup! sippy cup! I love saying that), not to mention an adjustable strap to go short for the stroller or long across the body.

>> see this bag in the Etsy shop!

Here’s my follow-up on the white balance post, with before-and-after photos! Speaking of which, the photos are of my first order of 100% wool felt sheets from Magic Cabin! They just came in on Thursday. They weren’t cheap, but I’m really excited to use them.

This first pair of photos was taken without flash. The Before shot (on the left) is with my white balance on its default auto setting. The After shot (on the right, obviously) is where I followed the camera manual’s instructions on setting the white balance manually in hopes of producing an image that’s closer to the product’s true colors.

Here’s the second pair, taken with flash. Again, Before on left; After on right.

To my untrained eye and viewing the photos side-by-side with the actual felt sheets, the “Before” photos, even with flash, look a bit glum. The image with flash is better than without but in my opinion is still a bit lacking.

Happily, the “After” photos seem to have produced a more appealing image with more vibrant colors that, most importantly, are truer (I looked it up and it’s legit) to the real deal. So, I guess I can hold on to my $125 + shipping for the Impact Digital Light Sheds Kit for now (bummer) and keep working with manually configuring the white balance on my Exilim for better shots. We’ll see what happens!

By the time I’m done with a bag and ready to shoot photos of it, the natural sunlight that streams so generously through my living room windows in the day is usually long gone. More often than not, I’m left with insufficient IKEA lighting that either results in a dark, dreary photo; a washed out photo with too much flash; or one with yellow tints from my wannabe high-powered (but not), energy-saving compact flourescent bulbs.

After a few whining emails to my sister and brother-in-law asking if I should invest in a lighting kit for better shots (when in doubt, throw money at it), they suggested I start by adjusting the white balance settings on my camera. In fact, on their previous recommendation I *had* tried all white balance settings…EXCEPT for the manual one. Until last night! Well, I didn’t expect much, but I was pleasantly surprised by the result when I got this photo out of it!

I was so excited to try this out that I forgot to take a “before” picture, but I’ll do that on my next break and post a side-by-side comparison. Until then, I have a Casio Exilim EXZ55, and all I had to do was this:

After reading through more of the instruction manual (pdf), which I haven’t looked at in years, I realize that my little point-and-shoot camera packs more of a punch than I realized.

The next thing I’m going to try out is the BESTSHOT mode, which allows you to either choose a scene with predefined settings (e.g. candelight portrait, food, scenery), or set up and save your own scene. If my before-and-after demonstrates a significant difference, I’m going to try defining a “product” scene, saving my white balance settings and any other settings that help.