Hummingbirds

Looks like hummingbirds are on the way South and I am having fun with my Canon Rebel T1i camera and my long lenses. Although I am fairly new to digital SLR camera I am an old hand with a regular SLR, something like 35 years, thousands of slides and so much time spent in my darkroom it is wonder that I didn’t develop night vision just like owls have. What an incredible invention digital camera is! Buy good, fast memory SD card, get a spare battery and you can shoot all you want without any additional cost. I just love it.

Anyway, the hummingbirds are feeding on our flowers, especially Cardinal Flower and Calibrachoa (Million Bells) so often now that all I have to do is sit down and wait. I like to use manual focus because I am used to it and because the autofocus with long lens is very unreliable. This afternoon as I was adjusting some settings on my camera flash that is always mounted on the side of my Canon, I spotted one hummingbird coming to the Cardinal Flower. I went to work and this is the result of just about 30 seconds of shooting.

All pictures were taken with 75 - 300mm f/4-5.6 lens, manual focus, single frame shooting, flash set on E-TTL exposure metering, shutter speed 1/200 (synch speed for flash), aperture automatic, ISO automatic. The planter with the flowers was about 18 feet away from where I was standing. See the arrow.

Since tripod with hummingbirds is not practical, very steady hands are prerequisite. Right hand holds camera and triggers the shutter and left hand focuses the lens.

Now I have to figure out the light angle so that hummingbirds will show off his ruby throat! I will move around and see what the best angle is. Isn’t it nice to have some free time on hand? J

 These two shots are just half a second apart

Crazy Spring Weather!

Even though we were expecting it because of weather forecast, it was still a bit of a shock! Yesterday, I was raking the lawn and this morning the same spot was covered by 4” of snow! What a bummer! On top of it, yesterday we went to golf course and talked to the owner and he was expecting to open in three days. Not very likely now, is it?
Following two pictures were shot only 16 hours apart.

  

Anyway, with all the trees and shrubs covered in wet snow I got a chance to take some nice flash pictures in the dark. They came out OK, I think. You’ll be the judge.

This was taken at 6:30 AM with manual flash and all manual settings on camera. The point of light at top of Norway Fir is street light. A the top is almost full moon partially covered by low clouds.

I shot this frame on monochrome setting. You can see reflection of flash in neighbor's window. Easy to fix in Photoshop.

Snow is a good sculptor. There are two faces at bottom right and what looks like Homer Simpson at top, fifth plank from left.
I am going to have fun with this camera!

Canon Rebel T1i - 1st impressions

Last two days I have tested the camera in all Basic and Control modes and I am very impressed. Since I have used SLR for over 40 years I am very comfortable with Manual and Program modes and for now using them almost exclusively. What impresses me the most is range in shutter speed from 1/4,000 sec. to 30 seconds and the film speed (ISO) from 100 to 12,800. In old days, I was using 400 ISO Tri-x film a lot, at the time it was highest ISO rated film readily available. That ISO of 12,800 is almost incomprehensible. I will have to play around with that setting and see how grainy it is and how much notice it has. What surprised me is that there is no “B” (bulb) setting (you press shutter button once to open and second time to close). I did use it with my old SLRs for astro photography with my 8” telescope where you have shutter opened for several minutes or even hours, depending on film used.

Here are 2 photos to show how much detail it can record. The picture was taken handheld, autofocus, ISO 320, F=18, Shutter 1/20 with image stabilizer On.

You can see caraway seeds in detail as well as each flake of Panko breadcrumbs. Impressive.

Got myself new DSLR camera!

I have taken the plunge and bought Canon EOS Rebel T1i.

The reason I bought this camera was because of incredible pictures I see every time I read Wondering Chopsticks blog. I emailed her and asked her what camera she was using and then started to look around for used one. Nobody around had one so I have just waited for some store weekly sale or special. Thanks, WC! Your pictures are the best.

Anyway, good thing that I have a lot of experience with SLR cameras as well as digital point and shoot cameras. It really came handy when I started to play around with it last night. There were some features or aspects that did puzzle me little, but after thinking about the problem I did manage to solve it. I just couldn’t get the display screen to show live view, or what I am actually shooting. I had to look through viewfinder, just like in my old SLRs. After thinking about it and knowing SLR cameras inside out, I figured that it has to be only one mode at the time – screen or viewfinder. When the mirror is down you can see through the lens and see exactly what will appear on film/chip. Once the mirror is up it, blocks the viewfinder but allows light to reach the film/chip. I still have 4 Minolta plus one Pentax SLR camera bodies plus lenses ranging from 17mm fish eye to 200 to 1000mm telephoto lenses, plus array of close up lenses and bellows and, of course half a dozen flashes and strobes. Then, there is equipment for two complete darkrooms with enlargers, trays, color analyzers, drums for developing film…lots of equipment. All that great stuff is now worthless. Technology keeps marching on and those that do not adapt will stay behind. Sad but true.
More on the capability of this camera later as I will take it through its paces.
I am back behind the lens!!!!!

Note: I may join the crowd and start my own Project 365. That means another new page on my blog! This is fun!