Practicing Photography

June 2012

In addition to some paddling spent some time on practicing outdoor photography during a faily lazy Midsummer weekend.

Had two lenses in use, a 70-300mm zoom and a 90mm macro lens. Hadn't much used a macro lens so it was about time to learn its usage, too.

Did two tasks, with the macro lens tool close-up photos of flowers and plants which stayed in relatively well in place despite some wind, and with the tele shot birds which allowed to be filmed inly from some  distance.

Have used a macro lens only few times and learnt its usage to be difficult, at least on handheld. Now, turning higher ISO to get shorter shutter speed helped but it brought more noise into photos, too. Perhaps the most helped option was to shoot in fully manual mode (M) and with manual focus.

Capturing birds (into photos) was difficult. Once they did something interesting which you wanted to record, pressing shutter happened always a bit too late. Distance was another problem. Mostly had to use it with full 300mm tele with increased ISO (even up to 1600, whereas I usually shoot with a 200). Patience might be useful here.

Did one change in book keeping of the photos, too. Gave up Picasa usage and started to use Lightroom (in MBP). LR needs a little bit more practicing but already now with a short exercise it turned out to be a good tool.

A few photos from the Midsummer weekend

A pink Rhodo

A Burnet Rose

We're gonna have Blueberries this summer, too!

Spiraea

A Common Bistort

Bacopa

A Daisy

A Spring Pasque Flower

A Lily

A Dandelion

An Iceland Poppy with a Fly

An Oriental Poppy, not in bloom yet

Chives

A Fern

A Female Blackbird eating a worm

A Spotted Flycatcher in a flying mission

A Male Common Redstart in observing position

A Female Common Redstart bringing food for babies

A Greenfinch

A fatty Greenfinch

A Tree Sparrow

A Pied Flycatcher left her home

A Male Pied Flycatcher

A Bumblebee in a lunch hunt

Young Squirrels cheering each other

An old Crecent bicycle