Photographing felted gnomes (experiments)

I decided to do some more photography experiments today, to find out three things:
1. What is the best time to take pictures
2. Which is the best white balance presetting to use when shooting near a window - auto or cloudy
3. What's with the exposure setting

I'm thinking of doing this experiment again in a few days, just to make sure, but it looks to me like 3 is the best time for pictures. Why? Because if you look at this pic taken at 8:30 at night:


And then this one taken at 3:15


to me it seems like 3 pm has less harsh light, and produces less shadow. The same was true comparing 3 pm with the earlier times as well.

I also found out that Auto produces a better picture than cloudy when it's bright outside, and when it's cloudy outside the "cloudy" setting looked better. Big surprise there *sarcasm*. But, I was surprised that the "daylight" setting turned the pictures blue:

Here's the outcome of my exposure experiment:
This is +2, taken at 8:45 pm


This is -2, taken at 8:45 pm
Apparently exposure is "the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium." One last thing, I today read it's easier to fix an underexposed photo than an overexposed one in a photo editor.

If you want to join me, eyebehold and Creations by Teein our quest to become better photographers, feel free to add your name to the list and post the list on your blog.