Playing with camera settings

I've been reading Shimelle's camera school and finally taken my camera settings out of Automatic. It's a bridge Fuji 2750 that was bought for DH but that I've "stolen" because of the scratch on my camera lens. I'm loving it...

Here's what I took over the weekend:

First is the by-wash on the canal. The moving water has always stumped me and been out of focus. The settings on this were ISO 100 and aperture set at 9.00.

And then this one. The settings were at ISO 400, aperture 4.8

I'm so pleased with this. Once I really get used to using the settings I hoping it will look even better.
And then these:

The settings here were: ISO 64 and aperture 3.1
Then this one which is too dark (there was one that I couldn't even see the flower........ ISO was 100 and aperture was 6.4.

And finally this one where the aim was to get the raindrop in focus and the background out of focus - almost achieved! :-D The closest I've ever got so I'm delighted with this - wonder how far I can enlarge this? The settings were: ISO 64 and aperture 3.1 which, as I'm sure you've noticed, are the same as the first one and I think my other problem is that my hands have a tendency to shake when I'm taking photos, if I have nothing to rest on. I don't know what the answer is. I've thought, obviously, about a tripod, but don't want to have to cart one around with me everywhere; although you can get smaller ones I don't think I'd get some of the spontaneous photos if I had to set up a tripod first. I do try to tuck my elbows in to my body and it does seem to help a little. I know I have a long way to go yet, but do feel that I am finally getting there. It's odd because when we used a film SLR camera I had no problems!
I've taken a fair number of photos this week and beginning to feel like I need to scrap some of these, so who knows! I may even have some crafting to share next week!
I've been feeling more positive the last few days. Nothing in particular has changed, so I don't know what's happened to me, but I'm trying to find something positive in every day. Even if it's something as simple as a visitor thanking me - it's positive, isn't it? It's a good thing? It's not life changing on it's own, but added together over the week it can only be good?
Thanks for dropping by. Please feel free to leave a comment?
Speak soon. Jude.x