Fun At The Sony Photo Fun Mom Event And Using The Cyber-Shot WX9

When I received the invite from Kimberley Clayton Blaine (TheGoToMom) and Sony Electronics to attend a day of photography and pampering I was excited to enjoy the event and see my fellow bloggers. But my tech obsessed side was looking forward to checking out the new Sony Cyber-Shot WX9. The Sony Photo Fun Mom Event inspiried me to get out of my "work at home" sweats off and get my fashion on. Or - at least - attempt to.

Here is a video from the Event:

Sony Photo Fun Mom Event from Kimberley Blaine on Vimeo.

 

The event brought together a fun group of bloggers to enjoy San Diego, experience the Cyber-shot WX9 and get headshots from celebrity photographer Brian Smith.  His project/book, "Art and Soul", has the goal of raising visibility and funding for the arts and art education.

All the event pictures from the day were taken with the Sony Cyber-shot WX9 camera and I enjoyed experimenting with some of the special features. The WX-9 has 16.2 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, 3.0" screen, Full HD 1080 video, "Exmor R" CMOS sensors and my favorite settings: 3D Sweep Panorama and a "soft skin" setting. Best of all, it is small and light enough to pop it in the back pocket of my jeans or in my smallest purse. No more lugging my heavy DSLR camera around.

Starting off the Sony Photo Fun Mom Event was a during the first night dinner at Anthology.

 

Jeannette Kaplun took this picture of (left to right) Heidi Leder, Michele McGraw, Rebecca Levy, Sheila Dowd and Glennia Campbell.  I was excited to see local San Diego bloggers Beth Avant, La Jolla Mom, Bizzie Mommy and Susan Kay Wyatt  from LA.

Glennia enjoyed using the "Sony Cyber-shot WX9's Gourmet setting to take photos of food in low light with brilliant effect". I found the WX9 not only easy to use out of the box, but the settings enable you to take easily take fabulous pictures on the go. Here are a few pictures I took using the Sweep Panarama setting that allowed me to sweep the camera to capture more in one picture.

In the photo above, Jennifer Martin and the Sony Photo Fun Mom crew giving all of us a demo of the Sony Cyber-shot WX9.

Here's the beautiful San Diego skyline at dinner.

The sweep panaromic picture above is one I took of downtown San Diego from our event the next day at the Hard Rock Hotel. This inspiried me to bring the Cyber-shot WX9 on my family vacation and use the Sweep Panorama setting to capture all 10 cousins on bikes riding on the beach boardwalk. Capturing special moments like that are priceless, and now I can do it in one picture instead of many.

We also had a chance to look at accessories such as the Sony Partyshot (hands free photos) and digital photo frames.

It was great to see representatives from the Sony social media team including Sukhjit Ghag (picture between Kim and I).

Kimberley Clayton Blaine was also a great resource for learning even more about the Cyber-shot WX9.

After Kimberley Blaine showed me the soft skin setting I decided to use it to take a picture of her and Jeannette Kaplun. We all decided that we don't want any more pictures taken of our face unless that setting was used. Beth Avant described the soft skin setting just right: "Think of this feature like that – your face make-up looks perfectly applied and your skin tone less blotchy and more Hollywood starlet."

This picture is of Sarah Auerswald and Kimberley Clayton Blaine - also using the soft skin setting on the Cyber-shot WX9.

Jeanutte Kaplun and Heather from the Rookie Moms were the models for a shot Brian Smith helped us frame. His tip was to look for unique landmarks to help frame a picture - and this sculpture did the trick.

We all had fun trying the different camera features.

Here I am with the fabulous  Liz Gumbinner, one of the founders (with Kristen Chase) of my favorite shopping sites Cool Mom Picks and Cool Mom Tech. I am thrilled to be part of the Cool Mom Tech team, so I tried to find a good pose for a picture. I think Liz nailed it - but my pose needed work. Luckily we had Brian Smith Photo to help me and the other moms out with headshots.

Brian Smith used the Sony DSLR-A900 for our headshot pictures.

Kimberley Clayton Blaine and Britt Michaelian are getting their fashion on for their headshots.

The beautiful Sheila Dowd of the Clever Girls Collective had her celebrity pose on.

I tried my best to go from Geek to Model Chic (something that does not come naturally for me). Luckily Brian Smith and his wife Fazia (who is a fantastic stylist) helped me find a style and some poses that worked to create my new headshots.

Thanks to event host Kimberley Clayton Blaine, Sony and Brian Smith Photo for making this mama feel like a celebrity for a day. I agree with Britt Michaelian's sentiments, Sony makes great products but the experience was one that created great memories as well.

I not only have celebrity headshots, but I also learned how to  make my friends look like a celebrity using the features on the Cyber-shot WX9. Here is a link to the Sony Photo Fun Mom Event Flickr pool with all the photos we took using our fun new camera.

Disclosure: Travel expenses to attend the Sony Photo Fun Mom event were covered by Sony. We were given a Cyber-Shot WX9 to capture our memories (and we enjoyed it!). This is not a paid post. As always, my words are my own.

Comments

[kimberley blaine - the go to mom]

YOU ROCK!!!

[mod*mom]

you look gorgeous techmama!
thank you for sharing this fun useful info.
Sony with soft skin setting goes on my holiday wishlist :)

[ScrappinMichele]

I love your night time panoramic shot. Having that panoramic is such a great feature. I've used it so often.

Your photos from Brian turned out awesome too!!

[web design London]

Thank you for sharing this fun useful info.. I've used it so often.