January 7, 2012

photo day- look at the birdie

Hi Folks,

Now that I have my new beautiful camera I am going to start putting some pictures on this blog, as promised.

I admit I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm doing with the darn thing. I still have yet to read the complete instructions on pdf,  all 200 + pages...yikes!  But hey I am enthusiastically willing to learn.

Nor am I the slightest bit shy about sharing my results both positive and negative with you my friends on my blog. Notice the sucking up going on here!?

What I thought I'd do a post from time to time as I learn to use the camera- become more familiar with how it works. ( I'd love to make a schedule, but that's probably a bit to ambitious for me, maybe later when I know what I'm doing.)

So when you see my posts title Photo Day come see my picture or pictures OK?

And it wouldn't mean a thing if you didn't tell me what you honestly think.

Today I went out with the camera and found a beautiful cardinal in one of our small trees. He sat there as if posing for the camera; ham that he was! Since it's just Bill and I and the kitties in the house this week I was lucky to find such a beautiful subject to try out my new toy.


Here's the problem I had, holding the camera still. My goodness gracious, I had such a difficult time really I did. I was leaning my arms on my boobs to steady my arms but it was SO hard to do. And all I kept thinking about was our perfectly good tripod leaning against the grandfather clock in the dining room.

Anyway I did take a few pictures, get some fresh air and some exercise. Plus, I did learn a thing or two from my little walk in the back yard today.


1. Holding the camera takes practice.
2 Keeping track of the subject takes practice, especially a tiny bird in a tree.
3.Focusing is not easy and takes practice even when the camera does most of the work.


My pictures in the order that I took them!


As you can see I am a beginner!






9 comments:

  1. I think you did a great job! Your photos are gorgeous - well, most of them anyway ;-)

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  2. I understand what you're going through. I haven't had my camera long and I'm going through the same things! Lovely shots though! Beautiful little birdie!

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  3. I went nuts when I first got my camera! Who am I kidding? I'm still going nuts with it! LOL

    LOVE the cardinal! I have an entire folder labeled 'bird parts' and it contains all my photos in which I only got part of the bird!

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  4. Peg,
    My Cannon has that screen thingies that opens up to the side which is a whole new world for me! Will master it one of these days.

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  5. Great pictures!

    I like how you really got close to your subject. I learned in my photography class that one of the quickest ways to improve your shots is to decrease your distance from your subjects while relying less on the zoom.

    See you are already way ahead of me :-)

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  6. The variety of colours is wonderful...nature's tones always work don't they...great job!

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  7. Those photos look fabulous - and I'm impressed, I can only do autofocus, 'cause apparently I can't tell if what I'm seeing is focused enough that I don't look at the photos later and notice they're all blurry!

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  8. Megan, It's probably the tackling!

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  9. Hey Jen! I have been browsing around and reading. You know what I did over the weekend? I turned the heat off because it was so warm. Well - apprently - it got cold overnight and when we woke up it was ... ahem ...58 degrees in the house. OOPS! Ray was not too amused. The other thing I wanted to say was about the pictures. 1. You should use the eye piece to view the subject. You will be more steady using your chest as a prop for your arms. And you get that by looking through the eye hole. Most people want to look through the big screen and get blurry photos. Also.... if you are really struggling - move your settings to an "action" shot. The shutter moves faster and it will be more crisp.
    Second. Here is a teeny tiny tip I use. I use picassa (free google download) to edit my photos. You can crop - but then you move into the exposure and you can lighten, darken, highlight and increase the shadows. You can do all things to get the picture to look different. I might try to snag one of yours to show you the difference. Love the photos. Kristen

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