First DSLR

[yellowjack]

Craikeybaby said:

Yikes! I hadn't heard that you had been knocked off your bike again. I hope it was just the lens that suffered.

I hadn't mentioned that I'd been knocked off anywhere else. I wanted to get the claim a way down the road before talking about it. Physically I'm OK. 6 weeks on just scarring from road rash and joint pain (mild) in R hip and L elbow. My bike was written off though - snapped chainstay. I'd turned right out of a junction, and was hit by the car that followed me out of the junction. Liability has already been admitted, I had an appointment yesterday with a doctor who will write a medical report, and I need to tie down replacement values for some PH Lycra I was wearing, but fingers crossed it should all be fairly straightforward now...

As for the new lens? I took it out on my regular park walk this morning and I've yet to liberate the images from the CF card. One or two looked OK on the screen on the camera, but that's not really a reliable indicator of quality. It does seem to need different settings to the damaged Canon lens though, so that will take some getting used to, but at least it works.

ETA: Some hurriedly selected shots from this morning...

Juvenile Mallard duck at RBH pond.

Black Headed Gull, Littledown park.

Quick-click "snap shooting" a Moorhen.

Jackdaw on the fringes of a duck-feeding frenzy. Several times it tried to join in with the mob of juvenile Mallards, and each time it was driven off by the ducks. Shame really, as I think the contrast with green grass as a background would have worked better.


Grey Heron. I thought it was in a better position earlier on my walk, but like a fool I disturbed it. I eventually found it again but it got disturbed by someone else between these shots and I fired off a number of frames of it in flight. Sadly they were taken with a 1/125 exposure and are badly blurred.

A local model engineering club has a permanent railway in the park, so I thought I'd have a play with the curved shape of the line. It was better than standing behind a tree running out of patience waiting for a Tree Creeper to head back down another Oak from the high branches. I was similarly frustrated by a Wren and some Great Tits.

Some minor editing done on about half these. Straightening, cropping, adjusting light and colour, but nothing complicated. Some are presented exactly as they were taken (and processed into JPEG format) by the camera.

Edited by yellowjack on Wednesday 30th August 12:09

[Craikeybaby]

Your heron photos look better than the ones I tried on my walk in the park this afternoon!

[yellowjack]

Craikeybaby said:

Your heron photos look better than the ones I tried on my walk in the park this afternoon!

Thanks. I'm quite pleased with them. Especially the funfare litter floating on the pond in the first one. I despise litter generally, but in this case it adds a bit of extra colour in the frame. I think the results with this new lens really are better than with the Canon EF 70-300mm I had. The contemporary review of it I read was right, though. At full 300mm zoom you don't get sharp results with anything wider open than f8. Ideally, according to that old Techradar review, it needs f8 to f16 for decent results on full zoom. Which in turn means cranking up the ISO number. Something I need to get used to as I was struggling to balance the aperture settings and the shutter speed/ISO in shaded woodland. I know the answer to that is "buy better glass" really, but at £50 this "new" lens is a bit of a Billy-bargain and I'll just have to master the differences between it and the Canon it replaced.

[Simpo Two]

yellowjack said:

Thanks. I'm quite pleased with them. Especially the funfare litter floating on the pond in the first one. I despise litter generally, but in this case it adds a bit of extra colour in the frame. I think the results with this new lens really are better than with the Canon EF 70-300mm I had. The contemporary review of it I read was right, though. At full 300mm zoom you don't get sharp results with anything wider open than f8. Ideally, according to that old Techradar review, it needs f8 to f16 for decent results on full zoom. Which in turn means cranking up the ISO number. Something I need to get used to as I was struggling to balance the aperture settings and the shutter speed/ISO in shaded woodland. I know the answer to that is "buy better glass" really, but at £50 this "new" lens is a bit of a Billy-bargain and I'll just have to master the differences between it and the Canon it replaced.

You're doing well. The next thing you need to do is - yep - buy better glass. Then you can stop fighting compromises, enjoy the hobby more and watch your results get better